faulkner definitely an acquired taste. you just have to power through a bunch of his stuff to desensitize yourself to the wall of prose and then once you get over the hump it’s fine
Are any of his recent novels worth reading? He was my favorite author growing up, but haven’t read anything since “Until I Find You” which was pretty bad. I also thought the Fourth Hand was pretty mediocre.
Quite a few years since I read it but probably The Great Gatsby.
I like art that works on more than one level, and it’s brilliant as an entertaining story and as criticism and a warning about new money (despite, or maybe because of being unable to resist its seductive powers himself), with insights into human nature that are hard to believe are coming from a young man.
And he could really, really write.
4 Likes
Sounds interesting, in the way an abyss beneath the abyss would be.
I thought “Until I Find You” and “Fourth Hand” were both fine. The only other recent one I read was “Widow For One Year”, which I thought was better than both of those first two.
I mostly like his most popular stuff (Owen Meany and Cider House Rules are my two favorites). I think my only idiosyncratic opinion is that I really enjoyed Son of the Circus, which many people didn’t.
1 Like
Yep, Great Gatsby is just an incredibly-written book. If you’re like me in terms of enjoying an author’s writing so much that you’re willing to overlook some ridiculous storylines, I’d recommend “The Art of Fielding” by Chad Harbach, particularly if I’m being asked to pitch a novel.
2 Likes
Yeah, Falukner is outstanding but you really do have to get used to his prose. It’s like reading Middle English sometimes, or at least it is for a dummy like me.
2 Likes
Twisted river was ok. Avenue of mystery dragged a bit for me
I did like In One Person a lot
The books everyone should read by him:
Garp
Cider house rules
Owen meany
Widow for one year
He’s got a new one coming out in 2021 so I’ll be there too :)
2 Likes
Not necessarily my favorite book but definitely my favorite Vonnegut for reasons I can’t really articulate. Something about the themes of talent and envy. Just read it if you haven’t.
Also White Noise, which I thought was every bit as good as Underworld.
1 Like
1984, wherein you learn that the power of love is not stronger than the focusing effect of a cage full of rats around your head.
3 Likes
My favorite is probably still Neuromancer, obviously its known for starting a genre and “predicting” a lot of things based on when it was written, but to me I think it just feels like Gibson crafted it incredibly carefully, and wasn’t all that surprised to learn that he wrote and rewrote it many times before finishing it.
1 Like
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
A book that is enjoyable on many levels: WW2 history; cryptography and crypto; Silicon Valley IT startups; otaku (geek) culture; Japan & SE Asia; treasure hunting.
His subsequent books have been hit or miss for me, and there are those who are more partial to his cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, but for me this book is his magnum opus. I’ve read it numerous times and will doubtlessly read again and again.
Other favorites of mine include any of the following by James Clavell:
-Shogun
-Tai-Pan
-Noble House
2 Likes
TIL one of my favorite ‘creepypasta’ (for lack of a better word, those super short horror stories that have anonymous authors after travelling around the internet in a memetic fashion) stories I’ve come across probably stole the idea from this novel.
A great book about two of the 18th century’s best! 
It is a fictional double-biography of sorts, written from both character’s perspective, which the author uses for amusing artistic freedoms. For example, Gauss in the book claims that Napoleon didn’t shell Göttingen because he didn’t want to harm Gauss! 
I can also highly recommend Kehlmann’s latest novel, “Tyll”, although that might be too German-topical for some (the 30 year war from the perspective of German folkloristic prankster Till Eulenspiegel).
1 Like
Catch 22 is also one of my favorites. I saw an interview with Heller in which he said it is intentionally over-written. He did not do many re-writes knowing that in re-writing he would inevitably tamp down the excesses that are central to the story.
1 Like
2 Likes
Ostensibly, The Overstory is about trees. But this amazing book is really about enlightenment, in the spiritual sense and in understanding humans’ connection with the world they are destroying. The novel has a beautiful, slow start before the story takes off in a mad dash. The ending is protracted melancholy, sorrow and hope.
I re-read the ending a week ago. Devestating. Can’t recommend this book enough.
2 Likes
This is one I think should be better known (not that it’s tremendously obscure or anything.) It’s a short novel written as thoughts or rants by an alcoholic loner who works as a book pulper in communist Prague. He reads and sometimes rescues what he’s supposed to pulp and although he largely purports to not understand anything, is at turns haunted and exhilarated by what he’s up to.
It’s about the everyday cost of living under a totalitarian regime, the unwanted responsibility it places on people, but also the ultimate insanity of trying to repress thought itself.
Everything I’ve read by Hrabal has been great, and I once spent a day drinking in his favourite beer hall in Prague. Both are recommended.
1 Like