sus

Well-known member
I found this scene with his son, Tap, really beautiful:
Ten minutes later I got to my feet and walked out into the sun. The wind had died. I saw him standing fifty yards away in the steep field. He was absolutely still. I called to him, he didn't move. I walked that way, asking what was wrong, calling the words out across the immense silence around us, the drop-off into distances. He stood with his knees slightly flexed one foot forward, head down, his hands at belt level, held slightly out from his body. Arrested motion. I saw them right away, lustrous black bees, enormous, maybe a dozen, bobbing in the air around him.
I told him not to worry, they wouldn't sting. I moved in slowly, as much to reassure Tap as to keep the bees from getting riled. Burnished, black-enameled. They rose to eye level, dropped away, humming in the sun. I put my arm around him. I told him it was all right to move. I told him we would move slowly up toward the path. I felt him tense up even more. His way of saying no, of course. He was afraid even to speak. I told him it was safe, they wouldn't sting. They hadn't stung me and I'd walked right through them. All we had to do was move slowly up the slope. They were beautiful, I said. I'd never seen bees this size or color. They gleamed, I told him. They were grand, fantastic?
 

luka

Well-known member
method of drowning-a man (or lady if a strong enough lady can be found) holding his head under water until he is dead
 

sus

Well-known member
@version totally, e.g. this bit:

> He did mention that at Berkeley he was in a favorable position to study two of the esoteric wonders of our time, subjects only an adept might begin to penetrate. Pure mathematics and the state of California. There were no analogies from the real world that might help him explain either of these. He began to disappear beneath the table.
 

luka

Well-known member
its incompetent. as ckraner if you want a second opinion he will tell you it is very unlovely.
 

version

Well-known member
It's definitely one of his best. It's all the good bits from the others I've read in a single book: the domestic drama/comedy from White Noise, the CIA stuff from Libra, the philosophical stuff from Point Omega and Cosmopolis, the terrorism and emphasis on writing from Mao II. I really like the setting too. It's got a travel writing feel to it.
 
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version

Well-known member
I can't remember if it was @linebaugh or someone else, but I was talking to someone a while back and we decided DeLillo was basically a more 'literary' beach read.
 

version

Well-known member
" ... relentless crude obliterating sex, bang bang bang bang."
Don DeLillo, 'Running Dog'
Corpse would probably like this one. A late 70s thriller about various people attempting to track down a sex tape filmed in Hitler's bunker.
 

sus

Well-known member
Nico just finished Underworld, liked it quite a bit but thought the ending bombed. She was doing an audiobook on long drives to the airport.

I loved the prologue but couldn't get too far past the midsection, started to drag a bit. I hear Mao II is where I should go next: a classic, not too long, maybe I get to learn about China?
 

woops

is not like other people
Nico just finished Underworld, liked it quite a bit but thought the ending bombed. She was doing an audiobook on long drives to the airport.

I loved the prologue but couldn't get too far past the midsection, started to drag a bit. I hear Mao II is where I should go next: a classic, not too long, maybe I get to learn about China?
best 1s in my view are Americana and Ratner's Star,
 
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sus

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I hope there are China bits in Mao II, I mean come on, false advertising

The biggest literary beach reads of the 2010s were, undoubtedly, Ferrante and Rooney. Knausgaard is a best seller but (1) boys don't lounge poolside displaying symbolic capital while being entertained, (2) Norwegian alcoholism lit isn't exactly warm feels
 
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