To discuss and recommend authors and books from the 20th century in general.
A few great modern authors that come to mind and who’s works I’m quite familiarized are Albert Camus, Vladimir Nabokov, F Scott Fitzgerald, Jorge Luis Borges and even though they are still alive and publishing Mario Vargas Llosa (his older works are fantastic) and Kazuo Ishiguro (haven’t read Ishiguro yet, but i have “never let me go” on my reading list)
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I've been read a lot of charles Bukowski lately. Quite like post office and women
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_(Bukowski_novel)
lmao foids
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All i know about him is the Modest Mouse song
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He was an butthole. Man would cheat on a woman and then go tell her about how great it was
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I'm looking to get into some classic Russian lit. Should I read Tolstoy or Dostoevsky first?
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That’s 19th century lit, but great lit nevertheless. Both authors are very different. Tolstoy was an aristocratic “christian anarchist”, his books are all about the russian upper class. War and Peace for instance starts in 1805 and goes all the way to 1820, through the napoleonic wars and includes lots of romance and numerous characters. Dostoesvky was a reactionary russian conservative who wrote mainly about the plight of the common people mixed with his philosophical ideas, i joked along with another dramanaut on the last thread about him being "incelcore literature", he's great and better than Tolstoy imo, but some of his main characters do look and talk like 4chan users.
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I was hoping no one would notice
Thanks for the food for thought though
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The Autist is pretty great.
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Notes from the underground?
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Was referring to The Idiot, havent read that one
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I personally love Dostoevksy and don't care much about Tolstoy.
The Idiot by Doestoevksy is probably the closest thing I have to a favorite book. As someone mentioned above, his dialogues are somewhat weird/unrealistic, but it's overall great nonetheless
I would heavily recommed both Crime & punishment and The Idiot
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Rodion from C&P comparing himself to Napoleon was peak delusional
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I'm reading The Idiot right now at its bretty good
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If you want to go with 19th cent lit, might as well start with Gogol
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Jorge Luis Borges is relatively obscure in the english speaking world. For those who don’t know him, he was a super based argentine author and poet. I speak spanish (quite similar to portuguese) and bought a few of his books in Buenos Aires. He never wrote any novel, his books are all tales, poems and essays. My favorite tale book was “el Aleph”.
In the 1970s he was almost awarded the Nobel, however due to his defense of Latin American military dictatorships, the swedish academy warned him that if he traveled to Pinochet’s Chile to receive an homage and being awarded and honoris causa he would not been given the Nobel. Borges told them he didn’t take bribes, and went to Chile regardless
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Is Borges obscure? I see him talked about fairly often (although almost all the conversation about literature I get is on Cambodian frog husbandry forums). Maybe he's just much, much more famous in the Spanish speaking world, but he definitely seem known to anglophones.
That is a cool story about the Nobel, though.
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He is super famous in spanish speaking countries, and maybe obscure is not the right word, but definitely overlooked in english speaking countries when compared to other LATAM writers like Garcia Marquez and Neruda. The details of the Nobel story come from his widow, and there is some discussion about that, however it seems like the motivation was indeed political. https://www.infobae.com/cultura/2020/10/07/historia-secreta-el-dia-que-borges-le-dijo-no-al-nobel/?outputType=amp-type
This is from an argentine news outlet.
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Too real
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Art of the Deal
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Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead by Stoddard
Waiting for Godot by Beckett
Cannery Row by Steinbeck
Never Let me Go was good. I’d recommend. Something’s you think must happen just don’t and then they do
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I read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead as a high school senior right after reading Hamlet and enjoyed it immensely, I cannot recommend it enough.
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I only read "Klara and the Sun" and really liked it. How does it rank compared to the others?
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Ishiguro is great. NLMG is a classic.
Read Infinite Jest
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Sun Also Rises is real good
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The Cowards by Josef Skvorecky is a good one and describes day to day life of young men and partisan activity in nazi occupied Czechoslovakia.
It was banned postwar by the gommies because he dared to criticize them along the Nazis.
There’s one funny scene where a Czech is making out with a German girl and tells her he’s a mischling for a kek
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Try one of Haruki Murakami's books, they're best described as 'gentle'. I've read many and all are delightful. Start here, maybe: "Underground" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Underground-Tokyo-Attack-Japanese-Psyche/dp/0099461099/ - a lot of people would jump straight to the award-winning "Norwegian Wood" but, as Clive James once said, "the most accessible parts of things are not necessarily those at the edges"
If you want a more rollicking tale, try the exposé of Elizabeth Holmes Theranos empire "Bad Blood" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Blood-Secrets-Silicon-Startup-ebook/dp/B07BW911F7/ I found it riveting, the sheer breathtaking level of fraud.
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Underground is quite good, though, being more of an investigative reporting book, it isn't terribly indicative of his writing style in his fiction works. I quite liked The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, though I'd be lying if I said I totally got it. Norwegian Wood is probably my favorite of Murakami's, though.
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DeLillo, Pynchon, ...
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Epic of Gilgamesh is kino
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Gene Wolfe, Haruki Murakami, Robert Silverberg
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R.A. Lafferty
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On the Origin of Time
https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Time-Thomas-Hertog-ebook/dp/B09N73FX8Q
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You are not “anti-work” if you reproduce.
Why would you condemn your child to be a wage slave? Essentially, you are just contributing to the problem by creating more people to be exploited. Or even worse the future adult human has the money and power to exploit other people!
Please think logically and be realistic. Do not create more lives to gamble with.
Peace & love ❤️
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