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Post by crushingteeth on Oct 14, 2018 4:31:26 GMT -5
Nice, I just finished some Dostoevsky too.
I'm waiting for the new Haruki Murakami novel coming out next week. Which one? I've been recommended quite a few lately. I really wanted to like Murakami, but he put a weird hebephilia lesbian sex scene in Norwegian Wood and I can't take him seriously anymore. Unfortunate...his writing is interesting. Gives me impressionist vibes, but also with a distinct Japanese style. |
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caradhras
Peasant
roar with the ocean and plead with god
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Post by caradhras on Oct 15, 2018 18:21:50 GMT -5
I need to catch up on this thread. I have been reading Name of the Wind (Kingkiller) since i never read the series and have heard great things about it. I think I feel I am about to enter into a great experience as I am loving the classic fantasy tropes mixed with contemporary writing without icky gritty parts. Other than that my most recent fantasy hauls have been reading the The Black Company and Chronicles of Prydain (The Black Cauldron). Every christmas I get from my mom a bunch of new and old sci fi books like Philip K Dick and new anthologies of recent works. Thanks so much for this Kaptain! I just started reading The Black Company and it's already one of my favorite fantasy books of the year. Glen Cook's character development is crazy as well as his world building; he makes a gigantic fantasy world feel intimate and various side characters become fully fleshed out personalities with a couple of words of dialogue. Incredible! |
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Post by terminus on Oct 17, 2018 13:07:31 GMT -5
Nice, I just finished some Dostoevsky too.
I'm waiting for the new Haruki Murakami novel coming out next week. Which one? I've been recommended quite a few lately. I really wanted to like Murakami, but he put a weird hebephilia lesbian sex scene in Norwegian Wood and I can't take him seriously anymore. Unfortunate...his writing is interesting. Gives me impressionist vibes, but also with a distinct Japanese style.
I finished The Idiot. I liked it quite a bit, despite being mainly about Russian aristocrats. Also about the power hungry, corrupt Russian society's effects on a pure-hearted (but flawed) protagonist. Surprisingly good with psychological depth as with all Dostoevsky.
If you put the almost absurd level of sexual stuff aside, Murakami is good, but as you said he can get a little silly at times (but in a good Japanese way imo). Also some really understated creepiness and supernatural themes.
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Post by Summerless on Oct 17, 2018 16:48:12 GMT -5
Which one? I've been recommended quite a few lately. I really wanted to like Murakami, but he put a weird hebephilia lesbian sex scene in Norwegian Wood and I can't take him seriously anymore. Unfortunate...his writing is interesting. Gives me impressionist vibes, but also with a distinct Japanese style.
I finished The Idiot. I liked it quite a bit, despite being mainly about Russian aristocrats. Also about the power hungry, corrupt Russian society's effects on a pure-hearted (but flawed) protagonist. Surprisingly good with psychological depth as with all Dostoevsky.
If you put the almost absurd level of sexual stuff aside, Murakami is good, but as you said he can get a little silly at times (but in a good Japanese way imo). Also some really understated creepiness and supernatural themes.
I'm afraid the same thing happened with Murakami. His books have been so important to me, and his really meaningful work does tend to get shadowed by some pretty taboo sexual stuff. This seems to be more of a problem with his later works, though. As for Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov has to be one of my all-time favorite novels - very powerful work. |
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Post by crushingteeth on Oct 22, 2018 3:08:53 GMT -5
That's fair! I definitely understand his influence on contemporary literature. I haven't read anything but Norwegian Wood (I quit around 3/4 of the way through). I can't justify the morally dubious (at best) situations he wrote his women in, and the misogyny of the main character in that book was frankly caricature-like. Maybe some day I'll give him another shot. Anyways, I finished Crime and Punishment, I didn't think I'd get through the first half dealing with Rodia's dumb whiny shit, but I came out the other side really appreciating all of the characters and atmosphere. I'll put The Idiot on my TBR list! Sounds interesting! Any other fans of historical fiction and fantasy? I figure it's probably pretty popular since we oftentimes deal with fantasy themes in dungeon-synth and black metal. I'd be curious to know if people around here appreciate literary fiction, or genre-fiction more? My next book will be:  "In the 11th century, Rob Cole left poor, disease-ridden London to make his way across the land, hustling, juggling, peddling cures to the sick—and discovering the mystical ways of healing. It was on his travels that he found his own very real gift for healing—a gift that urged him on to become a doctor. So all consuming was his dream, that he made the perilous, unheard-of journey to Persia, to its Arab universities where he would undertake a transformation that would shape his destiny forever." |
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Post by thekeeper on Oct 30, 2018 10:46:33 GMT -5
My next book will be: "In the 11th century, Rob Cole left poor, disease-ridden London to make his way across the land, hustling, juggling, peddling cures to the sick—and discovering the mystical ways of healing. It was on his travels that he found his own very real gift for healing—a gift that urged him on to become a doctor. So all consuming was his dream, that he made the perilous, unheard-of journey to Persia, to its Arab universities where he would undertake a transformation that would shape his destiny forever." This sounds pretty kool. Have you started this yet? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2018 11:48:10 GMT -5
Currently reading « Doctor Sleep » by Stephen King. Not a great SK novel (I think there won't be any GREAT SK novel anymore) but pleasant, especially the beginning, when he describes the daily life of Danny Torrance as an alcoholic loser.
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Post by DieuxDesCimetieres on Oct 31, 2018 0:06:14 GMT -5
Doctor Sleep is probably the closest you can get to a "feelgood horror novel". It's a nice book, but the connection to The Shining seems a bit artificial and strained a lot of the time. Could have worked better as a standalone novel with new characters.
I just finished reading King's The Dark Tower -series. It shows it was written during the span of several decades, because the style shifts quite heavily between books. A pretty good and captivating read, but far from the best King.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2018 2:46:48 GMT -5
Doctor Sleep is probably the closest you can get to a "feelgood horror novel". It's a nice book, but the connection to The Shining seems a bit artificial and strained a lot of the time. Could have worked better as a standalone novel with new characters. I just finished reading King's The Dark Tower -series. It shows it was written during the span of several decades, because the style shifts quite heavily between books. A pretty good and captivating read, but far from the best King. I wouldn't even call it a horror novel. It's almost a (slightly) darker Harry Potter story in a contemporary setting. I mean, it feels more like a fantasy stuff than horror. Good versus evil, magic (however you call it) and so on. But yes, it's pretty "feelgood". |
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Post by crushingteeth on Nov 1, 2018 12:59:23 GMT -5
My next book will be: "In the 11th century, Rob Cole left poor, disease-ridden London to make his way across the land, hustling, juggling, peddling cures to the sick—and discovering the mystical ways of healing. It was on his travels that he found his own very real gift for healing—a gift that urged him on to become a doctor. So all consuming was his dream, that he made the perilous, unheard-of journey to Persia, to its Arab universities where he would undertake a transformation that would shape his destiny forever." This sounds pretty kool. Have you started this yet? I can't find a copy around where I live. I'm just gonna buckle and pick up a copy on ABEbooks or thriftbooks. I'll be sure to update on how it is when I get to reading it. |
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Post by DieuxDesCimetieres on Nov 8, 2018 9:15:20 GMT -5
Doctor Sleep is probably the closest you can get to a "feelgood horror novel". It's a nice book, but the connection to The Shining seems a bit artificial and strained a lot of the time. Could have worked better as a standalone novel with new characters. I just finished reading King's The Dark Tower -series. It shows it was written during the span of several decades, because the style shifts quite heavily between books. A pretty good and captivating read, but far from the best King. I wouldn't even call it a horror novel. It's almost a (slightly) darker Harry Potter story in a contemporary setting. I mean, it feels more like a fantasy stuff than horror. Good versus evil, magic (however you call it) and so on. But yes, it's pretty "feelgood". Very true. I think a lot of post-1980's Stephen King falls into some other category than horror; maybe "dark fantasy" or whatever, but it gets lumped into horror because it's a Stephen King novel. Which is sort of sad, because I think some of the best books he's written are in this category, and as such get a bit overlooked by non-horror fans because they automatically assume all King is horror. And "hardcore" horror fans, of course, sometimes overlook King with disdain because he's "so mainstream" or whatever. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2018 13:58:28 GMT -5
Very true. I think a lot of post-1980's Stephen King falls into some other category than horror; maybe "dark fantasy" or whatever, but it gets lumped into horror because it's a Stephen King novel. Which is sort of sad, because I think some of the best books he's written are in this category, and as such get a bit overlooked by non-horror fans because they automatically assume all King is horror. And "hardcore" horror fans, of course, sometimes overlook King with disdain because he's "so mainstream" or whatever. As for myself, the more I grow in age, the more I prefer King's realist novels (like Roadwork) and realist parts in his horror books — the sociological, psychological, satirical aspects of his work are far more interesting and touching that his (oftenly) shabby monsters. IT's Beverly Marsh's father is far more frightening than the clown himself. |
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Post by DieuxDesCimetieres on Nov 9, 2018 14:55:31 GMT -5
I concur. I think he was best at pure horror early in his career, when he went for a pretty straightforward style of horror. The more he includes psychology, complex characters and study of societies, the more I find the horror to be somewhat redundant. That being said, at his best, King uses the supernatural elements in his stories quite skillfully to explore the impact of unknown, alien events on humans and their relationships.
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Post by stormcrow on Nov 12, 2018 15:56:10 GMT -5
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Post by crushingteeth on Nov 14, 2018 14:22:19 GMT -5
Another author I've been meaning to dive into at some point. Have you read any of his other work? Let us know how you like it! |
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