Lee’s review of The Names > Likes and Comments
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Of Pynchon I've only read _Gravity's Rainbow_, which I really enjoyed, and _Crying..._, which left me also meh. I need to explore further but I've also been trying to keep my reading 50% male/female as the canon tends to fall male, so exploring many female authors I'd neglected over the years.
I do wish I could get past _No Country..._ but it was so very bad I have a kind of block--so many people rave and tell me it's not his best, but, well, time is short. Of the big complex authors my favorites are Gaddis and Vollmann, (oh, and Joyce obviously) utter geniuses.
Thank you for your reply. Yes, Gravity’s Rainbow is undoubtedly better than The Crying of Lot 49. The latter has, in my opinion, aged exceptionally poorly.
Of McCarthy’s novels, I think I liked Child of God the most. The fact that it’s short is also an advantage.
The Recognitions by Gaddis has been on my reading list for a long time, but unfortunately there is no Polish translation, which is my native language, so reading such a big and difficult novel in a second language will be quite a challenge for me. However, since the chances of a Polish translation are slim—at least in the foreseeable future—I will definitely try to read it.
You might be up to the task! Translate it! While I liked _The Recognitions_ better overall, _JR_ is maybe the best commentary on America ever written in fictional form. An awesome novel as well. For Vollmann I recommend _The Royal Family_, about my home town San Francisco.
Who are your favorite polish writers?
Well, I’m afraid I don’t have enough talent and time to attempt translating literature of that caliber. I’m also afraid it wouldn’t be easy to find a publisher willing to invest money in such a project. Unfortunately, the publishing market and readership in Poland are not like they are, for example, in France or Italy (since I see that "The Recognitions" has been translated into, among others, those two languages).
In any case, Gaddis has been completely overlooked in Poland. While we have practically the entire Pynchon catalogue available (work on translating his latest "Shadow Ticket" is already underway) or two translations of "Ulysses", we have to make do with only a single translation from Gaddis’s body of work: "Carpenter’s Gothic", which I haven’t read.
On the other hand, it’s probably better to have no translation at all than a bad one, such as the rather poor Polish translations of Henry James’s "The Golden Bowl" and "The Wings of a Dove", for example.
As for Vollmann, I want to read "Europe Central", which you gave five stars. It’s also the only one of his books available in Polish.
I think the most interesting time in Polish literature was the modernist period between the two world wars. We had Gombrowicz, Schulz, and Witkiewicz then, so that is above all what’s worth recommending: Gombrowicz’s "Pornografia" and "Cosmos", Schulz’s short-story collections "The Street of Crocodiles" and "Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass". Witkiewicz’s "Insatiability" is great, but hermetic and insane—also linguistically—and I don’t know what it’s like in translation and how comprehensible it would be to readers outside Poland.
If you’d like to explore female authors, interesting novels from that period include Maria Kuncewiczowa’s "The Stranger" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...) and perhaps Zofia Nałkowska’s "Choucas".
Olga Tokarczuk is probably also worth trying, especially her more modest books such as "Primeval and Other Times" or "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead", although some people rave about her most ambitious and biggest novel, "The Books of Jacob" from 2014, which I still haven’t read.
Personally, I’m also very fond of the fairly epic "Stone Upon Stone" by Wiesław Myśliwski from 1984, which is thoroughly Polish. I haven’t personally seen an English translation, but I know that Bill Johnston won two awards for it.
You mentioned Joyce earlier. I’m planning to revisit his books after many years, and I’m now curious whether you prefer his smaller works or "Ulysses"?
Thanks for all this info! So interesting. Gaddis is dense as he really captures language as it passes through the mind and in speech rather than the way we regularize it for easy reading on the page.
_Europe Central_ is amazing for its scope, although being from San Francisco and having lived "downtown" in the 1980s I'm very fond of Vollmann's novels about the Tenderloin area, prostitutes and crocked war veterans, the general beauty of the sleaze of the city.
I read most of Gombrowicz and all od Schultz but I think before Goodreads so no review--could be time to revisit them. And, yes, back in the 1980s a British publishing house called Quartet did a series of translated European novels in the "encounter" series which included _Insatiability_. I waded through it way back then and sadly only vaguely recall it. Alas my copy is gone--I've had to sell about 1/3 of my library twice in order to pay to ship the other 2/3s when I moved from SF to NYC, then NYC to Florence, and again did a trim when I moved from Florence to Naples.
I will look for your other recommendations as we clearly have similar taste in literature!
_Dubliners_ and _Ulysses_ are both utter masterpieces yet quite different and I love them both. If you dive into _Ulysses_ I recommend reading Stuart Gilbert's book about it: he translated the novel into French so worked closely with Joyce who explained to him the system of the novel, which he shares with us. The key really helps to open up the work. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Whoa, you’re really well-read! „Insatiability” is a niche novel, after all — definitely more so than Gombrowicz or Schulz.
I’ll revisit „Dubliners” and „Ulysses” then, especially since those are the two I liked best; „A Portrait of the Artist…” didn’t make much of an impression on me. This time, though, I’ll read „Ulysses” in English, because even though both Polish translations are good, it’s one of those novels that always loses something in translation.
That’s true about our similar tastes. Lately I’ve been reading all of Bolaño’s short novels, and although nothing is as good as „The Savage Detectives”, „Amulet” resonates with me the most as well—apart from „The Savage Detectives”, of course—just as it does with you (judging by your review).
So I’d like to ask you one more thing: what are your favorite novels overall—the ones that immediately come to your mind? Or at least your favorite writers? I know it might be a little silly question, and our choices can change all the time, but personally I really enjoy these kinds of recommendations, because when someone’s taste overlaps with mine, it’s always a great way to discover something interesting. The same goes for films and music. Thanks to your favorites here on Goodreads I discovered, for example, Blanchot’s „Thomas the Obscure”— such an incredible text. Oh, and by the way, you’re friends with Mark Eitzel! „California” by American Music Club is one of my favorite albums of the 1980s.
Dave wrote: "Whoa, you’re really well-read! „Insatiability” is a niche novel, after all — definitely more so than Gombrowicz or Schulz.
I’ll revisit „Dubliners” and „Ulysses” then, especially since those are th..."
So sorry I didn't see this message until now--odd that Goodreads doesn't alert after the first comment. Anyway, OK, you asked for it. Favorite authors off of the top of my head in no particular order: Beckett, Bolano, Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Proust, early Hemingway, Gaddis, Hubert Selby Jr., Chris Krause, Cathy Acker, Pasolini(!!!), Dostoevsky, Janet Frame, Pirandello, Rilke, Kafka, J.G. Ballard, Baudelaire, Blanchot(!!!!!), Duras, Sarraute, Philippe Sollers (almost anything nouveau roman) Tristan Tzara, recently Modiano, Jean Rhys, Jane Austen, Herry Miller, Vonnegut, H.D., Henry James, Edith Wharton. A few specific texts/novels: _Moby Dick_, _Wuthering Heights_, Huysmans _La Bas_, Lewis's _The Monk_, Vollman's _The Royal Family_, Hogg's _Memoirs of a Justified Sinner_, and I love the novel-in-frames format so Potaki's _Manuscript Found in Sargossa_, Boccaccio's _Decameron_, Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, _1,001 Nights_, etc. I studied and teach medieval literature and Dante is my ultimate specialty so he gets this special final mention. The Middle English poem _The Pearl_ is also, to make a bad pun, a gem.
And I will brag that there's a song written about me on _California_ but I won't tell you which one. (Laughing emoji here)
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Of Pynchon I've only read _Gravity's Rainbow_, which I really enjoyed, and _Crying..._, which left me also meh. I need to explore further but I've also been trying to keep my reading 50% male/female as the canon tends to fall male, so exploring many female authors I'd neglected over the years. I do wish I could get past _No Country..._ but it was so very bad I have a kind of block--so many people rave and tell me it's not his best, but, well, time is short. Of the big complex authors my favorites are Gaddis and Vollmann, (oh, and Joyce obviously) utter geniuses.
Thank you for your reply. Yes, Gravity’s Rainbow is undoubtedly better than The Crying of Lot 49. The latter has, in my opinion, aged exceptionally poorly.Of McCarthy’s novels, I think I liked Child of God the most. The fact that it’s short is also an advantage.
The Recognitions by Gaddis has been on my reading list for a long time, but unfortunately there is no Polish translation, which is my native language, so reading such a big and difficult novel in a second language will be quite a challenge for me. However, since the chances of a Polish translation are slim—at least in the foreseeable future—I will definitely try to read it.
You might be up to the task! Translate it! While I liked _The Recognitions_ better overall, _JR_ is maybe the best commentary on America ever written in fictional form. An awesome novel as well. For Vollmann I recommend _The Royal Family_, about my home town San Francisco.Who are your favorite polish writers?
Well, I’m afraid I don’t have enough talent and time to attempt translating literature of that caliber. I’m also afraid it wouldn’t be easy to find a publisher willing to invest money in such a project. Unfortunately, the publishing market and readership in Poland are not like they are, for example, in France or Italy (since I see that "The Recognitions" has been translated into, among others, those two languages).In any case, Gaddis has been completely overlooked in Poland. While we have practically the entire Pynchon catalogue available (work on translating his latest "Shadow Ticket" is already underway) or two translations of "Ulysses", we have to make do with only a single translation from Gaddis’s body of work: "Carpenter’s Gothic", which I haven’t read.
On the other hand, it’s probably better to have no translation at all than a bad one, such as the rather poor Polish translations of Henry James’s "The Golden Bowl" and "The Wings of a Dove", for example.
As for Vollmann, I want to read "Europe Central", which you gave five stars. It’s also the only one of his books available in Polish.
I think the most interesting time in Polish literature was the modernist period between the two world wars. We had Gombrowicz, Schulz, and Witkiewicz then, so that is above all what’s worth recommending: Gombrowicz’s "Pornografia" and "Cosmos", Schulz’s short-story collections "The Street of Crocodiles" and "Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass". Witkiewicz’s "Insatiability" is great, but hermetic and insane—also linguistically—and I don’t know what it’s like in translation and how comprehensible it would be to readers outside Poland.
If you’d like to explore female authors, interesting novels from that period include Maria Kuncewiczowa’s "The Stranger" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...) and perhaps Zofia Nałkowska’s "Choucas".
Olga Tokarczuk is probably also worth trying, especially her more modest books such as "Primeval and Other Times" or "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead", although some people rave about her most ambitious and biggest novel, "The Books of Jacob" from 2014, which I still haven’t read.
Personally, I’m also very fond of the fairly epic "Stone Upon Stone" by Wiesław Myśliwski from 1984, which is thoroughly Polish. I haven’t personally seen an English translation, but I know that Bill Johnston won two awards for it.
You mentioned Joyce earlier. I’m planning to revisit his books after many years, and I’m now curious whether you prefer his smaller works or "Ulysses"?
Thanks for all this info! So interesting. Gaddis is dense as he really captures language as it passes through the mind and in speech rather than the way we regularize it for easy reading on the page. _Europe Central_ is amazing for its scope, although being from San Francisco and having lived "downtown" in the 1980s I'm very fond of Vollmann's novels about the Tenderloin area, prostitutes and crocked war veterans, the general beauty of the sleaze of the city.
I read most of Gombrowicz and all od Schultz but I think before Goodreads so no review--could be time to revisit them. And, yes, back in the 1980s a British publishing house called Quartet did a series of translated European novels in the "encounter" series which included _Insatiability_. I waded through it way back then and sadly only vaguely recall it. Alas my copy is gone--I've had to sell about 1/3 of my library twice in order to pay to ship the other 2/3s when I moved from SF to NYC, then NYC to Florence, and again did a trim when I moved from Florence to Naples.
I will look for your other recommendations as we clearly have similar taste in literature!
_Dubliners_ and _Ulysses_ are both utter masterpieces yet quite different and I love them both. If you dive into _Ulysses_ I recommend reading Stuart Gilbert's book about it: he translated the novel into French so worked closely with Joyce who explained to him the system of the novel, which he shares with us. The key really helps to open up the work. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Whoa, you’re really well-read! „Insatiability” is a niche novel, after all — definitely more so than Gombrowicz or Schulz.I’ll revisit „Dubliners” and „Ulysses” then, especially since those are the two I liked best; „A Portrait of the Artist…” didn’t make much of an impression on me. This time, though, I’ll read „Ulysses” in English, because even though both Polish translations are good, it’s one of those novels that always loses something in translation.
That’s true about our similar tastes. Lately I’ve been reading all of Bolaño’s short novels, and although nothing is as good as „The Savage Detectives”, „Amulet” resonates with me the most as well—apart from „The Savage Detectives”, of course—just as it does with you (judging by your review).
So I’d like to ask you one more thing: what are your favorite novels overall—the ones that immediately come to your mind? Or at least your favorite writers? I know it might be a little silly question, and our choices can change all the time, but personally I really enjoy these kinds of recommendations, because when someone’s taste overlaps with mine, it’s always a great way to discover something interesting. The same goes for films and music. Thanks to your favorites here on Goodreads I discovered, for example, Blanchot’s „Thomas the Obscure”— such an incredible text. Oh, and by the way, you’re friends with Mark Eitzel! „California” by American Music Club is one of my favorite albums of the 1980s.
Dave wrote: "Whoa, you’re really well-read! „Insatiability” is a niche novel, after all — definitely more so than Gombrowicz or Schulz.I’ll revisit „Dubliners” and „Ulysses” then, especially since those are th..."
So sorry I didn't see this message until now--odd that Goodreads doesn't alert after the first comment. Anyway, OK, you asked for it. Favorite authors off of the top of my head in no particular order: Beckett, Bolano, Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Proust, early Hemingway, Gaddis, Hubert Selby Jr., Chris Krause, Cathy Acker, Pasolini(!!!), Dostoevsky, Janet Frame, Pirandello, Rilke, Kafka, J.G. Ballard, Baudelaire, Blanchot(!!!!!), Duras, Sarraute, Philippe Sollers (almost anything nouveau roman) Tristan Tzara, recently Modiano, Jean Rhys, Jane Austen, Herry Miller, Vonnegut, H.D., Henry James, Edith Wharton. A few specific texts/novels: _Moby Dick_, _Wuthering Heights_, Huysmans _La Bas_, Lewis's _The Monk_, Vollman's _The Royal Family_, Hogg's _Memoirs of a Justified Sinner_, and I love the novel-in-frames format so Potaki's _Manuscript Found in Sargossa_, Boccaccio's _Decameron_, Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, _1,001 Nights_, etc. I studied and teach medieval literature and Dante is my ultimate specialty so he gets this special final mention. The Middle English poem _The Pearl_ is also, to make a bad pun, a gem.
And I will brag that there's a song written about me on _California_ but I won't tell you which one. (Laughing emoji here)
By the way, Lee, how do you feel about Pynchon? I don’t need to ask about McCarthy, because judging by your review of "No Country for Old Men", you don’t seem to hold him in very high regard.