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Jorge Luis Borges Collected Fictions contains infinities, labyrinths, mirrors, tigers, gaucho knife-fighters, erudite references, and constantly recurring civil wars. Is there any point in reading anything more after this?
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Mar 3, 2024 11:05
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Magic Hate Ball posted:Dune by Frank Herbert was a way breezier read than I was expecting, though that might just be because the only memory I have of reading it in middle school was struggling really hard to wrap my head around the prose. For the most part, it's just good old fashioned medieval mythmaking with a bunch of sci-fi bells and whistles, but you can tell how much work Herbert put into those bells and whistles to create a vividly realized world with a lot of depth behind all the casual tossed-off references. I do think the first half of the book is far better than the second half, if just because the intrigue there is more...intriguing, and Herbert has a tough time shaping Paul's arc in the final third into a manageable dramatic shape. He also has a habit of using thudding internal monologues to communicate things that either have already been told to us, or could have been worked more organically into the text, but it's also fun seeing the ways that people work at cross-purposes, even if it doesn't always feel organic. I was also surprised by how nondescript it is, but maybe that's down to expectations set by the wild visuals of Lynch's film, and the grand scale of Villeneuve's.
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Mar 3, 2024 13:47
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Finished Pride and Prejudice, enjoyed it. Not sure what to read next, maybe some Hemingway.
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Mar 3, 2024 18:54
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jesus WEP posted:just remember, it’s never too early to stop reading dune sequels There. Are. SIX Dune books! Just finished Between Two Fires. It was enjoyable, interesting take on horror in the late medieval period. I think for my next book I'll read either history, The New Roman Empire: a History of Byzantium, or do something I've been meaning to do and start Michael Moorcock's Elric series. Probably Elric because I'm short on free time these days and I can knock those out over a weekend.
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Mar 3, 2024 19:14
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Ithle01 posted:There. Are. SIX Dune books! It took me fifteen years to read the fifth book after finishing the fourth book, God-Emperor. Don't be like me folks, read both the fifth and sixth books, they are very worth it, despite their kirks.
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Mar 3, 2024 19:18
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Ithle01 posted:There. Are. SIX Dune books! After finishing Between Two Fires I was after more of the same. After a look around I found 'Son of The Morning' by Mark Alder, I've only just started it but it's definately got the same vibe.
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Mar 3, 2024 19:51
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Trainee PornStar posted:After finishing Between Two Fires I was after more of the same. Hollow by Brian Catling is really close to it too.
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Mar 3, 2024 19:53
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DurianGray posted:Hollow by Brian Catling is really close to it too. cheers, I just checked it out & it sounds really interesting.
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Mar 3, 2024 21:55
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DurianGray posted:Hollow by Brian Catling is really close to it too. That book loving rules
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Mar 4, 2024 01:36
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Nazi Literature in the Americas. Very good Bolaño novel, down to the intentionally unsatisfying ending
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Mar 4, 2024 09:50
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The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, translated by William Weaver. I read this because I watched the movie and really enjoyed it. The movie was more focused on the murder mystery while the book had the space to expand upon the setting and take longer tangents discussing various aspects of history, politics, and theology. I enjoyed it though I don't know if that's just because all of those topics interest me.
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Mar 4, 2024 23:52
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White Coke posted:The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, translated by William Weaver. I read this because I watched the movie and really enjoyed it. The movie was more focused on the murder mystery while the book had the space to expand upon the setting and take longer tangents discussing various aspects of history, politics, and theology. I enjoyed it though I don't know if that's just because all of those topics interest me. I don't think this is the best Umberto Eco book, but it iltemains my favorite after many years.
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Mar 5, 2024 10:15
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jesus WEP posted:just remember, it’s never too early to stop reading dune sequels I grew up on nonsense sci-fi so I'm prepared for silly bullshit but I'm not sure if I can handle any significant degradation in writing quality.
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Mar 5, 2024 21:45
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If anything the prose gets better in the sequels. The characters find ways to explain what's happening without delivering huge soliloquies clumsily stuffed with exposition. Except for book four. In book four they do the opposite of that.
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Mar 5, 2024 22:17
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tetrapyloctomy posted:I don't think this is the best Umberto Eco book, but it iltemains my favorite after many years. What do you think is the best?
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Mar 5, 2024 22:28
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White Coke posted:What do you think is the best? Probably the sequel, Rose 2: Any Other Name
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Mar 6, 2024 01:30
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what do you think of Foucault's Pendulum?
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Mar 6, 2024 02:23
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escape artist posted:what do you think of Foucault's Pendulum? "I, uhhh, might have read that once or twice and liked it," says forums poster named tetrapyloctomy for 21 years.
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Mar 6, 2024 13:55
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tetrapyloctomy posted:"I, uhhh, might have read that once or twice and liked it," says forums poster named tetrapyloctomy for 21 years. I tried to start it as my first Eco and while I was impressed by the scope of it, I was also not up to the challenge. So it's been sitting on my book shelf next to House of Leaves, another book where I did the same thing. Read a fraction of it and never got the courage to work up to it. vvv I read Cannery Row last year and was blown away by it. Immediately had to read East of Eden afterward, to scratch that Steinbeck itch. Cannery Row was compared to Suttree, which is what piqued my interest initially. vvv escape artist fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Mar 6, 2024 |
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Mar 6, 2024 16:13
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Almost finished reading Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, and his description of the Ford Model T is the greatest description of a car I have ever read. Great book all-around.
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Mar 6, 2024 17:06
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jesus WEP posted:just remember, it’s never too early to stop reading dune sequels My local branch of HMV got in a couple of the Dune novels for their two for £7 offer to tie in with the movie. Heretics and Chapterhouse. 
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Mar 6, 2024 17:30
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escape artist posted:I tried to start it as my first Eco and while I was impressed by the scope of it, I was also not up to the challenge. So it's been sitting on my book shelf next to House of Leaves, another book where I did the same thing. Read a fraction of it and never got the courage to work up to it.
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Mar 6, 2024 18:14
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Only Eco book I read was while in jail and it was Baudilino or whatever and it ruled
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Mar 6, 2024 19:20
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By Eco, I’ve only read Foucault’s Pendulum and The Name of the Rose. They’re both very good books! Pendulum is good if you like conspiracy theories and intellectuals making fools of themselves. Rose is good if you like late medieval European history and the political world of monks. Personally, I preferred The Name of the Rose but they’re both great, beefy reads that I took my time with. adding baudolino to the list now though. Sounds like a great, thinky escape
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Mar 6, 2024 19:39
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Baudolino is fantastic. If you're looking for grim, depressing conspiracism The Prague Cemetery is a "good" tour through 19th century Europe.
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Mar 6, 2024 20:34
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Pendulum does have a lot of high intellectual concepts about symbols and how humans define themselves with them and try to make sense of the randomness of the universe by threading them all together into something we can grasp. It is also just as much a fun conspiracy theory free association exercise that pretty quickly sucks you in and makes you understand why people would get so consumed by something that is so obviously insane when looked at objectively.
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Mar 6, 2024 20:47
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Last month or so: Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat - this book is very funny but not true. Ostensibly, Mowat was assigned to study arctic wolves alone in the north so that the Canadian government could understand what was happening to the caribou population. In reality, he and three other biologists went north. He hosed off early and didn't really hang around or do much science. The book has a straight up plagiarized section and almost all of the events were apparently fabricated by Mowat. To this, he said, "Nuh uh!" and the book went on to be a national sensation and alter Canadian environmental policy and inspire a generation of scientists. It's a great piece of fiction though. Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima - this is a period piece about 1910s Japan told through a sort of love story between a couple of young nobles in the changing Japanese society. Very nice prose and it had a satisfying arc, I'm just not sure I'm too interested in the rich people worship. The servants in this story are extremely Downton Abbey and I don't think I'll be hanging around for the sequels. Read because of what someone wrote here. Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism: A Primer by Jose Maria Sison - read this for a book club and I did appreciate the review. If you want to know more about this marxism thing, it's all in here! Fairly well-written and succinct. Orlando by Virginia Woolf - Read for BOTM but I didn't really feel like discussing it at the time. Beautifully written, hilarious, fantastic novel by a real master. I didn't get like 70% of the references in the third act, I think. At least the rich people worship here was a bit tongue-in-cheek. The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti - this is a pretty substantial review of pessimist existentialism/philosophical pessimism. It's very accessible and enjoyable if you like Ligotti's style. Probably the most useful section is the last few chapters where Ligotti discusses the emergence of supernatural horror and how it communicates a certain existentialism. Loved this book! Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin - a great gay coming-of-age love story. Obviously influential and very easy to read. Big recommend if you're looking for a gay coming-of-age romance. Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translator's Revolution by RF Kuang - This paired so well with Bury the Corpse of Colonialism and I'm glad I read them close together. This is a fairly YA-ey anticolonial historical fantasy novel. It's a real page-turner and has some great true history and accessible theory. Big recommend.
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Mar 6, 2024 20:58
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escape artist posted:I tried to start it as my first Eco and while I was impressed by the scope of it, I was also not up to the challenge. Later on you can reread it, and in those details you will see the deeper story he wanted to tell woven throughout and, with time, begin to piece together the string of seemingly unfortunate events that befell the author after the book was published. A lot of these have been scrubbed from the internet -- the attack on his family while on vacation, the phone calls and the stalking, the threats to his publisher -- but archives of some old newgroups may be available.
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Mar 6, 2024 21:55
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What do people think about Island of the Day Before, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Lorna, and Numero Zero? I don't see those come up nearly as much as the other novels.
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Mar 6, 2024 23:21
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White Coke posted:What do people think about Island of the Day Before, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Lorna, and Numero Zero? I don't see those come up nearly as much as the other novels. Numero Zero has a really weak plot and while the pseudo-journalistic setting is interesting, it doesn't spend anywhere near as much on it as it could. The whole book feels rushed. The Island of the Day Before is kind of the opposite, it is very long, it really drags especially in the early shipwrecked sections but once it gets going it goes hard, might have my favorite Eco finale but getting there is a journey and a half. Mysterious Flame of Queen Loanna is probably his weirdest book, most of it is a personal retelling of half a century of Italian culture which might tickle your interest a bit but the actual story in there is almost an afterthought. I think it's my least favorite of his novels although probably not the actually worst (fairly sure Numero Zero takes that cake.) anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Mar 7, 2024 |
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Mar 6, 2024 23:28
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Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy Loved it. A fun, action packed adventure in the wild west. Somebody unfreeze the duke so he can do a film adaption.
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Mar 7, 2024 00:58
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I just finished Edgedancer by Brandon Sanderson. It's a very fun book to read that is short, and the pacing picks up very quickly. However, you must finish The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance because of spoilers.
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Mar 7, 2024 02:35
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Gaius Marius posted:Pendulum does have a lot of high intellectual concepts about symbols and how humans define themselves with them and try to make sense of the randomness of the universe by threading them all together into something we can grasp. It is also just as much a fun conspiracy theory free association exercise that pretty quickly sucks you in and makes you understand why people would get so consumed by something that is so obviously insane when looked at objectively. That scene with the psychologist near the end after the huge climactic scene with the pendulum "Monsieur, vous etes fou" 
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Mar 7, 2024 19:53
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fridge corn posted:Also I just finished Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. It's light and breezy to read tho goes much harder than Convenience Store Woman. Not sure what to call these types of novels. Its like a light snack, or palete cleanser between heavier courses at a meal. Enjoyable, but not too much to chew on for better or for worse I see what you did there.
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Mar 7, 2024 20:43
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tuyop posted:The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti - this is a pretty substantial review of pessimist existentialism/philosophical pessimism. It's very accessible and enjoyable if you like Ligotti's style. Probably the most useful section is the last few chapters where Ligotti discusses the emergence of supernatural horror and how it communicates a certain existentialism. Loved this book! now enjoy the gangtag!
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Mar 7, 2024 20:53
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aldantefax posted:I see what you did there. I thought no one would notice hehe
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Mar 7, 2024 21:38
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Bilirubin posted:now enjoy the gangtag! How generous! Thank you.
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Mar 7, 2024 22:57
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fridge corn posted:I thought no one would notice hehe The book was recommended to me because it gave the other person nightmares, so they thought I would like it? They were right, but the audiobook was a tough listen because the narrator really sells the first half. I thought it was a solid read. Less you know the better but not for the squeamish.
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Mar 8, 2024 01:48
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Diamonds Are Forever - Ian Fleming. Great book; better than the movie (cliche statement, but it's true). What's interesting is how many elements of the book the 1971 movie retained and how much it dumped. Many of the characters Bond fans will recognize are here: Tiffany Case, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, Shady Tree. Parts of the book's plot are also here, as there is a relatively short portion that takes place in Vegas (and the Nevada desert) and the book involves a diamond smuggling ring. But the rest of it is completely unique and involves fixing horse races and two-bit gangsters with accurate recreations of "Wild West" towns. The book even brings Felix Leiter into the mix (iirc, he's not in the movie at all). Although I'm not sure that he's one of the great writers of the 20th century, I like Fleming's prose; he has a very descriptive writing style that I like. Even though I've seen the movie adaptation several times, the book had me gripped from beginning to end. A very enjoyable read.
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Mar 8, 2024 17:29
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F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:Diamonds Are Forever - Ian Fleming. Great book; better than the movie (cliche statement, but it's true). What's interesting is how many elements of the book the 1971 movie retained and how much it dumped. Many of the characters Bond fans will recognize are here: Tiffany Case, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, Shady Tree. Parts of the book's plot are also here, as there is a relatively short portion that takes place in Vegas (and the Nevada desert) and the book involves a diamond smuggling ring. But the rest of it is completely unique and involves fixing horse races and two-bit gangsters with accurate recreations of "Wild West" towns. The book even brings Felix Leiter into the mix (iirc, he's not in the movie at all).
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Mar 8, 2024 20:19
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