submitted by Dindu to books9 monthsAug 3, 2024 10:06:22 ago (+8/-0) (books)
This is the best consensus i can gather and it is amazing i have to take from 3 decades to get these few. The main takeaway for me is astonishment that the hippie generation failed to produce great novels. I give my generation a pass because we had to come after those assholes. It is like their entire role was to point at Jewish propaganda and say "Amazing", while pointing at beloved whites and saying "Problematic". In fact i bet some good white writers were skipped over by publishers.
I read Isaac Asimovs entire robot/foundation series. I was saddened when I got to the end and realized there would be no more. He died of aids. And was Jewish. But god dammit the stories were amazing and had me hooked.
I also have read Patrick O’brians Aubrey/Maturin series, I absolutely loved it! I have Blue at the Mizzen sitting on my shelf. I haven’t read it yet, I don’t want it to be over.
I've gone through that with several great book. I remember finishing some novels feeling great satisfaction with having read a brilliant work of fiction, combined with great sadness that it's over and I'll never read it for the first time again.
I've heard good things about "Lonesome Dove", but I think I was intimidated by its length. I find myself working and commuting a lot, so I might get an audiobook version if you recommend it.
I read it as a young man and didn't get why it was so controversial which, in itself, seems to be a rather interesting example of the Overton window shifting with the passage of time.
Curious to see what it would look like to these eyes years later and, of all the books I've read, I can't remember any that made me laugh as hard and as often as Catch-22.
Books? Here are a few amazing ones. Huck fin, east of Eden, cannery row, Henderson the rain king, spoon river anthology, for whom the bell tolls, main Street (lewis), Oil! .... The list goes on.. but these were not our of the boomer generation. Best I can figure for modern classics are slaughter house 5, fight club, hitchhikers guide, catcher in the rye?
There is a big shift in literature for the modern stuff and the boomers are not really interested in putting in the work for a truly great product, they are more interested in being cool. Or emulating what was once cool in 1964.
There were other great novels, you just aren't allowed to tell a straightforward story under postmodernism. You have to deconstruct everything instead, so works that adhere to traditional forms aren't given attention. It's all very jewish.
Catch 22 is pretty funny, not a masterpiece. Ellis is a faggot and I won't discuss further
DFW is another animal, I'll add more in a few mins....
Edit: I didn't give 22 enough credit, it's really really good. Probably a masterpiece.
Infinite Jest is an incredible book. Is it worth reading 1000 pages of esoteric, circuitous, jargon about tennis and drugs? That's your call. I think of it as genXs Paradise Lost. You need a reader to translate and decipher nearly every word and phrase. It's a fucking monster.
Mccarthy is more like the great american novelist because of his neo westerns and base violence. I do like reading Anglins rants about how terrible his work is on DS.
Then you're a homophobic breeder, and you should be locked in prison for your hate speech against gay people, and that prison should be a military prison where you can get the rendition you fucking deserve, breeder.
I believe some would argue that Pynchon is a far better writer than Bret Easton Ellis ("Less Than Zero"), which would qualify "Mason and Dixon" for that arbitrary list. I would also argue that John Barth and Don Delillo were far better writers than Joseph Heller, who I would consider a hack, Ellis, or David Foster Wallace.
I dislike Barth's earlier work in the mid-60s where he experimented with metafiction and deconstructionism. He's fantastic when he just tells stories. "The Sot-Weed Factor" and "The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor" were brilliant.
But the problem I have with modern fiction is that 20th century writers can't just write novels. They use the novel form to talk about the novel form, they stretch it as far as they can by compressing as much story, plot, and as many characters as they can (see Pynchon), tell the story non-chronologically (see Heller and Pynchon), and throw a lot of dust in the air to give the appearance that their book is deep and thoughtful, when it actually confuses the reader, who just wants the author to get on with it and tell the story.
I always read about long novels before I read them so I can know whether the time invested is going to be worth it. Apparently, the book is about 60% footnotes, and less than half of the book is used to actually tell the story. I did a hard pass on that one.
After I made my previous comment, I looked up "Infinite Jest" on the wikijewdia to see why I passed on reading it. Here are a few things I saw:
"Wallace's "encyclopedic display of knowledge"[5] incorporates media theory, linguistics, film studies, sport, addiction, science, and issues of national identity."
If it isn't necessary to the story, the plot, or character development, it should be cut out, or else it's page filler that will bore the reader.
At various times Wallace said that he intended for the novel's plot to resolve, but indirectly; responding to his editor's concerns about the lack of resolution, he said "the answers all [exist], but just past the last page". Long after publication Wallace maintained this position, stating that the novel "does resolve, but it resolves ... outside of the right frame of the picture. You can get a pretty good idea, I think, of what happens". Critical reviews and a reader's guide have provided insight, but Stephen Burn notes that Wallace privately conceded to Jonathan Franzen that "the story can't fully be made sense of".
So, the novel doesn't resolve. I'm not going to read a 1300 page "novel" with no ending.
Wallace characterized the novel's heavy use of endnotes as a method of disrupting the linearity of the text while maintaining some sense of narrative cohesion. In a separate interview on (((Michael Silverblatt)))'s radio show Bookworm, Wallace said the plotting and notes had a fractal structure modeled after the Sierpiński gasket.
Is he saying he wanted to disrupt the linearity of the story? This is a man who thinks (or thought) he's too clever by half and believed people are going to examine his text with the same kind of detail that scholars do with "Ulysses" or "Finnegans Wake".
The novel touches on many topics, including addiction (to drugs, but also to sex and fame), withdrawal, recovery, death, family relationships, absent or dead parents, mental health, suicide, sadness, entertainment, film theory, media theory, linguistics, science, Quebec separatism, national identity, and tennis as a metaphysical activity.
Holy shit, this sounds pretentious. I guess he belonged to the "throw it all in there and see what works" school of literary theory.
Plot
The wikijewdia article doesn't actually describe any plots, just "interwoven narratives". The book sounds absurd and too ridiculous to be taken seriously, even a satire, parody, or a series of pastiches. If I watch a movie for 20 minutes and find myself unable to understand anything I just watched, I won't finish the movie because it's signaling to me that there's no payoff. And if I read 100 pages of a book that leaves me wondering what the fuck I just read, I won't be motivated to go on to page 101.
Hey, you know what's a lot of fun to read because the author just tells a coherent story in chronological order? The Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser. Those are gripping reads and just a lot of fun because the author GETS ON WITH IT.
Its supposed to be the future and he is describing entertainment cartridges. That sends me back to the '80s which is silly because every kind of entertainment was already available on disc at the time of the writing. I found that to be a little off-putting
It is like their entire role was to point at Jewish propaganda and say "Amazing", while pointing at beloved whites and saying "Problematic".
Because it's true. White racial identity is inherently problematic as is any gentile religious belief system. They are all blasphemy against the Lord God Adonai almighty.
And Saul Bellow could kick the ass of everybody name-dropped in this thread. Except for Bret Easton Ellis because that's a hate crime.
[ - ] Sector2 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 13:49:02 ago (+1/-0)
The main takeaway for me is astonishment that the hippie generation failed to produce great novels.
You haven't read The Strawberry Statement? If you're reading it after 1970, you're late, gay, and muted.
There were a number of radical books back then that were great, but we've been keeping them secret from the after boomers. Was the peak science fiction era too.
There were very, very few books written by hippies or proto-hippies that would qualify as literature. Ken Kesey would be the best example, the author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Sometimes A Great Notion", both of which are very good novels.
Thomas Pynchon considered himself a part of the "subculture", especially when he was living in Manhattan Beach in California in the mid-60s. His work didn't reflect much of that experience, although he wrote about the period in his 1990 novel "Vineland".
Yes, the 60s was the golden age of science fiction, but the best science fiction was written by men who were generally considered conservative. I don't believe hippies had the self-discipline or talent to write anything worth reading, then or now, because they didn't have the ability or desire.
Agreed about the hippies in particular, but the 'hippy generation' encompasses the bulk of the early boomers, the oldest of whom was 23 in 1969. Youngest boomers were 3 in 1969, so they starting becoming aware during the late stages of the disco era and 80s. Those earlier writers were from the 'beat' era of the silents, which preceded the hippies.
Actual hippies were more stoners and trippers and turn on/tune in/drop outers. Not the best precursor to great literature.
I agree with you about the chronology of "greatest generation" vs "boomers" (i.e., hippies), but that's why I qualified what I said with the phrase "proto-hippies". Ken Kesey, born in 1935, was not a boomer, but he was a proto-hippie, and in fact was the most prominent and visible of freaks who started coming forth in the mid-60s. The guy had CIA written all over him. He was well funded, he had limitless amounts of liquid LSD, he had natural leadership and was able to gather a large group of freaks and weirdos who lived in a perpetual state of LSD hallucination, and most notably, organized a drive in a multi-colored school bus from Washington state to Washington, DC to protest at the Pentagon with other burgeoning freaks and weirdos.
I think you're correct in describing actual hippies, and why they couldn't or didn't want to write. They lived their lives in their heads and saw no reason to put it down on paper. Not that they were able to do so, of course.
[ + ] Portmanure
[ - ] Portmanure 5 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 10:10:24 ago (+5/-0)
[ + ] Portmanure
[ - ] Portmanure 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 10:16:00 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Dindu
[ - ] Dindu [op] 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 10:20:07 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 11:22:27 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Hoobeejoo
[ - ] Hoobeejoo 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 13:49:41 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 14:41:38 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Portmanure
[ - ] Portmanure 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 15:06:13 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Hoobeejoo
[ - ] Hoobeejoo 0 points 9 monthsAug 4, 2024 23:18:55 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Drstrangestgov
[ - ] Drstrangestgov 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 15:03:28 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Doglegwarrior
[ - ] Doglegwarrior 3 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 11:50:08 ago (+3/-0)
I have not read the other one but now I will
Catch 22 the first and maybe only book that in 2 lines I went from laughing out loud to border line tearing up... no homo
[ + ] MaryXmas
[ - ] MaryXmas 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 14:26:08 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Dindu
[ - ] Dindu [op] 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 12:07:40 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Fascinus
[ - ] Fascinus 2 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 12:51:15 ago (+2/-0)
Curious to see what it would look like to these eyes years later and, of all the books I've read, I can't remember any that made me laugh as hard and as often as Catch-22.
[ + ] MaryXmas
[ - ] MaryXmas 2 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 15:49:42 ago (+2/-0)
There is a big shift in literature for the modern stuff and the boomers are not really interested in putting in the work for a truly great product, they are more interested in being cool. Or emulating what was once cool in 1964.
[ + ] taoV
[ - ] taoV 2 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 14:04:04 ago (+2/-0)
[ + ] Panic
[ - ] Panic 2 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 12:01:49 ago (+2/-0)
Lord of the Rings (at age 12)
Atlas Shrugged (age 26)
Mash (3 books, age 20)
Lord of the Flies (disturbing every time)
Catch 22 was also briliant.
[ + ] Sector2
[ - ] Sector2 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 13:41:22 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 14:42:34 ago (+0/-0)
Finest kind.
[ + ] ModernGuilt
[ - ] ModernGuilt 2 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 11:22:54 ago (+2/-0)*
Ellis is a faggot and I won't discuss further
DFW is another animal, I'll add more in a few mins....
Edit:
I didn't give 22 enough credit, it's really really good. Probably a masterpiece.
Infinite Jest is an incredible book. Is it worth reading 1000 pages of esoteric, circuitous, jargon about tennis and drugs? That's your call. I think of it as genXs Paradise Lost. You need a reader to translate and decipher nearly every word and phrase. It's a fucking monster.
Mccarthy is more like the great american novelist because of his neo westerns and base violence.
I do like reading Anglins rants about how terrible his work is on DS.
[ + ] JewsAintHonkies
[ - ] JewsAintHonkies 2 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 16:31:09 ago (+2/-0)
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 2 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 11:20:13 ago (+2/-0)
I dislike Barth's earlier work in the mid-60s where he experimented with metafiction and deconstructionism. He's fantastic when he just tells stories. "The Sot-Weed Factor" and "The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor" were brilliant.
But the problem I have with modern fiction is that 20th century writers can't just write novels. They use the novel form to talk about the novel form, they stretch it as far as they can by compressing as much story, plot, and as many characters as they can (see Pynchon), tell the story non-chronologically (see Heller and Pynchon), and throw a lot of dust in the air to give the appearance that their book is deep and thoughtful, when it actually confuses the reader, who just wants the author to get on with it and tell the story.
[ + ] Dindu
[ - ] Dindu [op] 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 12:02:02 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 12:57:33 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 13:18:46 ago (+0/-0)
If it isn't necessary to the story, the plot, or character development, it should be cut out, or else it's page filler that will bore the reader.
So, the novel doesn't resolve. I'm not going to read a 1300 page "novel" with no ending.
Is he saying he wanted to disrupt the linearity of the story? This is a man who thinks (or thought) he's too clever by half and believed people are going to examine his text with the same kind of detail that scholars do with "Ulysses" or "Finnegans Wake".
Holy shit, this sounds pretentious. I guess he belonged to the "throw it all in there and see what works" school of literary theory.
The wikijewdia article doesn't actually describe any plots, just "interwoven narratives". The book sounds absurd and too ridiculous to be taken seriously, even a satire, parody, or a series of pastiches. If I watch a movie for 20 minutes and find myself unable to understand anything I just watched, I won't finish the movie because it's signaling to me that there's no payoff. And if I read 100 pages of a book that leaves me wondering what the fuck I just read, I won't be motivated to go on to page 101.
Hey, you know what's a lot of fun to read because the author just tells a coherent story in chronological order? The Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser. Those are gripping reads and just a lot of fun because the author GETS ON WITH IT.
[ + ] Dindu
[ - ] Dindu [op] 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 13:27:00 ago (+1/-0)
Funny it doesnt resolve because knew it wouldnt. It is apparent
[ + ] ModernGuilt
[ - ] ModernGuilt 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 16:53:50 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Dindu
[ - ] Dindu [op] 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 18:10:16 ago (+0/-0)
Its supposed to be the future and he is describing entertainment cartridges. That sends me back to the '80s which is silly because every kind of entertainment was already available on disc at the time of the writing. I found that to be a little off-putting
[ + ] JewsAintHonkies
[ - ] JewsAintHonkies 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 16:34:25 ago (+1/-0)
Because it's true. White racial identity is inherently problematic as is any gentile religious belief system. They are all blasphemy against the Lord God Adonai almighty.
And Saul Bellow could kick the ass of everybody name-dropped in this thread. Except for Bret Easton Ellis because that's a hate crime.
[ + ] Drstrangestgov
[ - ] Drstrangestgov 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 15:00:35 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 19:05:26 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Drstrangestgov
[ - ] Drstrangestgov 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 19:08:36 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Drstrangestgov
[ - ] Drstrangestgov 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 19:12:21 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Sector2
[ - ] Sector2 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 13:49:02 ago (+1/-0)
You haven't read The Strawberry Statement? If you're reading it after 1970, you're late, gay, and muted.
There were a number of radical books back then that were great, but we've been keeping them secret from the after boomers. Was the peak science fiction era too.
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 2 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 14:54:25 ago (+2/-0)
Thomas Pynchon considered himself a part of the "subculture", especially when he was living in Manhattan Beach in California in the mid-60s. His work didn't reflect much of that experience, although he wrote about the period in his 1990 novel "Vineland".
Yes, the 60s was the golden age of science fiction, but the best science fiction was written by men who were generally considered conservative. I don't believe hippies had the self-discipline or talent to write anything worth reading, then or now, because they didn't have the ability or desire.
[ + ] Sector2
[ - ] Sector2 2 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 16:49:31 ago (+2/-0)
Actual hippies were more stoners and trippers and turn on/tune in/drop outers. Not the best precursor to great literature.
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 19:03:44 ago (+1/-0)
I think you're correct in describing actual hippies, and why they couldn't or didn't want to write. They lived their lives in their heads and saw no reason to put it down on paper. Not that they were able to do so, of course.
[ + ] JewsAintHonkies
[ - ] JewsAintHonkies 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 16:35:42 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] DitchPig
[ - ] DitchPig 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 13:18:26 ago (+1/-0)
I have 30 copies! Best book ever!
[ + ] Hoobeejoo
[ - ] Hoobeejoo 4 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 13:56:13 ago (+4/-0)
[ + ] DitchPig
[ - ] DitchPig 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 14:01:13 ago (+1/-0)
I was making a conspiracy theory joke.
[ + ] Lost_In_The_Thinking
[ - ] Lost_In_The_Thinking 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 19:05:55 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] ModernGuilt
[ - ] ModernGuilt 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 16:54:59 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Hoobeejoo
[ - ] Hoobeejoo 0 points 9 monthsAug 4, 2024 23:20:05 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] ModernGuilt
[ - ] ModernGuilt 0 points 9 monthsAug 4, 2024 23:23:48 ago (+0/-0)
[ + ] Drstrangestgov
[ - ] Drstrangestgov 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 15:01:28 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Hoobeejoo
[ - ] Hoobeejoo 0 points 9 monthsAug 4, 2024 23:19:33 ago (+0/-0)
Good one.
[ + ] Cantaloupe
[ - ] Cantaloupe 1 point 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 11:04:34 ago (+1/-0)
[ + ] Deleted
[ - ] deleted 0 points 9 monthsAug 3, 2024 11:19:02 ago (+0/-0)