Magic Realism shit/not shit

[Dillinger4]

I suspect that says more about you than it does about the book, though.

I agree, what it says about me is that I think the book is beyond awful.

 

[elevendayempire]

Robert Shearman's short story collection, Tiny Deaths, was bloody good.

 

[lontok2005]

Marquez works wonders for me, and I want to perfect my Spanish to read it in the original. Roy captivates me with every sentence. I don't think I've read a book as beautifully structured as 'the God of Small Things', but I never really thought of it particularly as magical realisim. 'Midnight's Children', on the other hand, gave me a painful headache about twenty pages in, and I just thought, 'Oh, shut the fuck up, for god's sake'.

 

[mrs quoad]

Bulgakov - fan-fucking-tastic.
Rushdie - steaming heaps of vomitous bile.
Marquez - bit meh, tbh. Yeah but no but yeah but no.

e2a: and Pynchon kicks ass

 

[Sadken]

Marquez is absolutely my favourite author. The language he uses is so evocative, it's easy to get lost in his books, which is the point for me.

 

[Dillinger4]

Bulgakov - fan-fucking-tastic.
Rushdie - steaming heaps of vomitous bile.
Marquez - bit meh, tbh. Yeah but no but yeah but no.

e2a: and Pynchon kicks ass

Oh oh oh I was just going to mention Pynchon! I like Pynchon.

 

[mrs quoad]

Oh oh oh I was just going to mention Pynchon! I like Pynchon.

I've - literally two minutes ago - finished Against The Day

And a new copy of Gravity's Rainbow came through in the post this morning.

Largely so I can start it without all the baggage that's attached to my four half-readings and one full-reading of my older, dog-eared, battered and well-loved version

The new one also has the advantage of being printed in ten-point (ish) text. Rather than eight point (gah!)

 

[DotCommunist]

Christ, that's an even worse line than the Roy, which is pretty rank. How do you write a vocabulary on something?

Rushdie tries way too hard.

Well, it followed a conversation involving cancer related words. It worked for me.

derail

Best line in Satanic Verses has to be 'We are the ones you cannot fogive Mahmoud: writers and whores'

'Whores and writers. I see no difference here'

 

[DotCommunist]

Bulgakov - fan-fucking-tastic.
Rushdie - steaming heaps of vomitous bile.
Marquez - bit meh, tbh. Yeah but no but yeah but no.

e2a: and Pynchon kicks ass

Pynchon, I resent for prizing the sound of his own skill above the attention of the reader. Vineland was a 3-trier, and while I enjoyed it, I couldn't get more than 150 pages into Gravities Rainbow

 

[mentalchik]

I've been trying to read outside of science fiction and similar genre stuff, but barring Rushdie all the stuff I'm reading confirms my view that it's largely rubbish

e2a I'm fast becoming convinced that when I want a break from sci fi I should stick to biographies, history books and political analysis type stuff

*takes sharp intake of breath*

 

[belboid]

never really thought of Pynchon as magical realist, nor Brautigan. if they are then there is some reason to praise it as a genre. If not, then there is only one MR authoer I've read that is any cop at all. Of course Rushdie is the greatest writer in the english language - or was for a while anyway. the last three or so have been pretty poor. Marquez & Roy tho? naah, not for me. All style no substance (well, okay, quite a bit of substance too, but not that interestingly written)

 

[Dillinger4]

Pynchon, I resent for prizing the sound of his own skill above the attention of the reader. Vineland was a 3-trier, and while I enjoyed it, I couldn't get more than 150 pages into Gravities Rainbow

My advice for Gravitys Rainbow is, just stick with it. It starts to come together, but it is really difficult to get into.

 

[lontok2005]

My advice for Gravitys Rainbow is, just stick with it. It starts to come together, but it is really difficult to get into.

I'm going to try Gravity's Rainbow because I haven't yet read any Pynchon and that book has been recommended to me by several people, although always, always with the caveat that it takes effort and time to get into. The thing is, I think a writer should have the reader in mind first and foremost, and find it somewhat of an artistic failing, regardless of what literary, emotional or intellectual riches may be reaped with time and effort, if the author doesn't hook me quite early on, either with plot, language, character or style, or in the best of cases, a combination of all four. I understand that the reader has to make his own effort to engage with the writer and should not be lazy in that engagement, nor should the reader expect the best of a work to come first, but you shouldn't have to persevere with art as if it were toil to do so, and the primary responsibility for that, in my opinion, lies with the author. You want me to read to the end? Then draw me in from the outset and don't let go.

 

[kyser_soze]

Pynchon isn't MR, he's in that publisher created snob zone called 'speculative fiction', same thing Atwood (?) attempted to claim for Oryx and Crake, and Will Self referreed to (once) about the Book of Dave...mainly because they're all too snotty (or in need of critical cred) to be honest and call themselves sci-fi...

 

[DotCommunist]

Pynchon isn't MR, he's in that publisher created snob zone called 'speculative fiction', same thing Atwood (?) attempted to claim for Oryx and Crake, and Will Self referreed to (once) about the Book of Dave...mainly because they're all too snotty (or in need of critical cred) to be honest and call themselves sci-fi...

I recall Mieville being quite annoyed by those like Atwood, pushing the boundaries of the form and disowning it at the same time

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Well, it followed a conversation involving cancer related words. It worked for me.

derail

Best line in Satanic Verses has to be 'We are the ones you cannot fogive Mahmoud: writers and whores'

'Whores and writers. I see no difference here'

Sorry, I don't get it. Maybe you had to be there.

 

[bluestreak]

Confession: I didn't finish it - I stopped about half way through. I found the writing vomit-inducingly overblown. If that is the metaphor, then it is crude and patronisingly obvious. Did he really have nothing more interesting to say than that?

Well, it would be a boring world if we all liked the same stuff innit.

 

[bluestreak]

My advice for Gravitys Rainbow is, just stick with it. It starts to come together, but it is really difficult to get into.

Yeah, I gave up on Gravity's Rainbow too. Found it dull and pretentious.

 

[Santino]

Does Borges count as magical realism? Perhaps not, he would probably have rather been categorised as writing the 'fantastic'. Either way, he's awesome.

 

[Dillinger4]

Does Borges count as magical realism? Perhaps not, he would probably have rather been categorised as writing the 'fantastic'. Either way, he's awesome.

I agree, he is brilliant. I wouldn't class him as MR. In my mind, he is science fiction.

I am going to go and read some borges now.

 

[8ball]

I hate it when a book is going well and then the author clearly doesn't know how to end it so just bungs in some flying cows.

 

[8ball]

http://www.simplybovine.com/products/flyingcow.php

 

[Voley]

I think Rushdie gets away with it because it's set in India (I'm thinking of Midnight's Children here).

If you set it another country where superstition and bizarre religious belief wasn't so mainstream it might not work.

 

[Idaho]

Pynchon isn't MR, he's in that publisher created snob zone called 'speculative fiction', same thing Atwood (?) attempted to claim for Oryx and Crake, and Will Self referreed to (once) about the Book of Dave...mainly because they're all too snotty (or in need of critical cred) to be honest and call themselves sci-fi...

I flipping love Oryx and Crake. And it is science fiction whether she likes it or not.

Magical Reality is fantasy for people who don't like dwaves, trolls and heroic storylines.

Haruki Murakami is on the same spectrum - and The Wind Up Bird Chronicle is either one of the best books you've read, or the best books you haven't yet read.

 

[Dillinger4]

I like Haruki Murakami.

Now I am confused.

 

[DotCommunist]

I flipping love Oryx and Crake. And it is science fiction whether she likes it or not.

Magical Reality is fantasy for people who don't like dwaves, trolls and heroic storylines.

Haruki Murakami is on the same spectrum - and The Wind Up Bird Chronicle is either one of the best books you've read, or the best books you haven't yet read.

I don't agree here. There's plenty of anti heroic fantasy that doesn't have trolls dwarves and a fuedalist lite type blandscape.

Gene Wolfs Book of the Long Sun, Steven Erickson's Malazan stuff, Mieville, even Le Guin. And of course thiers pulp inspired stuff from Hugo Cooke etc.

The insane glut of tolkien inspired sub-Eddings crap clogging the shelves does make the gems harder to find

 

[8ball]

Does something like American Gods by Neil Gaimen count as magical realism?

Or is that something like 'realistic magickism'?

 

[belboid]

No, neither. That's straight forward fantasy.

 

[8ball]

No, neither. That's straight forward fantasy.

It's not really fantasy in either a Tolkien or Harry Potter vein, though, iyswim.

(not very well-read, me)

 

[DotCommunist]

It's not really fantasy in either a Tolkien or Harry Potter vein, though, iyswim.

(not very well-read, me)

It's Gaiman doing a sort of modern mythic fantasy thing. Actually felt very comic book imo, good as it was.

Tolkien/Potter stuff dominates the market but doesn't define it.