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Seth Kupchick

Goodreads Author

Born

in New York, New York

Website

http://www.ifsocarried.webs.com

Twitter

SethKupchick

Genre

Memoir, Contemporary

Influences

All the usual suspects: Kerouac, Burroughs, Dostoevsky, Artaud, Genet, ...more

Member Since

December 2013

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/goodreadscomseth_kupchick

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My books are movies in words.

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Seth Kupchick’s books

Average rating: 4.25 · 12 ratings · 6 reviews · 1 distinct work

If so carried by the wind

4.25 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 2013 — 5 editions

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* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

172 posts
Seth Kupchick's Blog: Bet on the Beaten

The Idolmaker Vs. Eddie and the Cruisers

I'm not sure if I saw The Idolmaker when it came out, but I wanted to because all my friends did, and talked about it a lot. I even remember the theater where it was playing in Westwood, and the cardboard life size stand ups through the window in the lobby painted in gold lightbulbs. There was an excitement around The Idolmaker that made me feel like I was missing out on an experience more than a Read more of this blog post »

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Published on October 07, 2023 03:06

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Seth is Currently Reading

Seth Kupchick is currently reading

Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class

by Scott Timberg

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Jan 10, 2020 03:48PM

Seth Kupchick is currently reading

Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes

by Jonathan Shaw

bookshelves: currently-reading, didn-t-finish, narcisa

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Seth Kupchick said: " I really thought I was going to finish Narcisa. I was fresh off of "Memoirs of a Beatnik" by Diane DiPrima, an absolute eye opener for a Beat scholar like myself, and saw Narcisa in the long line of this style of literature. I got to about page 200 s I really thought I was going to finish Narcisa. I was fresh off of "Memoirs of a Beatnik" by Diane DiPrima, an absolute eye opener for a Beat scholar like myself, and saw Narcisa in the long line of this style of literature. I got to about page 200 so it's not like I didn't read anything, and Shaw's prose especially at the beginning, or in his best passages, is truly lyrical in the best outsider tradition, and he's no doubt a poet of the highest caliber. The problem with "Narcisa" is that there is no real arc to the story.

I'll admit it's possible that an arc appears but I made the mistake (?) of reading the reviews on Goodreads (I love reading reviews) and many of them said what I came to think of the novel, that if it was about 200 pages, or cut in a half, it would've served the art well. Even by page 200 the repetition of Narcisa's intolerably brutal and beautiful behavior became so repetitious that I really felt like I'd had enough, and that I was getting bored. The point of view was from a detached narrator, one of my favorite p.o.v.'s, but there were no subplots and only one other character that comes to mind (the dickless wonder), and while he's a fascinating study there didn't seem to be much of a narrative built around him.

To be honest, Narcisa deserves four or five stars but I can't in good conscience give a piece of literature that high a rank if I can't finish it. The artist in me wants to say that Shaw made this epic monstrosity 600 pages because only that many could hold the endless madness of Narcissa, and I tried looking at it that way, but the critic/editor in me (the reader?) couldn't help but feel that the bombast was ultimately hurting the art and would drive readers away. I understand it's an absolutely unique work of literature, and maybe one day I'll have the fortitude to finish it but that'll take a night and I don't have that in me right now.

I will say that if you are struggling with the violent nature of the battle of the sexes this novel is definitely for you. I read it on one particularly bad relationship day and it got me through, but that's a hard recommendation. ...more "

Oct 03, 2017 12:57AM · see review

Seth Kupchick is currently reading

Infinite Jest

by David Foster Wallace

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Sep 27, 2020 09:09AM

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Seth Kupchick liked Majenta’s quote “Si el libro que leemos no nos despierta de un puñetazo en el cráneo, ¿para qué leerlo?… Un libro tiene que ser un hacha que rompa el mar de hielo que llevamos dentro.” Franz Kafka Like Quote
Aug 14, 2025 07:11PM
Seth Kupchick rated a book it was amazing My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I fell in love with this book from the moment I picked it up in a bookstore in Seattle and knew at once that I'd discovered a major voice in fiction who was able to recall an era that was mine and yet doing it in a way that made it hers. This is a gr ...more
Apr 15, 2025 06:14AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

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Quotes by Seth Kupchick (?)

“It's always a metaphor when a bird shits on your head.”
― Seth Kupchick

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“I really know how to work that gear box.”
― Seth Kupchick

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Seth’s Quotes

“Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.”
― Pauline Kael

40 likes

“People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

tags: animals, cruelty, mankind

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“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

tags: empathy, thankful, understanding, understanding-others

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“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
― Leo Tolstoy , Anna Karenina

tags: family, first-sentence

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“You don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

tags: an-abundance-of-katherines, joh-green, nerdfighters

4039 likes

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Indie Revolution Group — 241 members — last activity Sep 18, 2025 03:49AM
A place for anyone and everyone especially interested in promoting and discussing the work of indie authors and/or whatever else you like!

Beatdom — 555 members — last activity Mar 16, 2025 05:45PM
Beatdom is the world's most popular Beat-themed literary journal. Now we have a Goodreads group, where you - the reader, contributor or passer-by - ca ...more

THE Group for Authors! — 12923 members — last activity 3 hours, 7 min ago
This is a group for authors to discuss their craft, as well as publishing and book marketing.

Goodreads Authors/Readers — 55529 members — last activity 44 minutes ago
This group is dedicated to connecting readers with Goodreads authors. It is divided by genres, and includes folders for writing resources, book websit ...more

¡ POETRY ! — 22610 members — last activity Nov 19, 2025 04:25PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

UK Amazon Kindle Forum — 6636 members — last activity 5 hours, 2 min ago
Where every hour is happy hour.

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Comments (showing 1-2) post a comment »

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message 2: by Leo

Sep 26, 2016 12:00AM

Hiya Seth!

Cheers for getting in touch :) I see we have a lot of favourite authors in common, so I'm looking forward to chatting with you about books!

Cheers,

Leo :)

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message 1: by Majenta

Jul 22, 2016 06:21PM

Hello, Seth! Happy Belated Birthday, I hope you're settling nicely into your "new year." Friend Request Accepted, thanks for Requesting. Have a great weekend. Happy reading, writing, and everything else.

Best wishes from Majenta

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