Completeists--Are You One Or Are You Attempting To Be One? (5/19/19)

[Paul]

Ask sorry that wasn’t a dig at you or I being a completist, it was just a moan about the lack of translation particularly for a Nobel winner. Although I find a possible clue to this in a English language literary biography of the author, which suggested his most recent translator had got bored with his style.

There’s a thread on Oe together with a bibliography showing which have and haven’t been translated over on the Mookse and Gripes forum

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

[Maggie]

I'm going to answer this and another question with the same author - John Irving. I gave up on him after he had written a few of my favorite books and became, to me at least, repetitive and boring. John Irving also said, in an essay in Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, that he loves Dickens so much he will always save one book to be read . That's the kind of completist I am. And, by the way, Pat Barker is one I don't want to run out of. So I've read the trilogy twice and listened to the audio books twice over the last 30 years.

[Marc]

I've been resistant to reading John Irving and I'm really not sure why. We have a copy of Trying to Save Piggy Sneed and A Widow for One Year. It's not so much that I think I'll dislike him as I wonder whether it's worth putting off other books I'd like to read. Probably over-thinking it...

[Maggie]

John Irving. Don't know how well his early books like A Prayer for Owen Meany, Cider House Rules and Son of the Circus have aged. He was very heavy on narration with frequent quirky asides which may be annoying now. Anyway, I'm done.

[Whitney]

Maggie wrote: "John Irving. Don't know how well his early books like A Prayer for Owen Meany, Cider House Rules and Son of the Circus have aged. He was very heavy on narration with frequent quirky asides which ma..."

I read A Prayer For Owen Meany 20 years ago, my second and last Irving. I never got why people were so in love with that book; it's a 600 page shaggy dog story 'proving' the existence of divine intervention.

[Marc]

I don't mean to break it to you this harshly, Whitney, but you're never going to be an Irving completist at this pace and with that attitude. :p

[Whitney]

Lol!

(Also, I still plan on my brain being uploaded to the Infinite Library when I die.)

[Marc]

You've almost got me eager to die!