do people still read william gaddis?
― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:20 (two years ago) link
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n24/august-kleinzahler/no-light-on-in-the-house
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:23 (two years ago) link
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:28 (two years ago) link
i plan on reading the recognitions this year
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:29 (two years ago) link
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs)
"Often described a “pugnacious” and a “pugilist poet,” August Kleinzahler’s reputation rests on his jazzy, formally inventive and energetic poetry, though he has also garnered notice as something of a bad-boy literary outsider prone to picking fights with the establishment."
oh look a "fight me bro" poet decided to fight the corpse of richard brautigan
how _unexpected_
so many science fiction and fantasy writers who have fallen into obscurity. spider robinson. harry harrison. both pretty beloved writers when i was in my teens. does anybody remember either of them?
― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:29 (two years ago) link
Yes, but mostly in the way that they are good candidates for this thread.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:36 (two years ago) link
Spider Robinson really forgotten. Can’t remember much about him except that I once thought he had a cool name but then didn’t really like his writing, being especially disappointed by The Sliced Crosswise Timewise Cafe or whatever it was. Seem to later recall some entry about some book in the sf encyclopedia where John Clute said “avoid reading the unfortunate childish introduction by Spider Robinson” or words to that effect.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:40 (two years ago) link
Harry Harrison remembered mostly as the author of the book the film Soylent Green was based on, Make Room, Make Room! although the book didn’t have the famous punchline. He also came up recently as begin married to one of the sf wives, who had also been married to… Damon Knight? Lester del Rey?
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:44 (two years ago) link
Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:45 (two years ago) link
Evelyn Harrison became Lester del Rey’s third wife and died when they were in a car crash which he survived.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:48 (two years ago) link
Harold Brodkey and John O’Hara both were more visible and important when alive than after. Not sure how much self-promotion, when alive, played a role in that.
― The self-titled drags (Eazy), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:50 (two years ago) link
John Clute said “avoid reading the unfortunate childish introduction by Spider Robinson” or words to that effect.
can't possibly be as unfortunate or childish as harlan ellison's introduction to the american doctor who target novelizations. that thing was a masterpiece of cringe.
i got one! when i was young people kept attributing "those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it" to someone named santayana. i looked him up once. he wrote some novels. i can only surmise that at some point somebody must have _read_ him, that his name must have _meant_ something to someone.
oh, people _loved_ "jonathan livingston seagull" by richard bach when i was young. haven't heard of that one in a while. do people still read paul gallico's "the snow goose"? i only know it through the prog-rock concept album based on it.
― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:53 (two years ago) link
oh, and jean m. auel! she wrote the "clan of the cave bear" books. one was published as recently as 2011! also, she's a portlander - i didn't have any idea!
― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:56 (two years ago) link
Kleinzahler kind of a tough guy but with a sense of humor and not overly macho, more like a San Francisco James Salter in a leather jacket than Mailer or Hemingway. Or maybe like a distant cousin of M. John Harrison.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 03:56 (two years ago) link
Was waiting for Jonathan Livingston Seagull to show up! Couldn’t quite remember the author’s name anymore. In fact have been considering this thread as somehow related to In every 70s US home ever
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 04:00 (two years ago) link
Auel another good one. Seems to show up crosswords occasionally although I haven’t been paying attention recently.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 04:01 (two years ago) link
Thought Santayana was more of a philosopher, didn’t know about novels.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 04:03 (two years ago) link
michael arlenw somerset maughame phillips oppenheimmark rutherford
wsm prob the only one of these with even general name recognition nowadays?
― no lime tangier, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 04:47 (two years ago) link
xps to Dan Sgot 3 len deighton titles on the 'classics table' in our shop right now 'ipcress file' 'ssgb' and 'berlin game'. sold okay in the wake of TV production of 'ipcress file'
― oscar bravo, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 06:16 (two years ago) link
also clive cussler still sells well
― oscar bravo, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 06:18 (two years ago) link
Auel literally has whole shelves to herself in every bookshop ime, fair to say people read her books still
― Wiggum Dorma (wins), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 07:16 (two years ago) link
i've been a third of the way thru gissing's new grub street for several years, not sure if this counters the thread project or affirms it
it's fine, what it isn't is grabby
― mark s, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 07:21 (two years ago) link
James Hanley? I read one of his 70s books a few years back.
― Narada Michael Fagan (Tom D.), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 07:24 (two years ago) link
I think 'Boy' by Hanley still has some currency as a 'banned' etc book.
Angus WilsonNevil ShuteHarold RobbinsDesmond BagleyTom Sharpe
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 08:54 (two years ago) link
I've read an Angus Wilson or two, no idea what his current standing is but definitely doesn't deserve to be forgotten.
― Narada Michael Fagan (Tom D.), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 08:56 (two years ago) link
He is now more known as the father of scholar, and Homer translator, Emily.
Also had a lunch or two with the Queen, which he recounted, and came up during her becoming.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 09:01 (two years ago) link
anybody still reading Wilbur Smith?
― Mizue loves company (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 09:03 (two years ago) link
"There was a good New Yorker article a couple of years ago about Tarkington's changing reputation. Here's how it begins"
I remember how Tarkington came up as a contrast to William Gaddis in a (poor) review in the LRB of the reissues of his novels.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 09:04 (two years ago) link
Wonder if a good way to come up with lists of writers no one reads would be to dig up old sales figures from past decades (something that's equivalent to the pop charts).
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 09:08 (two years ago) link
Not to pick on Alfred but those NYRB J.F. Powers volumes have intros by the likes of Elizabeth Hardwick and Denis Donoghue.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs),
I'm aware -- I own one of them, bought about 15 years ago -- but you're being unusually insistent considering the top of this thread has no rules.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 09:24 (two years ago) link
Denton Welch enjoyed some popularity when Exact Change of Galaxie 500 fame published his books. I think he's a great writer, but I haven't reread his writings in a while.
― youn, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 09:30 (two years ago) link
Welch probably picks up readers from William S Burroughs being a big fan - but I wonder how widely READ (as opposed to name checked) Burroughs himself is these days.
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 09:38 (two years ago) link
I think there's another category of writers who are definitely not forgotten and certainly still read but are just way less important than they were 30 years ago. People like Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, even Salinger.
― Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 10:19 (two years ago) link
What about the novelist Winston Churchill?—who is not the same guy
― SincereLee 'Scratch' Perry (President Keyes), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 10:29 (two years ago) link
i checked out denton welch when i read a john waters book where he cited him as a favourite a few years back...i imagine quite a few ppl have done the same
― black ark oakensaw (doo rag), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 10:29 (two years ago) link
ok I guess, not sure what you're mad about
― Dan S, Monday, September 26, 2022 10:06 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
Ha I wasn’t mad about anything. Just saying that would be a good place to look for thread candidates.
― SincereLee 'Scratch' Perry (President Keyes), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 10:33 (two years ago) link
joking around with comrade alph on another thread it struck me -- by wayward train of thought -- that no one reads carlyle any more
isn't he an "essayist"? does he even count as a novelist? yes! sartor resartus is a novel -- a comic novel abt hegelianism! *ilxors hurry off to get a copy*
i have a weird tattered ancient large-size versions somewhere, like an 1890s A3 graphic novel lol, i'm not even sure where from (i mean my family but i don't know which side of which side). i've never got beyond the first page, its humour really REALLY doesn't carry
― mark s, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 10:34 (two years ago) link
Re: Alexander Baron, I think he's highly rated in the admitidely niche world of East London literature geeks.
When I did those books by year polls there were a lot of names that kept popping up again and again that I don't think have much exposure nowadays. Georgette Heyer I remember standing out.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 10:40 (two years ago) link
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, September 27, 2022 5:08 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
Bestselling fiction titles (Publisher’s Weekly)
1895Ian MacLaren- Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush
1896F. Hopkinson Smith- Tom Grogan
1897Henryk Sienkiewicz- Quo Vadis
1898F. Hopkinson Smith- Caleb West
1899Edward Noyes Westcott- David Harum
― SincereLee 'Scratch' Perry (President Keyes), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 10:41 (two years ago) link
Hammond Innes
― lord of the rongs (anagram), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 10:46 (two years ago) link
now and then some of the more literary-minded american periodicals take it on themselves to get one of their um wittier stylists to do a kind of singles column of the best-selling books of 50 years gone, many of which are entirely forgotten
(the new yorker had anthony lane do one in the 90s and james wolcott did one did one for someone, maybe vanity fair, more recently)
anyway even if there's no chance of me soon deciding which of lane or wolcott is the worse writer and the crappier critical mind this concept is good!
― mark s, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 10:47 (two years ago) link
ages ago i started trying to read CP Snow but didn't get into it, dunno how much he's read anymore
― Mizue loves company (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 11:02 (two years ago) link
A shelf at my uni library groans with the weight of 50-year-old CP Snow paperbacks.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 11:13 (two years ago) link
anybody borrowing them?
― Mizue loves company (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 11:15 (two years ago) link
i have a handful also, nice late 50s penguins which i'm guessing my dad (a very arty scientist) dutifully read. i think i did try one as a teen and thought it was awful lol (not exactly a good judge then but happy to carry on believing i was correct)
in the same orange-backed reach of my bookshelves: some angus wilson and some anthony powell, v alluring cover illustrations, i believe i also attempted "the old men of the zoo" and metaphorically threw it against the wall
― mark s, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 11:18 (two years ago) link
I think there is a distinction between truly obscure names, where no-one could readily eg: name a single book by the author or say who they were; and names that are well-known, where you could probably reel off titles and mention that author's place in history, but you haven't really read them.
For me, Wilfrid Sheed and Peter de Polnay are in the former category, and Bennett or Gissing are in the latter.
It seems to me that this thread started off mainly aiming to enumerate true obscurities, and quickly started including well-known names.
I agree that these names are now much less read than they were, but they're still quite famous.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 11:34 (two years ago) link
I suspect that Maugham, Angus Wilson, Brautigan, not to mention Walter Scott and especially Mervyn Peake, are still read - especially given how many readers there are in the world, plugging away.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 11:36 (two years ago) link
― Mizue loves company (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, September 27, 2022 10:03 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
had to direct a customer to his shelf just yesterday
― oscar bravo, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 12:00 (two years ago) link
This is the kind of reportage I like. Agree with pinefox's point tho
― Mizue loves company (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 12:43 (two years ago) link
A Far Side cartoon of Wilbur Smith's Shelf, hewn from jungle vines with a machete, with animal skulls used as bookends.
― link.exposing.politically (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 12:59 (two years ago) link