books you are ashamed you have not read

I've only read fragments of The City of Saints and Madmen, and what I read was dull. I don't get Ligotti's blurb for it, but different strokes. That being said I have no interest in the Southern Reach trilogy whatsoever.

I respect Mr. VanderMeer for his editorial work, though.

Liam, you would love all of those authors, I trust.

I have never read Farenheit 451...

[Liam Barden]

Cheers NIK, I have 8 novels and 2 short story collections of both Ballard and Nabokov waiting to be read on my bookshelf.

I might put on some Chopin, pour some wine and spread the first pages of Lolita tonight . . .

I was surprised to see Vandermeer had written the blurb for Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe . . . mostly because they're so different . . . It's hard to imagine Thomas Ligotti, sitting in his reading chair, enraptured by Vandermeer's soggy prose . . . but hey, wtf would I know . . .

[Acutely decayed]

Quote Originally Posted by Liam Barden

I barely made it a quarter way through the second novel – Each to their own – although I am interested in any counter opinions I haven't read anything by Dostoyevsky, Nabokov or Ballard.

I don't regret reading the Southern Reach Trilogy (although its initial description read as a Tarkovsky rip off - watch Stalker before reading this also) , it was not time wasted, but I would recommend reading Dostoyevsky, (all of) Nabokov or (some) Ballard first – Vandermeer shows a consistently flawed ability towards greatness and Southern Reach indicates he may be becoming aware of the flaws – watch him (read him from the library, pace around him, be prepared to pounce)

– then again it's entirely probable, knowingly or not - I am just some kind of jerk

I'm going to try one last time to read a full length Henry James novel. I adore The Turn of the Screw, and I'm sure there must be that same genius in his longer works somewhere. I just ordered The Golden Bowl.

[Gnosticangel]

I still have The Tale of Genji on my bucket list, and The Golden Bowl as well.

[qcrisp]

Quote Originally Posted by Gnosticangel

I still have The Tale of Genji on my bucket list, and The Golden Bowl as well.

I started The Tale of Genji. I was only interrupted by having to find a new flat, or that kind of thing. From what I read, its reputation is completely deserved. It is a modern novel in the sensitivity of characterisation, but with an atmosphere that is probably humanly unattainable now. I will get back to it, when I feel up to reading such a tome again.

[Gnosticangel]

Qcrisp wrote: "I started The Tale of Genji. I was only interrupted by having to find a new flat, or that kind of thing. From what I read, its reputation is completely deserved."

Thank you for reaffirming the value of this work. I know that I shall get around to it one day, soon I hope.

[Pharpetron]

I've read some of The Tale of Genji, including selections in the original Heian Japanese with a grammatical and lexical commentary (文法全解源氏物語シリーズ）. I can't say I've ever come across a text in any language that is as hilariously opaque and obsessively ceremonial as the original Tale of Genji. I'm quite used to classical Japanese and its quirks, having spent many hundreds of fond hours copying out and studying the twists and turns of the prose of Kamo no Chomei or Sugawara no Takasue no Musume. Unfortunately, The Tale of Genji takes the opacity and ceremoniality of the Japanese language to its furthest possible extreme. In short, it's basically unreadable in the original, even for a native speaker of Japanese who has a basic grasp of the grammar of bungo (classical literary Japanese).

For all that, I plan to sit down and read it straight through to the end in English at some point. I definitely feel deficient for not having finished it.
I feel the same way about The Tale of the Heike.
　

[Gnosticangel]

Another one that I have so far been unable to finish (with full comprehension, that is). Still on my list however!

Amazon.com: Finnegans Wake (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (9780141181264): James Joyce: Books

 

Amazon.com: Finnegans Wake (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (9780141181264): James Joyce: Books

So far, here are two favorite quotes from this work:

"Thus the unfacts, did we possess them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude."

"Bite my laughters, drink my tears. Pore into me, volumes, spell me stark and spill me swooning, I just don’t care what my thwarters think."

[miguel1984]