I recently read Saturday by Ian McEwan. It follows the inner life of one man, a neurosurgeon in London, on one day. It happens to be February 15, 2003, the day of the global peace demonstration. September 11th is already part of our mental landscape, and now the US is about to invade Iraq. The surgeon contemplates life, and the mind, and the brain, and how everything can change in an instant. It's very good, and brief. If you find it a little dull, stay with it.
Right now I'm reading Solomon Gursky Was Here, the first book I've ever read by Canadian (and Jewish) author Mordechai Richler. It was recommended to me by a friend of wmtc who used to post as B.W. Ventril on It's Time. It's very funny, full of wry commentary about Canadians, Jews and Jewish Canadians. I'm sure I'm not getting all the satire, but that's ok. Gotta start somewhere.
I'm not sure what book I should take to Peru. I don't read a lot on vacation - I usually use travel time to read a newspaper and to write. (More on that later.) But still, I have to take a book with me. Any Peru-related suggestions?
I haven't read Mario Vargas Llosa, and don't know where to start. I think he's (sadly) the only Peruvian writer I've heard of. But let's not limit suggestions to Peruvians.
10 comments:
How about White Noise?
:>)
AARRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!
. . . .
Lest anyone think I'm being hostile, I've tried to read White Noise, one of Allan's favourites, at least three times. A Don DeLillo fan I am not. But not for lack of trying.
Next!
Put away the DeLillo, pick up Coupland, Redsock. You're Canadian now.
Peru is a tricky one. How about some Nalo Hopkinson?
How about A la recherche du temps perdu, by Peru-st?
Or a cookbook by Paul Peru-dhomme?
Wrye, I read Generation X a long time ago, shortly after it came out, and was not impressed.
At that time, I didn't know DeLillo -- is Coupland a DeLillo wannabe?
How about A la recherche du temps perdu, by Peru-st?
Or a cookbook by Paul Peru-dhomme?
LMAO. You are way too clever to be hanging around with the likes of me.
Coupland is nothing of the sort. His primary influences are visual artists. Delillo's more about the literary nihilism a la Bret Easton Ellis. And if you're gonna go that way, may as well reread Catcher in the Rye.
Delillo's more about the literary nihilism a la Bret Easton Ellis.
Oh no no no. Not at all. I can't speak to Coupland, but DeLillo is not about nihilism, not by a long shot.
I don't care for his work, but he's a huge talent. Bret Easton Ellis is a fad, and a simplistic one at that. DeLillo is literature. The post-modernists are not for everyone (not for me, certainly), but they are a serious force.
I agree about postmodernism, to be sure, but I have yet to see much that is uplifting or humanistic in Delillo, and what I have read does not particularly make me want to seek out more of his work to see. YMMV. That is of course a separate discussion from whether the boy has talent. My gut tells me that there might be something in his work which hits chords in the American sensibility that don't exist in the Canadian.
Oh, I do agree re uplifting and humanistic, those don't seem to be among DeLillo's goals. But as I've said, I've read only a little, because his style is SO not my cup of tea.
I just wouldn't call him nihilistic, or put him with a lightweight like Easton Ellis.
My gut tells me that there might be something in his work which hits chords in the American sensibility that don't exist in the Canadian.
Right, could very well be. And he resonates with a particular segment of American readers, too - he's considered Important, but that doesn't mean he's widely read.
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