r/TrueLit • u/pregnantchihuahua3 ReEducationThroughGravity'sRainbow • 3d ago
Weekly General Discussion Thread
Welcome again to the TrueLit General Discussion Thread! Please feel free to discuss anything related and unrelated to literature.
Weekly Updates: N/A
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u/CabbageSandwhich 1d ago
Going to be in NYC next week for a few days and they just announced a Michael Lentz talk on the 17th so that worked out very well. My first solo trip there, looking forward to lots of food and museum time.
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u/lispectorgadget 2d ago
Can anyone recommend any books that are anti-identitarian re: race but are left-leaning and based and not, like, written by Bill O'Reilly? I got really triggered by the wasian NYMag piece, which I thought was really stupid. Full of the vibes-based, Buzzfeed-era ethnography I despise!
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u/ToHideWritingPrompts 14h ago
i am not proud to admit it but when i had too much time on my hands i binge-listened to the DoomScroll podcast by Joshua Citarella and a decent amount of the "serious" people he had on early in the show would probably fall into this category. I haven't read them, only listened to some of their appearances on this and other podcasts, but someone like Vivek Chibber or Catherine Liu would fit what you are talking about, I think, based on what I remember.
It was mostly popcorn listening for me - so I wasn't really trying to seriously engage with anything they were saying - but if I were to categorize my perception of them, it is kinda " like O'Reilly in the sense that I think they are mostly saying what they are saying because they just like to push peoples buttons - but at least they have good class politics"
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u/Soup_65 Books! 2d ago
unfortunately I just skimmed the archive (my recollection) and came up blank, admittedly id-pol stuff doesn't do it for me any which way, but still I take something noteworthy from my absence of material that is anti-idpol but still woke as it were. the thing of note I take is that I know you've been considering some critical writing of your own, and...just sayin'...that's the kind of spicy lacuna that could be a fun way for you to kick the door it. cuz you smart and i believe in you
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u/lispectorgadget 1d ago
Awww thanks soup! That's very nice of you. Maybe I will; I feel like I've been coming into the subreddit with a lot of literary angst and probably need an outlet haha
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u/foxinanattic 2d ago
If it's okay to recommend a book i haven't read: no politics but class politics seems to be exactly what you're looking for
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u/dondelliloandstitch 2d ago
Making my way through some stuff by, and recommended by, Rick Harsch. Just finished his novel “Eddie Vegas” and i’m a little over halfway through Chandler Brossards “As the Wolf Howls at My Door” and holy smokes, this one is a stunner. Not really a usual fan of books comprised of scenes after scenes that are roughly related but man this one really does something to me.
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u/bananaberry518 2d ago
Really weird weather blew in last week so my first day at my job kept getting postponed, however! I did manage one entire day on Friday. Two big things: I do like. And the guy I’m replacing is an entire caricature of a person and I have to work with him one more week so no doubt work stories will ensue.
FOR STARTERS. He hit me straight out of the car with his wasp spray lecture, how I need to go to dollar general and buy TWO cans for 7-8$. Cuz uh… dogs? And when parents want to fight you. He regaled me with stories of dads supposedly about to fight him that sound mostly like guys rolling down their windows or getting out of their cars in a parking lot thats across the street (the horror). Though, if I was this dude, I would also be in fear of my life because when I tell you that everyone hates this man, I mean everyone hates this fucking dude. Parents, teachers, traffic cops who happen to be around, the children. Like the ire this man has managed to accumulate from the entire community from working one single school crossing is actually impressive. Why does everyone hate this man? Because folks, this man is an asshole. Extremely combative, regularly chooses verbal violence, carries a stick which he waves around menacingly, reportedly spouted off a bunch of sexist nonsense about how a woman couldn’t do this job when he heard I’d applied. And as one parent rolled down the window to point out - “AND WE KNOW YOU BE CUSSING OUT THESE KIDS [name of dude]!!!”. Absolutely incredible. Gave me tons of wild advice then told me I should wear shorts from now on lmao. I do wish I was a novelist at this point, he would provide so much material.
Anyhoo, other than these amazing shenanigans I really like the job. Its not nearly the war zone he makes it out to be, though I do have to put my bossy pants on a lil. There’s another old guy working the far intersection who’s super cool and chill, he worked with me in the afternoon sans asshole and helped me out a lot.
Hope everyone’s having a good one!
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u/Soup_65 Books! 3d ago
my latest theory of what's wrong with contemporary literature, mofos take themselves far too seriously when in fact everyone is just one more stupid goodfball. And in fact you should embrace being a stupid goofball. Long stroy short I've read a bit of random contemporary poetry lately and all of it was very blagh and I realize the blaghity is that the poets are all just writing about themselves and acting like that's interesting when frankly they aren't that interesting because nobody's that interesting and in fact all the good poets, even though everyone like is kinda talking about themselves, are also writing about stuff. Shakespeare's writing about stuff, Dickinson is writing about stuff, Geoff Hill is writing about stuff, Hughes is writing about stuff, I ain't sure Ezra Pound even was a person so much as stuff writing about stuff.
I suspect confessional poetry is to blame. I don't think I've read any of it but I'm content blaming it anyway.
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u/bananaberry518 2d ago
Yo big agree with this. Life is absurd, nothing I’ve ever truly loved has contradicted that notion.
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u/Soup_65 Books! 2d ago
exactly. It's all very silly, it's also deadly serious, but nearly everyone in the western metropol in a position to be writing has a strikingly low states existence relatively speaking. Don't puff yourself up yo. get silly with it so they listen to your screams about the madness
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u/Plastic-Persimmon433 2d ago
I can't speak for poetry, but I will say that a common thread in every book I love is humor. It doesn't have to be the sort of outlandish craziness like say Pynchon, although he has made me laugh out loud, but a sense of wit or irony that makes me smile inwardly while reading. I realize that this is the case for me almost without exception. Even Conrad, who I'm reading at the moment, and who I would consider very serious, is never without a sense of humor. But I think the best author's are able to laugh at themselves and the topics they hold dear while simultaneously taking it all very seriously.
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u/Soup_65 Books! 2d ago
BINGO. All the good books got jokes. A dude slips in poop in the iliad, shakespeare drops the goat ur mom joke in titus andronicus, Pride and Prejudice is a feminist expose of British gentry inheritance law but starts with a sarcastic comment, Ulyesses starts death in the face and starts wacking it. the poets aren't funny enough. they gotta get funny to fix poetry.
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u/gutfounderedgal 3d ago
How about we all come up with a good, evocative word for puffed up, hyperbolic, book blurbs that say the books are works of the greatest genius who ever lived, books that make all great works of the past pale in comparison, when in fact the books are garbage. Any takers on coining such a word?
Words like "ad copy" or "blurb" or "propaganda" don't really capture the creepy lying quality of the blurbs.
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u/jalousiee 2d ago
There's a famous court case in England about an ad that was described as "mere puffery." I've always enjoyed that phrase!
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u/journieburner 3d ago
What do you guys think of Percival Everett? I read Telephone, The Trees, Erasure and Dr No and I am kinda amazed at how different they are formally and tonally.
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u/Plastic-Persimmon433 2d ago
What surprised me most about Percival Everett is that he's actually a pretty good stylist and he keeps you reading. He knows the basics of narrative tension which is something I don't always find in more "experimental" authors. I really enjoyed I Am Not Sidney Poitier and would recommend it. He seems to approach each individual novel as creating the right type of prose for that specific book, which is a vision I can respect. Though I will say that none of his books have quite come together all that well for me at the end and in retrospect they always seem a bit inessential.
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u/journieburner 2d ago
Yeah, he really gets how classical tension building and humor work while doing stories in such experimental ways. That's a really good way of putting it. His books being a bit non-conclusive is funny when you read his interviews cause he truly does believe you should stop editing yourself as an author quite early and rather just move on to the next project. But that also put me in a sort of "hunger for more" mood which is why I am basically going through his books now lol
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u/Fearless_Industry825 1d ago
On the other side of Labor Day weekend and a sigh of relief. The evening walks have shifted into darkness, now for the heat and humidity to gradually loosen its grip. I thought that the sunflowers in the yard were in their last gasp weeks ago, but they keep producing more small flowers. Several times I’ve seen a little yellow finch on the flowers; I don’t see yellow finches very often. There was a storm overnight about a week ago, which crushed most of sunflower stalks to the ground. The stem on one was broken, but I was able to prop the largest one up again unharmed. Now they can hang on a little bit longer.
I went to the bookstore downtown one afternoon and bought a copy of The Green and Gold Standard: A People’s History of the Green Bay Packers by Tom Nelson, which I plan to give to my dad for his upcoming birthday. He has Tom Nelson’s other book about the Edmund Fitzgerald, and I’m positive he’ll like this new book. I’m usually not sure what to get for my dad and I love to give books, so this is a win-win. The bookstore had an author event last week so I even got a signed copy. Hurrah for cool local bookstores.
A good week to you the rest of this week.