(Untitled)

[nightcity]

The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem
Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
Delta of Venus, Anais Nin
VALIS, Philip K Dick
Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
Only Forward,

Comments

[murdermystery]

why would you do this
how could you
augh

why would you start out a list with jonathan lethem

and then follow it with a mix of goodness or at least interestingness and then taint it once again with fucking kurt conngut

augh

i almost wanted to give you a yes

but those two fucking authors

make me think that you like the best stuff on this list in a way that is totally retarded

augh

augh!

[nightcity]

Fair deuce, I figured Lethem (in particular) would elicit a few aughs.

I usually hate huge White Teethy novels that try to portray sixty two-
dimensional characters in fifty iconic locations over forty years and end up looking like cold cat sick, but I didn't hate this one. It's so big and sprawling that the few fleshed-out characters feel tiny and lost, like nerdy kids stumbling through a big city. Even the fact that the main character comes across like a thinly veiled reimagining of Lethem himself sorta works for me in a book about superhero mythologies and kids who tag their names on walls to feel like they've made a lasting mark on something.

Whatever else you want to say about Vonnegut, Player Piano satirizes industrialised society and its relationship with technology in a way that's fairly fucking prescient for 1952. It's sort of campy but still relevant in a way that makes Asimov's psychohistory in Foundation seem almost plausible.

I did it because I wanted to see what you'd think and what you'd recommend as a result.

Re: augh!

[murdermystery]

i don't care about characters, ever, so dimensional characters in fifty iconic locations over forty years makes me guh-roan

i recommend reading books that were written after the year 1960 by men and women who are/were French.

ok...there are things on this list that make me want to say yes, but i'm not quite there yet.

[scarletgeryon]

what do you find sexy about delta of venus?

[nightcity]

There's a sex shop on a street near my house with mannequins in the window. The female mannequin's wearing some kind of fluffy red and black thing with cut-outs over the crotch and nipples. The male mannequin's fully dressed, neck to ankle, in a policeman's uniform with handcuffs hanging from his belt

[cacophonesque]

I'm interested in what it was that made Unpolished Gem appear on this list for you. When I read it, I wanted to really love it--but as far as the memoir form goes, it seemed rather standard fare to me.

[nightcity]

Because I'm a young woman with Malaysian Indian family who grew up in the same city (I even spent some time in law school, but that's another story). So it's mostly basic personal stuff about being able to relate to a published novel that reflects your experiences more than it does those of your friends. And Pung is also an example of a woman who's pretty angry, and with good reason, but who feels like that anger is inappropriate (as an Asian woman who's supposed to be grateful for the opportunities she's been offered, rather than frustrated that she can't take advantage of them) and kind of turns it inward. So it's got political currency outside of just 'oh wow, she lives in Footscray and went to Monash!'. That's why it's on the list.

two questions

[thevanisher]

1) talk to me about kundera. what is it about unbearable lightness... that captured you?

2) top 3 science/speculative fiction books pre-1970s.

Re: two questions

[nightcity]

Coming back to this after class, don't go away...

Re: two questions

[nightcity]

1) The characters doing their awkward vulnerable human stuff against (despite) the background tension of the Prague Spring- the microcosm of futility and defiance their stories create ties Kundera's broader philosophical digressions together. And the way he describes 'kitsch' as a feature of totalitarian regimes is interesting when you think about the kitsch of advertising.

2) A few of my picks are already up there, leaving me wishing Shockwave Rider had been published a few years earlier, but:

Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K Dick
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess (final chapter intact please)

Re: two questions

[thevanisher]

Thanks for these--but I'm gonna have to go with no. I don't have a huge problem with anything you've said here, but it's not what I was looking for.

No.

[neddy_s]

I don't like any of the books on your list.