|
My two favorite movies are Pink Flamingos and 2001: A Space Odyssey. I see no contradiction in this. Before getting into 'serious' lit I was reading Star Wars and World of Darkness expanded universe stuff, so I was definitely reading more 'genre' lit. There are lots of fun plots and I liked the stories growing up, and I can still fondly look back at that time as seeing cool space adventure and vampiric blood magic, in futuristic (yes I know it was "a long time ago") and semi-historical settings (VtM: Dark Ages), respectively. Dark Ages (I think it was the Nosferatu book) made me interested in what the hell was going on in Constantinople around it's fall, which ended up making me go into history for my undergrad. Don't like a book? It's fine and it doesn't make you dumb or a bad person or mean you have bad taste or people are pretending to like it. Vladimir Nabokov hated Don Quixote! Some of my first lit books that I enjoyed and my journey: About 10 years ago and was playing Fallout 3. I wanted some post-apocalyptic stuff and was steered towards A Canticle for Leibowitz and The Road, both of which I found pretty accessible and interesting. The latter got me into other McCarthy books (at this point I've read all of his books and screenplays and think The Road is his weakest work), which got me to reading Blood Meridian. Do you like surprises and violence in a western/anti-western setting? You may enjoy this book. Do you like to laugh? Would you be interested in watching an old man gently caress up a puppet show? Throw up into his assistant's face after getting his teeth smashed out? Try out Don Quixote (I read the Edith Grossman translation). Liked Don Quixote? You might want to check out Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, which is almost like a cartoon. Re: Moby Dick, I just dived in without having read much other literature. I was happily surprised to find out that it was like jumping in the water: the first leap is the hardest, and after you let it wash over you. It's a straightforward adventure story, with lots of cool facts about ships and whales. God drat do I love chapter 32: WHALE FACTS: There is one thing and one thing only that everyone, everywhere, we all can agree on about whales. Without doubt. Without question. Whales ARE fish. There's also a celeb-heavy online reading at http://www.mobydickbigread.com/, including John Waters (sadly he doesn't read the chapter where they squeeze the sperm and the sailors' hands keep touching), David Attenborough and Stephen Fry. I had a great time, and without a huge library of books read at that point. I read it concurrently with Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, which I wouldn't necessarily call lit (but I like that he included political economy into sci-fi). I'm happy I read both, and I got different things out of each. Shakespeare is also really good, but like me, you probably encountered it by 14-17 year olds being bored and reading it in turns having not read it before (loving Romeo and Juliet read by freshmen made me want to die when I was in class). Try NOT reading him! gently caress reading plays if it's possible to see it performed! They're plays, so see if you can find a play of some of his works online. Good actors make it interesting, IMO, since they're experts on their character's motivations, know what to emphasize, pause at the right moments and use body language to get the message across. Shakespeare wrote his plays to be enjoyed by the poor as well as the rich (he wanted his company to make money, after all), and the modern Shakespeare would have had weed jokes in his plays, along with the dick, fart and cuckold jokes that he already has. My first Shakespeare play that I saw performed was Richard III, and all of the criticism I could manage at the time was "Wow this Richard guy sure seems like a real rear end in a top hat." Unless you're going into literary criticism or are still in school, you will never have to write about what you read again. Most of all, read what seems interesting to you. If you're not getting something out of a book, then drop it and move on to something else. Check back in a year or two and see if your tastes have changed. If not, then it's fine--it may just not be what you like. I could get the best pb&j sandwich the world has ever created and I wouldn't like it, and it's fine. Remember: Vladimir Nabokov hated Don Quixote. Edit: thinking back to high school, I read a lot of Kurt Vonnegut. He's very funny and is a good writer. You can knock one out by reading an hour or two before bed in less than a week. Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five are two of my favorites. The North Tower fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jul 16, 2020 |
#
¿
Jul 16, 2020 22:28
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2024 02:23 |
|
|
TheGreatEvilKing posted:The "Whales are Fish" part is great because not only does Ishmael loudly proclaim he's ignoring Linnaeus, but those sections (cetology, et all) usually come after some major fuckup (the first landing, etc) and represent Ishmael trying to gain some semblance of rational understanding over the sheer brutality and foreboding of the voyage. It's important to note that he just kind of gives up near the end as Ahab finishes his mad quest. No. I hadn’t thought of it like that—that’s pretty neat. Do not stfu about Moby Dick.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2020 22:47
|
|
|
I read Mishima to try to unlock Advanced Race Theory to get past Measurehead, but it turns out you have to pass a Conceptualization check when you talk to him. It works the same way in real life.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2020 23:05
|
|