Fun Stuff > ENJOY
What are you currently reading?
Kugai:
Writes Of Passage
Devcca:
I am reading Storm Front by Jim Butcher. I have a few mangas I am trying to read as well. One is Bleach I think the other is Inu Asha... totally misspelled that!
Thrillho:
So I've discovered that Charles Dickens was a fucking prick.
When I was in year 9, we had to read Oliver Twist for some assignment work. It was impenetrable and florid and I hated it, however given the way Shakespeare's work sounded to me, and how antiquated language from even fifty years ago could sound, I thought that just meant that writing from the 19th Century and earlier would just be something I didn't understand. As such, I've read basically none of the 'classics.' I am appallingly read.
In conversation with my partners recently it arose that, well, Dickens just writes like a complete asshole and is no reflection of what actual language was like at the time.
The example given to me was Pride And Prejudice, which in my head had been consigned to the pile of 'book/film/TV series for cis-white housewives' as a piece of culture. I Googled for an extract and found that it was witty and interesting and - here's the kicker - completely understandable.
Fuck you, Dickens.
I'm now about 60 pages into reading Pride and Prejudice and it is so entertaining. It's actually a quite pointed bit of social commentary, which if you can read between the lines more than a tiny bit is pretty obvious. It's like a slating of white privilege centuries before that concept even existed. The characters are engrossing and entertaining - my current favourite being Mr. Bennett. I have a running gag with my partners now that almost any of Mr. Bennett's dialogue could be replaced by 'Fuckin', whatever.' and it wouldn't change the narrative at all.
Example:
'I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine, that her charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by her.- These are the kind of things which please her ladyship, and it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to pay.
'Fuckin', whatever,' said Mr Bennett.
Another book they encouraged me to read very strongly was Nation by Terry Pratchett. This I am well over halfway through and am finding it to be a quite extraordinary read. I need to finish it as a matter of urgency, and the resonance that Mao has with one of my partners is of great significance to me.
Moving in with them is going to allow me the headspace to start reading again. And my God, how I've missed reading.
JoeCovenant:
--- Quote from: Thrillho on 27 Jul 2017, 03:32 ---So I've discovered that Charles Dickens was a fucking prick.
When I was in year 9, we had to read Oliver Twist for some assignment work. It was impenetrable and florid and I hated it, however given the way Shakespeare's work sounded to me, and how antiquated language from even fifty years ago could sound, I thought that just meant that writing from the 19th Century and earlier would just be something I didn't understand. As such, I've read basically none of the 'classics.' I am appallingly read.
In conversation with my partners recently it arose that, well, Dickens just writes like a complete asshole and is no reflection of what actual language was like at the time.
The example given to me was Pride And Prejudice, which in my head had been consigned to the pile of 'book/film/TV series for cis-white housewives' as a piece of culture. I Googled for an extract and found that it was witty and interesting and - here's the kicker - completely understandable.
Fuck you, Dickens.
I'm now about 60 pages into reading Pride and Prejudice and it is so entertaining. It's actually a quite pointed bit of social commentary, which if you can read between the lines more than a tiny bit is pretty obvious. It's like a slating of white privilege centuries before that concept even existed. The characters are engrossing and entertaining - my current favourite being Mr. Bennett. I have a running gag with my partners now that almost any of Mr. Bennett's dialogue could be replaced by 'Fuckin', whatever.' and it wouldn't change the narrative at all.
Example:
'I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine, that her charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by her.- These are the kind of things which please her ladyship, and it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to pay.
'Fuckin', whatever,' said Mr Bennett.
Another book they encouraged me to read very strongly was Nation by Terry Pratchett. This I am well over halfway through and am finding it to be a quite extraordinary read. I need to finish it as a matter of urgency, and the resonance that Mao has with one of my partners is of great significance to me.
Moving in with them is going to allow me the headspace to start reading again. And my God, how I've missed reading.
--- End quote ---
But Sir,
You must agree that, whenever one is faced with such a devastating critique, particularly within the multi-faceted world of the creative arts, of which I do attest (though some may find it otherwise) to be a part of - that it may, on occasion, and within strictly bounded circumstances, be not only required, but, yes, necessary to allow one's muse (no matter what or whomsoever it might be) the full and unfettered flow of one's artistic outpourings? How else would the struggling artiste, in the grasp of pow'rs not only larger, but indeed many times greater in both scope and... (cont. Pgs: 96/97/98)
Pilchard123:
I recall having read or heard - though it may be that I do not remember correctly; or that the so-called 'fact' is in truth a complete fabrication, spun like a yarn and made of the resulting whole cloth - that because a lot of Dickens' novels were originally serialized in the periodicals of his day, and popular from one end of the country to the other, they were deliberately stretched and strung-out so there would be a greater number of episodes, that the readers thereof may be at turns delighted and dismayed still further. It rather brings to mind a well-established and time-honored practice among students of adding excessively florid and baroque passages of nigh-incomprehensible text in their scholarly assignments to fit an arbitrary requirement of "1000 words" or "5 pages" when the subject at hand could be adequately - not to say well, or even excellently; many a time have I submitted a paper and been given a mark denoting that my work was lacking nothing in its exposition of the relative merits of one method or another, and yet still been chastised for my deliberate and crafted omission of extraneous verbiage - dealt with in a couple of paragraphs.
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