Does /lit/ ever talk about Michael Chabon?
I just started The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. I find his style creative and honestly pretty impressive but I can't help but feel like he takes god damn forever to say anything because he's too busy tickling his balls with all the wordplay. The plot is meh.
Still, it's better than most of the postmodernist garbage some of you seem to get off on. Pic related, he writes exactly how I expect the person in that picture to write.
Thoughts on Chabon?
Kavalier and Klay was great; Yiddish policemen's union was only okay. He's a bit meandering, but it's not unpleasant imo. Good-tier writer.
K&C and TMOP are God tier books
Kavalier & Clay is OK, but it also furthered the horrible 'muh comix r culture too, worth being studied in the academy' movement which is slowly destroying our adult culture, so I'm pretty cold to it all things considered.
>>7702181
is that seriously high on your list of things "destroying culture?"
>>7702181
>which is slowly destroying our adult culture
Sure it is dad.
Now go to bed.
>>7702212
It is pretty high on that list, tbqh. High culture is relatively unaffected, but is being, in some small ways, influenced by 'comic book' plots.
However, upper-middle-brow culture has been absolutely devastated by the increasing pursuit of the ur-novel/film/etc that appeals in the most primitive and basic sense to the largest possible audience.
We used to have gateway works to high culture - think authors/books like Capote, McMurthy, some lesser Ishiguros, Wolfe, Chabon himself for that matter; films like those from Merchant-Ivory, Whit Stillman, etc). Often good (not great) works, but works that still lead their readers/viewers to want - and expect - more.
In their place today we have graphic novels, comic book movies, and Harry Potter (which is essentially a fusion of the two; Bloom was prescient in his criticism). There is a growing void between high culture and pop culture, and that is disconcerting, at least to a middle-aged small-d democrat like me.
I read K&C and I thought it was kind of okay, the plot was somewhat engaging but I thought he was too immature for the same reasons you described as "tickling his balls with all the wordplay."
My pace would also shut down whenever he implemented endnotes and would assume his characters had a real-time impact on his alternate universe version of 2016. It was off putting seeing him write how Kavalier is considered a renaissance pioneer of the comix artform today.
I also couldn't shake this feeling of naivety surrounding the whole story, but I guess that could be expected of YA fiction?
>>7702592
the problem isn't the "void" between high and low culture; it's that people producing "low" culture simply aren't engaging in serious moral discussion when they should be. But you can still find critiques of it.
Recently read the Final Solution. I've definitely read it before, but I'm not sure when. Anyways, it was much better than I expected, very tightly written and the second-to-last chapter (I think) has an awesome narration gimmick that I enjoyed. The prose is, at times, quite beautiful as well.
Summerland holds a special place in my heart because my mom liked it and gave it to me when I was ~10 years old. I'm aware that that's the age at which one would enjoy such a book, but I loved it at the time.
Never read any of his more 'serious' works.
I tried to get Chabon more popular here on /lit/ a while back, with no noticeable success. TAOKAK was what got me back into reading on a regular basis. He does tickle his balls a lot (love the phrase btw), but I dont really mind and just go with the flow because I enjoy his writing
>>7702181
>comix destroying our culture!
>>7704574
What makes you think they aren't, anon? I suppose I wouldn't say that comics themselves are destroying culture, but their ascendency is happening concurrently with the a decline in the number of of serious cultural works being released.
I get the feeling he often includes gay, bisexual, and jewish characters in his work.
>>7704731
I read quite a lot of comix (don't want to ever stop either) and I agree
>>7702592
give an example of high culture authors
i never thought about classifying literature like that and Im curious what you think
Despite the dickheaded patrician supremist consensus 'popular' 'doesnt always mean 'shit' and rejecting the popular doesn't necessarily make you smart. The Chabon book is a great read and a minor classic IMO. Mysteries of Cleland is OK. Kind of a Salinger-ey 'bildungsroman'.
>>7705485
For as much as everyone on /lit/ shitposts, the general /lit/ consensus of 'goat tier, good tier, meh tier, shit tier' authors/works is a relatively fair breakdown here.
something something gay jew
>>7706329
That's a nice approximation of a reasonable argument supported by data. Keep at it, your mom and proud if you for tryin'.
>>7702091
I honestly couldn't even finish Kavalier and Clay. Thought it was awful.
I read Kavalier&Clay and Yiddish Policemen.
They are written for a general audience, but if you come from a Jewish background it is a lot better than I gather goys would think it.
>>7702091
Good stylist, occasionally overbearing, excellent gateway drug to other, better authors.
>>7702091
You should read Wonder Boys OP. It's my go-to book along with High Fidelity and The Code of the Woosters whenever I go through a breakup.
>>7702165
you think? I loved TMOP but I feel like it's not god tier, I think people like ben lerner are a lot better?
>>7706792
In the competition between Jewish writers riffing on low culture in middle brow ways Lethem is by far the best.
>>7706821
Letham ?
>>7706830
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Lethem
