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/lit/ - Literature

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2358400 No.2358400 [Reply] [Original]

what's up /lit/? i don't come here too often but i need some suggestions

i'm into postmodern literature, currently reading White Noise by Don DeLillo, will probably finish it this weekend and i'm in the market for new reading material

already checked out the essentials, i like some of them, don't like others. i'm into novels that truly make you think. i'm thinking about checking out some Bukowski since i've never read anything from him but i've only heard good things

help is appreciated

>> No.2358408

if you want good contemporary lit read GADDIS
not bukowski hes awful

>> No.2358422

>>2358408
any specific work i should start with?

>> No.2358425

if you liked White Noise read American Pastoral, it is the same sort of thing but way more hardcore

>> No.2358424

Fuck I hated White Noise, such a waste of time. Apparently Delillo wrote in a deliberately terrible manner, to poke fun at other books written in the same mind-numbingly pretentious style. Even so, I threw the book across the room when I finished it, extremely pissed off at the fact that I spent money on it.

>> No.2358436
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2358436

>>2358424
i'm not yet finished with the airborne toxic event, but i think it's pretty good to be honest.

>mfw i like the way it's written

>> No.2358499

bump

>> No.2358872

>>2358424
I liked the book a lot myself. Just finished it two weeks ago and I enjoyed the ending I felt it gave a decent closing to the story. I know what you mean though, I started reading it a year before and I never got into the stale writing ,but after revisiting it I really want to read Underworld.

Op, look into more of his work I hear they get funnier and weirder as the more recent they are. I also heard from some where not sure where ,probably Harold Bloom, but Thomas Pynchon's novels like V. or The Crying of Lot 49.

>> No.2358881

just be serious. white noise is an escape fantasy where your genes determine life

>> No.2358884

>>2358881
um
your genes are like the blue print for a building.
It doesn't tell you the history of the building, but it tells you damn near everything else.

>> No.2358886

>>>2358872
frathouse dumbout
I'd rather you knew the last dick your father sucked

>> No.2358890

>>2358886
What are you talking about?

>> No.2358892

>>2358884
shut up faggot I know more than you

>> No.2358899

>>2358890
it was veiny, you enjoyed the way it pulsed between your lips. you, breathless, swallowed the rather large load

>> No.2358898

>>2358400
What have you read so far, OP?

>> No.2358959

>>2358899
Thanks for that.
>>2358898
Not OP ,but what did you like about it? I think you are the only good poster on /lit/ and I like your opinions.

>> No.2358965

>>2358892
i doubt it
faggot

>> No.2358977

I have a basic understanding of post-modernism bu can someone be a darling and explain what makes a piece of literature considered post-modern?

>> No.2358981

>>2358977
If it makes you disgusted to your very soul, and if you can't understand it, then it's probably post-modern.

>> No.2358992

>>2358959
For DeLillo, I've read White Noise and Libra. I liked both of them, but they seem like they were written by different authors. White Noise is funny, I guess, in a very distanced way, and Libra is pretty humorless and sad. I've read DeLillo's prose in Libra described as "airtight", which I think comes pretty close to describing it. If I had to choose, I'd choose Libra.

This is a pretty ok guide to DeLillo's work:
http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/31522/

This is a useful starting point for discovering some more pomo work:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/07/the-mostly-complete-annotated-and-essential-postm
odern-reading-list.html

>> No.2358999

>>2358977
Modernism was characterized by the first world war's effects on society. People began to question if they have gone too far.

Another event was the Titanic, which showed the man cannot really conquer nature.

These and many other characteristics make up the modernist movement which was filled usually with city dwelling people having problems with identity and other social issues.

Post-modernism, from my understanding is what happens afterward. Leaning towards a more and more helpless feeling all relating to the proliferation of culture and technology.

But the term is very under defined so really it doesn't matter and is usually just a bull shit term tacked onto many different works of art for no reason.

>> No.2359019 [DELETED] 

>>2358981
>>2358999
Thanks, I am now gonna go open 20 taps through google to further my understandin of this phenomena. If you or anyone else here knows any good reading material on post-modernism I would love being recommended some.

>> No.2360120

bumping because i didn't get very many suggestions

>> No.2360131

>>2358999
>Another event was the Titanic, which showed the man cannot really conquer nature.
BSBSBSBSBSBSBS

>> No.2360145

>>2358999
>Another event was the Titanic, which showed the man cannot really conquer nature.

That really sounds like a trite insert from some pathetic community-college essay you submitted. Not gonna lie.

>> No.2360240

>>2358400
Bukowski is gritty, and personal. Kinda reminds me of the Beats

>> No.2360331

>>2360240
i dig beat literature, was even down with some of the poetry.

what would be his best novel? read some of his poetry before but i wasn't too impressed

>> No.2360340

>>2358999
>mfw someone can be this wrong

>> No.2360568

bump

>> No.2361400
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2361400

bukowski is worth a shot. it might do you well to read his poetry first, and then his short stories. if you enjoy, go for a novel and see where that takes you.

other new reading material: the sunset limited (cormac mccarthy) will truly make you think. it is a "novel in dramatic form". perhaps journey to the end of the night by celine might interest you as well.

>> No.2361411

>>2360331
post office or ham on rye

>> No.2361423

I discourage you from getting into Bukowski - it is a bunch of middle-class drivel and uninteresting. With that said, there are a few books I can recommend that you might like if you like post-modern lit.

First, pick up anything by David Markson. If you need a place to start, Wittgenstein's Mistress is incredible and then go from there.

Second, if you haven't read Tristram Shandy, go do that before Markson. Shandy is, arguably, the first post-modern book and it is absolutely hilarious!

Third, you may want to dip your hands into House of Leaves, if you haven't already. I think it is Danielewski's only book worth reading because the rest fall significantly short of the mark after this doozy.

Fourth, Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo. It is a slim volume but is amazing full and bursting out of the seams with plot, suspense and all sorts of literary goodness. It is about a guy who makes a promise to his mother on her death bed to find his father. You don't know if he descends into hell, if he is dead or if he can talk to the deceased as he moves through the book to find his father.

Let me know what you think or if you want more suggestions in this vein.

>> No.2361424
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2361424

>>2361423
>disses bukowski
>recommends house of leaves

>> No.2361452
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2361452

>>2361424

You are making a comparison between Bukowski and implying his work is excellent while undermining how great and intricate a novel House of Leaves is? I would like to hear the argument for that. I am not saying that one is inherently better than the other, but for my time, I can't stand Bukowski. But hey, man, that is just me.

>> No.2361467

>>2361452
actually i can respect some criticisms of bukowski but the implication that HoL is >great or >intricate is just hilarious.

neither of them are even close to excellent.

>> No.2361481

>>2361467

I can totally agree with that but I did feel that HoL was a page-turner and delivered very post-modern devices in a coherent way. I really enjoyed HoL and never felt that it got bogged down for all its gimmicks.

What did you not like about HoL?

>> No.2361491

>>2361481
Not that guy, but HOL is pure shit. Get a life, homo.

>> No.2361506

>>2361481
i just never found anything particularly good. the footnotes were ok, the ergodic nature of the text was ok, the prose was average. the most powerful thing i remember happened at the middle of the book where the author used only a line or a word in a single page, it had something to do with a rope, i think? it matched the mood perfectly. nevertheless, nothing in the book felt particularly above-average. the truant texts were especially not-good, they almost felt like copypasta. the whalestoe letters were very meh.

you know they often joke that only a physicist would get scared of a housed with shifting dimension but the idea did unsettle me for a while and the minotaur was nice too.

all in all, pretty meh.

bukowski on the other hand has this kind of earnestness that even though mostly everything else of his3 is mediocre (his tendency to not think, his repetitiveness, his mediocre prose with flashes of good shit) gets evened out. plus, he's that type of endearing author you read while you're a teenager and never read again because you know it's just going to spoil your memory of it. not excellent, but neither is HoL.

>> No.2361517

>>2360131
>>2360145
>>2360340
>mfw everyone critiques ,but doesn't correct.

Cool.

>> No.2361523
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2361523

>>2361506
Well, bro, I respect your assessment of HoL AND Bukowski; I think you have many good points, regardless of how I feel about the whole kit-and-kaboodle regarding HoL.

I loved HoL because I saw that it was consistent in mood and tone. Agreed, however, that the Whalestone Letters were dumb and, Ill venture to throw out, most of what Danielewski did after HoL was far worse.

>> No.2361565

>>2360131
>>2360145
Titanic was a major part of the time and it did show that people have not conquered nature. People were moving away from traditional ideas. The Titanic was a huge symbol of this. The Titanic was the first of its kind being so large and being intricately built ,but it was taken down by a simple ice berg. Thomas Hardy even wrote a poem about it called The Convergence of the Twain. Hardy was also a huge influence on D.H. Lawrence.

I mean really the media was in such a uproar I have no clue how I can be truly wrong about the Titanic being a symbol of human hubris.

>> No.2361574

>>2361565
>The Titanic was the first of its kind

no

>but it was taken down by a simple ice berg
it was deliberately sunk

>human hubris.
screw you

>> No.2361583

>>2361574
It was the largest passenger ship of its time.

>> No.2361593

>>2361583
it was the second in the Olympus class liners to be launched. So it was not the first.

>> No.2361599

>>2361574
>it was deliberately sunk
So icebergs can think?
Or is this more Jew-conspiracy horseshit?

>> No.2361602

>>2361593
Still in size though it was the biggest until one from Germany or something. Titanic was lauded as success of mankind. You can argue about size or which is first ,but it was still a important part of the culture at the time.

>> No.2361626

>>2361599
titanic was sunk so the federal reserve could be established.

>> No.2361634

>>2361626
Ah.
Reported.

>> No.2362348

>>2361423
liking these suggestions, will definitely check some of them out

going to buy some books today, would Infinite Jest be a good investment? seems that a good part of /lit/ like it

>> No.2363376

>>2362348
It is from my understanding a hard text to get into. It is also a 1000 pages. Not saying not read ,but just telling you it is going to be a little difficult.