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pers0na

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Jamison
I'm reading Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger right now. I'm fully convinced that "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is the greatest short story ever written. With the possible exception of some Flannery O'Connor stories.

Chekhov?

flannery, chekhov, vonnegut, hemingway, salinger.........i don't think any of their short stories hold a candle to f. scott fitzgerald's best. though "perfect day for bananafish" was very effective with its whip zing ending...and i did enjoy a number of the others.

salinger stopped being a short story writer once he wrote franny. novella writer at the most. nobody does a novella better than salinger. franny/zooey, raise high/seymour, hapworth........absolutely necessary to any reader of fiction.

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don't clap between movements

I'm not too sure about F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories being the best. Don't get me wrong, they're better than a vast amount of fiction out there, but I think he was really at his best with longer stories. Just my opinion.

My next Salinger purchase will be Franny and Zooey. But I'll read a couple of books in between.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/2010 12:45PM by Jamison.

John Irving - the Fourth Hand

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just cracked open Ratner's Star (DeLillo) after finding it discussed in Lipsky's DFW book.

I find the wikipedia entry to be nothing short of hilarious in its brevity:

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Ratner's Star is a 1976 novel by Don DeLillo. It relates the story of a child prodigy mathematician who arrives at a secret installation to work on the problem of deciphering a mysterious message that appears to come from outer space. The novel is broken into two parts, the first is a more traditional narrative, while the second is less so.

--[en.wikipedia.org]

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/2010 06:57PM by bigoteetoe.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy. But I just ordered Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger and Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2010 07:45AM by Jamison.

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Jamison
The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy. But I just ordered Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger and Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner.

Oh! Is that the new translation? After war and peace I've decided that the Peaver translations are super overrated. I am a Tolstoy nut.

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Just finished the Children's Star.
It was good. A lot of names though, and heavy duty math involved.

I should read more sci-fi, any suggestions?

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fever

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Jamison
The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy. But I just ordered Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger and Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner.

Oh! Is that the new translation? After war and peace I've decided that the Peaver translations are super overrated. I am a Tolstoy nut.

Yes, it's the Pevear and Volkhonsky translation. I read the Garnett version of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and compared to those I think this translation is a rawer form of the work. I mean, Garnett made it readable to early-20th-Century English-speaking countries, and obviously the date and the intended audience made her change things a little bit. She would kind of make the stories more like the ones that were popular in her time, sometimes at the expense of the stories themselves.

But Pevear and Volkhonsky have both Tolstoy's long thought sentences and often short dialog intact, and though I don't know Russian I can't help but think this is truer to the original. Just knowing how Tolstoy thought, what he believed in in terms of literary form, I think this is a good translation for holding close to Tolstoy's artistic style. So from the small part I've read, I wouldn't say they're overrated.

I've only read "Prisoner of the Caucasus" and "Diary of a Madman," and they've been fantastic. Pevear and Volkhonsky let the descriptions in "Prisoner" go in one sentence but still go on for paragraphs, and "Madman" is wonderful as well for its description of the narrator's thoughts. I'll tell you more when I get further into the book.

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Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2010 08:17AM by Jamison.

I've read their translations of dead souls, the idiot, anna k., and notes from the underground and had noticed I don't enjoy Russian novels nearly as much when they're translating. I picked up their version of war and peace to test whether it was me or them, and it was them. I've read it in another translation and enjoyed it far more. I can't really say why but yeah. I'm a huge Tolstoy fan. Have you read resurrection?

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fever
Have you read resurrection?

No, I haven't. From what I've read about it, it sacrifices some of Tolstoy's great character analysis in favor of characters made only to make a point, with few other dimensions. But I'll have to read it to tell for myself.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2010 04:40PM by Jamison.

It's actually my favorite of the three major novels. Anna K and War and Peace are very different novels, I think it combines those differences while discarding the flaws. I'm due to reread Anna K and Resurrection, though, so don't quote me.

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Read sum Foulcoul mafuckahz!!!!

Excited to finally be able to participate in this thread again now that classes are over. This past weekend I read:

• Zeitoun, Dave Eggers
• Wittgenstein's Nephew, Thomas Bernhard

and last night I read the first third of Martin Amis's Time's Arrow. Not prepared to discuss Time's Arrow yet, obviously (though I hope to finish it tonight), but I'm curious to know if anyone has read Wittgenstein's Nephew, and if so, your thoughts?

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on second thought, turns out I kinda suck at recommending things to people.

its flaws were what made us have fun.

Second Preacher hardcover just came in the mail.

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you know, thanks, to whoever mentioned 'the preacher.' i finished the whole series yesterday, thought it was great.

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don't clap between movements

Damn Foucault's "Discipline and Punishment" is awsome!

Wow, I have a lot of reading to do! Franny and Zooey, Absalom, Absalom!, The Sound and the Fury, and Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters/Seymour, and Introduction are on my desk waiting to be read. I just ordered Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time. I always like to read a biography of a writer (like Troyat's Tolstoy biography, which was amazing) while reading other books. But this one looks especially good. 984 pages of pure Russian Lit goodness....

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2010 12:57PM by Jamison.

Let us know what you think of the JD Salinger books jamison!

I haven't gotten far on franny and zooey yet cuz I've been busy! But ill have lots o'time once I start vacation!!

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A fly can't bird but a bird can fly.

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Mtn. Girl
Let us know what you think of the JD Salinger books jamison!

Will do, Mtn. Girl! I feel kind of bad for buying them all at once and robbing myself of the chance to savor the few books he published, but I just can't wait. Salinger was such a talented person...

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Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2010 01:05PM by Jamison.

sarte - the age of reason

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Was gonna read "The Malignant Self-love" but I think I might read something happier instead. maybe something about science?

the people who watched her pass by - scott bradfield

so far i am 25 pages in and am very much drawn further into the story

about a kid who's taken from her parents one day by the man that fixes the water heater, and NOT in some "lovely bones" sort of way, and what her life is like after that, sort of from her perspective.

we will see how it ends up.

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starlingtattoo
the people who watched her pass by - scott bradfield

so far i am 25 pages in and am very much drawn further into the story

about a kid who's taken from her parents one day by the man that fixes the water heater, and NOT in some "lovely bones" sort of way, and what her life is like after that, sort of from her perspective.

we will see how it ends up.

Ooooh. Sounds tasty. Tell us (me?) how it ends.

Reading Subnormality there's enough text to make a book. And enough insights and characters and...it's a comic.
But it's lovely.
And Later...
Sellivision - Augusten Burroughs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2010 01:44AM by AliceHatt.

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fever
sarte - the age of reason

Thats rad.

I own and have read 'The Being and Nothingness' which I bought a long time ago when I was doing a report I titled 'Inner Gypsy' for my Intro to Philosophy class. lol. The name was inspired by Stevie Nick's song 'Gypsy'.

I still grab it every once in a while and refer to it, but I really should go through it cover to cover again.

Hope you enjoy that one!

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AliceHatt
Just finished the Children's Star.
It was good. A lot of names though, and heavy duty math involved.

I should read more sci-fi, any suggestions?

Read:

Isaac Asimov's Robot Series, Empire Series, and Foundation Series (I think 20 books in total? They all take place in the same universe, in that order, but you can really read any one of the series and omit the others)
Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, Sirens of Titan, Slaughter House Five, and Timequake
Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End
most anything by Philip K. Dick, but especially Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Mostly standard entry-level stuff I guess. It's good stuff to start with. I had lots more to recommend when I started typing this post and then I totally just blanked.

I am reading Skin Tight by Carl Hiaasen. Might reread On the Road tonight. Sometime this week, I will read Joyce's Portrait of an Artist. Books suck!