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im reading the tao te ching
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Mar 19, 2017 21:56
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| # ? May 27, 2024 17:49 |
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man i am struggling with the war of the end of the world. i mean it's good and i like it and it's interesting but i just cannot get into it at all and it feels like a chore to read. 30% into it so far
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Mar 19, 2017 22:07
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Ras Het posted:im reading the tao te ching Which translation?
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Mar 19, 2017 23:10
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Mover posted:Which translation? Some old Finnish one. I didn't bother to read the annotations and it's a very short book so now I'm gonna read something else
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Mar 19, 2017 23:14
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fridge corn posted:man i am struggling with the war of the end of the world. That's weird because it's basically a fun page turner kind of thing
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Mar 19, 2017 23:25
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Ras Het posted:Some old Finnish one. I didn't bother to read the annotations and it's a very short book so now I'm gonna read something else If you ever feel like revisiting it, I find the Tao Te Ching benefits a lot from reading and comparing multiple translators b/c Classical Chinese is very, very difficult and Laozi was purposefully writing with lots of allusions and his word choice is often frustratingly ambiguous (probably purposefully so). I've seen versions that present the original characters and their possible literal translations and don't even attempt to form full sentences or place punctuation, which are very interesting but a bit of work obviously. Compare to someone like Stephen Mitchell who comes from a background of writing and translating poetry (known for being probably the best rendition of Rilke into English). His version is incredibly beautiful but some critics will rip into him for unfaithfulness to Chinese thought and the original text.
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Mar 19, 2017 23:32
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I see. I don't really know much about Chinese literature and thought, or poetry or philosophy so it was all a bit vague and whatever to me. I think I should read a primer on Buddhism
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Mar 19, 2017 23:39
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taoism predates and is a separate philosophy from buddism tho & is super interesting in its own right
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Mar 19, 2017 23:52
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yes I know that, I'm not an idiot, but I've read Heike Monogatari and Genji Monogatari and got some other old Japanese stuff lined up, and I feel like I need some context outside of long dead medieval theologies
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Mar 19, 2017 23:59
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Ras Het posted:yes I know that, I'm not an idiot, but I've read Heike Monogatari and Genji Monogatari and got some other old Japanese stuff lined up, and I feel like I need some context outside of long dead medieval theologies You should check out the Analects if you haven't already
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Mar 20, 2017 00:05
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A human heart posted:That's weird because it's basically a fun page turner kind of thing Hmmm idk maybe it's the translation that's bad
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Mar 20, 2017 00:16
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chernobyl kinsman posted:SGGK is sincerely worth the effort required to read it in the original ME. it's difficult, absolutely, but extraordinarily rewarding. This is absolutely true of a lot of Middle English literature imho though it is the case that the language is purposefully archaic, dialect-based and weird in SGGK even for its day But yeah the poem is worth the effort for sure
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Mar 20, 2017 01:43
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chernobyl kinsman posted:taoism predates and is a separate philosophy from buddism tho & is super interesting in its own right It's not really that interesting imo
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Mar 20, 2017 02:41
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Okay since you goons wouldn't shut up about it, I read Aquarium. And yes, it was excellent and I finished it in one sitting. Very sad in ways that I sort of knew to expect, and that resonate with me at this point in my life as well. So add another one to the Vann clan. I'd give it a 9/10 because I think he can and will do better. Highly recommended, at any rate.
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Mar 20, 2017 03:21
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I tried to read Steven Moore's book about the history of novels, but he was way too much of an obnoxious smuglord for my tastes. I'm not here for some man to tell me about how "owl-eyed feminists" can find misogyny in any man's work or about how ancient Egyptian priests rewrote history like Stalinist totalitarians or some horseshit. I'm here for the books, not for the knockoff Richard Dawkins crap.
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Mar 20, 2017 03:40
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mdemone posted:Okay since you goons wouldn't shut up about it, I read Aquarium. And yes, it was excellent and I finished it in one sitting. Very sad in ways that I sort of knew to expect, and that resonate with me at this point in my life as well. 
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Mar 20, 2017 04:34
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ZakAce posted:I tried to read Steven Moore's book about the history of novels, but he was way too much of an obnoxious smuglord for my tastes. I'm not here for some man to tell me about how "owl-eyed feminists" can find misogyny in any man's work or about how ancient Egyptian priests rewrote history like Stalinist totalitarians or some horseshit. I'm here for the books, not for the knockoff Richard Dawkins crap. ah poo poo, this academic knows about stuff i don't
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Mar 20, 2017 04:37
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I swear someone was in here talking about White Teeth by Zadie Smith the other day, something about it having a bad ending? Maybe I hallucinated it. Anyway I just started reading that but was curious about this supposedly bad ending.
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Mar 20, 2017 04:40
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Desire not to read David Vann has a 1:1 correlation with goodness of posting
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Mar 20, 2017 05:17
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re: Tao Te Ching read the Alistair Crowley translation because while I'm almost entirely certain it's not a good translation it's amazing.
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Mar 20, 2017 05:19
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the Latvian version of Tao Te Ching has 3 versions of most verses/chapters in the same book, because the translator himself didn't read Chinese, so he based everything on the English, Russian and German translations and wrote a cranky introduction about local sinologists not bothering with the book, which left him with no choice but do it himself, obv. it reminds me of a famous local pop-composer who got into Islam and published a translation Koran from Russian even tho a direct translation by a well regarded scholar/poet was coming out the same year, because why not Tao was still interesting tho, and I should probably dig up some good direct translation.
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Mar 20, 2017 09:04
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CestMoi posted:Desire not to read David Vann has a 1:1 correlation with goodness of posting lets think about this. we could read a living american who looks like a lizardman, or we could read some dead gay europeans who have been mouldering in the earth for 50 years. real tough one
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Mar 20, 2017 11:04
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I read the Vann book and it was Not Good.
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Mar 20, 2017 19:54
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A human heart posted:ah poo poo, this academic knows about stuff i don't He's read very widely but never misses a chance to sneer at religion. Like calling 'Muslim culture' "the most successful and frightening brainwashing operation in human history".
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Mar 21, 2017 01:01
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Casaubon posted:He's read very widely but never misses a chance to sneer at religion. Like calling 'Muslim culture' "the most successful and frightening brainwashing operation in human history". That does sound annoying but I think I would still read his books in spite of that
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Mar 21, 2017 01:09
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Ras Het posted:I see. I don't really know much about Chinese literature and thought, or poetry or philosophy so it was all a bit vague and whatever to me. I think I should read a primer on Buddhism Ras Het posted:yes I know that, I'm not an idiot, but I've read Heike Monogatari and Genji Monogatari and got some other old Japanese stuff lined up, and I feel like I need some context outside of long dead medieval theologies Paul Williams' Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations is good on concepts but doesn't cover Japan much. I found the first volume of the anthology Sources of Japanese Tradition helpful for filling out the Heian cultural background, since it isn't always easy to find information on Tendai or Shingon in English. A human heart posted:That does sound annoying but I think I would still read his books in spite of that I've only read the first volume but I think it works best as a reading list, it's more of a series of plot synopses than a history. There are other questionable aspects like in the 'Hebrew Novel' section where he presents the documentary hypothesis as fact and suggests that the only people who don't accept it are fundamentalists. It allows him to extract 'novels' from the Tanakh but his readings are fairly shallow in the light of the work of people like Robert Alter. Casaubon fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Mar 21, 2017 |
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Mar 21, 2017 01:17
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Ohh that's cool, cheers
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Mar 21, 2017 01:22
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Casaubon posted:I've only read the first volume but I think it works best as a reading list, it's more of a series of plot synopses than a history. There are other questionable aspects like in the 'Hebrew Novel' section where he presents the documentary hypothesis as fact and suggests that the only people who don't accept it are fundamentalists. It allows him to extract 'novels' from the Tanakh but his readings are fairly shallow in the light of the work of people like Robert Alter. Agreed, but although his attitude to religion is irritating, I can't fault him for not knowing everything. Unless you've been to university recently you're not going to know the documentary hypothesis isn't the state of the art.
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Mar 21, 2017 17:39
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Safety Biscuits posted:Agreed, but although his attitude to religion is irritating, I can't fault him for not knowing everything. Unless you've been to university recently you're not going to know the documentary hypothesis isn't the state of the art. You can absolutely fault him for not doing his research properly. I know nothing of the subject and haven't read the book in question, but I'd expect someone writing a book about any subject to be up to date with current study. E: oh poo poo maybe i didn't read your sarcasm Jerome Agricola fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Mar 21, 2017 |
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Mar 21, 2017 17:51
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Sleng Teng posted:I read the Vann book and it was Not Good. I read this post and it was Not Good. For content: I just read Wittgenstein's Mistress which is about a woman who thinks she is the only person in the world and makes a bunch of allusions to authors and artists she hung out with, like the time when her cat sat on William Gaddis's lap. It was weird but also I think I liked it.
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Mar 21, 2017 19:56
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I'm reading the incredibly worn out, drawn in copy of The New American Bible I've had since elementary Catholic school. It's the only version I've ever read - anybody here know how it compares to KJ and othersthehoodie posted:I read this post and it was Not Good. Well it's because CestMoi posted:Desire not to read David Vann has a 1:1 correlation with goodness of posting and I read it anyway.
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Mar 21, 2017 20:16
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thehoodie posted:For content: I just read Wittgenstein's Mistress which is about a woman who thinks she is the only person in the world and makes a bunch of allusions to authors and artists she hung out with, like the time when her cat sat on William Gaddis's lap. It was weird but also I think I liked it. Read it a second time and you'll get a lot more out of it. It's crazy intricate. I wrote an undergrad thesis on it, and it's on a very short list of books (e: along with At Swim-Two-Birds, All the Pretty Horses, and, I dunno, Three Men in a Boat?) that keep taking the place of "all-time favorite" depending on my mood. I can always pick it up and read it for a few hours, which oddly I don't find true of Markson's other books in that free-associative style. In spite of the artificial conceit behind the plot, the narrator/protagonist Kate is probably the most realistic and sympathetic character I've ever read—directly competing with Shakespeare's better creations. Eugene V. Dubstep fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Mar 21, 2017 |
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Mar 21, 2017 21:07
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thehoodie posted:I read this post and it was Not Good. Well it's on my "soon"-list for 2017... at the date posted:Read it a second time and you'll get a lot more out of it. It's crazy intricate. I wrote an undergrad thesis on it, and it's on a very short list of books (e: along with At Swim-Two-Birds, All the Pretty Horses, and, I dunno, Three Men in a Boat?) that keep taking the place of "all-time favorite" depending on my mood. I can always pick it up and read it for a few hours, which oddly I don't find true of Markson's other books in that free-associative style. In spite of the artificial conceit behind the plot, the narrator/protagonist Kate is probably the most realistic and sympathetic character I've ever read—directly competing with Shakespeare's better creations. ...and now I'm even more anxious to get to it. Originally I'd picked it up on the strength of DFW's effusive praise (despite the fact that many of his other high recommendations are...questionable?) but I do think it will pique my interest since I have a high tolerance for experimentation and conceit.
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Mar 22, 2017 00:40
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Jerome Agricola posted:You can absolutely fault him for not doing his research properly. I know nothing of the subject and haven't read the book in question, but I'd expect someone writing a book about any subject to be up to date with current study. Here's some more sarcasm: I'd expect someone writing a post about any book to have read it  But to be serious, it's a history of the novel; Biblical hermeneutics isn't the book's subject. The TaNaKh is only briefly mentioned in it, we're talking about one footnote in a 500+ page book. And thirdly, the documentary hypothesis may not be the academic consensus today (I'm not sure about this) but it's still important and other hypotheses are similar to it. It's a mistake on the order of saying that Darwin's theory of evolution was controversial, but biologists today accept it. In a book this shallow it's no big deal.
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Mar 23, 2017 18:03
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I think I want to give peter handke a shot. any recs?
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Mar 24, 2017 12:39
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ulvir posted:I think I want to give peter handke a shot. any recs? I haven't read any of his books, but he did write some of the script for Wings of Desire. If u haven't seen that it's great.
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Mar 24, 2017 16:33
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Holy ugh, this article makes me mad. The Rising Tide of Educated Aliteracy. I don't even want to post any part of it. Summary: "educated" and "intelligent" people glorifying not reading.
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Mar 24, 2017 20:18
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thehoodie posted:Holy ugh, this article makes me mad. I only read part of it but yeah this is what every reader has done since the dawn of time I'm sure... Read a bit here read a bit there, pretend you read everything? also the "aliteracy" part annoys me cause to me the wilfulness and the declaration of it are the "important" parts. "I don't read & I'm proud of it." Otherwise Aliteracy is just a smugger way to say Illiteracy I could probably brag about not reading Ayn Rand, but I really don't care to do so & also I had to think for a bit before I could name a writer that I won't read. Being loud about it is weird and dumb
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Mar 25, 2017 12:17
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lmao "i only read part of it" wtf man im gonna go kill myself
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Mar 25, 2017 12:18
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| # ? May 27, 2024 17:49 |
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Fire the Bastards.
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Mar 25, 2017 14:03
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