John Updike is dead

nomadthesecond said:

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...

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^ that's grapes of wrath. i've only read that among his novels; i read his shorter works when i was a teenager and i developed a hatred for him, and social realism at large. it took me until this year to read Grapes and i was bowled over. the man can write. the story of the joads is broken up by these slice of life interludes that don't have much to do with the thrust of the narrative. i suppose it is possible to just read those odd chapters and still get a lot out of the book. but really, it is a good book to read now, because it really puts you in touch with the forces that interposed industry between humans and the food we eat (and the land it is grown on).

honestly, i generally hate when artists use art to serve their agendas, but the man can write; even if you don't follow or buy into the ideas he is putting forth, his use of language, and his ear for speech, is remarkable.

if you want to read Steinbeck then East of Eden of his longer works, Of Mice and Men and the frankly sublime Cannery Row (sublime in a plain way, people may anticipate criticism here but Doc is amazing) among the shorter ones, are worth checking.

(i really, really enjoyed Travels with Charley.)

And 'the pearl' for a short slice of Steinbeckian parable...

droid said:

And 'the pearl' for a short slice of Steinbeckian parable...

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I prefer Cannery Row for a short slice, but The Pearl will give you a taste.

That said, I did not care for Sweet Thursday as much as CR, despite the inclusion of the same characters, and Doc finding love, etc.

craner said:

I'd skip Infinite Jest and head straight for Bellow, frankly.

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Sorry, I'm now about 100 pages into Infinite Jest and so far i'm enjoying it a lot! I'm curious, what didn't you like about it?

The tricksy bollocks. Shit, I don't know. I don't have time for it.

I'm going on a date with a Eng Lit PHD on Monday, so I better sound more informed that this.

She's a Flann O Brien fan, though, so I may pass on Infinite Jest.

Strict Modernists us.

I wrote a thesis on Nancy Cunard during my post-grad years, you know. It was quite unheard of at the time. I was also steeped in A Thousand Plateaux. I really foxed my tutors, and they downgraded me from my expected distinction, the fuckers.

They were too thick for me, quite obviosuly.

haha, yeah i know what you mean - it is rather tricksy and ironic, as if it was written with one eyebrow raised. Despite this it still feels very unpretentious though, which is probably why i still like it.

surprised A Thousand Plateaux foxed your tutors - in the english lit degree i did, we had to study it!

Well, it was back in 2001. Still a novelty for most literature departments at that time. I used to go into tutors offices and scan the shelves looking for Anti-Oedipus. There were a few copies appearing here and there. I assume it would be de rigueur now.

A Thousand Plateaux foxed your tutors - in the english lit degree i did, we had to study it!

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Thinking about it, though, that's a pretty dire state of affairs. Where did you study? I can only imagine Goldsmiths forcing undergrads to study TP. The ideological orientation of humanities departments in UK universtities (sadly, I suppose) fascinates me. I guess it comes from suffering at the hands of zealous Cultural Materialists at Leeds. (Give me the Icelandic Saga specialists and Old English linguists anyday.)

university of sheffield, it was. I embellished slightly, as we didn't have to study ATP in its entirety or as a separate entity, we had this enormous literary theory anthology (this one) containing extracts from everyone - foucault, benjamin, derrida, said, d&g, kristeva, lacan, zizek, etc etc. My film tutor was mad into post-structuralism though and she was a big d&g fan.

Oh, yes, we had that anthology too. I'm not against studying literary theory, per se. But I found it quite odd that I was handed excerpts from Das Kapital on at least 5 seperate occasions during my degree. I was there to study Shakespeare, not Marx!

Oh man, i was trying to get away from shakespeare! and that anthology was my first exposure to lit theory so i really enjoyed it. Plus, my abovementioned tutor, Erica Sheen, was absolutely brilliant.

The worst thing i had to read in my three years there was 'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit'.