The Book Club For Really Smart People Club.

"labyrinths", it's a collection of short stories, parables, essays. very good translation.

I always find it fascinating when a book that was originally written in a different language is translated into English. I've read a couple of Paulo Coelho's novels (I only really liked The Alchemist), Marquez's Love In The Time Of Cholera and 100 Years Of Solitude, and Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being - to name the most prominent examples - and I'm always surprised that the prose is still excellent. I think word choice and sentence structure are two extremely important ingredients in a novel, so to see that they can cope with a translation and remain so rich always surprises me.

I'll check that shit you said out. Better be good, yo.

Originally posted by Ya Krunk'd Floo
I think word choice and sentence structure are two extremely important ingredients in a novel

Also, font.

Has anyone read Remembrance of Things Past?

AKA In Search of Lost Time, AKA À la Recherche du Temps Perdu ?

Originally posted by Victor Von Doom
Also, font.

Has anyone read Remembrance of Things Past?

AKA In Search of Lost Time, AKA À la Recherche du Temps Perdu ?

No, I did put it on a list entitled "Stuff I really should read but never will" though. I like making lists. It's easier than reading stuff. Also more fun.

Originally posted by Victor Von Doom
Also, font.

I like Comic Sans, but I don't like the big spaces between the lines.

Originally posted by Victor Von Doom
Has anyone read Remembrance of Things Past?

AKA In Search of Lost Time, AKA À la Recherche du Temps Perdu ?

Ohhh, À la Recherche du Temps Perdu? À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, of course! At first I was didn't know what those funny words you typed were, but then I read that you meant À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, and I understood. 100%, check please!

No, I haven't read it. Is it good?

Have you read anything by David Mitchell? He's good. A little too good.

Yes, it is rather excellent.

I haven't read anything by him.

Originally posted by Ya Krunk'd Floo
I'll check that shit you said out. Better be good, yo.

eh? EH?

translation is the reason i still haven't read too much garcia marquez; i've yet to find any appealing translation. any suggestions for the suggestion box?

Are you asking me for a suggestion as to which translation you should read? If so, I didn't know they did different translations in English. From checking Amazon, it looks like Edith Grossman is his regular translator, and those editions are the ones I've read.

In a totally different time and place, perhaps you are asking for any kind of suggestion; in which case I recommend you read all of David Mitchell's books. Start with Ghostwritten and go on from there...

Also, I loved Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and anything by Dave Eggers is gold, especially A Heart-breaking Work Of Staggering Genius and You Shall Know Our Velocity. Read them, or die.

i'm a little unsure about safran-foer. i really liked extremely loud, but i'm not sure why exactly. and the chapters from the grandmother's perspective are kinda useless.

i enjoyed heartbreaking work of staggering genius.

Yeah, but I loved some of the ideas the boy was coming out with. His idiosyncratic language also tickled my toes.

I'm currently reading some of Egger's short stories in How We Are Hungry, and I look forward to getting my hands on a copy of What Is The What just as soon as I can.

How about giving up a list of some of your favourite books? If you do it, others will follow.

waiting for godot-beckett
labyrinths-borges
one flew over the cuckoo's nest-kesey
miss lonelyhearts-west
four plays-ionesco

that's my top five, i think. when i've thought about it more i'll have a top ten.

i forgot some big ones.

picture of dorian gray-wilde
please kill me- mcneal
confederacy of dunces - toole
an eternal curse on the reader of these pages - puig
naked/me talk pretty one day-sedaris
tied with
sex drugs and cocoa puffs-klosterman.

honorable mentions include kafka, calvino, sartre, lethem, auster...meh.

You forgot Brown.

A Confederacy of Dunces is brilliant. The dude reminded me of ol' VD.

Tell me a book to read and why I should read it...

Originally posted by Ya Krunk'd Floo
Tell me a book to read and why I should read it...

Are you talking to me?

Originally posted by Ya Krunk'd Floo
Are you talking to me?

No, other people.

Idiot.

Originally posted by manorastroman
oh, and nobody REALLY likes james joyce, unless it's the dubliners, and even that's suspect. anyone who says otherwise his either attempting to violate you or get money from you.

Boring as hell and pretentious too. Oh no, I'm too stupid to "get it", that'll be it.

Whatever.

he's not pretentious. he's just not very fun to read.

You're both fools. He's difficult to read, but if you're enlightened then he's fun. riverrun...