just thought I´d like to drop a note that it very pleasant to know that so many of our small community take such a deep interest in literature - makes me very smileative 
what else do you do besides playing chess?
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Mar 8, 2010
0
#143
AfafBouardi wrote:
Does he have any particularly interesting themes he deals with?
Filled with amusing reflections of human inanity. Particularly the way he handles religion.
The Twain/Vonnegut continuum is similar to the London/Kesey continuum. Very American.
I think that the reason you dislike Conrad might be that he hasn't got a lot of female characters in central roles.
rednblack wrote:
goldendog wrote:
Katherine Anne Porter.
As in an American writer whose style you admire, or what you do when you're not playing chess?
I guess I could have been more expansive.
I think she's wonderfully lucid, a fine stylist, and tells a story very well. She hasn't been in style, so to speak, for a decade or two at least, and may get overlooked, but she is a great short story writer.
I'm sorry goldendog, I just can't forego a cheap one-liner like that, even if it isn't particularly funny. I'm not familiar with Porter. Anyone you may compare her to?
Mar 8, 2010
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#147
rednblack wrote:
Nabokov is not an American writer. I think you may be reading the wrong Americans if their style doesn't grab you. Try Margaret Atwood, Philip Roth, or even Cormac McCarthy (though after a few novels you tend to see the strings). If you like short stories I'd also recommend Alice Munro and Joy Williams. All of the above can write sentences around Martin Amis, in my opinion.
Nabokov is more American than Margaret Atwood...being as how she's been Canadian all her life. Atwood might have a lot of fascinating ideas and I do appreciate her clever way of bringing glaring patriarchy to light, but I wouldn't say her wording and style is especially charming.
Thinking of other Americans...Kerouac is ok. William Burroughs, disgusting individual that he was, was an excellent storyteller...again, I wouldn't call his style beautiful nor filled with depth.
Mar 8, 2010
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#148
ilikeflags wrote:
rednblack wrote:
Nabokov is not an American writer. I think you may be reading the wrong Americans if their style doesn't grab you. Try Margaret Atwood, Philip Roth, or even Cormac McCarthy (though after a few novels you tend to see the strings). If you like short stories I'd also recommend Alice Munro and Joy Williams. All of the above can write sentences around Martin Amis, in my opinion.
not to mention Kate Chopin and Flannery O'Connor
the world can say what they will about the US o A, but we have some damn fine writers this side of the Atlantic
Hey! that sounds like it could start a new forum topic: which nation produces the best writers?
My list:
1. Russia
2. U.S. of A.
3. Ireland
rednblack wrote:
I'm sorry goldendog, I just can't forego a cheap one-liner like that, even if it isn't particularly funny. I'm not familiar with Porter. Anyone you may compare her to?
How about a female Hemingway, as simple in her style. Plus a fine light touch, always a feeling of balance and control, and tales more plainly told. I hate to admit it but it's been many years since I read any of her stuff.
If just one short of hers was anthologized it would be The Jilting of Granny Weatherall. They somehow got a whole movie out of that short story, maybe 30 years ago.
Mar 8, 2010
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#150
Grobe. Of Mice and Men - who hasn't?, The Pearl...thankfully a short dull experience. Only excerpts of Grapes. Despite hearing about the lurid parts, it didn't inspire more reading.
Perhaps I like characters to which I can readily relate? Never saw them in these texts or Twain's. Also don't like Hemingway. I bet I'm going to get an earful for that. Nobody is talking about who they don't like...who don't you like reading?
I find the Vonnegut Twain comparisons odd. The style doesn't seem at all alike? I've read Welcome to the Monkeyhouse and Cat's Cradle. He's very easy to read, but I found more meaning in his short stories...things that reminded me of Orwell and Huxley's dystopian societies, rather. I saw him speak once. Just as amusing as his writing.
I don't like Joyce, although the Dubliners are just about readable.
Mar 8, 2010
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#152
Western nations
My list:
1. Russia - Dostoevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy; Chekov
2. England
3. Germany and France.
Actually this is too difficult.
I should probably keep my thoughts to myself but I just had a thought that I bet Afaf and Flags would have great sex together.
Afaf, I am sorry; I don't want to offend you because I really do like you but the way you and he converse reminds me of how me and my little girl's daddy get along...we can't ever agree about anything...but...anyway...
I like to READ and read and rEaD, play on the computer (currently Zoo World on facebook is my obsession), decorate my house and make it as beautiful inside and out as I possibly can with hardly any money and figure out how to live without hardly any money.
If I have time after all that I spend it with my family. lol (being silly and ironic here). My 6 year old takes up a good portion of my time and my children are my life but my older two are grown. My 23 year old is going to have a baby in May, though, and I am exited about that!
Afaf, I do think you should give Twain another chance but I can understand someone out of the United States not liking him because his work is very coloquial (wow I spelled it right). Spelling is a rote skill that I am not the best at.
Flags, I would have thought you weren't old enough to be a teacher because you come accross as very immature but I am going to be charitable and say that I bet your students, for the most part, like you, probably because you are easy and maybe because you do what some of the coaches in my school did and spend most of the period sometimes talking about last night's game. Then again, I could be all wrong.
War and Peace is the best book ever written; Does anyone want to disagree with me? ;)
Mar 8, 2010
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#154
AfafBouardi wrote:
Western nations
My list:
1. Russia - Dostoevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy; Chekov
2. England
3. Germany and France.
Actually this is too difficult.
Oh, hell, Germany! I forgot about that one. That's gotta' make the list.
Least favorite books: Pride and Prejucdice, Tom Jones, 20,000 leagues under the sea, Madam Bovary.
Over my head: Faust, Milton and Dostoevsky's The Idiot
Favorite authors: Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, except for The Idiot
I was thinking of doing a hurt/heal of the best Chess.com Forum Feuds. Guess which Afaf and which flagliker would certainly be on the list?
Mar 8, 2010
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#157
goldendog wrote:
I was thinking of doing a hurt/heal of the best Chess.com Forum Feuds. Guess which Afaf and which flagliker would certainly be on the list?
It would likely get locked or deleted anyway. All of your sparring partners have left the ring, which is sad.
Afaf, you're so right about Atwood. I guess I just want to lay claim to her. Same with Munro, then. She's also Canadian, I believe. That may knock my argument down some, eh? Maybe Pete Dexter can save me.
Back to Atwood, whether she's Canadian or not, I can't wrap my head around your criticism of her. I can dig some Vonnegut, but to think that he is a better writer than Atwood in any sense is a pretty far out claim. Vonnegut's plots are apt but a little cutesy. As a sentence writer, I consider him ok. Atwood is a bit darker, but there's also more humanity in all of her characters. On the sentence level, she take a line like, "We have learned to see the world in gasps." and couch in such a way that the metaphor seems completely natural and void of self-conscious artistry.
ilikeflags, I'm a big fan of O'Connor myself. I'm teaching A Good Man is Hard to Find here shortly.
eeekkkk, rednblack, that's a crazy story.
I also find it a little curious that you like Vonnegut but not Twain.
Agreed. I see a lot of parallels between the two.