Nathan "N.R."’s Comments (group member since Sep 17, 2012)

Nathan "N.R."’s comments from the Completists' Club group.

Vollmann Completionism 2014!!!!!

By end of this our year 2013 I'll also have tuck'd in The Rifles and The Atlas ; and what will remain for next year :

Uncentering the Earth
Europe Central
Poor People
Imperial
Kissing the Mask
Into the Forbidden Zone (ebook only)
The Dying Grass (forthcoming)
Last Stories

Aubrey wrote: "I have read one! And part of thirteen? So...one point something? Planning on reading three others?
I am not worthy (yet)."

Then I'm one point something BETTER THAN YOU!!! I've read approximately .ZERO.

But and those criticism volumes cause even more Dalkey=faith within my breast.

Imaginative Qualities I imagine will be my NEXT from this here list right here.

This is the inside scoop :: Do not even consider applying for a position as coffer=gopher at Dalkey Archive without having first read the following TEN titles.

In no particular order here is his list:

1. The Third Policeman, Flann O'Brien
2. Point Counter Point, Huxley
3. Impossible Object, Nicholas Mosley
4. Wittgenstein's Mistress, David Markson
5. Billy and Girl, Deborah Levy
6. Theory of Prose, Viktor Shklovsky
7. Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things, Gilbert Sorrentino
8. Chinese Letter, Svetislav Basara
9. Vain Art of the Fugue, Dumitru Tsepeneag
10. Scenes from a Receding Past, Aidan Higgins
11. Some Thing Black, Jacques Roubaud
12. Europeana, Patrik Ourednik
13. anything by Djuna Barnes [sic ; "everything"]
14. Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist & Structuralist Views

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Coover completionism 2014!!!!

Next year brings the massive bulk of The Brunist Day of Wrath but also a new, expanded edition of In Bed One Night, and Other Brief Encounters from Dzanc Books ; for which I'm eagerly awaiting the ToC.

By the end of this month I will have shelved all of Coover's books ; at least the ones I know are available ;;

Two items which are not on Tom's list in Post #1 ::
Hair O' The Chine: A Documentary Film Script; Ill. By Robin Mc Donald and Aesop's Forest and Plot of the Mice {the Coover portion of this b/w book is available in A Child Again}. I can add more details when they make their way thru the mails into my Coover=hands. (a few additional books contain material available elsewhere, zB, After Lazarus: A Filmscript.)

Nate D wrote: "non-concensus options"

A let me emphasize :: this is Larry McCaffery. I'd suggest that his votes may represent a minority opinion. But, like Nader, I'll vote for him every time. Isn't it true that his list represents 20th cent lit better than do the conferees of any of the prestigious awards?

Here's Dalkey Archive's suggestion as what a reading of the literary canon might look like; it begins ::

The Koran
The Mahabarata
The Bible
Blood and Guts in High School, Kathy Acker
...........

"Literary Works All Students Should Read"
http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/reading-...
"We asked our academic advisors to name which literary works all students should read. The following list of their responses is run annually to introduce new readers to the aesthetic tradition that CONTEXT [a periodical published by Dalkey] supports."

Many folks in these parts I'm sure have at least 50% knocked out.

Darwin8u wrote: "Just finished all of Cormac McCarthy. I'll have to be back on this thread in about a month once 'The Counselor' gets published. But, hell, that just lets me finish twice right?"

An enviable position ;; to have completionized and yet still have that for which one might wait in heightened anticipation.

I do need to create a better biblio for Ray up there in comment #1. I intend to sort out his bi- & tri-lingual books/editions from his English-mostly books. Meanwhile, my score card looks roughly like ::

Double or Nothing
Take It Or Leave It [which includes a rewritten/translated Amer Eldorado]
The Voice in the Closet
The Twofold Vibration
Smiles on Washington Square
To Whom It May Concern
Loose Shoes
Aunt Rachel's Fur
My Body in Nine Parts
Return To Manure
The Carcasses (A Fable)
SHHH: The Story of a Childhood
The Twilight of the Bums
More Loose Shoes and Smelly Socks
Here and Elsewhere: Poetic Cul de Sac
Federman A to X X X X: A Recyclopedic Narrative

A more complete biblio, etc, is available ;; http://www.federman.com/ ;; which also includes some of his writings.

I'll likely join in for the Hawkes completionism. I've only read five(?) but have shelved at home perhaps about approximately most of his books; which is a kind of commitment.

The Cannibal (1949)
The Beetle Leg (1951)
The Lime Twig (1961)
Second Skin (1964)
The Innocent Party (plays) (1966)
Lunar Landscapes (short stories) (1969) [Charivari (1949); The Goose on the Grave (1954); The Owl (1954)]
The Blood Oranges (1970)
Death, Sleep, and the Traveler (1974)
Travesty (1976)
The Passion Artist (1979)
Virginie Her Two Lives (1982)
Humors of Blood & Skin: a John Hawkes reader (1984)
Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade (1985)
Innocence in extremis (1985)
Whistlejacket (1988)
Sweet William (1993)
The Frog (1996)
An Irish Eye (1997)

Nate D wrote: "Well done! You're knocking down all the behemoths of the post-war/modernism set."

My Family Resemblance photo, I intend to completionize all of 'em except maybe for Powers about whom I'm still undecided.

Coover may be completionized by myself in 2014. Present score follows ::

Novels
The Origin of the Brunists (1966)
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. (1968)
The Public Burning (1977), completed 1975
Gerald's Party (1986)
A Night at the Movies or, You Must Remember This (1987) (themed anthology)
Pinocchio in Venice (1991)
John's Wife (1996)
Ghost Town (1998)
The Adventures of Lucky Pierre: Director's Cut (2002)
Noir (2010)
The Brunist Day of Wrath (2014)

Short stories, Novellas, Plays & Collections
Pricksongs & Descants (1969) (collection)
The Babysitter (1969) (short story)
A Theological Position (1972) (plays)
Hair O' The Chine (1979)
A Political Fable (1980) (novella)
Spanking the Maid (1982) (novella)
In Bed One Night & Other Brief Encounters (1983) (collection)
Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears (1987) (novella)
Dr. Chen's Amazing Adventure (1991) (novella)
Briar Rose (1996) (novella)
The Grand Hotels (of Joseph Cornell) (2002) (novella)
Stepmother (2004) (novella)
A Child Again (2005) (collection)
"The Case of the Severed Hand" Harper's Magazine 317 [1898] (July 2008): 74-80
"White-Bread Jesus" Harper's Magazine 317 [1903] (December 2008): 79-88 -- excerpt from Brunist Day of Wrath. http://harpers.org/archive/2008/12/wh...
"Going for a beer" The New Yorker (March 14, 2011)
"Matinée" The New Yorker (July 25, 2011)
[edit]Non-Fiction
The End of Books (1992) (essay)

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Gaddis completionizing will move forward shortly. "

I have now claim to having read every damn book by William Gaddis. Next up for Gaddis is a biography being written by Joseph Tabbi (possible 2014/15 publication?). I also have a book of Gaddis interpretation which I'll linger on eventually.

Jim wrote: "that lists and describes novels from the Ancient Egyptians thru 1600 is by Steve Moore:"

Small caveat :: Moore writes only about novels, things in prose. Lots of great verse narrative/epic gets left out, things like Orlando Furioso: Part 1 which I try to mention as often as possible (no Beowulf here either). And for those interested only in Moore's list of books, the amazon look inside has the appendix in which everything he covers is listed chronologically.

Darwin8u wrote: "Didn't know if you all caught this new site:
http://omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/exhibits..."

Thank you. So much for getting anything else done today.

My Gass scorecard ::

Fiction and the Figures of Life (1970)
On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry (1976)
The World Within the Word (1978)
Habitations of the Word (1984)
Finding a Form: Essays (1997)
Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problems of Translation (1999)
Tests of Time (2002)
Conversations With William H. Gass (2003)
A Temple of Texts (2006)
Life Sentences (2012)

Fiction:

Omensetter's Luck (1966)
In The Heart of the Heart of the Country (1968)
Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife (1968)
The Tunnel (1995)
Cartesian Sonata and Other Novellas (1998)
Middle C (March 2013)

I don't think that it's too early to start thinking and declaiming about one's intentions to complete the works of some of your favorite authors in 2014. Who do you expect to read to completion next year?

So far, speaking for myself, I have it in mind to read the rest of my William H. Gass and to finally read (mostly reread with better literary eye-sight) Thomas Pynchon. I haven't cataloged what I have before me regarding Gass, but as for Pynchon I technically only have the final third of Gravity's Rainbow outstanding. However, I feel morally obligated to reread V, all of Gravity's Rainbow, and Mason & Dixon (and throw in Lot 49 while I'm out there). The rest I've read within the past four years.

Likely I'll put forth another few authors' names as this year eventually draws to a close.

Who will you be reading to completion next year?

MJ wrote: "No fables or bios for me, so completionism will remain a no-no. Just Estonia & the second colours left."

The fables when you find them drooping from the library's shelves and have a spare five minutes; or until his Sammlung is published. The Gorey book is no biography; should fit right in with the Theroux essay style you're familiar with, only that some material gets filtered through his Gorey friendship. The Al Capp book reads in about 43 minutes.

The medal is worth it in itself for having only a few more stones to step through.

MJ wrote: "I salute you!"

humblebow.

Your own score on this score would seem rather respectable also.

Redundancy is what this thread is built for.

I've completionized every damn book published under the name Alexander Theroux.

Gaddis completionizing will move forward shortly.

Completioninaziert!!!!