rednblack wrote:
Afaf, you're so right about Atwood. I guess I just want to lay claim to her.
What is Margaret Atwood doing in a conversation about literature ?
Btw they said that in Canada her shopping list would become a bestseller.
what else do you do besides playing chess?
Sort:
yeah. the fun one is going to be "A Temple of the Holy Ghost" when I get to explain hermaphrodites to a bunch of 15 year-olds.
I have not read that one. I am certified to teach middle school language arts but I wish someone would have helped me understand that middle school teachers teach the mechanics of language, for the most part. I should have gotten certified to teach literature. However, I think after you do anything over and over again it gets dull and boring so I can certainly see why people get tired of Romeo and Juliet.
I believe one may safely assume that AfafBouardi and Ilikeflags spend most of their non-chessplaying time answering each other's forum posts (besides the already mentioned eating and sleeping).
Flags, I am going to tell on you, you meanie!
DPenn wrote:
Flags, I am going to tell on you, you meanie!
What would Denisov do?
AfafBouardi wrote:
Nobody is talking about who they don't like...who don't you like reading?
In truth I never much liked reading James Fenimore Cooper. Whatever I was enjoying Twain struck a match to in his "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses."
Women!
I tried to like The Last of the Mohicans, goldendog but I could only take so much description of the material world...I think that is a common denominator for me. Authors that spend too much time describing the world instead of the characters annoy me. It was the same with Conrad and Heart of Darkness.
Oh...The Mysteries of Udolpho by Radcliffe. A Gothic novel wherein nothing ever really happens, yet for the time (1800) was very pulse thumping for the fairer sex.
I suppose the fault lies in me.
Re Tolkien: I don't recall being oppressed by any lengthy descriptions in LOTR but it has been quite awhile since I read the trilogy. Reading him, things seemed to find their places quite naturally, in his long and simple sentences, with easy and beautiful flourishes.
Very Anglo-Saxon vocabulary too, in contrast, as I think back here to whether Nabokov could be called an American author. I remember reading Lolita and being quite hammered over the head with the preponderance of Latin cognates in his sentences. An odd style it seemed to me, irritating in a way, and at the same time very well-crafted.
Mar 8, 2010
0
#174
Twain is one of my favorites-- love the cadence of his writing, and his smart-aleck view of the world and people. Probably was a fun guy to have a few beers with.
Along the same lines, I enjoy Jerome K. Jerome, who was very similar to Twain in writing style and outlook, and wrote at the the same time (lived 1859-1927), but from the other side of the pond-- Jerome was English. Among other things, Jerome wrote Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) which was the book on which Connie Willis based (or borrowed from) her own novel To Say Nothing of the Dog.
--Cystem 
I was very amused by Three Men in a Boat. Just a lark of a book. I still remember how they were all stymied in the opening of that can, and how its crease as they left defeated looked like a smile. Heh.
Anyone like sci-fi? Non-stop by Aldiss, Hyperion by Simmons, The Invincible by Lem, The Andromeda Strain by Crichton are some of my favorites.
I love Lem, and I thought The Invincible was interesting enough (Big Phallus was my take). Hard to judge style as it comes as a translation.
Le Guin is a favorite of mine (hometown girl too). People dismiss the genres of SF and Fantasy but there is huge talent there.
How about the Hard-boiled private eye writers?
Hammett (Maltese Falcon) and Chandler (Farewell my Lovely and others).
Crazychessplaya wrote:
Anyone like sci-fi? Non-stop by Aldiss, Hyperion by Simmons, The Invincible by Lem, The Andromeda Strain by Crichton are some of my favorites.
Oh yeah. Only thing by Lem I've ever read though was a short story, Odd Digit, I think it was called, really good.
I'm a big Asimov fan, anybody who calls me Gentle Reader is ok by me :)
nobody does hard-boiled like James Crumley or John Cheever. (Though I think Cheever's only novel of that genre was The Falconer. Does anybody else know one?)
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?
only characters to which you can relate? how horribly uncharming and rigid of you--but again, not surprising.
I don't think I have to tell you what's even more uncharming. starts with an i and ends with flags.
In my general defense, I think there must be something a person can relate to in a story...otherwise there is very little the writer can say that bounces off of you or makes you reflect on the analysis or experience. How long can you care about events happening in a book if you are entirely detached from the events and characters?
Junky is a great book because Burroughs finds a way to make you relate to a heroin addicted pederast. If you can't relate, it's just not that interesting. Lolita...well, this is just a whole different league. Relating to Humbert Humbert doesn't even begin to touch upon brilliance of the writing.
I guess if you write a book about incestuous hillbillies and the trouble they have farming the land as an allegory for whatever...I might have a bit of trouble enjoying the ride.