grizzleb

Well-known member
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?
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky - Memories of the Future is a pretty Borgesian collection of short stories written by some Russian guy around the same time. They're not as amazing but defo worth checking out. I always found Philip K. Dick quite Borgesesque as well, got some nice fractured storylines and weird metaphysical possibilities being explored. Of course, the best thing about Borges is that he ties it all together with some amazing prose as well, which is pretty difficult to find elsewhere.
 
Last edited:

grizzleb

Well-known member
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.
I liked those elements of the novel, well the WWII shit in China and stuff like that. But all the stuff with the letters from the teenage girl, the magic fashion people, cutting about in dream worlds. All a bit light and airy-fairy I thought. But again, he's a good writer, I just don't care for that sort of thang.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
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 into them at all. (yeah yeah, bah humbug)

It just had a melancholy vibe I really loved. Guess most of the Beatles references passed me by at the time. Still haven't seen the film, woudl like to.
 

Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
Murakami is a terrible writer who occasionally has good ideas for stories. I'm willing to attribute a lot of it to a bad translation job, but this guy pretty much has the writing chops of Dan Brown. He's just got better ideas. I actually like Wind Up Bird Chronicle as well, as well as Hard Boiled Wonderland and Dance Dance Dance, but he's written some truly awful shit (e.g. Wild Sheep Chase).
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm pretty sure that a lot of the problem with his prose is in the translation - or at least I hope so. Sometimes a weird American expression will suddenly leap out of a phrase where (to me) it doesn't fit at all - I have the same problem with Pamuk.
 
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?

Try Cortazar, I came to him exactly the same way, after Borges and Calvino.
And good to know that GGM and other full-blown magic realists are quite different.
 

grizzleb

Well-known member
What Cortazar are you talking about? I've only read Hopscotch but I didn't see it in the Borges/Calvino vein at all, much more realist. Still pretty great though.
 
I think some of my favourites were originally collected in Bestiario, Final de Juego and Todos los fuegos el fuego, but I don't know how they are collected in English. I have a German edition that has them all in four volumes and there are good ones in all of them.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Murakami is a terrible writer who occasionally has good ideas for stories. I'm willing to attribute a lot of it to a bad translation job, but this guy pretty much has the writing chops of Dan Brown. He's just got better ideas. I actually like Wind Up Bird Chronicle as well, as well as Hard Boiled Wonderland and Dance Dance Dance, but he's written some truly awful shit (e.g. Wild Sheep Chase).

Oh come on man, think what you're saying! Jesus. :eek:

Then again, I've only read three of his books, maybe they vary a lot in quality.
 

Gregor XIII

Well-known member
I think the third kind of un-realism was just stories inspired by myth, fairy tale and religion. I'm not sure, and I've lost my notes. But there is a mysticism to much culture in South America - influenced by native South American culture, and African religion as well - that infiltrates culture in a lot of ways. Like religion in Mexico, with the Day of Death and all that stuff. Religion is/was perhaps more popular, and more accepting of ghosts and spirits and curses and all that stuff. Like Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo, which is steeped in ghost stories, but not really in a 'magical' or 'fantastic' way. Hard to explain. But check out Pedro Paramo. It is really great, and not twee at all. Gothic perhaps.

Of Cortazar, I've only read Cronopios y Famas, which is translated into Danish, but perhaps not English. It is great though. I've never read Borges or Calvino :)o) but the American writer Gilbert Sorrentino made a small book called Under the Shadow, which seems kinda Borgesian. A lot of short stories, one or two pages each, based on photographs, paintings, sculptures. They are sort of intertwined, themes and images are played out in different ways. I really like that one.
 

luka

Well-known member
borges is very good. someone somewhere once talked about his 'lofty idleness' which is something to aspire to. the longest stories are about 2 pages long. calvino is unreadable. ive read augie march. what did craner like about it?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Try Cortazar, I came to him exactly the same way, after Borges and Calvino."
Yeah, we were just talking about him as similar. I've read a collection of short stories which I think was called Blow-Up - it certainly contained the story of that name which inspired the film by Antonioni, quite loosely though I'd say.

Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky - Memories of the Future is a pretty Borgesian collection of short stories written by some Russian guy around the same time. They're not as amazing but defo worth checking out. I always found Philip K. Dick quite Borgesesque as well, got some nice fractured storylines and weird metaphysical possibilities being explored. Of course, the best thing about Borges is that he ties it all together with some amazing prose as well, which is pretty difficult to find elsewhere.
Ah, nice one, I'll check this out. Anyone read Tommaso Landolfi who is sort of similar? I think he was popular forty years or so ago but fell out of fashion.

"I think the third kind of un-realism was just stories inspired by myth, fairy tale and religion. I'm not sure, and I've lost my notes. But there is a mysticism to much culture in South America - influenced by native South American culture, and African religion as well - that infiltrates culture in a lot of ways. Like religion in Mexico, with the Day of Death and all that stuff. Religion is/was perhaps more popular, and more accepting of ghosts and spirits and curses and all that stuff. Like Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo, which is steeped in ghost stories, but not really in a 'magical' or 'fantastic' way. Hard to explain. But check out Pedro Paramo. It is really great, and not twee at all. Gothic perhaps."
Thanks. The ex-goalie from my football team actually lectures in South American literature at Leeds or Sheffield or somewhere now, I should probably ask him about this stuff.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
I'm reading Nick Land's 'Fanged Noumena' at the moment

http://www.urbanomic.com/pub_fangednoumena.php

He was one of the teachers at Warwick when Kode9, Kodwo etc were all there, all that CCRU stuff. It's very difficult. I had an out of body experience the other night where I could see myself sitting in the pub I was in, and the faces I was making trying to understand some of the stuff...Munch has nothing on me.

Quite good though if you're on that Cyclonopedia trip. This is pretty much all theory, aside from some fiction that seems to be from when he went mad and is pretty much indecipherable, cos it's all like T=HI&II&I----S)))), but for ten pages.
 

Lichen

Well-known member
About to finish True Grit, written in the 60's by American novelist Charles Portis. Now I want to see the film, and read a bit more Wild West fiction.
 

you

Well-known member
I'm reading Nick Land's 'Fanged Noumena' at the moment

http://www.urbanomic.com/pub_fangednoumena.php

He was one of the teachers at Warwick when Kode9, Kodwo etc were all there, all that CCRU stuff. It's very difficult. I had an out of body experience the other night where I could see myself sitting in the pub I was in, and the faces I was making trying to understand some of the stuff...Munch has nothing on me.

Quite good though if you're on that Cyclonopedia trip. This is pretty much all theory, aside from some fiction that seems to be from when he went mad and is pretty much indecipherable, cos it's all like T=HI&II&I----S)))), but for ten pages.


That's cool, I have a copy sat waiting for me, any particular highlights I ought to check out first????

I love the introduction to 'Thirst for'. I always get the impression his wild, eclectic sources and passionate prose sort of boarded on the whole genius/insanity realm - yknow??

I went though a phase of being really interested in Land, his life, his motives etc...scoured the netz for stuff, but really I think theres only these two books, some blog entries and that shanghai article.
 
Top