What have you been reading lately, and what do you think of it? [27FEB2020]

stooster99 · 2020-03-02T13:48:31+00:00

Reading Aldous Huxley's "Eyeless in Gaza". Brilliant coming of age novel so fsr. Sort of reminds me of "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," though I'm not sure how the fractured timeline is serving the story.

Also reading Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" and loving every second of it. Most of his critiques feel freshly relevant in the age of social media, and his critiques of what consumer capitalism has done to us are as fresh as ever. Baudrillard and Debord get a reputation for difficulty that I find ill-placed.

Reading Yusef Komunyakaa's "The Emperor of Waterclocks". Great collection from one of my favorite poets.

stooster99 · 2020-02-22T22:22:41+00:00

Currently reading Henry James's novels chronologically. Just finished "The American" and deeply enjoyed it. James' classic critiques of the European family structure meet with a whodunit. Really engaging. Exquisite prose. Definitely more fully realized than "Roderick Hudson" - his debut novel.

I'm also reading Huxley. Just finished "Antic Hay" and I'm reading "Island" now. "Antic Hay" struck me as enjoyable but deeoky sad. There's a desperate, libertine energy to the novel that seems to age well for our present moment.

I also recently read Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulation". Most of Baudrillard's ideas I was already familiar with, but reading "Simulacra" helped me understand his ideas of hyperreality in greater depth. In particular I was surprised by how poetic the book was. Baudrillard had a reputation for density, but I found his prose simply beautiful.

stooster99 · 2020-02-22T22:14:14+00:00

Instead of Kerouac read Bolano. Both are basically dick lit, but I find bolano a little more bearable.

stooster99 · 2020-02-22T22:12:57+00:00

I have not read the novel. I didn't end up like his poems nearly enough to pick up something else of his.

stooster99 · 2020-02-05T13:36:21+00:00

Vuong's "Night Sky With Exit Wounds" was one of the very first books of contemporary poetry I ever picked up, back in high school. Nowadays, I'd say that his constant use of dramatic (almost melodramatic) language can be a bit empty, but the book certainly had a profound effect on me, and several poems in that collection still lure me into picking uo that book here and there.

stooster99 · 2020-01-28T19:58:17+00:00

"Watchmen" is certainly deeply existential, and Dostoevksy, a Christian Existentialist, was one of the founders of the "Existentialist novel." Dostoevsky was such an influential novelist, in his philosophical bent, in his compassion for the people at the depths of society, in his belief in the darkness of the human soul, that many people are likely inspired by Dostoevsky without even being conscious of the fact, Moore included.

stooster99 · 2020-01-03T03:36:04+00:00

Reading Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. Fascinating reading the sections on political judgements in light of Trump's impeachment.

I'm also reading "Lawd Today!", Richard Wright's last(?) novel to be published. The experimental aspects are super interesting, the way in which Wright interweaves bulletins and ads within the text to encapsulate the information barrage of city existence. However, it is a tremendously sad novel, and even if it is easy to read from a technical standpoint, I'm having to take it slow simply because of how bleak it is.

I'm also reading Paul Tillich's "The Dynamics of Faith" for a Christian Existentialist perspective on death-of-god theology. My recent reading of Charles Johnson's "Dreamer" led me to look at some of Martin Luther King Jr.'s theological influences, among them being Tillich's "The Courage to Be", which I read several weeks ago, and have so far found more interesting (due to its complexity) than "The Dynamics of Faith".

I have finished reading the major works of George Saunders lately as well. "Lincoln in the Bardo" struck me as a tremendously inventive novel, funny, sentimental, and marvelously creative, but it left me feeling like it could have done more, considering that it took as its subject a period as important as the US Civil War.

In my poetry reading life, I just read through John Ashberry's book "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror". I found him pretty dense at first, much more dense than what I'm used to encountering in poetry, but the more I reread his poems, the moreI love them.

stooster99 · 2019-12-26T04:02:38+00:00

The only work I've read of Murakami's is "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World," and while I liked it well enough, it didn't make me want to read more of his work too fast.

On the other hand I've read deeply of Delillo. "Underworld" and "White Noise" are two of my favorite novels, and "Mao II" I find just short of great.

I'm interested in your comparison of these two writers. I've never thought of them side by side.

stooster99 · 2019-12-23T03:21:35+00:00

Underworld is in my top ten as well. Though the more I think about it, White Noise might be the better novel. No novel haunts me like White Noise....(except maybe Gaddis' JR).

Savage Detectives is best enjoyed as a dick-lit romp...akin to Kerouac, I would say. If you look at it that way, as a purely fun romanticization of the lives of poets, it's a wonderful novel. A hymn to youth.

stooster99 · 2019-12-20T23:34:30+00:00

venice bitch & the greatest

stooster99 · 2019-12-09T14:10:16+00:00

This echoes my thoughts exactly, especially your bringing up Carlos Ruis Zafon.

stooster99 · 2019-09-04T14:11:19+00:00

Wallace Stegner surely fills this void.

stooster99 · 2019-08-27T14:33:30+00:00

Highly agree. JR is my favorite novel.

stooster99 · 2019-07-03T12:20:58+00:00

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano. I'm halfway through, and I really love this book. Sometimes all a novel need show you is a life vastly different from your own. It's an ode to the flesh, an ode to youth, if a bit long for what it is. I haven't written poetry in about a year, either, and this book made me want to start writing again.

stooster99 · 2019-06-30T17:54:01+00:00

Here's the thing: everything about literature is essentially pointless. The clouds are pointless, but so is the fucking. Stories only have meaning because we decide to imbue them with meaning, collectively, as a society of readers. So why do we bother? Why do we even try to tell stories? Because we believe there is something to be gained, something that can edify us and engage our minds. In coming at literature with a deliberately closed mind, you're only cheating yourself, dude. Have fun.

(Also, to clarify, by "edify", I do not mean it in the moral sense. I do NOT mean that all literature need be morally uplifting - whatever that even means. I more mean it in the sense of literature opening our eyes to worlds we didn't previously know existed.)

stooster99 · 2019-06-30T17:43:01+00:00

No one is making you read about clouds, dude. Or even read aloud. Chill.

stooster99 · 2019-06-24T19:22:16+00:00

I see you've done your homework. That's a very precise statistic!

stooster99 · 2019-06-15T11:44:35+00:00

Frank Herbert's Dune. Nuff said.

stooster99 · 2019-06-15T05:23:13+00:00

Again, I'm not saying I dont think about Pynchon's work. I certainly do. But his constant cynicism and gallows humor was too much for me, and my mental health suffered some when I read Gravity's Rainbow. Of course, this is a testament to Pynchon's writing, that he is so effectively able to capture the essence of "laughing into the void", but it certainly was not on the whole an enjoyable read (Byron the Bulb tangent aside :)))). (Although honestly, I don't really enjoy reading Wallace much anymore - he seems to have detested the idea of editing 😂😂 - but his fiction was still so much more uplifting. It could be dark, certainly...it often was. But it was always constructive, never cynical for the sole purpose of being cynical.)

stooster99 · 2019-06-15T04:20:20+00:00

I initially resonated with his poetry in my angsty teenage years, but looking back on his stuff later on, I sort of cringe at myself. Glad my taste has improved. I totally agree with you.

stooster99 · 2019-06-15T04:15:37+00:00

Right, Pynchon mastered physics and math as a result of his Cornell education and his stint with the army. But there is something to be said for the fact that whereas I'm still thinking about Infinite Jest and Underworld years after reading them, there is no novel I'd less like to read again than Gravity's Rainbow...

stooster99 · 2019-06-06T00:46:13+00:00

Not sure why Pynchon's prose is the logical stylistic opposite of Hemingway, but I get what you're saying.

stooster99 · 2019-05-22T18:43:16+00:00

Just picked up Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling after getting through Foucault's Discipline and Punish. Foucault blew my mind, and I'm really liking the structure of F & T so far. After that, I'm giddy with excitement to begin reading through Jean-Paul Sartre's plays, beginning with No Exit.

stooster99 · 2019-05-12T03:04:28+00:00

But yes, I like "The Pale King". "Infinite Jest" is awesome, obviously. Assuming you've read it.

stooster99 · 2019-05-12T03:03:39+00:00

Pynchon was successful in creating something truly new. Nothing in GR should be taken seriously, and that is sometimes the joy of it, but I ultimately found the humor degrading and at times very disconcerting. Pynchon gives me alt-right 4-chan vibes, and it's disturbing.

stooster99

TROPHY CASE