Authors you will never read

Philip Roth

The one novelist whose work everyone reads, and cites, and praises, and always sounds tedious, self-obsessed, and offensive, and which I have so far managed never to read, is ...

Philip Roth.

So I like to think of it as a lifelong ambition to maintain this record, but not sure I'll manage it.

Remarkable simultaneous posting with Lily Dale! :D

I have wondered a few times lately how The Human Stain reads in 2020...very poorly I would guess

ill let you know im thinking of reading the human stain soon-ish

have you read other Roth? If nothing else, I certainly wouldn't start with that one.

Do we have a "Authors you regret reading" thread? (I'm not thinking of Roth btw)

Do we have a "Authors you regret reading" thread?

Not that I know of, but I had the same thought.

yea ive read lotsa roth xp

william luther pierce
lew wallace

I read loads of Amis as a teen, and will never find reason to read any more, and wish I'd spent the time reading something else.

pomenitul will appreciate that I read The Orenda literally about a week before the scandal broke as a first step to learning more about indigenous literature

Je est un autre is evergreen for a reason.

Ian McEwan. I hate English novelists almost as much as I hate English comedians. Some of the dead ones are pretty good though.

I like Tom McCarthy.

He's probably got some Irish in him, that would explain it.

Good thread, but I haven't been able to read in recent times so I recuse myself.

Lee Rourke’s another good’un.

See my previous post.

I know, ‘twas on purpose.

I trudged through 70-odd pages of Embassytown so technically he doesn’t count but: China Miéville.

When I read Updike, I needed a deep cleaning.

i'm probably never going to read cormac mccarthy at this point

Hitler

Which one?

https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387748142l/521675.jpg

Bridget Hitler’s Diary

I think David Foster Wallace would be a good candidate for never reading, if one had not yet started reading him.

God

Feel like there's a number of 'you should probably read these dudes in your twenties' dudes (like Kerouac and Hesse) who I haven't read and probably won't get around to now that I'm long past my twenties.

Tbf both are great midlife crisis reads, especially Hesse.

I get what you're saying OL, but honestly it's probably better for your soul to read Kerouac at an age when you can see the gender dynamics clearly and not be influenced by them

When I read Updike, I needed a deep cleaning.

great midlife crisis reads, especially Hesse.

Hesse's Steppenwolf is basically a mid-life-crisis-themed book and was written based on his own mid-life insecurities and reactions. Whether it would cast a helpful light on anyone else's mid-life crisis is highly speculative.

Lol on Roth being CIA:

Enlisted for the army but was exempted for 'special training'. Long association with the neocon faculty of the University of Chicago. Habit in the 80s of 'discovering' writers from the Eastern Bloc, none of whom actually lived there.

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) August 5, 2020

I think there's a difference between "authors you are never going to be interested enough to get round to", "authors whose work strongly repels you morally" and "authors you have assumed are going to be terrible and/or don't fit your self-defined personal brand".

The first makes total sense - no one can read everything after all - the second does as well. The third is an impulse to be challenged and interrogated.

Also for real saying you're never going to read JK Rowling or even someone like Ian McEwan is like ostentatiously stating that you've never heard a Coldplay record.

tbf - and i don't disagree with the implied critique of *this* thread and its endless iterations - but on a purely practical note you have to choose to engage with a book in a different way to your potential environmental exposure to music

Dickens
Tolstoy
Bronte

Is it though? For one it's very hard to avoid hearing a Coldplay song in a shop or in passing (I think that's the only way I've heard this group). And then it's easy to endure 3 minutes. Whereas with a book you can quite easily avoid it as it won't be 'forcefully' put in front of you.

I think your third can also be split. I've been around the block long enough but also am older AND have less energy/patience to put into reading something that I think I know how it's going to go. So assuming that a thing will be terrible is ok? Maybe one day your assumptions will be interrogated.

I agree that don't fit your brand is terrible, but that can be a separate thing that has very much come along with social media? xps

"*this* thread and its endless iterations"

Lol have we done this before with books (I did something like this w/film, on ILF)? My memory has gone to the bin.

Also for real saying you're never going to read JK Rowling or even someone like Ian McEwan is like ostentatiously stating that you've never heard a Coldplay record.

Why?

I suppose its the difference between making a point about fiction or music and making a point about oneself, and often not an especially interesting one.

Still don't get it.

Lol have we done this before with books (I did something like this w/film, on ILF)? My memory has gone to the bin.

i don't think we've done this specific version but it's definitely possible.

and that's fine, it sent me on an internal digression about how we all run down the clock and what difference the way we choose to do that might make, tho i'm personally sure it doesn't, and maybe there was the germ of a conversation in that but most likely it was just me having a woolly head day.

then i got distracted by the pee dream of Mandane and gave it no more thought.

xp srsly Tom since we're coming back to the ways people choose to spend their time the point Matt was making was that Individual X proudly telling the world "I like sausages" and "I hate cabbage" is not the most riveting of conversational gambits

you can develop layers of interest by expanding

I like sausages - because they connect me to the broader inner world of meat products - and I appreciate that because - I feel a greater sense of communion with the outside world - Sausages are one of the best meat products at doing this - cabbage is really bad at it tho - because cabbage is a conservative and a child molester

etc

just liking sausages and hating cabbage tho, what's that? loads of people like sausages. loads of people hate cabbage.

I don't want people to think of me as the kind of person who likes cabbage.

Cabbage is for basic bitches

god imagine being the sort of person that likes cabbage

Or to put it another way, I would straight up interested in reading the Pinefox's take on reading Roth for the first time, or Xyzzz's on Angela Carter, what fits their preconceptions, what surprises them, whether they regret reading them. Some of the best posts on ILB are the Pinefox engaging with Zadie Smith (another novelist you would expect to pop up under this thread's original premise), what he does and doesn't like about her.

Obviously there are thousands of other worthwhile authors to read so no one has to do anything, but "I will never read them" is not interesting unless there's a good reason behind it.

just liking sausages and hating cabbage tho, what's that? loads of people like sausages. loads of people hate cabbage.

― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 6 August 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Aside from the fact I've got more out of eating Cabbage than anything to do with McEwan it sounds more like what we are reacting to is that people aren't giving their reasoning for ever trying something than just the statement that they will never try something.

XP yeah ok

His translated novels have been well received for a while. He's also one of the most performed dramatists in the world for the last couple of decades. So I don't know that a modest push behind his new, major work (which is winning prices and rapturous praise back in Scandinavia) can be construed as a cynical cash-in. But sure, I guess all promotional efforts will look for synergy with another trend in some way.

I think my problem here is an association with an author I don't like much, but also it encourages bad reviewing to say this is like Knausgaard when I'm sure there are worthwhile differences that are never explored.

All I'll say is a dislike for Knausgaard is no indication of whether or not you like Fosse, their writing styles couldn't be more different

All the authors whose work has been lost due to war, disasters or just the inevitable march of time. Never reading any of them.

They sound like a buzzkill anyway.

What's the best "Internet novel"?

— Malcolm Harris (@BigMeanInternet) February 15, 2021

All I'll say is a dislike for Knausgaard is no indication of whether or not you like Fosse, their writing styles couldn't be more different

― abcfsk, Monday, 15 February 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Cool I'll have a go and see how I get on.

Writers I primarily encounter being tits on social media: Roxane Gay, Matt Haig, etc

now imagine nabokov on twitter

be fun spotting his alts

https://www.shared.com/content/images/2017/03/timthumb--2--1.jpg

Best internet novel is Jarett Kobek's 'I Hate the Internet.'

Piers Anthony
Terry Goodkind

it’s fun to imagine nabokov composing his tweets on index cards and then passing them off to someone else to post

Lol, sinkah

xp Véra no doubt

Voskuil's magnum opus deserves to be translated into English. It's a lot but a lot of it is great.

― Monte Scampino (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

8000 words on Voskuil. Sounds really great.

Here's the teeniest taste of my JJ Voskuil piece in @readliberties: https://t.co/kKk2fr1vJw

— Adrian Nathan West (@a_nathanwest) October 5, 2023

Looking at his Wikipedia page I see he published a 'scientific work' entitled 'Hanging the Afterbirth of the Horse'. I'm in!

I have a bias against Franzen because of the kerfuffle over his comments on Edith Wharton. He's probably a gifted writer, but so are a lot of others.

My brother is a huge fan of William T. Vollman, I have a hard time believing anyone who writes that much can write all that well.

I'll add Scott Adams to the list, even though that's fish in a barrel.

William Vollmann’s historical novels are very good.

I love Bill Vollman but that is because I respect a person who gets interested enough in a subject to become an expert in it through sheer force of intellect, chance, and economic privilege. Imperial, Train Dreams, the newer ones about peak oil— I mean the guy isn’t necessarily the best stylist, but he makes up for it in terms of research and “experience”.

Vollmann also has a disturbing origin story that probably explains his unique drive

I'll take y'all's word for it, I don't have that many years left on Earth.

He doesn’t either!

haven’t read any of his fiction yet but enjoyed both volumes of carbon ideologies. currently wrapping up part 1 of the abridged rising up and rising down, which is pretty good. as table says, his obsessive attention to detail is immersive, love all the historical threads he brings up and the sort of “dialogues” he constructs between the ideas of eg Trotsky and Lincoln or whatever. I enjoy his deadpan understated sense of humor as well.