The Book Discussion Thread

[Kurosawa Fan]

What else besides The Tao of Wu has he written?

[Winston*]

What else besides The Tao of Wu has he written?

The Wu-Tang Manual. I would quite highly recommend The Tao of Wu btw.

[D_Davis]

Speaking of Cisco, just started reading The Narrator last night. It's about a guy called The Narrator (Cisco loves these kinds of iconographic names: The Divinity Student, The Traitor) who goes to Narration School, and is then drafted into an army and becomes the chronicler of a war. Thus far, it is Cisco's most dense and complex work - and that's really saying something; he is a surrealist of epic proportions, and an author with a unique voice and style. I always imagine a certain voice in my head when I read his books. And I read them differently than I do any other from any other writer. I feel hypnotized by his rhythm and prose; it's as if his stories are coming from his mind directly into mine. I don't read them as much as I do absorb them. It's really hard to explain, but it is a phenomenon often mentioned by the very few who read him. It's like he has learned how to tap into this metaphysical power of the written word, and uses it in a way no other author I know of does. Very powerful stuff. I'd encourage anyone here interested in the power of language and words to read Cisco.

[D_Davis]

Just found out that Cisco has a new book coming out in April. I remember talking to him a couple of years ago and he said he had about 5 novels finished, but he couldn't find a publisher. His stuff is so bizarre and niche, and they probably don't sell very well. But it looks like some people are finally catching on. He'll have three novels out within a year's time.

http://chomupress.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Great-Lover-Front-Cover-196x300.jpg


He lives in the sewers… and in the black world between stations… the trains shrilly call to one another blind and massive in the dark – black rushing silence, rent by screaming trains … Like the hideous angler fish of the ocean’s deepest places, he is an otherworldly scavenger drifting in currents heavier than avalanches, slow as glaciers, a sea wasp with a bridal train of tingling nerves that drift in the sewage time and again tangling in women’s dreams.


From Michael Cisco, author of The Divinity Student, comes a visionary novel of eros and thanatos. The Great Lover, the sewerman, is the undead hero who nonetheless carries the torch of libido and life. Mischievous Frankenstein, uproarious cartoon demon, mascot of the subway cult, witch-doctor of feculent enchantment and weary veteran of folies d’amour, he stands, or shambles, as our last champion against the monochrome, white-noise forces of Vampirism.


Sounds awesome.

[D_Davis]

Nice little review for The Great Love from Publishers Weekly:



The latest phantasmagorical offering from Cisco (The Narrator) is a fusion of dark fantasy, literary fiction, and existential horror that revolves around the eponymous character of the sewerman, an undead tramp in search of capital-L Love who can enter into women's dreams. As he pines for a blind woman named Vera, he also helps a disgraced academic turned prophet to establish a "ptochocratic" cult that wants to create its own reality underground and battle a soul-sucking plague of white noise. The surreal narrative is something like a 400-page T.S. Eliot poem: otherworldly, lyrical, deeply philosophical, and supersaturated with extraordinary imagery and ideas (like the Prosthetic Libido, a golem-like device constructed to house a scientist's unwanted desire). Fans of stylish and thematically sophisticated weird fiction should seek out this mad testament to Cisco's visionary genius.

This guy is going places.

[lovejuice]

What living authors do you drop everything to read when they publish a new book?

Eco and Kundera. They might be the only living ones on my favorite list. (and not for long perhaps :sad:)

[kuehnepips]

i've yet to finish a book this year. :/

Wow.

You started reading Musil?

[ledfloyd]

Wow.

You started reading Musil?
haha no, i've been rereading ada for most of the year. i just haven't found a reading groove yet for some reason. too many movies and tv shows occupying my free time.

[Mysterious Dude]

I finally finished another book: Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. It took me over a month. It was a little bit longer than usual, and I had eye surgery in the middle of it.

There are certain things about novels that are kind of strange. Sometimes, things happen that make no sense, and I bet you couldn't get away with them if it happened in a movie. Having more experience with movies than with books, it's taking some getting used to. Here's an example from Ellison's Invisible Man:

The main character runs away from the mob, falls down a manhole, and decides to live down there in the sewer. What?!

In Journey to the End of the Night, there's this character named Robinson who seems to always be either following Ferdinand or is a few steps ahead of him, no matter where he goes in life, whether to war, to Africa, to New York, back to France, somehow Robinson is always there. I'm sure there is some literary symbolism to this (and to Invisible Man); Robinson is a reflection of Ferdinand, or whatever, but I still find it hard to accept it.

[dreamdead]

Halfway through Gish Jen's World and Town, a book that continues her study of immigration, identity, and compassion toward other cultures, and moves her writing away from her earlier insular treatment of Chinese-Americans; it's now more global. I'm interested in its treatment of corporations infiltration into civilian life, and how these towns try desperately to maintain a hold on their rural culture. Interested to see how Jen introduces the 9/11 context that I'm reading the book for, as this seems like one in a bunch of books set over the course of 2001...

[lovejuice]

Beatrice and Virgil is no way as good as Life of Pi. A capable post-modern exercise in holocaust literature, nonetheless.

To Have and Have Not, on the other hand, is shaping out nicely so far.

[lovejuice]

Hot damn! I don't know if someone already posted this. I don't even know where I should post it, but here you are.

The Great Gatsby, the video game for NES. (http://greatgatsbygame.com/)

[Mara]

Hot damn! I don't know if someone already posted this. I don't even know where I should post it, but here you are.

The Great Gatsby, the video game for NES. (http://greatgatsbygame.com/)

That's hilarious.

[lovejuice]

That's hilarious.
I did more searches, and it turns out to be a "fake". It's just recently retro-developed and released.

[Mara]

I did more searches, and it turns out to be a "fake". It's just recently retro-developed and released.

I figured it was fake, but it's still awesome.

[D_Davis]

About 3/4 of the way through The Narrator, and I'm really enjoying it. There was one sequence especially that I am sure I'll never forget. It concerns a group of grave robbers, and what they find whilst robbing graves. And for all of its surreal fantasies, the book has a lot to say about the absurdities of war; I can see clearly why Cisco is being hailed as the American Kafka, although I like Cisco a great deal more than I do Kafka.

Also, at about 1/2 through the novel, Cisco pulls this crazy meta-twist; I knew something would happen, knowing what I do about Cisco and his use of language, coupled with the title of the book, but I didn't quite expect what actually happened, nor am I sure what it all means in the greater context of the novel. I'm sure it will become more apparent. It very much reminded me of If on a Winter's Night a Traveler.

It is an incredibly dense and difficult book, though, and I am already looking forward to reading it again in the future.

[lovejuice]

It very much reminded me of If on a Winter's Night a Traveler.
What's your opinion on that book?

[D_Davis]

What's your opinion on that book?

I have not read the whole thing, but I love what I've read. I've found that I appreciate his work in small doses; I read his stuff in micro-bits, like little daily devotionals.

I'm about 1/2 through Traveler.

[D_Davis]

Cisco's The Narrator expertly captures the absurdity of war, with its often pointless and wanton bloodshed, and the egotistical desires of the powers that be: the men and women under them be damned. It's a harrowing book filled with phantasmagorical imagery, surreal landscapes, and enough haunting moments to overfill dozens of nightmares. Moments that include characters like the vomiters, a group of wild men and women addicted to the pain associated with the dinning noise emitted from a strange ruin; the cannibal queen, and her festival of the dead; and a group of asylum inmates drafted into the war simply because they can walk and carry a gun.

What is the purpose of the war, and the violence? There is none. And that's where the book suffers. It's a little too long to be so utterly lacking in narrative drive. That's not to say that stuff doesn't happen, because a lot of stuff does happen. Tons of stuff. However, none of it really serves a point beyond the individual atmosphere of each moment, or to further illustrate the futility of the characters' lives. The characters wander around, aimlessly, shooting, fighting, and discovering bizarre things, all while chasing an enigmatic enemy.

It is Cisco's longest book, and I feel as though he could have accomplished the same things in about half as many pages. However, that is not to say that I didn't thoroughly enjoy my time spent with it. It is an intensely dense book; I re-read many pages just so that I could adsorb everything on them. And there are moments scattered throughout that I will never forget. It's just that, towards the end, the pointless nature of the book's theme, and the way in which Cisco chose to convey it, started to drag a bit. I kept waiting for something grand to happen, but it never did. And maybe that's the point.


Cisco rankings:

1. The Divinity Student
2. The Tyrant
3. The Golem
4. The Traitor
5. Secret Hours
6. The Narrator

[Fezzik]

It's official, per George R. R. Martin's site.

A Dance With Dragons will be in stores July 12, 2011!

:pritch:

[Lucky]

It's official, per George R. R. Martin's site.

A Dance With Dragons will be in stores July 12, 2011!

:pritch:

This reminds me I need to finish A Game of Thrones.

[amberlita]

It's official, per George R. R. Martin's site.

A Dance With Dragons will be in stores July 12, 2011!

:pritch:

Hurray!!! That means I can start A Feast for Crows in a few months. I've been waiting so that I can read books 4 and 5 close together since they got split up.

[kuehnepips]

It's official, per George R. R. Martin's site.

A Dance With Dragons will be in stores July 12, 2011!

:pritch:

*passes bottle*

Until then everyone please read Black Swan Green by David Mitchell.

[dreamdead]

Finished up Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children, a novel that tears down the excesses and entitlement of the upper-class in the months leading up to 9/11. The way this event shakes the characters, particularly a character's father, is rather striking. It ends a little weak, with lots of narrative threads seemingly unintentionally loose, but it's best moments are strong indeed.

Halfway through Dick's The Man in the High Castle (my first Dick), and I hope to finish that one up over spring break next week. Really loving the way he's appropriating history, even if the prose seems a little bland occasionally.

[Benny Profane]

Finished a book called "The Master Switch" over the weekend, written by a Columbia professor who coined the term "net neutrality". Goes into the importance of communications inventions and the history of information empires like AT&T and how they rise and fall. Talks about how disruptive inventions like telephones, radio, TV, movies all started as open, decentralized industries and gradually, often with the help of government, became behemoth monopolies that stymied innovation for decades. And then based on history he speculates what will happen to the internet and offers some suggestions as to how to prevent these dominating coroporations and conglomerates from taking over everything and limiting free speech. Really insightful read and very well-written cautionary tale.

[Kurosawa Fan]

DavidSeven was pimping that book a while back. It's on my impossibly long list of books to read.

[dreamdead]

The Man in the High Castle ends a little too abruptly for it to work--it introduces so many fascinating concepts, but it just kinda ends without any real grappling with the Nazi and German loss, and what it pertains for Juliana, Frank, etc. Pretty great up to the last twenty pages, though. I'll likely hit Three Stigmata... in a few weeks.

For now, it's onto Nicole Krauss and The History of Love. Love the Leo character, but Alma is a little too precious/precocious at 50 pages in...

[D_Davis]

The Man in the High Castle ends a little too abruptly for it to work--it introduces so many fascinating concepts, but it just kinda ends without any real grappling with the Nazi and German loss, and what it pertains for Juliana, Frank, etc. Pretty great up to the last twenty pages, though. I'll likely hit Three Stigmata... in a few weeks.


I'm always a little surprised at the general consensus for The Man in the High Castle. While it is generally considered one of the PKD's best, I don't really care for it, and would never recommend it as a first PKD book.

Now Three Stigmata... on the other hand, that's a total winner.

For a 5 book PKD primer, I'd go with:

1. A Scanner Darkly
2. Martian Time Slip
3. UBIK
4. Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
5. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

[D_Davis]

Stephen King's next book about JFK

http://www.seattlepi.com/artandlife/1404ap_us_books_stephen_king.h tml

I'm predicting and absolutely masterpiece. The dude is seriously on fire right now.

[Benny Profane]

I have cemented my liberal elite status by getting a subscription to The Paris Review. It's a literary magazine, for those who don't know.

The first segment of a new Bolano novel will be released in their Spring edition, and it will be finished in their next two editions. The complete novel won't hit bookshelves for awhile, so this is a first edition of sorts.

About halfways through the Winter 2010 release, which features a great Franzen interview.

[Hugh_Grant]

DavidSeven was pimping that book a while back. It's on my impossibly long list of books to read.
I hear you. In addition to the vertigo I discussed at an earlier date, I now have a debilitating case of dry eye that makes reading very difficult. As you can imagine, this turn of events has made me very unhappy.

[Eleven]

Just finished D.H. Lawrence's Studies in Classic American Literature, kind of a stream-of-consciousness, opinionated, idiosyncratic, Biographical Dictionary of Film-esque take on what it says. Poe, Fenimore Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman all get the D.H. treatment.

Turns out you can read the whole thing here (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/LAWRENCE/dhltoc.htm).

[D_Davis]

I hear you. In addition to the vertigo I discussed at an earlier date, I now have a debilitating case of dry eye that makes reading very difficult. As you can imagine, this turn of events has made me very unhappy.


That sucks, and I feel your pain. My hands are so sore that I can't even hold a somewhat-heavy book without propping it up on something, and typing is a major chore as well!

Fun! :)

[D_Davis]

Picked this up today:

http://www.chizine.com/chizinepub/images/covers/monstrous-affections_small.jpg

Love that cover. Haunting.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I hear you. In addition to the vertigo I discussed at an earlier date, I now have a debilitating case of dry eye that makes reading very difficult. As you can imagine, this turn of events has made me very unhappy.

Wow, that's awful. I have naturally dry eyes, so I can sympathize a bit there, but not being able to read for pleasure must be terrible. I hope things turn around for you soon.

[Mara]

I had to read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society for a book club and it wasn't nearly as bad as you would expect from the title. Actually, it was mildly charming.

[D_Davis]

I bought a book a few years ago called Kaeti on Tour, by Keith Roberts. I had heard of Roberts because of his ultra-post-modern novel Molly Zero, a book I need to read. Anyhow, I picked up KOT because I liked the cover and wanted to check out some Roberts. The interesting thing is that there isn't a single review of it on Amazon, or on Goodreads. It doesn't even have a single rating on either of those sites. A simple Google search doesn't reveal a single review for the book. It's like no one has read it, which is really weird because many of the author's other books are highly regarded in the realms of speculative fiction.

Has anyone else ever encountered something like this before? When I read it and write a review, I'll be the only person on line to have done so. That's bizarre.

[D_Davis]

‎"She might be two incense censers short of a Benediction."

- William Peter Blatty, Crazy

[kuehnepips]

... I now have a debilitating case of dry eye that makes reading very difficult...

*hugs Hugh and passes bottle*

[D_Davis]

Crazy is amazing thus far. Damn can Blatty ever write. As with many of his books, I find that reading the passages, and especially the dialog, out loud makes it even better. His prose is so snappy, and rhythmic. It's a genuinely sweet coming of age tale, wrapped up in some kind of crazy theological mystery, or something. Not sure yet. And it doesn't even matter. Each page has been a joy to read. Up to this point I'd rank it up there with The Ninth Configuration and Legion, and that's really saying something.

[Mara]

I know very few of you admit to reading Young Adult literature, but Katurah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt was actually excellent. It is written in a high heroic style, less like a modern novel and more like a fairy tale or myth, and it managed to be entertaining and surprising. It's not particularly involved or ambitious-- 200 pages, large print, I finished it in an evening-- but what it does attempt it manages with aplomb.

[lovejuice]

I know very few of you admit to reading Young Adult literature, but Katurah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt was actually excellent.

http://www.boydsmillspress.com/media/hfc/bmp/coverimages/large/978-1-932425-29-1.jpg

It's Young Adult? The cover reminds me of this (http://match-cut.org/showthread.php?t=546) though. Good time!

[Kurosawa Fan]

Apparently you aren't keeping up to date with my top ten updates the last two years. I try to read the same stuff my son is reading, so that we can talk about them after. Though, what I'm reading seems a bit younger than the cover of that book implies. Stuff like The Tale of Despereaux and City of Ember.

[Mara]

You've had some great stuff on your lists recently (although I think I liked City of Ember more than you did.) But I'd count it more juvenile literature. Do they still use that classification? I'd count YA as written more for 12-16 year olds. After reading the book, I recommended it to a friend of mine who is 13, but not my friend who was 11 because she struck me as a little young.

I wasn't wild about the cover of Katura and Lord Death, but I've seen worse.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I liked City of Ember quite a bit, but the quality of work I've been reading for my classes has been superb, canonical stuff. Otherwise it'd be ranked higher. My son didn't read City of Ember yet. He tried a year ago (it was a recommendation from another parent), but he found it a bit slow (which I took to meant some of it was going over his head), so he's going to try again this summer. I read it in advance so I can talk to him while he's reading it this time.

I was really taken with The Tale of Despereaux. That was a very charming read.

[Mara]

I was really taken with The Tale of Despereaux. That was a very charming read.

I haven't read it. I might pick it up for fun-- I've been taking breaks from the more serious stuff I've been reading when my brain gets tired.

By the way, I'm excited to finish the two books I have going right now, The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood and The Secret Life of Words by Henry Hithcings. They're both excellent so far.

[Mysterious Dude]

I read Arthur Schnitzler's Dream Story, the novella upon which Eyes Wide Shut was based, in three days. I would have finished it sooner if I didn't have to work. Loved it. Very dreamy.

[dreamdead]

150 pages into Allegra Goodman's The Cookbook Collector, which moves seamlessly between cultural critique of early 1990s financial excess and genuine concern for the lives of the privileged. Might finish it before the Krauss, since the narrative of .com's in that era rather intrigues me. Though she doesn't always bust it out, her prose and turns of a phrase are quietly beguiling.

[D_Davis]

Crazy - William Peter Blatty

Utterly delightful, genuinely funny, and entirely sincere, earnest and nostalgic - some, might say, to a fault. Like Theodore Sturgeon, Blatty has never been one to hide his intentions; he's didactic and proud of it, dammit!

Ever since The Exorcist, his theological thriller-mystery-comedies have been about the exploration of his Christian/Catholic faith. Whether he's examining the problem of evil, the nature of altruistic sacrifice, or, as in Crazy, the joys of being a good, moral person, Blatty is using his fiction as a way to understand his faith, or his hope as he might say.

Crazy is really a companion piece to his autobiographical book I'll Tell Them I Remember You, the story about how his own mother shaped in him, and proved to him through miraculous means, his belief in God. You might say that his childhood was, indeed, crazy, and so it is not much a stretch to extrapolate that he is, in fact, the basis for Joey El Bueno, the main character here.

It's odd to me that Blatty recently said that Dimiter was his most personally-important work; knowing what I know about him, and of his fiction, I'd rank Crazy and The Ninth Configuration as more important and more Blatty-esque. Both of these novels are funny and poignant, and while The Ninth Configuration is more philosophical in nature, Crazy is more personal and introspective.

William Peter Blatty is getting old, and I'll be honest, I think about his passing. If this book is any indication, he does too! That makes me sad. I'm really going to miss him when's gone. In this day and age when so many people seem so cynical and skeptical about faith and religion, and when so many religious people act like heartless bastards, it's nice to know that there is someone like Blatty out there. To me he feels like a kindred spirit, a man and author I greatly admire. I guess I should just be thankful that his books even exist.

"While we have time, let us do good."

[Mara]

Often we have three terms for the same thing-- one Anglo-Saxon, on French, and one clearly absorbed from Latin or Greek. The Anglo-Saxon word is typically a neutral one; the French word connotes sophistication; and the Latin or Greek word, learnt from a written text rather than from human contact, is comparatively abstract and conveys a more scientific notion. Consider, for example, the verbs rise, mount and ascend, or go, depart and exit. In each case, the first word has an Anglo-Saxon source and is informal, the second is French and comparatively formal, while the third is in Latin and suggests something more specialized or technical. A more extreme example is fire, flame and conflagration; another, holy, sacred, consecrated.

-The Secret Life of Words by Henry Hitchings

Hmm.

[Duncan]

Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer was kind of amazing.

[dreamdead]

Finished Allegra Goodman's The Cookbook Collector in a flurry of reading. It's rather wonderful, and vies with O'Neill's Netherland for the best book read this year.

Mara, I could easily see you enjoying this one...

[Mara]

Finished Allegra Goodman's The Cookbook Collector in a flurry of reading. It's rather wonderful, and vies with O'Neill's Netherland for the best book read this year.

Mara, I could easily see you enjoying this one...

Netherland is on my to-do list. I'll have to check out the other one.

[Mara]

Oh, wait, I knew that Allegra Goodman sounded familiar. I read The Other Side of the Island. It had promise, but I found it ultimately frustrating. I felt like it was nodding too much to Lowry's The Giver while simply not being as good.

[Raiders]

It kills me that we don't have all of Kenzaburo Oe's work translated into English. It took practically ten years for The Changeling, which I have just finished (first book read entirely on Kindle), and it is such an elegant, beautiful and emotional work and a remarkably adept study of perspectives and change, featuring extended ruminations both from the living and from the dead. It is based on the suicide of Oe's brother-in-law and friend, director Juzo Itami.

I would not hesitate to call him the greatest novelist of the past 100 years.

[dreamdead]

Oh, wait, I knew that Allegra Goodman sounded familiar. I read The Other Side of the Island. It had promise, but I found it ultimately frustrating. I felt like it was nodding too much to Lowry's The Giver while simply not being as good.

Huh, I didn't even know that she also dabbled in YA fiction.

Cookbook... is my first novel of hers, and I'll greedily go back for Intuition or Paradise Park this summer. I still feel fairly confident that you'd like TCC--most relate it to Austen, but it's got its own heart and temperament as well.

[Mysterious Dude]

Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer was kind of amazing.
I just finished it myself. I thought it was okay, but I'm a little worn out by angsty semi-autobiographical novels.

I need to read a book where something happens.

[Benny Profane]

I just finished it myself. I thought it was okay, but I'm a little worn out by angsty semi-autobiographical novels.

I need to read a book where something happens.

But you gotta love the way he uses the word "cunt."

[D_Davis]

Do not buy HarperCollins books new - only used.

http://www.pioneer.lib.ok.us/pls/111-Press/2423-open-letter-to-harpercollins-a-readers-of-ebooks

[Mysterious Dude]

I've read several European books from the 20's and 30's lately. One thing that kind of stands out is how often an incidental character is identified as a Jew (i.e. "I bought a newspaper from a Jew"). How do they even know? I have Jewish friends and half the time I don't even remember they're Jewish.

"Did you have a nice Christmas?"
"I'm Jewish."
"Oh, right..."

[D_Davis]

Next up, Towing Jehovah by James Morrow. God dies, and falls from the sky into the Atlantic ocean. It's up to Anthony Van Horne and his tug boat to tow God's body to a place it can be buried.

[D_Davis]

"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."
--C.S. Lewis

In this case, I'm glad I never reached the age where I stopped.

[D_Davis]

Towing Jehovah, by James Morrow

I liked this, but it didn't wow me like Shambling Towards Hiroshima did. Parts of it felt too long. Morrow came up with a million dollar idea, but I don't think it warranted the book's length. I think it would have had more impact as a novella. Or maybe it was just my own expectations that were blown out of proportion.

I do have to give Morrow the utmost respect for treating his characters with respect, especially Father Thomas and Sister Miriam. What could have been just a total dig at religion ended up being a thoughtful exploration of sadness and change. So while I suspect that Morrow is most likely somewhat anti-theist in his life, he is smart enough to know that theism plays an important role in humanity's existence, and explores the subject non-flippantly and with serious contemplation, while also being totally sacrilegious and hilariously irreverent.

[Milky Joe]

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/2931/imag0551p.jpg

It's been a long, long wait for this.

[Mara]

Year of the Flood started off strongly and then didn't go anywhere. I knew it was a companion novel to Atwood's superior Oryx and Crake, but I thought it just took place in the same world. Instead, it had an original first half and then began to weave itself, very intimately, into the first novel. It never quite felt believeable-- most like a ret-con that made minor characters into important movers and shakers, while bringing in the major characters from Oryx and Crake (Glen and Jimmy) over for cameos. Since "the flood" in the title was actually manufactured by Glen, this focus on subsidiary characters feels weird. There's no tension, because if we read the first book, we know what is going to happen. (And if you hadn't read the first book, this one wouldn't make any sense.)

Also, just to complain a little more, there were only about twenty characters in the book and they kept randomly running into each other over and over again for no real reason. They're supposed to be living in a major metropolis, but if a character gets attacked in an alleyway, the attacker will for sure be one of the people you met in the first 40 pages of the book.

The book had two narrators, Toby and Ren, both speaking in the present tense (which was very well done) and Toby in the third person and Ren in the first. I liked Toby immensely as a character. She was smart, observant, and a little bit poetic while still remaining the most logical and rational person in the book. Ren, on the other hand, was an idiot. She would be fine as a character if she wasn't narrating in the first person, but because she is, the writing looks bad, because it's being spoken by someone who can do little more than state what is happening. ("He puts his arm down. I can't see if it's hurt.")

All that makes it sound like I hated the book, but really I'm just a little disappointed. Read Oryx and Crake instead, if you haven't.

[Mara]

The book on CD I'm currently listening to on my commute is Bless Me, Ultima. So far I think it's haunting and I'm fascinated, but I'm really hampered by how little Spanish I speak. I didn't expect so much vocab and dialogue to not be translated. I can parse enough to tell pretty much what they're talking about ("church", for instance) but I feel a little bit like I'm not getting the full experience.

I'm sticking with it, though, because the writing is beautiful. I try and remember the vocab that keeps being used and I look it up when I get home or to work.

[kuehnepips]

The book on CD I'm currently listening to ...

I could never do this.

[Mara]

I could never do this.

I prefer to hold a book, but my commute is an hour a day that I can either spend cursing the heavens, or getting caught up on my reading.

[Raiders]

Just bought for the Kindle Rabbit Redux, but I think I want to read another author before getting to it.

I'm torn between Marguerite Duras and Jean Rhys, both of whom I have read nothing. Any recommendations?

[Mara]

I'm the person who found Wide Sargasso Sea underwhelming. Everyone else loves it.

[Benny Profane]

I'm torn between Marguerite Duras and Jean Rhys, both of whom I have read nothing. Any recommendations?

I'm no help here, but I recommend Venus Drive by Sam Lipsyte, who I'm assuming you haven't read, either.

[Melville]

Just bought for the Kindle Rabbit Redux, but I think I want to read another author before getting to it.

I'm torn between Marguerite Duras and Jean Rhys, both of whom I have read nothing. Any recommendations?
Both are awesome for similar reasons: hazy, dreamlike atmospheres made of movements of pure emotion and the obscurities of intersubjectivity.

I've read only Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. I've read a lot by Duras, my favorites of which are The Ravishing of Lol Stein, The Lover, and Blue Eyes, Black Hair. Summer Rain was also awesome. Duras' books are all fairly ethereal, vague, and fleeting, and when she occasionally drops explicit philosophical notions in the midst of things, they're often groan-inducingingly simplistic, but nobody distills emotion and longing like she does. She's a master of imbuing recurrent images and simple expressions with sublime emotion. The Rhys book is a lot more obviously substantial in its exploration of love, race, and colonialism in terms of the Self being displaced and overwhelmed by the Other, and its use of the tropical Jamaican heat as a setting for that exploration. But it doesn't quite attain the heights that Duras does, in my opinion.

[Raiders]

I'm no help here, but I recommend Venus Drive by Sam Lipsyte, who I'm assuming you haven't read, either.

Have not indeed, though I do remember being intrigued by The Ask. Browsing this on Amazon has reminded me that I also wanted to get to James Hynes' The Lecturer's Tale. Think I'll go Lipsyte, then Updike, then Hynes. That should get me through the next few weeks considering the slowness with which I usually complete a book.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Well, I'll be a dissenting voice for Duras. I've only read The Lover, but I found it instantly forgettable. In fact, I'm having trouble remembering much about it, so here's my original post after finishing it last year:


I read The Lover by Marguerite Duras over the weekend. Pretty frustrating, ultimately disappointing read. Duras is capable of writing passages that are just gorgeous to read, but the structure of the book was dissatisfying. She presents the story of this family as an old woman looking back on her life (and I've read that it's based on her past), but the fractured narrative doesn't do the story justice. She bounces from moment to moment, trying to capture the essence of memory, but in doing so, loses her grip on poignancy. Instead, I always felt like an outsider to these memories, understanding the pain and grief, but never feeling like I was a part of it, or having it affect me in a substantial way. The experience ended up being rather empty, the emotional resonance superficial and fleeting. Duras' talent with prose were wasted.

[D_Davis]

My copy of Michael Cisco's The Great Lover, shipped today! So excited.

[Benny Profane]

Started reading Moby Dick, which I think is the only book I've ever started but didn't finish. That was over 10 years ago. I read the first 30 pages yesterday, and liking it a lot more this time around. It's actually a lot funnier than I remember.

[Chac Mool]

Has anyone read "The Black Minutes", by Martin Solares?

A melting pot of police procedural, society expose and surrealism, packed with literature and film references. It's often an uncomfortable mix, alternating between exhilarating, disgusting, tedious and poignant, but it earns the reader's effort. Halfway through, I wouldn't have recommended it, but by the final pages, I found myself surprisingly involved in the fates of the main characters. Check it out, and stick with it -- you'll be happy you did.

[Melville]

Well, I'll be a dissenting voice for Duras. I've only read The Lover, but I found it instantly forgettable. In fact, I'm having trouble remembering much about it, so here's my original post after finishing it last year:
Well, we both use the word 'fleeting', at least. I think that if she was trying to capture the essence of memory, she failed completely. The essence of memory is in its relation to the present, which I don't think she conveys at all in The Lover. It felt to me more like a drifting through time, through moments and feelings: it's distinctly in the past, unrecoverable and fogged by time, but not brought up by present moments in the way memories are. For me that drifting structure helped create the ethereal atmosphere, cutting out everything except the mood and emotion of the moments, with the moments connected more by those feelings than by concrete narrative events.

[Kurosawa Fan]

The start of the novel sets up an old woman looking back on her life. It definitely felt like the intention was to capture the essence of broken, fading memories. That was the present. That said, I'm not opposed to your interpretation, but where you experienced emotion, I found little. My main criticism, no matter Duras' intent, is that if she intended to cut out everything except the mood and emotion, she failed miserably with the emotion. I'll concede mood, but I wasn't moved in any substantial way by the story or the plot. Her mastery of prose? Definitely moved me, which is why I wouldn't be opposed to reading more of her work in the future.

[Melville]

The start of the novel sets up an old woman looking back on her life. It definitely felt like the intention was to capture the essence of broken, fading memories. That was the present. That said, I'm not opposed to your interpretation, but where you experienced emotion, I found little. My main criticism, no matter Duras' intent, is that if she intended to cut out everything except the mood and emotion, she failed miserably with the emotion. I'll concede mood, but I wasn't moved in any substantial way by the story or the plot. Her mastery of prose? Definitely moved me, which is why I wouldn't be opposed to reading more of her work in the future.
But it's a very general kind of looking back. She says "I often think of...", setting up a reminiscence, a journey through her memories, rather than getting at the essence of memory in itself, the way it forms at those moments in which she thinks of that "...". So maybe it's getting at the essence of a particular kind of engagement with memory and/or one's own past. I'm a big fan of things that develop emotion and character through mood (and a big fan of just exploring mood in itself, independent of everything else), so her style jives well with my taste, but I can understand it leaving people cold. The Ravaging of Lol Stein is probably the most emotional of her books that I've read (also my favorite), and it has more of a narrative, but I think you'd have similar problems with it.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Ah. I see the distinction you're making. That makes more sense, but yeah, without emotional resonance, it was a gorgeous, empty experience for me. However, I was so taken with her writing, I'd still like to give Lol Stein a go.

[elixir]

I should really read and write in this thread more often.

I have found my pleasure reading has suffered greatly in school (and I'm not saying it isn't my fault or anything!), and that most of reading is done now for my english and history classes (excluding textbooks). And while that certainly provides much interesting and intellectually stimulating material, I do want to start reading more often on my own...I've been reading Infinite Jest for months now, and I'm not far into it, even though I am loving it (I guess I'm just telling myself I'm savoring it). I probably plan on picking up Consider the Lobster from the library as well.

In my history class this semester, Modern East Asia (focusing on China, Korea, and Japan), we have read To Live (China), Lost Names (Korea), and Letters from the End of the World (Japan). I would recommend all three, especially if interested in the history of those countries; the first two are historical fiction, the third nonfiction (as the title implies, it is a series of letters).

I'm not sure I'm too great at "reviewing" books (not that I'm any better with writing about movies), so bear with me. Can't get any better without practicing though, right?

To Live (Yu Hua) is a great portrait of a man's struggle and China's struggle as a whole during the years of power shifts between the Nationalists and Communists, and ultimately follows the characters' lives through the Communist takeover, the Great Leap Forward, and so on. The history is very well woven into the text, so nothing feels unnaturally forced as a way to criticize the government--it all comes very organically and the history is the developed through-line rather than just awkward overt references. It perhaps becomes too miserable for its own good, though conditions in those situations were quite bad in some cases, so I'm not sure if that's a valid criticism.

Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood (Richard E. Kim) is my favorite of the bunch, though that may have to do with my predilection towards stories about adolescence/childhood. The book takes place during the Japanese occupation of Korea, with the title coming from the practice of the Japanese to "take away" the Koreans' names and force them to take on Japanese ones. It is pretty representative of what the whole occupation was like, and it's seen through the eyes of a defiant kid of a well-respected Korean man, with clear indications of the father's invovlement in prior and current resistance efforts. What I love most about this book is how it utilizes seven (I think that's the number) different vignettes to show the mood of the Koreans at the time and to accurately paint the historical struggle, but more importantly, it humanizes it all. I find it fascinating to look at not just as a piece of historical fiction, but as a unique portrait of youth in a turbulent time.

Letters From the End of the World: A Firsthand Account of the Bombing of Hiroshima (Toyofumi Ogura) is predictably heart-wrenching--it is so not because of the simple brutality of the imagery, but due to the simple and blunt, and even unsophisticated, prose of the author. The letters are genuine without being too sentimental, and one never gets the sense of bloated self-importance. It's a great document of the time before and after the bomb, with the unflinching horror shown, but also with the author's true judgments revealed, regardless of how it may make him look. He does not ever blame the US really; in fact, he seems to be more disappointed in his own leaders, though ultimately he doesn't play the blame game, but remains more invested in both his own human drama (though not in an overly indulgent manner) and the larger implications of the bomb.

[Duncan]

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/2931/imag0551p.jpg

It's been a long, long wait for this.

I pre-ordered this, but it only shipped today...like a week after I had seen it in stores and wanted to buy it.

[Milky Joe]

Who'd you order it from? There's been a huge snafu about when it was actually released. It was supposed to be released on April 15th (Tax Day), but a lot of the huger distributors got it and released it earlier. It's pissed off a lot of the more local brick-and-mortar places who can't compete with places like Amazon.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Decided to put together a stack of books I own that I want to read by September, starting as soon as this semester is over in three weeks:

The Mill and the Floss - George Eliot
A Garden of Earthly Delights - Joyce Carol Oates
Hopscotch - Julio Cortazar
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (reread)
Blindness - Jose Saramago
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Journey to the End of the Night - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Drop City - T.C. Boyle
If On a Winter's Night a Traveler... - Italo Calvino
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

In no particular order. I'm sure I'll fail miserably, but that's the plan right now.

[kuehnepips]

Do not start with Infinite Jest. :lol:

The Remains of the Day - had me in tears, which doesn't happen often.

[Raiders]

Decided to put together a stack of books I own that I want to read by September, starting as soon as this semester is over in three weeks.

Because I have nothing better to do, I have ranked in order of personal preference those I have read.

As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner (probably my favorite Faulkner, hence one of my favorite books period.)
Journey to the End of the Night - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (I can admit high school killed this book for me, but yeah, just don't like it)

[Melville]

Love
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Like
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

Meh
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Blindness - Jose Saramago
If On a Winter's Night a Traveler... - Italo Calvino

(Though they all have commendable aspects.)

[Duncan]

Who'd you order it from? There's been a huge snafu about when it was actually released. It was supposed to be released on April 15th (Tax Day), but a lot of the huger distributors got it and released it earlier. It's pissed off a lot of the more local brick-and-mortar places who can't compete with places like Amazon.

Ordered it from Amazon. Saw it in Chapters, which is part of Canada's largest chain.

[Mara]

The Mill on the Floss is not my favorite George Eliot. It's not bad, but she's had better. For my money, her masterpiece is Middlemarch, but I'm also a fan of Adam Bede.

I have tried and tried to finish Daniel Deronda but I get stuck on all the chapters upon chapters of Zionist and Kabbalah stuff. It just... never... ends.

[Melville]

Speaking of Duras and Rhys, they're the only female authors I like. And on my list of books to read, only 3 of the 100 are by women. Any recommendations? (Recommendations of Rhys books other than Wide Sargasso Sea would also be good.)

[Raiders]

Speaking of Duras and Rhys, they're the only female authors I like.

I'm hoping this all means you have never read a book by Carson McCullers.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Flannery O'Connor? Carson McCullers? Those are the first two that come to mind. I was so taken with Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" that I went out a few days later and bought one of her novels. Haven't read it yet, but will soon.

[Melville]

I'm hoping this all means you have never read a book by Carson McCullers.
I have not. Heart is a Lonely Hunter?

Edit: oh, yeah, Flannery O'Connor seems up my alley. She's heavy on grotesques, right?

[Raiders]

I have not. Heart is a Lonely Hunter?

RECOMMENDED.

Equally great is Reflections in a Golden Eye. I've mostly made my way through her short story collection, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (also the name of an included novella). Good stuff, but nothing as awesome as the two above novels.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I have not. Heart is a Lonely Hunter?

Edit: oh, yeah, Flannery O'Connor seems up my alley. She's heavy on grotesques, right?

Both authors are magnificent, and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is one of my absolute favorite novels. Definitely a second recommendation here.

[Melville]

RECOMMENDED.
Added to my to-read list, along with a collection of Flannery O'Connor's short stories.

[D_Davis]

Flannery O'Connor, Shirley Jackson, and Ursala K. Le Guin

[Benny Profane]

Speaking of Duras and Rhys, they're the only female authors I like. And on my list of books to read, only 3 of the 100 are by women. Any recommendations?

Mitch Albom.

[D_Davis]

Added to my to-read list, along with a collection of Flannery O'Connor's short stories.


Although knowing that I love O'Connor probably means that you will not. ;)

[Melville]

Although knowing that I love O'Connor probably means that you will not. ;)
Heh. That is a bad sign. But I can't get enough grotesques. I should check out The Lottery just to get the joke in the Simpsons. Not a fan of the Le Guin book I tried to read.


Mitch Albom.
Because he writes effeminate books, or because he was once a woman?

[Milky Joe]

Isak Dinesen. Her novella Ehrengard is one long gender-bending riff on Kierkegaard's Diary of the Seducer, and is quite brilliant.

Virginia Woolf? The Waves.

More recently, Nicole Krauss. The History of Love can be read in a few hours and is quite beautiful.

You might be interested also in Cynthia Ozick.

You might have read it, but Djuna Barnes' Nightwood is a modernist classic.

[D_Davis]

My personal favorite, Murial Spark. I think In the Driver's Seat and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie are amazing.

[Melville]

You might have read it, but Djuna Barnes' Nightwood is a modernist classic.
This sounds amazing. Dinesen sounds good too. I'm mixed on Woolf: disliked To the Lighthouse, loved Mrs. Dalloway (though was annoyed for a while by the goopy prose).

[Ezee E]

Blood Meridian, duh.

I haven't read the others, except Gatsby mind you.

[Duncan]

Speaking of Duras and Rhys, they're the only female authors I like. And on my list of books to read, only 3 of the 100 are by women. Any recommendations? (Recommendations of Rhys books other than Wide Sargasso Sea would also be good.)

You've read Plath? Opening line of The Bell Jar: "It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."

One of my favourite first sentences.

[Mara]

Bless Me, Ultima is making me swear in Spanish again, a habit I effectively broke when I moved from California. I'd forgotten how many cuss words I knew.

[amberlita]

Finally read The Devil in the White City. Wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be but I found myself more engaged with the World's Fair storyline more than I thought I would be given that Holmes' story takes a backburner for much of the book.

[Melville]

You've read Plath? Opening line of The Bell Jar: "It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."

One of my favourite first sentences.
It's always struck me as something I'd be irritated by. Even that first sentence seems too self-consciously, glibly clever, suited to a hardboiled detective novel rather than a story about depression. I like my books at high intensity. My expectations might be wrong, though.

[Derek]

It's always struck me as something I'd be irritated by. Even that first sentence seems too self-consciously, glibly clever, suited to a hardboiled detective novel rather than a story about depression. I like my books at high intensity. My expectations might be wrong, though.

It's been years since I've read it, but I remember it being a lot more about sex than depression and not as po-faced and solipsistic as its reputation may lead you to believe.

[Duncan]

It's always struck me as something I'd be irritated by. Even that first sentence seems too self-consciously, glibly clever, suited to a hardboiled detective novel rather than a story about depression. I like my books at high intensity. My expectations might be wrong, though.

Hmm, establishes voice, theme, time, place, cultural touchstone in 23 rhythmic words. That's impressive to me.

[dreamdead]

Two books into Allegra Goodman and I'm starting to really dig her work, with Intuition being solid; deftly balances cultural context with alert psychological foundations. I'm really seeing a lot that could be done with her texts, especially beyond the usual lit-crit of "how's this book represent Jewishness?" that seems to be the present reading.

Finished up Krauss's The History of Love. Are we meant to believe that Bruno, then, is entirely a construction of Leo's imagination? While solid, this one doesn't have an diverse a set of themes as a few of the other texts I've read this year, so it pales despite a wonderful narrative voice in Leo Gursky.

25 pages into Franzen's Freedom. Not feeling it yet; if it doesn't get more interesting soon it'll be dropped because the investment is too great for a book so immense that I'm not enjoying.

[Raiders]

25 pages into Franzen's Freedom. Not feeling it yet; if it doesn't get more interesting soon it'll be dropped because the investment is too great for a book I'm not enjoying.

Yeah, I wrote a little about my experience with it in the top 10 of 2011 thread, but it is a very frustrating read.

[dreamdead]

Yeah, I wrote a little about my experience with it in the top 10 of 2011 thread, but it is a very frustrating read.

Yeah I was worried about reading this one when I saw your comments.

I think my issue with it thus far is the clinical tone that Franzen adopts in the first chapter--it distances and alienates to such an extent that I too have little invested in the book. B.R. Myers captures some of this hesitation (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/10/smaller-than-life/8212) in his review, and it's especially problematic when I look to another reviewer who draws comparisons with a rapturous book like Allegra Goodman's The Cookbook Collector here (http://www.themillions.com/2011/02/the-big-show-franzen-goodman-and-the-great-american-novel.html), wherein the sexist language of reviewers (that essentially trivializes it) leads to me in turn wanting to champion Goodman and dismiss Franzen, even though strong things happen in Franzen books despite the excess.

[Marley]

Is the "Corrections" worth reading? I've been contemplating reading his works one of these days.

[ledfloyd]

for what it's worth that clinical tone in the first chapter is more or less abandoned after it. i had similar concerns at the start but i couldn't put it down, i finished it in 2 or 3 days or something ridiculous.

[Lucky]

Best Gaiman book you've read?

[Marley]

for what it's worth that clinical tone in the first chapter is more or less abandoned after it. i had similar concerns at the start but i couldn't put it down, i finished it in 2 or 3 days or something ridiculous.

Thanks. I'm not sure when I'll end up getting around to it though.

[Mara]

Best Gaiman book you've read?

You know, I think I like his kid's stuff best. Coraline was excellent and terrifying, and I really enjoyed The Graveyard Book. He also wrote a couple of wonderfully insane picture book called The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish and The Wolves in the Walls.

Then Stardust and Neverwhere were both quite good, and American Gods and Good Omens were pretty good.

I don't think I've ever disliked anything he wrote.


...okay, after a quick Amazon search, he has written a bunch of picture books. ...Must... read... all...

[Benny Profane]

Is the "Corrections" worth reading? I've been contemplating reading his works one of these days.


I really, really loved The Corrections, in spite of some of its flaws, so I'm actually glad that there's some Freedom-bashing going on. It's helping to temper my lofty expectations.

[Marley]

I've decided to put aside Franzen's book for the time being and tackle my first Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury. I'm excited.

[dreamdead]

I really, really loved The Corrections, in spite of some of its flaws, so I'm actually glad that there's some Freedom-bashing going on. It's helping to temper my lofty expectations.

Well, I'm now around p. 350, so I can assure you that Franzen picks up the narrative. I'm worried that it won't finish well, in that our principal characters don't seem to be evolving much, but the central conflict between Patty, Richard, and Walter is too good to go slowly right now. Hopefully it'll continue to build, but I'm nervous.

[Marley]

The second part of Sound and the Fury is utterly perplexing in its experimental prose but nonetheless, engaging. Loving this book so far.

[D_Davis]

Not that ratings are super important, but on sites like Goodreads, how do you all rate short story collections? I find that most of the time I tend to give them 3 stars, and this can be a little deceiving because the collection might contain a couple-few amazing stories. However, a lot of the times these few are mixed in with some that are merely mediocre. Should a short story collection be rated by the best story in the collection, or should you try to find an average? Of course there are some (a few) collections I've read in which almost every single story is amazing. But what about the rest?

[Marley]

Good question. Personally, I would rate the collection as a whole but it would also help if the site provided .5 ratings just to narrow the gap a little.

[D_Davis]

One of my favorite short stories from J.G. Ballard.

(http://the-purest-of-treats.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-i-want-to-fuck-ronald-reagan.html)WHY I WANT TO FUCK RONALD REAGAN (http://the-purest-of-treats.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-i-want-to-fuck-ronald-reagan.html)


RONALD REAGAN AND THE CONCEPTUAL AUTO DISASTER. Numerous studies have been conducted upon patients in terminal paresis (GPI), placing Reagan in a series of simulated auto crashes, e.g. multiple pileups, head-on collisions, motorcade attacks (fantasies of Presidential assassinations remained a continuing preoccupation, subject showing a marked polymorphic fixation on windshields and rear trunk assemblies). Powerful erotic fantasies of an anal-sadistic surrounded the image of the Presidential contender.

Subjects were required to construct the optimum auto disaster victim by placing a replica of Reagan’s head on the unretouched photographs of crash fatalities.

In 82% of cases massive rear-end collisions were selected with a preference for expressed fecal matter and rectal hemorrhages. Further tests were conducted to define the optimum model-year. These indicate that a three year model lapse with child victims provide the maximum audience excitation (confirmed by manufacturers’ studies of the optimum auto disaster). It is hoped to construct a rectal modulous of Reagan and the auto disaster of maximized audience arousal.

Motion picture studies of Ronald Reagan reveal characteristic patterns of facial tones and musculature associated with homoerotic behavior. The continuing tension of buccal sphincters and the recessive tongue role tally with earlier studies of facial rigidity (cf., Adolf Hitler, Nixon). Slow-motion cine films of campaign speeches exercised a marked erotic effect upon an audience of spastic children. Even with mature adults the verbal material was found to have a minimal effect, as demonstrated by substitution of an edited tape giving diametrically opposed opinions...

INCIDENCE OF ORGASMS IN FANTASIES OF SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH RONALD REAGAN. Patients were provided with assembly kit photographs of sexual partners during intercourse. In each case Reagan’s face was super imposed upon the original partner. Vaginal intercourse with "Reagan" proved uniformly disappointing, producing orgasm in 2% of subjects.

Axillary, buccal, navel, aural, and orbital modes produced proximal erections. The preferred mode of entry overwhelmingly proved to be the rectal. After a preliminary course in anatomy it was found that the caecum and transverse colon also provided excellent sites for excitation. In an extreme 12% of cases, the simulated anus of post-costolomy surgery generated spontaneous orgasm in 98% of penetrations. Multiple-track cine-films were constructed of "Reagan" in intercourse during (a) campaign speeches, (b) rear-end auto collisions with one and three year model changes, (c) with rear exhaust assemblies...

SEXUAL FANTASIES IN CONNECTION WITH RONALD REAGAN. The genitalia of the Presidential contender exercised a continuing fascination. A series of imaginary genitalia were constructed using (a) the mouth parts of Jacqueline Kennedy, (b) a Cadillac, (c) the assembly kid prepuce of President Johnson...In 89% of cases, the constructed genitalia generated a high incidence of self-induced orgasm. Tests indicate the masturbatory nature of the Presidential contender’s posture. Dolls consisting of plastic models of Reagan’s alternate genitalia were found to have a disturbing effect on deprived children.

REAGAN'S HAIRSTYLE. Studies were conducted on the marked fascination exercised by the Presidential contender’s hairstyle. 65% of male subjects made positive connections between the hairstyle and their own pubic hair. A series of optimum hairstyles were constructed.

THE CONCEPTUAL ROLE OF REAGAN. Fragments of Reagan’s cinetized postures were used in the construction of model psychodramas in which the Reagan-figure played the role of husband, doctor, insurance salesman, marriage counselor, etc.

The failure of these roles to express any meaning reveals the nonfunctional character of Reagan. Reagan’s success therefore indicates society’s periodic need to re-conceptualize its political leaders. Reagan thus appears as a series of posture concepts, basic equations which reformulate the roles of aggression and anality. Reagan’s personality. The profound anality of the Presidential contender may be expected to dominate the United States in the coming years. By contrast the late JFK remained the prototype of the oral subject, usually conceived in pre-pubertal terms. In further studies sadistic psychopaths were given the task of devising sex fantasies involving Reagan. Results confirm the probability of Presidential figures being perceived primarily in genital terms; the face of LB Johnson is clearly genital in significant appearance--the nasal prepuce, scrotal jaw, etc. Faces were seen as either circumcised (JFK, Khrushchev) or uncircumcised (LBJ, Adenauer). In assembly-kit tests Reagan’s face was uniformly perceived as a penile erection. Patients were encouraged to devise the optimum sex-death of Ronald Reagan.

[D_Davis]

RfI50QX8N5g

Awesome.

[D_Davis]

"They will. Within the last twenty-five years the gross national product has risen by fifty percent, but so have the average hours worked. Ultimately we'll all be working and spending twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No one will dare refuse. Think what a slump would mean-millions of layoffs, people with time on their hands and nothing to spend it on. Real leisure, not just time spent buying things." He seized Franklin by the shoulder. "Well, Doctor, are you going to join me?"

The Subliminal Man, J.G. Ballard

[dreamdead]

Franzen's Freedom is, as Raiders and (I think) others have noted, a supremely frustrating book. At times, there is such empathy with the characters, purposely rendered grotesque, that the book becomes a triumph indeed--Joey's maturation, for example, and how complicated that maturation becomes politically is fascinating. The reverberations of national politics and Walter are also interesting. At other times, however, plot machinations become so transparent (for Patty, whose voice in her writings is so much more nuanced than any scene not from her perspective, that the bitchy character she is there doesn't become her) that Franzen cannot save his structure without sacrificing realism.

I'm thinking specifically of the rote dismissal that Jessica and Lalitha receive, where they are uniformly introduced and dismissed whenever the plot requires of it. That this family receives such full analysis, save for Jessica, is confusing since her perspective is different enough that it would definitely provide a counterpoint, one that Franzen sadly never explores. And Lalitha's death is so transparently a removal of a character that Franzen doesn't know what to do with, so he just abandons how Walter and her were starting to suffer friction. The refusal to be concrete and precise just seems to further reveal Franzen's lack of understanding with what to do about her.

And the last twenty pages, with our uber-Christian and Republican female, are just too exaggerated to be saved in the final two pages. Bah on that.

Strong elements are woven throughout, but the book doesn't come together with the same strength as The Corrections for me.

[D_Davis]

Reading Kingdom Come, by J.G. Ballard, is like peering through a microscope into the very heart and soul of our modern consumer society. It's chilling and oddly hilarious, and somewhat embarrassing. I've said it before, but it's worth repeating: I've never read another author who got the here and now better than Ballard did. We are truly living in a Ballardian world, and his stories are our modern mythology.

His death still bums me out.

[ledfloyd]

i loved freedom but i do agree that the end is heightened to a rather extreme degree. i didn't really mind though because at that point i was pretty much buying whatever franzen was selling.

[Kurosawa Fan]

First book from my summer list: The Great Gatsby. Haven't read it since high school, and my ambivalence for it is probably the ignorance of my youth. Going to try to finish it over the weekend.

[Mara]

First book from my summer list: The Great Gatsby. Haven't read it since high school, and my ambivalence for it is probably the ignorance of my youth. Going to try to finish it over the weekend.

In my unpopular opinion, it never rises above "pretty good." There's nothing wrong with it, it's just overpraised.

[Mara]

Side note: The Great Gatsby, along with To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn are on a list of books that when people tell me that it is their all-time favorite book, I realize they never read a book after high school.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Side note: The Great Gatsby, along with To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn are on a list of books that when people tell me that it is their all-time favorite book, I realize they never read a book after high school.

Huck Finn has such a lousy third act. Truth be told, the more that book lingers in my memory, the worse I think of it. Haven't read Mockingbird.

As for Gatsby, 40 pages in and Nick just slept with a man. That was unexpectedly blatant for a 1920s novel, at least in my experience.

[Melville]

Craziness. Huckleberry Finn is a masterpiece, easily worthy of being a well-read person's favorite (it's just outside my top 10), and has an awesome third act that brilliantly, hilariously satirizes convention in the broadest sense, culminating the whole book's journey-down-a-river-as-journey-out-of-society-to-see-it-from-the-outside. (I'm assuming the third act is the Tom Sawer stuff—I can't remember how the book is structured.)

[Kurosawa Fan]

Yes, it's the Tom Sawyer stuff, and by having Tom Sawyer reenter the picture, Huck is completely neutered, killing his character arc completely, and the way they play with Jim's life damages any progressive attitude about race Twain had earned in the first two parts of the novel.

[Ezee E]

I've read plenty and Catcher in the Rye is probably still my tops. 'sokay?

Otherwise 80629 is right there at #2.

[Melville]

Yes, it's the Tom Sawyer stuff, and by having Tom Sawyer reenter the picture, Huck is completely neutered, killing his character arc completely, and the way they play with Jim's life damages any progressive attitude about race Twain had earned in the first two parts of the novel.
Completely disagree on both counts. The way they play with Jim's life is the pinnacle of the book's satire: Tom Sawyer insists on doing everything "the way it's done" simply because that's the way it's done. Tom Sawyer is the perfect symbol of blindly following convention. And he's hilarious. And much as Huck admires and likes Tom, he can't help but see the absurdity, leading to the conclusion of his arc, with him continuing on down the river outside society.

[Kurosawa Fan]

But it's not just that they play with his life, it's that Twain eliminates Jim's voice from the novel. He's nothing more than a wallflower after the Duke and the King show up. And Huck was always running away from things at home, so his running away does nothing for his arc. On the river with Jim, he had learned to speak for himself and take the lead, and when Tom shows up, he may see the absurdity, but he's back to being trodden over and yielding to Tom in whatever he wants. Thus he reverts back to how he was in the town. It kills his arc, it doesn't complete it. And semantics, but he doesn't continue on down the river, he strikes off west.

[Melville]

But it's not just that they play with his life, it's that Twain eliminates Jim's voice from the novel. He's nothing more than a wallflower after the Duke and the King show up.
I don't think Twain making Jim voiceless negates what the ending accomplishes in its broader satire. Though I'm partial to radical narrative shifts.


And Huck was always running away from things at home, so his running away does nothing for his arc. On the river with Jim, he had learned to speak for himself and take the lead, and when Tom shows up, he may see the absurdity, but he's back to being trodden over and yielding to Tom in whatever he wants. Thus he reverts back to how he was in the town. It kills his arc, it doesn't complete it.
I don't remember what Huck says when they first run off, but it follows events that prompt him to do so: running from his father, running to get Jim to the free states, etc. Whereas in the end it's a response to society in itself: "Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before." And unless I'm misremembering, in the beginning he not only doesn't see Tom's absurdity, but stays civilized in order to follow it, whereas in the end he does see it. Like the mythic hero, he returns to society after his journey outside it—but then he opts to leave it again.

Even if his arc is somewhat flat, the arc of the novel isn't: Tom's larks are made absurd, and their meaning in terms of social convention in general is made clear, by the journey proceeding them. And arc aside, Huck's just an awesome narrator.


And semantics, but he doesn't continue on down the river, he strikes off west.
I meant it metaphorically. Though striking off west has a stronger connotation of freedom from society, so I should have distinguished between them.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Huck was certainly an awesome narrator, which made that third act all the more disappointing. But you and I aren't going to agree on this. You place far more value on Tom and his presence in the novel than myself. He's a flash in the beginning, quickly brushed aside in favor of Huck and Jim. Their journey is fascinating, and makes for an amazing read, and then in one of the more egregious ironies in literature, Tom reappears after 300 pages to take command of the narrative again. Where you see brilliant satire of conventions, I see Twain struggling to end his story satisfactorily. Where you find humor, I find frustration. My experience with the novel was one in which all the time Twain took in between writing the novel created glaring flaws in a consistent vision and tone, with a denouement that couldn't feel more cheap. I think people give Twain far more credit than he deserves.

And, as I mentioned before, I think the book ends up reinforcing the racism it's often credited with criticizing, as every black character, Jim included, is portrayed as nothing more than a superstitious fool.

[Melville]

And, as I mentioned before, I think the book ends up reinforcing the racism it's often credited with criticizing, as every black character, Jim included, is portrayed as nothing more than a superstitious fool.
I agree it doesn't really have much of relevance or depth to say about race. Its criticism of slavery forms a part of its broad criticism of people, civilization, and social convention in general, but that's as far as it goes. Though if you dislike it for reinforcing racism, I'm surprised you liked Heart of Darkness so much (another of my favorites and another great river journey).

[Kurosawa Fan]

I agree it doesn't really have much of relevance or depth to say about race. Its criticism of slavery forms a part of its broad criticism of people, civilization, and social convention in general, but that's as far as it goes. Though if you dislike it for reinforcing racism, I'm surprised you liked Heart of Darkness so much (another of my favorites and another great river journey).

Oh, I'm not sure I can go there again. I argued in my class that I don't find Heart of Darkness to be racist. There is certainly very ugly racism present, but Conrad makes a pretty clear distinction between the racism of his characters, with their description of the natives as brutish monsters, and his own belief that those who were "colonizing" that part of Africa were far more monstrous. There weren't many who agreed with me, and the debates got a bit heated, but I wrote an entire paper on it, arguing against Chinua Achebe's "An Image of Africa," and his belief that Conrad was a racist and that the novel needs to be relieved of its canonical status.

[Mara]

I've read plenty and Catcher in the Rye is probably still my tops. 'sokay?

I was going to list my marginals for the category, which include books that may or may not indicate that a person continued reading after high school. That list includes Catcher in the Rye, 1984 and Animal Farm. EDIT: And The Scarlet Letter.

In the first, egregious category I also include Lord of the Flies.

There's nothing wrong with any of the books I listed. I just think that in the first category are books that are sort of "introductory" literature that help ease a student into more challenging works later on. I'm suspicious of people who never seemed to have progressed beyond that.

And, yes, I am a judgmental person. But we knew that.

[Melville]

Oh, I'm not sure I can go there again. I argued in my class that I don't find Heart of Darkness to be racist. There is certainly very ugly racism present, but Conrad makes a pretty clear distinction between the racism of his characters, with their description of the natives as brutish monsters, and his own belief that those who were "colonizing" that part of Africa were far more monstrous. There weren't many who agreed with me, and the debates got a bit heated, but I wrote an entire paper on it, arguing against Chinua Achebe's "An Image of Africa," and his belief that Conrad was a racist and that the novel needs to be relieved of its canonical status.
I don't find either book racist, or at least I don't really care either way. Huck Finn's black characters fit within its very broad social exploration, in which most of the characters are fairly ridiculous, and Heart of Darkness's fit within its depiction of colonialism as a journey into a dark, vast tangle of selfness and otherness. Heart of Darkness benefits in that regard by explicitly framing the book as a story told from the perspective of the colonists (sort of), but I don't recall it ever offering a different view of the natives. Though I guess if you're going to be bothered by something, its depiction of women, in the way it relates the two wives of Kurtz, might be more troublesome.


There's nothing wrong with any of the books I listed. I just think that in the first category are books that are sort of "introductory" literature that help ease a student into more challenging works later on. I'm suspicious of people who never seemed to have progressed beyond that.
http://planetsmilies.net/confused-smiley-17420.gif

What are your favorite books, and in what ways are they so drastically better than the 'non-challenging works' you mention that people who favor those 'non-challenging works' invite suspicion and baseless assumptions about what they've read?

[Mara]

What are your favorite books, and in what ways are they so drastically better than the 'non-challenging works' you mention that people who favor those 'non-challenging works' invite suspicion and baseless assumptions about what they've read?

I sense I've touched a nerve. I didn't mean to.

You're a scientist, right? I'm not. I enjoyed my science classes well enough, but I might have pursued it more aggressively if I had more of an aptitude for mathematics. Which I don't. If you tried to discuss science with me, it would be obvious early in the conversation that I didn't study it very long or hard.

There's nothing wrong with the science I did learn. It wasn't incorrect. It was just introductory, and I never went far beyond that.

So, I'm not going to say that the great books I read later in life were "better," but I will admit they are more challenging. I'm glad I didn't read them in high school, because I wasn't emotionally or intellectually ready to read them at that point. I'm sure there's even more out there that I'm not ready to read even yet, and that I need to strengthen and deepen myself intellectually before I'm ready to tackle them.

And let me reiterate: less challenging books are not bad. To this day, I read and enjoy picture books, children's literature, and young adult literature.

I don't have a solid list of favorite books, but let's try an example of two books I like: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and Middlemarch by George Eliot. I read P&P in high school, and I loved it. I should: it's a very good book. It's a social satire and romance, and enjoyable. It is not, however, particularly challenging. It's an easy read, with likeable and unlikeable characters clearly delineated, where the bad are punished and the good are rewarded and nearly everyone ends up happily married.

I didn't read Middlemarch until college, and I'm glad I waited. It is a more challenging book. The prose, although beautiful, is dense. The novel ambitiously spans nearly every strata in Victorian society, and provides thoughtful, in-depth analysis of the social constructs of the time period, including politics, marriage, alliances, religion, idealism and feminism. If I'd tried to read it at the time I read P&P (I think I was about fifteen) I would have been intimidated and bored.

On the surface, the books may look similar. They were both written by white, English women of high birth and published within sixty years of each other. But one is more challenging.

So, let's get to the judgmental part. I don't like talking about books with people who don't read. Some people will admit up front that they don't read, and then we can talk about something else. For whatever reason, though, some people will pretend to be well-read and want to have a conversation about literature even though they haven't picked up a book since high school. I find this situation frustrating and embarassing, and I end up having a variation of that conversation more often than I'd like.

And, although I know it doesn't make me sound like a nice person, I also don't like talking to people who read bad books. By "bad books" I mean romance novels, dime-a-dozen paperback mystery or action novels, etc. Hack books. Schlock.

In both those situations, an early warning sign, for me, that I'm in a conversation that I'd rather not be in is that they'll be quick to tell me a "favorite book" and it will be something widely read in high school.

Huck Finn is not a bad book. I would never suggest that. It's a really good book, and I have a lot of admiration for Mark Twain as a writer. I know, from interacting with on you on the boards, that you're well-read. If you tell me that Huck Finn is in your top ten, then I figure that you have compared it to other great books you've read and you find it to be better. That's a legitimate choice. But I don't want to discuss books with someone for whom Huck Finn is the only good book they've ever read.

[ledfloyd]

my favorite equation is y = mx + b.

[Melville]

But I don't want to discuss books with someone for whom Huck Finn is the only good book they've ever read.
I wouldn't want to either, but that's very different than this:

Side note: The Great Gatsby, along with To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn are on a list of books that when people tell me that it is their all-time favorite book, I realize they never read a book after high school.
You were being glib there, but I think a person's favorite book being relatively simple and often taught in high school is a pretty bad reason for suspecting they haven't read a lot or can't carry on an interesting conversation about literature (especially in cases where the books are highly acclaimed for decades or centuries—obviously the acclaim is coming from somewhere). There's probably a correlation, and you've evidently encountered a correlation in the people you've met, but casting such a wide net of aspersion based on that strikes me as extremely presumptuous.

[Melville]

my favorite equation is y = mx + b.
1+1=2 owns y=mx+b.

[Mara]

There's probably a correlation, and you've evidently encountered a correlation in the people you've met, but casting such a wide net of aspersion based on that strikes me as extremely presumptuous.

That's probably fair, and in my first comment, you're right; I was being glib. I shouldn't judge someone's entire literary history based on one book. But the truth is, I do see it as a little bit of a red flag.

Not as much as if they listed a really bad book as their all-time favorite, like say The Da Vinci Code. Which I hated. That's a sign of immediate incompatibility.

[Mara]

1+1=2

There's a certain elegance to the classics.

[Melville]

There's a certain elegance to the classics.
My judgment is influenced by currently reading Frege's Foundations of Arithmetic. Highly recommended to those interested in logic and the question of how to define fundamental mathematical concepts (in this case, numbers). There must be hordes of such people about...

[elixir]

I'll talk about literature with anyone who wants to discuss it with me. Just my two cents.

[Chac Mool]

So do I suck because I can't connect emotionally to most of Hemingway's stuff?

[elixir]

So do I suck because I can't connect emotionally to most of Hemingway's stuff?

Well, I don't think so. Maybe I suck too since I haven't connected to his stuff either. I've only read The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms though.

[Melville]

I don't find much emotional connection in Hemingway's books either, though I like most of the ones I've read. But I think he's good at conveying a sense of muted, weary futility and/or striving to maintain oneself in the face of it, aided by his prose, which I think is suitably clunky and drab. My lack of emotional connection probably stems partly from his tendency to center the futility on lost virility or emasculation, which I can't really relate to (though he explores it well, and one thing I like about him is that he gets me to understand something I don't have an immediate feeling for). Also, his characters and prose just aren't very emotive or expressive.

Hemingway ranked:
The Old Man and the Sea - 8.5
A Farewell to Arms - 8
The Sun also Rises - 7
For Whom the Bell Tolls - 2

[dreamdead]

So do I suck because I can't connect emotionally to most of Hemingway's stuff?

I find myself able to identify with almost all the other major (American) Modernist authors over Hemingway. Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Dos Passos, Cather, West, and most others all endeavor to craft more earnest scenarios and characters, even though the whole bastard mentality of The Sun Also Rises is part of the point. Robert Cohn is worthy of sympathy, even if no one, Hemingway included, is willing to grant him that worth.

Edit: What Melville said. :)

[ledfloyd]

1+1=2 owns y=mx+b.
1+1=2 is for people that never did math after elementary school. whenever someone tells me their favorite equation is 1+1=2 i find something else to talk about.

[Marley]

Well, I don't think so. Maybe I suck too since I haven't connected to his stuff either. I've only read The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms though.

I actually recently finished reading the latter and my reaction was the same. It baffles me that this novel is held in such high-esteem since it came across as completely prosaic without much substance. Or maybe I didn't fully comprehend what Hemmingway intended to do with this novel and its subtext went over my head. Either way, I know what I like and this novel did nothing for me. I'm not going to give up on him just yet but consider me unimpressed for the time being. Nonetheless, I have enjoyed a few of his short stories so there is still hope!

[Melville]

1+1=2 is for people that never did math after elementary school. whenever someone tells me their favorite equation is 1+1=2 i find something else to talk about.
:lol:

[Qrazy]

I was going to list my marginals for the category, which include books that may or may not indicate that a person continued reading after high school. That list includes Catcher in the Rye, 1984 and Animal Farm. EDIT: And The Scarlet Letter.

In the first, egregious category I also include Lord of the Flies.

There's nothing wrong with any of the books I listed. I just think that in the first category are books that are sort of "introductory" literature that help ease a student into more challenging works later on. I'm suspicious of people who never seemed to have progressed beyond that.

And, yes, I am a judgmental person. But we knew that.

What about Crime and Punishment? Because I read that in high school but I'd be hard pressed to say it wasn't either my favorite or at least close to it.

[Raiders]

I have read a ton of books since reading Lord of the Flies in 9th or 10th grade, and very, very few of them have been as great.

[Kurosawa Fan]

What about Crime and Punishment? Because I read that in high school but I'd be hard pressed to say it wasn't either my favorite or at least close to it.

Well now that's just good common sense.

[Mara]

What about Crime and Punishment? Because I read that in high school but I'd be hard pressed to say it wasn't either my favorite or at least close to it.

Was that curriculum? Because I'm impressed if a teacher assigned that.

Speaking of Russian literature, I'm finally reading Anna Karenina, which is my first Tolstoy other than The Death of Ivan Ilyich. It's pretty amazing so far.

[elixir]

I read Crime and Punishment in high school (as part of the curriculum). I thought that wasn't really out of the ordinary. It was in twelfth grade though.

[Mara]

Nice.

Also, I was speaking with a nice kid I know, I think he's sixteen, and found out his school doesn't teach 1984, which I love. I talked him into reading it and now feel like I had a productive day.

[Melville]

What about Crime and Punishment? Because I read that in high school but I'd be hard pressed to say it wasn't either my favorite or at least close to it.
Read Brothers Karamazov. Also, recommend me some analytic philosophy. Here's what little I've read:

Frege: Foundations of Arithmetic - 8.5
Quine: From a Logical Point of View - 7.5
Ayers: Language, Truth and Logic - 6.5
Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico Philosophicus - 5.5
Wittgenstein: On Certainty - 7
Larsen & Segal: Knowledge of Meaning (textbook on formal semantics) - 4
Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy - 2

The only one on my to-read list is Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. So far, I find that the best analytical philosophy is the very formal stuff focused strictly on language, logic, and math. The more it tries to broach wider philosophical issues, the less I like it. Though maybe more contemporary analytic philosophers are better at that.

EDIT: I didn't realize Kuhn was published by the Vienna Circle.
Kuhn: Structure of Scientific Revolutions - 7

[Mara]

I also convinced his 12-year-old sister to read the White Mountains trilogy and The Perilous Guard. I'm the Easter Bunny.

[Milky Joe]

Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico Philosophicus - 5.5

Not that I'm an expert, but guh.

Also, C&P is my least favorite Dostoevsky that I've read.

[Lucky]

We were also taught C&P in senior English and at the end our project was a mock murder trial with Rodya. Four students were lawyers (2 defense, 2 prosecuting) and the rest of the students portrayed a character from the novel for testimony. Costumes and all. I got to be the court psychologist. It was fun. ...need I mention I was very nerdy in highschool?

[Kurosawa Fan]

Let me again take a moment to lament the suckitude of having attended a Lutheran high school and not being assigned even one quality book to read. It was all really corny Christian lit, and I couldn't bring myself to read any of it. I had to seek all these works out on my own. Seriously, I didn't have one book assigned that would be considered canonical in any way, shape or form.

[ledfloyd]

i finally finished Ada bringing my total of books read in 2011 up to... one. at least it was masterpiece?

[Marley]

i finally finished Ada bringing my total of books read in 2011 up to... one. at least it was masterpiece?

Better than nothing at all. Besides, it's not a race and that seems like a beast of a book. I really want to read Pale Fire since Lolita is one of my favorite books, like, ever.

[ledfloyd]

pale fire is one of my favorite books ever. but so is lolita. and ada.

[Raiders]

Yeah, Pale Fire is wonderful. Just stay away from Pnin.

[ledfloyd]

Yeah, Pale Fire is wonderful. Just stay away from Pnin.
i was planning on heading there next. no good?

[Milky Joe]

I, too, would like to know what's wrong with good professor Pnin.

[Melville]

Not that I'm an expert, but guh.
Pretty much my response to the book. He asserts, without argument, a restricted metaphysical definition of the world and a restricted definition of language, then concludes that because of these restrictive assertions, most philosophical statements (including these very same assertions) are nonsense because they aren't of the form he prescribes. That all seems egregiously, pointlessly limited. There are a lot of interesting ideas in it, but I think it's ultimately philosophically wrongheaded, and its lack of argumentation makes it abstruse (or at least ambiguous) and unconvincing.

In response to my own request to Qrazy, I looked up some recommendations of analytic philosophy and found this list of the best 20th century philosophy books, as determined by a poll of philosophy teachers in America (and hence weighted heavily toward analytical philosophy):
http://lindenbranch.weblogs.us/archives/878
I'm thinking I should read some Rawls.


Let me again take a moment to lament the suckitude of having attended a Lutheran high school and not being assigned even one quality book to read. It was all really corny Christian lit, and I couldn't bring myself to read any of it. I had to seek all these works out on my own. Seriously, I didn't have one book assigned that would be considered canonical in any way, shape or form.
Yeah, Shakespeare plays were the only canonical books that I studied in-class in my high school English courses. I wrote essays on some books that are still among my favorites (Catch-22, Nausea, Ulysses, Lord of the Rings), but they were never assigned reading.

[Qrazy]

Was that curriculum? Because I'm impressed if a teacher assigned that.


Yep, junior year summer reading.

[Qrazy]

Read Brothers Karamazov. Also, recommend me some analytic philosophy. Here's what little I've read:

Frege: Foundations of Arithmetic - 8.5
Quine: From a Logical Point of View - 7.5
Ayers: Language, Truth and Logic - 6.5
Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico Philosophicus - 5.5
Wittgenstein: On Certainty - 7
Larsen & Segal: Knowledge of Meaning (textbook on formal semantics) - 4
Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy - 2

The only one on my to-read list is Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. So far, I find that the best analytical philosophy is the very formal stuff focused strictly on language, logic, and math. The more it tries to broach wider philosophical issues, the less I like it. Though maybe more contemporary analytic philosophers are better at that.

EDIT: I didn't realize Kuhn was published by the Vienna Circle.
Kuhn: Structure of Scientific Revolutions - 7

You should read some G.E. Moore. I haven't read a full book by him, just essays and excerpts but his Ethics is probably a good go to place. Based on what you said you're looking for Russell's 'On Denoting' might be worth a glance. Ryle's Concept of Mind is worth a look and Bloom's response to him. RM Hare's The Language of Morals is also interesting for his development of prescriptivism. Rawls could be loosely grouped in the analytic field and Justice as Fairness (which you've probably read) is a must read. Also check out some Kripke and some Austin. I don't know, for most of these guys you really don't need to read their full books.

I mean analytic philosophy in it's early form is pretty much dead so I don't know how much time you want to spend on it but it's certainly interesting from a historical perspective and it's influence can still be felt today. You may just want to read some Stanford summaries on a few of these guys and then choose to explore them further if the ideas interest you. German idealism is far more interesting imo. Also, read Spinoza's Ethics.

[Qrazy]

Not that I'm an expert, but guh.

Also, C&P is my least favorite Dostoevsky that I've read.

Clearly you do not contemplate murdering old women frequently. Fail.

[Qrazy]

i was planning on heading there next. no good?

Laughter in the Dark is fairly solid.

[Qrazy]

I'm thinking I should read some Rawls.


Yes.

[ledfloyd]

i'm trying to think of "good" books we read in high school. we read a tale of two cities but i didn't care for that. of mice and men was pretty good. lord of the flies. romeo and juliet and julius caesar. we were assigned moby dick but i just read the cliff notes, i read the actual book last year and really loved it. pretty much everything else we were assigned was junk.

[Mara]

Worst books that are often taught as curriculum in high school?

I'm throwing out Frankenstein, just because that book bugs me.

[Raiders]

I, too, would like to know what's wrong with good professor Pnin.

Well, humor is the most subjective thing and I didn't really find it particularly amusing which seemed to me the book's biggest supposed asset. Nabokov couldn't write a dull book if he tried with his great mastery of language and prose, but much of the characterization sort of just ran together, jumbled around in the words and the rather simple narrative fussed up with a lot of time and POV shifts. It is hardly a bad book, but if looking for Nabokov's best I would say it is nowhere near there.

It was my second of his many years ago, so I'm not going to definitively write it off.

[Benny Profane]

Worst books that are often taught as curriculum in high school?

I'm throwing out Frankenstein, just because that book bugs me.

A Separate Peace for me.

[Mara]

A Separate Peace for me.

Forgettable. Something about a kid falling out of a tree?

By the way, I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn when I was pretty young, and I remember absolutely nothing about it except that there's an alcoholic father and a one-or-two page subplot about a kid who won't wean off the breast. The latter was so disturbing to me that I remember it almost word-for-word, although I've forgotten the bulk of the book.

A couple of years ago, my sister and I were talking to a third person, who mentioned she loved the book. My sister immediately piped up, "Is that the book with that freaky part about the kid who won't give up breast-feeding?"

I find it really amusing that we both latched on to the same minuscule plot point.

[Mara]

Found it. Still creepy.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/maragirl/gussie1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/maragirl/gussie2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/maragirl/gussie3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/maragirl/gussie4.jpg

[Qrazy]

Forgettable. Something about a kid falling out of a tree?

By the way, I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn when I was pretty young, and I remember absolutely nothing about it except that there's an alcoholic father and a one-or-two page subplot about a kid who won't wean off the breast. The latter was so disturbing to me that I remember it almost word-for-word, although I've forgotten the bulk of the book.

A couple of years ago, my sister and I were talking to a third person, who mentioned she loved the book. My sister immediately piped up, "Is that the book with that freaky part about the kid who won't give up breast-feeding?"

I find it really amusing that we both latched on to the same minuscule plot point.

Kazan did quite a good adaptation of this.

[Qrazy]

Found it. Still creepy.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/maragirl/gussie4.jpg

Why is a 4 year old child drinking black coffee?

[Mara]

Why is a 4 year old child drinking black coffee?

Because he couldn't get breast milk?

Seriously, I was twelve when I read this book. It was very disturbing.

[Qrazy]

Because he couldn't get breast milk?

Seriously, I was twelve when I read this book. It was very disturbing.

Why is he drinking coffee at all?

[Melville]

You should read some G.E. Moore. I haven't read a full book by him, just essays and excerpts but his Ethics is probably a good go to place. Based on what you said you're looking for Russell's 'On Denoting' might be worth a glance. Ryle's Concept of Mind is worth a look and Bloom's response to him. RM Hare's The Language of Morals is also interesting for his development of prescriptivism. Rawls could be loosely grouped in the analytic field and Justice as Fairness (which you've probably read) is a must read. Also check out some Kripke and some Austin. I don't know, for most of these guys you really don't need to read their full books.
I have Concept of Mind, but none of the other stuff. I'll look into all of it. I might have read an analysis of the Russell before. If I've read any Rawls, it would have been a short selection in a first-year course.


Also, read Spinoza's Ethics.
I'll read it when you read Brothers Karamazov. Or Jimmy Corrigan.


Why is a 4 year old child drinking black coffee?
Yeah, that line took a good story and made it great. Worked perfectly with the fat pale cigar, too.

[Mara]

Yeah, that line took a good story and made it great. Worked perfectly with the fat pale cigar, too.

And him idly throwing dice. He's a coffee-drinking, gambling, cigar-smoking badass.

[Qrazy]

I have Concept of Mind, but none of the other stuff. I'll look into all of it. I might have read an analysis of the Russell before. If I've read any Rawls, it would have been a short selection in a first-year course.


I'll read it when you read Brothers Karamazov. Or Jimmy Corrigan.


Karamazov it is. Yeah I need to read more Rawls as well. I mean he's basically just coming at the categorical imperative from a slightly different angle, but it's a valuable angle.

[Mysterious Dude]

I think the "worst" book I read in school was The Watsons Go to Birmingham. It's not really bad, but I can't help thinking it made it into the curriculum due to some kind of Affirmative Action.

[Mara]

Great, great article by Michael Chabon (whom I love) about The Phantom Tollbooth (which I love.)

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/apr/21/michael-chabon-phantom-tollbooth-wonder-words/

[Hugh_Grant]

Worst books that are often taught as curriculum in high school?

I'm throwing out Frankenstein, just because that book bugs me.

I've heard that The Lovely Bones is now on a lot of high school reading lists. *shudder* And The Kite Runner *double shudder*

[Mara]

I've heard that The Lovely Bones is now on a lot of high school reading lists. *shudder* And The Kite Runner *double shudder*

Oh, for the love of little green apples.

[D_Davis]

Kingdom Come, by J.G. Ballard

J.G. Ballard once again focuses his lens on modern living in this absurdly hilarious and damningly scathing examination of consumerism taken to the extreme. In the suburbs outside of London, a giant shopping mall - The Metro-Centre - stands as a consumer cathedral, looming over the motorway cities. Inside, gods and shrines to washing machines, toasters, and microwave ovens are erected, as shoppers - respecting the merchandise more than themselves or others - live their empty lives mindlessly marching from one sale to another. Outside of the Metro-Centre, the sporting arenas create an atmosphere of jingoism and cultural-imperialism as violent spectators take to the streets to bash in the heads of immigrants and anyone who doesn't belong - THE ENEMY.

I've said it before, but it's worth repeating: there is not an author alive nor dead who understood modern society better than J.G. Ballard. We are living in his world, now. His fiction - often set "five minutes into the future" - is a body of work consisting of myths of the near future. To read Ballard is to gather a glimpse into the very heart, mind, and soul of our modern world. He didn't create the satire, he simply exposed it all for the sham that it is.

[D_Davis]

My Fresno book haul - purchased at a thrift store and a couple of used book stores.

http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/227955_179796575404328_1000012 19601760_464403_2259036_n.jpg

[D_Davis]

Wish I had about $500 to spend at this one place - their Saroyan shelf was amazing.

[ledfloyd]

love chabon. i have somehow avoided the phantom toolbooth.

i picked up emma donoghue's room and nabokov's speak, memory at the library this afternoon.

[Benny Profane]

i picked up emma donoghue's room

Heard nothing but great things about Room. Want to read at some point.

[Mara]

One of the reasons that the epic novel often bothers me is that you'll sometimes get long stretches that seem to do nothing but advance the length of the book. I don't mind reading 800 pages of plot, but I'm going to get annoyed if you bloat 20 pages explaining the lineage of a character's racehorse.

For the most part, I'm enjoying Anna Karenina, but then there was an entire chapter about Vronsky's household expenses and various sources of income, and it could not have been more dull.

Then I was immediately sucked back in by, in the very next chapter, the delineation of Vronsky's moral code (after he has seduced a married woman into an adulterous affair.)


This code covered a very small circle of conditions, but it was unquestionable, and Vronsky, never going beyond that circle, never for a moment hesitated to do what had to be done. The code categorically determined that though the card-sharper must be paid, the tailor need not be; that one may not lie to a man, but might to a woman; that one must not deceive anyone, except a husband; that one must not forgive an insult but may insult others, and so on. These rules might be irrational and bad but they were absolute, and in complying with them Vronsky felt at ease and could carry his head high.

Good stuff.

[Mysterious Dude]

One of the reasons that the epic novel often bothers me is that you'll sometimes get long stretches that seem to do nothing but advance the length of the book.I said this about The Brothers Karamazov, and Melville called me stupid. I think that was his exact word.

[Mara]

I said this about The Brothers Karamazov, and Melville called me stupid. I think that was his exact word.

Ha! Sorry, but it's true. Authors are sometimes paid by the word, and they get hungry just like everyone else.

[Raiders]

I don't really have any actual issue with the length of either Anna Karenina or Brothers Karamazov as both are ones I love, but it probably does say something that The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Notes from Underground, both clocking in at just over 100 pages, are my two favorites from each author.

[Raiders]

Currently reading Rabbit Redux and I do have to admit that I am agreeing a little with the most common criticism that Skeeter's diatribes, while rhythmically written, are a little tiresome and occasionally I find myself wanting to skip ahead. I was surprised when I saw this book was much longer than the previous one, and unfortunately this seems to be a large part of why. Still, Updike captures the character of Rabbit, and the end-of-the-60s, Vietnam-era really well.

[Benny Profane]

Currently reading Rabbit Redux and I do have to admit that I am agreeing a little with the most common criticism that Skeeter's diatribes, while rhythmically written, are a little tiresome and occasionally I find myself wanting to skip ahead. I was surprised when I saw this book was much longer than the previous one, and unfortunately this seems to be a large part of why. Still, Updike captures the character of Rabbit, and the end-of-the-60s, Vietnam-era really well.

Definitely my least favorite of the quadrilogy for reasons you just cited, but still liked it a lot.

[dreamdead]

Continuing my 9/11 fiction streak, I am 100 pages into Jess Walter's The Zero, which is thankfully exploring different terrain than the other 9/11 writers (DeLillo, Foer, Schwartz, Goodman). I suspect that Walter will soon start providing answers, as I'm still caught up in covering narrative elements. Some of the commentary about the victim memorials and class, though, are interesting. And the Helleresque tone is quite nice.

[D_Davis]

http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/f1/61/f161c24339dbdd5593962425567434 d414f4541.jpg

Picked up a new copy of this. My parents' old dog destroyed my last copy years ago. Found one in Fresno this week, and I'm re-reading it now.

Saroyan can make even the most mundane of activities and places seem like the most extraordinary things a human being has ever experienced. The man was a genius.

He was elegant, funny, and used words with a mastery of brevity; he had the uncanny power to focus in on the exact thing that needed to be described in order to expose the perfect emotion for the moment.

I am proud to be from Fresno because of him.

[Marley]

I've never even heard of Saroyan before so I'll keep an eye out for some of his works.

[D_Davis]

Not too many people have these days, even though he won a Pulitzer. He always stayed under the radar except for among immigrant groups in California. He's my favorite author of American lit, his stage plays are incredible, but it is his memoirs that really do it for me. He lived an amazing life.

[D_Davis]

I'm also reading Tales of Wonder, the autobiography of Huston Smith. As the father of comparative religion studies in the west, Smith knew MLK, and father Thomas Merton, was friends with the Dalai Lama and Aldous Huxley, and he dropped acid with Leary. He practiced Hinduism, Budhsim and Islam, all while remaining a Christian man. He is truly a remarkable person who lived one of the most remarkable lives I've ever encountered.

[Derek]

He lived an amazing life.

So he obviously got out of Fresno then? ;)

Never heard of him either, but I'll keep my eye out for him now.

[D_Davis]

So he obviously got out of Fresno then? ;)

Never heard of him either, but I'll keep my eye out for him now.

Yeah, he did. :) But he'd always go back to reconnect with the Armenian immigrants and regroup after he'd blow all his money gambling, drinking and smoking around the world.

His most famous works are The Human Comedy, My Name is Aram, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, and The Time of Your Life, for which he won the Pulitzer, a play he wrote in 6 days on a bet.

[D_Davis]

The Places Where I've Done Time, by William Saroyan

Turned off tonight's episode of The Military Theater before the main actor could perform his monologue to do something that actually matters - read, and finish, a damn good book. Some things never change. We've killed one head, and seven more will rise in power. There will be more violence; there will be retaliation. More will die. But there are good things that never change, things like a good painting, or piece of music, or book. Returning to this wonderful collection of 68 short, anecdotal stories has reminded me of this.

But I too have changed since the last time I read Saroyan's thought-provoking, funny, tragic, sorrowful, and humorous autobiography-of-sorts. I've grown into a man, and thus I appreciate the man Saroyan was even more. His triumphs, his faults, all are more meaningful.

So while some people will never forget where they were the night they found out that some extremist, bearded, cave-dwelling Luddite was killed, I will try to never forget where I was when I finished this book for the second time: on my red couch, in my apartment, in Greenwood, Seattle, while listening to Steve Roach's Structures from Silence with my dog Luna curled up at my feet, and my dog Simon asleep, snoring, on the couch cushion.

After all, this is a book about important places, and when you are doing something good, no matter where you are it is an important place.

[D_Davis]

Given the current climate of "USA! USA!" I don't think I could pick a more perfect time to read this.

http://www.bhatt.id.au/blogimg/hello-america-jg-ballard.gif

[Benny Profane]

I finished Moby Dick. I suppose my issues with the book are very unoriginal. Mainly the 300 page middle section where two out of every three chapters diverge from the narrative to describe the process of whale hunting. It's not that they are written poorly, or even drily, it's just that they are excessive, and not entirely interesting, to me, in the year 2011. There's a chapter called The Glory and Honor of Whale Hunting (or something like that) and at a certain point I said to myself "I'm surprised that's not the title for the book!". If it's possible to be too proud of your profession, then Ishmael is a prime example. After awhile his exuberance becomes slightly annoying. All told, I would rather the expoundings be incorporated more into the story.

That being said, for a novel about adventure, obsession, and the relationship between human beings and an uncaring nature and the imprint they leave upon one another, it's very gripping. The maniacal, mysterious Ahab is iconic and fascinating and one of the greatest characters ever written. I'm glad I read the true story that this is based on, as it made the ferociousness of the whale Moby Dick more believable. I highly recommend anyone who likes this to read Into The Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. It's also a lot funnier than I expected, especially towards the beginning.

A lot more positive to say than negative. A really really awesome book.

[Ezee E]

I'm digging my rep score right now.

[Raiders]

I'm digging my rep score right now.

That is awesome!

(I'm such an ass)

[Marley]

Moby Dick is still on my shelf mocking me. :frustrated:

[D_Davis]

Moby Dick is still on my shelf mocking me. :frustrated:

I have it on my shelf, too, but I mock it.

"All hail the King of the Infodump!"

[Marley]

I have it on my shelf, too, but I mock it.

"All hail the King of the Infodump!"

A little reverse psychology, I like that.

Oh, I've got "The Human Comedy" by Saroyan from the library on your recommendation but I won't be getting to it until I finish "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said." I really need to read more plays.

[Mara]

I really need to read more plays.

Plays aren't for reading, plays are for seeing!

[ledfloyd]

i read the last 200 pages of room in pretty much one sitting. great stuff.

[D_Davis]

Oh, I've got "The Human Comedy" by Saroyan from the library on your recommendation

It's a nice little story. Very small and rural. Kind of autobiographical about Saroyan's time as a messenger in Fresno.

[Marley]

It's a nice little story. Very small and rural. Kind of autobiographical about Saroyan's time as a messenger in Fresno.

Doh, I thought it was going to be a play. Picking it up tomorrow.

[D_Davis]

Doh, I thought it was going to be a play. Picking it up tomorrow.


No - his main plays are The Armenian Trilogy, and The Time of Your Life.

[D_Davis]

Hello America, by J.G. Ballard

Somewhat slight and uninteresting; it was especially disappointing after Kingdom Come. Hello America almost reads as if it were a YA story. That is, it really lacks Ballard's edge and style. Maybe I was simply hoping for something more, something more scathing, or derogatory towards the fantasy of the American Dream; what Ballard delivered was more like a road trip/adventure story across a desolate and barren North America.

There are some good moments, though. I enjoyed how those left behind in the devastated America grouped together in tribes with names like the Executives, the Divorcees, and the Politicians, each chasing the ghost of a dream of the legends they mimic. I also liked how one of the tribes named all of their women Xerox, because "they make good copies." And the novel does pick up some steam towards the end when the expedition finally makes it to Las Vegas.

However, the biggest flaw is the voice of the main character - Wayne. Wayne is supposed to be young, he struggles with being called a child. But then there are chapters that are supposed to be taken from his diary, and he writes with the prose, insight, and clarity of an adult. There is no change in the voice Ballard uses between the diary and non-diary parts of the book. Also, the diary parts are to fleshed out. Wayne remembers exact lines of dialog in conversations. While I appreciate changing POV, it has to be done in a natural manner.

Hello America is definitely lower tier Ballard. And that's OK. Ballard wrote a lot of stuff, and a lot of that stuff is very, very good, some of it excellent. So he has a clunker or two, or even three. Just shows that the man was human after all.

[Marley]

So, I take it "Kingdom Come" or "The best short stories of J. G." would be a better place to start with Ballard? Or what about Vermillion Sands? He's next up on my essential SF writers list to read.

[D_Davis]

So, I take it "Kingdom Come" or "The best short stories of J. G." would be a better place to start with Ballard? Or what about Vermillion Sands? He's next up on my essential SF writers list to read.

KC is great, but I'd start with his short stories. They tend to be more "SF" than his novels. I never really know where to talk about his novels, as they tend to blur the lines between general lit and SF. But most of his short stories are definitely SF.

Vermilion Sands is great, as is The Best Short Stories of...

[Marley]

Alright then, I'll give his short stories a chance. Thanks.

I can acquire "The Best Stories" but the library also has "The complete short stories of JG Ballard" which is over 1000 pages long. You're right, this guy surely did write a ton of stuff.

[D_Davis]

I can acquire "The Best Stories" but the library also has "The complete short stories of JG Ballard" which is over 1000 pages long. You're right, this guy surely did write a ton of stuff.

The complete collection is awesome. I've got most of his individual volumes, but when that came out I snagged it. One of these days I'm going to read it from cover to cover. I should just keep it out on my coffee table.

The Best of... is a great place to start. That's where I started, and to this day it remains my all-time favorite collection of short stories.

[Marley]

The complete collection is awesome. I've got most of his individual volumes, but when that came out I snagged it. One of these days I'm going to read it from cover to cover. I should just keep it out on my coffee table.

The Best of... is a great place to start. That's where I started, and to this day it remains my all-time favorite collection of short stories.

Sold. My knowledge of the genre is lacking without a dose of Ballard.

[D_Davis]

He's part of the Three B Foundation:

Bester, Ballard, Bradbury

Bester for his pulp-stylings and energy
Ballard for his surgical precision, irony, and deft eye for satire
Bradbury for his ability to get to the hear of the matter

In many ways, Ballard reminds me a lot of David Cronenberg. They've both made undeniable masterpieces of genre; they both have unique voices that transcend genre; they've both dabbled in the mainstream while maintaining their unique voice; and they've both pushed the boundaries of their medium further than many of their contemporaries.

Cronenberg doesn't make SF films - he makes Cronenberg films.

Ballard didn't write SF - he wrote Ballardian fiction.

And I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that Ballard was an influence on Cronenberg, especially in the way they examine the sexual nature of humanity.

[Qrazy]

Finished the most recent Wheel of Time book. In terms of pure epic spectacle this series delivers massively. Plot threads that were initiated 8 books ago are finally paying off, and the last battle is finally right on the horizon. We've seen these characters natural growth over the course of 13 books from farmers and plebs to the rulers of an entire continent. People complain about the the slow pace of the later books but frankly, for the most part, I think it has paid off. Now when characters constantly reference past events there's a historical richness to the work because we were there with them as they experienced these things. The sheer vastness of the world building is in full effect. It makes series like Harry Potter look like exactly what they are, pure child's play in comparison.

[Marley]

Finished the most recent Wheel of Time book. In terms of pure epic spectacle this series delivers massively. Plot threads that were initiated 8 books ago are finally paying off, and the last battle is finally right on the horizon. We've seen these characters natural growth over the course of 13 books from farmers and plebs to the rulers of an entire continent. People complain about the the slow pace of the later books but frankly, for the most part, I think it has paid off. Now when characters constantly reference past events there's a historical richness to the work because we were there with them as they experienced these things. The sheer vastness of the world building is in full effect. It makes series like Harry Potter look like exactly what they are, pure child's play in comparison.

This is good to know because I've always wondered if this series was worth reading in the long run considering its massive scope.

[Scar]

Read the first couple Wheel of Time books years ago. Ended up getting the whole series on audio book, since I drive a lot, and I'm on book two. Should get in at least 10 hours this coming week.

[D_Davis]

Finished the most recent Wheel of Time book. In terms of pure epic spectacle this series delivers massively. Plot threads that were initiated 8 books ago are finally paying off, and the last battle is finally right on the horizon. We've seen these characters natural growth over the course of 13 books from farmers and plebs to the rulers of an entire continent. People complain about the the slow pace of the later books but frankly, for the most part, I think it has paid off. Now when characters constantly reference past events there's a historical richness to the work because we were there with them as they experienced these things. The sheer vastness of the world building is in full effect. It makes series like Harry Potter look like exactly what they are, pure child's play in comparison.

I read the first two when I was in high school, and mildly enjoyed them. At that time, I was far more into R.A. Salvatore's Icewind Dale trilogy, and the first Drizzt series.

Man, to think that I started these when they first came out, and if I had continued to read them, I'd still be waiting for the final volume. More than half of my life in time. Crazy.

I have been looking for an epic series of good fantasy, though. It might be fun to read through these books, or maybe some Robin Hobb stuff, or something.

Do the WoT books get overly political and soap-opera-ish? I really don't like that kind of "fantasy." That's part of the reason why I just couldn't get into the Game of Thrones books. To me, the first book wasn't even really fantasy, it was just medieval soap opera without anything fantastic or imaginative.

[Qrazy]

This is good to know because I've always wondered if this series was worth reading in the long run considering its massive scope.

A lot of critics of the series are harder on the later books and find the writing to be fairly mediocre in general. Personally I think it's as good or better than the vast majority of fantasy writing. And as long as you can plow through some of the slower books about 2/3's into the series the narrative will begin paying off in major ways. There's one more book still to come so I can't say for certain yet if everything will come together flawlessly but I trust Jordan... posthumously... hah.

[Qrazy]

I read the first two when I was in high school, and mildly enjoyed them. At that time, I was far more into R.A. Salvatore's Icewind Dale trilogy, and the first Drizzt series.

Man, to think that I started these when they first came out, and if I had continued to read them, I'd still be waiting for the final volume. More than half of my life in time. Crazy.

I have been looking for an epic series of good fantasy, though. It might be fun to read through these books, or maybe some Robin Hobb stuff, or something.

Do the WoT books get overly political and soap-opera-ish? I really don't like that kind of "fantasy." That's part of the reason why I just couldn't get into the Game of Thrones books. To me, the first book wasn't even really fantasy, it was just medieval soap opera without anything fantastic or imaginative.

Hah yes, that's what happened with me D. I don't read much fantasy these days but I come back to this series simply because I've already put in such a massive time commitment and I do feel it's delivering. They do get political but not in suffocating ways imo. I actually just started Game of Thrones and I think it's probably quite different. Or at least the vibe I'm getting from GoT so far is historical fiction with a twist of the fantastic. WoT always stays fantastical. It's a deeply political work in that there are a ton of competing plans from a huge host of characters but there's also this constant undercurrent of epic mythmaking. Wrestling with fate is a key theme of the work and it also has one of the most well worked out magic systems I've ever encountered. So yeah I would say it definitely always remains fantastic and inventive.

You absolutely have to be ready for sprawl in this series though. You're going to get random minor side characters who suddenly become the mind through which we're seeing the course of events. The series is not explicitly set on the leads. Personally I think this has been good for the series ultimately in that it's fleshed out the world. But at the same time it can be irritating once in a while when you just want to jump back to your favorite characters and spend more time with them.

Does it get soap opera-ish? I don't know. I find it hard to say. It certainly gets larger than life all of the time and there are definitely a lot of romantic relationships in the work but I haven't really felt that it's ever become obnoxious in that regard. This Amazon reader summed up my feelings about the work fairly well...

"The main defining trait of this volume, though, is that as I read it, I had the same sense of cascading finality that I get when I've almost solved a particularly nasty crossword puzzle or rubik's cube: the sense that after all that struggle and effort, *everything* is *finally* falling into place. At the end, it's pretty clear that all the dominoes are in line, the horses are at their starting gates, the match is poised above the fuse; all that's left is the flick, the home stretch, the final explosion. I'm looking forward to it. It's a feeling I've been waiting twenty-odd years for, and, well, to give in to understatement, it's pretty cool. If you've followed this series like I have, if you've been waiting for it too, you'll like this volume."

[D_Davis]

Or at least the vibe I'm getting from GoT so far is historical fiction with a twist of the fantastic. WoT always stays fantastical. It's a deeply political work in that there are a ton of competing plans from a huge host of characters but there's also this constant undercurrent of epic mythmaking. Wrestling with fate is a key theme of the work and it also has one of the most well worked out magic systems I've ever encountered. So yeah I would say it definitely always remains fantastic and inventive.


That's exactly how I felt about GoT. It's like fantasy for people who don't really like the fantastic elements of fantasy - alt-historical fiction.

WoT does sound more like mythmaking, as you said. I think I might try that series out next winter.

Thanks for the info.

[Irish]

Read The Paris Wife over the weekend, then Gordon Ramsay's autobiography, now jumping back into Dickens' Great Expectations.

I was gifted a Kindle last Xmas and am just now getting into using the thing. =D

[dreamdead]

I'll be teaching a "Masterpieces of American Literature" class in the Fall at the university--my class will consider the last 150 years of fiction, as I'm generally more comfortable in the contemporary era, with the McCarthy and Morrison filling out the older era of American history.

The class will read:

Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition (1901)
Willa Cather, My Ántonia (1918)
John Dos Passos, The Big Money (1936)
Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust (1939)
Arthur Miller, The Crucible (1953)
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (1985)
Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)
Art Spiegelman, Maus (1972-1991)
Tony Kushner, Angels in America (1993)
Tim O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods (1994)
Don DeLillo, Underworld (1997)
Allegra Goodman, The Cookbook Collector (2010)

The McCarthy, DeLillo, and Dos Passos are all assigned without my having read them yet, though I hope to get to them all this summer. I's excited.

[Irish]

Wow, wish I could take that course.

Did you choose the list or did someone else? (Quick! Switch out White Noise for Underworld!).

[dreamdead]

Wow, wish I could take that course.

Did you choose the list or did someone else? (Quick! Switch out White Noise for Underworld!).

As Ph.D students, we get to choose the readings. And having read all of DeLillo's last twenty years of fiction or so (minus Libra and Underworld), I've never been all that enamored with White Noise. It feels oddly written precisely for its prescience, which comes off as too academic to me somehow. And I feel it pales in comparison to Mao II, which is probably the best of his shorter fiction for me, though I've come to laud and respect Falling Man, too, despite the obviousness of DeLillo's themes in it.

The class is formally structured around A.O. Scott's essay, In Search of the Best, available here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/books/review/scott-essay.html

Hence the Morrison, McCarthy, and DeLillo. :)