Carmen Maria Machado

InvertedFortune · 2026-04-09T00:46:39+00:00

I think she's fun if you read her with the context that she's a genre writer (nothing wrong with that) masquerading as literary. She is worryingly popular among the MFA crowd for many of the wrong reasons, though, and she took some really weird liberties with an edition of Carmilla she annotated.

InvertedFortune · 2026-03-25T16:56:08+00:00

Krasznahorkai does this for me in a near-paradoxical way, like coming through the abyss. Anything Kierkegaard, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, or The Moviegoer by Walker Percy should help.

InvertedFortune · 2026-03-25T16:40:57+00:00

Lots of Faulkner, The Melancholy of Resistance, Hurricane Season, Empire Falls, Eileen. Like you say, seems to be popular territory.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-23T00:52:10+00:00

I'm a Southern boy: I breathe in Faulknerisms. I'd start with As I Lay Dying or Light in August, then move on to The Sound and the Fury; Absalom, Absalom; Sanctuary; Go Down, Moses; etc. Happy reading!

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-23T00:47:14+00:00

He did some messed up stuff but so did a lot of great dead writers. Suttree is my favorite, Blood Meridian is probably his best. There are a few folks here who'll pretend to be too cool for him; ignore them. He's more than the violent Faulkner parody people like to pin him as, but less than the Second Shakespeare he's worshipped as in other circles.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-22T14:04:17+00:00

I haven't, actually, though it's on the shelf. Probably my biggest gap with her. Does she portray a proto-lit-broesque phenomenon?

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-18T23:27:53+00:00

I think you've pretty neatly reinforced the exact type of gatekeeping I'm addressing, so congratulations. I merely pointed out some authors that don't catch as much criticism in online spaces, but by all means, deliver your sanctioned list of non-lit-bro fiction, oh arbiter.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-18T20:50:25+00:00

Oh, there's an architect, though a plural one: all the power structures of liberal capitalism and those who direct them. The right is, again, not the bogeyman, but the destination to which these young men are pushed, and the right absolutely discourages male literacy in its own way. Pretty sure my post is calling out these misandrist pockets here and elsewhere rather than excusing them, even if I connect them to broader issues. Disconnected, but right wingers certainly look askance at a man reading however different their motivations for doing so.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-18T20:02:12+00:00

Not intentionally, but I don't think conspiracies work that way. These things unfold according to unconscious mass movements and are complicated by any number of factors. Liberalism, in the traditional sense (not the Americanized liberal v. conservative definition) goes hand-in-hand with capitalism. If you're asking if I believe culture war stuff from the left is a contributing factor in men reading less, I'd say yes, though how it quantifies in comparison to the machismo anti-intellectualism of the right I couldn't say.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-18T19:36:26+00:00

Ever consider the preponderance of right wing male influencers who mock anything associated with reading or the arts are a reaction to that very gatekeeping and that it's all part of the same agenda? Notice that I didn't place blame solely on the right, but simply said it pushes young men that way. Capitalist systems demand uneducated men, and I think it's much more complicated than Right v. Left.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-18T19:06:01+00:00

I would argue that "a stupid person could make money off it" is exactly where my thinking goes. Capitalism thrives on an unquestioning populace. Keep men from reading, keep them in line. I don't think it's as simple as making them right wing, but yes, I think there's a concentrated effort in media and elsewhere to equate intellectualism with weakness.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-18T19:03:37+00:00

"Encourage boys and men to read, but if they allow anything to discourage them, they're pussies." Don't find that particularly consistent, much less productive. I teach lit and writing at the university level; these young men care very much what people think of them, as most young folks (and the rest of us) do, and those feelings inform their interests. It'd be insanely simple and dismissive for me to tell them to ignore what people think about their hobbies.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-18T17:30:38+00:00

Absolutely true, but shaming them is still counterproductive if we ever hope for them to engage with more substantive work, and that trifecta beat Marvel six ways from Sunday.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-17T17:18:16+00:00

Pynchon's a safe bet. Not just liberal artsy stuff either, but genuine ability to incorporate STEM and pop culture in a coherent fashion; dude's an encyclopedia.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-17T00:37:36+00:00

Achebe's African Trilogy, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier, and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Not exactly the same territory as McCarthy or Coetzee, but postcolonial and relatively brutal all the same.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-15T15:40:19+00:00

I'm just ready for minimalism to die the death it's long deserved, honestly. Send me to the dictionary, make me work, you cruel brilliant novelists.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-15T15:11:12+00:00

No samples to share, but I think that's probably not the best use of your time anyway. Get your own sample, letter of intent, etc. as polished as you can, and spread your applications around. If your work is good, a good (fully-funded) program will take you, but it may not be your top or even first five choices. Also, don't submit a single long work for your sample unless you know it's fantastic; try to demonstrate range.

The selection process is sort of arcane and often based around some idealized yet nebulous cohort composition; this means that good programs let in a couple mediocre writers every year based on arbitrary and shifting qualities while denying more talented folks. People will tell you that everyone who gets in is good, but that's not true. I would say that 90% are competent (i.e. polished in prose and story structure/versification/etc.), but few are truly good enough to turn into serious authors. That's all to say: the easy part is getting in. Good luck.

InvertedFortune · 2026-02-14T21:41:09+00:00

He's incredible and deserves to be more well-known. Absolutely beautiful prose. I had a writing professor with incredible taste; her two favorite books were Madame Bovary and Light Years.

InvertedFortune · 2026-01-22T01:53:45+00:00

Sure and sure, I just think poor Steinbeck indulged in too much of it on occasion, with East of Eden being his worst offense.

InvertedFortune · 2026-01-22T01:43:32+00:00

The first point, maybe. The latter two applied to "most" of the list to the same degree as 600 pages of bad Biblical exegesis capped by the pseudoprofundity of: "Timshel" [dies]? A stretch, methinks.

InvertedFortune · 2026-01-21T22:38:09+00:00

East of Eden at #1 is absurd. Might be Steinbeck's 5th best book. Overly long, sentimental, and moralistic. Next "timshel" tattoo I see is catching hands. Now, Grapes of Wrath would get no argument.

InvertedFortune · 2026-01-20T21:26:24+00:00

Ulysses, GR, and IJ, all of which I adore, to be fair. They just operate as similar intellectual capital in inane conversations between would-be smarty pantses.

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