J. H. Prynne

[constant escape]

Let it be said, I haven't heard of this guy before. But the concept is familiar.

 

[line b]

it's a steady, even tempo, best sense of rhythm I've come across since Jane Austen

talk about control.

@version listen to him read it

what if Jane Austen also sucks?

 

[version]

I can't say the excerpts or reading do anything for me. It feels like writing for wealthy liberal arts graduates to discuss at New York dinner parties and the Twitter mob who hate Wallace and Franzen to make lame, pithy comments about.

 

[sus]

oof Linebaugh I thought we were gonna be friends

even Emma didn't do it for you? witty, ironic, sociological Emma?

 

[version]

Who are your favourite writers?

 

[luka]

poor suspended reason! he's going through a hard initiation! it's going to make him a stronger better man though. i beleive in him!

 

[line b]

oof Linebaugh I thought we were gonna be friends

even Emma didn't do it for you? witty, ironic, sociological Emma?

I took an Austen class and really didn't like anything except Northanger Abbey. Did not read Emma though.

 

[luka]

 

[sus]

eh a lot of the writers I like a lot I love 1-2 books and feel pretty iffy about the rest, but of authors who've put out a work I've loved

(in no particular order)
Ben Lerner
Maggie Nelson
Peli Grietzer
Camille Paglia
Andre Dubus II (for Broken Vessels)
Simon Reynolds
Chris Kraus (for ILD)
Pierre Bourdieu
Annie Dillard
Sarah Perry
Jane Austen
Dana Ward
Annie Baker
Delillo/Franzen (for the Underworld prelude + Freedom)
Seth Price (for Fuck Seth Price)
Simone Beauvoir (for Second Sex)

 

[line b]

it's a steady, even tempo, best sense of rhythm I've come across since Jane Austen

talk about control.

@version listen to him read it

Im not sure its so immediately impactful but I can see how this prose style could win more over if I gave it a few ten pages.
Im terrified of contemporary lit though, particularly stuff that feels as version said 'semi-biographical, "workshopped" stuff in the New Yorker.'

 

[luka]

so version didn't recruit you from the Pynchon Reddit? i thought you were part of the package?

 

[version]

I've only read DeLillo of them and haven't even heard of a few.

 

[sus]

I've liked some PKD, I've loved some Robert Ashley operas, I like Keren Cytter's A-Z Life Coaching, I think Beckett has some great ones, Elliot, I've enjoyed parts of the Cantos but not taken time for the whole; I think Mark von Schlegell's Venusia is a load of fun; I like Delany's literary theory and Stephenson's snowcrash

 

[version]

so version didn't recruit you from the Pynchon Reddit? i thought you were part of the package?

Nah, the only Pynchon person is Linebaugh. Suspendedreason came via Reynolds' blog.

 

[line b]

I think I was the only ever pynchon sub convert. Version isnt particularly liked over there

 

[sus]

contemporary lit's where all the fun happens

lots of garbage to sort through, but when it's magic, it's magic in your own time, your own culture; you get all the references; it's describing your world

 

[sus]

I'm a blog bitch /
& cannot lie

 

[luka]

only American prose i can think of i've really liked since Burroughs is James Ellroy. not that i've like any British stuff either. he wasn't describing my world though. im old but i didn't grow up in the '50s

 

[luka]

i liked Iain Sinclair up to and including Lights Out. I loved our Craner when he was in his early 20s. I think that is the real deal. best contemporary prose hands down and he posts drunk here.

 

[line b]

I like blogs but I just have nowhere to look for contemporary fiction in part because I'm afraid Ill get burned.

Contemporary 'semi-autobiographical' work makes me uncomfortable. I think its dangerous. Is Ben Lerner semi-autobiographical? Is he a post DFW guy?