The BURIED Book Club discussion
May I ADD please?
Peter Wild—poet, critic, biographer, ranger, cowboy, conservationist, editor, professor. And DEAD and BURIED—very low ratings on here, he seems to be known only to those with an interest in the American South-west. He does not seem to have written any novels or long fiction.The University of Arizona has a nice little memorial page which summarizes SOME of his achievements.
I recently UNEARTHed his book The Cloning. It was good, if you like poetry.
Found by looking at the books of stories inspired by Sonic Youth, which seem to have been edited by a different Peter Wild.
Rand wrote: "Peter Wild"It would seem so. BUT we'll need some librarian work here to separate out THIS Peter Wild from any and all other Peter WILDS.
Michael wrote: "Don McNeill, only one posthumous book (yes the name's in need of correction), a Village Voice reporter who chronicled the hippie heyday, as it was happening, in narrative prose finer than you would..."ADD please. Should be of interest to some folks.
I corrected the name and now he has two more books. I'll let someone else take care of author separation. amazon's got bad data on this one too.
Mike wrote: "Max Beerbohm? Buried or Unburied?"My first response would be {no}. Zuleika Dobson has 1300+ ratings & Seven Men (plus the edition with "two others") has 90+; and to my lights there's not much more to what is available here on goodreads. BUT I could be convinced on the basis of the nature of that "not much more" about which I could be incorrect. Are there potentially MAJor things from him that have been by=passed by our previous century's literary executors? The list on goodreads of "58 distinct works" looks like it contains a lot of miscellany, but the list on wikipedia looks a bit more coherent. If you can UNEARTH a bit more beyond those two above titles, then, yes, ADD. Your call; your commitment; your advocacy; your contribution to ADDing FLESH to DRY BONES.
Can I make a couple of tentative suggestions; T F Powys Brother of john Cowper Powys. Also Wilson Harris; He's written quite a lot, but is not that well known.
Paul wrote: "T F Powys Brother of john Cowper Powys." i>T.F. Powys is the correct link ;; er, Theodore Francis Powys is apparently also a correct link. goodreads' naming conventions make things a bit hairy. I suspect we'll need a librarian to corral all of TFP's books which are perhaps filed under various combinations of tee's eff's periods and spaces.
The wikipedia site::
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_F_Powys
Mr Weston's Good Wine appears to be the only book of his read, which is not much. Check Paul's REVIEW :: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
ADD PLEASE!!
Paul wrote: "Also Wilson Harris; He's written quite a lot, but is not that well known. "ADD PLEASE!!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_H...
Nate D wrote: "I committed some librarianism on the Powys entries -- they should all be under T.F. Powys now."Thanks. Appears to be much better.
A quick question, as my computer competence is a little limited; how do I add?
You make a new thread on the home page of the group by clicking in the letter group of the writer you wish to add so for example, if you wish to add a writer starting with A, you go to the A group, and on the top right hand side you will see the add a topic option and you click on that and fill in the formula and post a comment and there you have your new topic thread for that writer.Remember you've to go by surname,for example Stuart Mitchner will go in M not S,ok?
Ben HechtHis plays have higher ratings but not his fiction.
As usual Sketchbook led me to him:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Mala wrote: "Ben Hecht"ADD.
[I looked; haven't yet heard any magic words about him; perhaps that'll change]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Hecht
The wikipedia article mentions novels, but I didn't see any books identified as novels. It's be nice for some wiki-nerd to clean up that page and his biblio.
Fun fact? :: Hecht ghost wrote Marilyn's bio.
Hechtie was all over the scribe & scribble map. Mostly journalists were aware of him becos (postwar2) he seemed to rep the individualism of the trade (read: superficiality). When "Century" was pub'd, c 1954, it got press salutes.He guided some fine screenplays, but stumbled on novels, and this memoir is crammed w godawful writing, yet > it's compelling ! ~~ 600 pages, pls. ~~ You gulp, shake yer head, No!, and continue reading.
In early 20s, Paris, while visiting Edie Wharton, Fitzgerald said he & Zelda had accidentally spent their first nights in a brothel. (Ow, that fantasy again..) Wharton, reigning supreme, coolly asked, "And what do they do there ?" Humiliated, Fitzie fled her tea party. Hecht recycles this yarn for himself decades later. ~~ Ah, there are no accurate memoirs. ~~
And we dunt want em.
Hecht gets indexed in almost every serio film book. Pauline Kael quotes some No-No-No dialogue fr another arty-indie catastrophe of his, "Specter of the Rose," 1946. Ready? "My heart is dancing a minuet in an ashcan."
What's so embarrassing : he thinks it's a whopper-fine line. He turned out marvelous witticism-wisecracks for Hitch & Hawks & Lubitsch. In his vu, that was grunt work. On his own, aaah, aaah, he could take flight. Yes, and produce turds. No ashcan in sight.
Btw, "Specter" is another film abt madness in the ballet. Blame it on Nijinsky. (There is no madness in Hollywd.)
Hechtie novels : Erik Dorn, Fantazius Mallare, Gargoyles, The Florentine Dagger, Count Bruga, A Jew in Love, Miracle in the Rain, I Hate Actors, The Cat That Jumped Out of the Story, The Kingdom of Evil.
Usually he doesnt "list" his megaflop plays.
He is a Character. #
Sketchbook wrote: "Hechtie novels"Thanks, Sketchbook. If yourself or Mala would like a SPADEWORK thread for Hecht, your comment would get it off to a good recovery. I get the sense he might belong in a mediocrity category, but that'd be fine if only for reasons of character he might be of interest to folks.
I notice his novel, Erik Dorn, (selecting 1 bk), is on GR. I think Hecht might/would belong to a separate category, "Ellusive" (??), Mmm-uhhh. I havent read his fiction. His memoir is a zappo gasbag, but may be unto itself. I think GRs would find it v entertaining.
Valuable info, most interesting. Jenny, Hecht's daught w 2d wife, also became an actress, got into drugs and died in her 20s fr OD a few years after his death. Ben adored her.
Discussion of Hecht should be carried forward in the Hecht thread. I will be lost if it remains here. Thanks.
Yep. I dont know how to maneuver your sensible request. Call me very eccentric when it kums to the computer. That part of my brain worketh not. ~~ Michael, canoe move this to Hecht thread--??
Sketchbook wrote: "Yep. I dont know how to maneuver your sensible request. Call me very eccentric when it kums to the computer. That part of my brain worketh not. ~~ Michael, canoe move this to Hecht thread--??"coupla ways to do it. if it's not done by tomorrow, don't worry, I'll be sure it's preserved in some manner.
Another author I would like to try to disinter is the very transgressive François Augiéras:http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
His books have a total of 25 ratings and 4 reviews.
Steve wrote: "Another author I would like to try to disinter is the very transgressive François Augiéras:"ADD please.
Hoezodanbooks wrote: "Would Pitigrilli do on the list? Loved Cocaina when I read it some 20 years ago. He's the fisrt I thinked off when entering this group (some 20 hours ago :))"ADD please.
Regarding Shota Rustaveli's The Knight in the Panther's Skin, it should be noted that of the 315 ratings, virtually all of them are by Georgians who almost certainly read the book in its original language. The book will probably never be "buried" with regards to the Georgians, but in the English speaking/reading world, or the non-Georgian speaking/reading world, it's certainly on the very edge of obscure.
Criterion acknowledged and understood.
I would like to disinter the Canadian essayist and poet Paul Chamberland:http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
I have reviewed one of his books here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18...
He has a much more extensive bibliography than is suggested here at GR:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cha...
Steve wrote: "I would like to disinter the Canadian essayist and poet Paul Chamberland:"ADD please. And since he is still in the present tense, I'll note that our service is rendered best at the other end of his career; what he's done for us back in the '60's, '70's, & early '80's is what certifies the unlucky bastard as BURIED. thnks.
Benjamin Peret is probably one of the better known surrealist writers, and has been returned to print by the excellent Wakefield Press (older editions on Atlas and Exact Change), yet his numbers are absurdly low -- nothing over 15 ratings. I guess no one reads surrealists at all anyway, so this should be taken to be buried?
Hoezodanbooks wrote: "I will add. Did I writed 'thinked'....oh dear, thought so :)"You could've simply corrected that using the 'edit' feature– I'm forever correcting my comments... I love the edit facility!
Wright Morris seems a borderline case, although it seems success did waft his way. Certainly seldom read now.
Pierre Guyotat is (currently) a septuagenarian French author of subversive texts. He once starved himself, entered a coma, then wrote a book about that experience.
Some of his oeuvre has been translated & according to this database he is under-read.
Nate D wrote: "Benjamin Peret is probably one of the better known surrealist writers, and has been returned to print by the excellent Wakefield Press (older editions on Atlas and Exact Change), yet his numbers ar..."ADD please. Death to the Pigs!!!!!
MJ wrote: "Wright Morris seems a borderline case, although it seems success did waft his way. Certainly seldom read now."ADD please. Borderline perhaps for two books, neither of which has much representation by review. Bison might also be a good sign of BURIAL. Plains Song: For Female Voices should intrigue more than one BURIED member-reader.
MJ wrote: "Hugo Manning is a BURIED poet. One rating and about twenty volumes of poetry released. BURIED."Typical poet. BURIED. ADD please. [the data for Manning on goodreads is bad. not sure about his dates, but I see one thing from 1975 which induces qualification.]
Rand wrote: "Pierre Guyotat is (currently) a septuagenarian French author of subversive texts. ."I'll need a bit more. Might be a mere matter of dates. His Eden, Eden, Eden is old enough, but also has more than BURIED ratings. If he's got other stuff originally pub'd in the '70's (in French) we can work with him.
oooh, I've been wanting to read some Guyotat, too. He has my vote.
George Egerton (pseudonym for Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright)Those 9000+ ratings are courtesy the translations she did for Hamsun's books. As for her books, she looks like buried.
Garima wrote: "George Egerton (pseudonym for Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright)"BURIED. ADD please. And goodreads has almost no useful data about her.
A Note to Nate D --The Peter Sotos thread was deleted for the reasons you had cited.
nr
Garima wrote: "Raymond Decapite"I'll need some help. All goodreads'll tell me is "2010" which can't be right.
Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Garima wrote: "Raymond Decapite"I'll need some help. All goodreads'll tell me is "2010" which can't be right."
Oops! Strike it then. His books were first published in 60's and 70's though. His Amazon Page.
Garima wrote: "Oops! Strike it then. His books were first published in 60's..."eh, goodreads is world renowned for its bad data. ADD please.
He's got a webpage ::
http://sparklestreet.com/RayDecapite
And perhaps, Garima, a note of sorts in our Great Heaps of LOST books thread revealing your secret sources?
Okie. And oh! I never visited that thread, sorry. As for resources and sources, there are just so many to post. I'll bookmark them next time and as for this writer, it was an article about obscure books in NY Times and the guy suggested Macintosh Darling and Decapite so it caught my attention : http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/200...There's another author but I'm not very sure about him : Michael Ayrton
Garima wrote: "it was an article about obscure books in NY Times and the guy suggested Macintosh Darling and Decapite so it caught my attention": 0 Yep, association with Ms Young is a big recommendation! And that series(?) of articles on obscure books REALLY (likely) deserves some links in the HEAPS thread.
There's another author but I'm not very sure about him : Michael Ayrton
It would appear so. ADD please.
The problem with John Keene is that he didn't publish on his first or second birthday. TOO RECENT. Do NOT add (view spoiler)
...so no one around here is talking about it, three reviews of which Jim Elkins' scathing opinion is the most substantialI'm confused by the claim that words like cursory are old fashioned, as well as the implication that being old fashioned is a bad thing.
The BURIED Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The House Without Windows and Eepersip's Life There (other topics)The Hospital (other topics)
People in the Room (other topics)
Amongst Those Left: The British Experimental Novel 1940-1980 (other topics)
Dr. Kink & His Old-Style Boarding School (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Maxwell Bodenheim (other topics)Barbara Newhall Follett (other topics)
Ahmed Bouanani (other topics)
Norah Lange (other topics)
César Aira (other topics)
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Morris Renek"
The obit doesn't say much about the nature of his BOOKS. But should you suspect that there is something which ought to be decided by way of someone actually reading them .... Please ADD.