Nora Bossong recommends Mason & Dixon as Corona reading because it has so many pages ...

[Jochen Stremmel]

In stone tablets.

(Neal Stephenson comes to mind: in Snowcrash he quotes Gilgamesh, if memory
doesn't fail.)

Am Di., 31. März 2020 um 17:02 Uhr schrieb Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com>:

> The ‘big book’ I’m going to attempt at some stage is The Man Without
> Qualities
>
> Without claiming anything approaching the erudition of some fellow members
> of this mailing list, I have read all the published Pynchon, all the
> published Joyce (save his letters), The Magic Mountain, War and Peace, Anna
> Karenina, Infinite Jest, Underworld and A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu
>
> Still plenty more doorstoppers (and more miniature masterpieces) to get
> through. Maybe I should order The Epic of Gilgamesh...
>
> On Tuesday, March 31, 2020, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes, of course: "A little bit like it"? The polar opposite!
>>
>> (Drinking mezcal, I'm reading Under the Volcano: what a great book.)
>>
>> Am Di., 31. März 2020 um 14:27 Uhr schrieb Samir Sellami <
>> samir.manuel.sellami at gmail.com>:
>>
>> > To compare M&D to the Kehlmann fluke is really the most inappropriate
>> thing
>> > I've seen in a while.
>> > The rest is rather obvious and random. I am surprised though that García
>> > Márquez' "El amor en los
>> > tiempos de cólera" is missing. The master's real novel of quarantine and
>> > confinement, however, is
>> > "Cien años de soledad". Good times for re-reading it.
>> >
>> > Am Di., 31. März 2020 um 11:36 Uhr schrieb Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
>> > lorentzen at hotmail.de>:
>> >
>> > >
>> > > I've never read literature by Nora Bossong, and this text, although
>> the
>> > > recommendations (which contain besides Pynchon authors like Boccaccio,
>> > > Mann, Proust, Arno Schmidt & David Foster Wallace) are certainly
>> superb,
>> > > does not motivate me to do so. Especially since her comment at the end
>> > > on Schopenhauer's main work is so exceptionally clueless that it
>> appears
>> > > doubtful whether Bossong has really read all those long books ... & if
>> > > it's just about the number of pages, "Against the Day" would make an
>> > > even better reading. Well, of course it's not a bad advice to read
>> long
>> > > books now, but in the case of Pynchon I would, of course, recommend
>> > > "Gravity's Rainbow" (which is long enough, no?). Especially to a
>> German
>> > > audience.
>> > >
>> > > "A little bit like [Kehlmann's] "Measuring the World" in crazy & less
>> > > upright. & most of all: with many, many more pages! It's funny,
>> clever,
>> > > tough, meta ..." Plus references to the talking dog & the mechanical
>> > duck.
>> > >
>> > > *+ ... Thomas Pynchon:/Mason & Dixon/
>> > > <https://www.rowohlt.de/taschenbuch/thomas-pynchon-mason-dixon.html>
>> > > *Ein bisschen wie/Die Vermessung der Welt/in durchgeknallt und weniger
>> > > bieder. Und vor allem: mit viel, viel mehr Seiten! Es ist lustig,
>> klug,
>> > > hart, meta, es gibt einen sprechenden Hund und eine mechanische
>> > > Flugente. Wann wollten Sie jemals so gern eine Flugente sein wie
>> jetzt?
>> > > *–*So sehr nach einem sprechenden Hund haben Sie sich aber auch seit
>> > > Ihrer Kindheit nicht mehr gesehnt. Und wieder müssen Sie feststellen:
>> > > Sie werden ihn einfach nicht bekommen ... +
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>> https://www.logbuch-suhrkamp.de/nora-bossong/zehn-buecher-die-man-sonst-nicht-schafft/
>> > > https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nora_Bossong
>> > >
>> > > --
>> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> > >
>> > --
>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>