Dickey has described his backup job, had baseball not worked out, as English professor. And like all other fellow English majors, I was extremely impressed that Dickey had managed to figure out both a job and, incredibly, a backup job. This is relatively new territory for us, though managing to find steady work by age 35 after wandering for a decade and a half sounds about right.

I chuckled here.

Pitchers always seem to get the smart and interesting tag: Mussina, Pat Jordan, Tom Seaver, Quisenberry, Bouton. There are probably more.

Ohlendorf, Miguel Batista too.

Hayhurst, Bannister. Breslow and Herrmann too, if you want to go a bit more obscure.

Maybe you should get Dickey to post here, Howard. Seems like he'd might be interested in such a forum.

One strange parts of the Dickey story is that he wanted to play for Vanderbilt but was denied entry by the admissions office which was feeling its oats (and had recently denied entry to basketball superstar and fellow Nashvillian Ron Mercer.) Instead Dickey went to UT and dominated the Dores.

How just is he? Why are pitchers not as just as he is?

Nothing against Dan Brown, whose books many of you may own (based on sales figures, 3-4 copies of each).

Why do I doubt his sincerity, when he says this?

Dickey is also out-hitting Brandon Wood this season. He's a machine.

Ron darling's a pretty interesting guy to listen to. Keep meaning to pick up his book, any read it?

Fernando Perez thinks Dickey is a piker.

(Mostly joking, big fan of both.)

Ron darling's a pretty interesting guy to listen to. Keep meaning to pick up his book, any read it?

I've read his book. I was a little disapointed, it has some very strong sections, but it also verges into cliche a lot more than I was antcipating. I don't know if that's Darling, or if it was badly ghosted or what, but Darling-as-author isn't as insightful as Darling-as-color-guy

“The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart” and debut fiction by literary heartthrob Junot Diaz.

Wow does that sound like an awful book!

Has there ever been an annoying knuckleballer?

[12] That's two separate books. I don't intend to read "Rag" but Junot Diaz is a pretty cool guy.

“The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart” and debut fiction by literary heartthrob Junot Diaz.

Wow does that sound like an awful book!

I was thinking the same thing. You even left out the worst part "poetry anthology". I better watch what I say though, I'm pretty sure Bob Dernier Cri still thinks I'm a philistine from the last thread that turned into a literary discussion, where I voiced my extreme distaste for William Faulkner.

I better watch what I say though, I'm pretty sure Bob Dernier Cri still thinks I'm a philistine from the last thread that turned into a literary discussion, where I voiced my extreme distaste for William Faulkner.

No, you were right about that. Faulkner can make for an extremely unpleasant read.

I consider F. Scott Fitzgerald an unpleasant read. I like Faulkner just fine.

As long as we're talking books, I would like to recommend Pynchon's collection of four early short stories, Slow Learner

How just is he? Why are pitchers not as just as he is?

It's the knuckleball, the justest of all pitches. Do you think guys who throw sliders, curveballs or a split-fingered fastball could be just?

As long as we have now combined books and pitchers ... has anyone read Dirk Hayhurt's "Bullpen Gospels?"

As long as we have now combined books and pitchers ... has anyone read Dirk Hayhurt's "Bullpen Gospels?"

Yes. It was definitely enjoyable, filled with good stories, and structured in a way that allowed it to be read in five or ten minute chunks. I would guess that a significant percentage of those who have read it, read it while on the toilet.

I don't intend to read "Rag" but Junot Diaz is a pretty cool guy.

I was disappointed by Oscar Wao. Not sorry I read it or anything, but I couldn't stop thinking that the Oscar character wasn't much more than a Latinized Ignatius J. Reilly and it distracted me.

Do you think guys who throw sliders, curveballs or a split-fingered fastball could be just?

Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic.

Rag and Bone Shop is meh. Robert Bly futzing around, with some great stuff thrown in and some absolute New Agey repressed male junk. But one could do worse. If by debut fiction of Junot Diaz, they mean Drown, that's a terrific book, a great collection of short stories.

Short stories is the hardest type of writing for me to get into. I dig poetry or density, and for whatever reason, I rarely get that from short stories. Lots of exceptions of course, and it's probably more of my bias.

I have read two Dan Brown books, Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol. They are both kind of amazing. The writing is atrocious. The plotting is insane. They are just full of ridiculous nonsense and terrible cliches. And yet somehow I feverishly plowed through each in about a day. A Dan Brown book is a bible of the ways that a writer can ruin every virtue of literature in the pursuit of tension and page-turningness. The only emotions they inspired in me were fleeting curiosity followed by self-loathing and shame.

Short stories is the hardest type of writing for me to get into.

It must be the hardest thing to write. So many shorts stories rely on little surprise endings or cute little tricks. And it's tough to tell a good story that fast. I feel like most of the stories I read that don't settle for trickery are shooting for poignancy, which is difficult to achieve.

I can understand what Megdal is getting at, when seeing what qualifies as a baseball player bookworm. And I'm always curious about what folks read or like to read, but it rarely says as much about the person as one would think.

Then again, few people I know share my reading habits. And if they do, they are a lot more hard core about literature than me.

#20 ... Thanks. I really like his story - pitcher no one thought would make it who somehow gets to the show - and was hoping it translated to a good book. I hope he is able to recover from this Spring's surgery.

Little known book of short stories: Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others Highly recommended.

I agree with your premise, that its hard to get into them. I like to keep some around though, because sometimes I only want to invest in something that can be finished in a sitting.

What, a short story thread? I love short stories. I make it a point every other week or so to hit the Strand an pick up collections by writers I've never heard of. Ironically, I didn't enjoy Drown my Junot Diaz. Right now I'm re-reading John McGahern's collected stories which is incredible, but also hard because his vision of humanity is so bleak that it feel true and it's hard to face up to. For my money, the first half of Graham Greene's collected stories are as good as it gets.

I have read two Dan Brown books, Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol. They are both kind of amazing. The writing is atrocious. The plotting is insane. They are just full of ridiculous nonsense and terrible cliches. And yet somehow I feverishly plowed through each in about a day. A Dan Brown book is a bible of the ways that a writer can ruin every virtue of literature in the pursuit of tension and page-turningness. The only emotions they inspired in me were fleeting curiosity followed by self-loathing and shame.

That's a pretty good summary though far too kind. If you had read Angels and Demons you could have added the part about how he plagiarized (not general ideas but complete scenes) from himself but his readers were too too lost in the depths of his writing to notice. Dan Brown only makes sense as satire. It is a textbook example of what any schmuck would do if they sat down to write a story. Characters without even a single dimension that we learn about through labels (the Harvard Professor is smart and knows stuff. How do we know this because he's a Harvard Professor who's smart and knows stuff). Dialogue so wooden it makes you gag (go find the scence where he talks about the way his students talk). Contrived plot twists that make you laugh (two thousand year old mystery and code solved by reading it backwards in a mirror). It is so bad in such an ordinary way that it turns onto itself and becomes something inexplicable that can only be read to be believed.

It's one thing to be hack. Dan Brown only wishes he was a hack. He makes James Patterson look like an auteur.

The Ted Chiang has been out of print for a little while, but it's being re-released in October. He and Kelly Link are the best story writers in speculative fiction today.

I think Oscar Wao is better than Confederacy of Dunces.

Any other Don Barthelme fans out there?

Ted Chiang is a fantastic writer. I wish he was more prolific.

That's a pretty good summary though far too kind. If you had read Angels and Demons you could have added the part about how he plagiarized (not general ideas but complete scenes) from himself but his readers were too too lost in the depths of his writing to notice. Dan Brown only makes sense as satire. It is a textbook example of what any schmuck would do if they sat down to write a story. Characters without even a single dimension that we learn about through labels (the Harvard Professor is smart and knows stuff. How do we know this because he's a Harvard Professor who's smart and knows stuff). Dialogue so wooden it makes you gag (go find the scence where he talks about the way his students talk). Contrived plot twists that make you laugh (two thousand year old mystery and code solved by reading it backwards in a mirror). It is so bad in such an ordinary way that it turns onto itself and becomes something inexplicable that can only be read to be believed.

You could also mention that the entire plot of the DaVinci Code is basically a fictionalized version of Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

Any other Don Barthelme fans out there?

Of course!

I really enjoyed Norman Rush's short story collection, Whites.

In a literature class I was subjected to Somerset Maugham's short stories which I really thought were awful. I revisited Maugham a few years later and again thought he was awful. It was only years after that that I learned that Maugham was, in his own time, considered to be an inferior writer. Why don't they tell us this stuff in class? But at least I felt that my good taste was vindicated.

If we're going to to talk short stories, I think John Cheever's name needs to be brought up. One of my favorites.

A sleeper, and somewhat dated, collection is Mark Costello, The Murphy Stories.

If you haven't read Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son, that's also terrific, as is Rick Bass' first collection. For a totally different style, there's a reason people think Alice Munro is a master.

A friend of mine thinks Somerset Maugham is the best, mostly going off his novels, Human Bondage, River's Edge, and so forth. Wrong? Since I never was inclined to his writing, I figure he was a little too average/unexciting. I admit since I have never read, I could be wrong too.

Dan Brown only makes sense as satire. It is a textbook example of what any schmuck would do if they sat down to write a story.

Well, I have to disagree with this. I have abandoned many books midstream before, some of which were "classics" or by great authors, and the fact that I finished these two is a credit to Brown in some way. I would not finish a book written by the average schmuck.

Brown has two skills. The first is his ability to make you turn the pages. The second is to construct these Indiana Jones religious-secret puzzle-solving mysteries. He is not a genius at either of these things, he's maybe a B+. And he is outrageously bad at every other literary ability that exists.

But like I said above, the fascinating thing about his writing is the extent to which he prioritizes tension, at the direct, immediate and obvious expense of everything else. When you read the book you can just see where he makes the decision to not give a #### about the plot, common sense, the motivations of his characters or plausibility and go straight for the tension-cliffhanger-tickingtimebomb-gutpunch. It happens in almost every chapter.

Any other Don Barthelme fans out there?

That guy is one of the very few non-detective fiction writers I can read without thinking "Bo-ring". Such playfulness. Daniil Kharms reminds me of him (try the collection "Today I Wrote Nothing").

I'm just not a fiction type reader. It takes a craftsman on the level of Dostoevsky or Fitzgerald to make me actually enjoy reading a description of the weather or a description of one fictional person's opinion of another fictional person. I've borrowed my dad's books by Jonathan Franzen, Colson Whitehead, T.C. Boyle, Gary Steingart, other recent novelists, and usually give it up thinking "Why am I reading this? The plot isn't carrying me along and the characters are all irritating."

I don't know. I think you are giving him too much credit. That said, I have often thought that a class (or reading group, whatever) on bad writing would be a lot of fun. Instead of talking about how good something is, how insightful, how lyrical, etc. you would catalogue the many and specific ways in which something was bad. We usually don't spend that kind of effort on things that we don't like. However if you went to the bother I bet you'd come up with some insightful perspectives on bad writing that would ultimately be useful in coming to appreciate good writing.

Kelly Link is my hero.

It must be the hardest thing to write. So many shorts stories rely on little surprise endings or cute little tricks. And it's tough to tell a good story that fast. I feel like most of the stories I read that don't settle for trickery are shooting for poignancy, which is difficult to achieve.

I know what you mean, but I think that it isn't true that short stories are harder to write than novels. (Poetry is an entirely different beast.) The difference in effort and time is enormous, and there are other, less brute force, reasons that novels are a lot harder. Every MFA graduate has at least one decent short story under his or her belt; I doubt that 5% ever produce a decent novel. But there is almost no market for short stories, so the vast majority of that slightly above-average work simply disappears into oblivion. I read slush for a literary magazine, and over the 8 years I've been doing it I've probably sent rejection slips to 300-400 authors who wrote a pretty good short story. It's depressing if you let yourself think about it.

That said, I have often thought that a class (or reading group, whatever) on bad writing would be a lot of fun.

I was a member of a two-person book club that ranged both high (Faulkner) and low (L'Amour). The bad books were more fun to dissect. The best book we read was Cormac McCarthy's The Orchard Keeper, but our comments were more or less neutered to "I loved this part." "Me too." Possibly this was also the effect of it being a two-person club, in that there was no incentive to show off to the group how insightfully you perceived this metaphor or that foreshadowing.

I'm just not a fiction type reader. It takes a craftsman on the level of Dostoevsky or Fitzgerald to make me actually enjoy reading a description of the weather

Funny, I wouldn't think of either writer as a really superior "craftsman," if you mean a writer whose sentences are lyrical and impressive on a sentence-by-sentence basis.

I'm pretty sure Bob Dernier Cri still thinks I'm a philistine from the last thread that turned into a literary discussion, where I voiced my extreme distaste for William Faulkner

I had forgotten about that, or maybe I'd recalled it was Ryan Jones who hated Faulkner. Now I find out it's both of you :)

Along the lines of PreservedFish's and others' remarks, while I definitely would rather read Faulkner or Flaubert or Fitzgerald than almost anything except a great detective novel, sometimes overwhelmingly great literature isn't that amenable to criticism. I was just rereading (for class) one of the better essays I think I've written about books. It's on RL Stine's Goosebumps series. Sometimes pulp just gives a lot more interesting purchase to think about language and culture.

For my money, the first half of Graham Greene's collected stories are as good as it gets.

Graham Greene is great.

He also does a good job of demonstrating that popular fiction isn't necessarily crap fiction.

Short stories that I remember reading and liking, Borges, Salinger and Joyce. I'm going to get to Pychon's Slow Reader eventually, cuz I love Pychon. I do want to see what Kelly Link is putting out too.

Sort of OT, but the Mets are now saying Mejia will start a few games in September. This could be huge; he has been pretty good in the minors since he got back from injury.

On-topic: I like Borges a lot. Surprised Phillip K. Dick hasn't come up yet.

VI know what you mean, but I think that it isn't true that short stories are harde than novels. (Poetry is an entirely different beast.) The difference in effort and enormous, and there are other, less brute force, reasons that novels are a lot h Every MFA graduate has at least one decent short story under his or her belt; I that 5% ever produce a decent novel. But there is almost no market for short I read slush for a literary magazine, and over the 8 years I've been doing it I've sent rejection slips to 300-400 authors who wrote a pretty good short story. It' depressing if you let yourself think about it.

As someone who is currently futzing around with a few separate short ideas, this is depressing as hell. Luckily, I am not counting on that to pay my bills.

In a literature class I was subjected to Somerset Maugham's short stories which I really thought were awful. I revisited Maugham a few years later and again thought he was awful. It was only years after that that I learned that Maugham was, in his own time, considered to be an inferior writer. Why don't they tell us this stuff in class? But at least I felt that my good taste was vindicated.

Read Of Human Bondage recently. So its fresh in my mind how incredibly dull it was. If it werent for a couple of long plane rides w/ nothing else to read, I would have tossed it.

It amazes me that such things can survive a century.

Luckily, I am not counting on that to pay my bills.

I should also note that authors we publish get paid $0. The staff gets a pitcher of beer and some cheese fries once every two months, so that's pretty nice.

Surprised Phillip K. Dick hasn't come up yet.

Dick's short stories are a little bit unfocused. They're all ambience/mood. When they're good, they are tight and focused, but they all feel like they need more space to breathe. My girlfriend summarized it like this: "His short stories remind me of taking care of my schizophrenic brother, except in the short stories, the crazy person is right."

That works for one piece, but for 30 it's a bit wearing.

I should also note that authors we publish get paid $0. The staff gets a pitcher of beer and some cheese fries once every two months, so that's pretty nice.

I used to edit a web fiction magazine. It was fun for a while but constantly writing rejection letters wore me out after a while. The most fun I had was editing down one author's rambling series of vignettes--about 100 pages worth--into a tight 20 page story that made sense but still kept the ethereal weirdness that attracted me to the 100 pages to begin with. The worst part was being hounded by writers who thought because I didn't tell them to commit suicide it meant I wanted to become their BFF and dedicate my life to editing their work.

Read Of Human Bondage recently. So its fresh in my mind how incredibly dull it was. If it werent for a couple of long plane rides w/ nothing else to read, I would have tossed it.

The thing is, and without reading Maugham/Human Bondage, I love Proust. I'm thinking it covers some similar grounds of, say, romantic obsession, but I just assume Proust has more there than Human Bondage. But like I said, I could just be swayed by Proust rep as being great, and Maugham as being less than great.

I'm just not a fiction type reader. It takes a craftsman on the level of Dostoevsky or Fitzgerald to make me actually enjoy reading a description of the weather

Funny, I wouldn't think of either writer as a really superior "craftsman," if you mean a writer whose sentences are lyrical and impressive on a sentence-by-sentence basis.

I guess even if Dostoevsky was a craftsperson, and I agree with Preserved that he didn't seem to be really that type of writer, it's harder to evaluate sentence by sentence craft with translations.

it's harder to evaluate sentence by sentence craft with translations.

Of course. There is, in fact, a passage in A Moveable Feast where Hemingway discusses this exact topic. And I found it on Googlebooks:

"I've been wondering about Dostoevsky," I said. "How can a man write so badly, so unbelievably badly, and make you feel so deeply?"

"It can't be the translation," Evan said. "She makes the Tolstoi comes out well written."

The best thing I've read in a while was Howard Megdal's piece on Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey.

But like I said above, the fascinating thing about his writing is the extent to which he prioritizes tension, at the direct, immediate and obvious expense of everything else. When you read the book you can just see where he makes the decision to not give a #### about the plot, common sense, the motivations of his characters or plausibility and go straight for the tension-cliffhanger-tickingtimebomb-gutpunch. It happens in almost every chapter.

Sounds like Lost. Cliffhanger at every commercial break.

Hey, hey, hey...

When you read the book you can just see where he makes the decision to not give a #### about the plot, common sense, the motivations of his characters or plausibility and go straight for the tension-cliffhanger-tickingtimebomb-gutpunch. It happens in almost every chapter.

The thing that annoyed me the most was that many of his cliffhangers are completely artificial. Like he'll say, "Langdon read the note and could not believe what he saw!". And then he doesn't tell the reader what Langdon saw. And then, a full chapter later, he'll say "The first two lines were xxx and yyy, but Langdon couldn't see how that fit with the last two lines". And then he doesn't say what the last two lines are until 25 pages later. In other words, he doesn't set up suspense, he creates it by just stopping the story. I found it very annoying. If we're following along with the character, we should know what they know.

#61 = Factual

The thing that annoyed me the most was that many of his cliffhangers are completely artificial.

Is there a literary/artistic/critical term for that? What you describe is so prevalent, or prevalent in stuff I don't like that it would be nice to have an easy word/term/phrase to say that.

The thing that annoyed me the most was that many of his cliffhangers are completely artificial. Like he'll say, "Langdon read the note and could not believe what he saw!". And then he doesn't tell the reader what Langdon saw. And then, a full chapter later, he'll say "The first two lines were xxx and yyy, but Langdon couldn't see how that fit with the last two lines". And then he doesn't say what the last two lines are until 25 pages later. In other words, he doesn't set up suspense, he creates it by just stopping the story. I found it very annoying. If we're following along with the character, we should know what they know.

This. Even worse is when the artificial suspense is telling you about something that isn't even happening in real time, but is in the character's memory. "Sophie couldn't bear to think about that time when she was eight, and the shocking things she saw." But then we don't return to the memory for another 25 pages, and we still don't get the payoff even then. This goes on for like half the book.

And yet I still plowed through it in about a day, hating myself the whole way through. PreservedFish's description of reading Dan Brown as "self-loathing and shame" is spot-on.

The thing that annoyed me the most was that many of his cliffhangers are completely artificial.

Is there a literary/artistic/critical term for that?

Profit.

Is there a literary/artistic/critical term for that? What you describe is so prevalent, or prevalent in stuff I don't like that it would be nice to have an easy word/term/phrase to say that.

Commercial fiction.

Coke to 65

Even worse is when the artificial suspense is telling you about something that isn't even happening in real time, but is in the character's memory. "Sophie couldn't bear to think about that time when she was eight, and the shocking things she saw." But then we don't return to the memory for another 25 pages, and we still don't get the payoff even then. This goes on for like half the book.

Yes, I should have mentioned that. One or two paragraphs of the flashback each chapter for most of the book.

I don't mind a novel where some character whispers something to another and then later we find out what secret plan was set in motion. But Dan Brown just keeps it going over and over again. "The policeman showed him the picture and he was horrified." "He kept going over the picture and just couldn't imagine why the professor was like that." Um... tell us what was in the picture, then we can follow along with the character and we can ALSO wonder why the professor was like that.

Yeah, The Da Vinci Code (the only book by Brown I've read) is very awful, very enjoyable, and you wouldn't reread it unless it were the last book on Earth. It's what they call "review-proof": awful and knows it, as others have said.

+1 for D. Barthelme (his brother isn't bad either).

Megdal: Dickey shows that he is more just than a pitcher

Dickey: I am also a belly-itcher

So, is anyone going to admit to enjoying Brown as anything but a guilty pleasure (not exactly what I mean but it'll do)? I know a fair number of people who like / rave about his stuff unapologetically.

Not to undercut my own comment, but I read a bit of Da Vinci at my wife's insistence* - it was horrible, it made me angry, a reaction I hadn't had to a book in a very, very long time. And I'll read aaaaanything, if not presented with other options.

* Note: her take was more like what I see upthread.

Borges is my favorite short story writer ever. Of course, I'm an absolute sap for magical realism.

As long as we're talking books, I would like to recommend Pynchon's collection of four early short stories, Slow Learner

I have that as next on my list after I finish "Inherent Vice" (which so far I'm enjoying). I haven't tackled V or Gravity's Rainbow yet, though I did enjoy Mason & Dixon quite a bit.

I suppose the fact that I also like Richard Ford would generate some scorn 'round these parts; BTF'ers don't seem--in the main--like folks who'd like him.

I don't read very many short stories, because Ayn Rand didn't write very many short stories.

I suppose the fact that I also like Richard Ford would generate some scorn 'round these parts; BTF'ers don't seem--in the main--like folks who'd like him.

He's awesome! Rock Springs is a terrific collection, not Women without Men, though.

I thought Mason and Dixon was the worst book I have ever read, like a homeless man with leprosy's Gravity's Rainbow (which I thought was excellent). Mason and Dixon has (IMO) all the density of Gravity's Rainbow (on top of being written in 17th (?) century English, which adds a degree of difficulty) without any of the payoff -- I just thought it was poorly written with unimaginative characters and didn't really suck me in at all. Obviously the whole thing is subjective, but I thought GR was negative a hundred times better.

It must be the hardest thing to write

I think book-length stuff is harder to write; at least for me. I've been able to get up to a ten thousand words once when I wrote about Billy Southworth, but have no idea how to expand that fivefold. Of course, I'm talking about non-fiction which may be different.

I liked Mason & Dixon - my first and only Pynchon experience to date. It was a fun romp more than anything, imo. Getting baked with George Washington? Hellz ya.

Mason & Dixon was pretty sad melancholy stuff, historical stuff that seem pretty relevant to today, and lots of internal personal issues going on. Plus the usual jokes and such.

Lassus:

I would like to recommend Pynchon's collection of four early short stories, Slow Learner

Heartily seconded. This was my intro to Pynchon.

I read "Entropy" in an anthology and was completely smitten, so I had to jump right into Gravity's Rainbow. It's hard to imagine that there are Pynchon readers who haven't read that; it's still his quintessential book. I usually tell people to start with Lot49, which feels to me like an outtake from GR. It's a bite-sized intro to his work that also shows off his entire shtick--if you like it, read the rest, and if you hate it, don't bother with anything else.

Since this is a semi-anonymous forum, I can admit that I never did manage to finish Against the Day. It's far from awful, but it wasn't doing anything that his other books hadn't done better, and I just didn't have time in my life at that point for a thousand-plus pages.

I'm just not a fiction type reader. It takes a craftsman on the level of Dostoevsky or Fitzgerald to make me actually enjoy reading a description of the weather

Funny, I wouldn't think of either writer as a really superior "craftsman," if you mean a writer whose sentences are lyrical and impressive on a sentence-by-sentence basis.

Wait, what? Dostoevsky no, but that description is pretty much all Fitzgerald is.

Wait, what? Dostoevsky no, but that description is pretty much all Fitzgerald is.

Maybe I'm wrong. It's been years.

I have that as next on my list after I finish "Inherent Vice" (which so far I'm enjoying). I haven't tackled V or Gravity's Rainbow yet, though I did enjoy Mason & Dixon quite a bit.

I consider Against the Day to be a complete masterpiece. Not sure how widely that opinion is shared (not by Teddy, I see now!), but I would heartily endorse it. It may be better for someone who has some Pynchon experience already? Not sure. I haven't heard a lot of raves for Inherent Vice so far.


Heartily seconded. This was my intro to Pynchon.

Funny, it definitely wasn't for me, it was post-CryingLot49, Mason & Dixon, and Against the Day. I felt it really opened up some things for me to where his writing came from.


Going back to short stories, I don't like them that much. I DO like novellas, however, which will give me the opportunity to recommend Michael Faber's The Courage Consort. Now, full disclosure, the title tale is about a vocal ensemble, but that should actually make it more likely to make my judgment of it accurate, as my eye is pretty critical of such things that much in my wheelhouse.

I like books with robots and exploding spaceships.

Have you been able to read more Banks?

And as long as I'm recommending things, Alastair Reynolds has more exploding spaceships than Atlanta has fans at the games. Well-written, too.

Reading "Player of Games" now. Have "Transition" in queue. Probably going to read "Parasites Like Us" (Adam Johnson) between the two.

Bob Dernier Cri still thinks I'm a philistine from the last thread that turned into a literary discussion, where I voiced my extreme distaste for William Faulkner.

Geez, where was I? Most of the time Faulkner is very nearly unreadable -- just a horrible writer in general.

Oh goody, the every other year Pynchon lovefest! I love GR, think it's one of the greatest books ever written yet see where people hate it because it kind of peters out at the end. It must've been a ##### and a half to write, just thinking about how to keep all the plots and subplots working makes my head spin.

I'll repeat advice I've given here before for those trying GR for the first time or those who've gotten discouraged after about 100 pages. Don't sweat it. Read it through and you'll get a much better sense of how different elements that appear to have nothing to do with each other at the start end up fitting together (or not, as some seem to do so only awkwardly). There a GR Companion that I've heard is a big help to a first timer, at least to understanding some of the incredibly arcane references that he throws in that end up giving some meaning to the story. Remember that the book's not a disentanglement from, but a progressive knotting into and you'll be fine. Relatively.

I've never gotten more than 100 pages into M&D, and his other post-GR books remain on my shelves. I should delve into them but am only recently coming out of my non-fiction only blurst that's been about 20 years long.

Glad to see Rush mentioned. I think Mating is a great book and Mug thinks Mortals is even better. That's another one on my shelf.

I like Richard Ford. I like Tobias Wolff. I like Ann Beattie. I like the little I've read by Sherman Alexie. I like Raymond Carver. I like Boyle. I like DeLillo up through Libra, although I thought White Noise was the weakest of his early books; I prefer The Names and Great Jones Street. I saw his play Valparaiso done by the Steppenwolf Theater. It sucked ass.

I love Tim O'Brien. I do not like John Updike in the slightest. I enjoy Hemingway, not so Faulkner. Please do not make me read Fitzgerald again. Jesus' Son I've read about 7/8 of, and I'm not sure that I like it very much. He's certainly lyrical and his imagery can be breath-taking but his characterizations are pretty damned weak and I include the protagonist.

The latest knock-my-socks off writer is the late DFW. I've only read Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing That I'll Never Do Again, but Infinite Jest is my next book to read.

I'm in the midst of Maus, nearing the end of the second volume. I started it on Monday night, and I'm almost done. I'm not a graphic novel guy, but I've read plenty of works on the Holocaust. It's tremendous, and one of those "I can't believe I waited 20 years to take other peoples' advice" things.

This would be old Primer if I now spent the same number of words on music, but it ain't and so I won't.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again might be the funniest non-fiction piece I've ever read. Anytime someone asks me "So what's David Foster Wallace's writing like?" I point them to that piece as the entry point. His description of the toilet in his cabin might be the funniest passage of any writing I've ever read.

Speaking of the link between music and books, I'll definitely be reading this.

I hate to say this, but I always meant to read Infinite Jest as I really really like epics, and have a great love for the "footnote-style" novel since I read Pale Fire in college. It was on my "absolutely, at some point" list.

But after Wallace committed suicide, it was like a switch turned off. I basically don't care now. Which is kind of fascinating in a meta-way, but I guess I'm wondering if I'm completely and utterly alone here. Do things like suicide color others' appreciation for art or literature?

Reading "Player of Games" now.

That's my favorite of the Culture books I've read. It was the first one I read, and since then, I've been chasing the dragon.

Aw, man, I'm surrounded by Philistines :)

But after Wallace committed suicide, it was like a switch turned off. I basically don't care now. Which is kind of fascinating in a meta-way, but I guess I'm wondering if I'm completely and utterly alone here. Do things like suicide color others' appreciation for art or literature?

I totally agree. The very notion of suicide makes me nauseous. The only thing that makes me more sick are serial killers. I would think of nothing else while reading him and it would ruin it.

Aw, man, I'm surrounded by Philistines :)

Don't you live in Texas? I figured you would be used to it by now.

EDIT: And since short stories were being discussed earlier, I think this link is relevant.

But after Wallace committed suicide, it was like a switch turned off. I basically don't care now. Which is kind of fascinating in a meta-way, but I guess I'm wondering if I'm completely and utterly alone here. Do things like suicide color others' appreciation for art or literature?
Yes. Among other things, it changed how I read...

Infinite Jest, which I finished about two weeks ago, having bought it last year after Consider... and A Supposedly Fun Thing blew me away. I also glanced at the web site Infinite Summer from time to time, as a reader's guide. The first 200, 250 pages are, from time to time, a bit of a slog*, but there are long swaths of brilliance there and certainly in the sections that follow. I'm not an 'epic' guy and might have been happier had it run 100-400 less pages in length (though I'd certainly defend its length/excess).

I'm glad I read it - it was very good - but I didn't find it life changing as some claim to.


* Mainly a matter of DFW setting up what the book was to be about + my getting used to how I was going to read it. Only one passage was an out-and-out flop, I think (Clenette).

Surprise, I totally disagree.

I know nothing first hand of DFW's life, when by all rights I ought to have given that I had the opportunity. All I know is what I've read by and about him. It seems that he had some mental health issues that were quite serious at some point. My guess is that his demons got to him.

One of the greatest works regarding the Holocaust that I've read is This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen. The author is a suicide. Primo Levi. Socrates. Hemingway. Plath. Woolf.

While the life led by the artist colors some of how I interpret the work, it's not the only prism to see it through. I can't see throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

94/Butler: Oh Good Lord. I'd been meaning to read that, knowing of its existence but nothing about its content. Low and behold indeed.

***

While the life led by the artist colors some of how I interpret the work, it's not the only prism to see it through. I can't see throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Me too. It's hard not think about it with IJ, given that the importance of suicide to the plot (and, by extension, how we choose to live) while also aware that DFW chose to end his own life (short version: went off medication, went downhill quickly) ... but his choice doesn't invalidate what came before, only frame it.

I totally agree. The very notion of suicide makes me nauseous. The only thing that makes me more sick are serial killers. I would think of nothing else while reading him and it would ruin it.

Interesting. If I'm reading fiction, I generally don't care one bit about an author's personality or life circumstances. I'm very good at distancing myself from everything but the words themselves.

Me too. It's hard not think about it with IJ, given that the importance of suicide to the plot (and, by extension, how we choose to live) while also aware that DFW chose to end his own life (short version: went off medication, went downhill quickly) ... but his choice doesn't invalidate what came before, only frame it.

The New Yorker's long version.

That's my favorite of the Culture books I've read. It was the first one I read, and since then, I've been chasing the dragon.

Funny. I still liked this one, but it's probably my least favorite. I've never liked the "a game so important it's reality" plot, though, so I may not be entirely subjective. Excession is incredible, Look to Windward, Inversions, Use of Weapons... You haven't found anything out of those you like?


One of the greatest works regarding the Holocaust that I've read is This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen. The author is a suicide. Primo Levi. Socrates. Hemingway. Plath. Woolf.

Well, that's interesting, let's go through them, personally. Levi's suicide seems borne out of events that sadly bear it up. Socrates I can't count there, he was kind of forced into it. Hemingway's an interesting case, I never really liked his work, so it's hard to apply it. Plath we made college jokes about - along with Millay - about suicide, so that clouds it. WOOLF, well, hmmm, there's the rub. I love her work, and have never once thought of her suicide as an issue.

I think with Wallace, sadly, because I'm living in the time, I mean, I am a contemporary, I have an actual lack of sympathy, which I fully acknowledge is awful and wrong, so please don't come down too hard. I know mental illness is awful, but man, when someone that successful and that admired in his field commits suicide, even if I don't condemn it, it is pretty difficult for me to just accept it with no effect.

This has been a terrific thread--if we're going to wander off-topic, it's so much more enjoyable to discuss literature than to get into political arguments, IMHO.

Anyhow, I wonder if any of you guys have any love for William Gaddis? I first read his novel J R in the late 1970s or very early 1980s, and a few years later, as the hostile takeover/poison pill culture emerged, I thought, "Wow, Gaddis already imagined that..." And it seems like every few years, I hear about some especially dysfunctional school board battle, or some speculative bubble, or some really bizarre Wagner production, and I think, "Oh yeah, J R, I need to read that again."