|
01-28-2011, 01:19 AM | #1591 |
Eat/Sleep/Procrastinate/Repeat
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dystopia
Casino cash: $10017397
|
Flannery O'Connor is the bestest. I have her complete short stories, and it blows me away.
I'm not the biggest Faulkner fan, but I have to say that I love his novel Absalom, Absalom! It gives a sort of mythic account of the American South. THAT SAID, while I love that novel from Faulkner, it does little that Willa Cather's A Lost Lady doesn't already do in a much-shorter, more comprehensible manner. Cather is severely underrated, I feel. |
Posts: 33,369
|
01-28-2011, 06:32 AM | #1592 | |
In Search of a Life
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Fayetteville, AR
Casino cash: $9060204
|
Quote:
In researching him, the thought struck me that one of the reasons lit geeks like him so much is his Tokien-esque nerdcreation of a county, complete with maps and charts and family trees showing how stories interlap, in effect creating a sort of Southern Mythos. My only Cather is My Antonia and I liked it.
__________________
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. - H. L. Mencken |
|
Posts: 21,776
|
01-28-2011, 06:47 AM | #1593 | |
In Search of a Life
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Plano, TX
Casino cash: $9999900
|
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 22,188
|
01-28-2011, 06:52 AM | #1594 |
Starter
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Belton
Casino cash: $3005562
|
I am on George Shuman, Sherry Moore series.
Good so far, on book 2 of 4. If you like thrillers, Steve Hamilton Lock Artist was awesome |
Posts: 244
|
01-28-2011, 07:10 AM | #1595 |
Starter
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Houston, Texas
Casino cash: $10004900
|
I'm reading Joseph Stiglitzs "Freefall", who's a fav of the lefty Keynesian crowd. It's his explanation of what happened leading up to and precipitating the meltdown of the financial markets back in the Fall of '08, among quite a few other topics.
|
Posts: 88
|
01-28-2011, 07:46 AM | #1596 |
In Search of a Life
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Fayetteville, AR
Casino cash: $9060204
|
Just as an aside, I found this brutal quote from Hemingway on Faulkner:
“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”
__________________
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. - H. L. Mencken |
Posts: 21,776
|
01-28-2011, 07:46 AM | #1597 |
You Sweetie!
Join Date: Sep 2005
Casino cash: $2021206219
VARSITY
|
I love the n00bs "chiming in 'randomly'" dropping science.
|
Posts: 71,691
|
01-28-2011, 08:09 AM | #1598 | |
In Search of a Life
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Plano, TX
Casino cash: $9999900
|
Quote:
Then you try The Bear or Ulysses, and it's like a job. I don't want to work so hard. I understand people say it's a different kind of reward to read Faulkner and Joyce's more ambitious stuff, and that those two are trying to elevate language to a different plane. I just think there's plenty of other fiction I can read, with much less frustration. A calculus textbook is difficult to write, I'm sure. And if you got through all the lessons in a calculus book I'm sure you'd feel a certain reward. It doesn't mean I want to read it. |
|
Posts: 22,188
|
01-28-2011, 08:27 AM | #1599 |
fides quaerens intellectum
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: United States
Casino cash: $8330900
|
I'd like to read some of Flannery O'Connor, being that she is probably the most prolific American Catholic writer of the 20th century. What are the few essential short stories of hers I should start with?
|
Posts: 15,986
|
01-28-2011, 08:31 AM | #1600 | |
In Search of a Life
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Fayetteville, AR
Casino cash: $9060204
|
Quote:
A Good Man is Hard to Find Revelation Good Country People Most of those can be found full text online.
__________________
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. - H. L. Mencken |
|
Posts: 21,776
|
01-28-2011, 08:32 AM | #1601 | |
In Search of a Life
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Plano, TX
Casino cash: $9999900
|
Quote:
A Good Man is Hard to Find is her best known work. |
|
Posts: 22,188
|
01-28-2011, 08:46 AM | #1602 |
In Search of a Life
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Fayetteville, AR
Casino cash: $9060204
|
And as for a Catholic point of view... I'm not sure you'll find much common ground. Her view of humanity is pretty damned bleak. It's pretty much summed up by the final lines of her most famous character The Misfit, "she [the grandmother] would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."
O'Connor pretty much thinks we all need a someone there to shoot us every minute of our life in order to rescue us from our human condition.
__________________
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. - H. L. Mencken |
Posts: 21,776
|
01-28-2011, 08:54 AM | #1603 | |
fides quaerens intellectum
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: United States
Casino cash: $8330900
|
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 15,986
|
01-28-2011, 08:57 AM | #1604 |
That Rascally wabbit!
Join Date: Aug 2009
Casino cash: $10001564
|
|
Posts: 1,565
|
01-28-2011, 11:28 AM | #1605 |
Eat/Sleep/Procrastinate/Repeat
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dystopia
Casino cash: $10017397
|
The past two weeks:
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett Stolen Words by Thomas Mallon |
Posts: 33,369
|
|
|