Steve's Pretentious Lit. Bit

SteveJ

all-round nice guy, aka Uncle Joe Kardashian
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This soon-to-be-deleted-by-the-mods thread is for pseudy twits like me - and for normal people - to discuss literature of all kinds.
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Virginia Woolf's Orlando

woolf.jpg

Virginia Woolf looking suitably dismayed by this thread

The Guardian has a regular Winter Reads feature at the moment, and a recent item highlighted Virginia Woolf's unforgettable Orlando. The writing is, in my view, beautiful, as in this excerpt about 'The Great Frost' of 1608:

Great statesmen, in their beards and ruffs, despatched affairs of state under the crimson awning of the Royal Pagoda...Frozen roses fell in showers when the Queen and her ladies walked abroad...Near London Bridge, where the river had frozen to a depth of some twenty fathoms, a wrecked wherry boat was plainly visible, lying on the bed of the river where it had sunk last autumn, overladen with apples. The old bumboat woman, who was carrying her fruit to market on the Surrey side, sat there in her plaids and farthingales with her lap full of apples, for all the world as if she were about to serve a customer, though a certain blueness about the lips hinted the truth.
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More:
Winter reads: Orlando by Virginia Woolf | guardian.co.uk

Orlando: A Biography - Wikipedia

Virginia Woolf - Wikipedia

The Great Frost of 1709 - Wikipedia
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Please feel free to write in this thread about any books or authors of interest to you.
 
If this is a last-ditch attempt to wrestle back my vote for Best Newbie, you're going to have to try a lot harder.
 
Yes Steve! This will be up there with the art thread, you'll culture us all yet!

Will contribute later but have to go to work now.
 
EricaNo7 said:
do you like Hardy, Steve?
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I've ony read The Well-Beloved, Erica. However, that book really influenced my own writing, and thought. :)

Agent Red said:
Yes Steve! This will be up there with the art thread, you'll culture us all yet!
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Arghhh, we're doomed if it's left to me to add more culture to the Caf! :D For example, I was reading a book on philosophy last night; it was too difficult for me, and I ended up taking paracetamol tablets & sloping off to bed! :D

cinc said:
Steve, how is this different from the book review thread?
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Well, mate, this thread enables people to write about books & authors without actually having to read or review a book at the time (as in the Books thread). :)
 
SteveJ said:
I've ony read The Well-Beloved, Erica. However, that book really influenced my own writing, and thought. :)
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I like Hardy too. Big fan of some of the more....'verbose' (for want of a better word) writers- Hardy, Faulkner, Nabokov, Joyce etc.

What's your view on minimialist writers like Carver and Hemingway, Steve?
 
I've always had a short attention span when it comes to books. Whenever I've decided to start reading something I can't decide if I should continue with the book after a few pages or read something else and I always end up watching a movie instead.
 
I hated Orlando. Modernist rubbish...deliberately obtuse attempt at writing a masterpiece on gender for no apparent reason.
 
Adzzz said:
I hated Orlando. Modernist rubbish...deliberately obtuse attempt at writing a masterpiece on gender for no apparent reason.
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Haven't read Orlando but I didn't like To a Lighthouse at all, and thought comparisons to the great Jimmy were well off the mark.
 
SmashedHombre said:
What's your view on minimialist writers like Carver and Hemingway, Steve?
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I haven't read either, mate; a capital crime for a would-be writer. :( I read a great deal of & about Fitzgerald in my youth, and was stupidly biased against Hemingway (mainly because of Zelda Fitzgerald's fractious relationship with the man). Of course, I recognise his genius (who wouldn't?) but his style is possibly not to my taste (which is, admittedly, rather old-fashioned). But please feel free to write about Hemingway and others in this thread - I'm no expert on literature - as you can no doubt tell - and I certainly don't intend to restrict the discussion to authors I alone admire. I'd welcome any & all contributions. :)


Adzzz said:
I hated Orlando. Modernist rubbish...deliberately obtuse attempt at writing a masterpiece on gender for no apparent reason.
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Ah, but the Romance of it, Lord Adzzz! :D That's what matters to me. :)
 
R.Nilsson7 said:
What books would a pretentious film buff like myself find riveting, classics preferably?
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Heart of Darkness
 by Joseph Conrad - then you could see what a mess Coppola made of it (plus it's only about 120 pages).
 
peterstorey said:
Heart of Darkness
 by Joseph Conrad.
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Seconded. There are any number of fascinating interpretations of this novella, and reading it might inspire your own interpretation, as all good books do.
 
SteveJ said:
I've ony read The Well-Beloved, Erica. However, that book really influenced my own writing, and thought. :)



Arghhh, we're doomed if it's left to me to add more culture to the Caf! :D For example, I was reading a book on philosophy last night; it was too difficult for me, and I ended up taking paracetamol tablets & sloping off to bed! :D



Well, mate, this thread enables people to write about books & authors without actually having to read or review a book at the time (as in the Books thread). :)
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You must read Return of the Native - I've always preferred it to Tess , myself
 
Adzzz said:
Ah I see. A romantic at heart what? The ladies love that.
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Well, to be honest I was referring to the historic 'time-travelling' aspect as much as anything else, chief. As a lover of history, that is what particularly appealed to me. :)
 
SteveJ said:
Well, to be honest I was referring to the historic 'time-travelling' aspect as much as anything else, chief. As a lover of history, that is what particularly appealed to me. :)
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Oh I see, I thought you meant the flowery language. That's another aspect of the novel I didn't enjoy.

Achebe calling Conrad a 'bloody racist' is still one of the most annoying pieces of criticism in existence
 
Adzzz said:
Achebe calling Conrad a 'bloody racist' is still one of the most annoying pieces of criticism in existence
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Yep, that always struck me as opportunist at best, a way to make (or highlight) his name as a critic and commentator.
 
SteveJ said:
Yep, that always struck me as opportunist at best, a way to make (or highlight) his name as a critic and commentator.
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It most certainly was, he's never been pleased that he is and forever will be in the shadow of Conrad and that secondly, he'll forever be associated as the idiot who called him a racist.
 
SteveJ said:
I haven't read either, mate; a capital crime for a would-be writer. :( I read a great deal of & about Fitzgerald in my youth, and was stupidly biased against Hemingway (mainly because of Zelda Fitzgerald's fractious relationship with the man). Of course, I recognise his genius (who wouldn't?) but his style is possibly not to my taste (which is, admittedly, rather old-fashioned). But please feel free to write about Hemingway and others in this thread - I'm no expert on literature - as you can no doubt tell - and I certainly don't intend to restrict the discussion to authors I alone admire. I'd welcome any & all contributions. :)
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I was never a fan either. In fact, I've gone from being praised for my Hardy-esque style of writing in year 1 of uni, to being positively berated for my...occassionally flamboyant style in year 2. I've struggle to adopt the minimalist technique, so I chose to throw myself in the deep end and write my essay piece on Carver. To be fair I learnt shit loads from studying him and it opened my eyes a bit to the minimalist style and made me see what I had been missing.

I still don't like Hemingway, but Carver is definitely worth a read. If you can recognise the allegory in his writing and see how he cleverly forces reader interjection by leaving things unsaid, it will be dead beneficial I imagine.
 
Adzzz said:
It most certainly was, he's never been pleased that he is and forever will be in the shadow of Conrad and that secondly, he'll forever be associated as the idiot who called him a racist.
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He'll still have his supporters though, no doubt, but it takes a 'special' kind of person to put aside his (assumedly) genuine concerns about racism in favour of an elevated personal profile. As I mentioned earlier, there are numerous possible interpretations of Heart of Darkness even without in-depth analyses of its author as a person.
 
cinc said:
I'm rereading all the John Fante stuff right now.
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I've only read 'Ask The Dust'. It's great.

This thread is a great idea, but the subject matter doesn't suit me on this medium. It's the sort of chat I'd have in a pub but I'd get too annoyed by the inevitable pissing contest that will be the subtext to the thread.
 
SmashedHombre said:
I was never a fan either. In fact, I've gone from being praised for my Hardy-esque style of writing in year 1 of uni, to being positively berated for my...occassionally flamboyant style in year 2. I've struggle to adopt the minimalist technique, so I chose to throw myself in the deep end and write my essay piece on Carver. To be fair I learnt shit loads from studying him and it opened my eyes a bit to the minimalist style and made me see what I had been missing.
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As an unashamedly florid writer, I'm none-too keen on that style. The trouble, as I see it from my biased POV, is the effect that Hemingway's style has had on what is or isn't acceptable to publishers - fledgling writers are often 'encouraged' to strip away any & all excess to the point where, say, a 70k-word work becomes a jingle. ;) Broadly speaking, Ernest's minimalistic style is often considered the benchmark of excellence; this, to me, is close-minded.
 
moses said:
This thread is a great idea, but the subject matter doesn't suit me on this medium. It's the sort of chat I'd have in a pub but I'd get too annoyed by the inevitable pissing contest that will be the subtext to the thread.
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I see that, mate, but I'm hoping that people will feel at ease in discussing all kinds of authors & their works, not just the highbrow. :)
 
SteveJ said:
) Broadly speaking, Ernest's minimalistic style is often considered the benchmark of excellence; this, to me, is close-minded.
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It's just that he can capture the essence simply, and any more words are 'decoration'. It's like it's distilled and pure, but not necessarily better. The fact that it is 'pure' has been taken by some as being 'benchmark of excellence', which is not the same thing. Things can be improved by decoration and embellishment. It's quite difficult to write like Hemmingway. This may be an odd leap, but the same can be said of tabloid journalists. Managing to tell a story in simple sentences and with a relatively small vocab is much more difficult than writing for the Guardian or the like.

I love his writing style, but haven't read much because I don't like his tales, and can't relate to anyone in them really.
 
moses said:
It's just that he can capture the essence simply, and any more words are 'decoration'. It's like it's distilled and pure, but not necessarily better. The fact that it is 'pure' has been taken by some as being 'benchmark of excellence', which is not the same thing. Things can be improved by decoration and embellishment. It's quite difficult to write like Hemmingway. This may be an odd leap, but the same can be said of tabloid journalists. Managing to tell a story in simple sentences and with a relatively small vocab is much more difficult than writing for the Guardian or the like.
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Yep, very good points, Mr m. :)
 
SteveJ said:
As an unashamedly florid writer, I'm none-too keen on that style. The trouble, as I see it from my biased POV, is the effect that Hemingway's style has had on what is or isn't acceptable to publishers - fledgling writers are often 'encouraged' to strip away any & all excess to the point where, say, a 70k-word work becomes a jingle. ;) Broadly speaking, Ernest's minimalistic style is often considered the benchmark of excellence; this, to me, is close-minded.
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I've all but had the flamboyance beaten out of me with threats of having my assignments marked down. I can see the merit in stripping down your writing to the bare essentials, but as you say- why should all budding young writers adopt the same style? I get mullered pretty much every time I hand in a piece for workshopping, despite the rest of my classmates liking my style, my tutor insists I strip it down. It's actually bordering on embarassing now. I had a ten minute lecture for opening a piece with 'the sun came to rest on the crown of a blushing hill' or something along those lines.

The English language is so beautiful and diverse, I think it's criminal we're being forced to use it so sparsley.
 
It's a bit like music Smashed, you often write an opus on a piano or a guitar and then when it's written you can add to it. Restraint can be beautiful too. You made the point about the importance of the reader earlier, that can be true of description as well as plots or philosophical nuances. Like a nude silhouette being infinitely more beautiful and often much more erotic than explicit images.
 
moses said:
I've only read 'Ask The Dust'. It's great.

This thread is a great idea, but the subject matter doesn't suit me on this medium. It's the sort of chat I'd have in a pub but I'd get too annoyed by the inevitable pissing contest that will be the subtext to the thread.
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Its the best, but all the Bandini stuff is great.
 
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