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I haven't read 2666 in years now, and when I did I didn't pay it that much attention, but today I found myself suddenly thinking about two images: When the Europeans the book starts with take that taxi ride When the American (p sure) in prison says his dad or uncle maybe, he says he's coming and he's a giant And I suddenly have this feeling like there's a hidden thread in American culture, like there's a secret cult. Not like illuminati or anything you can be inducted to, but a death cult where like recognizes like. Where some are in some way born apart and these people can look at the night sky and see a vein of stars waiting for them and they're staring into the year 2666 and working towards it. I don't really know how to describe it, but I think there is something to it. I'm not super well traveled but I've met people who give off that vibe, even if subtly, and only Americans have had it so far. Like... other people do not live like this, they don't have this unspoken acknowledgement of... something... and they don't really seem to have a world view or life style that can begin to detect it. Not even all Americans have it. I mean sure, think of someone who does all kinds of crimes or whatever, but maybe there's a greater chance that when it's an American there's this sense of a vast intrinsic malignancy that you can sort of glimpse if you're able to peel back the corner a little. I only really bring up crime because these two images are crime related, although I don't really remember if that second guy is actually American or what he did. If he's not it kind of shoots a hole in this whole line of thought. I just started reading it and there's an early line where von Archibaldi is described as having an epileptic personal character. I interpret it in the sense of "being touched." Touched and made different, this is sort of what I'm talking about. I don't know that national character is actually real, but I have known some Chinese and Latin Americans from various places and Koreans and Americans and Europeans who have more in common or rather have a more interoperable worldview, if worldview is even the right word. But then there are these guys, who seem to be operating some kinda alien idea system that is only partially isomorphic to everyone else. I was just standing outside smoking when this came to me from nowhere and it's not really coherently formed, but maybe if the Portuguese have saudade some Americans have... some thing. I don't mean burgs and piss beer and all the upper layer poo poo, I mean some seem like they don't even have to look, and they can't even be said to have faith, but they have this fully integrated intrinsic understanding that something is going to step over the horizon, that there's something coming. Does this make any sense? Maybe there are other people that radiate this vibe that aren't American and I just haven't met any. It's a weird loving country and I say it as one of em. Maybe I'm in this too. Maybe I have been too into the ligotti lifestyle and it's not real. Those two images when compared to each other show you the difference though, if anyone wants I'll look up the passages to quote. I guess I don't have the vocabulary or haven't thought it out enough to describe it other than by comparison. When I think of people I've known in real life this same difference also shows up. What do you guys think?
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Mar 21, 2020 01:27
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| # ? May 19, 2024 23:45 |
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Man, how long have you been self-isolating?
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Mar 21, 2020 07:51
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hello im permabanned poster bolanostomper88
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Mar 21, 2020 08:50
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huge if true
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Mar 21, 2020 09:40
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I feel that it's irresponsible to attribute a trait to an entire nation. That's not how it works, and leads you down the road to nationalism and other bad things. As for the sense that Americans are aware of the end, or something like that, uh, have you seen our government? Our media? Our health care? This isn't a national ennui/expanded mind/etc, this is what happens when most of the population cannot afford to see a doctor and now we're all losing our jobs because of the plague. "something is going to step over the horizon" it's the Man and he's been out to get us for decades, and it doesn't help that a section of our ruling class is actively out to usher in the christian rapture
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Mar 21, 2020 10:44
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What’s the recommended method for converting ePub into mobi? Is it still Calibre, or can I get away with one of the online converters? I’d rather not install any new software if I don’t have to.
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Mar 21, 2020 12:03
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:What’s the recommended method for converting ePub into mobi? Is it still Calibre, or can I get away with one of the online converters? I’d rather not install any new software if I don’t have to. I'd recommend calibre regardless just because it's open source and straightforward. Online apps that mess with files tend to install spyware anyway.
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Mar 21, 2020 12:19
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:What’s the recommended method for converting ePub into mobi? Is it still Calibre, or can I get away with one of the online converters? I’d rather not install any new software if I don’t have to. Calibre does everything even wierdass formats that I don't even know where they come from
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Mar 21, 2020 13:26
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I use an online converter, can’t remember which, 1st hit on google, directly from my phone then send to kindle email, works like a charm 
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Mar 21, 2020 15:51
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It sucks, ever since the world started melting I can't get myself to read anything. It's like my anxiety level is just high enough that I can't focus on anything for more than a minute at a time. Rarr.
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Mar 21, 2020 17:42
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Philthy posted:It sucks, ever since the world started melting I can't get myself to read anything. It's like my anxiety level is just high enough that I can't focus on anything for more than a minute at a time. Rarr. I was reading the Silmarillion, then covid slammed in real hard and I've gone back to urban fantasy because it's just easy enough to read while still being good. I've found that the genre has been good in general for when I'm too stressed for anything else - the setting is close enough to reality that I don't have to work too hard to understand it, and the action is fun.
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Mar 21, 2020 17:46
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Switching to something less serious might be worth trying. I have endless 40k books I could take a dip into and see if that helps.
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Mar 21, 2020 17:49
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I have a stack of random short story collections from used book stores that I keep near my bed. When I get in that not-able-to-read-books zone I pick out any one of them and look at the index for a really short short story to read Sometimes I go on to read another one, other times not. But it feels nice to read a lil thing anyway.
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Mar 21, 2020 17:56
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a list of easy to access books for our collective downtime: https://www.washingtonpost.com/ente...c2cc_story.html
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Mar 21, 2020 18:51
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I'm reading The Iliad in order to fortify myself
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Mar 21, 2020 20:12
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:hello im permabanned poster bolanostomper88
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Mar 21, 2020 22:29
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StrixNebulosa posted:I feel that it's irresponsible to attribute a trait to an entire nation. That's not how it works, and leads you down the road to nationalism and other bad things. I agree, I just think 2666 sorta has a vibe of it, the way it talks about Espinoza or whoever else, or like german lit or something. I don't mean an end as in an upcoming catastrophe I mean more in the sense of like... you know how animals can supposedly feel an earthquake is going to start? Something like that. Not an end that has any sort of physical action but some kind of subliminal thing. I for sure get the feeling that some people are really walking around and their worldview is somehow different. In an important way that I can't figure out a good way to describe. e: As if some people have an impossible to analyze alternate source of motives? Something like this. SniperWoreConverse fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Mar 21, 2020 |
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Mar 21, 2020 22:35
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I guess you could say that millenarianism has a pretty big place in American culture, such as it is.
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Mar 21, 2020 23:10
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You might want to look up doomsday preppers. Which I googled and is apparently also a reality show that profiles these guys.
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Mar 21, 2020 23:27
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I’d say that 2666 has that impending sense of doom, but the doom is already upon us in the novel. However, I can’t deny its emotional impact. It left me devastated the first time I read it. I was in a dreamlike haze for days, the way the stories came together at the end hosed me over. Coincidentally, I am almost done with my reread of the novel and was able to approach it in a much more detached and critical way. I am really enjoying Bolanos craft this time around. Time to reread Savage Detectives, I guess. I have a copy of Last Evenings somewhere around the house, so I’ll probably dive into that one as well.
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Mar 21, 2020 23:52
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SniperWoreConverse posted:And I suddenly have this feeling like there's a hidden thread in American culture, like there's a secret cult. Not like illuminati or anything you can be inducted to, but a death cult where like recognizes like. Where some are in some way born apart and these people can look at the night sky and see a vein of stars waiting for them and they're staring into the year 2666 and working towards it.
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Mar 22, 2020 00:30
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Ras Het posted:I'm reading The Iliad in order to fortify myself My copy is in Swedish and I'm not ready for it. David Hume, Sax Rohmer, and Erich Kästner? OK fine. Homerås? It's too much 
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Mar 22, 2020 01:10
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(My aunt lived in Stockholm which is why I have books in Swedish anyway.)
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Mar 22, 2020 01:11
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Å musa, berätta för meg om en jävlig skitstövel
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Mar 22, 2020 01:17
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Krankenstyle posted:Å musa, berätta för meg om en jävlig skitstövel Laulaos, oi runotar, viha Peleun poian Akilleun. Is forever imprinted on my brain AND I DONT EVEN HAVE THAT EDITION.
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Mar 22, 2020 01:22
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what does Peleun mean
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Mar 22, 2020 01:36
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Krankenstyle posted:what does Peleun mean Peleus's
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Mar 22, 2020 01:37
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ugh  please tell me the knotty word from the Finnish translation, and its literal translation
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Mar 22, 2020 01:42
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Krankenstyle posted:I guess you could say that millenarianism has a pretty big place in American culture, such as it is. StrixNebulosa posted:You might want to look up doomsday preppers. Which I googled and is apparently also a reality show that profiles these guys. Yup & yup, but I'm not talking about this and am sort of struggling to choke out what I really mean. The fact that bolano is himself not American helps throw out the idea that this otherly-conceived worldview is primarily American, although it could be. It's probably an artifact of my life that the kind of people who "have 2666" that I have seen in real life are mostly American. I don't think the book itself is really primarily about this but it sort of intersects with what is written and without the book I might not have consciously, uh, apprehended it. More like grabbing the tail of an idea than really getting a good grip though.
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Mar 22, 2020 01:51
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Have any of you guys seen the ganbreeder choose your own adventure thread? I feel like if you had two normal people, they would look and pretty much act the same in almost any circumstance. If you popped the hood on the regular person's mind it would be a regular car engine, in whatever state of repair. If you popped the hood on the mind of someone who has 2666 it would look like an ai generated version of a car engine, normal, but on second glance there are connections and substitutions between parts that would break an engine, yet it runs. Or like one of the tools talked about in "The Sick Land." Also normal at first glance, but it operates differently even if it almost always gives the same result and performance as the normal mind. But the more you look the more you realize you have absolutely no ability to understand the most basic principle that governs this thing you thought you understood. Anyway I started reading it again and only just got to the taxi scene.
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Mar 22, 2020 02:05
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I feel like the sense of impending doom and unreality in 2666 has a lot to do with the fact that he wrote it while dying.
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Mar 22, 2020 02:13
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I think you're stumbling across a new country's (person's) fear of destruction, dismay, doom, whatever. Beckett wrote about it in Murphy, where a man shakes himself to death (with help) because he's tried to commune with madness. The actual mad people are already living their life. Go into an early morning pub with functional alcoholics, a support group for domestic abuse, an out-patients centre for people with mental health issues, talk to homeless people on the street and you'll find the same "same-recognises-same" going on there, maybe tailored to specific examples where their doom has already come. You only seeing this in America and Americans would indicate to me it's a young country thing. Other nations have been through this many times over. Some nations might be experiencing freedom from it for the first time ever in the 20th century. You might die, you might live, everything might change. Keep going while you can, the people who manage that keeping going won't look back, or at the very least they won't stop. A simple recognition to take what's coming as it comes could be helpful.
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Mar 22, 2020 02:23
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Catfishenfuego posted:I feel like the sense of impending doom and unreality in 2666 has a lot to do with the fact that he wrote it while dying. I could see it. That's the only book I've read of his, what's his other stuff like?
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Mar 22, 2020 02:23
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as a european who hasnt read the book, my input is probably worthless but anyway: every time ive been in the states, it just looks incredibly worn down and cheaply made. i dont mean this as a diss, but like everything is falling apart. roads have potholes, wires are sagging, walls are leaning etc. patriotic individualism, kinda? "we are all in this sinking boat together, but none of us will try to stop it" im finding it hard to express what i intended to say Carthag Tuek fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Mar 22, 2020 |
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Mar 22, 2020 02:26
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Mrenda posted:I think you're stumbling across a new country's (person's) fear of destruction, dismay, doom, whatever. Beckett wrote about it in Murphy, where a man shakes himself to death (with help) because he's tried to commune with madness. The actual mad people are already living their life. This is pretty interesting and something to think about. But I pretty much botched this whole thing by starting off phrasing it in a way where I'm half talking about dooms and reckonings coming. I mean to say for people who have the quality 2666 something is coming and they are acting towards its coming. Or they have a 2666th sense. They're tagged with a radioisotope. They can taste it on the wind, always. Those are garbage explanations. The coming thing's not a change or an overthrow and the the 2666ers aren't looking towards it, because they are it. It's at least a part of them even if it hasn't eminated out into the real world even only in the littlest bit as a mere idea can be said to be a little bit real. When Pelletier turns on every light in his apartment and calls about Moroni it's disgusting, Norton and Espinosa and Pelletier's relationship is disgusting, Moroni and his condition and his sadness are together disgusting, Norton and her beauty and how she knew about the guy who chopped his hand off is disgusting to me. When Pelletier has a strange dream or Norton explains having friends or Espinosa thinks about being all so modern it is like looking very closely at a big lizard slowly open its eye, but utterly repulsive to me in a way that an everyday real lizard could never be. I think it's because they don't have 2666. They have an active absence of it in a way the taxi driver didn't, he was neutrally buoyant. The taxi driver was fine. The Parisian prostitute and her husband and son lack, but are less disgusting because they're pathetic & Moroni is a little like them by virtue of being crippled and having that dream about the pool. (The pool dream and how it went through with Espinoza and Pelletier telling the story to Norton was something I really like about the book and completely forgot) I think I honestly hate the critics because they are the opposite of the guy who set them on fire with his incredible writing. I can't remember what happens to them, I hope they're entirely destroyed. I don't even remember much about Archibaldi himself or if he even shows up in person. The artist with the chopped hand I'm not sure but I think he has it. I'm entirely convinced the guy in prison has it strongly but I still haven't made it out of part one. I feel like Archibaldi has it intensely, but the guy he ate tacos with doesn't have it. Btw I'm pretty sure I'm spelling Archibaldi completely wrong and only do it because I'm phone posting. I'm wondering if I was depicted in the book in the same style as the critics how I would evaluate myself. I'm also pretty sure now that there is some name for this character trait already. If you know the phase "my hate is pure" like from cspam probably people with pure hate are more likely to have it, but I don't think it's the same thing as having 2666. Krankenstyle posted:as a european who hasnt read the book, my input is probably worthless but anyway: every time ive been in the states, it just looks incredibly worn down and cheaply made. i dont mean this as a diss, but like everything is falling apart. roads have potholes, wires are sagging, walls are leaning etc. Yeah this is one hundred percent true but I don't think it's because of individualism, because every human being I've ever interacted with who has even a little bit had to deal with any of it either hates the situation and vocally bitches about it, or doesn't seem to notice anything is off It's a fact of life, like sometimes it's gonna rain, sometimes you'll gently caress up your rim and need a new tire by accidentally slamming into a giant pothole. They use compulsory labor to "maintain" some of the infrastructure around here, but the prisoners are untrained and don't know how to do the repairs correctly and they immediately deteriorate worse than if the problems had been left alone. It's bitter, grueling work that fills these people with resentment. Then the guy in charge of this gets on tv and jerks himself off about what a great idea it is, and the reporters are very deferential and never question any part of it, and the people who voted him in jack themselves off for picking such a smart no bullshit guy who gets the problems solved, and then even more people vote for him. Some places in the US this whole complex is even worse, I think the earth has become poisoned like the land is cursed by the people who have lived on it and are buried in it. No good thing comes from those places, ever.
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Mar 22, 2020 03:38
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Krankenstyle posted:I have a stack of random short story collections from used book stores that I keep near my bed. When I get in that not-able-to-read-books zone I pick out any one of them and look at the index for a really short short story to read I'm doing Wodehouse short stories and Max Beerbohm.
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Mar 22, 2020 04:53
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Krankenstyle posted:as a european who hasnt read the book, my input is probably worthless but anyway: every time ive been in the states, it just looks incredibly worn down and cheaply made. i dont mean this as a diss, but like everything is falling apart. roads have potholes, wires are sagging, walls are leaning etc. I'd say you nailed it
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Mar 22, 2020 06:04
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Krankenstyle posted:ugh one has älykäs, "intelligent", which sucks poo poo, another has neuvokas, "clever" lit who has means or advice, which I like, and there's at least two more translations that I couldn't find on phone Google now
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Mar 22, 2020 10:25
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Krankenstyle posted:Å musa, berätta för meg om en jävlig skitstövel
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Mar 22, 2020 16:24
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I just had to stop reading a book out of puzzled anger because there's a character about to graduate in literature from Princeton and he has "never heard of William Caxton in [his] life."
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Mar 23, 2020 00:43
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