In so many ways, reading fiction is a quite personal experience. I've often noticed the differing appreciation my friends and I have for books. With each of my friends I agree on some books, and disagree on others. Sometimes its a simple matter of an almost inexplicable resonance one has with a book...on a wavelength someone else is simply not tapped into. I've noticed that this changes over time also. Books that may have been simply beyond profound to me 10 years ago don't resonate with me in the same way today, even though I can still appreciate them. I think this is just a matter of how one grows throughout their life.
The Remains of the Day was the last Ishiguro I read. It's in a category with Bartleby the Scrivener and Walser's Jacob Von Gunten, although I don't know what you'd call the category: Obsessive men at thankless jobs fiction, maybe?
But it's his masterwork. After you write something like that, I think you're required to hire a bunch of lawyers to keep the kids off your lawn and drop out altogether.
I'm only just starting to read lots of authors who aren't dead (aside from my totally escapist girly-fiction, and I don't read much of that). So it's not quite the same to start reading someone and then drop them when they aren't still publishing.
I tend to binge on authors, too. But I did recently realize while suggesting Japanese authors to a blog-friend that I never made my way through all of Yukio Mishima's books.
I've got a huge stack of books to read this summer so far, though, but if I get through it, maybe...
Sarah J:
Any discussion of living Japanese authors would be fundamentally lacking without plugging my favorite, Haruki Murakami.
Talk about binges. The man is impossible to put down.
Metaphorically, of course. I doubt I could lift him.
I used to read Raymond Carver like crazy, and Anne Tyler too, before I started thinking about my whiteness. Then it was Maxine Hong Kingston, Toni Morrison, and bell hooks.
I loved Remains of the Day, so much better than the movie. Never Let Me Go is wonderful too, but yeah, not up to the level of Remains.
I think I'm taking a collection of Carver and Morrison's Song of Solomon with me to Bolivia. I've read Song of Solomon about 10 years ago I think and I've never read Carver at all.
In the vein of what Marjorie said, I should really read some Toni Morrison, but the only one I ever read was the bluest eye. Maybe it was where I was at the time in terms of taste, or the unnecessary constant praise I heard before I ever read it, but I ended up absolutely hating that book, and never returned to her again. Maybe it's time to give her another chance, though...
Read Jazz.
I gave her a shout on the other lit thread, but I read Song of Solomon in high school and Beloved for two different classes in college and Jazz was still the one that really made me love Toni Morrison.
And since Macon mentioned Maxine Hong Kingston, I have to say that her book The Woman Warrior is up there with life-changing works that I've encountered.
And Sator, I read one Murakami book and I did like it but was widening my reading pool at the time and thus didn't go back for more. Maybe I'll add him to my list.
Totally random, but go check out Takashi Murakami's superflat theory on art. I was almost confused about above post's mention of the name.
As far as reading fiction, besides my allegiance to graphic storytelling (check out Paul Pope's 100% or Heavy Liquid), I have too fallen off the fiction habit. I must admit Cormac McCarthy's The Road (thanks Lyrad) set me straight on what I need to fill my hole of fiction.
Been enjoying the columns Sarah J.
This has gotten to be a hobby-horse with me, but I recommend taking some of Hilary Mantel's books along with you to Bolivia. Two in particular: Every Day Is Mother's Day, and Vacant Possession. I haven't read anything more recent because we have such pathetic excuses for libraries here in the woods, and I'm a cheap bastard.
Toni Morrison's Beloved is completely heartbreaking--it gets across the inhumanity of slavery better than any novel I've ever read.
Cormac McCarthy is hit and miss for me, but I thought The Road was very powerful. So is Blood Meridian, a real masterwork. His early novel Child of God is one of the most gripping, wonderfully chilling and weird, memorable stories I've ever read. All the Pretty Horses? Meh, too many pretty boys, and pretty Mexican girls. No Country for Old Men? Umm, a good read, the movie's actually better. Suttree? Too long, overcooked Existentialism dressed up as American Indvidualism. Great writing in that one, though.
Macon D leaves out McCarthy's greatest work, The Crossing.
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