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JackKnight posted:T'was not my intent to troll. The author is dead.
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Oct 25, 2014 11:20
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ulvir posted:Good for you, but they're still not morons, so stop acting like you're above them. I use the term liberally for the lack of a better way to describe "monointelligence" which is a word I just made up. I am not acting above them. Not in all my posts have I said I was above such a person. In fact I have explicitly stated that I was a blue collar moron. And that I wanted to rise up out of that quagmire of mental stagnation. Perhaps I haven't set the right mental picture here. I grew up on a foothill in SC down the road from a whole group of redneck hillbillies. By redneck hillbillies I mean blue collar loving idiot morons who don't know up from down. My mother poisoned and/or shot their dogs, and we had an ongoing dispute with them about nearly everything else. Those people I am above. Same with the idiot fuckwits who claim to be car mechanics, and can't even describe a part properly, or any of thousands of other people I have met who are just loving morons. That said, I am still a monointelligent (moronic imbecile) person, because I have allowed my mind to become lazy. I am only currently good at one thing, and that is driving my semi truck. :-)
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Oct 25, 2014 11:31
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JackKnight posted:T'was not my intent to troll. I'm not upset, it's been entertaining. These arguments you've been making in the midst of a bunch of snobs in a thread dedicated to bemoaning the quality of the books that most of TBB appear to read, though .... JackKnight posted:I use the term liberally for the lack of a better way to describe "monointelligence" which is a word I just made up. Your having explicitly stated that you're above blue collar morons is obviated by the fact that you claim to be one while using a decidedly high level of vocabulary. So maybe in not so many words, but you've definitely cast yourself above them.
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Oct 25, 2014 12:16
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O litty peeps of litty brains so full Impart thy wisdom, bring me knowledge deep So that I may embiggenate my skull With Words to make the plebs fall fast asleep JackKnight, read literature for the profound insights, for the people and places of interest and for the artistic mastery, not for your personal superiority. It's painfully clear you're simply arrogant and young, with little insight into the infinite richness of everyone's constitutions, which gives you an illusion of higher status, and that with little other evidence to show for your blatant betterness, you plan to spew Elizabethan English in a lofty tone to prove yourself. Well don't. Authors put too much work, critics too much reading time, for the vast world of reading to be reduced to a boring ego-boost. If you do actually start reading and taking in those various recommendations we gave you, you'll realise that.
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Oct 25, 2014 12:52
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JackKnight posted:By redneck hillbillies I mean blue collar loving idiot morons who don't know up from down. My mother poisoned and/or shot their dogs, and we had an ongoing dispute with them about nearly everything else. Those people I am above. Your mum's hosed up, hth
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Oct 25, 2014 13:19
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JackKnight posted:Aye this is a good example of both why I intend to memorize things and also describes one way our current education system is failing us. Better education indeed. Do you not understand basic math or something? While educational institutions of the past certainly required more rote memorization of poetry, study of the classical languages, and so on than they do today, far fewer people had any kind of access to educational institutions, at all. Claiming that "less and less" people are using language to it's full potential today simply makes no sense at all. There are certainly a lot of people studying these things today in modern educational institutions, and from a much wider swath of society than who had access to any kind of education in early America. quote:I think perhaps you are correct here on one point. My original thoughts were on the times of Shakespeare (around the 1500s on up) wherever they hailed from, and not necessarily American English as it was during the time of colonization, since as I understand it the early settlers were mostly commoners without a good deal of education. Your original point actually was based on the content of presidential speeches so no, I doubt you were thinking about Shakespeare. That said, in Shakespearean England it was similarly the case that the vast majority of the population had no access to formal education, so your argument would still make no sense in that setting either. Most people were uneducated peasants, and you'd have likely demonstrated the same attitude towards them that you now demonstrate to your modern neighbors. JackKnight posted:Perhaps I haven't set the right mental picture here. I grew up on a foothill in SC down the road from a whole group of redneck hillbillies. By redneck hillbillies I mean blue collar loving idiot morons who don't know up from down. But in your imagination, apparently, the redneck hillbillies in 1789 or in 1614 would have been smarter people more likely to be using the English language to its full potential? 
Earwicker fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Oct 25, 2014 |
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Oct 25, 2014 13:27
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If I love Invisible Cities by Calvino, for its incredible descriptions of imaginary concepts and the sheer sense of awe it inspires, what other relatively thin book would I enjoy? I am currently chewing on the delicious buffet that is Calvino's Italian Folktales and by god, I love folktales from foreign countries.
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Oct 25, 2014 13:52
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toanoradian posted:If I love Invisible Cities by Calvino, for its incredible descriptions of imaginary concepts and the sheer sense of awe it inspires, what other relatively thin book would I enjoy? I am currently chewing on the delicious buffet that is Calvino's Italian Folktales and by god, I love folktales from foreign countries. You would definitely love the short stories of Borges. His stories from the Ficciones and El Aleph collections also deal with imaginary concepts, histories, and objects, etc. and later on he became a bit more focused on mythology as well especially early Saxon myths and epic poems. And most of them are quite short, easily readable in an hour or two.
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Oct 25, 2014 14:03
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toanoradian posted:If I love Invisible Cities by Calvino, for its incredible descriptions of imaginary concepts and the sheer sense of awe it inspires, what other relatively thin book would I enjoy? I am currently chewing on the delicious buffet that is Calvino's Italian Folktales and by god, I love folktales from foreign countries. I am p. sure you'll love Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo and Bruno Schulz's stories. Dino Buzzati's Tartar Steppe is a bit longer but you might also enjoy it. Don't try to memorise it, though, because seriously, what the gently caress Edit. Talking about Borges and novellas: anybody read Adolfo Bioy Casares's Invention of Morel? NYRB edition has an introduction by Borges and illustrations by Borges's sister, so if you want to keep it in the family... Burning Rain fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Oct 25, 2014 |
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Oct 25, 2014 14:05
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I can't enjoy fiction anymore, for some reason. I'm not having fun no matter what I try to get into. This makes me quite sad given that I used to be a huge bookworm 'till my mid-late teens. I still read a lot of non-fiction, though. Kind of weird (or not?), considering I'm having even more fun with poetry than ever before.
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Oct 25, 2014 14:21
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I can't enjoy fiction anymore, for some reason. I'm not having fun no matter what I try to get into. This makes me quite sad given that I used to be a huge bookworm 'till my mid-late teens. I still read a lot of non-fiction, though. Kind of weird (or not?), considering I'm having even more fun with poetry than ever before.Earwicker posted:You would definitely love the short stories of Borges. His stories from the Ficciones and El Aleph collections also deal with imaginary concepts, histories, and objects, etc. and later on he became a bit more focused on mythology as well especially early Saxon myths and epic poems. And most of them are quite short, easily readable in an hour or two. I like Ficciones but it always feels like he could accomplish so much more with his ideas if he actually tried to grow them into something beyond 'hey, this sounds interesting!'. Kubla Khan fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Oct 25, 2014 |
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Oct 25, 2014 14:24
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toanoradian posted:If I love Invisible Cities by Calvino, for its incredible descriptions of imaginary concepts and the sheer sense of awe it inspires, what other relatively thin book would I enjoy? I am currently chewing on the delicious buffet that is Calvino's Italian Folktales and by god, I love folktales from foreign countries. Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic is wonderful and very folk tale-y and reminds me a lot of Borges who Earwicker suggested but I just realised you said thin so err not that I guess. Read Borges.
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Oct 25, 2014 14:52
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You can just pretend a thick book is just a lot of thin books pressed together.
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Oct 25, 2014 15:21
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CestMoi posted:Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic is wonderful and very folk tale-y and reminds me a lot of Borges who Earwicker suggested but I just realised you said thin so err not that I guess. Read Borges. Dictionary of the Khazars is fairly thin actually, though it depends on whether you read it linearly or not.
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Oct 25, 2014 16:28
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Everyone who likes nonlinear books should read Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar.
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Oct 25, 2014 18:35
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Read Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Then pop some acid and read it again, it'll make so much more sense
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Oct 25, 2014 19:00
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I tried reading Alice under acid. Then I realized that there are so many more interesting things than books. Like the toilet bowl.
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Oct 25, 2014 19:37
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Burning Rain posted:Then I realized that there are so many more interesting things than books. Like the toilet bowl. It's just how it is. V. Illych L. posted:Read Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I don't know, is there some point to this book other than his final inference? I guess he's trying to make a solid argument but it's not really some ground-shaking revelation (I mean, it's the truth that has been repeated so many times over in some many different cultures/religions/etc). It's more like he's trying to convince himself.
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Oct 25, 2014 21:44
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It's pretty groundbreaking.
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Oct 25, 2014 22:49
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Of course there's some point other than his final inference otherwise he woulldn't write the book. He didn't come up with the idea then write 100 pages of faff to make it seem good, he's trying to logically expound the point that there's a fundamental flaw in the way we think about language, and use it to talk about philosophy, while recognising the fact that in doing so he is using language to talk about philosophy.
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Oct 25, 2014 22:54
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Also he debunks a lot of contemporary and even later philosophy in an off-hand kind of way. Like, logical positivism? Ain't no thang. Essentialism? Dead and buried. It's one of my favourite books, because he somehow manages to completely undermine so many people's life's works in a fairly short and sweet book which isn't even structured like a normal loving text and is full of slogans.
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Oct 26, 2014 01:15
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toanoradian posted:If I love Invisible Cities by Calvino, for its incredible descriptions of imaginary concepts and the sheer sense of awe it inspires, what other relatively thin book would I enjoy? I am currently chewing on the delicious buffet that is Calvino's Italian Folktales and by god, I love folktales from foreign countries. 2nding the Borges and Milorad Pavic recs. I'd also suggest Stanislaw Lem's Cyberiad stories. Not quite the exact same "Imaginary History" feel, but similar in appeal, and also short. Also Ted Chiang, maybe? His latest story actually directly references one of Lem's.
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Oct 26, 2014 01:24
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Thanks for the recommendation, everyone. By the time I posted my last post I was just literally finishing Garden of the Forking Paths and I have to say that while the idea of a world where all future possibilities happen interesting, the story itself doesn't catch me. Maybe his other stories are better. Is Collected Fictions the way to go with Borges' stories?V. Illych L. posted:Read Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. If I read that, plus Philosophical Investigations, while on acid, while not knowing anything about philosophy at all beyond "Some guys before Plato thought fire are made of triangles", would this be a good way to spend my evening?
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Oct 26, 2014 05:08
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toanoradian posted:If I read that, plus Philosophical Investigations, while on acid, while not knowing anything about philosophy at all beyond "Some guys before Plato thought fire are made of triangles", would this be a good way to spend my evening? Yes, the philosophical investigations are great fun. what is this drawing of? 
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Oct 26, 2014 10:20
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The Belgian posted:what is this drawing of? It is a drawing of two things: 1. A curvy line 2. A dot
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Oct 26, 2014 16:58
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you have no soul
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Oct 26, 2014 17:55
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The Belgian posted:Yes, the philosophical investigations are great fun. Pun Pun.
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Oct 26, 2014 19:44
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Is Proust's In Search of Lost Time a worthy endeavor?
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Oct 27, 2014 13:20
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stepeight posted:Is Proust's In Search of Lost Time a worthy endeavor? Yes. Reading it for me is always a somewhat sisyphean task though. I've made three or four attempts and I get further and further in each time but never actually make it to the end. Still a worthwhile endeavor though! I believe that the sisyphean reader is happy.
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Oct 27, 2014 15:24
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I believe that the sisyphean reader is happy. Actually it's a real pain in the rear end to hold all those books with one hand while trying to push the boulder with the other
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Oct 27, 2014 15:27
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Earwicker posted:Actually it's a real pain in the rear end to hold all those books with one hand while trying to push the boulder with the other Maybe if he pushes with his back he can use both hands for reading. Also he only needs to hold one volume at a time, he can leave the others at the base of the hill.
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Oct 27, 2014 15:28
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amuayse posted:I'm starting to try and get a crack at the Mabinogion again. Anyone know a good translation for it? This is from the last page, but I've read a few different versions of the Mabinogion and honestly the one I liked best was Evangeline Walton's near-total rewrite -- basically she adapts it into "Clan of the Cave Bear" style historical fiction, with fantasy and magical elements. It's a neat treatment.
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Oct 27, 2014 15:33
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The best part of the Mabinogian is there is some dude who cannot die unless he is shot with an arrow made of a certain kind of wood while he has one foot on the edge of a bathtub and the other on the back of a pig. Something like that. And then someone actually tricks him into doing that and kills him!
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Oct 27, 2014 16:16
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Earwicker posted:Actually it's a real pain in the rear end to hold all those books with one hand while trying to push the boulder with the other Try balancing them on your head, it's good for your deportment.
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Oct 27, 2014 17:14
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I'm reading Goethe's Faust I now after reading the Urfaust. I'm enjoying it a lot though so far I like the Urfaust more.
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Oct 27, 2014 17:15
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The Belgian posted:I'm reading Goethe's Faust I now after reading the Urfaust. I'm enjoying it a lot though so far I like the Urfaust more. Are you gonna read doctor faustus next
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Oct 27, 2014 17:16
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mango gay touchies posted:Are you gonna read doctor faustus next I read a short story by Mann and didn't like it very much, so probably not.
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Oct 27, 2014 17:24
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Smoking Crow posted:Everyone who likes nonlinear books should read Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar. I'm reading this. It's good
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Oct 27, 2014 17:39
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The Belgian posted:I read a short story by Mann and didn't like it very much, so probably not. Dr. Faustus is by Marlowe...
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Oct 27, 2014 18:28
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Kit's Big Book of Fart Jokes with the Devil
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Oct 27, 2014 18:40
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