Friday 27 March 2009

words

Dude. I just read "The Fall of the House of Usher", it was bizarre. Obviously that's sort of the point, but I do believe that I won't ever "get" fantastic literature. Reading "The Castle of Otranto" was a complete failure as well, though Poe is obviously far more interesting. When my brothers bury me alive I'll make sure to come back and kill them, too...
It's a sad thing that I'm getting more and more impatient with literature, or maybe I've just had bad luck with books recently? I'm so easily bored with many of them, André Gide's was the first one in months that I truly and utterly enjoyed.
For example, the Norwegian novel I'm currently reading, "Tatt av kvinnen" by Erlend Loe, is so strange that I'm not entirely sure if it's good or bad. Maybe my Norwegian is simply not good enough for me to enjoy the sarcasm which, according to the reviews, is its main quality, or maybe I just don't have the right sense of humour. Ah well, at least I get to polish my slightly rusty Norwegian skills. Det er jo fint.
Nevertheless, I'd love to get my hands on something that'll really take a hold on me, another Sebald maybe, another Forster. Is that too much to ask?

4 comments:

  1. Erlend Loe is good, but I think you need to tune into his extremely sparse language and dry descriptions. There is this fine sense of emotion in it, if you look closely.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah I know, I've read "Naive. Super." before and I absolutely loved it, but I just seem to be incapable of getting in the right mood for tatt av kvinnen.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i'm reading a book by philip hoare at the moment (leviathan or, the whale) and it's really very intriguing; he's been compared to sebald, and sebald himself thought hoare was great. it's not really fiction though... fictionwise, have you heard of/read nicola barker? she is my new hero. her writing is bawdy and lively and intense (i was made aware of her via a glowing ali smith review, which is always a good sign). swoon.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ooh both of your suggestions sound brilliant... being loved by Sebald/Smith is an added bonus. Which reminds me, I could just read the latest Smith book!

    ReplyDelete