That’s because I typed the wrong thing, lol. It’s been a while.
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I think the distinction may be between things with thematic depth and detail and compelling aesthetic power, vs things that are virtuostic, prodigious, or arch. I’m much less invested in the latter, and when I come across works that have both (Vollman for example) I really wish it was all the former instead
Then again, I’m not too confident in being able taxonomize this and maybe it’s more down to taste and I’m just rationalizing my own biases. But I think that’s the line of demarcation between Void Stranger and Pathologic 2 as well as I can articulate it. (speaking of which, the Pathologic 2 spoiler discussion thread goes into detail about this subject, so be sure to head over when you’re through with the game)
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then about Deleuze - we did Difference and Repetition in a seminar course at my small Catholic college and iirc everyone managed OK. Don’t know if that’s regarded as a point of entry into his work, but I think his literary criticism my be more accessible to people like (I assume) us itt who are more familiar with lit than philosophy. Easier when Borges and Shakespeare are the reference points than Hegel at least to me
I wonder why western civilization lost all ability to produce long, narrative poetry after about 1800. It’s kind of strange
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nabokov slander? in my forum?
regarding difficult and/or overstuffed texts….idk i feel like this is something i had stronger opinions about when i was younger. generally i finish the books i start, but sometimes i skim, sometimes i stop. i do think critique is a wonderful thing and for that reason it’s important to engage with things beyond pure enjoyment, but also life is short and i kinda have a sense of when i’m done with something. tho i do miss the younger and more zealous version of me.
i think yeso said it best when comparing more intentional texts with the “hey look at me variety!”, but that’s something i’m more tolerant about. maybe because i “grew up” when the latter category was en vogue, but also because i think there are sensations only that type of expression can achieve, just as i think the same of its counterpart. the “desire to impress” we see in dfw vollmann et al can be grating, but the more targeted texts can seem equally affectated. idk, i went through a “whiplash” in how i viewed that mode of fiction—i loved it then thought it was super whack and now i’m back down to earth a bit and can see where it succeeds and where it fails.
nabokov is really good imo and lives up to his reputation as one of the greatest prose stylists ever. his autobiography speak, memory is maybe my favorite memoir. i can understand the criticisms about pale fire, but his other book attempting something similar (the real life of sebastian knight) has more staying power. and of course, what more can be said about pnin. he’s good!
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It’s not a question of enjoyability for me either, it’s impatience with any text that’s overbearing to the point that I’m not experiencing the experience but instead being lead around by the author. That’s different than a text being “difficult”. I made the distinction in response to @Bonsai 's question about when a reading struggle is worth it. eden eden eden is worth it’s extreme difficulty in terms of legibility and subject matter imo because Guyotat just kind of gives you the stuff - that is yes definitely stylized in a sense - but without the kinds of academic overbearing that Nabokov is prone to in his works that alight on the same broad themes (political violence and cruelty visited on the vulnerable). Why those themes need to be routed through puns, university jokes, relentlessly affected unreliable narrators and beheld from that comfortable distance, I don’t know and don’t understand. If it’s because Nabokov was a nutty professor type and that was his only method of approach then sure, no moral judgement from me, I’m just saying the works themselves (specifically Pale Fire and Lolita) don’t really go anywhere and don’t really get at anything meaningful in relation to their self-selected subject matters imo. And to be clear, I think it’s lazy and cheap to sneer at Nabokov, DFW, and other examples as honor student class projects that got way out of hand, so I do agree that there’s not much to be gained by being dismissive. That’s why I’m trying to be specific and focus on the effects of specific books. However, it is kind of hard to avoid the class/social milieu element here and related resentments. FWIW, I know I harp on about Los siete locos/Los lanzallamas so apologies again but there’s a novel(s) with some footnote trickery, late narrator all along drop, etc but from 1929 and by a guy who got kicked out of school for being bad when he was 10. And I think it shows (in a good way)!
heavy hitter did the soundtrack too
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I never quite realised how much this thread owns. I didn’t even click on it once for the longest time. But it’s books. Books. For some reason I’d thought it was some cryptic enemy of video games, a subject I’d not understand. But now that I see it. Yeah.
I recently finished Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Pretty interesting read. I loved how it made me feel young. As the reader, I was frequently left in the dark purposefully and thoughtfully. Nothing feels quite as young as not knowing what is happening.
Any of y’all read that one?
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wait would more people participate in this thread if I hadn’t given it a weird name?
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This could be a me problem.
sorry, i wasn’t trying to imply this was your position. i was kinda just riffin.
as for nabokov–i haven’t read guyotat but i wonder if you’re making a false equivalency. one of the pleasures of nabokov in my mind is his disdain (or perhaps better worded as ambivalence) for theme and meaning beyond what he called “aesthetic bliss.” it’s possible you had this in mind when making your critique, but if not, that would be my answer for the puns and affectations. they exist in his novels because they’re pleasurable. i am not saying that all literature should strive for those same goals, but i do appreciate nabokov for that reason. i’ll again point to speak, memory as a wonderful piece of art for anyone interested.
what do you mean by this?
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I had to do a double take as well at first and wondered what the mortal enemy would be, so it 's not just you. I dare say yeso was intentional in making the title clickbait. See also: Shigesato Itoi 1950-2022
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look that was a long time ago
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the comparison to eden eden eden was meant to speak to the main question about when is a difficult text rewarding to wrestle with, and if there’s a “better” mode of writing. I guess my opinion on the first question boils down to: if the subject matter is urgent and then maybe if the aesthetic interest is great enough. As to the “better,” I should have addressed this directly and I see now that I elided it. I think eden eden eden is “better” as an object formed in response to the topic of political/social violence brought down on the innocent because it’s an unleavened portrayal, even though it’s language is exotic. The comparison to Nabokov is aimed at those two books because I objected to the way he makes use of the subject, compartmentalizes and intellectualizes it, and makes novels with gustatory enjoyment features around them. With Pale Fire, for example, I get that one central irony is that Shade is writing an anguished poem about his child’s death and Kinbote is just running through the 3rd base coach stop sign doing his zembla shit. But the book is all that dumb zembla junk. Sure it’s sophisticated and clever, but in the final accounting - which maybe is reductive and I ought to resist the impulse to do - the satisfaction is the same kind of low-calorie satisfaction any middling genre novel would give you, it’s just the genre is books for people habituated to “literary fiction.” So the comparison I was trying to make was between a novel that presents challenges in intensity of vision and disturbing explicitness and experimental prose method being more “worth the trouble” than novels that have sophistication, complex self-reference, and adroit use of technique as the challenges being posed to the reader
I mean I have low tolerance for fiction that needs greenhouse conditions to be created and appreciated
no it’s me. But welcome, pleased you made it despite the obfuscation
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sorry if I’m coming on too strong I did mention I’ve been reading Soviet fiction, right?
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i see your point and agree with the general spirit of it, though i don’t view nabokov or any other writer of his ilk particularly challenging as long as someone is able to stomach the conceit. (edit: by challenging i mean the barrier to appreciation is actually quite low) their worst crimes are being a bit too floraly. in fact, to this point:
i would probably position a nabokov (or dfw etc) book over eden eden eden for appreciation. for creation? well, that’s hard to say. it can be argued that any art needs some level of greenhouse condition to be created, but as for when that becomes a factor in how i approach it depends on many things, like how i’m feeling that day.
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yeah sorry I have a bee in my bonnet
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nothing to apologize for :)
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Yeah! Ishiguro’s great. What did you dig about Never Let Me Go?
Personally, I went on a big Ishiguro kick a few years ago, reading four of his novels in a row, and while I thought Never Let Me Go was pretty and convincingly written, it was my least favourite of the four. Still a great novel, for sure, but to me, less impressive than The Buried Giant, less of an emotional gut punch than The Remains of the Day, and less surprising than When We Were Orphans.
I guess what I’m saying is, if you liked Never Let Me Go, maybe give those ones a look as well!
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I have to admit, I sometimes feel out of depth with discussing books on here and feel I have not much of substance to add. But that means I can harvest the discussions for book recommendations which haven’t led me astray so far, so I’m very grateful.
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I think yeso articulated quite well what I felt reading Nabokov. there’s just an overwhelming (and for me, repulsive) sense of “aren’t I clever?” coming from the narrator at all times.
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I think that when I ended up reading Nabokov I understood why someone like Dostoevsky would seem very repulsive to him. Dostoevsky seems much more clunky in comparison, maybe because of the translation, but in general his style was like rough, broad lines versus Nabokov’s more “refined” slender language. I didn’t interrogate Pale Fire in the way Nabokov may have intended, I more so enjoyed the composition of his sentences, I still remember some passages from Pale Fire actually, despite not remembering what the book was actually about.
On that topic, I’ll admit I’m one of the people who actually sat down to read Pale Fire after hearing the some lines from it in Blade Runner 2049.
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