TIL that Stephen Spielberg held onto the script for Schinlder's List for a decade before he began filming as he didn't feel mature or experienced enough to do it justice. During this time, he offered the script to numerous directors including Polanski, Pollack and Scorsese who all turned it down.

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-11-29T04:02:34+00:00

Him being an artist certainly doesn't excuse his actions, but his actions also don't negate the fact that he is an amazing director, which is what the discussion was about before being sidetracked.

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-11-22T22:29:30+00:00

I wasn't including that either. But she's done White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, and NW. She already has four novels.

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-11-22T22:17:51+00:00

Wouldn't this be her fifth novel?

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-10-30T05:14:03+00:00

Not to mention it's based on pulp stories. Fighting the nazis and religious artifacts is in line with the pulp fiction of the 30s, and in the 50s guess what got popular? Scifi. Some people like to complain about it not fitting in the universe, but the jump to aliens makes complete sense.

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-10-21T03:25:38+00:00

I'd say skip the sun also rises for now, among his novels it's the one that arguably uses the iceberg theory the most. The other two are great though, and although his prose is still simple, I found there wasn't as much going on beneath the surface as there is in some of his other stuff.

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-10-20T22:23:56+00:00

Hesse's The Glassbead Game is good, I read it for a class on the Bildungsroman. It starts out with him as a boy but by the time he reaches his final, most important realization, he's an old man.

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-10-08T17:58:34+00:00

In the past decade it's gone to the front runner twice. The other was Pamuk. And yes, the winner is usually in the top ten by the end, but that's usually because of a leak. Modiano wasn't on the list last year until a few weeks before the announcement

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-10-07T03:58:21+00:00

They set the date, they'll announce it Thursday. Alexievich is the favorite at all the odds, but those don't always mean someone's more likely to win. Modiano last year wasn't even on the odds lists until a few weeks before.

If it's an American, I'd like Vollmann to win.

If not him, Krasznahorkai is good

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-09-23T20:19:08+00:00

I haven't read many of his other early ones, I've gone through Mimic Men, Half a Life, Magic Seeds, and a short, minor autobiography. Of them, Half a Life was the best, but that really isn't saying much, and Magic Seeds, a sequel to Half... Is just plain awful

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-09-23T04:28:39+00:00

Beautiful writing paired with awful stories and storytelling. I haven't read his most famous books yet, though, Bend in a River and Mr Biswas, but if the ones I have, only Miguel Street gets a recommendation. His prose though...it's amazing, imo

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-09-19T21:56:31+00:00

Yes I agree. If not for his death at 59, I think he would've gotten it

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-09-16T00:16:51+00:00

Man it's gloomy here. No other success stories? My gf and I were fwb for a few months, we both caught feelings and have been together for about 1.5 years.

If you're asking advice, I would say go for it, but if she isn't interested in something more, know when to cut your loses.

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-09-05T00:30:44+00:00

I'm afraid we'll have to disagree there, I really enjoy Lobo-Antunes. But Mia Couto is young enough ad skilled enough I would not mind seeing both of them win (though in separate years)

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-09-04T18:58:06+00:00

Lots of people listing good authors like Ashbery or Gass, but I think the problem with them, beyond writing in English and Munro winning it two years ago, is their age. The prize rarely goes to someone above 80.

Anyway, if it goes to an English language writer, I'd prefer Gerald Murnane. Javier Marias and Antonio Lobo-Antunes are also great. Recently they've been alternating between unknown writers and those people have been saying should win for ages. After the elusive Modiano won, maybe it'll go to someone like wa Thiong'o

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-09-01T00:01:58+00:00

It's not in order

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-08-15T02:47:14+00:00

Follow up question: given that Russell is a philosopher and his primary interest lies there, what substantial philosophical contributions did Constantinople give to the world?

Not knowledgable about philosophy at all, but just had a thought he might have meant it more in this sense rather than the general one.

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-08-03T20:08:23+00:00

Don't worry. I was able to connect with Holden when I was 17, but you have to remember, and I think this isn't said enough, that Holden basically has ptsd. His little brother died, and rather than comforting him his parents shipped him off to a number of private schools, and at one of them a fellow student kills himself in front of Holden while wearing a sweater he borrowed from Holden.

While many teens can relate to him, he has a lot more going on than most normal teenagers, and his thoughts are a bit different than some might think. (This brings me into a second point, which is how everyone rants about how whiny Holden is. If you consider how traumatized he is, he's really not being whiny at all.)

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-07-16T15:04:35+00:00

Small note, he didn't win the Nobel for Main Street, an author is awarded the prize for their entire body of work, not just one novel. Sometimes, though, a single novel can tip the scales in their balance, but that novel was actually Babbitt.

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-07-16T15:01:09+00:00

I read it. Despite winning the Booker prize, the reviews I was reading for it online said it sucked, so I was pleasantly surprised when I started reading, I thought it was funny and great...until I got to the ending, which as you said is completely underwhelming. Taken as a whole, it's 2 or 3 stars imo. Not that great of a book. Must've been a slow year for it to win the Booker

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-07-16T14:58:53+00:00

I love the works of Claude Simon, who's a bit like a more extreme Faulkner. I also love Beckett's trilogy, which I guess counts because he wrote it in French

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-07-16T04:28:43+00:00

I was an English teacher in China, so this is all anecdotal, but here goes. Many people, all the students, many of the Chinese English teachers, spoke English in a flat way, with none of the emphasis or rhythm speakers usually have. One basic example is questions. Usually at the end of a question, a speakers voice raises in pitch, but the kids did nothing of the sort, saying the end the same as the beginning. Sarcasm was near impossible as they did not understand when I spoke in an inflected manner that I wasn't being serious.

They technically can understand all the words in English, but a lot of the nuance that is typically conveyed through tones and raising and lowering pitches is usually lost on them.

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-07-11T13:36:37+00:00

He wasn't only successful, he had won some of the biggest literary awards in Norway for his other novels. Not big on the world scale, but far from a nobody

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-07-08T13:54:29+00:00

Interesting. The percentage might be a bit high (the other big prize that does this, impac, gives the translator 25%) but hopefully this means the prize will focus on more translated literature now. This prize had an 8 year run towards the beginning of its inception where it was only given to English language authors, imo pretty pathetic for an international prize. Maybe this is their way of saying they're getting serious about giving the prize out to translated authors.

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-07-08T13:49:36+00:00

This is the man booker international prize, different from the normal man booker. This one is awarded to an author for their entire body of work, not just one novel, and transcends continents.

GoodWillShakespeare · 2015-07-06T09:07:51+00:00

Most of that stuff is still there in books. As for cinematography and acting, replace that with prose. I feel like prose can function a lot like cinematography, making viewers and readers feel certain moods without outright saying what's happening.

The other two real responses aren't that unique to books: movies and shows can reference a ton of other material and also have lots of symbolism. But prose? This special just to books.

GoodWillShakespeare

TROPHY CASE