A Novel Form Of Disgust

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
Never thought I'd say this but...I'm starting to hate all literature (novels)...oh, the angst of it all....when browsing the racks, peeking at the prose, then feeling nothing but disgust with what I see...overly 'literary' middle-class angst...formulaic 'thrillers'...sci-fi deep space empire nonsense...aaagh! I spit on it all.

Perhaps I've become like JG Ballard when he said a few years back that he rarely reads fiction and could just read Burroughs all the time. But I've got all of Bill's stuff.

Yes, what I'm asking for are recommendations for this jaded reader. Come on...

(Tips: Burroughs, Ballard...Cormac McCarthy...Raymond Chandler...David Goodis...I like.
Anything about middle-aged men with record collection/child issues...dragons & Fantasy...marriage/love trouble novels...an epic portrayal of three generations of a family in China/India/Russia/Brick Lane...no)
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
Never thought I'd say this but...I'm starting to hate all literature (novels)...oh, the angst of it all....when browsing the racks, peeking at the prose, then feeling nothing but disgust with what I see...overly 'literary' middle-class angst...formulaic 'thrillers'...sci-fi deep space empire nonsense...aaagh! I spit on it all.

Perhaps I've become like JG Ballard when he said a few years back that he rarely reads fiction and could just read Burroughs all the time. But I've got all of Bill's stuff.

Yes, what I'm asking for are recommendations for this jaded reader. Come on...

(Tips: Burroughs, Ballard...Cormac McCarthy...Raymond Chandler...David Goodis...I like.
Anything about middle-aged men with record collection/child issues...dragons & Fantasy...marriage/love trouble novels...an epic portrayal of three generations of a family in China/India/Russia/Brick Lane...no)

never read him, but this sounds interesting

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,2268266,00.html

and on a similar tip, David Peace's Damned United is incredible.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I'm (finally) reading Gravity's Rainbow, and it's VERY CONFUSING. Not necessarily in a bad way, but I think I need to read some more of it to work out whether it's actually good enough to justify how pretentious it is. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Seemingly free of middle-aged angst, though, it's more like existential weirdness and surreal bureaucracy.
 

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
never read him, but this sounds interesting

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,2268266,00.html

and on a similar tip, David Peace's Damned United is incredible.

Thanks. I read one Gordon Burn years ago and thought it was pretty good. Also read Peace (one of his others)...interesting style.

Mr Tea,
I've run at Pynchon, jumped at him, snuck up on him, hit him with a hammer, tried pliers, microscopes, stethascopes, kid gloves and special 'modernist' glasses which, like the X-Ray specs I bought back in 1962, didn't work!!! I can't crack the bastard despite thinking I should/could...good luck!
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
'Sfunny you should mention Burroughs - well, it probably isn't, actually - but I really enjoyed the disjointed, hallucinatory stream-of-(sub)conscious style in Naked Lunch which, for some reason, seems to be much more 'hard work' in Pynchon. Still, many of the little vignettes are entertaining, some are genuinely pretty funny, and he's got loads of interesting ideas about psychology, war, power structures and, er, recipes involving bananas. :)
 
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slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
Aye, there's an irony in my love of Bill whilst failing to crack the hermit Pynchon, true...but reading Burroughs requires a more casual approach, perhaps. He got old-fashioned in a linear narrative style in his old age...but for the classic cut-up material of the 60s it's best to read him as the prose is/was formed...back/forward in time segments...possibly...:slanted: But, in relation to my first post, what I love about him most right now is his rejection of The Literary Tradition...a big F*CK YOU to all that square stuff (whilst recognising 'the classics') - after Bill, everything else seems old-hat.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Hah, speaking of forumulaic thrillers, there's some crappy cop/crime (I assume) novel being advertised all over the Tube at the moment, emblazoned with the description "Moves like a bullet out of a gun" (possibly attributed to the literature editor of Nutz magazine, or whatever) and every time I see it I think "You mean, in a linear and entirely predictable trajectory? Yeah, I bet it does."

I crack myself up sometimes, I really do.
 

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
:) Well, y'know...writers feel safe with genres and so do readers...love hardboiled stuff from the past myself...never trust one that's THICK...by the 'thriller' writer of 50 other f*cking books! Just my personal 'problem', of course...with the phoney characters created...I want real phoney not phoney realism...something like that...I'd rather 1-D characters amid intersting prose/story/radical thought/imagination than these creative writing bloody novels...gggrrr...I spit on the graves of all bloody authors! :mad:;) (not that my own efforts are working, exactly...:slanted:)
 

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
I hate to repeat this recommendation on this board but Bill's favorite author was Denton Welch. I only read his "A Voice Through The Clouds" and it was good.

Hmn.

You've read Borges, yeah?

Don DeLillo? He does tough-guy prose (I am thinking of your prediliction for Cormac), in a smart way.

Maybe Lautreamont's Maldoror? You may hate novelists, but Lautreamont hates the reader, and well, everything! I never got through this... but I keep picking it up every so often to push through more of it. Not very thick, but full of bile.

I'd suggest Conrad, too, if he were not so canonized. I can't say I can hold it against him...
 

STN

sou'wester
Malodoror is just too much.

Denton Welch is a wonderful underrated writer. 'Maiden Voyage' is a beautiful and sad novel.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
You may absolutely loathe them if you are firmly against dragons and fantasy but I loved China Melville's first two novels. Smelly dystopia city, weird psed-science, torture, horrible monsters with a smattering of socialism. Great stuff.

I also just re-read MJ Harrion's LIght which is a fantastic novel. It's SF but he manages to transcend the boundaries of the genre to explore his themes - boundless optimism for life basically. His characters are really odd, in that their emotions and movitiatvtions are described obliquely and I never quite understand them - but that makes them seem more like real people.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Ooh, if we're talking good fantasy, Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is great. It's ostensibly 'for kids', but not really - it couldn't be further from a certain bespectacled boy wizard, for example. No dragons.
 

STN

sou'wester
You may absolutely loathe them if you are firmly against dragons and fantasy but I loved China Melville's first two novels. Smelly dystopia city, weird psed-science, torture, horrible monsters with a smattering of socialism. Great stuff.

QUOTE]


Was one of these King Rat (I'm pretty sure that's his first novel)? Really didn't enjoy it (though the descriptions of music were actually excellent) but thought it showed potential and always meant to check some of his other stuff (Perdido Street Station, UnLundun). He seems like an all-around good guy too. I say this as someone who is firmly against dragons and fantasy; he just seems like he could pull it off. Saying that, Michael Moorcock's 'The Brothel on Rossenstrasse' is really affecting. No dragons in that though.

Favourite novels of mine from recentish times (all pretty obvious): '1982, Janine' by Alasdair Gray, 'Riddley Walker' and 'Amaryllis Night and Day' by Russell Hoban, 'Robinson' by Chris Petit. Oh, really liked 'Twilight' by William Gay too.
 

vimothy

yurp
I've hated novels, especially new novels (yoghurt weaving bullshit), on-and-off for a few years now -- the dangers of studying literature...

Ooh, if we're talking good fantasy, Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is great. It's ostensibly 'for kids', but not really - it couldn't be further from a certain bespectacled boy wizard, for example. No dragons.

No dragons, but it does have armoured bears.

If you like Pullman, you'll probably enjoy Neil Gaiman's books, particularly American Gods.

But, in relation to my first post, what I love about him most right now is his rejection of The Literary Tradition...a big F*CK YOU to all that square stuff (whilst recognising 'the classics') - after Bill, everything else seems old-hat.

There's a story Ginsburg (I think) told of visiting Burroughs on his farm in Kansas, saying that Bill would spend days shooting up and doing nothing but reading the complete works of Shakespeare :cool:
 

STN

sou'wester
Is there any love for Gormenghast here? I liked the idea of it but god it's so BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRING
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
His Dark Materials made living in Oxford (armoured) bearable.

Pffft. :) Did you get a chance to chat to Louise last night? She's studying there at the moment and isn't really too impressed by the most of the people she's met there, I think.
 
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STN

sou'wester
No, I just roared at her and hurled a Fentiman's ginger beer in her direction.

i made one friend when I lived there and she's from my hometown anyway. Nice pubs though.
 

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
I hate to repeat this recommendation on this board but Bill's favorite author was Denton Welch. I only read his "A Voice Through The Clouds" and it was good.

Hmn.

You've read Borges, yeah?

Don DeLillo? He does tough-guy prose (I am thinking of your prediliction for Cormac), in a smart way.

Maybe Lautreamont's Maldoror? You may hate novelists, but Lautreamont hates the reader, and well, everything! I never got through this... but I keep picking it up every so often to push through more of it. Not very thick, but full of bile.

I'd suggest Conrad, too, if he were not so canonized. I can't say I can hold it against him...

I haven't read Welch but I know he was influential for Burroughs...looked at one s/h once but put it back.

Try Borges and have the 'Labyrinths' collection but as much as I think he was onto something it hasn't clicked with me, yet.

DeLillo - yes. Lautreamont's opening to Maldoror is classic, but like you I only read passages.

You can't knock Conrad just because he's so highly rated by The Establishment, can you? I've read most of his novels. There are always 'the classics' to fall back on, of course, but I don't really want to do that. My girlfriend reads nothing but 19thc novels...says the modern gang can't compete (though she loves Waugh)...maybe she's right and my argument in favour of 20thc lit is futile...once you've 'done' the obvious.

The last great surprise I had was finding Jean-Patrick Manchette, whose 'Prone Gunman' was terrific. Only one other novel of his in English as far as I know and I've read that too.
 
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