I don't read all that much in contemporary fiction, just because, when I'm behind, I prefer to work forward in order. Also, I do enjoy the orderliness of 19th C novels, how they set up pins and knock them down. I'll go for experiment in shorter forms, but if I'm going to sit down for a novel I prefer it to have a plan firmly in place.

The only Roth I've read (I know, I know) was his recent The Plot Against America, which I disliked immensely. It might have been a mistake, approaching the book with my genre-goggles on, because alternate universes do kind of have relatively serious generic rules which Roth blew right past. Then again, I think some of those rules exist for a good reason, like Don't create an alternate universe and then get to the end and say "I was just kidding" and more general rules like Don't spend pages and pages on a day and then summarize a year in four pages of newspaper extracts. It seemed like an interesting setup, and I could read the text as an indictment of modern politics -- for about the frist 100 pages. And even the second 100 pages, I tried to read as a family drama of watching your parents turn out to be just as scared and clueless as everybody else. And then I got to the end and was like, Oh honey, please figure out what your point is, and then get back to me.

I think it worked better as general fiction rather than genre-goggled alternate unvierse fiction, but, even as general fiction it didn't work well for me. (And it's very irritating, to see an SF tool used in such a non-SF way, with no knowledge of or interaction with the history of that tool's use. Like meeting a whole tribe somewhere that uses shoes only as hammers, and never wears the shoes.)

It's not so much about the plot as the tone and the characters and the place.

This is a phrase that will never win me over, I fear. There's only so much that clever wording can do to hide a great gaping lack of anything happening. It's very difficult for me to get into certain types of writing, because the writers don't give a shit about anything happening in their fiction, and it is very hard to get past the lack of anything happening. Things happening is pretty much how I understand the concept of fiction.

This may be why I tend to prefer 19th C novels and modern genre writing, because things happen a lot in both of those areas.

Libra

I've read the first chapter many times. I finally donated it when I realized I'd never, ever get past that first chapter.

There's only so much that clever wording can do to hide a great gaping lack of anything happening.

Nutty is me.

I am basically Nutty [edit: heh, and Ginger] when it comes to needing some plot in my fiction, although fascinating characters/relationships will also win me over. Although I think I'm more likely to appreciate movies that are all about interesting characters and no plot, rather than books, maybe because I can watch a movie all in one sitting, whereas with a book, I put it down and pick it up many times over the course of reading it, and I generally have to want to know "what happens next?" in order to pick it up again.

Well, not much happens in Remembrance of Things Past, or, for that matter, in one of my favorite recent books, Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. There is plot in both, but it's subtle enough to be secondary to the sensual feel of each.

Anyway, I don't much care for John Irving, but mainly because I feel that the man only has one note and he's ceaselessly striking me over the head with it, like some sort of literary Philip Glass.

But... it is a good note!

I would care a lot less if he didn't write so *much* every time, Corwood. Irving novels are commitments. Of course, the argument could be made I've gone slumming and ruined my attention span.

Interesting I have read two books on that list Winter's Tale

and parts of

The Things They Carried

I love the pictures created in the first. I've read a number of times, and don't ever seem to keep a handle on the action. It is a very viseral reaction. Ditto the secondToo intense for me too read all at once, but really godd and true.

I might have finished on of the Rabbit books, but it didn't stick. ditto DeLillo. and there are others I started, but never got very far.

But I am always surprised and pleased when something that is in the cannon is liked by me.

Irving novels are commitments.

It is funny how different people are, because the Roth/Updike novels feel like a slog for me, while Irving just flies by.

This is a phrase that will never win me over, I fear. There's only so much that clever wording can do to hide a great gaping lack of anything happening. It's very difficult for me to get into certain types of writing, because the writers don't give a shit about anything happening in their fiction, and it is very hard to get past the lack of anything happening. Things happening is pretty much how I understand the concept of fiction.

To be fair, plenty of things happen in Confederacy of Dunces and it does have a plot. I just thought Matt's plot description missed the appeal of O'Toole's writing.