MetaFilter posts tagged with Literature and novels

Novel Chess

carsonb — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:49:40 -0800

Reading to the Endgame: Algorithmic translation of classic nineteenth century novels into chessboard slugfests. Select the opponents from a list of fifty-five novels in five languages, and watch each text maneuver across the battlefield.

The crying of x^2 + xy + y^2 = 49

escabeche — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:00:24 -0800

"Pynchon, postmodern author, is commonly said to have a non-linear narrative style. No one seems to have taken seriously the possibility, to be explored in this essay, that his narrative style might in fact be quadratic." Number theorist Michael Harris on Pynchon and conic sections.

Two Chinese Brothers

escabeche — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:03:57 -0800

"This is a novel born out of the intersection of two eras. The first is a story of the Cultural Revolution, a time of fanaticism, repressed instincts, and tragic fates, similar to the European Middle Ages. The second is a story of today, a time of subverted ethics, fickle sensuality, and every kind of phenomena, even more like the Europe of today. A westerner would have to live four hundred years to experience the vast differences of the two eras, but a Chinese would only need forty years for the experience." Yu Hua's Brothers, a sprawling, foul-mouthed, comic-historical epic, and the best-selling novel in China's history, is available in English. (The quote above comes from the afterword to Brothers, not included in the US edition.) The New York Times didn't care for the translation, by Eileen Chow and Carlos Rojas; Chinese litblog Paper Republic criticized the review, leading to an interesting comment thread in which both Chow and the NYT reviewer participate. Yu got even tougher treatment from local critics, who were baffled by Yu's abandonment of his previous restrained, literary style. Cang Hang (translation via Paper Republic) calls the book "a 500,000 character trash heap." Read an excerpt from Brothers and listen to the relevant podcast at NPR.

Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry

thescientificmethhead — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:20:36 -0800

Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry. A feature-length documentary focusing on Malcolm Lowry, author of the novel Under the Volcano. Previously.

It is impossible - and unnecessary - to grapple with every 'must read' of the literary canon

stbalbach — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:40:42 -0800

John Updike died, have you read his books? Who has time where there are a 1000 novels to read yet! James Delingpole argues that it is impossible - and unnecessary - to grapple with every 'must read' of the literary canon. He says:

Partly you're excused by the issue of time. In the early 19th century, it might just have been possible for a sprightly reader with bags of leisure time to whizz through all the great novels that had ever been written. In the early 21st century, it's an impossibility. Mainly though, you're excused by the fact that there's no novelist out there so essential that an unfamiliarity with his work represents a crime against taste and good judgment. All I mean is that once you've had a reasonable grounding in sufficient "proper" literature to form your taste, you should never again read a book out of duty. Far too many of the (depressingly few) novel-readers I know do, though. They feel compelled to read the must-read new literary prizewinner; the must-read new, vibrant-insight-into-remote-foreign-culture novel. They have this idea in their heads, instilled from having to revere the classics at school, that literature is a lofty thing, that the best writing is fine writing or stuff they don't quite understand or feels slightly hard work. But if you don't read any must-read books, I promise you won't be missing anything. First, it's because must-read books .. are just never, ever, EVER as good as the critics say they are. Second it's because there is no such thing as a perfect novel.

1000 novels worth reading [about] from the Guardian

stbalbach — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 13:57:09 -0800

1000 novels worth reading [about], from the Guardian. Part of its ongoing 1000 series: 1000 albums, 1000 films, 1000 artworks. More than a list, it includes sub-articles and paragraph long write-ups of each.

Novels 'better at explaining world's problems than reports'

stbalbach — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:21:59 -0800

Novels are 'better at explaining world's problems than reports'. According to the study "The Fiction of Development: Literary Representation as a Source of Authoritative Knowledge" (HTML or PDF), people should read best-selling novels like The Kite Runner and The White Tiger rather than academic reports if they really want to understand global issues, such as poverty, migration and other issues.

Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner "has arguably done more to educate Western readers about the realities of daily life in Afghanistan under the Taliban and thereafter than any government media campaign, advocacy organisation report, or social science research", said the report. It also praised the winner of this year's Man Booker Prize, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, for its "passionate depiction of the perils and pitfalls of rampant capitalism in contemporary India". The novel "deftly highlights the social injustice and moral corruption that underpin the country's apparently miraculous economic development during the past decade," it said.

The Iron Heel

finite — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:17:03 -0800

The Iron Heel, published a century ago this year, is a novel by Jack London about socialist revolution in the United States. It is set mostly between 1912 and 1932, with a foreword and numerous footnotes written from the point of view of a historian who has just discovered the manuscript some 700 years later. Here is an excerpt (which is printed on the back cover of some editions) from chapter five:

"This, then, is our answer. We have no words to waste on you. When you reach out your vaunted strong hands for our palaces and purpled ease, we will show you what strength is. In roar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns will our answer be couched. We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of words--Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."

"turn to page 69 of any book and read it. If you like that page, buy the book."

amberglow — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:17:56 -0800

The Page 69 Test --inspired by Marshall McLuhan's suggestion to readers for choosing a novel, a new blog, inviting authors to describe what's on page 69. One says: Not the best, but not the worst. If my pages were presidents, I’d put page 69 somewhere in the James K. Polk range.

Cormac McCarthy

jason's_planet — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 13:10:47 -0800

“See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a last few wolves. His folk are known for hewers of wood and drawers of water but in truth his father has been a schoolmaster. He lies in drink, he quotes from poets whose names are now lost. The boy crouches by the fire and watches him. Night of your birth. Thirty-three. The Leonids they were called. God how the stars did fall. I looked for blackness, holes in the heavens. The Dipper stove. The mother dead these fourteen years did incubate in her own bosom the creature who would carry her off. The father never speaks her name, the child does not know it. He has a sister in this world that he will not see again. He watches, pale and unwashed. He can neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence. All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man.” --Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

"Mr. Shady Nasser, a grad student at Harvard they found for me, was my Arabic consultant."

bardic — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 17:09:13 -0800

An interview with John Updike on Terrorist, his most recent novel. Some reviews: Kakutani, Donohue (USAToday), and fellow novelist Amitav Gosh (Wapo).

A novel in twelve fish.

Dr. Wu — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 14:47:26 -0800

Gould's Book of Fish (full contents of Chapter One) by Tasmanian author/historian/Rhodes Scholar Richard Flanagan is a critically lauded 2002 novel that is the most interesting and accomplished work of fiction I've read in years. Set in the 19th century on a penal colony off the coast of Tasmania, the book is narrated by William Buelow Gould, a convict, charlatan, and possible madman. Here is an audio interview with Flanagan; here's an audio clip of the author reading from his book. (.ra files) Yes, the book is a few years old, but it somehow passed under my radar; and, anyway, a good book is timeless. (Picking up the piscine gauntlet thrown down by Plutor.)

"best of the worst on the best"

funambulist — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 06:42:07 -0800

"This book isn't as good as Harry Potter in MY opinion, and no one can refute me. Tastes are relative!" A review of Orwell's 1984 on Amazon, from a list compiled by Matthew Baldwin at The Morning News with a selection of the funniest one-star reviews of books from Time's list of the 100 best novels.

Le Guin on Taoism, Utopia, and Feminism

KirkJobSluder — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 09:37:13 -0800

The Guardian has a nice interview with Ursula K. Le Guin about utopian science fiction, anthropology, ethnicity in Earthsea and the differences between her two Earthsea trilogies. She also comments on the upcoming miniseries.

The Lathe of Heaven is a taoist novel, not a utopian or dystopian one.... There is an old American saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The novel extends that a bit - "Even if it's broke, if you don't know how to fix it, don't."

The Master and Margarita

plep — Sun, 14 Dec 2003 00:54:38 -0800

The Master and Margarita. A hypertext exploration of the subversive Stalin-era fantasy, with maps and illustrations. A background to Bulgakov's life is here.

Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls

hama7 — Sat, 06 Dec 2003 18:09:34 -0800

Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls.

Survival of the Fittest?

elendil71 — Mon, 18 Aug 2003 10:37:16 -0800

On Sundays West Coast Live I heard an interview with Adam Johnson, the author of Parasites Like Us, a post-apocalyptic novel with a decidedly (if somewhat spurious) anthropological bent. Literary criticism aside, as an anthropologist myself (and die-hard sci-fi reader), it got me thinking of what our vaunted Western culture may have to offer the survivors of whatever catastrophe may befall our civilization in the future. From classic novels like Earth Abides, or even The Stand, writers and storytellers have tried to discern what may be the surviving aspects of culture once all else fails; what it is that has made and defines us as modern humans, and perhaps what it is that will sustain us. So, what is it that would sustain you? What would separate you from the crazed and the mad that seem to populate the annals of post-apocalyptic literature? Or perhaps more specifically, what is it that you value of your culture and your technology that makes it worthwhile to maintain and perhaps fight your way back to?

Simenon And Great Crime Novelists

MiguelCardoso — Mon, 07 Jul 2003 23:29:55 -0800

Inspector Maigret And The Strange Case Of The Immortals: The immensely prolific Georges Simenon, most well known for his Maigret mysteries, has just been published in 2 volumes by France's most prestigious collection, the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Crime fiction looks like it's slowly becoming respectable. What popular crime novelists would you like to see elevated to literature's highest pantheon? Or does it somehow ruin the fun a bit? For comparison purposes, I'd say The Library of America is the nearest English language equivalent. [First, second and fourth links in English; others in French.]

Fact, Fiction And Memoirs Masquerading As Novels

MiguelCardoso — Wed, 23 Apr 2003 21:14:58 -0800

Is It Fiction If It Says "Fiction" On The Cover? Jorge Luis Borges brilliantly obscured fact and fiction presenting fiction as fact. Things seem to have swung round 180º and fact is now increasingly being sold as fiction. This certainly seems to be the case with Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved. She's Paul Auster's second wife and... Well... now even critics, like The New York Observer's Joe Hagan have joined the fun, as Slate's Katie Roiphe duly noted. Fact is now presented as fiction, without the traditional disguise of the roman à clef. I think it's sad. In fact, it's an attempt on the life of imagination itself. Perhaps these authors who write memoirs masquerading as novels could be sued under the Trade Description Act? [With thanks to the always excellent Literary Salon weblog. Thanks to ColdChef for pointing it out to me.]

Classic Reader

Pinwheel — Tue, 08 Apr 2003 07:19:27 -0800

Did you know that George Eliot's Middlemarch is posted online in its entirety? As is Madam Bovary, Anna Karenina, and Don Quixote. ClassicReader.com contains 769 books and 1041 short stories by 211 authors. (via Bookfilter.)

Bestseller Imposters

Pollomacho — Wed, 13 Nov 2002 14:15:36 -0800

Cervantes no not THAT Cervantes silly, THIS Cervantes wrote the first half of Don Quixote in 1605. The popularity of the world's first novel was so great that an impostor book was published chronicling the continued misadventures of the Don Quixote and Sancho, so scandalously in fact that Cervantes himself had to write a second half ten years later which ends (SPOILER) with the death of Alonso Quixano and the end of all further tales. Now it seems some 400 years later its happening to our young Harry Potter!

mcwetboy — Thu, 07 Nov 2002 12:20:42 -0800

Canadian novelist Yann Martel, whose novel, Life of Pi (excerpt, review), won the 2002 Booker Prize, has been accused of plagiarizing Brazilian novelist Moacyr Scilar's 1981 novella, Max and the Cats, which shares a similar premise. Martel freely admits that the premise of Scilar's work, which he discovered via a half-remembered (and scathing) critique, inspired Life of Pi, but he has not read it. The issue is whether a premise is intellectual property or whether such ideas are recycled all the time. While this would ordinarily be a literary tempest, Canada and Brazil have had a shaky relationship over trade in recent years; this may not help the situation.

atom128 — Wed, 24 Jul 2002 05:14:39 -0800

Chaim Potok dead at 73 Author of The Chosen, The Promise, My Name Is Asher Lev, and and many others has died of Brain Cancer. Here is a link to a biography and selections of his work for anyone who may be unfamiliar with his life and work.

Ms Snit — Sun, 11 Nov 2001 05:48:57 -0800

As a youngen, I was very much enamored with Ken Kesey's questioning soul and his flare for the wild. His novels provided much comfort as I tried to navigate my way through those conforming years we all know as high school. May he RIP.

kittyloop — Sat, 03 Nov 2001 13:32:55 -0800

In 1948 Caryl Chessman was awarded two death sentences on two counts of attempted rape. He was probably innocent, yet he was executed in 1960 for more or less "being a smartass." In the years between his sentencing and death, he wrote three memoirs and a novel, which sold well. After the first memoir the prison forbade him to write about anything other than the legalities of his case, so he developed an elaborate code to get his work out to his lawyer. His spirit never broke, as strange as it was. This is his story.