John Updike is dead
- Thread starter IdleRich
- Start date
scottdisco
rip this joint please
speaking of Roth, do we have any fans of Joseph Roth on here?
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
What about Faulkner, Luka?
I always liked him a lot more than most of the American writers they try to force on you in freshman courses...
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
This is really interesting.
I've heard it stated and argued that the novel was invented by women, for women, and only "works" in a certain sort of way that I think I understand but I don't want to define because I don't think I can quite articulate it at the moment. But you get the picture--the Bronte sisters, George Eliot, George Sand, yadda yadda. I don't agree with this.
It's strange but despite disagreeing with you I can relate to the sentiment: I like prose and I like some novels, but I don't do very well with the novel of the linear narrative. And this is strange because I know it's as much of a cliche to be unconventional about these things as it is to be staunchly conventional about them--with music as "high art" I can run the gamut from old time classical to newer experimental and I like Scarlatti/ Poulenc/Kabalevsky AND Varese/Stockhausen/Reich.
Writing is very different from music, though.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Ok, nevermind, I think I may have articulated it. The novel of the linear narrative is too goddamn domesticated for me.
jenks
thread death
No scorn from me - I was aware that putting those three guys was contentious. I suppose I have always had a deep attraction towards the American novel - I suppose that sense of ambition and idealism which seems so much a part of their approach is appealing against what I always thought of as the parochialism of English writers (remember I grew up in the 80s when Literary fiction was small carousel display in the middle of a bookshop - a time before waterstones)
I suppose also I am maybe a more forgiving reader - those key words you suggest all ring true to me but I don't necessarily see tham as problematic. I think you probably have a more stable aesthetic which allows you to put together a proper critique of these things whilst I am more flimsy in my judgements.
I liked what you said - I'm going to go away and think about it - my canonical way of thinking can be a stratjacket and I think you have highlighted that very clearly.
Have a good weekend.
D
droid
Guest
Id second (third?) Craners' recommendations, Blood Meridian is a truly exceptional book. I went through a McCarthy phase a couple of years back and read through everything.
Outer Dark has a particularly grim almost Beckett like nightmarish quality to it - similar to Child of God. Though its probably the most accessible of all his stuff, I quite enjoyed the Border trilogy, and even Suttree - which is what 'Down and out in London and Paris' would've been like if it was written by Steinbeck and set in the Deep South.
jenks
thread death
As I Lay Dying
Sound and the Fury
Not about being right, obviously - nor converting. I just think that you wrote a long post there and I want to go away and think about what you said. We don't need to prove anything to each other but it's interesting when someone reacts so violently and differently to what you like.
IdleRich
IdleRich
I think for all six of the authors mentioned it's certainly true that at times they have a streak of nastiness or cruelty to the little guy (maybe not Pynchon and McCarthy so much) but you could argue that they equally have moments of generosity.
Also, I feel like this I suppose
Likewise, I recognise the cruelty and accept it and see it as just a part of the writing and what they are attempting to portray. Which I suppose is basically everything or at least the human experience in some small way. Whether they succeed is a different point. We've discussed it before but we do keep coming back to this "bigness" of the American novel vs the UK one and, assuming it's true, I don't accept that this bigness is automatically a virtue and someone was to take issue with this aim I think that I would have some sympathy for that position.
I agree, that book is great. On the whole though, if I am going to read an author who likes to wank about with metaphor and extremely long descriptive passages, I prefer Conrad. Not American though, so a bit irrelevant.
I like how someone mentioned that McCarthy is almost a bad writer. He is so easy to parody (and has been!), but some of those long-winded passages using words no one has used in 100 years are so inspired and powerfully evocative that many will find it hard to fuck with them.
Like Conrad, only minus 100-year old words and add nautical terminology.
craner
Beast of Burden
Yeah, that was me. I don't think he's that great at all, though I think Blood Meridian is quite splendid, even if it does verge on self-parody. I found Cities of the Plain almost unreadable. He is one of those stylists who will ruin many impressionable young writers: see also, Hunter S Thompson and, um, Saul Bellow.
This is true, though I don't think this has much to do with Mr. Thompson as a writer. The people who are easily corrupted by Hunter's influence are usually idiots to begin with, so they weren't ever going to do much with it anyway.
"Wait... so like, I can be the story? I can get really drunk and maybe do a little bit of drugs and backpack across Asia or something and that is the story?"
Well, yes, except you are a boring bastard with nothing to say, which doesn't help drugs or no drugs.
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Fantastic writer, yes.
Another thing I should point out about Mini S. Thompsons is that they also typically have only read Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas (sorry seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). Give them Campaign Trail '72 or something like that, and all of a sudden he doesn't look like Johnny Depp so much anymore.
If anything the main thing Hunter Thompson has taught me about writing is hide nothing, but be absolutely terrified about doing so.
Anyway, back to Mr. Updike and his being dead.
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empty mirror
remember the jackalope
i've been staying out of this thread because i find it fascination to read your (i am talking about you over there across the pond) takes on american fiction
BUT faulker is an amazing writer
you should read As I Lay Dying first and foremost
the sound and the fury is also amazing but not as focused perhaps
you will be surprised at how modern he reads----and just how surreal his work is
in as i lay dying you will encounter one of the most surreal (and possibly shortest) chapters in american literature up to that point:
My mother is a fish.
(and yeah, i don't like Roth for what that's worth. do really like delillo, pynchon, gaddis, melville, hemingway, ellison and many others mentioned in this thread. steinbeck should also be in this conversation, along with, john fante, dos passos [someone mentioned journalism and he fits in here---passages literally ripped from the headlines])
maybe my favorite american novel of all time is ralph ellison's invisible man.
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nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Faulkner-- Light in August is really one of the more overlooked ones.
Steinbeck is great if you're a social realist. I remember liking that one where the women feeds the grown man her breast milk during the depression. I forget what it's called...
Steinbeck is great if you're a social realist. I remember liking that one where the women feeds the grown man her breast milk during the depression. I forget what it's called...