City of Glass and The Pugilist at Rest

[singlemalt]

Finished City of Glass by Paul Auster. Wild ride. This guy must have been working on this book for many years because he brings a lot of heavy stuff into the book.

Started The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones. I think this collection of short stories came out in '93. If you haven't read it, what are you waiting for? This motherfucker can write his ass off.

[stilltrucking]

City of Glass
there was a litkicks string where someone asked what was the novel that was the most interesting to you or had an impact? on you? not sure how the question was worded but...
Levi mentioned that book and I have been curious about it ever since, going to buy it one day maybe.

[perezoso]

I read a story by Thom Jones in Updikes' collection a few years ago; he's good, tho macho, and a bit, well, frat boyish. Seems sort of like a Hemingway with a sensitive side. I should check out more of his stuff. I've been re-reading some of Papa's stuff in In Our Time: I still can't think of a better modern short story than Soldier's Home.....maybe some of Raymond Carvers best stuff or Barthelme

[singlemalt]

stilltrucking -- No doubt that City of Glass is fascinating. My problem with it is that it raises a lot of questions and theories but really doesn't provide any answers. That's fine, but how about providing the reader with a little something, like a hint of an answer? It's a quick read, only about 150 pages. So I would pick up Auster's New York Trilogy that has City of Glass and two other short novels.

perezoso -- Thom Jones reminds me of Hemingway also. I think if Papa lived through Nam instead of WWI/WWII he would have written the same kind of books as Jones. They are both muy macho, but I don't have a problem with that. I think that although Papa and Jones both write male-oriented stories on the surface, they both have a delicate, almost gentle quality masked by the testosterone.

[perezoso]

"Rocket Man," a story by Jones, is online. Yeah he can write , sure--makes that Chuck Polockaniek dude's writing seem like a joke-- but it's a bit colloquial--Hem. rarely does street speak really, or he abstracted it, minimized, tweaked it..... Tim O'Brien writes this gonzoy, journalistic stuff as well..you ought to read the "Things They Carried." one might term it "deliberately saloon-conversational", or perhaps "in yr face post-'nam realism". I dig it though i tend to read more abstract cyberpunk stuff--Barthelme, Pynchon, gibson .............

Thom likes his boxing tales:

" Moore reached under the bed and withdrew three sixteen ounce cans of Hamm's by their plastic retainer ring along with a half pint of Smirnov vodka. These he set on the oilcloth-covered kitchen table. He broke the seal on the vodka bottle and guiltily looked to his friend. "Blue sparks are popping off my fingertips. Every time I look at the wall I see bugs in my peripheral vision. I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone or something. It's like . . . psychotic terror."