u/Sunlightfartss

There are many authors whom I dislike or do not get the appeal of: Italio Calvino, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jonathan Franzen(tbf I only read the book which is generally considered to be one of his worse books)Fyodor Dostoevsky(I am sorry I have read 4 books by him and only The Idiot clicked with me I get his influence etc. but he is just not for me), William Gibson,Anne Sexton the list goes on yet none of them I could describe with the phrase "I hate their writing" most of the time even if I don't get the appeal there is something I could appreciate; yet there are four exceptions. Four Authors who elicit such inexplicable dislike for me that I can't help but "hate" their writing. Authors I don't get at all and their popularity/acclaim just confuses me. Those Four are:Henry James, Alexandre Pope,Jack Kerouac and George Saunders.

Lincoln in The Bardo is without exaggeration probably the worst reading experience I have ever had. I despise that book. And mind you it's not because it's the worst book ever(it is not.) The best way I could describe Lincoln in The Bardo is that it is the "Oscar -Bait of novels" it is checking all the boxes that makes a book literary(magical realism, historical fiction, thinly veiled contemporary political commentary etc.) it is weird in a way that is appealing to a mainstream audience,it is "experimental" in a way that is not alienating,it is emotional in a saccharine way that just pulls your heartstring the right amount. It has such an interesting premise and it executes in the most safe manner with the most tedious language and prose imaginable. No wonder Saunders is a MFA professor and this book won the booker prize (one of the two American novels to do so) it is quite genius in that regard, it is designed to be "literary" in the most generic way possible. The only thing I liked about Lincoln in The Bardo is the dialogue and the fact it ends. Don't need to say it made me dislike Saunders. I didn't even want to see what his other stuff has to offer. Yet, here I am writing about the first book he ever put out. There is one simple reason for me reading this book: I got it for free. My regular bookshop was selling books for 80 percent discount (a stock clearance sale) and I had bought a shitton of stuff and the owner just told me I could pick up 2 books from the 80 percent discount pile for free and I chose this and The Island of Doctor Moreau.

Now after finishing the book I have to say this...... I didn't "hate" it. Civilwarland is a collection of short stories,all narrated in first person, about a dystopian American society where extreme capitalism and environmental crisis has turned it into a hellscape of technology,mutants,lawlessness etc. We follow various mishaps of characters in different scenarios. The stories are extremely satirical.

Now first of all I don't actually know if these stories all take place in the same world. I suppose they do but I am really not sure. But regardless it's a collection of stories about dystopian societies. Second of all this book is so influenced by Pynchon and other postmodernists and also this reminded so much of DFW I had to check the publication year of Infinite Jest and This book and apparently they both came out the same year. And idk is it because of something about the style of the era of because they have similar influences and themes. They both feel almost identical in many ways. The same hysterical satire about American society,the same tongue in cheek and slightly obnoxious tone with the weird characters it just reminded me so much of DFW.

I am kind of amazed how much he locked the fuck in to write something like Lincoln in the Bardo which is a completely normal book without any surreal content compared to this.

My favourite story was probably *The 400 pound CEO* which is the funniest story in the book. It's absolutely hilarious and kind of very cruel also. I think all the stories in this collection are very funny but they all are kind of very cruel in a way. Which was very different and surprising compared to the sort of sentimentality of Lincoln in The Bardo. I also loved the dialogue. Even in Lincoln in The Bardo I remember liking the dialogue and I also love the dialogue here. I don't know the consensus about his dialogue but I love how funny it is in this book. It's absolutely ridiculous and he also captures banter in a great way.

Is it a "Good" book? I don't know. I have to admit some of these stories are so rough. Yet there is something very charming and unhinged and raw about them. Even if they are not very good they are very entertaining and likeable. I kinda now want to read his other short stories to see if they are as unhinged as these stories or are they much more safe and milquetoast like his booker winning novel. Regardless I think I didn't have a negative experience and I would actually like to read more from him, which I never expected. I don't think I have any desire to re read Lincoln in The Bardo and re evaluate it but who knows maybe someday I will be able to be much more favourable to it.

I guess now only have three authors I absolutely dislike/hate and maybe I should give them another chance also. Idk.

"It seems right to dedicate this collection to my friend Sybil Claiborne,my colleague in the Writing and Mother Trade. I visited her fifth-floor apartment in Barrow Street one day in 1957. There before my very eyes were her two husbands disappointed by the eggs. After that we talked and talked for nearly forty years. Then she died. Three days before that,she said slowly,with the delicacy of an unsatisfied person with only a dozen words left,Grace,the real question is- how are we to live our lives?"

Loneliness, dreamy melancholy,memories that come fleeting from insignificant sounds and events,denial of responsibility,guilt of that denial,narcissism that turns into delusion, failure and futility; these are the most palpable things that populate kazuo Ishiguro's 1986 novel, more vividly than any of it's human beings of flesh and blood. Set in the post war American occupied japan;the novel follows Ono,once a famous ukiyo-e artist (ukiyo-e literally translating to "pictures of the floating world") now retired spends his days alone with the sole exception of his youngest daughter Noriko by his side. Noriko,26 years of age, is already old enough to be married. Yet,for some reason her 'love match" is suddenly broken. This event is a cause of great distress for Noriko and her older sister Setsuko and both are eager to find a new suitable prospect before Noriko turns too old. Despite his daughters' concerns, Ono is unperturbed, spending his days drinking alone at the nearby pub of Mrs. Kawakami, visiting old friends and playing with his grandson Ichiro- who is obsessed with cow boys, Popeye the sailor man and Kaiju movies- Ono's days are leisurely punctuated by the memories of the past; his strained relationship with his father, his early days as an apprentice,his eventual rise to success and fame and his career as a propagandist for imperial japan and his fall from grace after the end of the war;yet, the reader always asks the same question all the time,how many of these memories could be considered really true? And this question lies at the heart of the novel. Our relationship with our past through the fragile bridge of memory. The novel starts with the line:

"If on a sunny day you climb the steep path leading up from the little wooden bridge still referred to around here as "the Bridge of Hesitation", you will not have to walk far before the roof of my house becomes visible between the tops of two gingko trees."

This "bridge of hesitation" was named such because of the indecisive men who roamed around it and couldn't decide whether or not to enter the pleasure district or return home and although Ono,whose entire art is based this floating world of drinking, rousing and geishas illuminated by red lanterns, claims that he never felt this hesitation to enter the world of the pleasure district, hesitation still lingers in his reminiscing of the past with his constant digressions and doubt on his own reliability. As the novel progresses Ono's hesitation and unreliability grows. Both to the reader,and to himself. Many times throughout the novel he would wonder do the words he attributes to a figure from his past is really that person's words or does he gives them his own words or someone else's or does he himself adopted those words for himself from those figures.

One of the greatest strengths of Ishiguro is his ability to create tension and unease through his spareness and restrained narrative. This book is no different; here is a world so fragile and delicate one is always tense of the possibility that it would collapse unto itself at any given moment and the unease stems from the fact that there is a natural anxiety between the reader's expectations and the refusal of Ishiguro to ever let the novel reach any level of catharsis.

This is what could be also called the most major point of difference between An Artist of The Floating world and his next novel The Remains of The Day.

In Many ways An Artist and The Remains are a twin novels. Both have very similar concerns of memory, restraint,WW2 societal fallout and old men reminiscing about their relationship with their craft. Yet, The Remains of The Day is a much more appealing work because of the emotional catharsis it reaches during it's last few pages and also because of how the reader feels about the protagonist Mr. Stevens,who is a much more endearing character. Ono, despite all the failures of his life and the pity the reader feels for him,comes across narcissistic, distant and delusional. His simultaneous refusal to totally acknowledge his role in the Japanese war effort and also his constant guilt for the war which took the life of his own son,forces him to tell one lie after another to himself and by the end there is nothing but a husk of a man stuck between the past and the future with no release. These qualities give the novel a sense of distance from the readers yet these same qualities give the novel it's depth and richness. An Artist of The Floating World is perhaps Ishiguro's most morally complex work. With questions of memory, ethics, the erasing of the world for the new,responsibility and the tension between aesthetical and the political being of the artist. By the end reader is left with more questions than answers. There is no redemption or possibility of change left for Ono nor are there any answers. The only thing that is left is leaving the future to the hands of the younger generation as the modernisation efforts change his city and completely erase the traces of the old world. Throughout the novel Ono complaints how the new companies and institutions are completely erasing and removing the people of the pre war era without any logic. By the end he realises that he is not even worth erasing at all; he is already a worthless and disgraced traitor who is not even remembered by most people. The realisation of this fact during a conversation with his long time friend Matsuda by the end,is the closest thing to a revelation he receives during the course of the novel. The novel ends with the image of Ono sitting on a bench- where he believes once one of his beloved drinking establishments of the pleasure district used to be- and as he gazes at the new Japan, he truly becomes one of the last remaining members of a floating world soon to be forgotten.

Loneliness, dreamy melancholy,memories that come fleeting from insignificant sounds and events,denial of responsibility,guilt of that denial,narcissism that turns into delusion, failure and futility; these are the most palpable things that populate kazuo Ishiguro's 1986 novel, more vividly than any of it's human beings of flesh and blood. Set in the post war American occupied japan;the novel follows Ono,once a famous ukiyo-e artist (ukiyo-e literally translating to "pictures of the floating world") now retired spends his days alone with the sole exception of his youngest daughter Noriko by his side. Noriko,26 years of age, is already old enough to be married. Yet,for some reason her 'love match" is suddenly broken. This event is a cause of great distress for Noriko and her older sister Setsuko and both are eager to find a new suitable prospect before Noriko turns too old. Despite his daughters' concerns, Ono is unperturbed, spending his days drinking alone at the nearby pub of Mrs. Kawakami, visiting old friends and playing with his grandson Ichiro- who is obsessed with cow boys, Popeye the sailor man and Kaiju movies- Ono's days are leisurely punctuated by the memories of the past; his strained relationship with his father, his early days as an apprentice,his eventual rise to success and fame and his career as a propagandist for imperial japan and his fall from grace after the end of the war;yet, the reader always asks the same question all the time,how many of these memories could be considered really true? And this question lies at the heart of the novel. Our relationship with our past through the fragile bridge of memory. The novel starts with the line:

"If on a sunny day you climb the steep path leading up from the little wooden bridge still referred to around here as "the Bridge of Hesitation", you will not have to walk far before the roof of my house becomes visible between the tops of two gingko trees."

This "bridge of hesitation" was named such because of the indecisive men who roamed around it and couldn't decide whether or not to enter the pleasure district or return home and although Ono,whose entire art is based this floating world of drinking, rousing and geishas illuminated by red lanterns, claims that he never felt this hesitation to enter the world of the pleasure district, hesitation still lingers in his reminiscings of the past with his constant digressions and doubt on his own reliability. As the novel progresses Ono's hesitation and unreliability grows. Both to the reader,and to himself. Many times throughout the novel he would wonder do the words he attributes to a figure from his past is really that person's words or does he gives them his own words or someone else's or does he himself adopted those words for himself from those figures.

One of the greatest strengths of Ishiguro is his ability to create tension and unease through his spareness and restrained narrative. This book is no different; here is a world so fragile and delicate one is always tense of the possibility that it would collapse unto itself at any given moment and the unease stems from the fact that there is a natural anxiety between the reader's expectations and the refusal of Ishiguro to ever let the novel reach any level of catharsis.

This is what could be also called the most major point of difference between An Artist of The Floating world and his next novel The Remains of The Day.

In Many ways An Artist and The Remains are a twin novels. Both have very similar concerns of memory, restraint,WW2 societal fallout and old men reminiscing about their relationship with their craft. Yet, The Remains of The Day is a much more appealing work because of the emotional catharsis it reaches during it's last few pages and also because of how the reader feels about the protagonist Mr. Stevens,who is a much more endearing character. Ono, despite all the failures of his life and the pity the reader feels for him,comes across narcissistic, distant and delusional. His simultaneous refusal to totally acknowledge his role in the Japanese war effort and also his constant guilt for the war which took the life of his own son,forces him to tell one lie after another to himself and by the end there is nothing but a husk of a man stuck between the past and the future with no release. These qualities give the novel a sense of distance from the readers yet these same qualities give the novel it's depth and richness. An Artist of The Floating World is perhaps Ishiguro's most morally complex work. With questions of memory, ethics, the erasing of the world for the new,responsibility and the tension between aesthetical and the political being of the artist. By the end reader is left with more questions than answers. There is no redemption or possibility of change left for Ono nor are there any answers. The only thing that is left is leaving the future to the hands of the younger generation as the modernisation efforts change his city and completely erase the traces of the old world. Throughout the novel Ono complaints how the new companies and institutions are completely erasing and removing the people of the pre war era without any logic. By the end he realises that he is not even worth erasing at all; he is already a worthless and disgraced traitor who is not even remembered by most people. The realisation of this fact during a conversation with his long time friend Matsuda by the end,is the closest thing to a revelation he receives during the course of the novel. The novel ends with the image of Ono sitting on a bench- where he believes once one of his beloved drinking establishments of the pleasure district used to be- and as he gazes at the new Japan he truly becomes one of the last remaining members of a floating world soon to be forgotten.

Sanskrit college english or Vidyasagar College political science which will be better choice?

I think this year I have finally found my type of books and the best way I could describe it is that it is something that feels extremely dreamy.

For a lot of people that equates to books that are surreal or talk about dreams etc.(Popular example: solenoid) Although in these dreamy books elements of surreality and dreams could be present I have read books that do not have any elements of those things yet still have a distinctly "dreaminess" in it's feelings(for example, something like To The Lighthouse), i.e., it's not something that is necessary. I think authors like Karl Ove Knausgaard, Haruki Murakami,WG Sebald and Virginia Woolf are particularly masterful at creating this feeling of dreaminess through the deception of very mundane life. I find them very fascinating in contrast to someone like Borges(who is probably my favourite writer) who is often dreamy I some of his stories but also often comes off very hyper realistic and very academic in some of his other stories despite the presence of fantastical elements.

I don't think it's just about books either. My most favourite movies and music also share this quality.

Some books that capture this feeling of dreaminess:

The Morning Star and My Struggle book 1 by Karl Ove Knausgaard

To The Lighthouse,The Waves and Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Possession by AS Byatt

Everything I have read from angela carter ,WG Sebald and Haruki Murakami

Nostalgia and Solenoid by Mircea Cartarescu

The Ice Palace

Agua Viva

Septology

The fifth head of cerberus

Snow country and Sound of the mountain by Kawabata

Never Let me Go

Molloy by Beckett

Swann's way

Poems of Ts Eliot, Keats,Blake and Hart Crane

Some of the stuff of Borges,Truman Capote, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Roberto Bolaño

I really want more recommendations

I first came to her name while researching Mieko Kawakami's literary influences when I read Breasts and Eggs earlier this year. Very fascinating portrait of a life. The article was written by her translator who is bringing out the first ever english translation of her works in decades. Very fascinating figure with a seemingly unfortunate life.

I am currently reading the Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann and while reading that I remembered that I once read a theory somewhere (I don't remember where or by whom) that Thomas Mann probably witnessed/was involved in some sort of a murder/crime in his 20s. It was a theory made by a researcher or translator of his(?)I really don't remember where I read it and I am really not sure if I am confusing it with someone else or am I just getting some details wrong. I really couldn't remember where I read it. Could anyone help me? I swear I feel like I am going crazy.