New large novel compared favorably to Proust - Anyone read this?

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

I've seen the Anthony Powell books in stores. They have a painting on their spines that, when the entire series is placed together, makes a complete picture of several people dancing. That kind of design is something that printed books still do better than electronic ones.

Why didn't Proust come up with that? I'm sure he would have loved to have this on the spines of the complete Recherche:


(Illustration lifted from pynch...)

[LovesMacs]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Why didn't Proust come up with that? I'm sure he would have loved to have this on the spines of the complete Recherche:


(Illustration lifted from pynch...)

Ha! Seriously, Proust could not have had a coordinated cover design for À la recherche du temps perdu because of a few reasons:

1. He had to shop around to find a publisher who would accept the manuscript for the first volume.

2. I believe publication of further volumes in the series was also uncertain, and split between different companies.

3. He died while continuing to write and revise his work. What ended up being published was assembled from a number of typewritten manuscripts and drafts. In fact, a revised version of one of the volumes was published some 70 years after Proust's death, after a previously unknown manuscript came to light in 1986.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

What is it about you and "size"?

Hey. Now he can say that he has the largest currently selling book on the smallest currently selling e-reader. (That I know of.)

For some reason, I don't think this is for me.... a 3,5K fantasy series that is essentially one novel: why not? But a novel about the guy writing that novel...?

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Hey. Now he can say that he has the largest currently selling book on the smallest currently selling e-reader. (That I know of.)

For some reason, I don't think this is for me.... a 3,5K fantasy series that is essentially one novel: why not? But a novel about the guy writing that novel...?

My understanding, however, is that this is classified as 'literature,' rather than a fantasy. Also, I understand it has biographical elements in it, but they are 'fictionalized' for dramatic and heightened effect. In other words, it's more a piece of fiction, rather than a long autobiographical piece.

...but I haven't read it, so I could be wrong.

ADDED: I mean the author Karl Ove Knausgaard.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Hey. Now he can say that he has the largest currently selling book on the smallest currently selling e-reader. (That I know of.)

For some reason, I don't think this is for me.... a 3,5K fantasy series that is essentially one novel: why not? But a novel about the guy writing that novel...?

It may be counterintuitive, but fantasy (and most fiction in general) tends to be quite formulaic. Real life can be chaotic and strange, and anything goes. After you've read enough fiction, you get familiar with the formulas, and then it's the depictions of real events that offer the most surprises and new lessons on what it means to be human. Maybe those novels are not what you're looking for today, but who knows, down the road they may be just the thing for you.