Wash ,'The Message'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
I've read 22 of them, which seems like a lot (considering I don't think I read that much, and especially not much mainstream fiction). There were also a bunch where I've read other books by the author, but not the one they picked.
I think that list was mostly fairly well-received (well-reviewed + sold well) mainstream writing.
the title said new classics - so that's where I got the word classics
I think it's a combination of popular and prize winners. I doubt Oscar Wao would be on there if it didn't win the Pulitizer. It also seems to be a representative novel from a popular/influential writer from the time period. Why Goblet of Fire and not any of the other Harry Books. (Why Goblet of Fire anyway?) Underworld by Don DeLillo, but not White Noise? Is using A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again for David Foster Wallace a total admisison that almost nobody has read Infinite Jest? On Beauty for Zadie Smith but not White Teeth?
I started Infinite Jest but egads, never finished. Yuck.
I started Infinite Jest but egads, never finished. Yuck.
Oh me too.
There were parts I thought were quite good, but it is not All That enough for 1000 pages.(Very few things are.) And I know I missed the ultimate Capital-P-type Point too, although I got the whole entertainment=addiction thing I sort of see his thinking there, but not all *that* much since I'm sitting around on a Buffy board on a Saturday night and all.(And were it not for this board I might need to fasten theses on the lowest halves of doors or something like that, so it's not like the board is robbing me of worshipping time or cancer-curing time.)
I read Michael Tolliver Lives yesterday, and it was great to catch up with all the characters, although it felt a little too autobiographical in some respects, which made me wonder about the rest. (For example, see how Maupin met his husband on Wikipedia.) And I really hope Michael went to his mother's funeral.
Belatedly, re Chelsea Quinn Yarbro: I always though CQY plots were driven by excessive vampire languidity.
CQY vampire lemming: "Oh this foolish mortal is about to plunge a dagger into my heart. I will languidly move two inches and teach him the error of his ways. OW! that damn dagger only missed my heart by two inches! I'm not dead, but I'm badly injured and it really hurts. Oh well, nobody could have see that coming. I'll let them bury me, brood while I slowly recover, come back to find the villain has killed several people I loved while I was out of commission, and take revenge for this totally unexpected turn of events."
neil gaiman's intro to the 10th anniversary edition of Synners needs to be cited here but I can't do it now because argh iPhone. So I'll just tell you all that this is my thinking.
Has modern life killed the Semi-Colon? - from the Slate.