Thought provoking literature?

[Que]

Music and literature are 2 different art forms and should not be judged by the same standards. If you don't like books, that's OK, but there's no need to spout forth a pseudo-intellectual rationalization for your dislike.

Don't worry,  it seems to me that Sean does not really like music either... Which is a pity because there's so much to enjoy...

Q

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Don't worry,  it seems to me that Sean does not really like music either... Which is a pity because there's so much to enjoy...

Judging by Sean's comments, I think he might be happier with high-quality genre literature (science fiction, detective stories). This is not meant as a putdown; I have infinite respect for such writing. I think it was Borges who observed that detective fiction was the "most philosophical" type of literature (or words to that effect).

[Ten thumbs]

Judging by Sean's comments, I think he might be happier with high-quality genre literature (science fiction, detective stories). This is not meant as a putdown; I have infinite respect for such writing. I think it was Borges who observed that detective fiction was the "most philosophical" type of literature (or words to that effect).

Yes, and if Sean wants detective fiction that is thought provoking, he should definitely try Simenon.

[canninator]

Yes, and if Sean wants detective fiction that is thought provoking, he should definitely try Simenon.

Yes and Paul Aster's New York Trilogy is also very good proof of that pudding. If you like that then you should read The Trial (mandatory reading really), Breon Mitchell's translation is preferable to the Muirs.

[Sean]

The sci-fi recommendations are duly noted. Before now I've been widely taken with some AC Clark and Asmiov, HG Wells among others, and I've had a bash at Stanislaw Lem; I haven't tried Heinlein though, apart from a couple of the film adaptations.

Florestan, I do already have a one-volume Oxford overview of English literature history, much of which I have actually read, but which didn't really inspire me- as for instance music guides did with a vengance in earlier years.

[Daedalus]

I've borrowed volumes of Proust from the library too, and Woolf, and Joyce. I'm afraid I have little but contempt for that stream of consciousness complete silliness and pretented cleverness, the counterpart to musical modernism and serialism.

How can you happily dismiss some of the richest literature in the Western canon? 

Also, one thing I really must ask you Sean...  is it just me or is the picture/avatar in your profile a picture of you in your pants? 

[Drasko]

and I've had a bash at Stanislaw Lem

Haven't got the slightest idea what that means but you do try Lem's His Master's Voice, also the only recommendation that you haven't commented upon is orbital's for Musil's Man Without Qualities, should read it.
Other than that Michel Houellebecq's Platform should work for you nicely and you could perhaps try Pelevin's Chapayev and Void, the title in english translation is Buddha's something.

[Kullervo]

also the only recommendation that you haven't commented upon is orbital's for Musil's Man Without Qualities, should read it.

No, I think it's beyond him. (A lot of) it is certainly beyond me. 

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Haven't got the slightest idea what that means but you do try Lem's His Master's Voice, also the only recommendation that you haven't commented upon is orbital's for Musil's Man Without Qualities, should read it.

Of the several Lems I've read, His Master's Voice is the standout. Not just an extremely erudite piece of SF, but also a superb philosophical novel. If Lem appeals, also try his Russian counterpart(s), the Strugatsky Brothers (although I think it's hard to find translations of their works nowadays).

The best works of Philip K. Dick should be read, too.

And of course The Man without Qualities! True, I've never finished reading it - but that's OK, since Musil never finished writing it 

[M forever]

I have little but contempt for that stream of consciousness complete silliness and pretented cleverness

That perfectly describes your own contributions here.

[imperfection]

Dao De jing?

[M forever]

Ringeling Ding Dong?

[Sean]

Daedalus

How can you happily dismiss some of the richest literature in the Western canon? 

Well it seems you've taken the protagonists from the Joyce book, but literary high modernism just does not work, for the same kind of reasons it doesn't in music either. It appeals to the clubby mind who wants to feel clever and who has no genuine sense of what art is. Please correct me!

Also, one thing I really must ask you Sean...  is it just me or is the picture/avatar in your profile a picture of you in your pants?

Sure thing.

[Sean]

Thanks Drasko, Spitvalve, and others. Solaris is a great movie (both movies), eh?

[Kullervo]

Daedalus
Well it seems you've taken the protagonists from the Joyce book, but literary high modernism just does not work, for the same kind of reasons it doesn't in music either. It appeals to the clubby mind who wants to feel clever and who has no genuine sense of what art is.

Very funny. Do another.

[Sean]

Corey, okay, I'm being very obnoxious. I would genuinely appreciate any guidance on how to appreciate Joyce, Proust or Woolf.

[Kullervo]

I can't help you with Woolf, but with most literature that I enjoy it helps that I have felt and thought the same things being described in the novel (or at least able to understand them).

What I like so much about Proust is how he is willing to describe the aspects of things we don't normally consider, such as the effect the sounds of the names of towns have on the mind of a child, or the association one could have with a certain flower that grew around one's childhood home, etc. In short, if you've never experienced anything similar to the "Madeleine episode", then you'll probably have a hard time finding his writing of any interest.

I'll leave Joyce to someone more familiar with him — I'm still in the middle of Ulysses.

[Sean]

Thanks for that, and I quite accept that I may be missing something, indeed I occasionally do miss things... However my objection to all the literature of this sort that deals with mental states, reactions to things and moral dilemmas etc, is that they tend to be things I feel I can think through for myself in ordinary life, and do so on a constant basis.

The only writer who's really augmented my understanding much is Shakespeare in the tensions he sets up between parties- couched in a weird aesthetic inevitability few others find.

I tried Ulysses to the best of my perceptive powers and really felt that something so intentionally impenetrable was only for people who delight in the company of others dull enough also to have read the stupid thing- and I've met a few such university lecturers.

And where does Ulysses lead? To the complete Emperor's new clothes garbage of Finnigan's Wake, the definition of cluelessly misguided use of language, trying to uncover and alter its foundations (all as with serialism/ tonality).

[M forever]

Corey, okay, I'm being very obnoxious. I would genuinely appreciate any guidance on how to appreciate Joyce, Proust or Woolf.

I don't think there is any medicine yet that makes brains grow, so I fear there is no way to help you with that.

"Baka ni tsukeru kusuri wa nai na!"

(from "Yojimbo")

[imperfection]

Ringeling Ding Dong?

That doesn't make sense. Nor is it a book of high philosophy.