Now Reading

The Broom of the System was weaker than the Pale King.

Well, I'll be joining the DFW club—after I wrap up Kafka on the Shore, The Infinite Jest is the next on my reading list I think.

I wouldn't recommend starting with that. Read either A Supposedly Fun Thing... or Brief Interviews. Both are easier to digest and, frankly, better than Infinite Jest.

I don't think those are better than Infinite Jest, but they're definitely easier to digest.

been on my 'to read' list more or less since I was recommended it by my high school American history teacher. It's an insightful 'alternative' narrative of US history. Zinn is, I think, frequently correct in his assertions, but polemic gets the best of him at times. One has to wonder, for instance, whether Native American society was the egalitarian utopia he imagines it to have been prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Moreover, he doesn't really offer any evidence in support of this, which is frustrating from an historian's perspective. Zinn does admit at times when his downtrodden working class heroes were in the wrong, but so far (I'm about halfway in) I think this book is just a little too overly contentious to be a definitive narrative of US history. Not that it necessarily claims to be that; but a lot of its fans do. Very enjoyable and informative nevertheless.

  On 3/29/2012 at 3:59 AM, zaphod said:

I wouldn't recommend starting with that. Read either A Supposedly Fun Thing... or Brief Interviews. Both are easier to digest and, frankly, better than Infinite Jest.

Are the two you suggested both novels? I'd prefer not to start with an anthology of short stories, which is what Brief Interviews sounds like.

And do you mean a Pyncheon or Ballard level of difficulty in digesting Infinite Jest, or not as severe? I couldn't really get through Gravity's Rainbow or The Atrocity Exhibition, not that they're in the same style as DFW.

I don't think Infinite Jest is terribly difficult in terms of prose, but it's emotionally exhausting (and even, weirdly, physically exhausting), and you have to trust that DFW will further explore the brief glimpses of certain characters and settings and ideas that you're hammered with in the first couple hundred pages.

Gravity's Rainbow is one of my favorites, but it's much harder to read than IJ.

Note: I still have a handful of pages left in IJ to read, and I've slowed down to really savor the whole thing after running through the first half like I was on some kind of urgent deadline. It's a book to live in. Granted, any praise I give it you can discount accordingly since I haven't actually finished yet. But so far it's probably my favorite thing I've read by DFW, and it's so much better than the Broom of the System, which I actually liked anyway.

But obviously it's all subjective.

One thing I can recommend is if you have a kindle touch, get the kindle version. I have the physical copy and the kindle copy and the endnotes are so much easier to manage with the touch interface. Conversely, they would be a huge fucking pain if you have a non-touch e-reader and you have to scroll through text with a cursor to get to and from an endnote link.

start any way you like. I started with IJ. I enJ'd.

couldn't get through Grav Rainbow either, btw.

I can't freaking finish books anymore. It's aggravating. The last time I read a significant portion of any book was Notes from Underground, and somehow I didn't even finish that. I was getting into The Trial for awhile, but it was on someone else's Kindle. Also finished most of Slaughterhouse Five.

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:17 PM, KY said:

Well, I'll be joining the DFW club—after I wrap up Kafka on the Shore, The Infinite Jest is the next on my reading list I think.

Tried reading Kafka on the Shore once and didn't get very far; I think I'll try again sometime. I can't finish anything these days. I've read quite a few of his short stories, though, and they're really good.

  On 3/29/2012 at 6:43 PM, gmanyo said:

Tried reading Kafka on the Shore once and didn't get very far; I think I'll try again sometime. I can't finish anything these days. I've read quite a few of his short stories, though, and they're really good.

i do like murakami's short stories but never seem to get into his novels. started wind up bird chronicles and couldn't keep going. i've heard that his new novel 1Q84 is really good but reading that 900+ page behemoth is not an option at the moment.

  On 3/29/2012 at 6:47 PM, benc812 said:

  On 3/29/2012 at 6:43 PM, gmanyo said:

Tried reading Kafka on the Shore once and didn't get very far; I think I'll try again sometime. I can't finish anything these days. I've read quite a few of his short stories, though, and they're really good.

 

i do like murakami's short stories but never seem to get into his novels. started wind up bird chroniclesand couldn't keep going. i've heard that his new novel 1Q84 is really good but reading that 900+ page behemoth is not an option at the moment.

So Ulysses is out of the question then?

  On 3/29/2012 at 6:49 PM, gmanyo said:

So Ulysses is out of the question then?

for now, definitely. if i felt like reading any joyce, i'd probably re-read portrait of the artist as a young man. it's been about 9 years and remember very little in terms of details.

haven't had the patience to really finish through an 1000 page novel in the recent months. the last large novel i read was anna karenina, which was sadly too aristocratic in subject matter.

  On 3/29/2012 at 3:11 PM, KY said:

  On 3/29/2012 at 3:59 AM, zaphod said:

I wouldn't recommend starting with that. Read either A Supposedly Fun Thing... or Brief Interviews. Both are easier to digest and, frankly, better than Infinite Jest.

Are the two you suggested both novels? I'd prefer not to start with an anthology of short stories, which is what Brief Interviews sounds like.

 

And do you mean a Pyncheon or Ballard level of difficulty in digesting Infinite Jest, or not as severe? I couldn't really get through Gravity's Rainbow or The Atrocity Exhibition, not that they're in the same style as DFW.

Brief Interviews is a collection of short stories and A Supposedly Fun Thing is a collection of non fiction pieces. Both are accessible in a way that Infinite Jest simply isn't. But no, IJ is not hard to read. The actual style is fairly straightforward and easy, it's just such a gigantic, dense undertaking that I really can't recommend it as the first DFW you read. I've watched so many people pick that book up and never finish it, which shouldn't really reflect on the quality of the novel, but somehow it kind of does. It's a great book, it's really his only novel worth reading, as Broom is just basically this pretentious undergraduate thesis he turned into a novel and it's very indebted to Pynchon and not really representative of DFW's strengths as a writer. IJ is, but it's a mammoth fucking book. Start with it at your own risk. And for my money, his best prose is in Brief Interviews. There are a couple of stories in there, namely the final "interview", that rank among the best short fiction I've ever read. I'm not sure IJ is among the best novels I've read...

I think I'm going to stick with Infinite Jest first—the last book I read before Kafka On The Shore was actually 1Q84, which was 950-odd pages, so the size isn't really wildly intimidating. And no dice on the Kindle version—already have the physical book. I'll definitely check out A Supposedly Fun Thing and Brief Interviews, though.

  On 3/29/2012 at 6:43 PM, gmanyo said:

I can't freaking finish books anymore. It's aggravating. The last time I read a significant portion of any book was Notes from Underground, and somehow I didn't even finish that. I was getting into The Trial for awhile, but it was on someone else's Kindle. Also finished most of Slaughterhouse Five.

I've heard from my brother that his favorite Murikami works are the short stories, but I really loved Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. 1Q84 was forgettable, and Kafka On The Shore, which I'm halfway through, is relatively good compared to his most recent.

Oddly enough, though, aside from Gravity's Rainbow and The Atrocity Exhibition, the only novel I started and didn't finish (aside from a few forgettable non-fictions) was The Castle, Kafka's unfinished novel. I guess it's not that good if neither he nor I finished it?

  On 3/29/2012 at 6:37 PM, A/D said:

start any way you like. I started with IJ. I enJ'd.

lol

  On 3/29/2012 at 9:07 PM, KY said:

Oddly enough, though, aside from Gravity's Rainbow

lol

Yesterday I finished Lord of the Rings (for the 5th time I think).

I love this book. It makes me better.

Controversial opinion : I couldn't stand Borges' Labyrinth and stopped a hundred pages into it.

^^ stfu

I started reading Ficciones, and after reading five or six short stories, am reminded how awesome Borges is. He's like meta-literature, idm as fuck

I just didn't like most of them. Meta or not, I didn't care about the stories. A couple were awesome though...

  On 3/25/2012 at 4:47 AM, The Pod said:

Reading a heartbreaking work of staggering genius again.

I could read this book again again, and I recognize it's blatant flaws. Dave Eggers is a hilarious, obnoxious prick.

  On 3/31/2012 at 1:21 AM, Philip Glass said:

I just didn't like most of them. Meta or not, I didn't care about the stories. A couple were awesome though...

Hm, I suppose I can see what you mean. In the ones I've read so far, there aren't any really relatable or fleshed-out characters. A lot of them just seem like fictional firsthand accounts of unexplainable sort of pauses in (largely literary-based) logic, so there isn't a lot to get attached to in the first place. But to me, a lot of them almost read as enigmatic, self-contained parables, which I find pretty awesome.

This just in: Philip Glass dislikes Borges! BURN HIM! HE'S A WITCH!

Now reading: the now reading thread on watmm.

  On 3/29/2012 at 9:28 AM, Ron Manager said:

 

been on my 'to read' list more or less since I was recommended it by my high school American history teacher. It's an insightful 'alternative' narrative of US history. Zinn is, I think, frequently correct in his assertions, but polemic gets the best of him at times. One has to wonder, for instance, whether Native American society was the egalitarian utopia he imagines it to have been prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Moreover, he doesn't really offer any evidence in support of this, which is frustrating from an historian's perspective. Zinn does admit at times when his downtrodden working class heroes were in the wrong, but so far (I'm about halfway in) I think this book is just a little too overly contentious to be a definitive narrative of US history. Not that it necessarily claims to be that; but a lot of its fans do. Very enjoyable and informative nevertheless.

Good analysis of the book. Interesting, but flawed. Not to be taken a serious history, but revisionist historians play a vital role in challenging our assumptions about the past.

  On 3/29/2012 at 6:43 PM, gmanyo said:

I can't freaking finish books anymore. It's aggravating. The last time I read a significant portion of any book was Notes from Underground, and somehow I didn't even finish that. I was getting into The Trial for awhile, but it was on someone else's Kindle. Also finished most of Slaughterhouse Five.

 

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:17 PM, KY said:

Well, I'll be joining the DFW club—after I wrap up Kafka on the Shore, The Infinite Jest is the next on my reading list I think.

 

Tried reading Kafka on the Shore once and didn't get very far; I think I'll try again sometime. I can't finish anything these days. I've read quite a few of his short stories, though, and they're really good.

How can you not finish Slaughterhouse Five? It's like 200 pages, of very easily digestible prose.

  On 3/29/2012 at 6:47 PM, benc812 said:

  On 3/29/2012 at 6:43 PM, gmanyo said:

Tried reading Kafka on the Shore once and didn't get very far; I think I'll try again sometime. I can't finish anything these days. I've read quite a few of his short stories, though, and they're really good.

 

i do like murakami's short stories but never seem to get into his novels. started wind up bird chronicles and couldn't keep going. i've heard that his new novel 1Q84 is really good but reading that 900+ page behemoth is not an option at the moment.

Try wild sheep chase and norwegian wood as great introductions to Murakami Haruki.

Then for something completely different by a Japanese author give coin-locker babies by Murakami Ryu a spin :)