you

Well-known member
been reading poe recently.

but mostly theory. had to write loads too, about psychopathy.
 

nomos

Administrator
Reading this at the mo.

200px-Terror_simmons.jpg


Historical drama/wendigo horror with a touch of the mountains of madness about it. AMC are making into a TV show apparently.
How did you do with this one, droid? I like the premise, but I don't know Simmons and the NY Times review initially put me off ("when a writer as canny as Dan Simmons can talk himself into something as foolhardy as The Terror, you know there’s a kind of insanity loose in the world of publishing"). Reading "Wendigo" at the moment.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I must be fair - I read this today and found it pretty funny. http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...kermode-review

"In my working lifetime I've already seen the status accorded to book and film reviews undergo a tremendous decline – not, I hasten to add, because there aren't good reviews being written (this one is especially good), but because the media they are reviewing and the medium by which they themselves are delivered are both in a state of flux."
Ha.
 

droid

Well-known member
How did you do with this one, droid? I like the premise, but I don't know Simmons and the NY Times review initially put me off ("when a writer as canny as Dan Simmons can talk himself into something as foolhardy as The Terror, you know there’s a kind of insanity loose in the world of publishing"). Reading "Wendigo" at the moment.

I like insanely detailed historical drama and tales of misery, and I thought of all Simmon's stuff in this area, this is by far the most successful. The narrative is strong, the characters sympathetic and the supernatural element is nicely underplayed. I think the NYT review is off the mark for this, though similar reviews are more or less OTM for 'Drood' and 'Abominable'.

If you liked the wendigo you should definitely seek out that Adam Nevill I mentioned earlier, 'The ritual', 'Last days' and "apt 16' are by far the best contemporary horror Ive read in years. Not a million miles away from the tone of Ligotti, but far more engaging.
 

jenks

thread death
Man's Fate - André Malraux
A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride
Woodcutters -Thomas Bernhard

just finished James Salter's A Sport and a Pastime.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride

My girlfriend was reading this last year, dunno if she's finished yet. Bloody hard going but rewarding, by the sound of it.

I've been reading Bulgakov's A Dog's Heart on and off with Joshi's immense Lovecraft biog and that Meades anthology. Should probably be better at sticking to one or at most two books at a time...
 

jenks

thread death
McBride's ok - especially of you're used to things like Joyce's Portrait or bits of Ulyssess. You can kind of hit a speech rhthym and that helps.

The Bernhard has no paragraphs which I find more annoying, fortunately the voice is compelling.

The Salter was first class, if a little smutty, would appeal to those of us who like Yates and Williams and for which there is some disdain on this list. Fine writing being suspect.
 

griftert

Well-known member
The no-paragraph technique is kind of annoying at first but once you get used to it it makes sense, I'm sure the logic of such a move is apparent at least. The obsessional tendencies of the narrator almost preclude anything more standardly structured. It really adds to the intensity of the prose. Laszlo Krasnahorkai and Sebald also make use of it.

Hopefully read Woodcutters soon, I hear it's one of his best. 'The Loner' and 'Corrections' nearly broke me when I read them both within a pretty short period.

Currently reading

Tao Lin - 'Tai Pei' (pretty underwhelming, some nice strange metaphors but he's not always successful, and the prose and characters tend towards a blankness that I'm not entirely convinced by.)
Karl Ove Knausgaard - 'My Struggle pt. 1' (Been really bigged up but I'm not bowled over thus far. What's been called 'searing honesty' just comes across as pretty boring and not particularly well-written thus far, I'll try and keep going though.)
 

STN

sou'wester
I found the Knaussgard unspeakably tedious. The writing is nowhere near good enough to justify the fact that there are no ideas, and that it is just a retelling of a fairly unremarkable life by an averagely unpleasant bloke.

Droid: I read The Ritual and really enjoyed the first part, but the coda seemed like an argument that the author would like to have with an imaginary black metal fan, and I felt the whole thing lost its way a bit.

I am reading Rebecca West's Black Lamb, Grey Falcon. It's, er, pretty long...
 

griftert

Well-known member
Yeah. That's basically what my impressions were so far on the Knaussgard. I was laughing because I got to the end of his adolescence and was shocked to find out how boring it was, poor guy. And then he had to write a book about it. I might just give up on it.

Let me know how you get on with the West, STN, it's on my list.
 

droid

Well-known member
Droid: I read The Ritual and really enjoyed the first part, but the coda seemed like an argument that the author would like to have with an imaginary black metal fan, and I felt the whole thing lost its way a bit.

I liked it though I can see how it pales in comparison to the first half which is more or less a relentless ordeal of terror. He is/was big into metal which is where it came from. I read a good review of it which pointed out how rare it is to be placed inside the mind of a character who is convinced he is going to die horribly for nearly the entirety of a story.

'Last days' (apocalyptic occult cults via a documentary filmmaker) is, I think his best thing so far. Currently reading 'Under the banner of heaven' by John Krakauer which he cited as an influence. Mormons are fucking crazy.
 

STN

sou'wester
Yes, I assumed he must have been into metal, and it just seemed a weird privileging of his own interests over the reader's (I like metal too, but don't really want to read a slightly facile and obvious argument against Nordic supremacy in my horror novel - this is maybe a bit churlish of me).

The documentary one sounds interesting. I read a negative review of Apartment 16; this and not much enjoying the second part of The Ritual made me wonder if he doesn't write the modern world very well, but I did enjoy the dialogue between the four blokes in the forest bit. Also the suspense parts properly shat me up.

Griftert - BLGF has some very beautiful insights in it (though large parts of it are misguided and dated, as you would expect). It's slow going because it's densely written, and because of West's famous long sentences. I am enjoying it though.
 

droid

Well-known member
Yes, I assumed he must have been into metal, and it just seemed a weird privileging of his own interests over the reader's (I like metal too, but don't really want to read a slightly facile and obvious argument against Nordic supremacy in my horror novel - this is maybe a bit churlish of me).

I dunno, it didnt really jar for me, though it seems to be a common criticism. On the other hand, he did manage to pull off the reasonable trick of putting a second act into a story that would have had to end otherwise.

The documentary one sounds interesting. I read a negative review of Apartment 16; this and not much enjoying the second part of The Ritual made me wonder if he doesn't write the modern world very well, but I did enjoy the dialogue between the four blokes in the forest bit. Also the suspense parts properly shat me up.

Apt 16 is OK actually. A bit scatterbrained and a slightly unconvincing protagonist but some great imagery throughout.
 
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