reviens
hi!
i have the internet back now.
if you like 'the magus' by john fowles, read 'the ebony tower' which is also by him. the first story (it is a small collection of sort-of related work) is a novella about a painter-turned-writer who visits a renowned painter living in hermitude with two young women, also art students. sexual liaisons and other mischief abound.
but overall i'd really just give it a C-, because the writing's good (it's fowles, duh) but the plot and mise-en-scene just remind me of a first, less creepy draft of 'the magus.' which, if you haven't read, you should.
kaylen, as to your thoughts on danielewski's "novel," it does, and will, scar your fiction for life. take it from one who knows and has felt the stinging wrath.
my ex-roommate stole my copy of pessoa's 'the book of disquiet' & i have been rummaging, from mess to mess & room to room, for it when i finally gave up the ghost (as it were) and succumbed to despair. awful, awful, fat beast masquerading as a man. he stole a lot of my shit. mostly books. i hate him. it is good to hear, jonathan, that he has other work out there. surprising that it's not attributed to one of his heteronyms instead.
i haven't been reading a lot. mostly movies; old, classic movies i've never seen but have always wanted to. some revisiting to childhood with animated disney. my book club book last month was 'foucault's pendulum' by umberto eco ('da vinci code' for smart kids) & this month it's 'equus' by peter shaffer. i like the latter, but it's so short - and i've read it already. so it's kind of a let-down.
if you like crazy conspiracy novels with a lot of esoteric stuff (speaking of 'da vinci code') you should check out "flicker" by theodore roethke (i think his name is) ... its ending is one of the most amazing i've encountered recently. i lent this out to my friend and he said he can't stop reading it (between drinking heavily & tearing his hair out over his girlfriend-at-a-distance). that's nice to hear.
i also made my first book sale last week. $25 for a signed, first draft copy of my novel "MS." which is awful and terrible but someone wanted to pay me for it, so i sold her a copy and made nine dollars in profit (after binding it at kinko's.). that was fun. a little unnerving though. she seems to have liked it, and for that i am thankful - though i want to hear what she didn't like.
i actually need to find a new book. something interesting and original. everything i look at lately just seems ripped off from something else, or is boring subject matter. maybe i'm being too critical. i should read some more pynchon, though wading through 'gravity's rainbow' was a battle -
cheerio.
posted by mr. john fury @ 9:05 PM
5 Comments:
Tale Spin episodes are old classic movies?
... yeah, i used to watch that one like a fiend. and rescue rangers... etc.
the Pessoa book I mentioned actually IS by a heteronym, Alberto Caeiro. The Book of Disquiet is an exceptional work, one that's very much influenced something I'll be working on soon.
I gave a favourable review to the new Pynchon novel, a bit breezier than Gravity's Rainbow, though also a fair bit longer and perhaps a bit less rich.
if you are looking for things to read I would recommend Robert Walser and also Bruno Schulz. Beckett's novels are always good too.
awesome!
1) i had a bad translation of my copy of 'disquiet,' anyway, but still loved it.
2) i love beckett, in any shape & form.
i will look up mr. schulz & mr. walser. thanks !
a note on Schulz: he is best known for his story collection "The Cinnamon Shops" BUT this is often published in translations as "The Street of Crocodiles" (the name of the most famous story instead of the name for the collection given by Schulz). so don't bother looking for "The Cinnamon Shops" -- go for "The Street of Crocodiles." Actually, go for "The Complete Fiction of Bruno Schulz" -- he has written shockingly little, having been shot to death during WW2.
if you know your film, you will recognize this name as the title of a famous Brothers Quay film... an adaptation of the Schulz story. the Quays also "adapted" Jakob von Gunten, the most famous work by Robert Walser, as their first feature.... However, the film is surprisingly bad, and "The Robber" is a much better but neglected book. Walser is mostly know for short-short pieces, which are also excellent.
i do know the quay films. not my favourites, but i appreciate their classic standing.
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