This is the book corncob wished he wrote. so instead he wrote about scenery and gave bloodmeme a reddit tier ending...

this is the book corncob wished he wrote. so instead he wrote about scenery and gave bloodmeme a reddit tier ending. sigh.

I'll take that as a recommendation

that's what this is.

Haven't read BM so can't join in with shitting on it, but I do love Warlock. Minor characters from it have stayed with me like from no other novel.

Can we make this a NYBR thread? I was thinking of making Warlock my next read by them but I ended up finding Speedboat by Adler in a local used bookshop. Never heard of it before but it seems like it will be alright. Have any NYBR anons read it?

Pynchon's favorite book too

Why should I read this?

We had a really good discussion about warlock a couple of days ago. It was one of Veeky Forums's few decent threads. The tone was respectful, insightful and positive.

op is a fag

i got warlock and the long ships, what are some other nyrb books should i get?

Speedboat
Skylark

They and Warlock are the only ones I own.

my man that's just genre fiction hahaha

Stoner

See, Blood Meridian is actually good. So you would be a retarded person who fell for a meme if you joined in shitting on it

The Stones of Aran

ye
spits
poops out a tortilla and an Adobe home

invention of morel

Speedboat a shit. It feels like Adler keeps things fragmented to avoid any sort of emotional vulnerability and not to serve any other purpose. As I read it, the only thing I felt I came into contact with was a fragile ego trying to look big.

The Slate review places it in a genre with Play it as it Lays, which is a much better novel and has aged fantastically.

I have the biography of the painter Renoir by his son the filmmaker Renoir but I haven't read it

this guy loves memes more than reddit

Beware of Pity, by Stefan Zweig is beyond wonderful.

thank you for the suggestions everyone!
i have to say beware of pity looks like the one i'd be most interested in, is there any experimental writing, or is it fairly conventional?

this. I think the main reason blood meridian gets memed is because it's one of the few books many of Veeky Forums are actually familiar with the details of, because they heard it's graphic so it peaks the interest of their childish edge-obsessed sensibilities. But then they try to read it, and it isn't easily digestible like le edgy clockwork orange, so plebs try to cover up their own stupidity by spamming shit about ye and tortillas so they don't feel bad for being too dumb to read the book

>so it peaks the interest of their childish edge-obsessed sensibilities

Life and Fate

The Crisis of the European Mind by Paul Hazard
Masscult and Midcult by Dwight Macdonald
A Schoolboy's Diary by Robert Walser

how do you know what pynchon's favorite books are?

He doesn't but Pynch wrote a little blurb about Warlock for a lit magazine in the 60s, calling it "one of our best American novels". It's easy to find on google. It's maybe a little spoilery.

It's not his #1 favorite, but he and his buddy Farina really liked Warlock.

I don't think there's a single tortilla in BM.

You shouldn't be reading anything other than BM and Suttree anyway. If he wasn't living as an itinerant barn dweller when he wrote it it's probs no good.

>it peaks the interest of their childish edge-obsessed sensibilities

this is why the book is bad - on some level its a product of that same sensibility. it tries to buy itself credibility by way of gore and brutality. aside from that there isn't much there, other than the weird obscure desert-scrub cowboy boots related words on every page for the express purpose of makinng you keep looking things up in the dictionary. the whole book is just that - gore, and goofy diction. its like the novel version of conversations about history where people try to impress each other about how brutal the eastern front was or the gulags or blah blah blah.

really? i got about 100 pages into "the world of yesterday" and stopped, Zweig is a liar and a housefly. he namedrops other writers constantly and talked about all of them in the same syrupy sycophantic tone - hes always trying to impress you with his precious little anecdotes. typical bougie tryhard who doesn't get it. his prose is frilly, effervescent mush

Warlock, Butcher's Crossing, and Blood Meridian

>meme trilogy of the West

>it tries to buy itself credibility by way of gore and brutality. aside from that there isn't much there,

Not at all. The brutality is there to serve the character of The Judge. The Glanton Gang is a vehicle for McCarthy to put forth a version of epistemology that is utterly terrifying but in some ways inescapably true.

It's reality defining not by conversion but by population shaping--killing off the conflicting parties. The Judge practices the most extreme form of this. He engages in the cataloging and subsequent destruction of, not just people, but artifacts, knowledge, and potential. He wants to control reality completely--just like the petty, spiteful demiurge of Gnosticism.

If you really read the book in good faith and that is what you took away, then you should really reread it. It is phenomenal. If you got all frustrated and quit a quarter of the way in cause you couldn't parse the lang then get fucked.

hey guys
the thing you all like?

you shouldn't like it

yeah seriously. I agree with this guy. bloodmeme sucks.

>really? i got about 100 pages into "the world of yesterday" and...
I haven't read 'The World of Yesterday,' but have read almost all of his fiction, I can't speak to any didactic, obsequious tone he may affect in his non-fiction but his fiction is heartfelt, his style endearing and precise. 'Beware of Pity' is a favourite

>quit a quarter of the way

halfway

you almost had me until you got buttmad at the end there

i have a simple standard for reading - quote Ezra pound, "a book is a ball of light in your hand." if it isn't that or doesn't turn into that after sufficient effort, I stop. BM was not. life is too short to read novels that don't do it for you

>heartfelt

sentimental.

>didactic

I didn't say that. i might note on this point re: 'sycophantic tone' that several of the writers (his contemporaries) he praises in "World" with cute picturesque anecdotes were known to have considered him a second-rate writer of plebby diet coke lit - which is exactly how he came across to me. spiritually he's on the level of those people on this board who post pictures of their bookshelves - a culture glutton, reading so he can have pretty mental furniture and pepper his conversations with allusions and quotations and associate himself with literary prestige. He goes on and on in "World" about how he had these choice manuscripts from writer X that he treasured so much and blah blah blah, and its like, buddy, books are not made of matter! they do not exist as conversation fodder for you and your bougie friends! they aren't props for your identity either! stop treating them like you're a bird feathering your nest with shiny baubles!

Blood Meridian is great. Fairly sure that most of the people who are shitting on it here have not read it.

What is his #1?

yeah, sonyfags just cling to bloodborne same way they did to demons souls on the PS3

Zama

Oh I have you. You're going to glancing back to Blood for the rest of your life--you know it. You missed something you ezra pound quoting faggot.

You're beholden.

jokes on you, i have an inoperable brain tumour and im going to die soon