marc, i wanted to leave you a list of some of my favorite comedic novels...first, you must absolutely read Heller's Catch 22...one of the greatest war novels ever and the most funny and most profoundly fun....if you havent read Heller, please do...as well as confederancy of dunces which i mentioned on our walk....so here is my list: a) Jeeves stories, Woodehouse, b) catch 22, Heller, c) confederracy of Dunces d) any of the early Waugh (scoop, vile bodies, etc), e) The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend, f) The Golden Calf, Ilf & Petrov, g) Portnoy Complaint, H) Cat's Cradle & breakfast of champions, Vonnegut, I) Dorothy Parker stories, j) The Sellout Paul Beatty, k) skinny dip carl hiassen, l) code of the woosters, woodehouse again, etc...you are right, comedy in fiction is really tough....even harder in poetry (ahhahahaha)....anyway, i always love writers who punch up....ok, off to dinner w/my wife, her bday....hello from cold toronto
@danicaholly1554
9 ай бұрын
Very interesting review. Thank you, Mark.
@MarcNash
9 ай бұрын
Thanks Danica. You keeping well?
@danicaholly1554
9 ай бұрын
Thank you for asking. I spent a couple of months in Europe, and it was very refreshing, even intellectually, I think. Now, I am reading Smith's The Fraud, which is a little bit too much (less would be more - typical for this author...), next A young Senegale author M.M. Sarr's The Most Secret Memory of Man. This book arrives amid rapture between France and its former African colonies. The Nobel prize A. Ernaux was a disappointment for me. Wishing you the best of luck for your new literary work. Be well and content. @@MarcNash
@mafiabugsy2763
9 ай бұрын
Lovely to hear you are writing a book :) good luck with your endeavors. Interesting books on your read pile as always.
@MarcNash
9 ай бұрын
Thank you MB
@bluewordsme2
9 ай бұрын
fabulous review Marc....im so happy (as i mentioned to on our walk), how much I loved Trans(re)lating House One....one of my fave books of the year and how horrific is Maya Binyam Prose, right? I havent read Hangman, but ive read sections and i know people who teach with her...she is young and attractive and that paragraph you read reads like a poor (piss) copying of bad Tao Lin, which means doubly bad...IG as a novel...and putting her next to Misshagi is a very example between the ME generation of IG/TWITTER american pretty faces, loud voices literature, vs the older, thoughtful, unknown but working at the margins brilliant stuff....thanks for that confirmation i'd suspected....and i love when you go 1 and 2 starts...absolutely love it.....and thanks for talking about Forensic Literature and McCarthy...cant wait to read it....well done...hug,...ps.. i dont see the housecoat ;) lol...and your comedic novels list, is that of all time, or just read this year? cheers, bb
@MarcNash
9 ай бұрын
the housecoat comes off for the videos, can't have people thinking I'm the reincarnation of Noel Coward now. No the comedy books are all time, though it's true a lot of them have beenread in the last few years. Tao Lin is my bete noir, read Richard Yates and threw it across the room.
@bluewordsme2
9 ай бұрын
@@MarcNash hahahahhahah...agree about Tao Lin completely....Yates is major and one of my heroes....and Binyam sounds like Lin, though worse...i mean, pigeons not related to language hahahaahah...i'll write tmrw, some more great comedic novels i love and have order the elf & petrov for you....lastly, you would make a fabulous Noel Coward....only you would have to do something of that beautiful hair of yours hahahah....have a great weekend, stay warm mn--bb
@bookofdust
9 ай бұрын
You’re the first person I’ve known who’s read Saint Sebastian Abyss, so it’s interesting to hear your take on it. I studied Art History and worked in museums for over a decade, and while reading it wondered how niche the book might be due to the content. I saw it as a mocking absurdist satire on academia, and Art History and it’s one-upmanship. To me it really echoed David Sedaris’ short story “Christmas Means Giving,” which is included in Holidays On Ice. I loved the extreme darkness and disturbing nature of that story, which turns keeping up with the Jones on it head. By its nature, works such as these need to be short, it definitely would have worked better as a short story, rather then a novella, and I get that while I’m saying that it’s an amorphous line, which grows blurrier every year (Claire Keegan). So I guess I’m saying regardless that it was too long and needed to be tighter. Also, I think that it didn’t go far enough, he could have pushed the envelope further and gone darker like Sedaris does. Sedaris though is working with a more universal theme of keeping up with the Jones that just about everyone can relate to. I appreciated Haber’s attention to detail and argument within Art History and it’s cleverness, but wondered how much that relied on my own experience. I also thought he was a better subject level academic then he was humorist. Ultimately, I gave it a 3.75 (every work starts at 3 for me and earns its pluses and minuses from there.) Thus, under 3 is something I didn’t quite like or failed in some way. Haber got points for originality and a strong attempt and earned laughs of recognition and the enjoyment of seeing something I know well skewered creatively. More then a book, it might have been better as a short story in a niche journal or magazine, even in something like The New Yorker it would have found an appreciative audience. And then a place within a collection of short stories with a theme critical of cultural studies or academia. Not a miss for me, but far from a strong hit.
@MarcNash
9 ай бұрын
While the ending was unconvincing, I thought it was exacerbated by him not really revealing the teases about why they'd got it so wrong about the 3 paintings. it was a cheap trick to have Schmidt die before telling us about the significance of the 3 letters. Just struck me as a very odd artistic/literary decision for Haber to make
@bookofdust
9 ай бұрын
@@MarcNash I’ve come to realize that as a reader I rarely remember the endings of books, it remains more about the journey. As long as it relatively sticks the landing and wasn’t a complete failure it won’t impact my overall judgment of a piece. Conversely, if the writer pulls something amazing at the end it can greatly enhance my regards of a work. Of the three books I’ve read of Maggie O’Farrell, she did something in the last pages or chapters that earned higher recognition for me. I knew exactly where Hamnet was going with its ending, yet she did something exceptional in those last pages that broken my heart even more (I’m not even sure what it was). I consider her a writer of excellent endings. A twist ending that works (earned and justified) can have a big impact on me. Ending a book is very hard, it’s like a painting and knowing when to stop. I guess I give more leeway for that then most reader might. I do think I really appreciate a writer who only starts a story when she knows exactly what the ending is going to be and then writes the book to get to that point. A well thought out ending and working backwards always seems to be a more successful work to me. Writers who start a book and let it take them where’s it’s supposed to go, I can’t really fathom that approach (though it obviously works for some). I completely believe that Philip Pullman knew exactly how His Dark Materials was going to end, and he wrote a near perfect three novels to get there. Unfortunately, with The Book of Dust trilogy, I don’t think so, but I guess it has yet to be seen. That being said, what you’ve reminded me of the ending is quite where I thought it needed to be to fit the absurdist nature of the work. It needed to end on a frustration.
@TKTalksBooks
6 ай бұрын
Your review of Hangman was hilarious .. your frustration .. you wanted to spank that book so hard! 😂
@MarcNash
6 ай бұрын
So very true! 😀
@josmith5992
9 ай бұрын
That writing in Hangman- oof! Trans(re)lating House One seems to have been on my TBR since 2020 and I’d completely forgotten about it, thanks for the reminder Marc. I’m also interested in one of the books Poupeh Missaghi has translated called I’ll Be Strong For You by Nasim Marashi. Glad to hear the novel is going well!
@MarcNash
9 ай бұрын
Thanks Jo!
@BookishTexan
9 ай бұрын
A rare one star. That book does sound tedious. Photo, Phyto, Porto, Nitro sounds great. And what a title.
@MarcNash
9 ай бұрын
Tedious was exactly the word I meant to apply to it but forgot when shooting the vid!
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