Book thread

[The Third Man]

Forgot that was coming out! That's exciting.

Yeah, it's the first Pynchon novel to be released since I first managed to finally read one of his novels (well, five now, but I started GR before Inherent Vice and didn't finally conquer it until last year). It's a very weird, exciting feeling. I hope it's not the only time I get to experience that feeling with him, but I'm gonna cherish it. Only read about 20 pages so far.

[33anda3rd]

The first 20 pages you're like "Oh! I'm back in Pynchonville and its such a fun town."

[heyzeus]

I'm reading Civilwarland in Bad Decline by George Saunders now. The stories are much less polished and insightful than his most recent work, Tenth of December. Too many of his protagonists fall into the same trope of "spineless guy working in menial job with wife or love interest that walks all over him."

If you read one thing by him, seek out The Semplica Girl Diaries, which is collected in Tenth of December. Amazingly it looks like the whole thing was published by the New Yorker here.. Go read it now. I'll wait.

[33anda3rd]

I remember reading that one in the New Yorker a year or so ago. Fantastic. Heart breaking. I really like Civilwarland, esp the titular story, but when I read it I was working a middle management job for a corporation and hated the job.

[heyzeus]

I remember reading that one in the New Yorker a year or so ago. Fantastic. Heart breaking. I really like Civilwarland, esp the titular story, but when I read it I was working a middle management job for a corporation and hated the job.

Yes, the titular story (heh heh, you said titular) is great - it weaves in the supernatural element almost seamlessly. Is it just me, or are most of Saunders' protagonists amusement park employees?

[33anda3rd]

Yes, but it fits his focus on dystopian/absurd worlds where corporations and the entertainment/enrichment of the haves comes at the debasement and commoditization of the have-nots.

[heyzeus]

Yes, but it fits his focus on dystopian/absurd worlds where corporations and the entertainment/enrichment of the haves comes at the debasement and commoditization of the have-nots.

Agreed.

btw, "The Wavemaker Falters" may be the most depressing short story ever written. It is the "Lou Reed's Perfect Day" of short stories.

[33anda3rd]

Grabbed the new Pynchon. Between this and GTA5 on the same day, my brain is suffering target confusion. Plus I'm exhausted.

Speaking of the intersection of GTA and Pynchon. Did you get to p33-35 of Bleeding Edge?

[SHOW]

The protagonist's kids are playing a first person shooter but in which you roam NYC and kill entitled yuppies--people with money stealing from a grocery store, line-jumpers at the bus station, a man screaming at his child, "morally self-elevated bicycle riders"--and put their kids in a safe zone where responsible people can pick them up, which game one of the protag's kid's describes as fixing "What Giuliani would call quality-of-life issues."

[Donnie Ebert]

I just finished An Ocean at the End of the Lane. I read American Gods before that. I guess I don't really get Gaiman, as it always feels like to understand his stories there must be some allegory or subtext between the lines that I'm missing. The main characters in both books were quite bland and passive for the most part.

I'm going to read Doctor Sleep now by Stephen King, who has similar plot issues to Gaiman but does a better job of rounding out his characters and their motivations.

[JackofDiamonds]

Had a lot of flight and pool time this week, picked up Eggers' new book, The Circle, and Jack Handy's The Stench of Honolulu.

If you liked Deep Thoughts, the Stench of Honolulu is pretty great. Very very short read, but I laughed on every page.

The Circle is a modern dystopia novel that's a hybrid of 1984 and Brave New World, you're being tracked and catalogued, but you volunteered into the system and didn't even realize you were giving up your freedom. Central organization is what Facebook wants to become, and after 300 pages, I was still waiting for the part that stretched past our current social media relationships. A twinge scary, not sure how I feel about it.