[Stewart]

Originally Posted by ions

Camus I found horrible, just a poor understanding of the psyche.

I read The Outsider (or The Stranger, as it's sometimes called) a few year back and I think I was more so what? than the main character. I wonder if it's one of those books, like The Catcher In The Rye is supposed to be, where it's impact has got to get you at a certain impressionable age. (And for the record, I've not read The Catcher In The Rye either, so my time has gone.)

I've only read one Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles, and I enjoyed it.

Ah, tha's the one I hated (Atomised in the UK) although I would still like to see the film adaptation.

Originally Posted by nnyhav

There are three strands in literature I've been following / filling in which are predominantly but not exclusively French: surrealism, the nouveau roman, and Oulipo, all of which seem to emanate from Raymond Roussel.

I don't know much (read: anything) about Roussel but I have a passing knowledge of the movements. By name, at least. Oulipo is the one that interests me most, and I'm looking forward, when the mood finally takes me, to sit down and enjoy Perec's A Void, especially being a fan of the translator's novels.

One novel I did read recently, published a few years back, was Lobster by Guillaume Lecasble. I'm going to give it it's own thread once I've gathered my thoughts fully on it, but it was one of the strangest little things I've read, being halfway a love story between a women and a lobster who come together, only to be cruelly parted, on the Titanic. Madness!