baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I remember being phenomenally bored reading a Saul Bellow book. Why would anyone that turgid get feted? Roth I have time for. Heller I find infinitely superior to either.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Cos he writes interestingly, with humanity and humour (sure, Roth has his moments too, defintiely). I find very few writers do (or at least, very few well-known ones) - the amount of pseudo-intellectualism in recent-ish literature is staggering.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I don't disagree -- Good as Gold and Something Happened are two of my favorite novels, but I don't think Heller did any better than Augie March or American Pastoral. Also all his books are at least 100 pages too long.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Fair enough - I loved Picture This as well. American Pastoral I neevr finsihed but was really enjoying. Augie March I couldn't stand.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"It was the first contemporary novel I could think of! Had to be another neurotic, self-obssessed Jew, of course."
No, I mean that Portnoy's Complaint was too silly to be self-lacerating, I haven't read The Finkler Question (is it any good by the way?).
Interesting to see a bit of a backlash here against Bellow - he normally seems to be so universally loved that no-one explains what it is that's good about him, it's normally just taken as a given. I suppose that if you identify with, or are at least able to empathise with, the protagonists then you like them, if you don't you don't. Reminds me of that film Sideways (which I do like) - it's almost designed to appeal to exactly the kind of middle-aged male who writes movie criticism for the broadsheet papers. But part of me thinks that for a book to really be a masterpiece then it ought to reach beyond a certain quite specific demographic. Or is that no longer possible?
 
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simon silverdollar

Guest
Already in 1984 Julian Barnes mockingly called for a reduction in its (MR) output: “A quota system is to be introduced on fiction set in South America. The intention is to curb the spread of package-tour baroque and heavy irony. Ah, the pro- pinquity of cheap life and expensive principles … ah, the fredonna tree whose roots grow at the tips of its branches and whose fibres assist the hunchback to impregnate by telepathy the haughty wife of the hacienda owner; ah,the opera house now overgrown by jungle”

ha ha! yeah that quite perfectly parodies what i didn't like about 100 years of solitude. that overload of heady perfumed baroque detail. nothing against magic realism per se, but i want a bit of grit in it.
 
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simon silverdollar

Guest
i used to really like Bellow, but i think i was going through a bad time then and his snarky negativity struck a chord. not sure i'd like to read his stuff now, although as a stylist he's top boy i reckon.
 
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simon silverdollar

Guest
When it comes to magic realism I've only read Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar (and like them both a lot), but I fail to imagine how you could make something like that in a twee manner.

may be 'twee' is the wrong word, but it's like...to pick a random example, there's a bit in 100 Years of Solitude where a woman is bleeding to death following childbirth, so she chooses to stem the bleeding with cobwebs. it's that kind of fantastical detail that i don't like, especially after a 400 pages of it...it shirks from the true horror of the situation, by (relentlessly) contriving to find this exotic, magical aspect to it.

although, as said upthread, may be that's the whole point - fantasy/magic as a coping mechanism.
 

grizzleb

Well-known member
That sounds exactly like something I wouldn't like. Reminds me a little of some of the stuff I found annoying about the Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Borges and Cortazar are nothing like that at all.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
may be 'twee' is the wrong word, but it's like...to pick a random example, there's a bit in 100 Years of Solitude where a woman is bleeding to death following childbirth, so she chooses to stem the bleeding with cobwebs.

Hate to rain on your GGM hate-fest, but aren't cobwebs widely used in folk medicine as a perfectly legit natural antiseptic? Or they help stop bleeding, or something. It's not as wacky as it sounds, anyway.

Edit: ta-da! http://www.rps.psu.edu/sep95/arachnicillin.html
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Reminds me a little of some of the stuff I found annoying about the Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Borges and Cortazar are nothing like that at all.

Ah, Murukami - I thought TWUBC was amazing, I wouldn't say there was much that was 'twee' in it at all, quite the opposite in fact. There's everything from sexual betrayal to an incredibly explicit description of a man being skinned alive, various Japanese war crimes and a Soviet PoW camp.
 

Gregor XIII

Well-known member
I wouldn't have exactly called either of them magic realism though - they're slightly different aren't they?
My profesor back in Denmark once explained that there was three different categories of South American un-realistic fiction. Magical Realim, like GGM and MVL. Fantastic fiction, a described by Tzodorov, and which include Borges and Cortazar. And... something third... I've forgotten parts of it...

But the example with the cobwebs is quite telling. A lot of it is coping, a lot of it is destablizing reason and reality. It sounds fantastical, but it's true. In Autumn of the Patriarch, a foreign corperation buys the ocean. And then removes all water from the country. And yes, that is magical, but does it really make any more sense that they could buy all the gold and the oil? Doesn't that also belong to the people? And yada yada. I've consciously chosen an example I don't really like... A lot of the time it' too obvious and on the nose, and yes, twee. But still, there are fantatic passages in Autumn of the Patriarch, and definitily grit. I remember reading it, and my flatmate asking me to read aloud, and I just began to read a sentence that described the palace and the animals living there, and the sentence just kept on and on, and all of a sudden it started to describe a rape in horific detail, and I really wanted to stop reading out loud, but I felt that I couldn't top until I reached a full stop, and it just kept on getting more and more cruel.
 

luka

Well-known member
hi. id like it on the record that ive been saying bellow is a cunt for years. ask craner, he'l back me up.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"My profesor back in Denmark once explained that there was three different categories of South American un-realistic fiction. Magical Realim, like GGM and MVL. Fantastic fiction, a described by Tzodorov, and which include Borges and Cortazar. And... something third... I've forgotten parts of it..."
Oh that's a shame, can you look it up?
I always think of Borges and Cortazar as much more metaphysical - strange things happen in their books which raise questions about how people think or about what would be different if rules we've always taken for granted were changed. I would have grouped them with people such as Calvino much more than with GGM.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah, you gotta read Borges at least.
Here's a question - if there is something that I like that I find in both Borges and Calvino (I'm thinking stuff like Invisible Cities) then what else is there that I might like and in which I might find that same quality?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Murakami - I adore Norwegian Wood, but found his 'dififcult' fiction a bit unrewarding.

Must read Borges and Cortazar

Funnily enough I found NW a bit pedestrian compared to TWUBC and Kafka on the Shore. I mean, it's a nice enough book but I just found it a bit depressing and all the Beatles references got on my nerves after a while, because I'm (edit!) not into them at all. (yeah yeah, bah humbug)
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
hi. id like it on the record that ive been saying bellow is a cunt for years. ask craner, he'l back me up.

This is true. I get the feeling people mistake the Herzog stereotype that Bellow patented and Roth ran off with, when that's only one part of what Bellow did. Objecting to his negativity is valid, as it suggests you've read the better books like Mr Sammler and Dean's December -- although for anyone young and full of life, Augie is pulse-quickening and if not then you'd better check that your blood is still circulating, I reckon, or that you're not a young fogey or theory slave.
 
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