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What's the other good Calvino stuff I've read those 2 and if on a winter's night a traveler also I feel like aside from Invisible Cities Calvino has much better ideas than his writing can really cope with and his stuff while really great sort of suffers because he can't quite do the ideas justice
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Aug 27, 2015 22:35
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i liked cosmicomics
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Aug 27, 2015 22:42
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I still have not read any Calvino that expresses ideas that I haven;t heard from stoned Philosophy freshman
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Aug 27, 2015 22:43
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I still have not read any Calvino that expresses ideas that I haven;t heard from stoned Philosophy freshman I think there's something profoundly wrong in how you read books
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Aug 27, 2015 22:47
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I still have not read any Calvino that expresses ideas that I haven;t heard from stoned Philosophy freshman This is a strange post because I don't think of Calvino as being particularly philosophical?? It's just fun literary ideas it's not some deep woah what if your blue isn't my blue stuff.
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Aug 27, 2015 22:48
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CestMoi posted:This is a strange post because I don't think of Calvino as being particularly philosophical?? It's just fun literary ideas it's not some deep woah what if your blue isn't my blue stuff. Invisible Cities is basically "Hey what if like... *tokes up* this happened..."
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Aug 27, 2015 22:55
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wtf
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Aug 27, 2015 22:57
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no, it is not. not even a little bit
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Aug 27, 2015 22:58
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Genghis Khan and Marco Polo stare at their shoes and listen to the Decemberists for 200 pages - SparkNotes for Invisible Cities
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Aug 27, 2015 22:59
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Ras Het posted:I think there's something profoundly wrong in how you read books
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Aug 27, 2015 23:00
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Ras Het posted:I think there's something profoundly wrong in how you read books my guess is that the "something" involves "not actually reading them"
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Aug 27, 2015 23:03
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Earwicker posted:my guess is that the "something" involves "not actually reading them" If I was gonna fake reading a book I would probably do one longer than that
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Aug 27, 2015 23:05
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I mean Invisible Cities is basically just... visions. Imagery. There's metaphors, sure, but they're obtuse enough to be meaningless MLYP
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Aug 27, 2015 23:07
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Legit though if Invisible Cities is supposed to be something beyond a series of philosophical exercises in literary form fill me in because I am interested in what I missed.
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Aug 27, 2015 23:08
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Ras Het posted:I mean Invisible Cities is basically just... visions. Imagery. There's metaphors, sure, but they're obtuse enough to be meaningless MLYP So why are you so pissed off I said it was philosophical posturing?
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Aug 27, 2015 23:10
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Are you one of those guys who reads all serious fiction like if it was due in an ill-advised high school assignment, "what does his mother being a fish mean?"
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Aug 27, 2015 23:10
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Mel Mudkiper posted:So why are you so pissed off I said it was philosophical posturing? because that's completely different to what I said
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Aug 27, 2015 23:11
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Ras Het posted:because that's completely different to what I said So they are obtuse visionary metaphors but not the philosophical kind of obtuse visionary metaphors Ras Het posted:Are you one of those guys who reads all serious fiction like if it was due in an ill-advised high school assignment, "what does his mother being a fish mean?" I read for a fundamental shift in subject positioning.
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Aug 27, 2015 23:13
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Mel Mudkiper posted:So they are obtuse visionary metaphors but not the philosophical kind of obtuse visionary metaphors It's not a book that has many meanings to unravel. "Hypatia is actually an inverse garbage pile" is just an image.
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Aug 27, 2015 23:18
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Legit though if Invisible Cities is supposed to be something beyond a series of philosophical exercises in literary form fill me in because I am interested in what I missed. So happy I'm not alone in this.
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Aug 27, 2015 23:19
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Ras Het posted:It's not a book that has many meanings to unravel. "Hypatia is actually an inverse garbage pile" is just an image. Arguing a book is images without any significance makes the book sound worse than it is. Imagery without significance is Kinkade. There is legitimate meaning behind what he constructs I mean the town built like a spider-web over a cliff was actually the one that stuck with me the most because it was an interesting meditation on mortality. I am not trying to say "what does it all mean" but if you are engaging with Calvino on a superficial level and not allowing yourself to explore the implications of the images he constructs you are the one reading him wrong.
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Aug 27, 2015 23:21
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CestMoi posted:What's the other good Calvino stuff I've read those 2 and if on a winter's night a traveler also I feel like aside from Invisible Cities Calvino has much better ideas than his writing can really cope with and his stuff while really great sort of suffers because he can't quite do the ideas justice Here are some I've read over the past year or so, I've actually come to like his writing a lot better since I read Cities and Winter's Night like 5-10 years ago: Mr. Palomar - About an old dude walking around, literally just like going to the beach or staring at a lizard eating flies and thinking about stuff; pretty chill stuff The Nonexistent Knight - This one is probably my favorite of his, it's genuinely pretty hilarious. It is about a knight who is literally an empty suit of armor going around having adventures, basically a bunch of parodies of King Arthur stories. My favorite part is where some lady tries to seduce and disgrace him, but since he doesn't have a body or dick he just spends the entire night wooing her until she is madly in love with him; meanwhile his squire is just ravishing all of her ladies in waiting or whatever. The Cloven Viscount - This is usually paired with the Nonexistent Knight apparently. About a viscount who gets shot in half by a cannon and one half is super evil and the other is good but basically so good that he causes more trouble than actually helping. Italian Folktales - a bunch (200) of Italian Folktales he collected and translated. They're pretty redundant but they are all super short and good for reading on the toilet, some are really funny.
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Aug 27, 2015 23:29
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Baron in the Trees is a fun book about a boy who climbs into the trees and refuses to come down for the rest of his life.
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Aug 27, 2015 23:36
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Guy A. Person posted:Mr. Palomar - About an old dude walking around, literally just like going to the beach or staring at a lizard eating flies and thinking about stuff; pretty chill stuff DannyTanner posted:Baron in the Trees is a fun book about a boy who climbs into the trees and refuses to come down for the rest of his life. Someone please explain to me again how calling Calvino philosophical exercises in literary form is unfair
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Aug 27, 2015 23:38
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You are using the word philosophical like it doesn't have a meaning.
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Aug 27, 2015 23:40
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CestMoi posted:You are using the word philosophical like it doesn't have a meaning. Meditating on intangible concepts that are a part of the human experience and trying to comprehend and define them is not philosophy?
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Aug 27, 2015 23:43
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Also you're acting like philosophy is entirely the purview of undeclared college freshman and stoners
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Aug 27, 2015 23:43
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Guy A. Person posted:Also you're acting like philosophy is entirely the purview of undeclared college freshman and stoners Hey now don't forget unemployed dilettantes in that group too
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Aug 27, 2015 23:45
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Always looking for good toilet reading. poetry is good for thisCestMoi posted:i read Castle of Crossed Destinies it was good and the end like 2 bits were really good but not as good as Invisible Cities on the whole IMO I'm also reading this right now and I'm taking it really slow like I did invisible cities, but it really does lack something so far, although I'm only up to the part after Roland's story where they've exhausted the deck so maybe something new is going to happen? in re: to the previous invisible cities chat, I too went through boring american highschool and had to... for lack of a better term, "turn off my brain" when reading invisible cities because I read the summary on the back cover which alludes to something like "...and it becomes clear that these cities are all one city, which is something more..." etc or some bullshit. Maybe Marco is just describing Venice or whatever, I didn't try to Figure It Out or attempt to connect it to being something other than what it was because I figured out real quick that there wasn't going to be some late chapter where it's subtly revealed that the whole time, Marco Polo was describing.... "SOMETHING ELSE! BUT WHAT?? dun dun dun!! Discuss in at least three paragraphs." Starting out with some premise and then trying to justify it as you go along would be tiresome and awful, and I'm glad I cut that real short and just enjoyed the bizarre ways Calvino could portray a 'city' with only the loose connections of 'thin cities' or 'cities and desire.'
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Aug 27, 2015 23:48
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quote:Meditating on intangible concepts that are a part of the human experience and trying to comprehend and define them is not philosophy? But it's not doing that it's just making pictures out of ideas? I could get where you're coming from if Calvino at any point was addressing the ideas AS ideas, but he's not they're incidental things he uses to create stories. Obviously there's meaning you imbue them with (and presumably A Meaning that Calvino intended consciously or not) but the meaning is not at all important to the books.
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Aug 27, 2015 23:49
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CestMoi posted:but the meaning is not at all important to the books. Then I guess my issue is, if you want to argue that Calvino's writing is entirely the realm of imagery devoid of significance, what makes it literature? I am not trying to argue that everything Calvino writes has to lend itself to a high school "the seaweed symbolizes innocence" kind of interpretation but if you are trying to say Calvino should be read without any sort of reader-text interaction, what is the point? If the reader doesn't have an experience with the text beyond the immediate and visceral what makes it art and not a parlor trick?
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Aug 27, 2015 23:53
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Invisible cities hits me right in the same spot that derives pleasure from maps, maps of fictional worlds, and making up fantastic maps and landscapes, only more surreal and obviously less visual. Words on a page elicit this feeling from me and that's why it's literature.
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Aug 27, 2015 23:56
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Zesty Mordant posted:Invisible cities hits me right in the same spot that derives pleasure from maps, maps of fictional worlds, and making up fantastic maps and landscapes, only more surreal and obviously less visual. Words on a page elicit this feeling from me and that's why it's literature. This is a really good summation of my exact feelings. The idea that art has to be deeper than an immediate and visceral pleasure otherwise it's just a parlour trick is very strange imo
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Aug 28, 2015 00:03
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CestMoi posted:This is a really good summation of my exact feelings. The idea that art has to be deeper than an immediate and visceral pleasure otherwise it's just a parlour trick is very strange imo Its probably the best for everyone to avoid the "what is literature?" debate no. 529677 but I will just say we are probably at an impasse wrt this
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Aug 28, 2015 00:05
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this thread spends too much time discussing books I have not and will not ever read, please stop thanks Q: Can graphic novels be Literature? A: Possibly. I read a graphic novel called Blankets (Craig Thompson) and it moved me, though primarily because the protagonist's life mirrored my own very closely. I am curious whether someone who is less similar to the protag might feel about the work.
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Aug 28, 2015 00:12
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blue squares posted:this thread spends too much time discussing books I have not and will not ever read, please stop thanks We can talk about how you are wrong about 2666 Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Aug 28, 2015 |
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Aug 28, 2015 00:12
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Mel Mudkiper posted:We can talk about how you are wrong about 2666 I edited my above post to not be so dumb. But anyway. 2666, I hated it. The first part had some really good characterization, but everything after that was just drawn out and unrewarding. The author died after a first draft and from what I have read, it was never edited. 2666 is book that badly needs editing, IN MY OPINION. However, it received such critical acclaim that I must consider that I missed something about it. How can almost everyone be wrong? No book will please everyone, but typically when I read books that got the praise 2666 got, I agree with the consensus.
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Aug 28, 2015 00:15
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blue squares posted:Q: Can graphic novels be Literature? I was actually genuinely annoyed Building Stories by Chris Ware didn't make finalist for the Pulitzer If any Graphic Novel deserved to get major recognition it was that one. Its also become a bit of a cliche at this point but Fun Home is a masterpiece blue squares posted:But anyway. 2666, I hated it. The first part had some really good characterization, but everything after that was just drawn out and unrewarding. The author died after a first draft and from what I have read, it was never edited. 2666 is book that badly needs editing, IN MY OPINION. Not quite. He died with the book unfinished, but the ones that were published had actually been edited as I recall. He originally wanted each part published separately so they could be a nest egg for his family. I can see how you might find it aimless. I saw it as using a backdrop of significant violence in both global war and local crime to explore very well-developed characters. Plus, I was fascinated by the real-life story its based on so that pushed me through also. Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Aug 28, 2015 |
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Aug 28, 2015 00:17
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I'm currently working through Last Temptation of Christ. I love this off-putting, visceral portrayal of both the divine and the mundane poo poo happening around Jesus. When I'm not reading about a vision of an ocean of bones or some armored eagle-headed monster, I'm reading about Jesus' fondness for armpit odor. So rad.
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Aug 28, 2015 00:30
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Then I guess my issue is, if you want to argue that Calvino's writing is entirely the realm of imagery devoid of significance, what makes it literature? But the reader is having an experience with the text, they're visualising and appreciating cool images. What's invalid about that?
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Aug 28, 2015 01:36
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