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I don't think you're gonna learn the lesson you want from Camus
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Nov 9, 2016 16:27
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| # ? May 18, 2024 01:49 |
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Overdramatic people who want to seem smart have reminded me to read more Yeats, so thank you Donald Trump.
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Nov 9, 2016 16:28
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The Hamlet by Faulkner. It's all about how people like Trump succeed.
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Nov 9, 2016 16:42
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Final Exit and the Peaceful Pill Handbook.
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Nov 9, 2016 16:57
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Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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Nov 9, 2016 18:00
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This is the best time to read Aquarium
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Nov 9, 2016 19:50
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revelation and daniel
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Nov 9, 2016 21:09
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Well I'm reading the works of Mencius Moldbug, delicious given this was written in 2008 and it's perfectly relevant to everything that just happened.
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Nov 10, 2016 09:18
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It Can't Happen Here. Sinclair Lewis was great at finding the worst in people. His book on the medical establishment (Arrowsmith) reads like a modern take 100 years later.
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Nov 10, 2016 11:57
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Birthday today, and big Library sale tomorrow Give me favorite books literary goons, anything I guess
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Nov 10, 2016 16:24
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The Troiacord https://theuntranslated.wordpress.com/2016/11/10/the-troiacord-el-troiacord-by-miquel-de-palol/
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Nov 10, 2016 20:37
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Abalieno posted:The Troiacord nice, you're subscribed to a blog by email? me too
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Nov 11, 2016 00:24
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"Mencius Moldbug"
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Nov 11, 2016 03:16
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See this year was Leonard Cohen's last chance to win a Nobel and now look what happened
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Nov 11, 2016 03:17
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Abalieno posted:The Troiacord I didn't know how much I needed this book in my life. Calling all Catalan-speaking goons to start a translation project asap.
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Nov 11, 2016 12:55
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Jerome Agricola posted:I didn't know how much I needed this book in my life. Calling all Catalan-speaking goons to start a translation project asap. burning rain is an actual translator and speaks Catalan iirc I accept on his behalf.
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Nov 11, 2016 16:17
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CestMoi posted:burning rain is an actual translator and speaks Catalan iirc I accept on his behalf. Are you going to read that book in Latvian
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Nov 11, 2016 16:26
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it's not a problem of finding a translator but a publisher mad enough to pick up a 1300 page book that's out of print in its original language and hasn't even been translated to Spanish - and features 4-dimensional dodecahedrons prominently enough for the crazy blogger dude to go on about them for several paragraphs. i mean, even Institut Ramon Llull with their generous grants wouldn't be willing to pay enough for a translator to spend 18 months or however the gently caress they might need on this one book. so yeah, unless that blogger guy is super rich you'll probably have to learn Catalan. Burning Rain fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Nov 11, 2016 |
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Nov 11, 2016 17:04
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looks like im going to be reading the tale of genji right on into 2017. in other news, found a collection of sturm und drang under my bed. dont know where it came from
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Nov 13, 2016 01:36
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might put it back because it seems like the proper place for schiller's works
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Nov 13, 2016 01:38
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Burning Rain posted:it's not a problem of finding a translator but a publisher mad enough to pick up a 1300 page book that's out of print in its original language and hasn't even been translated to Spanish - and features 4-dimensional dodecahedrons prominently enough for the crazy blogger dude to go on about them for several paragraphs. kickstarter backer tiers: $500 get some nice ollada served by an elderly widower who will complain about madrid in a language you don't speak. you must pay for the meal
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Nov 13, 2016 01:44
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At the risk of making enemies: I am some 150 pages int Gravity's Rainbow and I can't remember the last time a book has made me this angry. I always finish what I start but Pynchon is trying his hardest to make me stop. First of all, I hate his style. It's willfully obtuse to the extreme, the constant listings get really tiresome and occasionally branch out into pages after pages of basically unreadable wild associations. Everything gets bogged down with unrelated details which feel like an exercise in creative writing (similar to how every character needs to get some quirky traits but this is a pet peeve of mine and I won't hold it against him). Then he loves to start a section on a new character or situation in a way that only after two or three almost incomprehensible pages begins to make sense. This gets really old as well. His poetics don't do a lot for me as well because I am rarely able to get any sort of image in my head through all the confusion. Finally you get "normal" passages like this: quote:"Ohh..." the sound rushing out of her, and she came in to hug him, completely let-go, open, shivering as they held each other. She told him later that as soon as he took her wrist that night, she came. And the first time he touched her oval office, squeezed Jessica's soft oval office through her knickers, the trembling began again high in her thighs, growing taking her over. She came twice before cock was ever officially put inside oval office, and this is important to both of them though neither has figured out why, exactly.
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Nov 13, 2016 17:16
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true.spoon posted:At the risk of making enemies: I am some 150 pages int Gravity's Rainbow and I can't remember the last time a book has made me this angry. I always finish what I start but Pynchon is trying his hardest to make me stop. First of all, I hate his style. It's willfully obtuse to the extreme, the constant listings get really tiresome and occasionally branch out into pages after pages of basically unreadable wild associations. Everything gets bogged down with unrelated details which feel like an exercise in creative writing (similar to how every character needs to get some quirky traits but this is a pet peeve of mine and I won't hold it against him). You're right to pick up on how godawful that passage is, but I think it's intentional. In context, as I took it, it's meant to seem sordid and kind of meaningless.
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Nov 13, 2016 17:23
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true.spoon posted:At the risk of making enemies: I am some 150 pages int Gravity's Rainbow and I can't remember the last time a book has made me this angry. I always finish what I start but Pynchon is trying his hardest to make me stop. First of all, I hate his style. It's willfully obtuse to the extreme, the constant listings get really tiresome and occasionally branch out into pages after pages of basically unreadable wild associations. Everything gets bogged down with unrelated details which feel like an exercise in creative writing (similar to how every character needs to get some quirky traits but this is a pet peeve of mine and I won't hold it against him). THat book made me really angry, too. but the central inarguably correct thesis of the book, which is that massive corporations & govt are interested only in power & it's exercise and will do anything 2 get it, is infuriating. The book also has a 'hero' who is a bad dude and has sex with a 12 year old, so there's like no structural outlet or whatever for being upset, there's not a good guy who triumphs in the end or is at least nobly standing tall. plus the style is very difficult. it's undoubtedly a great work of art, but imo it has nothing positive to say, which, to me, is exhausting after 750 pages.
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Nov 13, 2016 17:34
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david crosby posted:THat book made me really angry, too. but the central inarguably correct thesis of the book, which is that massive corporations & govt are interested only in power & it's exercise and will do anything 2 get it, is infuriating. The book also has a 'hero' who is a bad dude and has sex with a 12 year old, so there's like no structural outlet or whatever for being upset, there's not a good guy who triumphs in the end or is at least nobly standing tall. plus the style is very difficult. it's undoubtedly a great work of art, but imo it has nothing positive to say, which, to me, is exhausting after 750 pages. Well a large part of the book is about human corruption, and how every single person, even "good people" are capable of wrong-doing, perversions, or outright evil. Slothrop has a lot of sex throughout the book, none of it arguably ethical or moral, if we get down to it, and it's not like there's any "normal/vanilla" sex throughout the book. If we want to be specific, Slothrop's sex with Bianca (who's arguably much older than she is, and appears younger specifically through Slothrop's eyes) sends him spiraling into a mental break. She is a symbol of purity born from perversity (like Pearl in The Scarlet Letter) during a time of great turmoil, and she is now amid a ship full of lunatics thriving in orgiastic splendor. Despite his morality telling him to be "good", Slothrop still succumbs to baser instincts, and allows himself to be "seduced" by Bianca. There are many implications to how she feels about it, but I haven't read the book in over a year now, so the details are fuzzy. It is when he finds her body after an ambiguous death (Suicide? Maybe? Murder? Maybe more) that sends him over the edge, because he's trying to balance his morals, do something "right" and rescue her to justify his perversion, and realizes he is far too late to do anything, and really is just a part of the problem. So, yeah, the main "good guy" does have sex with a young girl of ambiguous age, but it's not like the book is saying this is good or okay, it just adds to the complicated tapestry of humanity, despite moral implications, in a book with over 400 characters, none of which are fully "good", and some of which are explicitly the embodiment of evil. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Nov 13, 2016 |
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Nov 13, 2016 18:48
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You never did the Kenosha, Kid.
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Nov 13, 2016 19:29
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There are parts of the book that throw Bianca's actual age into question. The GR wiki breaks it down: http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bianca It's one of those things you have to be really paying attention to, like everything else in the book. If you're getting caught up in judging the characters (and by extension the author) for their actions, you're sailing right past the main theme of the book.
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Nov 13, 2016 19:32
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Heath posted:If you're getting caught up in judging the characters (and by extension the author) for their actions, you're sailing right past the main theme of the book. Especially when another major idea explored throughout is man-kind's self-destructive nature. When everyone is rushing to their demise, moral judgments just get exhausting. The book does play with karmic forces, punishing some very evil characters and very good characters while other evil prevails and other good people prevails. It's not fair, nor should it be.
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Nov 13, 2016 19:39
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true.spoon posted:At the risk of making enemies: I am some 150 pages int Gravity's Rainbow and I can't remember the last time a book has made me this angry. I always finish what I start but Pynchon is trying his hardest to make me stop. First of all, I hate his style. It's willfully obtuse to the extreme, the constant listings get really tiresome and occasionally branch out into pages after pages of basically unreadable wild associations. Everything gets bogged down with unrelated details which feel like an exercise in creative writing (similar to how every character needs to get some quirky traits but this is a pet peeve of mine and I won't hold it against him). You're going to have to decide by the end of Part 2 on whether or not you will continue, bud. While everything certainly gets more lucid and focused (in a way), all of your complaining points are certainly going to continue, and the entire last act will probably frive you to burn the book, yourself, or both of you in a raging fire. The best way I can explain the book is a parabola. Themes, ideas, characters and even jokes will be repeated or explained or completed by the books end, but on its own terms. And that isn't for everybody.
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Nov 13, 2016 19:45
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Franchescanado posted:You're going to have to decide by the end of Part 2 on whether or not you will continue, bud. While everything certainly gets more lucid and focused (in a way), all of your complaining points are certainly going to continue, and the entire last act will probably frive you to burn the book, yourself, or both of you in a raging fire. The best way I can explain the book is a parabola. Themes, ideas, characters and even jokes will be repeated or explained or completed by the books end, but on its own terms. And that isn't for everybody. But the true shape of a rainbow is a circle so your parabola is only half of the story and But yeah, you're right. At least continue on until Byron the Bulb, though.
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Nov 13, 2016 20:59
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Invicta{HOG}, M.D. posted:But the true shape of a rainbow is a circle so your parabola is only half of the story and I think that's 500 pages in, though.
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Nov 13, 2016 21:06
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Franchescanado posted:I think that's 500 pages in, though. Shhh!!!!
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Nov 13, 2016 21:16
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I'm reading the same thing rn and love it 
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Nov 13, 2016 21:29
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true.spoon posted:At the risk of making enemies: I am some 150 pages int Gravity's Rainbow and I can't remember the last time a book has made me this angry. I always finish what I start but Pynchon is trying his hardest to make me stop. First of all, I hate his style. It's willfully obtuse to the extreme, the constant listings get really tiresome and occasionally branch out into pages after pages of basically unreadable wild associations. Everything gets bogged down with unrelated details which feel like an exercise in creative writing (similar to how every character needs to get some quirky traits but this is a pet peeve of mine and I won't hold it against him). Being obtuse and hard to read is good, and you need to train in the hyperbolic reading chamber more to increase your reading level
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Nov 13, 2016 23:07
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Gravity's Rainbow is incredible and if you found the part where Slothrop crawls through a toilet into a fantastical wonderland where two of everything exist obtuse instead of magical well then you might be the kind of stick in the mud that decides who gets Pulitzer and Nobel prizes.
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Nov 14, 2016 01:00
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Nanomashoes posted:Gravity's Rainbow is incredible and if you found the part where Slothrop crawls through a toilet into a fantastical wonderland where two of everything exist obtuse instead of magical well then you might be the kind of stick in the mud that decides who gets Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. If you don't laugh at the candy-eating scene, you have no soul. That, and the cocaine-fueled hijacking of the Red Cross bus.
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Nov 14, 2016 01:06
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i should really get around to reading gravity's rainbow
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Nov 14, 2016 01:47
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A human heart posted:Being obtuse and hard to read is good, and you need to train in the hyperbolic reading chamber more to increase your reading level lol
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Nov 14, 2016 04:20
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chernobyl kinsman posted:i should really get around to reading gravity's rainbow I dunno. It sounds kinda bad...
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Nov 14, 2016 04:22
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Now is as good a time as any to read Gravity's Rainbow because the parallels between the plot and the recent election in America are insanely creepy
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Nov 14, 2016 04:23
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