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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Very short recommendations thread

  
  

Page: 12(3)

 
 
sine
08:10 / 17.11.06
Infinite Jest.

The tenth anniversary rerelease has compelled me to attempt this one again, despite all previously failed attempts and the intense urge to kick DFW in the throat every three paragraphs. Worth it?
 
 
Baz Auckland
03:26 / 06.12.06
Under the Volcano is great. Is anything else by Malcolm Lowry good? Is there anything else?
 
 
Charlus
04:03 / 06.12.06
In search of lost time
 
 
Jack Vincennes
16:06 / 06.12.06
seamus: If you're prepared to be reading it for fully a quarter of a year it pays dividends. The Captive/The Fugitive are really superb, and it's worth reading for those two volumes alone.
 
 
Charlus
21:48 / 06.12.06
I've begun to read it. Found it rather long in parts.

I would also recommend anything by the late Australian writer Charmain Clift
 
 
Closed for Business Time
22:15 / 06.12.06
Knut Hamsun, Sult. 1890, Norwegian realist story of a writer's hunger and madness in Kristiania/Oslo.
I believe it's freely available on line. Now, feed yourself on modernist goodness.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
22:51 / 06.12.06
"When, in 1943, Hamsun made his infamous visit to Hitler, the meeting was a farcical disaster. Hamsun showed no respect for Hitler. Almost completely deaf, he lectured the Führer in Norwegian, loudy complaining about Josef Terboven, Hitler's representative in Norway, whose vicious administration Hamsun disliked. Hitler was furious. An aide later recalled that Knut Hamsun was the only man he had ever seen thwart Hitler."

From here.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
23:07 / 06.12.06
Whisky is right about 100 Years of Solitude--a great book to read. I never much liked anything else of his. Instead of Marquez, I recommend Borges. You can get his complete collected fictions pretty cheap. If you've read Borges, I recommend his home slice, Cesar Bioy Casares.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
23:08 / 06.12.06
Borges collected nonfictions is available int he same format, and is for definite worth reading again and again.
 
 
Blake Head
23:21 / 06.12.06
I'll second any recommendation of Hamsun. Personally I might go for The Women at the Pump because of the way narrative seems to flow like gossip around the society of the novel, without ever being anything less than subtle and fascinating.

LosMontes, if you fancied expanding your thoughts on Hamsun's work into a full thread, I'm sure I (for one) would make the time to chime in.
 
 
ginger
23:56 / 08.12.06
sine, infinite jest:

yes, persist, it's well worth it, and then come over and play with us here
 
 
Whisky Priestess
14:39 / 13.12.06
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood

Yes/no?
 
 
Baz Auckland
00:54 / 14.12.06
Yes. It can be pretty brutal, but I still found it fairly interesting...
 
 
All Acting Regiment
13:00 / 14.12.06
Vathek?
Castle of Otranto?
Scarlet and Black?
The Sadness of young Werther?
 
 
Whisky Priestess
13:26 / 14.12.06
On a Gothic tip, eh? I seem to remember the Castle of Otranto was good spooky fun.
 
 
GogMickGog
16:59 / 14.12.06
Otranto is fun, but in a very silly, goofy way - more of a pamphlet than a novel.

Matthew Lewis' "The Monk" offers more, to my mind.
 
 
ginger
18:21 / 14.12.06
otranto'll make the milk come out of your nose. helmet jokes ahoy.

austen's usually not my cuppa, but 'northanger abbey''s fun if you're digging a gothly trench.
 
 
Charlus
07:59 / 17.12.06
Scarlett and Black? The Stendhal novel? I found that really annoying, or more like disappointing. I love Stendhal, however I really couldn't stand the protagonist Julien Sorel. What made you recommend it Allecto? Would you recommend the Charterhouse at Parma?
 
 
lord nuneaton savage
19:57 / 18.12.06
Try Antonin Artaud's extesive rewrite of 'The Monk'. Packed with more blood, death, religious visions and massively overplayed melodrama. Oh, and burning nuns. Top fun.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
12:05 / 20.12.06
I'm on a quest to read lots of 19th century novels, see. Quite a lot of which I have read, but mostly in terms of HG Wells, Jules Verne and so on.

The sadness of young Werther? By young Goethe?
 
 
StarWhisper
09:27 / 22.12.06

Tolstoy. Good? Which is best?
 
 
Jack Vincennes
21:57 / 22.12.06
Tolstoy: yes, yes, yes. I would start with Anna Karenina, as it sprawls slightly less than War And Peace. Both have lots of characters and lots of angst, but I think they're excellent.
 
 
maneki neko
22:08 / 22.12.06
I second Anna Karenina - I read it a few years ago and really enjoyed it, in a heart breaking way.
 
 
Charlus
09:04 / 23.12.06
Ninteenth century hmm. then I recommend Gogol; dead souls. Brilliant. Not only because it is dark and funny but that it also finishes mid sentence. Which wasn't the plan, but a religious fanatic urged Gogol to burn it.
 
 
Baz Auckland
04:00 / 26.12.06
Tolstoy: I've only ever read a collection of his short stories, but they were amazing, and a definite reccomendation.
 
  

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