Rolling Contemporary Literary Fiction

haha skimming that im reminded of how fantastic (wordplay!) i thought stephen millhauser's 'dangerous laughter' was. its also making me feel bad about how dismissive ive been of contemp writing this year, theres so much stuff i havent bothered to read or even think of reading. i was however vaguely aware there was a new ann patchett novel out

yeah the only real new thing i've read in a while is "The Pale King" and it was really really boring, terrible, awful, sad (not in a good way sad.)

ty for that link que -- i love kate christensen & didnt know she had a new book out!

other than the big names (baker, stephenson maybe, eugenides) im interested in the dana spiotta book

hey mr que sorry to be overly dismissive of the shane jones book

i was sort of on-the-fence about it until we got to february as writer-figure, it was then stuck for me both as generically like something i'd read before and very specifically like i. the people of paper (and i didn't even like that book much) ii. someone trying to 'do' ben marcus ?? which anyway i then started rereading notable american women and i like it way less than i remembered liking it, so either i'm not really in the mood for this stuff or my tastes have shifted away from it, oh well

I like César Aira a lot, though How I Became a Nun was my least favorite of everything I've read by him (which is everything in English translation, or 1% of his overall writing I think).

a year later and i'm still not reading fiction -- is there a literary fiction Book of the Summer? (or Book of 2011?) :-/

i want to get back to reading fiction but it's all non-fiction over here

still haven't read the pale king, although i want to -- i read that interview book twice though

i want to read that tea obreht book too

bump for the not 12:13 am at night crowd :)

mr. que have read/heard much about jesse ball's 'the curfew'? im interested in purchasing it but reviews have been mixed & no one i know has read it

just read this over the weekend, it was just okay, nothing special. read like a long short story. not very memorable, sorry.

that's handy, i was pondering whether to get or not, but i'll save the money

i ended up really liking dana spiotta's 'stone arabia' although i think its the sort of book thats too slight to really sustain scrutiny or mass affection, if that makes any sense

i also really enjoyed denis johnson's 'train dreams' which i think is mb the most lucid and thoughtful book of his ive read, certainly since 'fiskadoro'

Yeah, Train Dreams was really nice. Though I've only read this and Nobody Move, I'm going to have to get me some more of him.

whats up with this baseball book

what about this book

ALL MY FRIENDS ARE SUPERHEROES

is this 'quirky twee fiction' or something?

whats up with this baseball book

― just sayin, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 11:31 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

the harbach, right. yeah i am looking forward to it.

is

The Family Fang

o my bbcode blows. i not q!

Family Fang was pretty standard dysfunctional family contemporary lit. It had its moments though and is a pretty fast read.

i guess it was a little "lighter"/less overwrought than franzen e.g.

anyone read the new amy waldman? or house of holes? curious about both.

'house of holes' is not as bad as 'the anthologist'

kinda curious about the art of fielding since it's getting so much press but also it sounds like fairly middle-of-the-road contemporary lit

ha i liked the anthologist a lot but house of holes sounds gross

kinda curious about the art of fielding since it's getting so much press but also it sounds like fairly middle-of-the-road contemporary lit

i was too until i read an interview or two with the dude, he loves franzen i guess, so i'm a little less enthusiastic now

Who knows, it still could be good. . . but still. I hated the Corrections.

http://www.theawl.com/2011/09/a-conversation-with-chad-harbach-author-of-the-art-of-fielding

What don’t you like that he’s written?
My least favorite of his books is Strong Motion. You can probably point to some parts of Strong Motion that I don’t like, but Freedom and The Corrections are two of my favorite books in recent history.

am reading the amy waldman, only a short way through; so far it's good, there have been points that have seemed pat - from what i gather it's pretty sprawling, and some of the characters so far seem p simply drawn - but i'll only know by finishing it whether that's sorta besides the point.

i could go for a great piece of lit about baseball but it seems like art of fielding is not so much about the art of fielding and more about kids in college who happen to play shortstop

maybe i should just read the natural

or great american novel

or universal baseball association

I really enjoyed the Family Fang

am reading the amy waldman, only a short way through; so far it's good, there have been points that have seemed pat - from what i gather it's pretty sprawling, and some of the characters so far seem p simply drawn - but i'll only know by finishing it whether that's sorta besides the point.

i read really slowly & give up easily, so live blogging my reactions would be kinda excruciating, but characters in this are still really annoying me & sounding unrealistic, fwiw. i read a hammy exchange & then am all, she was bureau chief for somewhere or other for the new, york, times, this must be good, but it is bugging me.

thanks n/a and james. Won't read Fam Fang now, I'll put it in a to-read-when-I-fancy-contemporary-fun pile.

what about this book

ALL MY FRIENDS ARE SUPERHEROES

is this 'quirky twee fiction' or something?

― the pinefox, Tuesday, September 13, 2011 10:32 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

pinefox, oddly, otm

Quite interested in the new John Burnside - I read his first one, and I remember thinking it was ok without being great. Review here.

Yes, I was intrigued by that too, while also thinking that an author who publishes 2 novels even he admits aren't any good has perhaps exhausted my goodwill before I even start

so i couldnt make it past page 58 of 'the art of fielding' w/o continuously cringing so ive decided to read a book about rich english ppl in italy instead

That sounds good what is it

'a book of secrets' by michael holroyd

so i couldnt make it past page 58 of 'the art of fielding' w/o continuously cringing

oh what was up with this? i'm still in the buying-the-hype phase so you could save me some time if you named some specific unappealing trait

ha i just started art of fielding last night and was enjoying until it switched perspective from the baseball player to the college president and his estranged daughter. seems to have turned into rote franzenesque "strained family relationships" contemporary lit. haven't decided if i'm going to keep up with it or not.

feel like no one's writing good weird books anymore.

feel like no one's writing good weird books anymore

like what kinda thing? just curious. bc maybe the genre of like rolling literary fiction isn't the place to find it. i think 'busy monsters' is meant to be kinda strange at this end of the spectrum.

i just feel like all the big contemp lit over the past year or two has just been franzen rip-off stuff about estranged families and bad relationships. no one's writing novels about the world or the mind or ideas, or at least no one who's getting any press. if i'm missing it on stuff, please let me know.

i get that a lot of people like books about relationships and emotions, but i like good stories and stuff that makes me think. the current contemporary literary world feels very unambitious to me, content to explore these family/marriage dynamics and not go any bigger.

Have you read Gilead or Home? The religious debates in these novels undergirding the family drama are powerful.

i don't know what those are

by Marilynne Robinson? She won the Pulitzer for Gilead.

I recommend'em. It's not often we see real arguments in American fiction, like you point out.

Housekeeping ftw