book rec?/ if you enjoyed P, try these /++

[Dave Monroe]

I believe I mentioned Walcott, Fo, et al., not to denigrate them (well,
okay, might have taken a cheap shot at Fo, but I'd no real reason
to--peer pressure, sorry ...), but, rather, to point out just how
tenuous a credential that Nobel Prize can be, esp. for English-speaking
readers (or, more to the point, English-reading readers).  My guess is
that even yr more motivated raeders here know little to nothing of a
fair number of Nobel Laureates.  And I offered my suggested reading
precisely in the spirit of, well, if you've run out of Pynchon, but
still want the Pynchonesque, well, then ... besides, Haruki Murakami's
Wind-Up Bird Chronicles and Gunter Grass' The Tin Drum had already been
mentioned, and it seemed that, say, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children
and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude were too
obvious.  Might I thus offer th following as well?  While not quite as
Pynchonian as previously mentioned works, nonetheless ...

--Ariel Dorfman, Hard Rain

--Kobo Abe, The Ark Sakura

--Andrei Bely, Petersburg

--Arturo Perez-Reverte, The Club Dumas

Hard Rain was some time back for me now, but i recall being entranced by
the narratives-within-the-narrative alone.  The Ark Sakura is a bit like
a Japanese Confederacy of Dunces; Abe is one of those people I tried to
kekep up with, went from a certain strange existentialism (The Woman in
the Dunes [also particularly recommended], The Box Man, The Face of
Another) to all-out absurd weirdity (Kangaroo Notebook).  Petersburg is
an all-out neglected modernist classic, a sort of Russian Ulysses,
perhaps.  Some will no doubt write off The Club Dumas as sort of a pop
Eco bestseller, but I enjoyed it well enough, and I even liked the Roman
Polanski adaptation (The Ninth Gate).  In the meantime, will look into
your suggestions, half of which I'd never even heard of.  But that's why
we're here, of course, or so I presume, to learn a little something ...


Vivek Ahlawat wrote:

> Some time back I read some All American sniggers about
> Derek Walcott, Dario Fo etc and as I am reading
> further FTPbackwards to the days of Jules Siegal, I
> sense a heavy dominance of Americana with a smattering
> of Rushdie,Eco etc. The usual list includes Coover,
> the P polarized, Barth, Gass, the P blurbed: mostly
> honorable and intelligent Americans.
>
> I would love to discover some off beat writers not on
> the Academic sanctioned detemined post grads list. For
> starters I am adding these, please continue adding
> more:
>
> 1) Viktor Pelevin: Life of Insects
> Talking Dog meets Kafka
>
> 2) Ban Okri: The Famished Road: Think Africa, a weird
> sensibility and fat juicy description to make your
> Pavlovian glands come alive.
>
> 3) David Caute: Fatima's Scarf:
> Did to Rushdie (and perhaps Naguib Mahfouz) what Mao 2
> did to P and Salinger.
>
> 4) Gunter Grass: Dog Years
> Fattest slab of narrative extravaganza.
> Oh Boy!
>
> 5) Jose Saramago: The Year of the Death of Ricardo
> Reis
> Somebody said lush prose!!!!!
>
> 6) Pramoda Ananta Toer: This Earth of Mankind
> (Colonialism, Dutch, perennial Nobel Candidate)
>
> 7) Vikram Chandra: Red Earth and Pouring Rain
> Multilayered narrative from a fantastic Natural Born
> Storyteller.
>
> 8) Orhan Pamuk: The New Life
> The Road, Yo Yo,  delirium, angst; the first sentence
> reads: Once I read a book and my whole life chnaged.
> How can you be a GR thumping Pynchonite and not read
> this!
>
> --- Dave Monroe <monroe at mpm.edu> wrote:
> > .... and I'd add the following:
> >
> > --William Gaddis, The Recognitions
> >
> > --Harry Mathews, The Conversions
> >
> > --John Barth, Giles Goat-Boy
> >
> > --Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
> >
> > .... the Gaddis and Mathews books are likely
> > influences on Pynchon, and,
> > certainly, partake of certain of Pynchon's
> > interests, obsessions, what
> > have you.  The Barth book (one might also suggest
> > The End of the Road,
> > or L.E.T.T.E.R.S., or ...) is at least of the era.
> > The Stephenson,
> > while perhaps, for a 700 or whatever page novel,
> > might actually prove a
> > bit of light reading, is nonetheless indebted to
> > Gravity's Rainbow, for
> > starters, and is at least engaging and entertaining.
> >  One might indeed
> > learn something from it.  far better than his, er,
> > "straight" SF.  For
> > cryptology fans, at least, a la Richard Powers' The
> > Goldbug Variations
> > .....
> >
> > Vivek Ahlawat wrote:
> >
> > > I would recommend these to a Pynchon fan:
> > >
> > > 1) Life: A Users Manual by Georges Perec
> > >
> > > 2) Discovery of Heaven: Harry Mulisch (*****) One
> > of
> > > the very best of the living Europeans.
> > >
> > > 3) Women: Phillipe Sollers
> > >
> > > 4) The Wind Up Bird Chronicle: Haruki Murakami
> > >
> > > All are big, complex and you can use several of
> > the
> > > adjectives used to describe Pynchon and the
> > Pynchon
> > > polarized writers like Vollmann, Wallace, Powers,
> > Tom
> > > Boyle et al in States.
> > >
> > > Also, more recommendations from others would be
> > > welcome to dust our lists.
> > >
> > > Vivek
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --- Brian Whitman <bwhitman at crudites.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I'm very sorry to be using this List for such
> > inane
> > > > and selfish things!
> > > > But who knows-- I have recently devoured all I
> > could
> > > > of Donald Barthelme's
> > > > work. I find his short stories absolutely
> > wonderful,
> > > > especially "The Big
> > > > Radio Broadcast of 1938" which I found a
> > > > particularly touching love story.
> > > > Also loved "Snow White" and all that. Would love
> > to
> > > > get more, but I've
> > > > read them all and he's no longer with us :(
> > > >
> > > > Am going on vacation in a bit and want to bring
> > a
> > > > book. Was going to bring
> > > > a P book but I want to expand a bit more. So
> > here's
> > > > my personal ad: "M
> > > > seeks big Book for long sets on beach, quiet
> > nights.
> > > > Likes: Pynchon, D
> > > > Barthelme, some DF Wallace, books about video
> > game
> > > > comapnies or cats.
> > > > Dislikes: most science fiction, pop science
> > nonfic."
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Brian Whitman
> > > > bwhitman at crudites.org
> > > > Crudites Sound Ventures
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > __________________________________________________
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>
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