Others: Mixed Oedipa Maas, executor of the will of Pierce Inverarity, journeys through a bizarre underground of secret societies, jazz clubs, beatniks, and her own psyche. Readers accustomed to postmodern literature will revel in Pynchon's second novel.
Genres: poetry
Lists: …
Charles Bukowski
1978 · 290 pages · 2 reviews
Others: MixedLow-life writer and unrepentant alcoholic Henry Chinaski was born to survive. After decades of slacking off at low-paying dead-end jobs, blowing his cash on booze and women, and scrimping by in flea-bitten apartments, Chinaski sees his poetic star rising at last. Now, at fifty, he is reveling in his sudden rock-star life, running three hundred hangovers a year, and maintaining a sex life that would cripple Casanova. With all of Bukowski's trademark humor and gritty, dark honesty, this 1978 follow-up to Post Office and Factotum is an uncompromising account of life on the edge.
What made the match, strongest first
Martin Heidegger
1927 · 399 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveWhat is the meaning of being?" This is the central question of Martin Heidegger's profoundly important work, in which the great philosopher seeks to explain the basic problems of existence. A central influence on later philosophy, literature, art, and criticism -- as well as existentialism and much of postmodern though.
What made the match, strongest first
J. G. Ballard
1973 · 223 pages · 8 reviews
Others: Leaning positiveThe definitive cult, post-modern novel – a shocking blend of violence, transgression and eroticism. When our narrator smashes his car into another and watches a man die in front of him, his sense of sexual possibilities in the world around him becomes detached. As he begins an affair with the dead man's wife, he finds himself drawn with increasing intensity to the mangled impacts of car crashes. Then he encounters Robert Vaughan, a former TV scientist turned nightmare angel of the expressway, who has gathered around him a collection of alienated crash victims and experiments with a series of erotic atrocities, each more sinister than the last. But Vaughan craves the ultimate crash - a head-on collision of blood, semen, engine coolant and iconic celebrity. First published in 1973 'Crash' remains one of the most shocking novels of the second half of the twentieth century and was made into an equally controversial film by David Cronenburg.
What made the match, strongest first
Kit Fan
2023 · 1 review
Others: MixedIn his disquieting third collection The Ink Cloud Reader, Kit Fan takes enormous risks linguistically, formally and visually to process the news of a sudden illness and the threat of mortality, set against the larger chaos of his beloved city Hong Kong and our broken planet. These shape-shifting poems are sensitive to anxiety and to beauty, questioning the turbulent climate of our time while celebrating the power of ink – of reading and writing.
What made the match, strongest first
Maya Angelou
2001 · 1 review
Others: MixedWhat made the match, strongest first
James Franco
2016 · 58 pages · 1 review
Others: NegativeWhat made the match, strongest first
Loved itthis is one of pinch's shorter works and a great introduction to his literary puzzles if you loved following searan through seemingly Random Encounters with people who obliquely explained scientific economic and historical Concepts to him you'll enjoy watching the main character Eda pamas do the same thing as she searches for a shadow post office
Not a fanand truly 'crying' is the key word here. That's how it left me. I understood this book even less after finishing reading it. And you know what? I don't think that's a sign of a good book.
MixedI think that its problem is that it is a novel that is much more fun to discuss and study for instance at a university level than to read and then that to me is kind of bad.
