I am a big admirer of authors that can confidently use non-linear narrative.
But I didn't like If on a Winter's Night a Traveller.

I found it unbearably smug and didn't think it actually justified either its place in the modern canon or even its own existence as an artistic fragment.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 18:55, 2 replies, latest was 15 years ago)

Woo! get you.

( girlinthehole, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 18:58, Reply)

Seriously, for a novel that's taught on so many degree courses, it is very very smug.
Give me White Noise or The Crying of Lot 49 over ...Winter's Night any day.

I will grudgingly admit that it is useful in introducing baby faced literature students to the basics of postmodernism in the novel, but it is, as I have said, unbearably smug.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:01, Reply)

The Crying of Lot 49 is alright
but Thomas Pynchon is so overrated it is actually unbelievable
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:04, Reply)

I'll have to disagree
and point out the obvious- no book has to justify itself
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:01, Reply)

What I mean was that I don't think it's worthy of all the high praise it gets.
It is pretty much an extended example of Calvino showing off his 'new style', there are far better books that do the same thing, and it's not even as if it was the first.

If Calvino hadn't written it, nobody else would have, whereas you look at novels like American Psycho or White Noise and they are works that had to be written.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:05, Reply)

If Calvino hadn't written it
I think the world would be missing something. Whereas American Pyscho hardly fulfills that
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:08, Reply)

American Psycho is a demanding, serious, important novel.
Ellis at his best is up there with De Lillo and Updike, he really is.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:09, Reply)

This could explain
why we disagree on literature since along with Pynchon, I happen to think Updike is overrated as well. Obviously he's good, but not nearly as good as he thinks he is. And for more controversy The Adventures of Augie March was shit
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:11, Reply)

I would even put Ellis on par with Ballard.

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:16, Reply)

I think we must accept
that our taste in literature is too different to agree
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:17, Reply)

Only read one Ballard
it was a bit nob
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:19, Reply)

Which one?

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:34, Reply)

Drowned World I think
it was a while ago, and I've been tempted to read others as it feels like a gap in my sci fi knowledge
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:37, Reply)

His sci fi work is bearable, but his artistic peak was his experimental phase.
The Atrocity Exhibition is a wonderful book.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:44, Reply)

I think I read Updike once.
God that was a slog.
( girlinthehole, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:17, Reply)

'I like this'

( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Wed 12 Jan 2011, 19:18, Reply)