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Wisconsin professor wins bad writing award
Toronto Sun ^ | 7-26-11

Posted on 07/26/2011 6:56:12 PM PDT by SJackson

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To: Revolting cat!

No. Which of Schulz works is your favorite?


41 posted on 07/26/2011 8:02:00 PM PDT by Fantasywriter
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To: Revolting cat!

My favorite Faulkner works are As I Lay Dying and Pantaloon in Black. He was amazing.


42 posted on 07/26/2011 8:03:57 PM PDT by Fantasywriter
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To: Fantasywriter
OK, I must re-read Camus. It's been a long time, and it wasn't even college reading. We were already into politically correct writers, and I'm not young.

Bruno Schulz? The Street of Crocodiles.

43 posted on 07/26/2011 8:05:28 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: SJackson

My granddaughter, who was in Kindergarten (Just turned 6) wrote the following (she doesn’t know what Haiku is):

The rain falls on Mallory,
the rain falls on the umbrella,
and I dance in the puddle.

(June 16, 2011)

Camus - you amateur weirdo!


44 posted on 07/26/2011 8:07:38 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: Revolting cat!

I went through a long stretch where I read mostly literary writers, engendered by encountering Death in Venice, by Mann. Prior to that, I hadn’t realized writing could be that good, and I kept looking for another story I liked as well. These days I have to confess most of my reading falls into the classic crime genre. A big step down, but it’s fun. I just finished an Albert Campion novel, and now I’m reading one by Chandler. It’s very good for its type. ;)


45 posted on 07/26/2011 8:09:33 PM PDT by Fantasywriter
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To: Fantasywriter
Faulkner is so beyond my ability to comprehend it's a shame. Too dense, I mean. But I have loved and read every novel of a writer who certainly has been influenced by Faulkner, T.R. Pearson, the funniest writer I have ever read since Jaroslav Hasek. A Short History of a Small Place is the novel to start enjoying him. I've read it 3-4 times, maybe more, laughing out loud every time. It's part of a trilogy.
46 posted on 07/26/2011 8:10:14 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: SJackson

“It was a dark and stormy night.” But it wouldn’t have been if we had just taken the green initiatives that were given by those hairy, drug induced, non-bathtaking hippies from that forgone era.


47 posted on 07/26/2011 8:11:11 PM PDT by o-n-money
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To: Fantasywriter

Interesting. I’m slumming into crime fiction as well.
I was poo pooing it once, and now am drawn to it like flies to horsepoop.


48 posted on 07/26/2011 8:13:04 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: Revolting cat!

I will definitely, definitely plan on reading it. Thanks for the heads up!

Btw, not all Faulkner is dense. He wrote a story called Was, that is positively hysterically funny. It’s about these two brothers, one of whom is ‘woman weak’ and the other who just can’t seem to lose a game of poker [and not for luck, either, but just because he’s that good]. Talk about LOL! There’s some narration in it, as was the style back then, but the story itself is magnificent. Definitely worth a shot, if you’re ever in the mood.


49 posted on 07/26/2011 8:15:44 PM PDT by Fantasywriter
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To: Revolting cat!

I didn’t know you were such a reader, Revolting Cat.

You mad dog.

p.s. Cela? Isn’t he the one who wrote the stirring, penetrating, all-inclusive masterpiece “Vie”?

(kidding...sorry)


50 posted on 07/26/2011 8:16:33 PM PDT by Fightin Whitey
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To: Fantasywriter
LOL, what a trip back into freshman World Lit this is. I never cared much for Kafka myself, but Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis) was enjoyable. He really delved into the essence of becoming a bug from a human point of view, the strange itchy spots that turned into indescribable sensations, the way his thought processes became increasingly insect-like, to the point that he actually wanted to get swatted to death by the surly housekeeper in his few waning moments of human rationality.

There was a not especially well known one by Sartre that I enjoyed as well, a descent into madness while dragging his wife along with him, you could feel the abject horror, irrational and even comical as it was in the abstract, what with all the loudly buzzing, fish-eyed angel statues zooming about the room and all. But she believed, such a loving and good-hearted soul, and got sucked in. It was quite the peculiar, interesting study. The name of it was Intimacy.

51 posted on 07/26/2011 8:20:03 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: tet68

You cheated. You simply described our president.


52 posted on 07/26/2011 8:20:13 PM PDT by mlocher (Is it time to cash in before I am taxed out?)
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To: Fightin Whitey

How do you think I’d get so pretentious and snobbish in my taastes, huh? It’s Camilo Jose Cela, and John Cage’s 4:30, dude! Or is it 4:33? No matter, it’s the same as just one minute.


53 posted on 07/26/2011 8:21:02 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: mlocher
Try this one ~ guess the inspiration: "Not that it's a big time farming nation, but they used to raid and murder each other over harvests. "
54 posted on 07/26/2011 8:21:35 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

I’ll take Ireland for $600, Alex.


55 posted on 07/26/2011 8:23:40 PM PDT by mlocher (Is it time to cash in before I am taxed out?)
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To: Fantasywriter

Okay, maybe Was is a little more dense than I recalled, but it’s still amazing. Here is a p to give you a sense of the story. (A kid named ‘McCaslin’ is narrating.):

They ate breakfast fast. Uncle Buck put on his necktie while they were running toward the lot to catch the horses. The only time he wore the necktie was on Tomey’s Turl’s account and he hadn’t even had it out of the drawer since that night last summer when Uncle Buddy had waked them in the dark and said, “Get up out of that bed and damn quick.” Uncle Buddy didn’t own a necktie at all; Uncle Buck said Uncle Buddy wouldn’t take that chance even in a section like theirs, where ladies were so damn seldom thank God that a man could ride for days in a straight line without having to dodge a single one. His grandmother (she was Uncle Buck’s and Uncle Buddy’s sister; she had raised him following his mother’s death. That was where he had got his christian name: McCaslin, Carothers McCaslin Edmonds) said that Uncle Buck and Uncle Buddy both used the necktie just as another way of daring people to say they looked like twins, because even at sixty they would still fight anyone who claimed he could not tell them apart; whereupon his father had answered that any man who ever played poker once with Uncle Buddy would never mistake him again for Uncle Buck or anybody else.


56 posted on 07/26/2011 8:25:17 PM PDT by Fantasywriter
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To: SJackson
Another nearly famous first sentence: "It was a small dog, Japanese breed. Its name was 'Lulu'" -- Richard Kapuscinski, The Emperor (non-fiction, about Haile Selassie.)
57 posted on 07/26/2011 8:26:38 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: RegulatorCountry
Oops. Didn't stick with me that well, it was The Room, not Intimacy.
58 posted on 07/26/2011 8:27:53 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry

Sartre could definitely write. I ended up finding his magnum opus, The Age of Reason, far too self absorbed and vicarious. However, the one you described sounds fascinating. I’ve never even heard of it. I’ll try to get a hold of a copy—thanks for the details.


59 posted on 07/26/2011 8:28:31 PM PDT by Fantasywriter
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To: Cicero
On the other hand, I’ve never really understood what’s so bad about “It was a dark and stormy night.”

So it begins (then goes a little askew)

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)


60 posted on 07/26/2011 8:31:14 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy (New gets old. Steampunk is always cool)
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