Yes! Got this book from the library !
Yes! Got this book from the library !
Just finished the latest Houellebecq:
Not bad, a somewhat more "mature" offering than usual. And no sex...tres etrange.
Giving this a shot: a bird wordy so far
After Colson Whitehead's drab vagaries, it's nice to read a writer with real talent:
Excellent, very involving book. A page-turner. I think he wraps up the ending a little too nicely, and there are a couple of questionable steps at the end, but on the whole this is fantastic fiction writing. Franzen has a real knack for giving you the big picture in a few paragraphs, whilst never losing track of the details that make you want to keep reading. I kind of wish this was double the length and went into more detail about all the secondary characters.
Last edited by aggroculture; 01-24-2012 at 12:12 PM.
As soon as I finish Eugenides' latest, I'm starting that book ^^ - it's been sitting on my shelves since its publication.
Hurry and read the latest Eugenides book, okay, so you can tell me what you think? It's about English Lit majors, hahaha.
Last edited by allegro; 01-22-2012 at 07:47 AM.
OK, but I generally think Eugenides is overrated. I enjoyed The Virgin Suicides, and I also liked Middlesex (but a bit less), though it was too long. He has a Nabokov thing going on (especially with regards to teenage sexuality), but to me he's in the "good but not great" category. I also read a review that said that prior to his death he was negative towards David Foster Wallace, but in The Marriage Plot he sort of apologizes.
Last edited by aggroculture; 01-22-2012 at 04:51 AM.
I had those same feelings about Franzen's "The Corrections" until I *finally* finished it (having put it down to read something else, several times). This Eugenides book, so far, is way fucking too long, too.
Just finished this and highly recommend it!
Just finishing this up, kinda reminds me of some of the books I had to read in my animal behavior classes but easier to read than some of them.
Currently reading:
It's taking a while to get going.
Edit: Awesome awesome book. But Mieville really does need a better editor. There's chunks of this that should have gone, and a lot of writing where the meaning is really hard to parse. Perhaps it's intentional (the book is after all about the difficulties of language), but it's sometimes really frustrating.
Last edited by aggroculture; 01-30-2012 at 11:20 PM.
G was reading this, was reading parts of it aloud to me. I wasn't buying all of it.
This is sitting on my shelves, in paperback, as it was highly recommended to me, too, by a coworker who gave me the scoop on the funniest parts, including why Jews go to Chinese restaurants on Christmas. Hoping to start on it, soon. I really need it just about now.
Last edited by allegro; 01-27-2012 at 09:53 PM.
I just finished "The Trial" by Kafka. Jesus fucking bleakness!
"the castle" is bleaknes factorial
Giving this a spin
This began well, but ended up disappointing. Adds little or nothing to the robot uprising genre.
Last edited by aggroculture; 02-02-2012 at 04:56 PM.
"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn. Amazing.
I kept reading and didn't mind it, I could see where it would piss people off but it didn't bother me.
Started book 5 of A Song of Ice and Fire on my phone, this is quickly becoming one of my favorite series. It's so god damn good.
Reading Inheritance at home, the last book of the Eragon series. It's ok but it's taking forever for anything to happen, I'm half way through and thought more cool stuff would've happened by now.
LOVED white teeth, expecting another awesome ride
Found this in the closet in my room when I was 10. Read it then, and while I enjoyed it, I sure as hell didn't get it. Now? This is one weird fucking book. And I still like it.
Any time anything clown-related shows up with no warning or reason, you should fear.
Currently reading a lot of Deleuze/stuff about Deleuze. In a word: ugh.
Enjoying it so far.
kind of like Perks of Being a Wallflower, only the author is trigger happy on name-dropping books on literary criticism, not albums.
BUT dude does an amazing job capturing what it's like to be in fall in love (hard and irresponsibly), love academic work (or be a pretentious twit) and not know what the fuck you're doing with your life (yeah, that).
I just finished that one. I had a hard time with the characters in this book, very much like I did with Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (wait, is it okay that I hate Vronsky? and I don't really like Anna, either?). I loved Mitchell, but then he'd disappear from the plot and I'd wonder when he'd be back or wtf he had to do with the plot, at all. Sometimes I hated Bankhead and other times I felt really sorry for him, struggling so hard with his illness. And the "marriage plot" that Madeleine was using as her thesis gave way to Victorian literature (but her article gets published in an Austen journal, even though - as Madeleine admits - Austen was Regency and not Victorian). It wasn't until the very end (no spoilers) where I went, "Oh, okay."
The Lit Crit name-dropping is true (I had to run to Google a few times and I was a Lit major undergrad) but I think he captures Lit nerds very well. Science nerds, too. And I sure learned a lot about manic depression.
I'm having the same trouble with the characters in this Franzen book (Freedom). Do I like Patty? Am I supposed to like Patty? It's a real page-turner so far, though.
Last edited by allegro; 02-19-2012 at 09:31 PM.
i get the feeling - based on you identifying literary misidentification - that, as a science grad that alot of the subtle literary flourishes flew way, way past my head. but for sure - i think he generally captured what it's like to be a nerd in the finest academic sense.
it's neat how people respond to characters. i had no problem whatsoever with mitchell or leonard - probably because i've been mitch for years over one woman, and i was a terrible leo to another. mitchell's sporadic/flaky nature is totally plausible - take it from a dude who also was interested in Quakers at some point. and while i do not have manic depression, leo's insecurities hit so uncomfortably close to home. but i guess that's why i wanted to compare it to Perks. it's been that long since a book explained parts of me to myself, in my opinion the best achievement of anything written.
Eugenides did that for me in Middlesex: what it was like to live in Detroit at the very same time as the protagonist (actually, the protagonist was born on the same day as me, weird) and the Detroit race riots, all perfectly described, but also how Eugenides described what it was like to be "a girl" back then, even though Eugenides, himself, is a guy. He obviously did some extensive research, down to the little stuff like Jean Nate and Love's Baby Soft.
Re Leonard Bankhead, this reminded me of him today:
http://m.gizmodo.com/5886762/
It's fun reading Franzen's "Freedom" right after finishing Eugenides' "The Marriage Plot" because both have female characters with East Coast upper-class families, and various forms of dysfunctional American families in and around the same time period (80s). If I was still in school, I'm sure I could milk a comparative essay out of the two.
Last edited by allegro; 02-20-2012 at 11:08 PM.
Just finished American psycho. It'll take a while for me to digest it.