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Pit Book/Discussion Thread

Last 100 pages of Anna Karenina to go. Do like, but hard to sympathize with any of the rich-ass characters with their Society problems. Tolstoy has the human condition on lock, tho.

One of my favorites. I find the Levin story arc much more compelling than the #richpeopleproblems. That scene where he is mowing grass and gets in the zone is badass writing, yo.
 
One of my favorites. I find the Levin story arc much more compelling than the #richpeopleproblems. That scene where he is mowing grass and gets in the zone is badass writing, yo.

Levin is too serious to find that likeable. All the characters are too self-important, save Oblonsky.
 
Also reading Tolstoy, "The Death of Ivan Ilych". It's my first Tolstoy read and only halfway through but he really does capture the selfishness of humanity.
 
Tolstoy is the best writer that ever lived, no?
 
He mastered the short form and then wrote one of the best longform books of all time.

I think it would be hard to argue. Shakespeare. Milton. Dante.

That's all I got. I think Tolstoy has everyone lapped.
 
It's good, but it's tough to beat goete and Kafka (if he counts)

I wouldn't count Kafka as much for his writing not falling into the "anti-war" category just as much as the fact that he was Czech.

Goethe was not anti-war.
 
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Kinda off topic here but does anyone who reads the Song of Fire and Ice series have any idea when Winds of Winter will be out?
 
Kinda off topic here but does anyone who reads the Song of Fire and Ice series have any idea when Winds of Winter will be out?

I remember hearing that the publisher said it would be 2015 at the earliest, but Martin released one chapter from it last week as a teaser.
 
Anybody gonna pick up the new Michael Lewis? It's about traders/Wall Street.
 
He mastered the short form and then wrote one of the best longform books of all time.

I think it would be hard to argue. Shakespeare. Milton. Dante.

That's all I got. I think Tolstoy has everyone lapped.

I've only read Anna Karenina and War and Peace, both a while ago, but don't remember the latter being all that great. Faulkner is my favorite, but if I had to pick a best, it might be Nabokov.

Haven't been on this thread in a while. Read History of the World by J.M. Roberts a few months ago, and it was excellent. Bunch of war books nobody would care about. Angle of Repose by Stegner was good, but not great. Re-read East of Eden, and still thought it was terrific, but didn't love it quite as much as I remembered. Am currently working through On the Road, my first Kerouac experience, which has been interesting. I did wince at the line where Dean says something to the effect of "We were Arabs coming to blow up [New York City]." Uncomfortable.
 
He mastered the short form and then wrote one of the best longform books of all time.

I think it would be hard to argue. Shakespeare. Milton. Dante.

That's all I got. I think Tolstoy has everyone lapped.

Gotta throw Joyce in there. Resume: wrote great collection of short stories, the modernist Bildungsroman, THE modern novel, and a revolutionary work of fiction (fw).
His poetry was pretty bad, though so I can understand why he may not be on English writer Mount Rushmore.
 
My issue with Portrait is the structure. You have a character and watch his development with such close psychic distance for so long that you feel his anxieties and pressures and fears and loves and then the last section opens and he's undergone this total transformation and we don't really get to experience it.

It's a damn near perfect read otherwise IMHO.
 
Will never be able to get over the fact that Nabakov wrote Lolita in a second language. Dude could do words.
 
I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson a few summers ago and haven't found anything like it since, any recommendations?
 
Gotta throw Joyce in there. Resume: wrote great collection of short stories, the modernist Bildungsroman, THE modern novel, and a revolutionary work of fiction (fw).
His poetry was pretty bad, though so I can understand why he may not be on English writer Mount Rushmore.

Joyce's epistolary work is by far his finest achievement.
 
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