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I'm around for this, Name: Sandwolf Number: 30 Booklord's Challenge: Not really I'm gonna try to do the Booklord Challenge but I'm not using it was a bible, though I may choose to read differing things from the backlog to meet the requirements anyways! I just like talking to people about books 
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Dec 29, 2016 08:54
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:55 |
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What's everyone's first book of the year? Mine's God Knows by Joseph Heller, read Catch 22 last year for the first time and fell in love with it, so I'm trying Heller's foray in religion.
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Jan 2, 2017 00:57
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Mr. Squishy posted:How's the Heller? In my stabs it just seemed to prove the truth in the jibe that he never wrote anything as good as Catch 22, "neither did anyone else" notwithstanding. Only about a hundred pages into it, but I'm actually really enjoying it. I didn't expect it to rival Catch 22 but I'm a godless heathen and Heller's voice is still very much so there. It's also a little bit more straightforward, without all the chronological wonkiness. It's a pretty funny, biting satire of Biblical works and if you liked Catch 22 and aren't very religious, I reckon God Knows is worth a read, but again, I'm only a hundred pages in. USMC_Karl posted:I was thinking of tackling Catch 22 to be honest because, while I've always wanted to read it, it's always managed to fall just behind something else that I wanted to read. Either that or The Catcher in the Rye because I honestly can't remember anything about it even though I know that I had to read it in High School. Read Catch 22 if you have the patience and focus, it was one of the best books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Funny, insightful, powerful, creative - gently caress, it's such a good book. Sandwolf fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 02:55
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Someone could make a 2017 TBB Challenge page on GoodReads!
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Jan 10, 2017 03:31
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Tiggum posted:Wait, did you not get that Orr had faked his death to get out of the war? I thought that was incredibly obvious, to the point that I was really annoyed at Yossarian for not immediately realising that's what happened. Same, same, completely same. Also I thought that McWatt's death was by far the saddest. It's handled so plainly, but somehow that managed to evoke even more emotion from me.
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Jan 16, 2017 04:39
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I've just finished God Knows by Joseph Heller with a pretty resounding "meh." Don't get me wrong, it was an enjoyable book, I got a couple pretty good laughs out of it, and some quotes carried a lot more weight than I anticipated. But. The book is too long, meanders around actually telling the story too frequently, repeats conversations and thoughts so often that you may begin thinking they're causing you deja vu. Similarly, I think I got more out of the story because I've had to read the Bible books being satirized (12 years of parochial school wooo), allowing for all sorts of little Biblical in jokes and references. And the ending sort of just occurs, with the major conflict being hinted at all book being resolved in two pages on the whim of David. Soooo, it was a good book, I enjoyed it enough to want to seek out Picture This and Closing Time (and that's it, no other Heller), but it requires some foreknowledge and would have benefited from some more editing. On to Notes from Underground!
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Jan 17, 2017 07:31
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So I just finished Notes from Underground and I would love if someone could help contextualize it for me? I absolutely adored the first part, as an existential nihilist, it felt like a treatise on an idealized life. The second part was bewildering. I loving hated the Underground Man and his petty feelings regarding everything and everyone. The last two pages helped clear it up, absolutely, but I still don't understand the dichotomy of having a man truly aware of his life and his goals being contrasted with a man who's so beyond control of his own brain he's just an absolute boor. Is that essentially it? "A) This is how you should live! B) This is how you absolutely should not live!"? I think I loved it, I know I loved the first part, but I just have a lot of complex, diverse emotions about the second half. Similarly, are there any refinements in existential literature that develop straight outta the philosophy of Notes?
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Jan 30, 2017 06:43
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So my work library had a total of four books worth reading (a lot of romantic chick lit) and I was looking for a recommendation on which to read first. My options are: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Utopia by Thomas More Dr. Bloodmoney by PKDick Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell
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Feb 17, 2017 03:07
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:55 |
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Tiggum posted:I originally read (and hated) The Outsider in highschool, so I thought I should give it another chance. It was OK, but I don't understand why the prosecutor thought it was necessary to go on about his mother's funeral (or even bring it up at all). He murdered a guy in cold blood, admitted it, and offered no defence. How is that not an open and shut case? Why are you wasting everyone's time with all this bullshit about his life and family when it should be the easiest conviction ever? Also, the supposedly weird protagonist is way more relatable than anyone else in the story. Someone is free to correct me if I'm wrong, but if I remember correctly, a European killing a black African colonial subject wouldn't have been that big of a deal. The focus on the mother's funeral is meant to show Meurseult as a emotionless, unsympathetic, unfeeling sociopath who kills for killing sake. They mistake his apathy for life as malice towards human life. The very fact that he doesn't care about his mother's funeral is (to the government) indicative of his amorality and makes him guilty of far worse than killing an Algerian.
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Mar 30, 2017 23:43
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