Corpsey

bandz ahoy
That's the thing about this thread, isn't it — we don't all read the same stuff. American Psycho seems like a rare instance of a book which most people on here have read and have an opinion about.

It's daunting seeing how much stuff you're reading, Jenks! Your powers of concentration make mine shrivel up, and me claim it's just cold.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
happy to chat about any of them if anyone wants
well, I appreciate your post, and the added context for some of the books mentioned. that is a truly formidable reading list.

unfortunately I haven't read any of it (or even heard of half those people tbh), nor do I have the background knowledge to discuss most of those topics

The Perpetual Orgy sounds interesting but then I'd have to read Madame Bovary

the Chaucer book sounds interesting cos I know a good deal about the 100 Years War era, but I've never read Chaucer
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Corpsey is probably right that we need critical mass of shared knowledge (and passion) to discuss a particular thing

American Psycho is, for reasons I've hopefully elucidated at this point, a work of art that inspires me to reflection

idk [shrugs]
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
A book club is the way to create a condition of shared readership — but speaking personally I don't like being told (even suggested) what to read. So you just post about what you've been reading in here and hope that someone else might have read it, or have questions about it.

Otherwise it's just a sort of public diary — which is what I've used this thread for in the past, to be honest.
 

jenks

thread death
We did try a book group for a while but it never really got off the ground - the best discussion was with Austerlitz which i really enjoyed, we had a few good books but then there was a terrible thing that just was unreadable that T and others really liked. Interesting to note that when discussing fiction recently someone didn't want to acknowledge that Sebald was a novelist!

I'm like you Corpsey, i just put stuff up that I'm reading and hope someone else might be interested in. And to find out what others are reading that i may well fancy looking at. I have limited time to gte online and engage, so i just don't bother if it looks like it's not for me.

i do think, and i did raise this before but was met with the online equivalent of blank stares, that there is a heavy reliance on male writers on here and with that comes a narrowness of discussion.

I suppose that is what i find problematic about the overblown regard for Ellis, and Psycho in particular - it is a book about misogynistic violence that revels in misogynistic violence. The ironic distance is wafer thin. The surface gleam of labels and materialistic narcissism is boring. Someone like Douglas Coupland was far more interesting at the time.

But maybe the biggest crime is that the writing is clumsy and lacking in wit or grace. Jeff Koons with a typewriter.
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
it is a book about misogynistic violence that revels in misogynistic violence. The ironic distance is wafer thin. The surface gleam of labels and materialistic narcissism is boring. Someone like Douglas Coupland was far more interesting at the time.

But maybe the biggest crime is that the writing is clumsy and lacking in wit or grace. Jeff Koons with a typewriter
[shrugs again] you're wrong. could not be more wrong. normal art is subjective caveat.

it's one thing to dismissively shit on a work I care deeply about - that's fine - it's another to so badly misrepresent it

the ironic distance is not "wafer then". it does not revel in violence. it's not even about misogynistic violence, or misogyny, in that sense.

(if you want take issue with the violence, sure, but get it right)

if all you see is the surface gleam of labels and narcissism, you - somehow - clearly don't understand what the book is about.

some portion of its meaning is providential, certainly, but no less real for that

as to whether the writing is clumsy and lacking in wit, that's a matter of taste. I have to think I'd find most of the 19th C. nonsense and art criticism you're grinding through dead boring, but there you go.
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
otoh that most of us here don't read enough female authors is likely a fair criticism

I try to make a point of it but I could certainly do better
 

catalog

Well-known member
i find it fascinating that of the big readers i know, if they are a man they mostly read men, if they are a woman, they mostly read women.
 

jenks

thread death
as to whether the writing is clumsy and lacking in wit, that's a matter of taste. I have to think I'd find most of the 19th C. nonsense and art criticism you're grinding through dead boring, but there you go.

Good luck to you. I’ll rejoin the debate when I find something to say to someone - in the meantime I’ll just ‘grind through’ all this ‘boring’ stuff.
 

version

Well-known member
I haven't read many women, but I just got a copy of Sontag's Against Interpretation and finished my American Psycho reread this morning so I'll start that shortly.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
TBF jenks, you first pushed the nuclear button labelled 'boring' — from there on it's mutually assured destruction.

Boring is a very emotive word isn't it? Padraig described Hitchcock as boring recently and I almost went after him with a big knife, as he showered.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Perhaps because it suggests that if you weren't bored by this boring thing they were bored by, then you're boring yourself.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Which short stories by Tolstoy are you reading Jenks?

I've read Hadjit Murad, The Death of Ivan Ilyich... maybe some others? Not sure if those count as short stories, they're more novella length.
 

jenks

thread death
Perhaps because it suggests that if you weren't bored by this boring thing they were bored by, then you're boring yourself.
Yeah I get that argument but it was boring. Anyway, we're not going to agree so i'll just walk away from it.
 

jenks

thread death
Which short stories by Tolstoy are you reading Jenks?

I've read Hadjit Murad, The Death of Ivan Ilyich... maybe some others? Not sure if those count as short stories, they're more novella length.
To be honest, he doesn't do many genuinely short stories - something like After The Ball is relatively short but most of them are long by most short story writer's standards - Chekhov is a good twenty page story writer. Maybe the best.
Hadjit is great, I am just re-reading The Kreutzer Sonata (just under 100 pages) in my edition. Ivan Ilyich is pretty much perfect. Tolstoy is hard on humanity - that search for meaning - spiritual usually - is always hard won and often the question of its cost is debateable.
I don't think now we really have that way of considering our lives - what is does it mean to prepare oneself for a good death (maybe if you have a religious faith, you might)
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Joyce on 'How Much Land Does A Man Need' by Tolstoy:

"Land,” Joyce said, “is the greatest story that the literature of the world knows.”

In translation, at least (and inevitably), there's little to appreciate about Chekhov stylistically — so I'd hesitate to call him the greatest writer OAT. But he's probably my favourite. Mind you, I've read a lot more of his corpus on account of it being mostly short stories.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
As you say, jenks, the spiritual aspect is essential to Tolstoy's work and we lack that (for better and worse) today. It's that materialism that Dostoevsky raged against in Western European civilisation. But we still can't help searching for a meaning in life, which is why even an atheist can be profoundly moved by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Chekhov writes about religion and spirituality but seems to come from a perspective which is agnostic at 'best'.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
i do think, and i did raise this before but was met with the online equivalent of blank stares, that there is a heavy reliance on male writers on here and with that comes a narrowness of discussion.

I will defend myself here, as Djuna Barnes, Jane Austen, Mina Loy, Renata Adler, Elaine Dundy, Olivia Manning and Jean Rhys are among my favorite writers and I wrote a 50,000 word thesis on Nancy Cunard. But point taken.

This thread, though, is a bit like the movie thread. It is hard to engage with because it is not really about anything specific, but every now and then something pops up (like Blade Runner 2049) that engages or annoys enough people to get a conversation going on. But nobody can force it.
 
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