nice chapter
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one of the writers hoovered up in the āboomā that didnt really hit with anglo readers. I would guess bc heās sort of 19th century with that sensibility and approach. I mean heās not really: similar subject matter to like Dreiser or Norris for example, but it doesnāt look that way and he didnāt fit the bill from what a wide audience wanted from a South American import I think
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yeah its curious to see what ādomesticā legends end up being well-read in non-latam contexts and for what reasons
Iām taking a video game course at my college and am wondering what peopleās mileage with Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is given that itās the ONE piece of required reading (Obviously I have to read itāand willābut I figured itād make for interesting conversation/fun primer from
the insert credit student body) Maybe itās the Hokusai that threw me off and made me judge this book by its cover (feels baity?? as I write this: āhow dare a book cover be ābaityā?ā) but please: convince me to read this book that I cannot be unconvinced to read and most certainly have to read and will read but have superficial apprehensions toward.
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In other news: just started 2666- it gets 2666 thumbs up from me so far.
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I havenāt read it, but the title is an allusion to Macbeth. Iād be interested to know if itās doing anything interesting with the parallel of video game development and Macbeth, or if itās basically a literal title: continuing through the lifespan of its two focal characters.
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or if itās basically a literal title: continuing through the lifespan of its two focal characters.
Will report back.
I know this thread is mostly about books weāre reading, but Iāve been working on a book of poems. The poems themselves are done, just kind of editing, arranging, etc. I obviously have extremely modest expectations about it but Iāve just been writing and sitting on things for years and feel the need to at least attempt to move them forward somehow.
I know some of you all are writers. Any advice/ encouragement on small press publishing, self publishing, print vs digital, etc.? I just have so little practical knowledge of this side of the writing game and any thoughts would be appreciated.
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Iāve only self-published one comic book. My advice: get an editor. There were grammatical errors on a few pages that I should have spotted, but my brain self-corrected them.
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it will be different for everyone, but i suggest making a list of small presses you admire and seeing what their submission policies are. the smaller a press is, the more likely they will be open to direct submission, but as you move up the food chain presses will more than likely want submission to be brokered by an agent. university presses and sometimes magazines will frequently have manuscript contests. these have entry fees but are a good way to sidestep a lot of the rigamarole and make a splash.
another alternative is to submit standalone poems to magazines first to create a ānameā for yourself which will likely give your manuscript the attention it undoubtedly deserves. an unfortunate reality of the industry. if you think an agent might be worth your while, my suggestion is to try to find any agency connected to poets you admire first, but iām sure a good google search will also produce useful results.
as for myself, i still submit from time to time, but publishing my stories on my website has been very rewarding. just today i got an email from some random person asking to be notified when i publish again. that feeling is cool. i guess i donāt really have an end goal or product in mind like you get from traditional publisher, but something to consider once you are scorned one too many times by the philistines who donāt recognize genius.
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oh, and iād love to read them myself one day 
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If youāre in a position to riso print or print at all, you also can likely table at your local bookstores. i suppose Iāve lived in New York/LA for the past eightish years but even in Virginia we had bookstores where you could land your zines and smaller books.
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I finished that Bras Cubas book Iāve been posting about on this thread. Itās really great, a certified classic for chapter enthusiasts like myself.
Jokes aside, this one will stay with me for a while, Iām legit considering rereading it now or whether to jump into the follow-up Quincas Borba which Iām eager to get my hands on.
There were one or two sections of the book that I had a really hard time understanding, but in my mind it could be because of any of the following: my english isnāt good enough, the translation is clunky, or the original text is written that way. Either way Iām tempted to post one of the passages here or perhaps one of the language threads because I had trouble parsing what was said.
Still, this one gets my highest recommendation. A very entertaining, rewarding and nourishing read, if I am honest. I think this book might even hit better if I were older or had a larger portion of my life already behind me. Not because the book is āmatureā in its content but because Bras Cubas reflections on his life might feel more relatable if I also were able to look back on my life trajectory with some more years/experiences under my belt. I hope that makes sense.
I also finished Bunny by Mona Awad a couple of days ago. Honestly that book surprised me in how complex it got towards the end, I overall enjoyed the unreliable narrator and having to piece together what is going on, but at some point I kind of wanted to throw a cold glass of water on the narratorās face and get them to speak straight to me! Itās literred with false flags and diversions that sometimes felt more frustrating than rewarding to pick through to find what is really going on. Maybe Iām being too harsh. I did generally like the book, it reminded me a lot of Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh which I also enjoyed.
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@Bonsai i doubt this is the caseāi legit forget english isnāt your first language reading your posts 
this makes me want to bump dom casmurro STRAIGHT to the top of the list
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I appreciate that.
I usually get tripped up when authors put sentences within sentences (donāt know how else to describe it) like this:
Just as nothing lasts, so it is natural that memory should fade; it is no air plant, it needs soil in which to root. The expectation of other favors, of course, will always preserve the beneficiaryās recollection of the first; but this fact, which is, incidentally, one of the most sublime that philosophy may have the opportunity to observe, can be explained by the memory of privation ā or, to use another formula, by the privation that continues in memory, echoing that past pain and advising that an opportune remedy be kept at hand.
To be able to understand this I have to block out certain parts of the paragraph just to get the core thought, Iāve had similar issues with other books that do nested sentences (?) like that and it takes me a minute to undo that knot. 
edit: Thereās the possibility that its intentionally obtuse because the man saying this, Quincas Borba, is written satirically as a āmad philosopherā and that I just got Borb-ed
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99% itās this
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Yet another masterful gambit from Borba
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yeah this is hard to parse as a native english speaker. sometimes with long, nested sentences like that (which i myself will also write sometimes), i find the best way to understand them is to read like youāre running down a hillāyou canāt lose the momentum.
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having read the book too yeah Iām pretty sure the characterās being a crackpot sophist. As it happens, parsing whatās meant to be rhetorical vs whatās meant to be unaffected is something Iām always uncertain about when I read in Spanish
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curious if the uncertainty comes mainly from language, cultural context, or both
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