My teacher says I'm breaking books at an eighth grade level: book thread

[Greg Nog]

I'm gonna read this just so I can huffily sniff at your dad, "Oh, I'm familiar with your work."

[elpollodiablo]

Stuff I've read in the past couple of weeks:

The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
The Zero - Jess Walter
Welcome to the Desert of the Real! - Zizek
Finished Kapital vol. 1
Giles Goat-Boy - John Barth

[fishjim]

Stuff I've read in the past couple of weeks:

The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
The Zero - Jess Walter
Welcome to the Desert of the Real! - Zizek
Finished Kapital vol. 1
Giles Goat-Boy - John Barth

How was Giles Goat-Boy? It's been on my shelf for years.

[elpollodiablo]

Mine too! I'd started it a couple-few times before and always got distracted before getting to the meat of the primary narrative (there's about 30pp of semi-metafictional preface and introductory material before the 'actual' story begins). It's a really fantastic example of early American literary postmodernism and a whole hell of a lot funnier than later works of the 70s and 80s. It's a multitiered allegory of the cold war, the rise of postmodern thought (Informationalism), religion, student movements, and international socialism, all encapsulated in a synecdochic university that stands for the whole world. It's also a pretty entertaining bildungsroman about a boy who gets raised among goats. Would recommend!

[davy]

No fiction Pulitzer this year! First time since 1977.

And I wouldn't really care so much if one of the finalists wasn't my boy Denis Johnson. Close call!

Swamplandia was another nominee. Been halfway meaning to get around to that one.

[elpollodiablo]

I wanna read Tree of Smoke.

[Nick Ink]

I've just started Alone In Berlin by Hans Fallada, translated by the poet Michael Hofmann.

[fishjim]

And I wouldn't really care so much if one of the finalists wasn't my boy Denis Johnson. Close call!

Could've sworn I'd posted the Denis Johnson poem "Falling" in LPTJ before, but can't find it now. Will re-post again in the poem thread. I'm hot-and-cold on DJ's poems, but this one never fails to amaze me.  

[davy]

I wanna read Tree of Smoke.

It's kind of a slog, actually. I liked Jesus' Son, Train Dreams, Nobody Move, The Name of the World, Fiskadoro, and Resuscitation of a Hanged Man all better than Tree of Smoke.

Not to say it's bad, of course.

[fishjim]

Dang, the new Alison Bechdel kinda sucks. Turns out her mother isn't half - nay, 9/10 - as interesting as her closeted homosexual funeral director father who shot himself.

Now I'm bummed for her.

[G.C.R]

he didn't shoot himself, did he? he stepped in front of a truck I thought.

[fishjim]

ah, you're right. not sure why i misremembered that - there's even a mention of the truck that hit him in this new one. most memorable part so far, actually.  

[davy]

Dang, the new Alison Bechdel kinda sucks. Turns out her mother isn't half - nay, 9/10 - as interesting as her closeted homosexual funeral director father who shot himself.

Now I'm bummed for her.

I just ordered this for our library!

[fishjim]

Visually it's on par with the rest of her stuff, but narratively it's like an overlong therapy diary. Lots of panels of Bechdel in analysis, quoting Freud & Co. without a shred of irony, lots of TMI identification with Virginia Woolf, lots of Dream Analysis 101. It's like the graphic novel equivalent of Some Kind of Monster, with a narcissistic band of one. I hope she doesn't google herself and find this. Up to now I've been a loyal fan.

[elpollodiablo]

Boy that sounds like the worst thing.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

except where he said it's the graphic novel equivalent of some kind of monster

i'd read the shit out of that

[elpollodiablo]

I'd be with you were it not for the title case.

[Greg Nog]

I was kind of lukewarm on Fun Home, even though I really like Dykes to Watch Out For.  I'm quite curious about this one.

[Greg Nog]

Me and Scott Lynch, author of The Lies Of Locke Lamora!

[G.C.R]

Greg if you were skinny and bald and beardless, you'd look hella like my other friend who is also named Greg.

[jess]

I also have another friend Greg who looks weirdly like this Greg, but this other Greg is more like a shaggier, more unkempt, less muscular version. So kind of like if Greg were a dirty hippie.

[Greg Nog]

hey now, I'm plenty dirty

[jess]

Not this dirty, trust me. But I will amend it: if Greg were dirtier and a hippie.

[monkeypants]

Anyone have any opinion about Steve Erickson?  I picked up his latest, "These Dreams Of You" merely because it caught my eye while browsing at a local book shop.  I'd never heard of the guy, but I liked the book quite a bit and he appears to have 6 or 7 other novels out that seem to be well regarded.  I'll definitely be checking out more of his stuff in the future.

[Nick Ink]

Anyone have any opinion about Steve Erickson? 

I read Arc D'X when I was at university ( a looong  time ago!). It's a bizarre, time-warping story that starts out with Thomas Jefferson and his slave mistress in the eighteenth century and later flips quite dramatically into a sort of science fiction narrative. The author appears as a character at one point, issues of race are prominent, and there's quite a lot of sex and violence too.

It was a memorable book, and only the other day I noticed his name in the book shop and thought about picking something more recent up - maybe I will go for These Dreams Of You.