Post a writer you want to start reading but haven't yet because you're timid or unsure of where to begin

Post a writer you want to start reading but haven't yet because you're timid or unsure of where to begin.

Other urls found in this thread:

realhistorychannel.org/MEINSIDE.pdf
youtube.com/watch?v=x4obeqaxhRs
youtube.com/watch?v=uUyDcGSMPEQ
ottosell.de/pynchon/rainbow.htm
adilegian.com/FranzenGaddis.htm
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

arno schmidt

joseph mcelroy
william vollman
john barth

Whitman

DFW. Not intimidated, just want a starting point that isn't infinite jest.

Probably with Leaves of Grass

Joyce
Pynchon

Like do I start with their most popular books or release order?

Kierkegaard

Oblivion or Broom of the System
just pick a collected edition of Poe's stories/poems, work through it, then get John E Wood's Bottom's Dream
A Smuggler's Bible
Europe Central
Giles Goat Boy
Portrait then Ulysses then Finnegan
V then Gravity then M & D then Against the Day
ignore Vineland, Inherent Vice, and Bleeding Edge by Pynchon
there's no key order to any of their works (except maybe Ulysses then Finnegan with Joyce) so if any of them pique your interest I'd go for that. My favourites are Finnegan with Joyce and Against the Day with Pynchon
If you're going with the princeton editions of his work, publication order works. most of his pseudonyms (who all have distinct styles and themes) have their work published in a short span, so his works cling together.

I'd like to start out Lacan but this looks very hard to understand if I don't read some basics psychology before. I don't really know where to begin.

Papa Pynchon.

>Post a writer you want to start reading but haven't yet because you're timid or unsure of where to begin.

The writer of the speeches in this book:

realhistorychannel.org/MEINSIDE.pdf

was pretty interesting. Some examples of speeches are this:

youtube.com/watch?v=x4obeqaxhRs

and this:

youtube.com/watch?v=uUyDcGSMPEQ

Gaddis and Vollmann. Agape Agape seems like a good entry point, but I have no idea for Vollmann. All of his books seem to be doorstoppers and I'm afraid of wasting my time with one.

And I second

Page 1 is usually a good bet

WHAAAA1AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAA GHAHAHA FAGETS BTFOOOOOOOO

how so?

Thomas Bernhard
Houellebecq

I didn't know this was a regular occurrence. I usually just skim the back descriptions and if it sounds good, I read the first page or two. If that page doesn't hook me then I put it back.

Am I missing out on something, or?..

Leaves of Grass has been sitting on my shelf for 5 years and I just can't bring myself to read it.

Each time I flip it open I'm just like "what is this shit. whatever it is, it sure as shit aint poetry".

Then I wander around the stacks in the library or on Veeky Forums and everyone is splooging over how great Whitman is, and I'm like "oh....I guess I just don't get it."

Then I try to go back again and read it and quit again in 5 seconds. As far as I can tell it's poetry with all the artistry missing.

>Leaves of Grass has been sitting on my shelf for 5 years and I just can't bring myself to read it.
it's my current go-to read while im in public transport :3

Joyce

faggot

is this the same kitty who used to post on /mu/

For something lighter, Dubliners is definitely enjoyable and shares many similar themes to his later work, just nothing stylistically.

Portrait of the Artist goes further stylistically and acquaints you with one of the main characters of Ulysses.

Woolf is more helpful to get acquainted with Modernist style and I found it very helpful to read Mrs. Dalloway/To the Lighthouse before embarking on Ulysses. And once you finally start Ulysses, read the Bloomsday book alongside it so you know what's going on. I think it's harder to enjoy it outside a classroom because you're more likely to get hung up on the style. Don't worry about the allusions.

Finnegan's Wake I haven't read and can't see myself doing so anytime soon...

haha she's drinking water it's so literal haha

Fear and Trembling

hegel, kant

Thomas Aquinas

Faulkner. I guess getting my ass kicked by Joyce has made me afraid of modernists, especially the "important" ones.

Veeky Forums favorites
DFW
Pynchon

There's just always something else to read

Faulkner is much easier than joyce. Start with Light in August

Light in August is a good place to start, yeah.
As I Lay Dying and Sanctuary are good options too.
If you're going to read Sound & Fury, try and commit to reading Absalom shortly thereafter.
Flags in the Dust is underrated.

Both of them are best read in order.
With Pynchon, you could read them chronologically in terms of when they took place too, that's fun.
Mason & Dixon > Against the Day > Gravity's Rainbow > V. > The Crying of Lot 49 > Inherent Vice > Vineland > Bleeding Edge

Thomas Mann - is it best to just go for something like The Magic Mountain?

Margaret Atwood?

Faulkner is a hack. Steam of consciousness is a meme.

it's an amazing book and very readable, so yes.

Same here, I don't know where I should start with him. Maybe his first book & read chronogically?
Anyone here familiar with him enough to answer?

Death in venice is good if you want a little sample before you start the main course

Pushkin.
I've aleady bought some collected works, but I'm afraid my Russian isn't good enough yet to properly understand and aporeciate them.

Which one would you recommend as his "best"? I've been trying to find one with themes and/or plot that I might enjoy but I haven't been able to decide. Magic Mountain seems alright but Buddenbrooks and Death In Venice does too. What would you recommend?

for vollmann, the rifles is very good, normal length and gives you a good idea of what hes about and how his seven dreams series works

Crying or V. then GR, honestly his real endgame is GR no matter what, so just know that when you feel like reading it, use this to keep track after each chapter

ottosell.de/pynchon/rainbow.htm

and take it easy, its to be enjoyed, not memed

from what ive heard from many gaddis readers, he got mad and misanthropic after JR, so dont bother with agape agape, just read recognitions and JR when you feel ready to tackle them, he really has no soft entry point and with regards to vollmann:

>from what ive heard from many gaddis readers

Could you possibly cite a specific example in which Gaddis was misanthropic?

I FINALLY got over my Proust anxiety. So happy I did.

Other writers I've yet to start:
Dickens (ik, ik, it's criminal)
Bronte sisters
Gaddis
Wallace (I realistically won't do this for a while)
Perec
Bernhard
Heidegger
Freud
Herodotus
Ovid

I'm sure I could come up with 9000 more

nope not right now as like i say i have not read him (actually reading it back i did not say that but i think it was implied, im not shitposting just trying to help), you may hate jonathan franzen but he named the corrections partly in homage to the recognitions, and he wrote about gaddis quite a bit in this essay:

adilegian.com/FranzenGaddis.htm

he talks in there about his own experiences with gaddis, and others i have spoken to agree (not Veeky Forums people but not r/books people either)

as far as people i have spoken to who read gaddis, they usually went chronologically, loving recog. and JR, but they generally agreed his later works became polemical against what he saw as human stupidity especially american self interest.

massive faggot detected

y

ignore him. that's an extremely disjointed list though.

Don't