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Smoking Crow posted:I want to get into that old Chinese literature, but all of those novels are really really really long. Like makes Tolstoy look like Dr. Seuss long Chinese characters contain whole words so if you learn Chinese the books will be like 5x shorter plus you'll find a job when Chinese overlords come to enslave the west. Also, Romance of Three Kingdoms kicks rear end and if others are half as good it'd probably be worth it for real mallamp fucked around with this message at 11:51 on Jun 2, 2015 |
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Jun 2, 2015 11:48
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Speaking of the two most recent topics of conversation, did y'all know they made a video game out of Journey to the West
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Jun 3, 2015 05:37
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End Of Worlds posted:Speaking of the two most recent topics of conversation, did y'all know they made a video game out of Journey to the West I liked it.
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Jun 3, 2015 18:22
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End Of Worlds posted:Speaking of the two most recent topics of conversation, did y'all know they made a video game out of Journey to the West There are a lot of classical Chinese lit games. The most famous one is Suikoden, based on Water Margin or All Men Are Brothers
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Jun 3, 2015 18:29
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There's also Okami, a videogame based entirely on Japanese mythology and folklore, and it owns
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Jun 3, 2015 21:58
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And Dynasty Warriors is Romance of the Three Kingdoms but very not canon
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Jun 3, 2015 22:25
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Raxivace posted:One Hundred Years of Solitude progress- Man, Colonel Aureliano Buendia has done hosed up massively by leaving Arcadio in charge of Macondo, jesus christ. "Remember, there were over three thousand of them, and they were all thrown into the sea." I will always admire Marquez' desire to memorialize and record everything for what it is, and the importance of recognizing and remembering even these horrid acts. That's why that line has stuck with me so much. (e: spoilered line since I'm not sure if it's a spoiler or not at the point at which you are.) I haven't been a very good reader for the past couple of years, but when people ask me for book recommendations, and they're more used to genre-type books I point them to Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. (Searched and saw it hadn't been mentioned here yet.) One of the things I notice about "genre" fiction is the way they use a twist. Usually, a "genre" work will wait until the end and use it as a way to Blow the Reader's Mind, when the story would be so much more interesting if it explored the ramifications of that twist. Never Let Me Go, while sci-fi, puts everything on the table from nearly the very beginning, taking a much-used sci-fi element and using it to write what might be the most depressing book ever. It was the first time I had to set down a book and walk away from it for a while, and it was within the first ten pages. The venom laying right under the surface of Ishiguro's subtlety, particularly in the way he uses euphemism, is incredible. Electric Lady fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Jun 4, 2015 |
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Jun 4, 2015 00:33
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Jun 4, 2015 07:53
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Quit Being a loving Child and Play Some Real Video Games
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Jun 4, 2015 16:03
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Anyway I think I'm going to read Jane Eyre next
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Jun 4, 2015 16:05
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Smoking Crow posted:Anyway I think I'm going to read Jane Eyre next Read Wide Sargasso Sea afterwards
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Jun 4, 2015 16:13
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Read Wide Sargasso Sea afterwards I need to second this. Wide Sargasso Sea vindicates Jane Eyre's existence. I first read it in a class on captivity/slave narratives surrounding the Atlantic Ocean. Another book I'd recommend from that class is Lose Your Mother by Saidiya Hartman. It's nonfiction but carries a lot of literary weight as the author details her field research in Ghana and searches for her identity within the African diaspora. It will also greatly help your reading of other captivity narratives, whether they be entirely fictional like in Wide Sargasso Sea or something like M. NourbeSe Phillip's Zong! which is a fictionalized recounting the massacre on the Zong slave ship rendered entirely through dense, difficult poetry.
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Jun 4, 2015 20:54
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I wish there were not so many lazy Jane Austen "reimaginings" because taking a new perspective on classic literature can genuinely create some great stuff. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Wide Sargasso Sea, Land of Love and Drowning
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Jun 5, 2015 00:42
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The Lion King 1 1/2
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Jun 5, 2015 01:56
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Another book not mentioned yet that I have to recommend, from which I was just reading passages again yesterday, is Rabbit, Run by John Updike. It's about a man named Harry Angstrom, a former high-school basketball player who has lost his former glory and, unable to settle down, runs away from it all. It is Updike's amazing indictment of the zeitgeist of the late 50s and early 60s, and he does an amazing job of picking apart suburban comfort and elucidating the culture of fear underneath. I was reading the Wikipedia page to figure out the specific year it took place and found that Updike called it a response to On the Road, depicting the pain that those left behind go through when a loved one leaves them. Here's a passage (non-spoiler) featuring Harry at a date at a Chinese restaurant. Take a look at the subtlety as the author cleanly questions the authenticity of the "Chinese" food, without having to question it explicitly. "The Chinese food arrives. Delicious saliva fills his mouth. He really hasn't had any since Texas. He loves this food that contains no disgusting proofs of slain animals, a bloody slab of cow haunch, a hen's sinewy skeleton; these ghosts have been minced and destroyed and painlessly merged with the shapes of insensate vegetables, plump green bodies that invite his appetite's innocent gusto. Candy. Heaped on a smoking breast of rice. Each is given such a tidy hot breast, and Margaret is in a special hurry to muddle hers with glazed chunks; all eat well. Their faces take color and strength from the oval plates of dark pork, sugar peas, chicken, stiff sweet sauce, shrimp, who knows what else. Their talk grows hearty."
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Jun 5, 2015 16:53
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I really loving hated Rabbit Run and the whole vapid 60s male narcissist genre. Rabbit, Nathan Zuckerman, and Frank Bascombe are these weird vestigial limbs of a thankfully dead aspect of American Literature. Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Jun 5, 2015 |
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Jun 5, 2015 17:27
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Wide Sargasso Sea, Land of Love and Drowning 
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Jun 5, 2015 17:29
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I really loving hated Run Rabbit Run and the whole vapid 60s male narcissist genre. I don't know why but I am fascinated with stories of terrible people being terrible. There is something about seeing these people tear apart their own lives and knowing that they will never learn from their mistakes that is tragic and gripping at the same time. I'm reading Joyce Carol Oates' Expensive People right now too and it's even more obnoxious with the male narcissism, being in first person perspective, but I can't put it down nonetheless.
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Jun 5, 2015 17:34
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John Quixote posted:I don't know why but I am fascinated with stories of terrible people being terrible. There is something about seeing these people tear apart their own lives and knowing that they will never learn from their mistakes that is tragic and gripping at the same time. I'm reading Joyce Carol Oates' Expensive People right now too and it's even more obnoxious with the male narcissism, being in first person perspective, but I can't put it down nonetheless. I am not so much bothered by the fact Rabbit is a shithead as much as how Updike seems so affectionate towards him. I do not think characters have to be likeable, but I grow frustrated when authors seem to think their self-centered worthless protagonist is some kind of a reflection of the American zeitgeist and not just a shithead. I feel like Updike wanted Rabbit to be a reflection of the American everyman and his experiences and he's just a reflection of being a terrible person. Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Jun 5, 2015 |
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Jun 5, 2015 17:39
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I am not so much bothered by the fact Rabbit is a shithead as much as how Updike seems so affectionate towards him. I do not think characters have to be likeable, but I grow frustrated when authors seem to think their self-centered worthless protagonist is some kind of a reflection of the American zeitgeist and not just a shithead. I love terrible people. You should too
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Jun 5, 2015 17:41
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I am not so much bothered by the fact Rabbit is a shithead as much as how Updike seems so affectionate towards him. I do not think characters have to be likeable, but I grow frustrated when authors seem to think their self-centered worthless protagonist is some kind of a reflection of the American zeitgeist and not just a shithead. I didn't get the impression that Updike was affectionate toward Rabbit at all. I think he portrays him as someone who, while a victim of the culture of fear that the novel portrays, refuses to rise above it even as it falls apart in his head. I mean poo poo, when he's at his newborn daughter's funeral he tries to defend himself as a father, completely ignoring the tragedy of the situation, and then runs away AGAIN. That's all he's good at is running. You can make your reflection of the American zeitgeist a shithead if you think the American zeitgeist is poo poo. Electric Lady fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Jun 5, 2015 |
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Jun 5, 2015 17:44
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John Quixote posted:I didn't get the impression that Updike was affectionate toward Rabbit at all. I think he portrays him as someone who, while a victim of the culture of fear that the novel portrays, refuses to rise above it even as it falls apart in his head. I mean poo poo, when he's at his newborn daughter's funeral he tries to defend himself as a father and then runs away AGAIN. That's all he's good at is running. Yeah but Updike takes it in a direction of "don't we all wish we could run away like this?" Like, he doesn't condone what Rabbit is doing, but he seems to portray this absolute fear of responsibility and consequence as inherently male and that frustrates me. I also cannot disengage the novel from the larger series and maybe that is part of my issue as well.
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Jun 5, 2015 17:48
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Yeah but Updike takes it in a direction of "don't we all wish we could run away like this?" Like, he doesn't condone what Rabbit is doing, but he seems to portray this absolute fear of responsibility and consequence as inherently male and that frustrates me. Fear of responsibility is inherently male. Women love responsibility and always rise to the occasion. You obviously don't know anything about them
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Jun 5, 2015 17:58
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I really loving hated Rabbit Run and the whole vapid 60s male narcissist genre.
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Jun 6, 2015 00:10
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Reading Rabbit series as freshman taught me so much about sex
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Jun 6, 2015 06:56
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edit: nvm.
Sir John Feelgood fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Jun 6, 2015 |
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Jun 6, 2015 10:09
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I'm on page 400 of War and Peace and I'm starting to find it tiresome. I enjoy it well enough when I sit down to read it, but I find I have no real desire to grab it off my shelf and keep going, unlike most novels I read. The idea that I'm going to be reading about these same characters and events for another 800 pages isn't that appealing.
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Jun 6, 2015 14:54
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blue squares posted:I'm on page 400 of War and Peace and I'm starting to find it tiresome. I enjoy it well enough when I sit down to read it, but I find I have no real desire to grab it off my shelf and keep going, unlike most novels I read. The idea that I'm going to be reading about these same characters and events for another 800 pages isn't that appealing.
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Jun 6, 2015 15:46
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Patrick Spens posted:So I've been thinking about reading the Divine Comedy, does anyone have a recommended translation? You asked this question a while ago and I didn't really answer you, but then today I answered the question in the TVIV thread for Hannibal, where no one had asked for it  . Here 's what I said, minus the Hannibal stuff .Rabbit Hill posted:
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Jun 6, 2015 18:38
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blue squares posted:I'm on page 400 of War and Peace and I'm starting to find it tiresome. I enjoy it well enough when I sit down to read it, but I find I have no real desire to grab it off my shelf and keep going, unlike most novels I read. The idea that I'm going to be reading about these same characters and events for another 800 pages isn't that appealing. Which translation?
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Jun 7, 2015 02:51
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Sheikh Djibouti posted:Which translation? P&V
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Jun 7, 2015 03:12
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you should all follow kobe bryant on goodreads
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Jun 7, 2015 08:51
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Burning Rain posted:you should all follow kobe bryant on goodreads drat, Kobe is a well-read dude. Who knew? His reviews are great too.
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Jun 7, 2015 23:15
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Burning Rain posted:you should all follow kobe bryant on goodreads this is amazing
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Jun 8, 2015 01:42
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Hybrid children watch the sea Pray for Father, roaming free
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Has anyone ever read Enrique Vila-Matas? One of his old books is being translated this week and his catalog seems really interesting.
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Jun 8, 2015 14:13
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Jun 8, 2015 19:11
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Burning Rain posted:you should all follow kobe bryant on goodreads hes cool
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Jun 8, 2015 19:14
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I'm reading the Bible and smdh at how it tells you how Sodom and Gomorrah are about to get destroyed before it even begins to happen, completely ruining the suspense.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:48
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Mishima is my favorite Japanese novelist. This is one of his weaker books I thought though. Go Sea of Fertility or go home.
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Jun 8, 2015 21:31
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CestMoi posted:I'm reading the Bible and smdh at how it tells you how Sodom and Gomorrah are about to get destroyed before it even begins to happen, completely ruining the suspense. Are you reading the whole thing or are you skipping the genealogies
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Jun 8, 2015 21:32
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