what are you reading now?

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simon silverdollar

Guest
i've just finished 100 Years of Solitude, and pretty much hated it. but made myself finish it as everyone told me there's an amazing twist at the end (not sure there was, really)

I had really high expectations of it, but found the whole overload of magical-realist detail schtick really cloying in the end, and sort of twee (i started to shudder with irritation whenever there was another mention of those fucking 'little gold fishes')

did anyone on here like it? may be i'm missing something.
 
grizzleb

grizzleb

Well-known member
My Dad says much the same re: Garcia Marquez. Still think I'll need to check it out though, out of propriety.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I enjoyed it but I can't really say why especially. It was some time ago. A lot of people have a real problem with magic realism though don't they, in fact it's the one style of writing I hear dismissed out of hand more than any other I reckon, if you feel like that you aint gonna like it that's for sure.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
luka said:
thats odd. other than heart of darkness under western eyes is the only conrad i have, started, finished and thouroughly enjoyed. i thought it was great. not hard work at all. i hav faild on 3 occassions wiht lord jim and once with nostromo.
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took me three goes and 12 months to read Lord Jim. I did enjoy it but Nostromo spent 24 months on my 'to be read' pile and will probably never be read now. The shorter stuff seems to me to be more focused - Shadow Line, Secret Sharer, Youth all very readable.

Currently reading Humboldt's Gift by Bellow which is going really well - thoroughly enjoying the whole little man caught in circs beyond his control.

Also half way through Pale King which is also worth a read
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
simon silverdollar said:
i've just finished 100 Years of Solitude, and pretty much hated it. but made myself finish it as everyone told me there's an amazing twist at the end (not sure there was, really)
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I quite enjoyed 100YoS, although GGM certainly lays on the magic realism pretty damn thick and I can see why some people might find it rather affected. It's also horribly confusing in that most of the (many) male characters have the same name - of course it's meant to be confusing, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating.
 
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Gregor XIII

Well-known member
I kinda like GGM. He's a lot less twee than most of the Magical Realists that came after him. Even in 100 Years, there's still some incest and murder and stuff, but try and read his Autumn of the Patriarch. That one is just grim. All the magical stuff has almost the same effect as the sci-fi stuff in Slaughterhouse 5. It's almost a coping mechanism.
 
D

Dunninger

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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.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
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”
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Currently reading Humboldt's Gift by Bellow which is going really well
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You can practically skip with joy through Humboldt's Gift, the whole thing is such a delight -- it is way too long, but I felt it could have gone on forever. This is another book that just makes Luke angry. I think if he tried to read Portnoy's Complaint he would explode with rage!
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
this is true. i find bellow morally repugnant. who skips with joy when reading a book anyway? iv never felt like skipping with joy in my life, let alone when reading some trite middlebrow american paperback.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"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."
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I wouldn't have exactly called either of them magic realism though - they're slightly different aren't they?

Saul Bellow - I can read his books but I don't really understand what it is about them that gets everyone so excited. They appeal to a certain kind of people and not others I guess - and the people they appeal to are are often critics. Maybe I've read the wrong ones. Same goes for Roth, Portnoy's Complaint is a mildly amusing novelette I guess but people describe it as a masterpiece.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
It's only a masterpiece contextually -- these days, as you say, it's a divertingly frank and funny novel, no more. Although it is probably more extremely self-lacerating and embarrasing than anything written now. It's ferocious compared to, say, The Finkler Question
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"It's only a masterpiece contextually -- these days, as you say, it's a divertingly frank and funny novel, no more. Although it is probably more extremely self-lacerating and embarrasing than anything written now. It's ferocious compared to, say, The Finkler Question."
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Is it that self-lacerating? I found it a bit too silly to be that abrasive.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
It was the first contemporary novel I could think of! Had to be another neurotic, self-obssessed Jew, of course.
 
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