i prefer oscar wao to drown. there's a little too much redundancy in the short stories that make it feel duller than it should. individually, the stories are uniformly strong. all together they just feel uniform.

my love for wao is more the liberal use of language, more than for what you refer to as pulitzer-bait. the enthusiasm in the word play is infectious and goes deeper than the 'cute' geek references. also, diaz is a real nerd, and maybe also a real ladies man. speaking with him, you get the sense that he moves between worlds, personalities, convincingly enough. i've said this before, but he's a real charismatic dude.

Have you seen this article? Junot Diaz writing about writer's block. Good, quick read. It's nice to know that even a Pulitzer Prize-winning author has trouble sometimes.



Now reading this. Someone in another thread compared Houellebecq's writing to this dude's, so I'm digging in.

more interesting than the av club's list, but, if anything, worse:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle6914181.ece

da vinci code in the top ten? that's a pretty damning inclusion.

"Pretty damning" doesn't even cover it. Twilight is on there as well. Christ, we've become a nation of infants! I just recently finished reading Twilight with my girlfriend. We'd read a chapter or two aloud each night before going to bed. I played Edward like Christian Bale in American Psycho and Bella like Witherspoon's character. Made for a few laughs, but mostly it was a devastatingly empty experience. It's truly truly truly the very worst book I've ever read.

This is an embarrassing list with no merit whatsoever. The 9/11 Commission Report? A new translation of War and Peace? A more honest title would be "100 Books That Were Released This Decade," because anyone who honestly believes some of these books are the BEST of the decade is a bigger moron than Stephanie Meyer.

That list is disgusting. They go ahead and rank Da Vinci Code as the worst book of the decade in another article, however; attacking some of the most pathetic prose in a selling novel ever. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle6915977.ece

What would be a legitimate non-snobby way to state that something which is extremely popular also happens to be lowest common denominator drivel?

If it were a list of the Biggest Books of the Decade then I could understand their inclusion. Like Time making Hitler the Man of the Year, it makes sense. But if Hitler were Time's Best Man of the Year, I might be a little concerned. I think a book needs to do more than sell lots of copies and "inspire debate" to warrant a position on such a list, especially when any such debate is not about significant ideas but whether or not Meyer or Brown can even write.

But I agree, my remark was unattractive and condescending. I don't like the list, but it's wrong to impugn the intelligence of those who have enjoyed such books, my very smart sister (currently working toward a masters in Marine Biology) among them. That said, my sister wouldn't make a Best Books of the Decade list. And if she did and put Twilight on the list, I would probably make fun of her and she would say, "Yeah, I know, it sucks, but I enjoy it."

I wouldn't know, nor do I believe you're interested. We've had this argument before, you and I, and I'm quite sure I won't change your mind, but I'll just put this out there for general consideration.

It really doesn't matter whether it's actually drivel or not. In Brown's case, I'm not at all sure it is. The prose in his most recent may be horrendous, although I suspect it's more a case of using select examples to bolster an argument which hardly needs making - you really are as smart as you desperately need to believe, so please quit being threatened by every low-to-middlebrow incursion against your oh-so-cultivated and precious taste.

Literature and writing exist to serve more purposes than giving you an aesthetic erection. Brown's first two novels threatened the Holy Roman Church to the extent they launched an all-out media campaign to discredit Brown and debunk Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the "nonfiction" work which most influenced The DaVinci Code, an overreaction not seen since Monty Python's Life of Brian knocked the papal miter askew in the late 1970s.

Just as Celine Dion's tens of millions of units moved don't necessarily make her an important musician, neither do Brown's or Meyers's sales mean they're great writers. It does, however, make them significant, which is what I suspect really bothers all those who wring their hands and wait for the Republic to crumble in the wake of their success. They're part of the (pop) culture now, and they have to be considered.

I bet that pisses guys like you off no end.

Suck it up is all I can advise. Meyers has millions of kids who don't consider themselves readers reading. I know you dismiss this argument, Tony, though I have no idea how. Brown has similar millions of people whom I would almost certainly call lunkheads reading and seeking out other books on the subject of the historical Jesus, among others. I just can't see how firing people's imaginations or inspiring their curiosity can be regarded as bad. That you find something about them, as people, inherently unworthy, or the subjects they're now interested in tawdry pseudo-history is only relevant b/c you insist on shoving it into the debate.

But the fact remains: These people are part of conversations which some of us would rather not have them in. You can sniff and dismiss and run for the hallowed halls of academe in horror, which seems the approach of many here, or you can welcome them in and say,

"Oh, you like vampires? There's this crazed Irishman named Stoker - have you read him?"

I will always think it a fine thing when a book brings people in, seeking new ideas, learning, growth. For this alone, I think it's more than fair to include the "lowest common denominator drivel" in lists of Decade's Best.

Frankly, I've read Da Vinci Code three times. It's entertaining. I can't get through most of McCarthy's novels without falling asleep.

If Brown and Meyer spur interest in better literature amongst their readers then great. I'd be curious to know how often that happens though.

I mean how many people who've watched and enjoyed Merchant Ivory's series of reductionist film versions of Henry James and E.M. Forster have actually gone on to read James and Forster?

Soap operas don't lead people to serious film, Celine Dion doesn't inspire anyone to pick up a Miles Davis record, and Twilight only results in more Twilight. Or are these kids really cruising the literature section of their local book store between fourth and fifth rereadings of a 2000 page series? I could care less if these people are reading or not. Twilight is not a gateway drug to better books anymore than crack cocaine is a gateway to better drugs.

I'd be perfectly fine with ignoring these books if their success didn't make smaller, more difficult works a lot less appealing to publishers. It hardly takes an Academic (and I'm certainly not one of those) to feel bitter about the infantalized state of the cultural landscape. I'd rather the Twilighters not be part of the conversation because they're not even remotely interested in having a conversation (unless, of course, it's Team Edward vs Team Jacob). They just want their fanboy favorites validated by the establishment. It's the same thing with film, with movie critics getting shit on if they don't include The Dark Knight on a Ten Best list. Go to Rotten Tomatoes and check the comments under any Rotten review of The Dark Knight or Iron Man and you'll see what I mean.

Ooo, this discussion re: decade's bests has come in the nick of stopping by the library.



DeLillo intrigues me--he seems capable of writing anything. Been eyeing Underworld for awhile, maybe that's what's next.

he's not invincible. check out cosmopolitan for proof. or better, don't.

Ah, thanks. I wasn't crazy about The Body Artist for mostly the reasons Ogawa states--but I did really want to like it because of that first chapter. You may be surprised by Falling Man--it goes off on tangents that aren't so much about 9.11 as they are about...how survivors and casualties in general can be one and the same, I guess.

Since I take it we've nixed the idea of a thread for best books of the decade, I thought I'd just throw out a few of my faves for the hell of it. Please to note that neither Dan Brown nor Stephanie Meyers' names appear.

Larry Brown - A Miracle of Catfish. Yes, I'm at least a little hesitant to pronounce an unfinished novel among the best of the decade, but the late Brown's self-described "magnum opus" is a stunning tour of the North Mississippi he and I both love, and a keen study of its people in all their frailty and fallibility.

Bob Dylan - Chronicles, Vol. I. Sure, I've treated much of the man's work as a form of literature for years, despite Robert Christgau's stern admonitions to do no such thing, and yet I was still stunned by the quality of prose put forth. Were his voice not so singular, I'dve screamed, "GHOSTWRITER!" a few pages in. I've read every Dylan bio there is - if his differs from much of the agreed-upon, Dylan's take on things at least has the much-needed effect of silencing, hopefully forever, the insufferable bloviations of self-proclaimed "world's leading authority on Dylan," Clinton Heylin.

Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections. The funniest tragedy I've read in a long time.

Lawrence Block - All the Flowers Are Dying. Block's mystery novels featuring active-then-recovering-alcoholic private detective Matthew Scudder are amongst a relative few who make New York City more than a splashy backdrop in which brand names obliterate narrative (Andrew Vacchs' Baby Boy Burke novels also come to mind.) Scudder, long assumed to be a stand-in for Block, himself a recovering alcoholic, has all the requisite darkness of the private dick genre, inhabiting a moral landscape which Hollywood has found too challenging to adapt faithfully or well. (The villain of Eight Million Ways to Die, a pimp called Chance, is in fact second protagonist in the novel.) A recovering drunk who numbers among his inner circle a dirty, brutal, drunken NYPD detective, a hard-drinking and unapologetic Irish mob boss, a call-girl who becomes his wife and a homeless street hustler/hacker, Scudder finds long-term sobriety without ever finding pat answers to his ongoing existential crises. ...Are Dying is so far the last Scudder novel and feels like a fitting end to the series, as he contemplates the perils of advancing age and the meaning of a post-9/11 New York. Like all the best Scudder books, the mystery takes a back seat to Block's ruminations and perfect, uncompromising characters.

I spent most of the decade working my way through Updike, Auster, Brett Ellis, Doctorow and DeLillo's back catalogs. I'm more interested in reading what interests me than worrying about what's current. If it's good, it will be in the library whenever I get to it.

i'd still love to do this books of the decade thing. mostly because i want to see what develops as a consensus. pretentious or not, i trust most people here more than i do most of these editorial staff lists.

chronicles is definitely one of the best books of the decade. but i prefer to keep fiction and non-fiction separate, because i largely judge them on different merits. not in chronicles' case, because that book is a fine piece of storytelling.

thinking of auster, i'm nearly through with his new one, invisible, and it's tremendous. hasn't quite gotten to me the way man in the dark did, but it's a much better formed, fleshed out work. probably his best of the decade, maybe one of his best ever. if you haven't already, i'd recommend tracking that down as soon as you can.

anxious to check out the auster, but I know I'm going to have to wait till I get it for Xmas.

Finished both Strait is the Gate and The Immoralist by André Gide. Both damn good books. Strait in particular is probably one of the saddest things I've ever read. I like these older books, and their French-ness. In addition to the quality of the characters and the narrators, there's a philosophical weight here, and in books by Sartre and Camus and Houellebecq, that I tend to miss in more modern and American books. Also, I adore the brevity, and the economy of language. Each sentence is so necessary, each paragraph so dense with character and theme. I wish the art of the novella would make a comeback.

Also read Vampire Loves by Joann Sfar. First of his works that I've read. Cute little graphic novel, with moments of inspired genius. Only moments, though. The rambling nature of his style results in a lot of delightful interplay but not much in the way of depth or complexity. Those few moments, though, are fantastic. And I also just finished Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. I agree with brobee's assessment several pages back. The story is very strong and powerful, and frustrating and infuriating, but the very plain writing detracts from it somewhat. Still, it was a good, enjoyable read and made me bump Spike Lee's When The Levees Broke to the top of my Netflix queue. The book made me realize how much I still don't know about what went on during Katrina.

Now I'm reading At Swim-Two-Birds, which my friend has been bugging me to read for years.

sfar's the rabbi's cat (one, not two) is also a really great graphic novel dealie. definitely check that one out when you get a chance.

also, i'm a third of the way through the elementary particles. like it so far, but it's a little too dispassionately devastating for me to enjoy fully right now. definitely a worthwhile book, though. thanks for the recommendation.

My girlfriend has The Rabbi's Cat somewhere around here. I'll give that a read next. Glad you're at least liking the Houellebecq book. I can understand your issues with the general quality of the narrative. I don't expect everyone to react to it the same way I do. I think there's a strange sort of sensitivity in Houellebecq's observations, though. One that often gets overlooked by his detractors.

Michael Lewis - Home Game

I like Lewis's work generally and I'm about to be a dad so I picked this up. This is quite obviously a contract obligation filler as it is a collection of columns and diary entries with many page breaks barely making it to 188 pages. But it's got many funny and interesting stories and brings up many situations I have yet to consider and many feelings I may or may not feel once the child arrives, so it was entertaining and thought provoking for me. I'd reccommend one considering buying it to wait for the paperback. But I felt I owed it to Lewis to buy this one as I borrowed 'Moneyball' and picked up 'Liar's Poker' used for a dollar. It's surreal that his wife is Tabitha Soren.

i've noticed and appreciated the feminist philosophy that he weaves into the book. at times his style reminds me almost of pahliniuk's but instead of boring nihilism, he takes an academic but still empathetic stance towards his characters. again, doesn't necessarily compensate for the lack of emotional connection, but it's certainly appreciable.

http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/20...cade/index.html

salon's list is still pretty conventional, but definitely the best of the ones i've seen so far.

i've read eleven of the books listed and would only argue against the inclusion of maybe one or two (pictures at a revolution is great, but not best of decade exceptional). glad to see fortress of solitude on there too. any list that includes kavalier and clay but doesn't have fortress on it isn't digging very deep.

http://htmlgiant.com/?p=20355

Here's a list by Blake Butler, author of Scorch Atlas. One of the more interesting lists I've seen, if only because it feels personal, and isn't composed of the same exact books that every other list has. I like his introduction:

that's a little too esoteric to be of much use, though. it's like the inverse of the a.v. club list. some nice choices on there, but it comes off as a little to consciously hip and too avoidant of anything remotely mainstream. i hate to say it, but exclusion of j strange nearly invalidates any list for me.

Of all those, I've only read Notable American Women. I am in no way current on contemporary literature, but I like what Ben Marcus is doing a hell of a lot.

i forgot to post here about my reactions to the elemental particles. i admired the opening sections, appreciated the authorial voice, but got bored about fifty pages in. but halfway through the book i could see where it was heading a little more clearly and started to connect with the material. some parts were really affecting, especially when paired with the melancholy past few weeks. and then the coda came from nowhere, didn't feel like a perfect fit, but was interesting nevertheless. i've actually recommended the book already to a former sex-worker friend of mine whose been going through rough times. it's a rare book that pulls no punches sexually (and retains the aggression and violence inherent in most matters of physical desire), but never dehumanizes its characters. what felt like a cold and corrosive novel initially later felt overwhelmingly humanist and tender, without sparing the violent sides of life. refreshing.

now i'm working my way through our noise (the oral history of merge records) which is in its own way devastatingly sad. the interest is limited to music geeks, but as a portrait of youth and growing up, it's a pretty effective and widely affecting book. definitely recommended for anyone who likes music history books (ala our band could be your life or can't stop won't stop).

thinking of which, how many best of decade lists was can't stop won't stop on? that book is probably in my top five for the decade, fic or non-fic.

great collection of short stories.

Now reading: "Hell's Angels" by Hunter S.

-- Studs Terkel gave it a very high rating way back when.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

I'm still trying to make up my mind on Malcolm Gladwell. On one hand, through watching his spaghetti sauce lecture and reading various articles he's written for the New Yorker on his website, I fully acknowledge that this guy can teach a few things I could learn. However, the first bad sign was that he's pals with Bill Simmons. And then I've learned that he has more or less lifted a lot of ideas from Nassim Nicholas Taleb and passed them off as his own. Then I started reading this last night. This book discusses instances when snap judgments can be sometimes more valuable than thoroughly researched judgments. And my snap judgment is I know that trusting snap judgemnts is a losing proposition in the long run. Therefore the thesis of this book is incorrect. And so far he is only using antecdotal evidence to support this theory. I've been looking at various reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and they are saying that this is incredibly contradictory because the 2nd half of the book discusses several situations in which trusting snap judgments is a bad idea, particularly when judging people.

Now I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I trust my snap judgment, stop reading the book because I think know more or less everything he is going to say about the matter, and thus coming full circle and proving his thesis correct? Or do not trust my gut, read the book and if I do wind up enjoying it inevitably prove his thesis on snap judgments incorrect?

Got this for xmas and am anxious to start it tonight.

Dug At Swim-Two-Birds, though it took a little while for me to get into it. In fact it wasn't until the second half of the book that I actually started to enjoy it. I had a problem early on with the general unreality of the narrative, taking much more pleasure in the sections about the young author and his uncle. But the dialogue in the second half is just so good and funny that it finally won me over. Also read Girl With a Pearl Earring which was OK but utterly disposable. One of my New Year resolutions is to cut out books like this, quick unremarkable reads that I pick up just to pad out my reading list. Waste of time to read books of this sort. Feels like twiddling my thumbs.

Finally, I read The Crying of Lot 49, which I thought was gonna be a fast read but bogged down really fast. Whereas Gravity's Rainbow was confusing and exciting, this was just confusing. I blame myself, of course. I'm sure I could really dig into this book and discover all its secrets if I wanted to. But nothing in the narrative was particularly compelling, just characters moving randomly from place to place gathering pieces to a puzzle that never seemed that important. Which is fine, except the characters were mostly blank cartoons with plights I was unable to care about. The writing throughout is enjoyable, of course (it being Pynchon and all), and the situations occasionally funny, and the final ten pages or so have the feel of the ending to a great novel. It just never really clicked for me. Maybe if I read this again in ten years I'll like it more.

Now I'm reading some Chandler that I got for Crimmus. This stuff is good. Like all the best film noir you've ever seen or the best detective novels you've read, but probably better. Don't know if it has any greater purpose than just being incredibly badass, but that's enough for me. Great dialogue.

Pynchon supposedly regards '49' as juvenalia that he regrets having published. I wrote an essay about it in school. Something about the Mail Conspiracy being a Male conspiracy. PostHorn: 'After the Phallus' and so forth.

Glad you liked this. Judging by your overall reaction to its various qualities, though, I don't know if I'd feel comfortable recommending Houellebecq's other work to you. Platform is probably a faster, more streamlined read, but it might be a little colder (though certainly not lacking the more empathetic aspects of Elementary Particles). Same with The Possibility of an Island. But they all cover pretty similar ground, so if you're feeling the itch for more of his stuff then by all means check them out.

What do you think of the book? Is it worth dissecting?

My Prof. called it the first Postmodern novel. It struck me as pretty slight.

Just over 1/4 of the way through. I don't know what to say about it--it's good, obviously. I'm trying to not worry too much about following everything because I know I would stall out and put it down for a (probably very long) while. Reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man a few weeks ago definitely helped prepare me for this, and spurred me into it as well. I just didn't want this behemoth staring at me from my shelf any longer, so now I'm trying to get it finished before this weekend when school starts back up. I have a long way to go, though, and I feel as though the bottom will drop out soon and I'll sink down into it.

Each section of Ulysses is written in a different style so if you don't like one just hang on for the next.

Yeah, I really like the variation of styles. It's ridiculously impressive, even if, at times, it feels like a bit much--showing off at the expense of effective writing. But then again, I can't really say that, since he's doing things beyond my awareness/comprehension.
I'm on Ch. 14 right now, which is like a kick in the face after Ch. 13's romantic, flowery, sensual stylings.

Under the Dome

Stephen King

Really enjoying this despite a lingering, "Didn't you cover all this in The Stand, Stephen?" feeling. Doubt there's anything I can say at this point to sway those who don't like King, especially when book in question runs 1704 pages and is more or less a secularized recapitulation of King's other mega-opus, The Stand i.e. Seemingly-Inexplicable-cataclysmic-event-pits-forces-of-"good"-against-those-of evil-stop-mayhem-ensues."

That said, if you do like King for what he does best, which has always been his fictive exposes of the darkness hidden in small Maine towns, you're going to go the distance and have a great time. After saying his Dark Tower series effectively closed up the "Stephen King Universe" of first Castle Rock and then Derry, Me., King returns from a number Florida-set novels to Chester's Mill, Me., a bedroom community immediately adjacent to the 'Rock. And then he has at these people in a way I think is unique to him at this point. It really doesn't matter if I know this story - I love the ride and the way King drives.

Just started reading this massive thing. I haven't read Bolaño before and I'm not sure this is the best place to start (it being his final book before tragically dying at only 50 years old), but I'm around 50 pages in and it's really great. I was hesitant to pick this up, fearing I'd immediately be drowning in tedious (though not unintelligent) prose that I'd be tired of by the hundredth page, but this thing flies, it's so readable.

As I said above, I made a resolution this New Year to cut the nonsense from my reading, to stop picking up shit like Girl with a Pearl Earring just to pad out my reading list, and to no longer refuse to read books right away because of their length with the hope of instead getting a few more quick books in before the end of the month. Enough of that. Read what I want, when I want to. Who cares if I read 65 books in a year, if so many of those are ones I was never terribly excited about reading in the first place?

So yeah, this is the first of those books. I looked at it on my shelf and thought, "Damn, I really want to read that. That seems like it could be great." And then I thought, "But damn, that thing is long. It'll take me the rest of the month just to finish it. Maybe I'll read a few of these short-ass books over here first." But then I thought, "Fuck it, I'm reading it." And I'm glad I did. Loving it so far.

great book, but some parts drag more than others. the opening and closing segments are definitely highlights for me.

as for your philosophical shift, i disagree. i know that you should do what works best for you, and that it doesn't do much good to be intimidated by literature, but on the other hand, how do you decide what is worth your time? one cannot only read great books, unless you remove critical thought from the equation altogether. i'd say that the better idea would be to read what you want to read, regardless of stature or reputation. that goes for the staggering, difficult great works, and also for the less renowned, culturally marginal books too.

anyhow, the semester just began and i'm already neck deep in joyce. i've read portrait of the artist before, but not since i was 18. i have a feeling that i'm not going to be getting much pleasure reading done for a few months. i finished john crowley's little, big earlier in the week. and that probably will mark the end of leisure reading.

little, big is a problematic novel, but a wonderful one nevertheless. one of harold bloom's favorite books of recent decades, and it's about goddamn fairies. not fantasy in the traditional sense, and the prose is classically beautiful. i'd recommend it to anyone who love books, especially epic ones, or anyone who finished jonathan strange and mr. norrell and wanted to know what to read next.

Amazing, amazing book.

Just started on:

Not going to lie, 2666 was not fun. Yes, the first three books were great, but man "The Part About the Murders" was just about impossible to get through. I honestly did not get the reasoning behind it (I mean the section yes, but the repetive nature was just too much).

Yes, Bolano played the same type of trick in The Savage Detectives and I did not mind too much (even though, the Savage Detectives section was almost more dry, but maybe by the time I read 2666, Bolano's technique already felt tired), but it sorta felt like the literary equivelant of Peter Griffin falling on the sidewalk and going "ah! ah!" just a little too long.

I didn't care much for the last part either; but the rest of it was some of the best reading I've ever had, so I'll give it a pass.

An easy, delightful read:

I'll finish these three over the next couple weeks;

throwing in a story every so often from this that I just bought with a leftover B&N gift card:

I finished this last night -- the missus has been on a Bourdain kick lately, ordering up his travel content on OnDemand and shoving this book in my hands a week ago or so. You're right: it was fun. And more than once I found myself laughing aloud, which is always nice...

I think I'm going to try this House of Leaves shit next. It's been staring at me for months...

Years for me.

worth it. at least read it without bothering with the footnotes etc.

Started it last night -- barely a dent (maybe 30 or 40 pages) and I can tell that while I'm hooked (couldn't ask for a more compelling introduction than the rambling Truant prelude) I was pretty unsettled by the more 'out-there' elements of the story - stuff like the word 'house' being printed in blue and all the footnotes and the whimsical real vs. fictitious references...so odd. The synopses of the mysterious short films were spooky as all get out. Another 30 or 40 pages & it'll have already bested my best attempts at Infinite Jest.