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Reading Suggestions: Digest #3
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From: MalignD@aol.com
Reading Kundera is like being stuck in a locked room with a bore.
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From: Jesse Huisken <jesse_huisken@sympatico.ca>
I think that William Gaddis's The Recognitions would be of interest to
anyone who has enjoyed Ulysses and Pynchon's larger books. He's more
consistent in tone than Pynchon, and his two big novels are more reined
in and coherent as fictional worlds, but he's equally devastating in his
pessimism and his flights of imagination are some of the most brilliant
in fiction ever. I'd also highly recommend the fiction of Harry Mathews,
who's still kicking out brilliant books every now and then. Mathews will
appeal very much to anyone who has enjoyed Nabokov and the works of
Raymond Roussel. He's prose style and self conscious use of fantasy,
puzzles and parody are remarkable, and his style will seem very familiar
to readers of later Nobokov (LATH, Transparent Things, ADA). His first
three novels The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium, Tlooth, The Conversions
are my favorites, but Cigarettes is the most masterly as a work of
fiction (as opposed to literary experimentation). I'd like to know if
anyone else has read Harry Mathews on this site. I would be surprised if
no one has.
-- Jesse
Reading Kundera is like being stuck in a locked room with a bore.
________________________________________________________
From: Jesse Huisken <jesse_huisken@sympatico.ca>
I think that William Gaddis's The Recognitions would be of interest to
anyone who has enjoyed Ulysses and Pynchon's larger books. He's more
consistent in tone than Pynchon, and his two big novels are more reined
in and coherent as fictional worlds, but he's equally devastating in his
pessimism and his flights of imagination are some of the most brilliant
in fiction ever. I'd also highly recommend the fiction of Harry Mathews,
who's still kicking out brilliant books every now and then. Mathews will
appeal very much to anyone who has enjoyed Nabokov and the works of
Raymond Roussel. He's prose style and self conscious use of fantasy,
puzzles and parody are remarkable, and his style will seem very familiar
to readers of later Nobokov (LATH, Transparent Things, ADA). His first
three novels The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium, Tlooth, The Conversions
are my favorites, but Cigarettes is the most masterly as a work of
fiction (as opposed to literary experimentation). I'd like to know if
anyone else has read Harry Mathews on this site. I would be surprised if
no one has.
-- Jesse