Novels suck (1 Viewer)

[Latex lizzie]

reallly? the rat chapter just made me wanna stop reading.talking heads get a mention in there someplace if im not mistaken though so ten points for that!

 

[MDR]

Last 10-15 years?

Shipping News (Annie Proulx) or The Sprtswriter (Richard ford) would be two of my favourites

 

[sarah]

American Psycho

All those lists of products that were so boring, ( I realise the obsession
with material stuff without any depth was the point )
but he actually bored himself so much writing them that he repeats the same
stuff in certain parts so he puts on the same item of clothing twice etc.

Also the bit with rats yuck.

I ended up skipping loads of bits and just reading the gorey bits.

 

[krystal]

I ended up skipping loads of bits and just reading the gorey bits.

I think everyone does. When he goes into a digression about huey lewis and the news for example after he murders someone, I tend to flick to the next horrid murder scene. I wish Brett Easton Ellis would get some new ideas though - surely the majority of his readership, not to mention his publishing house, will soon cop on that all his books are about dissafected youth / serial killers / dissafected serial killers / dissafected serial killing vampires on trans-atlantic cruises etc etc

 

[krystal]

Last 10-15 years?

Shipping News (Annie Proulx) or The Sprtswriter (Richard ford) would be two of my favourites

why, oh why was kevin spacey allowed to play Quoyle? WHY?????
It's just so wrong.

 

[sarah]

why, oh why was kevin spacey allowed to play Quoyle? WHY?????
It's just so wrong.

I avoided seeing the film for that exact reason, in my head Quoyle was
pretty much the opposite of Kevin Spacey.
What a great book though, wasn't too kean on her other ones
though accordian crimes was a bore.

 

[krystal]

I avoided seeing the film for that exact reason, in my head Quoyle was
pretty much the opposite of Kevin Spacey.
What a great book though, wasn't too kean on her other ones
though accordian crimes was a bore.

fucking worst casting ever
it should have been that big red-haired guy who's name I can't remember
and as for GOOLian Moore playing Wavey Prowse...

I read That Old Ace in the Hole recently and it wasn't a patch on the Shipping News - it was a good, if kind of pointless read, but your expectations are so raised by her abilities as a writer by the Shipping News that maybe nothing she ever writes again will compare.

oh yeah, and I haven't seen the film either - I can't bear to.

 

[One of us]

so what peoples fave novels then from say the last 10 or 15 years?

i do be liking douglas couplands "life after god".... its got that entire brevity of communication thing that jane was talking about....

The two big ones for me are "money" by martin amis and don de lillo's "white noise".. though they're both closer to 20 years old now.
I also loved:
Eugenides "The Virgin Suicides" and "Middlesex"
On Jane's short books tip, "The Name of the World" by Denis Johnson and "The Following Story" by Cees Nooteboom. Both tiny, both exquisitely written, both pack a huge emotional punch.
I married a communist by Philip Roth. American Pastoral got all the hype, but this one came out just after and its ten times better.
Banville's Book of Evidence trilogy,
Anything by Murakami, especially Norwegian Wood and the Wild Sheep Chase.
"Being Dead" by Jim Crace and "Anil's Ghost" by Michael Ondatjee
And the His Dark Materials trilogy, which I will defend to the hilt against any trumped-up Harrypotterism charges.

 

[MDR]

The shipping news film was so awful. Shows how it's a bad idea to turn a narrative novel, as opposed to a plot-driven one, into a film.

Her other books are a mixed bag: accordian crimes is probably the weakest; ace in the hole is full of good yarns; postcards is pretty dark (in a good way); but i reckon the short stories - close range - is well worth a read.

 

[sarah]

The shipping news film was so awful. Shows how it's a bad idea to turn a narrative novel, as opposed to a plot-driven one, into a film.

Her other books are a mixed bag: accordian crimes is probably the weakest; ace in the hole is full of good yarns; postcards is pretty dark (in a good way); but i reckon the short stories - close range - is well worth a read.

God I'd forgotten about close Range some really beautiful stories in that
one.

 

[egg_]

Shipping News (Annie Proulx) or The Sprtswriter (Richard ford) would be two of my favourites

I don't think I really liked The Shipping News, though I read it so long ago I can hardly remember ... I thought the 'there are seven women in eveyone's life - the tall and dark woman, etc.' thing was stupid. I don't think I warmed to anyone in the book, particularly, so that'd be handicap to me really loving it. Maybe I'd like it more now that I've grown up

I liked The Sportswriter, but ... ah I dunno, it was definitely worthwhile, but it didn't quite rock my world. The main character was a little too neurotic, I enjoyed his company in small doses only

The Life of Pi did rock my world, but I've turned against it a bit after reading some interviews with the author

 

[sarah]

I don't think I really liked The Shipping News, though I read it so long ago I can hardly remember ... I thought the 'there are seven women in eveyone's life - the tall and dark woman, etc.' thing was stupid. I don't think I warmed to anyone in the book, particularly, so that'd be handicap to me really loving it. Maybe I'd like it more now that I've grown up

I liked The Sportswriter, but ... ah I dunno, it was definitely worthwhile, but it didn't quite rock my world. The main character was a little too neurotic, I enjoyed his company in small doses only

The Life of Pi did rock my world, but I've turned against it a bit after reading some interviews with the author

Really? What did the interviews say that turned you against it?

 

[egg_]

Really? What did the interviews say that turned you against it?

I got the impression that the book was a kind of self-conscious philosophical experiment rather than a story. The author deliberately made the lifeboat story less and less believable as he went, in order to drive home his point that we want to believe certain things regardless of the facts