Roadside Picnic. The third part, where the main character has grown old and his young practical cynicism has turned into cynicism by habit, and is upturned, really got to me.
Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?
451–460 of 599 posts
Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?
#452I've been striking out with my fiction lately with one dud after another. Thanks for these excellent suggestions. I'm ready to dive back in.
Three books that I haven't seen listed, but were impactful on my life:
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita -- Incredible writing, maybe the best ever. And english was Nabokov's second language. Don't miss this just because of the creepy subject matter or because you saw one of the movies. This is an incredible read and one of the English languages greatest books.
Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses -- I initially put off reading this by McCarthy's singular use of punctuation and his long, spare sentences. But I picked up the audiobook from Books on Tape (pre Audible) and fell into it. When read by a talented narrator its like poetry (and I mean that in a good way). When I finished it I immediatly rewound the tapes and listened to it again.
Rudy Rucker, White Light -- I read this 38 years ago and still think of it often. Think Alice in Wonderland written by William Burroughs and Kurt Godel. Giant cockroaches, absolute infinite, the devil harvesting souls, Albert Einstein, the Banach–Tarski paradox: its a wild ride. Hard to find but available on Kindle.
Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?
#453Re-reading Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle after being in Silicon Valley after a while really illuminated the character-type I found myself surrounded by: emotionally detached geniuses absentmindedly ruining the world. His style of storytelling is just great. He leaves so much off the page with his short style that at the end you get that feeling you’ve experienced something profound that can’t quiet be put into words.
Love all his work. Mother Night might be my favorite
"You are what you pretend to be"
Timequake is also amazing.
"Life is just for farting around and don't let anyone tell you different"
Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?
#454- Underworld, Don Delilo - A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James - NW, Zadie Smith - The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen Multiple narrators, sweeping plot, not always easy to follow, not too postmodern.
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Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are thinking about it wrong. Suspend your disbelief about the practicalities of what he did (pretend he was tired and not thinking at all). The story is a metaphor about life, the struggle, and a cruel world. Every person will interpret it differently. Think about how his story is a metaphor for some part of your life, and you might get the emotional import of it.
The guy was a professional fisherman... but didn't know how to fish? I get the point of the story and what the author was trying to do. It just seems silly to have such a huge flaw in the plot. It's like Lord of the Rings - the eagles could have flown the ring over to Mordor. I just can't enjoy books (or films for that matter) which require a suspension of, I dunno, basic reasoning.
On a tangible level, the old man had been at sea for days fighting this thing. He had nothing left to be able to pull these ragged bits of fish in to possibly sell on the market.
And as he got closer to shore, perhaps he realized it didn't matter.
Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?
#456The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hašek - this book is pee-in-your-pants funny. A Czech satire about WWI. Definitely shines a light on the absurdity of war and various institutions - a lot still applies today. There is profundity in the dark humor, and at the same time it is a great mood-lifter. The character Svejk stays with you as a sort of idiot-genius-rebel, a cool archetype
This is a fantastic book, unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a good English translation. I've read it in Polish, which is close enough to Czech to stay much closer to the original. The English translation loses a lot of the cultural character.
Interesting - I read in Polish but not as well as English. I imagine there could be a lot of good wordplay that is missing. Maybe one day I’ll try and pick up the Polish version
Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?
#457William Gibson. The Bridge trilogy and the Sprawl trilogy, at a minimum. They still feel like maps to the future even now. You have to work at it, the map is not the territory after all, but the realisations about the impact of technology, progress, and the choices we make when we let society work a certain way have been profound, for me at least. Also The Peripheral, and Gibson’s essay in Wired about undersea cables…
I think the essay about undersea cables is actually by Stephenson, not Gibson (unless he happened to write one too)
Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?
#458The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hašek - this book is pee-in-your-pants funny. A Czech satire about WWI. Definitely shines a light on the absurdity of war and various institutions - a lot still applies today. There is profundity in the dark humor, and at the same time it is a great mood-lifter. The character Svejk stays with you as a sort of idiot-genius-rebel, a cool archetype
Along the same lines, Catch-22 had a huge influence on me, growing up. (Not necessarily entirely positive, though.)
It is very much like Catch-22 - which I have to say i don’t think I ever finished (was too young to really get it). I do remember some of the absurdities making me chuckle.
My family has told me stories about people like the main character, running his rackets in Catch 22. It must have been a truly crazy time
Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?
#459- Harry Potter and methods of rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky
Great intro to rationality, so fun to see a different take on a world you likely already know.
- Kindred by Octavia Butler Such an interesting perspective on the psychology of what it takes to break a human being. In the worst way possible.
- The Humans by Matt Haig Being outside of the human race, the language is so jarring and alien.