ITT: books that are as long as Infinite Jest but actually worth reading.
my diary desu
>>8243387
shieetttt
So, my friend gifted me infinite jest. Then my sister got me 2666.
I chose 2666 over IJ, and I'm roughly 100 pages in. Impressed so far, even though nothing really happens.
>>8243387
Damn fucking brutal. Ulysses is of comparable length and it's made me laugh out loud a couple times (call it 5-9?) at 412 pages in. The prose is gorgeous and you learn some daedal words.
>>8243387
you start
Women and Men by Joseph Mcelroy
I wanna buy this book solely because of the cover
Should I /lit/?
>>8243387
Bros K
>>8243853
Go for it.
I want that cover hung over my bedroom.
Parallel Stories by Peter Nadas.
>>8243868
Love me some Moreau
Most underrated 19th century painter ever?
>>8243387
Holy fuck that book has satanic trips.
Checked.
>>8244362
I can't believe I've never seen or thought to make this joke before.
>>8243387
Summary of this book?
D O N Q U I X O T E
O
N
Q
U
I
X
O
T
E
>>8243853
Absolutely.
I have a feeling that english speakers care more about presentation than we do, and it's quite nice, to be honest.
Pic related: it's the cover I'm stuck with, since it's the only issue available in my country.
>>8244377
Robert Bologna and his band of merry men travel to the year 2666 to save the earth from the mexican space-cartel, who have made it their mission to stop any citizen of Future Earth from writing an overwrought door-stopper where nothing happens
Anna K.
The Brothers K.
>>8244437
That is my favourite cover :( and I can't get that one in my country
>>8244437
>I have a feeling that english speakers care more about presentation than we do, and it's quite nice, to be honest.
I know that feel all too well. I'm trying to force myself to read more in English just because I prefer the book covers but it's never really the same as reading in your mother tongue. And reading Kafka in English for example, is just plainly sickening.
>>8244464
Not the recent translations, they're pretty good. Captures the same sense of discontinuity and paranoia.
t. native German speaker
>>8244474
Really? Do you have a suggestion?
I want to read either Metamorphosis or The Trial, I think
>>8244481
Just fucking read it, dude. The entirety of Kafka's work (save his diaries) is probably smaller than Infinite Meme
>>8244474
plz give examples
t. can't speak German
>>8244492
I'm not asking if I should read the books or not, I was asking if you had certain translations of the books to recommend.
>>8244500
translations are a meme, any recent translation from any language to any language should either be as faithful as possible (within our current paradigms and views) or contain notes and/or a introduction explaining which liberties and why they were taken.
You shouldn't let /lit/ meme you this hard, you fucking dolt. Just sit down and read the books you want to.
>>8244437
The covers of Anagrama are ugly as shit. Try drawing something on it. Or at least that's what I do.
>>8244536
cheers! i'll make sure to buy this book and check it out
>>8243387
i liked both :^)
and 2666 is definitely shorter and was meant to be five separate books bud.
>>8244443
lol'd
>>8244377
there's a bunch of themes and shit but it's essentially about a bunch of seemingly unrelated stories (some more important than others) that all convene at some unknown year in the future (like 2666). Kinda like how you generally can't really make sense of an event unless you're looking back on it. very well written and entertaining though, if you enjoyed infinite jest i imagine you'd like 2666 as well.
>>8244437
I have that cover too!
Are you in Mexico?
>>8244443
Fantastic.
>>8243841
>Women and Men by Joseph Mcelroy
spotted the richfag
>>8245352
>implying people read books before recommending them
>>8243853
nah, Wimmer's translation is garbage
she barely knows spanish
nice cover tho
>>8245352
The opposite. I'm a library weenie.
>>8244362
amazing
>>8244437
That's just Anagrama though. American covers tend to be dogshit usually.
>>8245583
there aren't any other English translations of 2666
>>8244753
A huevo que sí.
Phenomenology of spirit
Critique of pure reason
World as will and representation
gaddis bros.
Any vollmann
>>8243444
He already did, there is something called pic related, newfag.
>>8247346
>can't tell if joke
>>8245583
i thought her translation of the savage detectives was good until i read the original and so much beauty is lost, i assume it's the same for 2666
>>8244362
10/10, why the hell didn't I think of this?
Anyone read Darkmans by Nicola Barker? If so, is it worth reading?
>>8243422
>reading a translation over one of the the late 20th century's most sincere voices
Found the pseud.
>>8247535
Yes
Kind of
I'd start with in the approaches personally
>>8245352
You know there's an epub, right?
>>8243387
Hugo - Les Misérables
>>8244437
I actually like this cover more than the 'murrican meme edition. It feels more apocalyptic in a less kitschy way.
>>8247803
>more apocalyptic in a less kitschy way
Writer of the century here.
>>8247835
Says another writer who wrote the crap for his life. He is the worst author I've read in life along with Jack Kerouac
bret easton ellis if you're reading the please to kill yourself. American psycho was so fucking boring and misogynistic crap.
>>8247849
How can two writers be the worst writer?
Wow, this 2666 seems like an interesting book.
Is it as supremely fucking depressing as Infinite Jest?
>>8247857
No, only bad books are depressing. That's how you know they're bad books.
>>8247859
I kinda agree with you there, sir.
So it is not the bleak ramblings of a maniac depressive vomiting his mind out? I've read the Wikipedia entry on it, and it sounded pretty similar to Infinite Jest.
Is infinite jest worth it? I've been wanting to read it for some time but I just haven't yet for some reason
Holy shit.
Infinite Jest is an amazing book. It's fucking great and deserves praise. The only people who shit on it haven't read it.
2666 is also a great book. I like it better but Infinite Jest is much more likable to a newer reader.
>>8248031
I read and liked it, but I wouldn't call it great.
>>8248031
> a newer reader.
that's why you like it so much. IJ is like the inception of books - it's ok, but it's nothing great. overrated by people who don't read a lot.
Fuck DFW
>>8247859
>only bad are depressing
>>8248093
I didn't say I was a newer reader you fucking clown ass. I'm saying it's more accessible for a newer reader. That doesn't make it any worse, by the way.
>>8248149
Mason & Dixon is for sure better. 2666 is better too. IJ is still great.
>>8248411
you are a newer reader that much is obvious
>>8248093
>inception [is] overrated by people who don't read a lot
it's also underrated by contrarians who also don't read a lot so there's that
>>8248031
I liked Infinite Jest, but not enough for it to be the meme it is.
I suppose that due to it being A) really fucking huge B) has the footnotes gimmick and C) is competently written enough while still being acessible made a generation of pleb americans who had never read shit beyond Mark Twain and Animal Farm go WHOA. Also, the fact that DFW looked like a mix between an autist, a good looking jock and someone who's actually intelligent made him a sort of personality, which only got aggravated by his suicide. My point is: there is a lot going for the fame of the book that has shit to do with the text iself.
But still, Bolaño on his first unpublished novel was already a better writer than DFW on IJ.
>>8247854
you didnt get it
>>8248509
Bolaño is my favorite author but The Third Reich is pretty bad.
>>8243387
I just finished the book, it was pretty fun.
>>8244437
Anagrama makes minimalist covers to hipsters, and those idiots love them.
American covers are for movies' fans.
I both cases, they are awful
>>8244481
This anon >>8244516 is correct. Kafka's german prose is interesting and revolutionary don't get me wrong but I've read all of his work and reread with different translations and almost nothing was sacrificed from the earlier translations to now. Just really specific things like earlier translations of Amerika don't include the errors Kafka made in describing America (i.e. saying that he bought a train ticket heading east to San Francisco while in NYC, in the earlier editions they corrected it to West, in the later ones they left it) other than that nothing really stood out beside one translation (the original Vintage edition) mutilating the first line of The Trial saying: "Someone must have traduced K..." instead of "Someone must have been telling lies about K...."
>>8248156
good b8
it is a very comfy book though
>>8249811
op only said "worth reading"
So the covers for 2666 make it seem like a grim book with lots of deserts and bloodshed in it, is this true?
Women and Men
>>8250080
Yes but it's all written in a very detached manner.
>>8243387
As long as Infinite Jest and better than Infinite Jest:
Against the Day
Your Face Tomorrow
2666
Long ass books although shorter than Infinite Jest, but better than Infinite Jest:
D. Quixote
Ulysses
Gravity's Rainbow
War and Peace
Anna Karenina
The Brothers Karamazov
David Copperfield
Lost Illusions
Les Misérables
The Betrothed
>>8248673
It's p. good, actually
>>8251763
Les Miserables is longer than Infinite Jest and Anna Karenina is the only book in your list which is worse than Infinite Jest, I loved Middlemarch and would prefer over both Infinite Jest and Anna Karenina
Tom Jones is also better than Infinite Jest.
>>8251763
War and Peace is as long as IJ, IJ is barely over 1000 pages.
>>8244654
This.
>>8248673
why didnt you like it? i's the next read for me in the Mariachi Pynchon canon.
The Magic Mountain.
>>8243387
The Recognitions
>>8250080
OPs cover looks like that because all of Bolaño's new editions in Brazil for some reason are like this, close-ups of abstract paintings.
While it works for 2666, the rest are kinda dull
But yes. Desert and bloodshed, a lot of it.
>>8248673
What, why do you think so?
>>8251749
Oh Anon, don't mind me being pretentious. It's Kafka's own drawings so at least it has some genuine feel.
Has anyone on /lit/ read The Wealth of Nations in it's entirety? If I do it will I be the only one?
>>8252671
why the fuck would you read that
>>8252548
do you unironically think the recognitions is stronger than infinite jest?
>>8243428
Ulysses is not comparable length.. it's like half the pages of Infinite Jest then you factor in all the formatting and that Ulysses' longest chapter is spaced out like a play and Infinite Jest is all tiny print footnotes ... Ulysses is like 1/3 of Infinite Jest
(not saying it isn't the far superior book though)
>>8252605
I wasn't really joking.
>>8252708
I'm interested in economics. A lot of people idolize or trash Smith for political reasons with out reading him, and I don't want to be like that.
>>8245855
The first three are nowhere nere as long as infinite jest.
>>8247849
I'm reading On The Road right now. Sometimes the prose gets me excited for what will happen next, but then nothing happens. Kerouac seems like an egomaniac based on this book.
>>8253117
Not him but I dropped On The Road halfway through for exactly the same reasons
>>8253119
yeah me too. massively overrated.
>>8253026
just read a text book about him, bro. seriously
How did 2666 become so popular, besides being a good read, just word of mouth? He was just a Chilean living a miserable life in Spain, and Chileans barely know who he is.
>>8253211
a combination of things, good book, he had literary connections so colleague presumably praised it after his death, his death itself (how he was writing it against a backdrop of terminal illness) and the fact that he was predominantly left wing which is always somewhat more popular due to virtue signalling
also just the general cascade of intangible, circumstantial and luck based factors that contribute towards something becoming popular
>>8253211
If you mean popular on /lit/, the vaginal and anal rape may have had something to do with it.
If you mean popular IRL, it is not. Spaniards are not aware of Bolaño's existence either.
Terrific read though.
>>8253157
I think I'll read the original work.
>>8253250
>>8253211
Are you people fucking high? Bolaño is as well known as any "literary fiction" or "serious writer" or whatever can be today.
I'm french and studied english lit, while a friend of mine studied spanish, and while I didn't study DFW or Delilo, I remember her carrying at least two of Bolaño's books (Little Lumpen Novelita and By NIght in Chile)
>>8252712
I'm not him but I do.
>>8254404
>studied english lit
do you have a job?
>>8243388
u r 2 qt boi
>>8253211
he gained some fame with Estrella Distante which won him some award, then he followed up with Detectives which solidified him as a good boy who did somefin. 2666 got famous because he had made friends and they all knew his history of exile and being poor so after he died and it was published they pushed it as great (which it is.
>>8255574
the idea of WWII novels turns me off completely
sure it was the largest war in history and changed everything forever and all, but i feel between tv specials, movies, video games, and books ive had my fill of this meme already. its gotta be really, really good.
>>8254928
Yes, but it has absolutely nothing to do with english lit
>>8255636
the idea of someone getting tired of WWII ideas turns me off completely
Sure it has been revisited again and again but I feel between the countless lives lost, mayhem, despair, and atrocities there is no excuse for "being bored" of it.
>>8255636
life and fate is a masterpiece, fäm
>>8248509
I'm with you on how annoyed you are over DFW's celebrity status, and especially over how worshipped he is. Even his close personal friends say he was no god.
I can't help liking DFW though, especially as an aspiring author. His interviews are especially insightful when he talks about writing, and a lot of what he says I've already tended to have agreed with. I'd love nothing more than to discuss writing with him, but of course he an hero'd.
>>8252725
You don't have to make an apology in the form of a parenthetical. No one here actually cares whether you like Infinite Jest. Hyping IJ was once a meme, but now hating it is a meme. You can neither win nor lose talking about that book, just say what you want without being a cuck.
Its been a few months since I've read Nazi Literature in the Americas but I thought it was wonderful. funny and melancholic at times. which one of his lesser known works are good?
>>8255841
He's not apologizing, he's just being pedantic about the length, and he's not wrong about that part. Going by word counts, Ulysses is a bit under half the length of IJ.
That's not a comment on quality at all though.
>>8256346
Read The Third Reich if you want some psychological thriller at the beach bellhop Bolaño (Blanes)
Read Monsieur Pain if you want some Borges/Poe inspired psychological thriller that takes place before WW2 (Paris)
Read The Skating Rink if you want some comfy detective campground custodian Bolaño (also Blanes)
Read Amulet if you enjoyed The Savage Detectives (Mexico DF)
I haven't read A Little Lumpen Novelita and Antwerp, so I can't comment on those
>>8247803
You are a douche.
>>8256392
thank you Añon
>>8247562
Who said he was reading a translation?
