Flesh by David Szalay has wom this year's Booker prize.What did we think of it?
>>24872904I'm not sure, I'll go check it out from my local library thoughie
>>24872904I'd drop it after this first page. Insipid and juvenile.
>>24872904>What did we think of it?You first OP
>>24873213No I want to make sure I have the /lit/-approved opinion before I post it
>>24873235Hate this fucking website
>>24873139hate this plain soulless style
>>24873139lol
>>24873139Please tell me the beginning is shit on purpose like TSATF or Portrait.
>>24873139whats a western style mallcowboy boots?
>>24873139who reads this shit oh my god
>>24872904What is the book about? I'm looking for something contemporary to read.
>>24873357The book is set in backwater Hungary. "Western-style" means in the style of Western Europe and America.
>>24872904I don't have time to read all modern books, but I'd like to at least check out and try to read modern prize-winning literature.What are some of the major prizes I should pay attention to in genre fiction/nonfiction/literary fiction?Booker Prize and Nobel Prize for Literature are obvious ones. Any others? Is the Pulitzer for literature too or is that just journalism?
>>24873749National Book AwardPrix GoncourtPEN/Faulkner AwardAnd yes there's a Pulitzer for fiction
>>24872904The news made many foids seethe because they couldn't handle a straight white man winning one of literature's most prestigious awards. Naturally, this went near the top of my to-read list.
>>24874747damn you're gonna read the blandest most irrelevant muh experience as an immigrant dullfest that somehow escaped from a "literary fiction" workshop, just to own the woms
>>24872904I don't buy hardbacks unless I know the book already, so I'm waiting for now, but it sounds okay.>>24873139This plainness could be a jumping point to something better.The last winner, Orbital, was not amazing, but a perfectly nice book I don't regret reading. I read a few pages of Prophet Song from 2023, and that was genuinely shit.
>>24875056>muh experience as an immigrant dullfest You've clearly not read the book.
>>24872904>>24873139Excerpt seems bland but the "young man stumbled through life" conceit appeals to me. I've wanted to write something similar structured after some greentext I read about how to get into fighting by starting with homeless people, working your way up through fatties and drunks and ultimately going to war zones to beat the shit out of soldiers for the hell of it.
>>24874747Don't just tell me they're seething, post the seething, ideally in a Twitter screencap.
I'll read it when it comes in from the library. I'm currently 175th in line. I reserved it a month ago.
>>24875581>Don't just tell me they're seething, post the seething, ideally in a Twitter screencap.Can't screencap the imaginary figures in your head.
>>24873139Is this a translation? His style is minimalist to the point of being robotic.
>>24872904Flesh 2: the Apology
>>24872904Andrew Miller should have won instead.
>>24875848>His style is minimalist to the point of being robotic.This is virtually all contemporary fiction, commercial or "literary", in a nutshell. That's why it's so easy for ChatGPT to copy the prevailing style. Authors were already writing like robots.It would be overly reductive to blame Stephen King's On Writing for the horrible, universal advice in writing circles that you should write nothing but short declarative active-voice sentences without any adjectives or adverbs, but nonetheless, I hate him for that book and the damage it has wrought upon the literary community. It has resulted in an entire industry of Hemingway wannabes who haven't the foggiest idea why Hemingway was great in the first place.
>>24875056Central european immigrants are not immigrants in the same sense that third worlders are, or at least I don't think sensible people would think so. The cultural gap is just nowhere near the same.
>>24876202Why?
>>24876310t. central european immigrant
>>24876634I mean, would you rather have a pole for a neighbor, or an indian, if you had to choose?
>>24875067>>24875527>>24875848The point of the minimalism is to paint all the guy's experiences as a path life has thrust him down that he ultimately doesn't have much control over. The critical reception is largely due to the emotion it's able to evoke in spite of or because of its minimalism.I thought it was pretty based, but I didn't walk into it wanting to hate it because a bunch of dipshits nominated it for an award.Seascraper was another one that was longlisted that's worth reading. Young man trapped in a mundane labour-heavy life that he feels was forced on him, meets the embodiment of a lit poster and thinks following that guy is his ticket to something better.
thread full of pseuds who couldn't create an original critical thought if their life depended on it jfc
>>24873139This reads fine. Everyone here is just being a contrarian retard.Of course that isn't saying the book's any good.
>>24876560I like historical fiction, and I've got an academic loyalty to him.
>>24872904>István is a virginal fifteen-year-old when he embarks on a relationship with married 42-year-old woman
>>24873139literally written with gpt damn
>>24875581No. Those foids are all over LitTwitter.
>>24877413How soulless do you have to be to think this reads fine? It reads like a shopping list
>>24877730Holy shit I have to read this now
>>24877730So it's just like a remix of Radiguet's Le Diable au corps?
>>24877827That's the point you retard; it's a style. You might dislike that style and think it has no merit or point in existing, but that is a criticism of the style itself, and can't be levied against every individual instance of writing in that style.
>>24873139Hard to tell about the content from such a short passage, but there's really nothing wrong with this style.
>>24873139I really don't like this style
>>24873139I'd keep reading
>>24878176That's a great book, shame Radiguet was taken from this world too soon.
>>24873139What's strangest here is the contrast to the reviews which all talk about how little it describes his emotions. This passage does some pretty straight down the line free indirect voice implications of how the perspective figure thinks. It then flat out says how he feels.I will read it, because I'm not braindead enough to write off a novel on the basis on less than a page of prose, but the extract doesn't quite line up with how the critics have been talking about it
>>24872904Author is a jew skinwalking as a Hungarian
>>24879706Insightful
>>24879863More than you realise
>>24880006Real eyes see real (((lies)))
>>24875602I'm now 157th.
>>24880809Keep us updated
>>24882452Now 155th.
>>24876935Interesting
>>24875848I disagree completely. Plain/natural is not robotic.
>>24877748Not remotely similar to gpt style>>24877827You're nuts
>>24875527The young man fumbling through life trope is generally done pretty well by that author. I've read most of his previous stuff. It's particularly good if you've lived in London yourself at some point since that's the setting for a bunch of his stories. Although depicting the cities might be more of a secondary interest for the writer. The whole reason I picked up his books in the first place was because I was looking for someone describing London in the 21st century. Someone who isn't writing about some minority immigrant experience or other bullshit like that, plenty of that shit around.
>>24884771Pic related is something I can recommend that is of a similar theme.
>>24873749none of them
