catalog

Well-known member
I really like Houllebecq... though I didn't like his last one much to be honest. I keep meaning to see the film he's in when he gets kidnapped.

It's good that film. He looks so diseased. I recently read 'the possibility of an island' and quite enjoyed it, bits of it were hilarious, the story wore a bit thin by the end. 7/10. Might check out some of the more popular ones. His Lovecraft book is meant to be excellent. Has been nicked from the library
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Murakami has a pretty good grasp of English. He's translated a bunch of stuff from English to Japanese and is apparently very hands on when it comes to the translation of his own stuff.

Fair enough, didn't know that.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
His Lovecraft book is meant to be excellent.

It is. Pretty short but pithy and insightful. His discussion of the relationship between HPL's cosmicism and his racism is worthwhile, and he also makes short work of those critics who think the monsters are all derived from a horror of women/sex (basically he has no time whatsoever for the Freudian approach).

The title alone is wonderfully evocative - Contre le monde, contre la vie.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
It's good that film. He looks so diseased. I recently read 'the possibility of an island' and quite enjoyed it, bits of it were hilarious, the story wore a bit thin by the end. 7/10. Might check out some of the more popular ones. His Lovecraft book is meant to be excellent. Has been nicked from the library
Yeah, Possibility of an Island is ok but a weaker version of Atomised I think, Lovecraft book also worthy. There is a film of Possibility... which is not really that good sadly.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
I've never read him, but I hate Cormac McCarthy. I looked at a quote from Blood Meridian once and was bored before I'd finished it. Just the thought of him irritates me for some reason. Moody old Cormac with his biblical prose.
been nursing this vague distaste as well for years but was gifted Suttree recently which is turning out wonderful
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I started reading some Geoff Dyer for some reason, got a collection of essays by him. I liked them at first but having read four or five I started disliking him to the point where I now at least conceive of myself as hating him.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
But you know how it is, in certain moods I hate anyone who ever wrote anything in their own voice about anything (including me, naturally), as if their opinion mattered enough to be published.

This is really the extent of my relationship with the Guardian in fact, hate reading opinion columns by professional opinion generators.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I don't so much hate novelists or poets who successfully submerge their opinions in their work, who attain a degree of impersonality, or whose opinions aren't really the point of their work anyway.

That's rather the risk of writing essays Vs a novel. Somebody could hate your novel but they can't exactly hate "you". Unless your novels are completely transparently autobiographical and unironic.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
An interesting question might be - which writers do you love AND hate?

Martin Amis is my answer, of course. I despise the bloke (or rather, I despise his work), but I love him (his work) too.
 

sus

Well-known member
I don't hate it but I've been wondering if actually Moby Dick isn't very well written
 

sus

Well-known member
Every sentence is incredibly confusing. The metaphors never seem to pay off even though the structure is right. The vibe I get is of a herculean effort which ultimately fails to be great literature
 

sus

Well-known member
It's almost right but not quite. That makes it very off-putting. It's like this great ship whose rigging comes apart in your hands. Or you find a rope that never seems to end but interminably loops. Or you can never tell any of the ropes apart
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I think I hate Conrad, or maybe it's just too hard for me I don't know. Started and soon given up on heart of darkness several times.

Failed miserably with Moby Dick too, but thst was about 20 years ago, maybe I could get into it now.
 
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