/lit/ - Literature

>>898749

sadly true

>>898689
>there are excellent Japanese writers

There were. Tanizaki, Kawabata, Mishima are all long dead. Shit, Ōe might still be going but when was the last time he wrote something great?

Sadly, Murakami is the best of the current bunch. I think he has written a couple of really good novels but he's not as godly as so many people make out.

Murakami's novels have meaning, some a lot more than others though.

Critics do build him up more than he deserves. I swear, if the guy were American or English people wouldn't get half as high off his writing.

Never thought I'd see some Platonov here.

I've read his short stories collection, "The Return", but not the Foundation Pit.

That NYRB translation is pretty new though, isn't it? They always do good stuff so I'm sure it's a decent translation.

>>894966

FoH wasn't bad, but it didn't blow me away like the first novel did.

I got really excited about the Shrike and the Time Tombs stuff and by the end of Fall I was a little like, "Oh, was that it?"

First is awesome but gives you a non-ending. Second is okay, no way near as great as the first.

Didn't want to read any of the others in the series after that.

It's probably a good read. Won the award and received all round critical praise.

Shame /lit/ is so goddamn narrow minded.

Those awful covers the American ones?

If "whole series" means the original trilogy, go for it. It's awesome.

The other six books after that are a step down (though still enjoyable).

Start with the books some Ghibli movies are based off (Howl's and Earthsea - which are both great by the way)?

First Law trilogy was, to my surprise, an awesome read.

I pray it gets back to normal after the summer.

Well, Burning Chrome is actually a really good collection of short stories (Hinterlands and The Winter Market are fucking excellent), whereas Count Zero isn't a terribly good novel.

I'd say read Burning Chrome now and leave Count Zero, unless you're desperate to complete the Sprawl novels.

I know this got some pretty positive reviews when released last year but I just finished reading it and thought it pretty shit (mediocre writing, at best, and terribly clichéd characters). No way near recent-ish fantasy debuts from the likes of Abercrombie or Lynch.

Anyone else bothered to get through this (and who possibly liked it?)?

Choke is shit, even by his standards.

4 > 5 > 3 > 6 > 1 > 2 > 7

My own list:

Water Sleeps - Glen Cook
Boule de Suif - Guy de Maupassant
Dispatches - Michael Herr
Rupture - Simon Lelic
Heart of Darkness and Other Stories - Joseph Conrad
Three Tales - Gustav Flaubert
The Many Deaths of The Black Company -Glen Cook
The Secret Life of Buildings - Edward Hollis
Fantastic Mr Fox - Roald Dahl
A Life - Guy de Maupassant
If I Die In A Combat Zone - Tim O'Brien
Afloat - Guy de Maupassant
Count Zero - William Gibson
Faceless Killers - Henning Mankell
The Dogs of Riga - Henning Mankell
A Rumour of War - Philip Caputo
Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett
Natural Disaster - Al Burian
Kokoro - Natsume Sōseki
Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories - Ivan Turgenev
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
The Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
The Queen of Attolia - Megan Whalen Turner
The King of Attolia - Megan Whalen Turner
Madame Bovary - Gustav Flaubert
Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami
Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison
The Stranger - Albert Camus
The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold
Old Goriot - Honoré de Balzac
What It Used To Be Like - Maryann Burk Carver
My Oedipus Complex and Other Stories - Frank O' Connor
Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett
Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke
Underworld - Don DeLillo
The Vanishing Tower - Michael Moorcock
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

Halfway through the year and what have you read thus far, /lit/?

"Swords & Dark Magic" anthology contains new stories by, among others:

Joe Abercrombie
Glen Cook (a new Black Company adventure)
Steven Erikson
Scott Lynch
Michael Moorcock (a new Elric tale)
Garth Nix
Robert Silverberg (a new Majipoor story)
Gene Wolfe

>>876001

pretty much this.

An adult is a person who has stopped trying to impress other people and has realised it doesn't matter what they read so long as they enjoy it.

I read my literary fiction, I read my fantasy and sci-fi. It really doesn't matter though.

Howl's > any Chrestomanci

Seriously, the first two Chrestomanci books (the only two I could scrape through) are seriously weak (and I think some Harry Potter is decent).

English classics almost always disappoint me. Dickens is bloated and rubbish, Austen just a bore, C. Brontë far too melodramatic, and I could go on.

I'll stick with foreign authors and the nice modern translations they get.

I took the WW2 part to just be an indication of the start of the overall "decline" that Murakami is writing about. I didn't think there was anything more to it than that.

And the phone calls? It's all about trying to make a connection, right? That's the entire point.

The rest of your questions... my memory's a little too hazy at the moment.