ITT: books that are as long as Infinite Jest but actually worth reading

Love me some Moreau

Most underrated 19th century painter ever?

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Holy fuck that book has satanic trips.

Checked.

I can't believe I've never seen or thought to make this joke before.

Summary of this book?

D O N Q U I X O T E
O
N

Q
U
I
X
O
T
E

Absolutely.
I have a feeling that english speakers care more about presentation than we do, and it's quite nice, to be honest.
Pic related: it's the cover I'm stuck with, since it's the only issue available in my country.

Robert Bologna and his band of merry men travel to the year 2666 to save the earth from the mexican space-cartel, who have made it their mission to stop any citizen of Future Earth from writing an overwrought door-stopper where nothing happens

Anna K.

The Brothers K.

That is my favourite cover :( and I can't get that one in my country

>I have a feeling that english speakers care more about presentation than we do, and it's quite nice, to be honest.
I know that feel all too well. I'm trying to force myself to read more in English just because I prefer the book covers but it's never really the same as reading in your mother tongue. And reading Kafka in English for example, is just plainly sickening.

Not the recent translations, they're pretty good. Captures the same sense of discontinuity and paranoia.

t. native German speaker

Really? Do you have a suggestion?
I want to read either Metamorphosis or The Trial, I think

Just fucking read it, dude. The entirety of Kafka's work (save his diaries) is probably smaller than Infinite Meme

plz give examples
t. can't speak German

I'm not asking if I should read the books or not, I was asking if you had certain translations of the books to recommend.

translations are a meme, any recent translation from any language to any language should either be as faithful as possible (within our current paradigms and views) or contain notes and/or a introduction explaining which liberties and why they were taken.

You shouldn't let Veeky Forums meme you this hard, you fucking dolt. Just sit down and read the books you want to.

don't listen to the other user, I'm Hofmann was the one I read. He sacrifices a bit of the literal translation of words, but keeps the feel and spirit of how I believe Kafka originally intended his books to give

The covers of Anagrama are ugly as shit. Try drawing something on it. Or at least that's what I do.

cheers! i'll make sure to buy this book and check it out

This, also War and Peace

Just wait til you get to Circe and then meet W. B.

"Nothung!"

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i liked both :^)
and 2666 is definitely shorter and was meant to be five separate books bud.

lol'd
there's a bunch of themes and shit but it's essentially about a bunch of seemingly unrelated stories (some more important than others) that all convene at some unknown year in the future (like 2666). Kinda like how you generally can't really make sense of an event unless you're looking back on it. very well written and entertaining though, if you enjoyed infinite jest i imagine you'd like 2666 as well.

I have that cover too!
Are you in Mexico?

Fantastic.

>Women and Men by Joseph Mcelroy

spotted the richfag

>implying people read books before recommending them

nah, Wimmer's translation is garbage

she barely knows spanish

nice cover tho

The opposite. I'm a library weenie.

amazing

That's just Anagrama though. American covers tend to be dogshit usually.

there aren't any other English translations of 2666

A huevo que sí.

Phenomenology of spirit
Critique of pure reason
World as will and representation
gaddis bros.
Any vollmann

He already did, there is something called pic related, newfag.

>can't tell if joke

i thought her translation of the savage detectives was good until i read the original and so much beauty is lost, i assume it's the same for 2666

10/10, why the hell didn't I think of this?

Anyone read Darkmans by Nicola Barker? If so, is it worth reading?

>reading a translation over one of the the late 20th century's most sincere voices

Found the pseud.

Yes
Kind of

I'd start with in the approaches personally

You know there's an epub, right?

Hugo - Les Misérables

I actually like this cover more than the 'murrican meme edition. It feels more apocalyptic in a less kitschy way.

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>more apocalyptic in a less kitschy way

Writer of the century here.

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Says another writer who wrote the crap for his life. He is the worst author I've read in life along with Jack Kerouac

bret easton ellis if you're reading the please to kill yourself. American psycho was so fucking boring and misogynistic crap.

How can two writers be the worst writer?

Wow, this 2666 seems like an interesting book.

Is it as supremely fucking depressing as Infinite Jest?

No, only bad books are depressing. That's how you know they're bad books.

I kinda agree with you there, sir.

So it is not the bleak ramblings of a maniac depressive vomiting his mind out? I've read the Wikipedia entry on it, and it sounded pretty similar to Infinite Jest.

Is infinite jest worth it? I've been wanting to read it for some time but I just haven't yet for some reason

Bolaño was dying when he wrote it and parts of it are fairly morbid.
It's not good enough to justify the word/page count but if it's nagging at you, you might as well read it just to get it out of your system.

Holy shit.
Infinite Jest is an amazing book. It's fucking great and deserves praise. The only people who shit on it haven't read it.
2666 is also a great book. I like it better but Infinite Jest is much more likable to a newer reader.

I read and liked it, but I wouldn't call it great.

> a newer reader.

that's why you like it so much. IJ is like the inception of books - it's ok, but it's nothing great. overrated by people who don't read a lot.

Fuck DFW

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>only bad are depressing

I didn't say I was a newer reader you fucking clown ass. I'm saying it's more accessible for a newer reader. That doesn't make it any worse, by the way.

Mason & Dixon is for sure better. 2666 is better too. IJ is still great.

you are a newer reader that much is obvious

>inception [is] overrated by people who don't read a lot
it's also underrated by contrarians who also don't read a lot so there's that

I liked Infinite Jest, but not enough for it to be the meme it is.

I suppose that due to it being A) really fucking huge B) has the footnotes gimmick and C) is competently written enough while still being acessible made a generation of pleb americans who had never read shit beyond Mark Twain and Animal Farm go WHOA. Also, the fact that DFW looked like a mix between an autist, a good looking jock and someone who's actually intelligent made him a sort of personality, which only got aggravated by his suicide. My point is: there is a lot going for the fame of the book that has shit to do with the text iself.

But still, Bolaño on his first unpublished novel was already a better writer than DFW on IJ.

you didnt get it

Bolaño is my favorite author but The Third Reich is pretty bad.

I just finished the book, it was pretty fun.

Anagrama makes minimalist covers to hipsters, and those idiots love them.

American covers are for movies' fans.

I both cases, they are awful

This user is correct. Kafka's german prose is interesting and revolutionary don't get me wrong but I've read all of his work and reread with different translations and almost nothing was sacrificed from the earlier translations to now. Just really specific things like earlier translations of Amerika don't include the errors Kafka made in describing America (i.e. saying that he bought a train ticket heading east to San Francisco while in NYC, in the earlier editions they corrected it to West, in the later ones they left it) other than that nothing really stood out beside one translation (the original Vintage edition) mutilating the first line of The Trial saying: "Someone must have traduced K..." instead of "Someone must have been telling lies about K...."

good b8

it is a very comfy book though

op only said "worth reading"

So the covers for 2666 make it seem like a grim book with lots of deserts and bloodshed in it, is this true?

Bump.

Women and Men

Yes but it's all written in a very detached manner.

>tfw i had that one in my order on Adlibris

Now you're making me feel bad.

As long as Infinite Jest and better than Infinite Jest:

Against the Day
Your Face Tomorrow
2666

Long ass books although shorter than Infinite Jest, but better than Infinite Jest:

D. Quixote
Ulysses
Gravity's Rainbow
War and Peace
Anna Karenina
The Brothers Karamazov
David Copperfield
Lost Illusions
Les Misérables
The Betrothed

It's p. good, actually

Les Miserables is longer than Infinite Jest and Anna Karenina is the only book in your list which is worse than Infinite Jest, I loved Middlemarch and would prefer over both Infinite Jest and Anna Karenina

Tom Jones is also better than Infinite Jest.

War and Peace is as long as IJ, IJ is barely over 1000 pages.

Yes, I fucked up. I haven't read Middlemarch yet. I definitely disagree about Anna Karenina. That's probably one of the five best novels I've read. T.bh the only tome I've read that IJ was better was 1Q84. I like DFW better as an essayist

This.

why didnt you like it? i's the next read for me in the Mariachi Pynchon canon.

The Magic Mountain.

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The Recognitions