Great Books To Read

[Cleanthess]

Sort of off-topic, but what exactly is the reasoning behind your emboldening of those names? Céline, Flaubert, & Borges are also on Nabokov's list.

Thank you for asking. Flaubert was pure carelessness on my part, I thought that I had emboldened his name; like Santa Claus, I should not only made a list, but should have checked it twice. Borges' case was complicated: Nabokov sometimes spoke well of him and other times... less so. As for Céline, I read Nabokov's lectures over 20 years ago and I was highlighting from memory, so I just didn't recall him being mentioned by Nabokov, my bad.

 

[Vitrvvivs]

Thank you for asking. Flaubert was pure carelessness on my part, I thought that I had emboldened his name; like Santa Claus, I should not only made a list, but should have checked it twice. Borges' case was complicated: Nabokov sometimes spoke well of him and other times... less so. As for Céline, I read Nabokov's lectures over 20 years ago and I was highlighting from memory, so I just didn't recall him being mentioned by Nabokov, my bad.

No problem haha.

 

[Corswandt]

http://wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-recommendations

Thanks for the link.

A fun read indeed, though not as much as say Orson Welles' opinions and tales about other film directors.

BTW Houellebecq's putdown of Nabokov is better than anything Nabokov comes up with there.

 

[Liam]

^What was his putdown, sorry?

 

[Vitrvvivs]

Thanks for the link.

A fun read indeed, though not as much as say Orson Welles' opinions and tales about other film directors.

BTW Houellebecq's putdown of Nabokov is better than anything Nabokov comes up with there.

I think that was in one of the novels I didn't read, but I read about it somewhere else on the net. Something about a cake with no filling. I've only read Elementary Particles, & the one about sex, & travel, but not in French.

 

[Liam]

Ah, found it. It's from The Possibility of an Island which, strange to say, I've read and don't remember at all.

Nabokov is called a "mediocre and mannered pseudo-poet" whose prose resembles "a collapsed pastry,"

 

[Corswandt]

Ah, found it. It's from The Possibility of an Island which, strange to say, I've read and don't remember at all.

Nabokov is called a "mediocre and mannered pseudo-poet" whose prose resembles "a collapsed pastry,"

That's the one.

I don't find it odd that you can't remember a thing from The Possibility of an Island since it sucks balls. I remember virtually nothing from much better novels I've read. This would be a fun topic for a thread BTW: books that you enjoyed reading but now can't remember anything from them.

 

[Vitrvvivs]

Apropos Nabokov... Is there any evidence he read Novalis in Germany, as an expatriate? The similarities to Poe, which I am convinced Lolita is a parody of, are too obvious.

 

[Vitrvvivs]

David Bowie’s 100 Favorite Books - Electric Literature

The world lost one of its greatest cultural figures today, as legendary musician David Bowie passed away at age 69. He died after a battle with cancer. Bowie was known as a forward-thinking chameleon musician who was always changing, innovating, and creating new sounds and styles. Even in his...

electricliterature.com

Notable Additions:

Wyndham Lewis
The Beano

What is 'Raw'? I've read the Beano, but not that. The rest is uninteresting, except maybe Lévi, who I have yet to read.

 

[Sedin]

Hello, everyone!!! I can advise a book "A Mirror above the Abyss" by Oleg Lurye. From the Kennedy assassination to 9/11. The book left an impression of a high-quality classic detective-spy novel with an interesting exciting plot, bright characters. I would like to thank Oleg Lurie for the absence of unnecessary details (detailed descriptions of the wardrobe, indicating the manufacturers and collections of clothing and shoes of the main character, long and greasy love scenes, technical characteristics of cars and weapons), which very often abound in modern literature. After reading, there is no "aftertaste" of crazy conspiracy theories, everything is logical and plausible. Source: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094NMRWPJ

 

[Leseratte]

Just finished The Eight Life by Nino Haratischvili. I warmly recommend this Georgian family saga which estends over several generations. Beginning at the year 1900, it comprises the whole 20th Century with its wars and revolutions and how they affect the life of the several protagonists. It is a tale of the living and the dead. The magic touch is given by a secret recipe of hot chocolate.

I warmly recommend it.

 

[Leseratte]

Thanks, redhead!

 

[Leseratte]

Anyone read the last book of Mathias Énard, Le Banquet annuel de la Confrérie des fossoyeurs, éditions Actes Sud, 2020 (ISBN 978-2-330-13550-8)? There seems to be no translation into English as yet, but it got quite an critical attention in Germany.

 

[Corswandt]

Anyone read the last book of Mathias Énard, Le Banquet annuel de la Confrérie des fossoyeurs, éditions Actes Sud, 2020 (ISBN 978-2-330-13550-8)? There seems to be no translation into English as yet, but it got quite an critical attention in Germany.

I've enjoyed both Zone and Boussole, and I'm really curious about this - Énard really does pick interesting and varied topics and settings for his novels. But I fear that this latest one may be a tad too French to be picked up by a PT publisher.

 

[Leseratte]

Neither a Brazilian one, unless Companhia das Letras gets interested. I´m amazed that there isn´t any translation into English as yet.

 

[jam]

I think Thomas Pynchon's Vineland deserves a mention here. Of course, people talk highly of Gravity's Rainbow, Against the Day, and Mason and Dixon, but his other works are hardly ever mentioned in the same way. My personal hunch is that people tend to slate his other works because they are not doorstoppers and also because they deal with the present. Lot 49, Bleeding Edge, Inherent Vice - together they address five decades from the 60s through the 2000s. If it's contemporary, people don't seem to rate it is my guess. But Vineland was phenomenal. Such a bleak undercurrent to it, yet thoroughly enjoyable.
Since I've mentioned Vineland, I'd also like to mention Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which also deals with similar themes: the response to communism in the US, the tendency to equate the "commons" with the "communal," and repression in the name of freedom.

 

[MichaelHW]

There are some writers I think have been ignored by posterity. I will mention a couple

Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) I only read a couple of her short stories ( read for instance her story "A Memorable Night"), but they are extremely well composed. She also the creator of the spinster detective, the Miss Marple type, for which Agatha Christie is sometimes credited. (Actually, the Poirot character was not very original either? I don't know why this is being kept a secret? If you put this to any Agatha Christie specialist they go nuts. But it is a fact.)

Arthur Leo Zagat is a now forgotten pulp master (read for instance his story "D, my Name is Death")

Anatole Feldman is another forgotten pulp master. I have not read much by him. But I met a researcher of pulp fiction online once, and he said he was extremely underrated. So this is his recommendation.

Margie Harris is a female pioneer of hard boiled writing, also a pulp master (read the story collection Margie Harris, queen of the gangsters ed by John Locke)

Then there are other writers that have not been forgotten, but which should take up much more space in text books

In my view, Lovecraft and Howard were two of the best writers in English in their day. (read Lovecraft's "The Tomb" or Howard's "Pigeons from hell")

Ambrose Bierce. Is there any short story writer that has his dark humor and satirical style? Read for instance his story "A Bottomless Grave".

Jack London. Some people think he only wrote animal stories! He wrote scifi and a lot of things in many genres. (Read his first person short story "Moon-face" in which the narrator is unsympathetic. This was very early for this sort of thing. Or perhaps "The red one" or the disaster novel The Scarlet Plague. Perhaps this last suggestion is not suitable at the present time. Still he did write a disaster novel)

 

[Liam]

^Reputations wax and wane, and it's true that Jack London isn't as well known as he was in his own day. But I wouldn't exactly call him "ignored." Many of his works are still in print. In regards to Ambrose Bierce, I had to read one of his short stories in high school (this would have been early 2000s), so he's not exactly forgotten by posterity either: he is, in fact, frequently anthologized in American textbooks. Thank you for mentioning the other names though: I have not come across any of them. I am especially interested in Anna Katharine Green, seeing as I love love LOVE detective fiction

 

[MichaelHW]

^Reputations wax and wane, and it's true that Jack London isn't as well known as he was in his own day. But I wouldn't exactly call him "ignored." Many of his works are still in print. In regards to Ambrose Bierce, I had to read one of his short stories in high school (this would have been early 2000s), so he's not exactly forgotten by posterity either: he is, in fact, frequently anthologized in American textbooks. Thank you for mentioning the other names though: I have not come across any of them. I am especially interested in Anna Katharine Greene, seeing as I love love LOVE detective fiction

I misspelt Green. There is no "e" at the end of her name. Sorry

 

[Corswandt]

I've enjoyed both Zone and Boussole, and I'm really curious about this - Énard really does pick interesting and varied topics and settings for his novels. But I fear that this latest one may be a tad too French to be picked up by a PT publisher.

Neither a Brazilian one, unless Companhia das Letras gets interested. I´m amazed that there isn´t any translation into English as yet.

Foreign rights already sold for a number of countries, but not PT or BR:

Le Banquet annuel de la confrérie des fossoyeurs - 2 Seas Foreign Rights Catalog

catalog.2seasagency.com

I'll ask at the Relógio d'Água website if they're interested. They have a section handling this sort of query.