Ordered Against the Day, finished Infinite Jest recently, reading Gravity's Rainbow. You definetly affected my reading habits and you're simply the best book youtuber. Keep going! P.S: Still waiting your Mason&Dixon review :)
A name I've seen come up instead of post-postmodernism is metamodernism, which I understand as a "third way" which mixes modernism/classicism and postmodernism. I've read House of Leaves and enjoyed it immensely, and am about a third of the way through DFW's Infinite Jest. Great video!!
Big thanks to you bookchemist, i finished the Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and it was as good as you hyped it up to be. I loved the writing style, the characters felt soo real and I also enjoyed how it gave a glimpse into a place in time and space i had no idea about,(plus the ending had me kinda weepy so kudos). Now to find a copy of the Watchmen....
Love this topic :) You may remember on another one of your videos I asked if I should read Against the Day or Gravity's Rainbow first after having read only Lot 49 and Inherent Vice. Well, I haven't started either of them yet because I've been reading other stuff (Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and to be honest I will probably try to fly through a bunch of other smallish books before I commit to one of those Pynchon door-stoppers) but, man, you made me really want to try Bleeding Edge now! GR and AtD will probably have to wait even longer. EDIT: The way you describe Bleeding Edge here makes it sound like it would be just the book for me. I'm hugely interested in whatever it might be that comes after postmodernism but I never identified with the antagonism against it (e.g. some articulations of the "New Sincerity" crowd) - people who make out as if postmodernism was just a big mistake, or the triumph of assholes, and that we need to bury it for the sake of humanity. I, on the other hand, still love postmodernism and feel that whatever comes next has to accept and incorporate the challenges and conclusions that postmodernism made - and it sounds as if Bleeding Edge makes an argument to this effect too.
Great video, always good to see you. I just finished Wonder Boys and think I would recommend it over K&C or Yiddish as the best place to start with Chabon. Total joy. Always great recs from you.
Of those you cited, I read House of Leaves. It was OK, no big deal. It's a better novel to those unfamiliar with semiotics and French philosophy, and even so, it doesn't apply the concept so efficiently as for instance Gravity's Rainbow does. It's funny, it seems that you and I liked the book mostly for its graphic qualities---regarding this, it's a work of art. The edition is spectacular. The first PPM novel I read was Infinite Jest. I had no idea whatsoever about what I was facing. It amazed me so much, I guess, because I have a background in sociology a philosophy, and it kind of epitomizes contemporary sociology core ideas, regarding consumption and post-industrial society. And it does this while being very fun to read. Yay! Once a friend said, 'post(and post-)-modern books must be very good, otherwise they are not worth the reading'. I think he's right in a way, because it's a real challenge to build a narrative outside genre pillars. An entertaining narrative, at least. E.g. Pynchon---Gravity's Rainbow: if he wasn't such an amazing writer regarding from sentences to the way he applies non-fictional content, no one would read that shit. I'll definitely read soon Oscar Wao. I'll tell you my opinion. Cheers.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. A great article on post-postmodernism has been written by a literary scholar Mehdi Ghasemi, entitled "Hyperhybridism: Postmodernism is Old but not Old Fashioned." Check it out. He is also a fiction writer and writes his books in the new hybrid genre of "noveramatry" which are all based on post-postmodern features. For example, check his A Farewell to the Earth and Kepler-438b: A Noveramatry. You will love it.
Thanks for this :D Very clear and informative as always. I have learned so much with this channel (without any doubt It's my favorite), I read so many books and bought even more :P I'm really curious about your review on Mason & Dixon. Hugs from Argentina!
I'm trying to focus my thesis on restructuring the heterosexual novel and "The Marriage Plot" sounds exactly like what I need to start heading in that direction! Thank you for actually discussing post post-modernism, or "metamodernism" or whatever it's supposed to be, no one else seems to care about this literary period...
I thought this would be where Safran Foer would be. Do you feel the same way about Everything is Illuminated? I know a lot of people don't like it. I liked it more than most people.
I have a few book recommendations for you-"Invaders:22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature." I haven't actually read this anthology yet, I should be receiving it in the mail this week. It is a collection of genre writing by authors categorized as literary fiction. Authors include Junot Diaz, Katherine Dunn, George Saunders, Jonathan Lethem, Robert Olen Butler etc. It sounds very promising. Another anthology released this week that I have yet to read but I have also ordered is Jeff Vandermeer & Ann Vandermeer's sci-fi anthology "Big Book of Science Fiction." The title seems to be a bit of an understatement as it clocks in at 1,000+ pages. I always sit up & take notice when the Vandermeers release an anthology. Their collection "The Weird: A Compendium of Strange & Dark Stories" is amazing.
SERIOUSLY MAN THANK YOU, I had no idea Invaders 22 existed and it's exactly the kind of stuff I research for a living. Thank you! I've heard the Vandermeers are awesome as editors too, I'll check the other volume out too ;)
I'm glad it was a helpful recommendation. Another recommendation along similar lines is Benjamin Percy's "Thrill Me:Essays on Fiction." It will be published in October. According to the info. I could find, the title essay is about genre literature being the gateway for many readers who go on to love "literary" fiction writers whose work contains a lot of elements of genre writing. I have yet to read Percy but his novels "Dead Lands" & "Red Moon" are both on my TBR.
Have you heard of William T. Vollmann? Just finished Whores for Gloria and having seen your video I would say it fits in this literary movement (if post-postmodernism was actually a movement). I don't usually ask myself after a reading whether a book is postmodernist or whatever... I find the boundaries in contemporary fiction pretty blurred. Although, I am not working in a literature department to figure it out. Enjoy your videos quite a bit. Keep it up!
Sure, though I've never read anything of his! He's always scared me a little bit - I've heard he's a pretty cryptic/disturbing/upsetting writer, and most of his books tend to be gigantic. I've seen his name associated to this whole current though, sure - especially to early representatives of it like David Foster Wallace and Richard Powers. Cheers :)
What do you believe the ideal post-postmodern masterpiece would look like? much like Ulysses is the modern monolith and Gravity's Rainbow is the postmodern monolith for their scope and cramming in of literary stylings among other things. I think infinite jest does not reach this standard and although ambitious and certainly great in its own right, is much less so than Ulysses or Gravity's Rainbow. Would a post-postmodern masterpiece be composed of alternating genre styles to create one overall story? it seems like that would be a necessary outcome of reaction to modernism and postmodernism making it necessarily post-postmodernism.
I have no fucking clue! Once I'd have told you Infinite Jest tries to be a PPM masterpiece, but I now see too much of a trap and joke in it for it to be that far away from actual postmodernism. It's more of a liminal text to me than a PPM text proper. As for your question, I was about to tell you it'd have to be extremely self-conscious of its generic roots and extremely explicit in its web of references and self-consciously about the literary experience without foregrounding its metafictional discourses, but I realized I'm just describing the kind of stuff I write, and I'm probably just too full of myself. Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is probably the closest we have to a quintessentially PPM masterpiece in literature; Richard Wright's Cornetto Trilogy is the equivalent in cinema. If these works look a bit low-key and not as ambitious as Ulysses/GR, it probably only underlines their PPM instistence on entertainment. Who knows though!
@@TheBookchemist Why do you now view Infinite Jest as an elongated joke? Don't you think Wallace meant for it to be and made it much deeper than that? Also did you take down the video "why i no longer like infinite jest" or whatever it was called, and if so why?
Alternative title for this video: All the books I've been meaning to read - apart from the few I already read, which luckily includes the Chabon books ;)
I am currently reading Thomas pynchon's book Mason & Dixon. I have already read his books inherent vice and the crying of lot 49. I can honestly say I don't know why people putting Mason and Dixon as one of the last words of his, I'm not very confused or lost of what's going on I'm actually really confounded and really amazed.
I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow and, though I can see many qualities, the book is very unfriendly to the reader. I saw somewhere that it's a book you just can't recommend. People just discover it and start reading due to masochistic tendencies.
I'll film a video about that when I've read V and Slow Learner too (by the end of the Summer, hopefully?). In the meanwhile I can tell you that my favorite is either Against the Day or Bleeding Edge (if forced to choose, I'd say Bleeding Edge), while my least favorite is definitely Crying of Lot 49.
The_Bookchemist Dang, I love Crying of Lot 49. I'm honestly surprised you would choose Bleeding Edge as your favorite, usually people place that one as one of their least favorite books. I still need to read Bleeding Edge, along with Vineland, Gravity's Rainbow, V., and Against the Day. And since I'm currently working on Mason & Dixon, I would consider that to be my favorite (so far).
I still haven't read it because it kinda scares me - I've heard it's quite disturbing in some of its parts, and also pretty tough and pretty endless! But I'll have to read it sometime soon, maybe next year or later in 2016. I've loved what little of Bolano I've read so far, so I'm kinda looking forward to the experience. When I read it I'll defitely film a review of it ;)
I love McSweeny's. I didn't realize it was post-post anything I just thought it was really good. Where would I be if I didn't have you to tell me stuff, B.C.? Long may you reign!
Virginia Woolf gives me such a hard time.....I love her prose her insight...but then when I stick a bookmark inside and let it rest i lose it completely.. .. It is not possible to read in a single sitting...but then a time gap seems to snap all the connections i worked hard to establish with the characters....NEED HELP.
Do we have any new Post Po-Mo that have come out since you've made this video? I remember being on a binge of all these books you talked about a couple years ago, but I can't really think of any recent examples.
Do you read any Steve Erickson? I never see him mentioned here on booktube, but as you like DeLillo/Pynchon thought you would be a fan of Erickson too. The Sea Came In at Midnight and Arc D'x two of my faves of his. Not sure if post or postpost though.
What great timing! Watching this made me think to check again and I found that Audible just released the Yiddish Policeman's Union on 7/5/2016. That will be next in line now. As a literary scholar, what are your thoughts on reading via audio book vs printed material?
I tried audiobooks twice in the past. Didn't work out for me. I believe there are thousands of situations in which audiobooks are great and I got nothing against people who listen to them, and in some cases they can even actually be pretty awesome!, but part of me believes they are fucking Satan and that they're not a good thing for literature in general. Literature students (and "professional" readers like such) should avoid them like the plague, common readers can have fun with them. Didn't know about Yiddish!, I might review it soon since I actually never did (and I worked on it a lot recently).
Hi! What about Zoe Heller "Notes on a Scandal", "Believers" and Joanne Harris's "Gentlemen and Players", "Different Class"? Do they belong to Pstmodern literature or post postmodern (neo postmodern) literature? I am a bit confused. I am going to study them in my PhD.
Ho letto Infinite Jest in italiano e alla fine, ma solo alla fine, l'ho amato. Tanto che ho voluto rileggerlo. Poi ho letto A heart breaking work of staggering genius in inglese e l'ho apprezzato senza troppo trasporto, ma anche senza difficoltà. Ora sto leggendo The Yiddish policemen's union in inglese e sto facendo un po' di fatica, è pieno di termini che non conosco. Credo proprio che dovrò rileggerlo per apprezzarlo a pieno.
I'd never commented on your channel before but I thought this was as good a place as any to start. I have some questions that may be kind of interesting (¿?) to me to know your opinion on? 1. I know nothing about Italian lit today but I'm guessing some interesting work must be being produced right now. Is it weird for you to specialize in Eng-lang lit? Don't you feel you're missing out on that which is yours, that which people from your own country and who speak your language are producing? I ask mainly because I'm Mexican and I do feel that from time to time. 2. I've seen that you've developed a critical view towards DFW from your initial stance of "omg he's the best and saviour of human kind" (I'm still kind of in that stance) and was wondering if you could go in depth about it, maybe in a video? Or here? Hope you can like answer. Your videos are awesome!
1) That's a very interesting question but no, I honestly don't! I mean I definitely would like to read more contemporary Italian literature, but just in the same way as I'd like to read more contemporary European lit in general. I have/choose to focus on American stuff for both academic and personal preferences; but the point is that since I was very little all the stuff I loved, from books to comics to music to movies to games, it's always been American (or occasionally British). I don't feel what you mention because, as a reader, I think I'm probably more American than Italian! 2) I definitely have, and I might film a video about it in the future, although I'm afraid it might give the wrong message (I know lots of people love him almost religiously); I'll give you a short answer: the change came over time, and it was influenced most notably by the fact that I wrote my undegraduate thesis on his works. Reading about his life helped me re-dimension my ideas about him as a person. As for his production itself, I honeslty always thought that Infinite Jest was by far his best work, and that his short fiction (and the Broom of the System) weren't anywhere close to its level. I still think IJ is an impressive work, but I honestly believe that it betrays a lot of what it sets out to do by being an addictive and endless loop, kind of a trap-novel - which is weird for someone who allegedly wanted so much to connect with people and be sincere and so forth, right? Let's just say that I was infatuated with the book for a while, but I grew out of that phase. Reading a lot of Pynchon also helped me to see how much DFW rips off Pynchon without any of his narrative chops. But maybe I'll talk more about this in that video I mentioned, who knows! Thanks for the feedback man and hope the answers were decent :)
I have never read Gaddis and only know him from studies and monographs, but I'd say he's more of a liminal figure between Modernism and Postmodernism, and often named in studies (especially early studies) of American Postmodernism. Barth is as canonically Postmodern as it gets - so yeah, I don't think they're PPM at all, except that of course these categories tend to be very fluid.
If you ask me, it's not postmodern at all. It's close to the ideas of post-postmodernism (as close as Extremely Loud Incredibly Close), although how close I'm not quite sure.
Read most of these and am not sure it gets us any closer to a definition. Really don't see how Yiddish Policemen's Union fits in here. Loved Goon Squad & HoL but again can't really see how they point to anything definitive as a separate category of fiction
Short answer, no. Longer: I don't think he's the kind of guy who cares. Even longer: I believe he is definitely more closely related to the classic tradition in American fiction, with all his quirkiness like the sparse punctuation. Some might say that the fact he's moved to write genre (post-apocalytpic) fiction in The Road aligns him with a tendency that's associated, if not part, of post-postmodernism; but I believe that McCarthy has been writing genre fiction all his life, really. Chabon argues this very convincingly in his essay Dark Adventure, claiming how all of McCarthy's stuff is basically gothic, western or adventure.
Suggestion - consult with an audio engineer to get rid of the hollow eccho in your clips; it makes difficult to understand & may just be your microphone... Ps: I do like your content tho
I know how much you dislike Jack Kerouac but he was using some of those "post post modern" devices way back in the fifties with books like "Some of the dharma" .
"An" is only used before an 'h' when the emphasis is not on the first syllable, as in his-TOR-ic, hor-RIF-fic. 'A' should be used in front of 'heartbreaking'.
I would suggest Roberto Bolano's "2666" and Daniel Kehlmann's "Measuring the World", "Fame" and "F". Oh, and Donna Tartt: "The Secret History" and "The Goldfinch".
To be fair there are lots of alternatives around (ultramodernism! metamodernism! technomodernism! popmodernism!) but none's been too effective so far. I agree with you though!
Not many at all! If we're talking about fiction (excluding essays and academic texts), I very rarely read more than 2 hours a day, and usually less than 1. The exceptions are during the summer (especially in August) and when I'm reading texts I have to research academically, or things that require specific dedication (like Pynchon's novels). In that case I can get sometimes reach 4 or 5 hours a day, but rarely much more than that.
Oh, thanks for the reply. Good to know :) I just wonder there are thousands of books and how are we ever going to get our hands on most of them, if not all!
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Ordered Against the Day, finished Infinite Jest recently, reading Gravity's Rainbow. You definetly affected my reading habits and you're simply the best book youtuber. Keep going!
P.S: Still waiting your Mason&Dixon review :)
It's coming soon ^^! Thanks for the awesome comment :)
Did you like Infinite Jest?
Hey mate, i was in your great seminars on 20th Century American literature, hope you’re doing well, thanks for the knowledge even now!
:D
A name I've seen come up instead of post-postmodernism is metamodernism, which I understand as a "third way" which mixes modernism/classicism and postmodernism.
I've read House of Leaves and enjoyed it immensely, and am about a third of the way through DFW's Infinite Jest.
Great video!!
Do you think House of Leaves is post-postmodern?
I absolutely love your style and delivery haha both hilarious and informative
Big thanks to you bookchemist, i finished the Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and it was as good as you hyped it up to be. I loved the writing style, the characters felt soo real and I also enjoyed how it gave a glimpse into a place in time and space i had no idea about,(plus the ending had me kinda weepy so kudos). Now to find a copy of the Watchmen....
Isn't it the best? You'll love Watchmen too I'm sure ;)
Love this topic :)
You may remember on another one of your videos I asked if I should read Against the Day or Gravity's Rainbow first after having read only Lot 49 and Inherent Vice. Well, I haven't started either of them yet because I've been reading other stuff (Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and to be honest I will probably try to fly through a bunch of other smallish books before I commit to one of those Pynchon door-stoppers) but, man, you made me really want to try Bleeding Edge now! GR and AtD will probably have to wait even longer.
EDIT: The way you describe Bleeding Edge here makes it sound like it would be just the book for me. I'm hugely interested in whatever it might be that comes after postmodernism but I never identified with the antagonism against it (e.g. some articulations of the "New Sincerity" crowd) - people who make out as if postmodernism was just a big mistake, or the triumph of assholes, and that we need to bury it for the sake of humanity. I, on the other hand, still love postmodernism and feel that whatever comes next has to accept and incorporate the challenges and conclusions that postmodernism made - and it sounds as if Bleeding Edge makes an argument to this effect too.
Bleeding Edge argues exactly that - do read that one, it's utterly beautiful. And I agree 100% with your point of view.
Impressed with the things discussed.Suggestions required for books covering theoreticans and theoretical backgrounds on Post Post-postmodernism.
Great video, always good to see you. I just finished Wonder Boys and think I would recommend it over K&C or Yiddish as the best place to start with Chabon. Total joy. Always great recs from you.
Totally agree, I think it works especially well with people who'd like to become writers or are fascinated with creative writing in general! Cheers :)
Great videos, thank you every time.
I am so happy to see Policeman's Union get a positive plug. I loved that book.
Of those you cited, I read House of Leaves. It was OK, no big deal. It's a better novel to those unfamiliar with semiotics and French philosophy, and even so, it doesn't apply the concept so efficiently as for instance Gravity's Rainbow does.
It's funny, it seems that you and I liked the book mostly for its graphic qualities---regarding this, it's a work of art. The edition is spectacular.
The first PPM novel I read was Infinite Jest. I had no idea whatsoever about what I was facing. It amazed me so much, I guess, because I have a background in sociology a philosophy, and it kind of epitomizes contemporary sociology core ideas, regarding consumption and post-industrial society. And it does this while being very fun to read. Yay!
Once a friend said, 'post(and post-)-modern books must be very good, otherwise they are not worth the reading'. I think he's right in a way, because it's a real challenge to build a narrative outside genre pillars. An entertaining narrative, at least. E.g. Pynchon---Gravity's Rainbow: if he wasn't such an amazing writer regarding from sentences to the way he applies non-fictional content, no one would read that shit.
I'll definitely read soon Oscar Wao. I'll tell you my opinion. Cheers.
Hope you'll like Oscar Wao :) let me know how it goes!!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. A great article on post-postmodernism has been written by a literary scholar Mehdi Ghasemi, entitled "Hyperhybridism: Postmodernism is Old but not Old Fashioned." Check it out. He is also a fiction writer and writes his books in the new hybrid genre of "noveramatry" which are all based on post-postmodern features. For example, check his A Farewell to the Earth and Kepler-438b: A Noveramatry. You will love it.
Can you link that article? Can’t find it on google
Thanks for this :D Very clear and informative as always. I have learned so much with this channel (without any doubt It's my favorite), I read so many books and bought even more :P I'm really curious about your review on Mason & Dixon. Hugs from Argentina!
Always great to read comments like yours! So glad I could be of help :) that review's coming soon ;)
great to see your videos. i wish you talk about nathanael west's the day of the locust
I'm trying to focus my thesis on restructuring the heterosexual novel and "The Marriage Plot" sounds exactly like what I need to start heading in that direction! Thank you for actually discussing post post-modernism, or "metamodernism" or whatever it's supposed to be, no one else seems to care about this literary period...
Best of luck with your thesis!
no one but your teachers :))
I thought this would be where Safran Foer would be. Do you feel the same way about Everything is Illuminated? I know a lot of people don't like it. I liked it more than most people.
This is just a general question but how many hours a day you spend reading?
I have a few book recommendations for you-"Invaders:22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature." I haven't actually read this anthology yet, I should be receiving it in the mail this week. It is a collection of genre writing by authors categorized as literary fiction. Authors include Junot Diaz, Katherine Dunn, George Saunders, Jonathan Lethem, Robert Olen Butler etc. It sounds very promising. Another anthology released this week that I have yet to read but I have also ordered is Jeff Vandermeer & Ann Vandermeer's sci-fi anthology "Big Book of Science Fiction." The title seems to be a bit of an understatement as it clocks in at 1,000+ pages. I always sit up & take notice when the Vandermeers release an anthology. Their collection "The Weird: A Compendium of Strange & Dark Stories" is amazing.
SERIOUSLY MAN THANK YOU, I had no idea Invaders 22 existed and it's exactly the kind of stuff I research for a living. Thank you! I've heard the Vandermeers are awesome as editors too, I'll check the other volume out too ;)
I'm glad it was a helpful recommendation. Another recommendation along similar lines is Benjamin Percy's "Thrill Me:Essays on Fiction." It will be published in October. According to the info. I could find, the title essay is about genre literature being the gateway for many readers who go on to love "literary" fiction writers whose work contains a lot of elements of genre writing. I have yet to read Percy but his novels "Dead Lands" & "Red Moon" are both on my TBR.
Have you heard of William T. Vollmann? Just finished Whores for Gloria and having seen your video I would say it fits in this literary movement (if post-postmodernism was actually a movement). I don't usually ask myself after a reading whether a book is postmodernist or whatever... I find the boundaries in contemporary fiction pretty blurred. Although, I am not working in a literature department to figure it out.
Enjoy your videos quite a bit. Keep it up!
Sure, though I've never read anything of his! He's always scared me a little bit - I've heard he's a pretty cryptic/disturbing/upsetting writer, and most of his books tend to be gigantic. I've seen his name associated to this whole current though, sure - especially to early representatives of it like David Foster Wallace and Richard Powers. Cheers :)
What do you believe the ideal post-postmodern masterpiece would look like? much like Ulysses is the modern monolith and Gravity's Rainbow is the postmodern monolith for their scope and cramming in of literary stylings among other things. I think infinite jest does not reach this standard and although ambitious and certainly great in its own right, is much less so than Ulysses or Gravity's Rainbow.
Would a post-postmodern masterpiece be composed of alternating genre styles to create one overall story? it seems like that would be a necessary outcome of reaction to modernism and postmodernism making it necessarily post-postmodernism.
I have no fucking clue! Once I'd have told you Infinite Jest tries to be a PPM masterpiece, but I now see too much of a trap and joke in it for it to be that far away from actual postmodernism. It's more of a liminal text to me than a PPM text proper. As for your question, I was about to tell you it'd have to be extremely self-conscious of its generic roots and extremely explicit in its web of references and self-consciously about the literary experience without foregrounding its metafictional discourses, but I realized I'm just describing the kind of stuff I write, and I'm probably just too full of myself.
Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is probably the closest we have to a quintessentially PPM masterpiece in literature; Richard Wright's Cornetto Trilogy is the equivalent in cinema. If these works look a bit low-key and not as ambitious as Ulysses/GR, it probably only underlines their PPM instistence on entertainment. Who knows though!
@@TheBookchemist Why do you now view Infinite Jest as an elongated joke? Don't you think Wallace meant for it to be and made it much deeper than that?
Also did you take down the video "why i no longer like infinite jest" or whatever it was called, and if so why?
Alternative title for this video: All the books I've been meaning to read - apart from the few I already read, which luckily includes the Chabon books ;)
I am currently reading Thomas pynchon's book Mason & Dixon. I have already read his books inherent vice and the crying of lot 49. I can honestly say I don't know why people putting Mason and Dixon as one of the last words of his, I'm not very confused or lost of what's going on I'm actually really confounded and really amazed.
I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow and, though I can see many qualities, the book is very unfriendly to the reader. I saw somewhere that it's a book you just can't recommend. People just discover it and start reading due to masochistic tendencies.
I'm reading it at the moment too and I'm definitely loving it ;)
Also, I'm curious, name your favorite Pynchon novels from least to best. I'm a bit curious.
I'll film a video about that when I've read V and Slow Learner too (by the end of the Summer, hopefully?). In the meanwhile I can tell you that my favorite is either Against the Day or Bleeding Edge (if forced to choose, I'd say Bleeding Edge), while my least favorite is definitely Crying of Lot 49.
The_Bookchemist Dang, I love Crying of Lot 49. I'm honestly surprised you would choose Bleeding Edge as your favorite, usually people place that one as one of their least favorite books. I still need to read Bleeding Edge, along with Vineland, Gravity's Rainbow, V., and Against the Day. And since I'm currently working on Mason & Dixon, I would consider that to be my favorite (so far).
an updated & extended list would be cool
Great video .Ηave you read 2666 by Roberto Bolano and if so will you do a review ?
I still haven't read it because it kinda scares me - I've heard it's quite disturbing in some of its parts, and also pretty tough and pretty endless! But I'll have to read it sometime soon, maybe next year or later in 2016. I've loved what little of Bolano I've read so far, so I'm kinda looking forward to the experience. When I read it I'll defitely film a review of it ;)
If you could handle DFW's eye eating cockroaches , i'm pretty sure you can handle anything in 2666.
I love McSweeny's. I didn't realize it was post-post anything I just thought it was really good. Where would I be if I didn't have you to tell me stuff, B.C.? Long may you reign!
The Bookchemist, here to tell people how the stuff they already liked is even better than they thought 8)
Dude, the T-shirts you wear in your videos are kick ass.
The people at Threadless.com should probably pay me a lot of money considering the amount of free advertisement I'm giving them :P
Can't seem to find a phd subject in literature !lack of inspiration. What should I do dear Bookchemist??
Virginia Woolf gives me such a hard time.....I love her prose her insight...but then when I stick a bookmark inside and let it rest i lose it completely.. .. It is not possible to read in a single sitting...but then a time gap seems to snap all the connections i worked hard to establish with the characters....NEED HELP.
Yeah her writing Is quite thick , there's no way around that.
Do we have any new Post Po-Mo that have come out since you've made this video? I remember being on a binge of all these books you talked about a couple years ago, but I can't really think of any recent examples.
Do you read any Steve Erickson? I never see him mentioned here on booktube, but as you like DeLillo/Pynchon thought you would be a fan of Erickson too. The Sea Came In at Midnight and Arc D'x two of my faves of his. Not sure if post or postpost though.
Days Between Stations is on my to-read list ;) I know it because it's one of those few novels Pynchon openly spoke up to praise!
What great timing! Watching this made me think to check again and I found that Audible just released the Yiddish Policeman's Union on 7/5/2016. That will be next in line now. As a literary scholar, what are your thoughts on reading via audio book vs printed material?
I tried audiobooks twice in the past. Didn't work out for me. I believe there are thousands of situations in which audiobooks are great and I got nothing against people who listen to them, and in some cases they can even actually be pretty awesome!, but part of me believes they are fucking Satan and that they're not a good thing for literature in general. Literature students (and "professional" readers like such) should avoid them like the plague, common readers can have fun with them. Didn't know about Yiddish!, I might review it soon since I actually never did (and I worked on it a lot recently).
Hi! What about Zoe Heller "Notes on a Scandal", "Believers" and Joanne Harris's "Gentlemen and Players", "Different Class"? Do they belong to Pstmodern literature or post postmodern (neo postmodern) literature? I am a bit confused. I am going to study them in my PhD.
In all honesty, I have no idea - I know very little about British literature, especially contemporary!
Ho letto Infinite Jest in italiano e alla fine, ma solo alla fine, l'ho amato. Tanto che ho voluto rileggerlo. Poi ho letto A heart breaking work of staggering genius in inglese e l'ho apprezzato senza troppo trasporto, ma anche senza difficoltà. Ora sto leggendo The Yiddish policemen's union in inglese e sto facendo un po' di fatica, è pieno di termini che non conosco. Credo proprio che dovrò rileggerlo per apprezzarlo a pieno.
What about the Nocilla Trilogy by Mallo?
I'd never commented on your channel before but I thought this was as good a place as any to start. I have some questions that may be kind of interesting (¿?) to me to know your opinion on?
1. I know nothing about Italian lit today but I'm guessing some interesting work must be being produced right now. Is it weird for you to specialize in Eng-lang lit? Don't you feel you're missing out on that which is yours, that which people from your own country and who speak your language are producing? I ask mainly because I'm Mexican and I do feel that from time to time.
2. I've seen that you've developed a critical view towards DFW from your initial stance of "omg he's the best and saviour of human kind" (I'm still kind of in that stance) and was wondering if you could go in depth about it, maybe in a video? Or here?
Hope you can like answer. Your videos are awesome!
1) That's a very interesting question but no, I honestly don't! I mean I definitely would like to read more contemporary Italian literature, but just in the same way as I'd like to read more contemporary European lit in general. I have/choose to focus on American stuff for both academic and personal preferences; but the point is that since I was very little all the stuff I loved, from books to comics to music to movies to games, it's always been American (or occasionally British). I don't feel what you mention because, as a reader, I think I'm probably more American than Italian!
2) I definitely have, and I might film a video about it in the future, although I'm afraid it might give the wrong message (I know lots of people love him almost religiously); I'll give you a short answer: the change came over time, and it was influenced most notably by the fact that I wrote my undegraduate thesis on his works. Reading about his life helped me re-dimension my ideas about him as a person. As for his production itself, I honeslty always thought that Infinite Jest was by far his best work, and that his short fiction (and the Broom of the System) weren't anywhere close to its level. I still think IJ is an impressive work, but I honestly believe that it betrays a lot of what it sets out to do by being an addictive and endless loop, kind of a trap-novel - which is weird for someone who allegedly wanted so much to connect with people and be sincere and so forth, right? Let's just say that I was infatuated with the book for a while, but I grew out of that phase. Reading a lot of Pynchon also helped me to see how much DFW rips off Pynchon without any of his narrative chops. But maybe I'll talk more about this in that video I mentioned, who knows!
Thanks for the feedback man and hope the answers were decent :)
Hola! Do you know how was translated the Spanish edition of "Bleeding Edge"? Thanks
I have no idea :O
Didn't the New Sincerity movement try to pass itself off as Post-Post-Modernism?
They tried!
@@TheBookchemist I was under the impression they were the same, do you have any references supporting their differences?
What do you think of William Gaddis or John Barth? Are they PPM writers?
I have never read Gaddis and only know him from studies and monographs, but I'd say he's more of a liminal figure between Modernism and Postmodernism, and often named in studies (especially early studies) of American Postmodernism. Barth is as canonically Postmodern as it gets - so yeah, I don't think they're PPM at all, except that of course these categories tend to be very fluid.
Check out this list : www.goodreads.com/list/show/138816.Metamodern_Post_postmodern_fiction
is Everything is Illuminated post modern or post post?
If you ask me, it's not postmodern at all. It's close to the ideas of post-postmodernism (as close as Extremely Loud Incredibly Close), although how close I'm not quite sure.
Read most of these and am not sure it gets us any closer to a definition. Really don't see how Yiddish Policemen's Union fits in here. Loved Goon Squad & HoL but again can't really see how they point to anything definitive as a separate category of fiction
Is Cormac McCarthy a post-postmodern?
Short answer, no. Longer: I don't think he's the kind of guy who cares. Even longer: I believe he is definitely more closely related to the classic tradition in American fiction, with all his quirkiness like the sparse punctuation. Some might say that the fact he's moved to write genre (post-apocalytpic) fiction in The Road aligns him with a tendency that's associated, if not part, of post-postmodernism; but I believe that McCarthy has been writing genre fiction all his life, really. Chabon argues this very convincingly in his essay Dark Adventure, claiming how all of McCarthy's stuff is basically gothic, western or adventure.
+The_Bookchemist oh, very interesting, I will totally check out that essay!
Suggestion - consult with an audio engineer to get rid of the hollow eccho in your clips; it makes difficult to understand & may just be your microphone...
Ps: I do like your content tho
I know how much you dislike Jack Kerouac but he was using some of those "post post modern" devices way back in the fifties with books like "Some of the dharma" .
Such as? (I'm not being smug; I'm genuinely interested! Also, while he's not a writer I hold dear I wouldn't say I dislike him that much)
Today's best living writer besides Py...
The Crying of Lot 49 not having heart? Maybe we read alternative versions...
consider me subscribed man.
Post { Post { Post-modernism } } ... so much ‘post’. At some point, don’t you eventually return to just the novel?
That would be just modern though. The hero’s journey is very cyclical.
"An" is only used before an 'h' when the emphasis is not on the first syllable, as in his-TOR-ic, hor-RIF-fic. 'A' should be used in front of 'heartbreaking'.
I have some questions regarding PhD , can I get your mail id?
is using "fucking" all the time a post post modernism feature?
I would suggest Roberto Bolano's "2666" and Daniel Kehlmann's "Measuring the World", "Fame" and "F". Oh, and Donna Tartt: "The Secret History" and "The Goldfinch".
Thanks! 2666 will have its day someday, whereas I'm still not sure about The Goldfinch even though tons of people have suggested it!
nihilism... i think nihilism is what postmodernism is turning into.
The name Post-Postmodern lacks creativity. What's next, Post-Post-Postmodern Literature? Time to think up a better name.
To be fair there are lots of alternatives around (ultramodernism! metamodernism! technomodernism! popmodernism!) but none's been too effective so far. I agree with you though!
This is just a general question but how many hours a day you spend reading?
Not many at all! If we're talking about fiction (excluding essays and academic texts), I very rarely read more than 2 hours a day, and usually less than 1. The exceptions are during the summer (especially in August) and when I'm reading texts I have to research academically, or things that require specific dedication (like Pynchon's novels). In that case I can get sometimes reach 4 or 5 hours a day, but rarely much more than that.
Oh, thanks for the reply. Good to know :) I just wonder there are thousands of books and how are we ever going to get our hands on most of them, if not all!