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/lit/ - Literature

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1167092 No.1167092 [Reply] [Original]

Rate the last book(s) you have finished reading:

House of Leaves: 8/10. Interesting read, has very sluggish parts (FUCKING ECHOES) but well worth the time.

>> No.1167097

The Stranger: 10/10 kicked my ass and made me say "wow"

Currently reading The Plague which is not as good.

>> No.1167102

>>1167097

Who wrote it?

>> No.1167110

>>1167102
Albert Camus. I have both The Stranger and The Plague on my reading list and I'll probably start The Stranger myself in a day or two here. I've heard that most people like The Stranger more but some people end up thinking The Plague is better, but meh. The Stranger is shorter.

Book I just finished: The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace. Pretty solid, interesting, amusing; 8/10.. felt like it was sometimes a bit harder than it should be to get what DFW was saying, and that the overall theme was kind of just bits and pieces of random junk he learned from Wittgenstein.

>> No.1167117

>>1167110

The Plague is simply...better. It fleshes out his ideas and underpinning philosophy much more; it's a maturation of Camus' style.

>> No.1167132

>>1167117
Sure The Plague has more time to develop but I really thought that The Stranger was simply written in a more interesting fashion (although I guess that may partially be due to translation) and I felt way more attachment to the main character of The Stranger than I am to all the characters of the Plague combined. I guess I need to finish Plague before making final judgments though.

>> No.1167138

The Brother's Karamazov 10/10

The best book I ever read. I am making my judgment based on amount of entertainment I received from the book. I am not spiritual or religious at all, but I was able learn much about the human thought process by reading it.

>> No.1167139

One flew over the cooko's nest. The thing was filled with metaphors I couldn't pick up for some reason Half the book I didn't realise the fog surrounding the Indian was really him just alienating others because he was afraid. It was a good book otherwise, 8/10

>> No.1167147

>>1167132

...You weren't supposed to relate to Mersault at all. I think in doing so you actually missed the entire point of the book.

>> No.1167151

I just finished re-reading Ray Carver's "A Small Good Thing" 5 minutes ago for school. If you haven't read Ray Carver yet, you probably should.

>> No.1167157

Devils: 9-9.5/10

As is expected from a major novel by Dostoevsky, it's fucking brilliant. It's not Crime and Punishment, though.

With regard to The Stranger and The Plague, I loved The Plague but thought Stranger was just OK. The Plague was more fleshed out, and I think it showed Camus's ideas better. It was also a better story, with characters one can empathize with.

>> No.1167156

>>1167147
I never said that I related to him, although I did in some cases, just that I felt more attached to him. If you know what I mean. And I don't mean to sound all defensive, but sorry I didn't do what I was "supposed" to with the book.

>> No.1167189 [DELETED] 

Dune.
9/10, only because at parts I got overwhelmed with it.

>> No.1167187
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1167187

I don't like rating works of art. It seems senseless. IF I tell you the last book I read was ten out of ten, are you going to read it? If you do and you like it, are we going to become friends? No. I thoroughly enjoyed the last book I read. It was Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. It was far more enjoyable than the book I'm reading right now.

>> No.1167197

forever war
8.6/10

overall worth the read and very enjoyed but ending didn't thrill me

>> No.1167202

Beat the Reaper.

Pop, but hilarious and genuinely brilliant. The author is a resident at one of the top 3 or 4 med schools in the country and is a fearless writer - his commentary cuts deep

>> No.1167206

>>1167157
I think that that's sort of the point with the stranger though, that you don't get into it as much is sort of what is intended, like it was written to NOT be relatable.

>> No.1167219 [DELETED] 

>>1167157
kickass novel. but didn't you feel there were a few parts where it meandered for too long? the brilliant scenes were brilliant, but some of the social inanity was too much...

I just started the Idiot and am curious to see how that goes.

last book I finished was Oblivion by David Foster Wallace. I think 7/10, probably, and half that 7 is just intellectual nourishment through play, not narrative substance.

I'm interested to hear so much about the plague. i read the stranger so long ago.

>> No.1167222

Madame Bovary
7.5/10
Very good but Flaubert seems to be floundering for action every once in a while.

>> No.1167226

Name of the Wind

Fun Story but the main character was pretty uninteresting

>> No.1167225

Also, Zoe's Tale.

Which gets a 9.

>> No.1167232

The Portable Dorothy Parker 9/10

The short stories and poetry (even though I'm not much of a poetry fan) were absolutely brilliant; her reviews, on the other hand, were more of the hit and miss type.

>> No.1167244

Soon I will be Invincible by Austin Grossman 9/10 Excellent deconstruction of the the superhero comic genre. Great humor and good action scenes, has a compelling villain/narrator that you can't help but to root for.

>> No.1167278

"Lolita" - 6/10


Yeah you're edgy and experimental, what about it?

>> No.1167374

Frankenstein. I'd give it 8/10, excellent read. The whole concept of the monster's existence made me very sad.

>> No.1167376

Stardust by Neil Gaiman
4/10

It's a sad thing when the movie is better than the book(And in this case, that's not saying a whole lot). The book is so fucking anticlimactic and you could read the whole thing in a day.

>> No.1167379

>>1167117
The Plague is worse.

>> No.1167381

Farienheit 451

7.5/10

Liked it, especially the whole self censored aspect, Bradbury seems kinda high on himself though

>> No.1167387

Choke
6/10
Do what now? And do all his books feel like the same one? This is the third book oh his I have read.

>> No.1167389

>>1167138
Agreed 10/10. Not sure whether I want to read Anna Karenina or another Dostoevsky for my next book (opinions?)

>> No.1167391

>>1167389
I prefer Tolstoy.

>> No.1167394

>>1167379
>>1167391
Same person? Answers without any details as to why they feel that way

>> No.1167396
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1167396

8.5/10

I was expecting them all to be sci-fi and quirky but it really showed a side of Vonnegut he doesn't show in his other novels. Very heartwarming and enjoyable.

>> No.1167398

Freedom by Johnathan Franzen

6.5/10, it's compelling with some really insightful shit and mostly i'm just impressed how well he writes most of the character's perspectives especially the woman's (its like he took Jack Nicholsan's advice on writing women from As Good As It Gets), but it's a little slow and I find myself not caring all that much and wondering sometimes if he think everyone i the US is as fucked up as his characters, if he really thinks they're the new normal

>> No.1167409

1984

3.8/10
Would probably be a lot higher if I was still in high school/rebelled against parents/listened to rage against the machine/was an atheist

>> No.1167413
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1167413

Was initially shocked and eventually bored by the violence, but this is nonetheless the best book I've read all year.

McCarthy always makes me question what I assume to know about storytelling and writing. Also, Judge Holden is the best damn character I've ever read, aside from Anton Chigurh.

>> No.1167414
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1167414

In the Miso Soup - Ryu Murakami: 7/10

Not as DEEP as some others books in this thread, but I enjoyed it. Haruki is the better Murakami, but I love books set in contemporary Japan.

>> No.1167418

The Fall
9/10
Still such an accurate picture of the modern man/self.
Superior to The Stranger definitely, but not as "filling."
If The Stranger was a full course meal, then The Fall would be your favorite pretentious desert.

>> No.1167420

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen: 9/10

I was prepared to dislike it, because I foolishly assumed Franzen to be a pretensious snob, but from the first page I could not put it down. I lost sleep over this book. I feel like a hipster for dismissing him so quickly without having read anything, and I'm looking forward to starting Freedom.