THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: Aimless on 07 Jun 2008, 12:43
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After a very long, very trying, and very unsettling year, I have decided I must try to find myself again, go back to a sort of beginning and pick out a slightly different path which I may then tread in a slightly (or dramatically) different way from the previous. An important part of this endeavour will be to return to my bookish roots. However, this time, instead of immersing myself in worlds of fantasy fiction, I have decided I'll immerse myself in reading of more substance.
The thought occurred to me that I may not be the only person who'll be caught by the summer reading bug, and I thought it might be nice to see what y'all are (or will be) reading over the next few months :)
I've recently discovered the works of Oliver Sacks, in particular his collections of case-histories (although that term hardly does them justice) The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars.
Oliver Sacks, besides being a neurologist, is also a skilled writer and populariser. His writing style is intensely personal, almost intimate at times, and he approaches every case with a degree of humanity that can never be permitted in, for example, textbooks on neurology.
In addition to the remarkable accounts of some of his more memorable patients, the books are jam packed full of very interesting footnotes, quotes from texts spanning many centuries, and a large (and, of course, very interesting) bibliography. This "extra" content integrates very well with--and always enriches--the main text, and made me view the time I invested in reading them as being very well invested time indeed.
The only real complaint I have is that I now don't know which of the many references I should pursue first, having come across so many promising ones. Reader beware!
But, despite this... if you've ever wondered, for example, what it might be like to forget the very concept of "seeing"... do check out Oliver Sacks, and other writers like him (Antonio Damasio is a name that springs to mind). I think that you, too, will find the effort worthwhile :)
Cheers!
-- P
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I recently picked up Patriot Games and The Hunt for the Red October recently, so, now I'm on a Clancy high, I'm now somewhere in the middle of Clear and Present Danger (my favourite of his novels).
I also picked up Day of Vipers, which I'm totally looking forward to, and I need to grab the next two of the trilogy.
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I just now finally got around to reading Swanwick's Jack Faust and it is brilliant. It's a quick, to the point read, like Stations of the Tide, though not quite that short (and not quite as good, but close).
I didn't even know until yesterday about his sequel to The Iron Dragon's Daughter, which is one of the most gloriously bizarre novels I've ever read, so I'll probably read that next.
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I'm re-reading The Idiot by Dostoevsky, because it's brilliant and I love it. Next, my friend is lending me a bunch of Philip K. Dick novels.
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Philip K. Dick is one of the three best novelists ever.
Some of his books are not masterpieces, but the sheer number of his that are more than makes up for it.
If you want to read the best first, go for:
Flow My Tears the Policeman Said
Clans of the Alphane Moon
The Game-players of Titan
A Scanner Darkly
Dr. Bloodmoney
VALIS
Counter-clock World
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I think I'm gonna attempt to reread the entire Song of Ice and Fire series thus far in preparation for the A Dance With Dragons release. If I start now, I should be just about done by the time it comes out.
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I got the second volume of Gaiman's Sandman yesterday while I was getting the 4th edition player's handbook.
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Philip K. Dick is one of the three best novelists ever.
Some of his books are not masterpieces, but the sheer number of his that are more than makes up for it.
If you want to read the best first, go for:
Flow My Tears the Policeman Said
Clans of the Alphane Moon
The Game-players of Titan
A Scanner Darkly
Dr. Bloodmoney
VALIS
Counter-clock World
I would like to add Ubik to this list. Otherwise, I agree with all of those recommendations.
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This summer I will be splitting my reading equally a selection of the required reading for my course next semester and books I've been meaning to read but have't had the time because of uni. If all goes to plan I will read:
The Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
The Acid House by Irvine Welsh
Desolation Angels by Jack Kerouac
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson
Rip it Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 by Simon Reynolds
Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare
Paradise Lost by John Milton
The Mill on The Floss by George Eliot
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The Importance Of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Ulysses by James Joyce
I love summer reading.
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I probably have over 40 books that I hope to read during the summer
highlights are
The God Delusion
Hitler: A Study in Tyranny
Ghandhi
The Grapes of Wrath
The Hours
The Deviners
Faust
War and Peace
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The Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
I kind of really want to read this now that I am halfway through On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and loving it.
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I honestly don't think I could ever make it through A Song of Ice and Fire again just on its own merits, but I definitely want to read A Dance With Dragons pretty badly.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is amazing Oli, and Ikrik, The Grapes of Wrath should be on the top of your list, it'll go quickly since its not all that long and you won't be able to put it down anyway.
I would love to find some good fiction to read over the summer, but I really don't want anything "serious" of "of substance." I guess I should plow through the Recommendations thread to see if there's any Fantasy/ sci-fi in there that I haven't read yet.
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Already read:
Waiting for Barbarians by Coetzee
Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut
The Savage Detectives by Balano
The Crying of Lot 49 by Pynchon
To read:
Don Quixote
V by Pynchon
Hopefully a lot more.
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It's really funny when people read On the Road for the first time and they're so excited like it's totally changed their life. It's basically the same thing as when a 14 year old first hears Zeppelin or Sabbath.
I've read a good bit of Dick, but as you say, he was quite prolific. Of those on the list, I've read Flow My Tears, VALIS, and A Scanner Darkly. I actually just found out a week ago that there was more to VALIS than just VALIS, I guess it's a trilogy of sorts? My gateway to Dick was of course, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The books I've already asked to borrow are Radio Free Albemuth, The Man in the High Castle, Ubik and The Divine Invasion.
Whew. Aside from enjoying lots of Dick this summer, I also plan to read a lot of Harlan Ellison. Especially I plan to try and track down copies of his novels, as I never even knew he wrote anything but short stories (and screenplays and scripts and things).
Finaly: Oh man, Oli, I would totally read a book about post-punk 1978-1984. I have to make a note of that title somewhere.
Edit: Cat's Cradle is my favorite book by Vonnegut!
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After I finish reading Dracula, I'll move onto the large Poe anthology and the slightly smaller Wilde anthology I got last year. I might start reading Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus if I can be bothered.
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The God Delusion
Really? Why? Dawkins is the worst kind of atheist, and his books are nauseatingly ignorant and intentionally controversial. He's no better a writer for atheists than the Left Behind series for Christians. He's like the Rush Limbaugh of atheism, preaching entirely to the choir and trotting out nothing but superficial and uninformed criticisms of his opponents.
Basically everything I think about Dawkins was said better in this review of The God Delusion, which neatly outlines exactly why his books are useless.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html
The opening thesis paragraph sums it up, so if you're not up to the lengthy detail the review goes into (though it is really a good read) then here:
"Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster. These days, theology is the queen of the sciences in a rather less august sense of the word than in its medieval heyday."
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Well, it's Winter here but I just borrowed the 8 books of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher from Est. I've read the first one and they are really pleasently written detective novels about a wizard. I am so down with the noir-ish style that Butcher is good at that I'm really excited to read the rest of them (I have two months of holidays starting last week). I'm also going to borrow my friend's copy of Psychopathia Sexualis by Richard Von Kraftt-Ebbing which is, though outdated, meant to be fascinating.
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I watched some of the Dreseden Files TV series and thought it was pretty good; I've been meaning to read them as some quick, brainless fun, especially since I am very interested in the occult. I was impressed that the show (and, I'm guessing, the books) were very accurate about a lot of esoteric magical axioms and whatnot.
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The God Delusion
Really? Why?
So, if you don't like the dudes work, no one should read it? I don't particularly agree with the God Delusions reasoning myself but it's one of the most discussed books of the day. It's probably a good idea to have an opinion on it, and you can only get a proper opinion on a book by reading it. Are you afraid that other people do not have the capacity to read a book and not agree with it? Jesus.
I've got a few books lined up which I've bought but just haven't had time to get through. Most of these I've already started reading on a train or ferry but have just never finished.
Neomi Klein - No Logo
Ernst Gombrich - The Story of Art
Peter Bistkind - Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Robert Service - Stalin: A Biography
Orlando Figes - Natashas Dance: A Cultural History of Russia
Robert M. Pirsig - Lila: An Enquiry Into Morals
I'll set aside a week some time over the summer to sit out in the garden in my floppy army hat with cigarettes and coca cola and read 'em. I'm particularly looking forward to Stalin; Service's biography of Lenin was one of the best history books I've ever read*, also Lila, the 'sequel', as it were, to Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which apparently enters into the metaphysics of Pirsig's philosophy of quality, which is already brilliant. The Story of Art should be interesting, though from what I remember of reading parts of it, it is rather dated and western-centric; No Logo is a book various, often unwashed people have been telling me to read for years.
I also just finished reading "How to Kill", by Kris Hollington. It's a history of assassination in the late 20th century. Fascinating stuff.
*Though of course, Orlando Figes 'A People's Tragedy' was the best history book I've ever read. I really should read more history books not about Russia.
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So, if you don't like the dudes work, no one should read it? I don't particularly agree with the God Delusions reasoning myself but it's one of the most discussed books of the day. It's probably a good idea to have an opinion on it, and you can only get a proper opinion on a book by reading it. Are you afraid that other people do not have the capacity to read a book and not agree with it?
Well, no, but I don't think I need to read the entire Left Behind series or Dianetics to have an opinion about it.
The fact is that Dawkins is actually not seriously discussed among the academia. He's a pop-culturist, not a serious and informed critic. As is obvious from reading him, and pointed out in the article I linked, he is writing about religion with almost literally zero knowledge of it.
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And when was the last time you personally participated in an academic level debate on religious philosophy?
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Well, it's Winter here but I just borrowed the 8 books of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher from Est. I've read the first one and they are really pleasently written detective novels about a wizard. I am so down with the noir-ish style that Butcher is good at that I'm really excited to read the rest of them (I have two months of holidays starting last week). I'm also going to borrow my friend's copy of Psychopathia Sexualis by Richard Von Kraftt-Ebbing which is, though outdated, meant to be fascinating.
Those both sound very interesting.
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I've been participating in academic debates, though not official ones, on religion for the last 6 months or so and I'm pretty glad I'm such a Dawkins' fanboy.
Obviously I quite like The God Delusion but not just because I agree with (almost) everything it says but also because I think it's a book that needed to be written. Religion is something that everyone tip-toes around for no reason other than that they're afraid of offending someone who believes things that are a little silly. When you live in a world where things like Creationism and Abstinence-Only sex ed. are being taught in government funded schools, where government officials, the people with actual power, are naiive enough to believe the universe is only 6,000 years old, it is important that there are voices of reason out there that people can turn to.
Yeah The God Delusion is intentionally contraversial, but I wouldn't call them ignorant. And I'm not claiming to be an expert on anything here, I go out of my way not to read Christian apologetics because I am really not interested in what they have to say. I just feel that Dawkins' work is important and really very interesting, especially given that his writing style is really straightforward and conversational.
In the same vein I highly recommend Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris and Atheist Universe by David Mills.
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Yeah The God Delusion is intentionally contraversial, but I wouldn't call them ignorant. And I'm not claiming to be an expert on anything here, I go out of my way not to read Christian apologetics
Did you even read the article I linked? It is not written from a standpoint that Christianity, or any religion, is "right". It simply points out very effectively that Dawkins' concept of religion is factually inaccurate, that his perception of God is exactly the same as boorish Evangelicals and the only difference is that he doesn't like the concept and they do. Dawkins has nothing to say about real theology and it is fairly apparent the reason is that he has no knowledge of real theology. His brand of utilitarian worldview is about as laughably po-faced as Ayn Rand's and, I suspect, would make Buddha himself LOL.
"Oh what fools these mortals be."
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Well it's not as if he is writing for academics or theologists (the most worthless field of study in my own worthless opinion). He's writing for the average guy on the street, the average Christian who can't name all 12 of the apostles or who don't know who Moses was but swear blind that they know it all anyway. If his perception of God is the same as the boorish Televangelists it is because that is the perception of God that he is arguing against. The God Delusion comes with a preface that quite baldly states that only extreme, fundemental religion is really being addressed (though I grant you that his arguments can be extrapolated onto moderate religion as well, though that may or may not be a good idea).
I suppose his books are not up to your high standards and so if you don't want to read them don't. The reason he is so vitriolic is because more attention is likely to be paid to a book like that than a more softly spoken one. I'm sure it's very noble to keep a cool head when your opponent is shouting so loud his face is purple and his veins are bulging to the point of bursting but you won't make yourself heard.
On the other hand, if you've ever seen Dawkins actually debate his point it is in quite a civilised and calm manner (which is exactly the advice given most often on the dawkinsforum, of which I am an active member) so it's possible that you're reading things out of context and getting the wrong end of the stick.
If you're telling us we shouldn't read a book because you've read it and you thought it wasn't any good (for whatever reason) then great, we might take it into consideration, but, and I don't know about anyone else, I pay little attention to critics so if all you have to provide against the book is someone else's opinion (an opinion that is in a minority given the amount of acolades the book has gotten Dawkins) then I doubt your words will have that much of an effect really.
Those both sound very interesting.
They are, Psychopathia Sexualis is basically an attempt to categorise sexual "deviances" and disorders both psychologically and neurologically. I flicked through it a bit last week and it looks pretty good. As I said it is a bit out dated (being written in 1904 it still classifies homosexuality as a disorder and any, non vaginal sex as a deviation but for things like fetishes and paraphilias it's meant to be quite good) but fascinating if, like me, you're interested in the psychology behind sexuality.
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Last time I heard Dawkins attempting to debate anyone he was shrilly demanding John Humphries demand the same kind of proof of the existence of god from religious figures as the proof he'd demand from a politician to back up their statements. Then he started ranting about truth and how they were denying it. Talk about missing the point, and I was appalled a supposed scientist and athiest could believe in the idea of some fundamental, absolute truth that could be definitely proved one way or another. He sounded far more ridiculous and less open to reason and debate than most of the religious leaders you get on The Today Programme.
I've just started Raoul Vaneigem's ' The Revolution of Everyday Life'. After that it'll probably be Hardt & Negri's 'Empire' and Kropotkin's 'Fields, Factories And Workshops Tomorrow' as well as Pauline Hopkins' 'Of One Blood' since I need to read that one soon for an essay. I thought I might finally give Baudrillard's 'Simulacra And Simulation' a shot after that, and maybe get something by Bob Black since I've only ever read a short pamphlet by him but it was a lot of fun. I think I'll read Andrey Kurkov's 'The President's Last Love' at the same time as Vaneigem as well, it'll be nice to read a contemporary novel for once.
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Well, touche?
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He sounded far more ridiculous and less open to reason and debate
And this is another of the arguments against Dawkins, is that while he extolls us to be skeptical and debate, his own version of atheism is incredibly dogmatic. There's not much wiggle-room to explain it; it's brazen hypocrisy.
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also Lila, the 'sequel', as it were, to Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which apparently enters into the metaphysics of Pirsig's philosophy of quality, which is already brilliant.
I had a friend who read Lila. We both had really liked Zen...his take on Lila was that Pirsig took back just about everything he said in Zen. It rather upset my friend. I'd be interested in hearing what you think of it.
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Since I'm done with uni and everything, I'll just read the stuff I've been meaning to read for the past few years, like Vonnegut. I have a list of books, I just need to find it or get lost in a library.
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From the review of Dawkins's book:
What, one wonders, are Dawkins’s views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them? Or does he imagine like a bumptious young barrister that you can defeat the opposition while being complacently ignorant of its toughest case?
To which there is a response:
I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr. Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion... Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity... Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. his training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.
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Brilliant.
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Not really. If all Dawkins actually did was to say 'there is no god' then applauding him for it would be laughable. I came to that conclusion when I was in primary school, and it doesn't take me an entire book to state my position. Either I'm a genius or there's a bit more to The God Delusion and it's mostly about religion, not just a statement that god is absent from the universe. If you're going to look at religion don't you think it would be sensible to try and understand what that actually is before doing so?
Regardless of his utter failure to grasp the subject, the part I find most disturbing about him is his insistence that anyone who deviates from his line of thinking is stupid and inferior. This is the same practice as some of the more unpleasant teachings of certain religions, that condemn heretical thought that deviates from dogma. The world has enough forces attempting to hem people's thoughts in without Dawkins creating a new religion to kick the boot in as well.
Also, guys, could you maybe take the god/no god debate somewhere else? It has got little to do with the topic at hand.
I disagree, it's a debate about one of the authors mentioned and isn't at all to do with whether or not god exists. Unless we're just supposed to list books without discussing them I'd say it's pretty on topic.
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Dawkins addresses the many popular arguments for the god hypothesis, and many of the negative aspects of religion. It's been many months since I read it, so I don't have a good synopsis on the tip of my brain. He also discusses the many excuses for religion. For example, the "I'm an atheist, but..." statements you'll often hear. People who believe in belief, without believing themselves. And the question of whether you can be moral without religion.
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Uncle Tungsten, also by Oliver Sacks, is a great read. It's not like the case studies in The Man Who Mistook his Wife for A Hat, it's about his childhood and how he fell in love with chemistry.
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Anyone who can so much as spell "sociology" knows that people can be moral without religion. "Addressing" topics like that only further the point that Dawkins is a pop-culture hack, not someone who writes serious, informed arguments.
The "emperor has no clothes" rebuttal is not brilliant, it's flip and completely beside the point, of interest only to the choir he preaches to.
I dare anyone who likes Dawkins to actually outline anything in his books that they didn't already know or believe before reading them.
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If you're talking about morals in religion or anything to do with religion, you have to understand different aspects of the religions you want to talk about before people take you seriously. It's like having a person who's never studied psychology arguing with a psychologist about whether or not Multiple Personality Disorder exists. (Which actually is, or at least was, a real debate about whether or not doctors/patients were making it up.) Besides, apologetics of all kinds can be useful if you're interested in those sorts of topics.
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Anyone who can so much as spell "sociology" knows that people can be moral without religion. "Addressing" topics like that only further the point that Dawkins is a pop-culture hack, not someone who writes serious, informed arguments.
I've had conversations with otherwise quite intelligent and well-read people who earnestly believed that morality could not be separated from religion and that atheists were necessarily immoral. It's a topic that needs to be brought to general attention. It's why more than half the American populace will still not vote for an atheist for public office.
The "emperor has no clothes" rebuttal is not brilliant, it's flip and completely beside the point, of interest only to the choir he preaches to.
It's not flip, though it may be dismissive. The very first paragraph of the linked article accuses Dawkins of gross ignorance. I will, once again, quote from the article that the "emperor has no clothes" rebuttal in fact rebuts.
What, one wonders, are Dawkins’s views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them?
Now I'll go ahead and explain for you what the rebuttal meant. If you're talking about the existence of God, who gives a good god damn about the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? The subjectivity of Eriugena, the grace of Rahner, or the hope of Moltmann are all also equally not the point. It's like insisting that someone learn all about different types of shoes, about the materials from which one could make shoes, and the different uses of shoes before he's allowed to point out that there isn't a pair of shoes in the middle of the floor.
The author of the linked review also, apparently, either didn't read Dawkins's book fully or else he didn't understand it. One of the points Dawkins made was that if you have a god who makes an appreciable and continuing difference in the universe (say, through miracles) then you must have an observable god. Effect and cause are linked. He then goes on to describe the rebuttals of contemporary theologians, with whom Dawkins has many discussions on these subjects, and they are almost uniformally a retreat into defined nonexistence. In short, they necessarily define god in such a way that there is no difference between a god who exists and one who does not. He lets the point stand for itself.
I dare anyone who likes Dawkins to actually outline anything in his books that they didn't already know or believe before reading them.
He convinced me not to be an apatheist, not to be an apologist who believes in belief. He convinced me that religion is more harmful than not. He also made me aware of a number of arguments and issues I'd not been previously aware of, such as labeling children as being of a religion.
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Wow, I never expected that me saying I was reading The God Delusion during the summer would be such a big deal. I'm already an athiest so the guy isn't converting me but I have read a hundred pages or so and he does make some amazing arguments. My mom, however, turned me into an athiest way before Dawkins could ever find me. Dawkins is a smart guy, no matter what anyone says, and it takes a guy with a lot of guts to stand up to religion and to take all the heat that this guy has taken, and he does defend himself quite well.
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Dawkins is a smart guy, no matter what anyone says, and it takes a guy with a lot of guts to stand up to religion and to take all the heat that this guy has taken, and he does defend himself quite well.
Yeah, and I'm sure the piles of cash he's made in the process are a massive burden, too.
edit: What I mean to say here is that, regardless of how valid his arguments are, I don't think it's really fair to portray him as a particularly brave man - he's an astute businessman, and the controversial point he has made has been fairly calculated in terms of drawing attention to himself, which serves both to get his argument noticed, and to sell a lot of books.
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Guys, let's just quit with the religion talk, alright? If you really want to argue about the book start a thread for it and let us get back to the topic of summer reading in this one.
I just finished Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas, his autobiography. It is quite possibly one of the best books I have ever read. I highly recommend it.
At this point in time, I plan on doing a lot of re-reading this summer. I brought my mom's set of Little House books from home and I'm going through them all again for the fun of that. After that I plan on doing the Harry Potter series once through, then maybe moving on to some other things. I kinda want to read House of Leaves a second time before school starts again as well.
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rereading Harry Potter? Are you sure it's worth it?
I have 3-4 Yukio Mishima books that I'm also going to be reading this summer, they're pretty short so it'll be exciting.
I also have 3 books that total over 3000 pages on the Civil Rights Movement, they're called Parting the Waters, Pillars of Fire and something about Canaan by Taylor Branch, I'm pretty excited about it.
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I love Harry Potter, so it's totally worth it.
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If you're talking about the existence of God, who gives a good god damn about the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? The subjectivity of Eriugena, the grace of Rahner, or the hope of Moltmann are all also equally not the point.
As has been noted, The God Delusion's contention is not merely the nonexistance of God, but the value of religion. If Dawkins wants to discuss the value of religion, he should be aware of it. I cannot believe anyone is seriously denying that.
You say he opened your eyes to the harm religion has caused. What about the good it has caused? What about the harm science has caused? All inventions of man can be used in various ways, whether it's a Bible or an atom bomb.
Guys, let's just quit with the religion talk, alright?
We're not talking about religion, we're talking about an author and one of his books that was brought up in this thread. How about let's quit with the backseat moderating and telling people what to post about? Unless this thread really is supposed to just be a list of books without any discussion, in which case, what's the point of that?
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Now I'll go ahead and explain for you what the rebuttal meant. If you're talking about the existence of God, who gives a good god damn about the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? The subjectivity of Eriugena, the grace of Rahner, or the hope of Moltmann are all also equally not the point. It's like insisting that someone learn all about different types of shoes, about the materials from which one could make shoes, and the different uses of shoes before he's allowed to point out that there isn't a pair of shoes in the middle of the floor.
That's a bad analogy. It's more like a failure to first understand what people mean when they use the word 'shoe'. The 'emperor's new clothes' argument is quite reminiscent of Dawkins' approach really, since it decides upon the opposing argument instead of listening to it. I agree with the conclusion Dawkins draws about the existence of god but unless you live in an environment conducive to it religious faith, particularly in a specifically Judeo-Christian god, requires an effort to sustain. It's really not hard at all to reach the conclusion of atheism. A child can do it. The assertion is not where Dawkins fails, he fails in his belief in the superiority in intellect and moral character of those who make it. Look at this quote from the first chapter of The God Delusion:
The president of a historical society in New Jersey wrote a letter that so damningly exposes the weakness of the religious mind, it is worth reading twice... What a devastatingly revealing letter! Every sentence drips with intellectual and moral cowardice.
The letter itself is indeed very timid, he's right. However, Dawkns' glee and desire to revel in his own superiority are so extreme. As I said before, atheism is easy and for a man like Dawkins (a white, wealthy, English academic) it's the norm. It would be far more unusual if he said he did believe in god, so why is he so pleased with himself? He pours scorn upon anyone who disagrees with his philosophy, just like a preacher railing against heretics. If Dawkins had his way thought would advance no further than the enlightenment.
The author of the linked review also, apparently, either didn't read Dawkins's book fully or else he didn't understand it. One of the points Dawkins made was that if you have a god who makes an appreciable and continuing difference in the universe (say, through miracles) then you must have an observable god. Effect and cause are linked. He then goes on to describe the rebuttals of contemporary theologians, with whom Dawkins has many discussions on these subjects, and they are almost uniformally a retreat into defined nonexistence. In short, they necessarily define god in such a way that there is no difference between a god who exists and one who does not. He lets the point stand for itself.
It makes no difference to him. It does make a difference to those who believe if they think that view of the world is true or not, and he never seems to even try to really get his head around that. It's their means of understanding and interpreting existence. As the review zerodrone linked points out he doesn't appear to have a good conception of what people actually believe (which is why it brought up the question of whether or not he'd read any other theologians, since it can seem doubtful). It's a failure to understand that something which cannot be tested using the scientific method (and this doesn't mean unobservable at all, as Dawkins claims, just untestable) can have validity for people. Should I not only disregard religion but also ignore the philosophy of Guy Debord since I have no means of testing for the existence of the spectacle? Even so, I believe in it. I think I'll give the last word to Raoul Vaneigem since I'm really enjoying 'The Revolution of Everyday Life' right now:
ten thousand people are convinced that they have seen a fakir's rope rise into the air, while so many cameras prove that it hasn't moved an inch. Scientific objectivity exposes mystification. Very good, but what does it show us? A coiled rope of absolutely no interest. I have little inclination to choose between the doubtful pleasure of being mystified and the tedium of contemplating a reality which does not concern me. A reality which I have no grasp of, isn't this the old lie reconditioned, the highest stage of mystification?
From now on the analysts are in the streets. Lucidity is not their only weapon. Their thought is no longer in danger of being imprisoned, either by the false reality of gods or by the false reality of technocrats.
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We're not talking about religion, we're talking about an author and one of his books that was brought up in this thread. How about let's quit with the backseat moderating and telling people what to post about? Unless this thread really is supposed to just be a list of books without any discussion, in which case, what's the point of that?
She has a point, so don't get all huffy. You guys are taking over the thread with that book and that guy's philosophies, so maybe a separate thread would be better. I thought this was going to be a thread about what people were reading and recommending stuff back and forth and later on maybe what people thought of the stuff they read, not some big ass debate about one book. But whatever, continue your debate thing and the rest of us can just dig through and find the posts relevant to the topic.
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while on the topic of religion, i'm currently reading through the christ clone trilogy, suprizingly well done it ends up reading more like a political thriller than anything else however if you feel like you're going to take offence to something like this DON'T READ IT...very simple rule
on the topic of the god delusion, while dawkins does make a good argument against the merits of being a thestic beliver in god other more mild forms or a desitic belief in god are almost entierly ignored
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Looking over the Dawkins debate, both points are pretty valid for whether it should be in this thread or not. There is a huge amount more on The God Delusion compared to anything else mentioned, which will inevitably take away from discussion of other books. That's not a good thing, there is too much of a concentration on that one book. On the other hand just listing books and saying you either like, dislike or are looking forward to them is a bit boring if that's all there is and that was one book a few people had something to say about. Also, the other people to complain about the discussion didn't phrase it very well, it made it sound like they thought it was completely off-topic and about religion in general when it wasn't.
Paradise Lost by John Milton
The Importance Of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Ulysses by James Joyce
So moving onto some other books, these are some interesting choices. Paradise Lost is fascinating, the whole debate over what point Milton was making by having Satan as such a sympathetic character and so central to the poem. Personally I go for the 'trap for the unwary reader' theory but you can make a good case for so many interpretations. Then there's the way he brings in so many different concepts, from the theological to the political and intertwines them all. It's great stuff.
I was reminded of The Importance... and Ulysses when I was re-reading Alison Bechdel's Fun Home the other day. I love The Importance... (and like her, the first time I read it the queer subtext went completely over my head) but I've still never managed Ulysses. I quickly get hung up on how much I'm missing due to my lack of familiarity with the classics and the Bible. Anyone else ever feel like that? I might give it another shot this summer myself, I've always felt never managing more than a little of it made for a gaping hole in my reading.
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Oli
You will never finish Ulysses....ever. Anyone who says that they've read Ulysses is a liar UNLESS they've read it over a period of at least 3 months. If anyone tries to tell you that they've read that book in a week first laugh and then kill them in a horrible way, liars like that should be punished.
I'm personally planning to tackle it summer of next year as it will be my first year of university and I'll have 2 months longer for summer which will hopefully allow me to get somewhere through it.
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I read Ulysses in a week or so. Granted, reading it at "normal book speed" means you are not going to understand some of it, but it is certainly possible to get through it and get the general gist.
Now, Gravity's Rainbow, ugh. There's a point at which stylistic prose detracts from a book's value rather than adding to it.
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I plan to attempt those in my summer.
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I read book two of The Dresden Files, Fool Moon last night and I was particularly impressed. I haven't really read many books with werewolves in them and this was pretty damn awesome. So far my favourite line is about the temptation of black magic:
"...I knew there was some dark corner of me that would enjoy using magic for killing - and then long for more. That was black magic, and it was easy to use. easy and fun. Like Legos."
So while on the subject of werewolves, does anyone have any suggestions for other werewolf-related books?
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I'll also be rereading Paradise Lost this summer, as I am writing my dissertation on the relationship between religion, politics and religion in 17th century England, and I can't think of a single text more apt than Paradise Lost. I may also reread the His Dark Material trilogy, when I have Paradise Lost fresh in my mind. Might be interesting.
Right now I'm rereading Lolita. Perhaps I should read some new books, rather than going back over ones I've already read. I tend not to reread much, but Lolita is a book I come back to every couple of years, as I always enjoy Nabakov's style in it. Not sure what else I'll be reading this summer. Probably whatever takes my fancy each time I finish another book.
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I'm right in the middle of Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie. Really excellent book. It's the first one I've read by him, though I've long intended to read Midnight's Children. That's probably next on my list. I have a habit of going on authorcentric book benders - consuming all the writing that one individual has produced in an unhealthily short amount of time. I sense a Salman Rushdie phase coming on...
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Already read:
Waiting for Barbarians by Coetzee
Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut
The Savage Detectives by Balano
The Crying of Lot 49 by Pynchon
To read:
Don Quixote
V by Pynchon
Hopefully a lot more.
I tried reading Don Quixote last summer, got maybe a third of the way through and lost interest. I'll eventually finish it, I think. I did read V last year, though that was my second or third time starting it. I think The Crying of Lot 49 and Mason & Dixon are the only Pynchon books I finished on my first attempt. V, Gravity's Rainbow, and Against the Day all became a bit too much the first time though.
My planned reading for this summer so far is:
H. P. Lovecraft – The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions
M. R. James – The Haunted Doll's House and Other Ghost Stories
Chris Connelly – Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible + Fried: My Life as a Revolting Cock (good beach reading, I figure)
David Norton, ed. – The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with the Apocrypha
Seamus Heaney, trans. – Beowulf
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That Heaney translation of Beowulf is awesome. I also didn't get through Against the Day on my first try. I eventually did finish it but it took me a very long time. Talk about grueling.
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You will never finish Ulysses....ever.
I actually have to read it for my course (I study english lit) so I really hope I do manage to read it. It looks really interesting.
Paradise Lost by John Milton
The Importance Of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Ulysses by James Joyce
So moving onto some other books, these are some interesting choices.
The three books you quoted there are also for my course, although I am looking forward to reading them. I find that having a basic knowledge of the bible (I was raised in a christian household and did the whole sunday school thing) is invaluable when studying books, but knowledge of the classics (like Homer's Odyssey) as well as of greek and roman mythology is equally useful. I have a great book called "Who's who in the ancient world" which is basically an encyclopedia of Roman and Greek myths and characters. I'd give the author but I've packed away all my books for moving and I'm not going to hunt it out.
I am halfway through On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and loving it.
I finished On the Road the other night, absolutely fantastic book. Have you read lonesome traveller? It's really great, my favourite kerouac (of the few I've read at least) however is the subterraneans, unfortunately my copy got stolen from my bag when it was in the cloakroom at a gig - I finished it earlier that day.
Sorry for the quoting from the previous page and all that but I've only just checked the thread.
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Guys, I love this thread.
It being winter here (Fuck You Northern Hemisphere) I'm trying to gather all the books I wasn't much in the mood for reading earlier this year. Lovecraft is a good example. I bought his complete fictions at a steal in Feb but really wasn't in the mood to read about eldritch voices calling upon waning moons. Now it being all grey and gloomy, bring that shit on!
Oh man, Michael Swanwick is one hell of an unappreicated author.
Right now I'm rereading Vellum by Hal Duncan since I picked up the sequel, Ink, a few weeks back.
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Oh man, Michael Swanwick is one hell of an unappreicated author.
SERIOUSLY. The first thing I read was Stations of the Tide, I read it in a few hours while I was doing laundry and it blew my gourd like nothing had since I first got into PK Dick.
And I still recommend The Iron Dragon's Daughter as the most baffling, seemingly pointless novel of all time, with the kind of twist ending that M. Night Shyamalan only has wet dreams about writing.
Hopefully I can get the sequel on my day off tomorrow. How's Bones of the Earth? I've heard good things but the premise doesn't sound all that intriguing.
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I just finished reading The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. This continues my summer plan of reading The Great American Bestselllers, previously i did Stephen King, i also plan on doing Clancy and Grisham and Ken Follet
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summer readings planned so far:
His Dark Materials by whoever...Pullman or something.
The Trouble With Physics by Some Physicist
Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut
and whatever else i decide needs to get read by me. those are just the ones that are sitting in a pile next to my bed. i'll probably open my dad's old crate of books and read some Huxley and Castenada(sp?) too if i have the time and energy.
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My reading mostly consists of various graphic novels my library happens to have that I have not read yet.
Though I am reading through The Silent Executioner by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
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I just foound out that Fearful Symmetry is coming out on June 24th. Finally. It only took a year and a half from the original release date.
That adds another 400 pages to read before tackling Harry Potter 6 & 7.
Anyone else have any good fiction they can recommend me? I like Suspense/Thrillers a la Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler.
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Tom Clancy is suspsense/thriller? Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy his books (especially Without Remorse), but that's not how I'd label them. Political/action, really.
Anywho, .. I can't immediately think of any authors like Clancy.
Have you read Heinlein? His military background makes his fiction a lot like Clancy's, I think. Politically, very different, but the attitude is the same.
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I'm currently reading Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond, Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz, McSweeney's no. 27, and Maps and Legends By Michael Chabon. On the immediate list are Ulysses and Kym, and then Neverwere for some lighter reading. Oh and I got Jonathan Coe's latest too. Need to rip through that.
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Be warned; Neverwhere isn't exactly light reading. It's very, very good, though.
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Be warned; Neverwhere isn't exactly light reading. It's very, very good, though.
Hmm. I've read several other books by Gaiman and they were all pretty light I thought. Compared to Ulysses or Collapse I think it'll still work as my light reading book :) hopefully. If not I'll just have to re-read some Douglass Adams or something. Thanks for the heads up!
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Okay, definitely light compared to frickin' James Joyce. I'd say it's definitely comparable to Douglas Adams... but with more emphasis on the ... spiritual? Adams was always about the humor, Gaiman I think explores the consequences of the systems he devises.
I'd say he's on a level with Adams, but with a bit more depth and breadth and a bit less humor. You may disagree.
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I dunno, I think it's just that I identify Gaiman's work as being much darker. I agree that he's similar to Pratchett, particularly Pratchett's early work.
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Yeah see I think you mean Neverwhere is dark in tone. When you said it's "not light reading" it sounded like you were saying it was a serious piece of literature or something, which it most definitely is not.
I mean I love Gaiman (Stardust made me cry) but he is most definitely "light reading".
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are you saying his whole work is a "light reading" because neither sandman or american gods have a light tone as such and have a fair scale to them
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Yeah see I think you mean Neverwhere is dark in tone. When you said it's "not light reading" it sounded like you were saying it was a serious piece of literature or something, which it most definitely is not.
I mean I love Gaiman (Stardust made me cry) but he is most definitely "light reading".
This.
I think what everyone is trying to say is that compared to a heavy handed piece of classic lierature like Ulysses, Gaiman's work is definitely a "light read". This does not mean that his works lack any sort of depth or tone. It's just a whole lot fucking easier to read because my fucking god, Ulysses.
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Yeah, I love Gaiman's work, but his books are rather light in terms of how challenging a read it is.
I think the first two books I will read this summer are Persepolis and Hitchhiker's Guide. I've never read either and have always wanted to.
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I have heard fairly horrible things about Robin Hobb's Forest Mage, but I liked the first book in that trilogy and I'm kind of curious as to whether it's really that bad so I think I'll pick it up today when I go get the new Swanwick.
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Maps and Legends By Michael Chabon
This looked pretty cool. How is it?
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I think what everyone is trying to say is that compared to a heavy handed piece of classic lierature like Ulysses, Gaiman's work is definitely a "light read". This does not mean that his works lack any sort of depth or tone. It's just a whole lot fucking easier to read because my fucking god, Ulysses.
I think you summed it up correctly.
This looked pretty cool. How is it?
I shall report back when I am finished. I'm not very far at the moment.
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Hitchhiker's Guide.
I for one am absolutely sick of this book, I spent the whole of Term 1 analysing it for Advanved English.
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Hitchhiker's Guide.
I for one am absolutely sick of this book, I spent the whole of Term 1 analysing it for Advanved English.
A. I would argue that Advanved English would have to be an awesome class, based on irony points alone.
B. Anyone who thinks that hitchhiker's guide needs to be analyzed, over or no, needs to be shot.
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Analyzing any book that you may have at one point liked kills it. People think I'm crazy for hating Catcher in the Rye, but part of it was because we analyzed the crap out of. (I wouldn't have liked it anyways, maybe just tolerated it, but I loathe that book now.) So I see why and I too agree with point B.
But as I haven't read it and it seems like a fun read, I'm going to read it. I won't blabber on about it though, for your sake. :-)
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I don't know. There's a kind of analysis that will lower enjoyment, but I think that's the kind of analysis that tries to detach the 'hidden content' from the 'surface content.' That's just a poor way of looking at literature, in my estimation. I mean, people analyze books every time they read one--we just don't call it 'analyzing'. Taking a closer look at the work, tossing it against other books, comparing styles and themes--I think these are perfectly legitimate things to do to a work of literature. If nothing else, they help you remember the things you read.
Anyway, I was planning on doing an independent (tutored) study this summer on contemporary American poetry. I decided to call it off on account of low funds, but I still ordered all the books from the list my prof and I compiled. So far, I've read Traveling Through the Dark by William Stafford, and I'm in the middle of The Freeing of the Dust by Denise Levertov. These are both really good, and lots more accessible than I think the casual reader assumes of modern poetry. There's a whole bunch of books left on the list, and I probably won't get through them all this summer... Don't have that list with me now; I'll put more up later, maybe.
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It's an approach that is also a very old-fashioned way of looking at literature, since it ignores The Death of The Author. Nothing wrong with a bit of subtext though. Personally, I analyse everything I read to quite a large degree. Not doing that would suck all the fun out of it for me, and turn one of my favourite books into a series of dull but well-written accounts of some building work. I've never liked the idea that some culture is unworthy of analysis either, just because it's populist and not what was traditionally called high art.
Shit teaching of a text can really spoil it though. I never want to read Animal Farm again in my life after GCSE English.
As far as my summer reading goes, I'm currently kicking myself for going this long without reading The Revolution of Everyday Life. It's making me feel better about the world and my place in it. An incredible book.
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Analyzing any book that you may have at one point liked kills it. People think I'm crazy for hating Catcher in the Rye, but part of it was because we analyzed the crap out of. (I wouldn't have liked it anyways, maybe just tolerated it, but I loathe that book now.) So I see why and I too agree with point B.
It's okay, I hated that book so much when I read it. You are not the only one!
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It's an approach that is also a very old-fashioned way of looking at literature, since it ignores The Death of The Author. Nothing wrong with a bit of subtext though.
Mrrr...close reading, intertextuality, and contextualisation are not going out of style anytime soon, bub. Not even necessarily talking about an author, yet. And not to slight anyone's knowledge of literary theory, but what is it with this board and "The Death of the Author" (it's the title of an essay by Roland Barthes, for those of you who haven't caught on yet)? Sure, it's figured heavily into a lot of post-structuralism, but that's not the only ballgame out there. Look around, you'll find essays purporting "The Death of the Reader" and even "The Death of the Text." Not much left after that. Personally, I can't help feeling that approaches that completely eliminate authorial intention, though I understand their merits and why they developed, always seem either a little arrogant, or too stuck up their own asses to state simply what should be obvious.
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I think that forced, academic analysation can definitely make a book less enjoyable.
But I certainly have a running background process by which I analyse any and everything I see, including books I read. At least half the time I'm wondering about things in the text that reveal an author's unconcious or unintentional subtext, such as the (ugh) Wheel of Time books and the rampant misogyny. Or, to be charitable, not technically misogyny so much as wildly delusional beliefs about women and their actions and motivations.
It seems to me that people who subscribe to the Death of the Author theory are perplexingly misguided, since with extremely few exceptions I find that every author I have ever read has an unique perspective and voice that unites all their work and causes themes to constantly recur.
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Right now I am reading "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" by Christopher Moore. I may also try to re-read the HP novels in full again, since I skipped to the last three last summer (and I didn't really get through them over Spring Break. I am such a slacker). Otherwise, I'll probably pick up a few Manga and read those over the summer too, and I might re-read The Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich. If I like Lamb, I'll probably pick up some more Moore books too.
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Granted, I haven't read a lot of it and I'm no literary theorist, but the few post-structuralist criticisms I've read struck me as some of the most masturbatory intellectualism I could imagine: more about how deliciously clever the critic could be than about relaying any kind of interesting insight to the work in question.
Are there any post-structralist criticisms that might appeal to a "common" reader, or are they pretty much all like that? I'd like to read a something that's considered a good example of the technique before dismissing it completely.
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Demonstrating how clever the critic can be is unfortunately the hallmark of most criticism (see: Richard Dawkins. Zinger!)
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Ah, so true! :lol: I guess what I don't like about post-structuralism is that it seems to decouple the demonstration of the critic's cleverness from any actual analysis of the text. Instead of being clever by looking at the text in a unique way, the post-structuralist criticisms I've read treated the text as a sort of free-associative springboard for any kind of riffing they felt like. Which I (think I) understand is the whole point. But if that's the case, I'd be more than happy to avoid it from now on.
But yeah, I would be interested in giving it another shot if someone would point me to a stand-out example.
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I think that forced, academic analysation can definitely make a book less enjoyable.
But I certainly have a running background process by which I analyse any and everything I see, including books I read. At least half the time I'm wondering about things in the text that reveal an author's unconcious or unintentional subtext, such as the (ugh) Wheel of Time books and the rampant misogyny. Or, to be charitable, not technically misogyny so much as wildly delusional beliefs about women and their actions and motivations.
I completely agree and was of course overstating my case a bit for dramatic effect... You can't help but analyse as you read, and I certainly enjoy discussing the things I read, listen to, or watch - but I was unfortunately subjected to some lit classes in college that haunt my thoughts to this day. I can completely imagine spending an entire quarter trying to pretend like we're finding deep meaning in the Hitchhiker's Guide. Ugh.
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Mrrr...close reading, intertextuality, and contextualisation are not going out of style anytime soon, bub. Not even necessarily talking about an author, yet. And not to slight anyone's knowledge of literary theory, but what is it with this board and "The Death of the Author" (it's the title of an essay by Roland Barthes, for those of you who haven't caught on yet)? Sure, it's figured heavily into a lot of post-structuralism, but that's not the only ballgame out there. Look around, you'll find essays purporting "The Death of the Reader" and even "The Death of the Text." Not much left after that. Personally, I can't help feeling that approaches that completely eliminate authorial intention, though I understand their merits and why they developed, always seem either a little arrogant, or too stuck up their own asses to state simply what should be obvious.
I wasn't suggesting they were going out of style, and The Death of the Author is all about intertextuality anyway. I was just talking about those approaches that focus on the idea of a hidden meaning implanted there by the author being the most important thing when looking at a text being rather old-fashioned. And post-sctructuralism might not be the only ballgame out there, but Barthes work took the focus away from the author and placed it onto the text itself, and I think the importance of that is huge.
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A. I would argue that Advanved English would have to be an awesome class, based on irony points alone.
B. Anyone who thinks that hitchhiker's guide needs to be analyzed, over or no, needs to be shot.
A. More people at my school do this course than those who do the Standard course.
B. Yeah, the Board of Studies is a little wack.
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The New Critics had been focusing on the text alone a decade before Barthes. There are similarities between the New Criticism and post-structuralism, but what I think Barthes was after was the supposed individuality of the author-creator. One of the motivating ideas of post-structuralism is the denial of individuality (a hang-up of the modernists): both of the author and of the text (or of the individuality of meaning within a text). You're right that The Death of the Author is all about intertextuality, in the sense that "the text" gets redefined as something spread across and pieced together of many works and becomes not the product of a single person but a host of plugged-in mouthboxes that all speak the narrative of a particular period.
Of course, it'd be hard to give a fair summary of Barthes or most of the other post-structuralists, because they're so unbelievably, ridiculously dense. In the end, I can't help thinking that that's just a matter of convenience.
As far as good examples of post-structuralism go, I think J. Hillis Miller is usually pretty straightforward, relatively speaking. He's definitely guilty of the "riffing" rynne mentioned... but when your whole MO is that meaning in a text is fundamentally undecidable, that's probably to be expected. And some of that riffing is pretty interesting to read, I must say.
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Guys: this summer I am going to read the final volume of OMG Y: The Last Man.
Also as I am like 17 I was totally unaware of this whole "Death of the Author" business. It seems like something I'd really enjoy arguing about. Non-fiction tyme? Perhaps. Although I';ve been really busy and still haven't finished The Idiot.
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I don't really agree with death of the author. I feel it's the same as the idea of death of the artist and as an artist, I feel it's kind of impossible to remove yourself from your work. You may be able to remove your opinions and emotions, but it's still your hand that creates it, be it art or literature.
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Arguably the readers/viewers/audience of the art have as much to do with the creation of and the meaning within art as the artist does. Meaning simply because it is not up to the artist to say that their work is about X and only X because if I genuinely think it's about Y then, to me, it's about Y. Creation because art is always created with an audience in mind, obviously however the artist can be their own audience.
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Guys, I feel as if I've been enlightened by a glow in the dark sticker.
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Oli, I agree with you. I leave my work up for interpretation for the most part, but the style, the medium I work in, it's based on my choices. I think it's the same for the author with what genre they write in and how they write that puts them into their work, but not always what they write about. I just don't agree that the artist/writer can be completely removed, especially if they attach their name to their work. (Some use pseudonyms/alter egos.)
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Yeah, as a writer/musician/visual artist myself I'm definitely gonna have to say it annoys me that some people think my intentions and input can be completely removed from a comprehensive analysis of my work and still have said analysis be more than intellectual masturbation.
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Well, if they don't consider your intentions then it's not a comprehensive analysis. At the same time, I don't think that people do "comprehensive" analyses of art, anymore. Or, rather, people have fessed up to never having been able to do so. Or, rather, they still try but from an angle that already assumes that they don't (i.e. fail).
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Yeah, as a writer/musician/visual artist myself I'm definitely gonna have to say it annoys me that some people think my intentions and input can be completely removed from a comprehensive analysis of my work and still have said analysis be more than intellectual masturbation.
Yeah but you might have to realise that that people who interpret your work as separate from your intentions probably don't give a shit about how you feel about it. After all, you're dead.
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I read constantly. I think it is because I don't really do much else in my day-to-day life and so reading just fills in the time and allows me an escape into different words. I'm also rather suseptible to day dreamin'. Every time I finish a book I have decided no a new career path I want to take, or a new time/place I want to live in. Recently I read a book about the profiling of serial killers and decided that I just had to find some way to work at the BSU of the FBI. Probably not likely considering i'm English, and live in England, but a dream none the less. Similarly, I read Tender is the night last week and decided that I needed to live in 1920/30's America, and be rich, and a socialite.
I'm an English Literature student and so reading for the summer is going to be taken up by a hell of a lot of my course books, unfortunately. With over fifty to read next year, a whole module to devise myself and everything I just want to read, this leads to a lot of booktime. Plus, I have a tendency to attempt to make my small, cubelike bedroom, look like a miniature library - with four large floor to ceiling bookshelves filled already, the dream is coming along swimmingly. So, reading this summer? Well, I travel to America on thursday for two months with some webfriends. I presume they'll have books, they're quite geeky. So i'm only going to take a few on the plane and then i'll raid what they have on their bookshelves and devour everything possible. Or, i'll buy books there, because its cheaper.
Summer Reading LIst
Tender is the Night
Profiling the Serial Killer
How to write/read fiction
The Saga of Darren Shan (all twelve)
The Interpretation of Murder
Eragon
A Clockwork Orange
Mrs. Dalloway
Catcher in the Rye (again)
The Noodle Maker
Shades Children
Superior Saturday (I <3 Garth Nix)
The Communist Manifesto
The Book Theif
War and Peace
The God Delusion
The Ancestors Tale
A Brief History of Time
Brisingr
Poetry of Charles Bukowski
And then probably a lot of other stuff that I just pick up when I have the time. So ya know, any suggestions that people may have, i'm sure I can find the time to fit them in.
Pff. I read a lot more than I thought I did.
-Shall go find a life now-
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Yeah, as a writer/musician/visual artist myself I'm definitely gonna have to say it annoys me that some people think my intentions and input can be completely removed from a comprehensive analysis of my work and still have said analysis be more than intellectual masturbation.
The thing I like about the idea of the death of the author isn't that I entirely agree with it, but that it puts artistic practice on the defensive. It questions why your intentions and identity should be important. After all, knowing an author's intentions is incredibly hard. Statements about a work may not be entirely true even if the author has the best intentions of clarity when they make them, and you can end up in a ridiculous situation of trying to psychoanalyse someone through their art. Since we can never know what an author was exactly meaning to convey should this bother us?
However, I do think readers have more agency than Barthes seems to describe them as having. Also, I think authors become a part of the text. Or at least, ideas about what they might have intended or who they are influence the reading of the text. Personally I have the exact opposite reaction to you, I love the idea of my work becoming something not my own, and instead being part of someone else's creation of meaning. This might differ if I made different art, but I don't think biographical detail about me or what my intentions were when making the art are very important at all when compared to what happens when someone reads it. If that wasn't the most important part of the whole process then why put anything out there?
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Once, Samuel Beckett was sat at the back of a lecture about some of his dramatic works. The speaker analysed his plays for all assembled, telling everyone exactly what Beckett 'meant' by what he had written. At the end of the lecture Beckett stood, disgusted, and shouted. "But that isn't what I meant at all..." and walked out.
That anecdote is something which reminds me of how little we can really know about an author, or authorial intention, unless we're blatantly told by the author themselves.
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you can end up in a ridiculous situation of trying to psychoanalyse someone through their art.
I would say that attempting to glean insight into an artist's mind by analysing their work is just as valid as any other of the various forms of analysis.
I know personally my fiction writing reveals a veritable laundry list of mental quirks! :wink:
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This [Maps & Legends by Michael Chabon] looked pretty cool. How is it?
I shall report back when I am finished. I'm not very far at the moment.
[/quote]
I'm finished now, and I highly recomend it. It's a very loose confederation of essays all having something more or less to do with Genre Fiction. Some are about works he's enjoyed, some are about the place of Genre works in the world, some about writing Genre Fiction himself. It sounds a lot more booring than it is - on the contrary I suspect that reading Mr. Chabon's essays about the stories he loves may be more interesting than reading his actual novels, although I haven't ever actually read any of them (a situation I will rectify asap) and I am probably wrong about that. I certainly enjoyed Maps & Legends, although people who view themselves as literary critics will probably get their knickers all knotted over Mr. Chabon's criticisims of the litterary world's tendancy to dismiss all Genre Fiction out of hand. If however you are like me and couldn't give a fig for litterary criticisim, tend to view litterary (and art) critics as pompous blowhards who kill the joy right out of everything, and in general just love reading... you'll probably enjoy Mr. Chabon's musings.
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During the plenty of hours I'll have taking EuRail trains the next few weeks, I'm hoping to read the remainder of my Nabokov books and finish the last two Thomas Pynchon books I've yet to read--Mason & Dixon, and V. So for the next few weeks, I'm going to be reading nothing but my two favorite authors.
At the same time, I've been reading a number of nonfiction books off an on, including A Short History of Nearly Everything, The Coldest Winter (an AMAZING chronicle of the Korean War; if anyone is interested in history at all, I can't recommend this book enough!) and Reefer Madness: Inside the American Black Market, whose title is pretty self explanatory, though it deals more with things like counterfeiting and prostitution than drugs.
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I picked up copies of The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man in a secondhand bookshop the other day. I've always wanted to read them but I've never had the time. I guess now I have the time.
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I've changed my mind, I'm heading to my local library today and I'm gonna grab a copy of A Clockwork Orange.
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Things I am reading(bold)/will be reading:
-Soldiers of God.
-Father Brown: The Essential Tales
-Eye - Short stories by Frank Herbert
-Godfather of the Kremlin
-King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
-Rebel without a crew
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Isn't Rebel Without a Crew about Robert Rodriguez filming and doing other necessary shit for his film El Mariachi?
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Isn't Rebel Without a Crew about Robert Rodriguez filming and doing other necessary shit for his film El Mariachi?
Yup, subtitle is Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player.
From wiki:
"Rebel Without a Crew (subtitle: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker with $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player) is a 1995 non-fiction book by Robert Rodriguez. Presented in a diary format, Rebel details Rodriguez' beginnings as a young filmmaker; his stint at a medical testing facility to raise money for a feature film; the making of that film (El Mariachi) for $7,000, and his subsequent experiences in Hollywood selling the film and going to film festivals promoting it.
Later editions of the book also feature one of Rodriguez' tutorials on low-budget filmmaking ("Ten Minute Film School") and the screenplay to El Mariachi."
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This summer I'm so far reading yet more PatricK O'Brian Novels (almost done with the Aubrey-Maturin Books), finishing up Go Down Moses[ by Faulkner (started it with selections in school, fell in love) and an assload of comic books.
Eventually intend to read Kristin Lavransdatter (http://Kristin Lavransdatter) and maybe some more George Eliot.
And when summer's over I can attack philosophy again, probably with more Kierkegaard, maybe some more Nietzsche and more recent thinkers like Rorty and Quine.
Oh, and I need to read even more Faulkner. God I love this stuff.
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I started The Once and Future King, but I am having trouble getting into it.
Just finished Irving Welsh's Porno.
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It picks up. I really enjoyed that book, but I'm almost always a fan of Arthurian legend. La Morte D'Arthur is on my list of things to read this summer.
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By the way, King Leopold's Ghost is really, really good and rather terrifying. The amount of evil that someone can bring into the world just with greed and incompetence is pretty staggering.
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Guys I just read the first few pages of Titus Groan before I left for work tonight.
Summer reading is looking up.
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Mervyn Peak is the shit.
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i've revisited a childhood favourite, the chronicles of narnia. now almost finished the last book
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I'm probably going to be consumed with trying to comprehend The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. Superstring Theory is fun. It just takes a while. The chapter on General Relativity took me long enough, I can't imagine what it'll be like working through the 11 dimensions.
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I am currently re-reading "Another Roadside Attraction" by Tom Robbins, but am too distracted to sit down and really dedicate myself to it. Hopefully if I finish it soon I'll delve onto some other books that some of you are reading - it is past time for me to branch out more in the literary realm! Thanks for everyone's interesting posts and suggestions, by the way, because there are a lot of interesting options out there for those of us not in school to sift through and find some gems. Very nifty thread! ^_^
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So while on the subject of werewolves, does anyone have any suggestions for other werewolf-related books?
Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar is on my list. I just read The Good Fairies of New York and it was great...punk rock Scottish thistle fairies causing trouble!
I read a lot...a ridiculous amount, even...but I have so many that I'm excited about in line.
First, I'm finishing the John Connolly books. I read The Book of Lost Things (dark fantasy) and fell in love with him. He also has Nocturnes, supernatural short stories. And I'm making my way through his mystery/thriller series. (If you like your thrillers to have lots of action, but also some thought and a supernatural twist, try his.)
Currently I am reading: The Princess Bride by William Goldman. The movie is great, but you get even more background/details in the book. Maybe too much..? But it's fun.
Somehow I have never read any Le Guin. So The Left Hand of Darkness awaits me patiently.
By the way - so many Lit majors here! I have a degree in it, and I work at a bookstore, so it's like an addiction for me.
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Currently I am reading: The Princess Bride by William Goldman. The movie is great, but you get even more background/details in the book. Maybe too much..? But it's fun.
You mean S. Morgenstern. William Goldman is a phony!
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Somehow I have never read any Le Guin. So The Left Hand of Darkness awaits me patiently.
Good choice. Stick with it; it's a little dry.
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Currently I am reading: The Princess Bride by William Goldman. The movie is great, but you get even more background/details in the book. Maybe too much..? But it's fun.
Somehow I have never read any Le Guin. So The Left Hand of Darkness awaits me patiently.
The Princess Bride is one of my all time favourite books. I've yet to read a book that's filled with as much romance, adventure and comedy. So good.
If you end up liking The Left Hand of Darkness I highly recommend The Dispossessed as it's generally considered the first book in the Hainish Series, then just make your way through the rest of the books. While you're at it, don't forget The Earthsea novels.
Today I picked up 'Scar Night' by Alan Campbell and 'Shriek: An Afterword' by Jeff Vandermeer, which are probably just going to end up in my pile of to read books, because as of right now I'm trying to make my way through the Wraeththu Trilogy. Also a few days ago I bought Gaiman's 'M Is For Magic' and the first three books in the Neveryon series by Samuel R. Delany.
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Currently I am reading: The Princess Bride by William Goldman. The movie is great, but you get even more background/details in the book. Maybe too much..? But it's fun.
You mean S. Morgenstern. William Goldman is a phony!
This is the William Goldman version. The S. Morgenstern version was rich with useless background of the country of Florin, and really wordy, so Goldman edited those parts out. And he interjects everynow and then to make comments about nothing.
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I read pretty constantly, but I always catch the reading bug pretty hardcore in the summer. Must have something to do with the heat and that whole not wanting to move business. :)
The list:
- Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
- In The Pond by Ha Jin
- Tokyo Doesn't Love Us Anymore by Ray Loriga
- Is Nature Enough?: Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science by John F. Haught
- Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure by Michael Chabon
- The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems by Michael Ondaatje
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
- If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways by Daniel Quinn
- The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene (I am waiting on this one as I just read Godel, Escher, Bach: And Eternal Golden Braid and that was rather heavy, Brian Greene has an awesome TED.com video on string theory that can be found http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/brian_greene_on_string_theory.html (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/brian_greene_on_string_theory.html).)
So that is what I have planned for the next few weeks. :) I am looking forward to it!
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I've just finished reading Fight Club, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Jingo, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 and I am halfway through Three Days To Never by Tim Powers. What a fantastic 5 days it's been.
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It was pretty awesome and I was only just running through it for my English Extension 1 presentation and am planing on reading The Island of Dr Moreau as well. I'm going to go through it with a fine toothed comb later this week and get as much on 'the alien self' as I can. For the same topic we had to read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and it was a fuckin' bitch to read.
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Oli
You will never finish Ulysses....ever. Anyone who says that they've read Ulysses is a liar UNLESS they've read it over a period of at least 3 months. If anyone tries to tell you that they've read that book in a week first laugh and then kill them in a horrible way, liars like that should be punished.
I'm personally planning to tackle it summer of next year as it will be my first year of university and I'll have 2 months longer for summer which will hopefully allow me to get somewhere through it.
I read it in three weeks... though I was reading it for academic purposes. *shrug* Could have done it faster if I didn't have four other classes. I'm so delighted there are so many Jim Butcher fans here. I read Storm Front and then got sidetracked by finals. I'm midway through Fools Moon. I'm also rereading Fall on Your Knees by Marie-Ann MacDonald. One of the best Canadian writers imo.
I'm also really surprised at how many people here are English students. For anyone that's not I have an eight page double spaced paper which is a summary to half a year's worth of my second year English theory class. It's a bit of a dull read, but I got an A on it. It was the minor portion of my midyear final -- I don't do things like this for fun =D
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I've read lately what I think to be great stuff for summer. It's kinda light reading but it's still worth it.
jPod - Douglas Coupland (made me laugh so hard, people stared.)
The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland
Microserfs - Douglas Coupland
The Birth House - Ami McKay
Belong to Me - Maria Del Los Santos
The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
Moody Food - Ray Robertson (this book will be a big hit amongst people who love music, hippies, drugs or Toronto.)
Box Socials - WP Kinsella
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I have so many books I have to read for next semester and I haven't even started on them. I've been in a very philosophical mode this summer; if I don't stumble across at least one previously unconsidered kernel of wisdom (or at least food-for-thought) each day I feel like I'm wasting time. I've been meaning to read Mrs. Dalloway and Lolita and Walden and People's History of the United States and a million others, but so far I've read:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (I picked up Lila but I haven't cracked it yet). This man reconciled me with my crazy thoughts and made me feel sane again. Aaaand then halfway through the book I again felt crazy. I swear, aligning too much with this man's mind can have schizophrenic effects. End up feeling so open to everything, looking for deeper meaning in a non-mythologically based world can really make you feel nuts. My personal experience at least.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Skip Dawkins, son. I guess it's hard to talk about Nietzsche at all unless I have the person I'm talking to in front of me, because I'm quite new to him and I'm sure I'd sound like a fool. Either that or the person wouldn't have read him and would have some preconceived notion about what an asshole he was. Though I have a much higher confidence in the intellects of this message board. Reading this after Zen made me feel sane, and then bitter and misanthropic, and then hermetic. I wanted to buy a motorcycle and live on a fucking mountain. And then I finished it and felt like I had a great deal of new power over my own life, and again managed to love the world.
Maybe I let the things I read affect me too much, but that's kinda how I like to roll. Complete absorption, completely coming over to the author's way of thinking. And then I finish the book, get a little distance and look at it a bit more objectively. I remember in the first portion of The Stoic by Seneca he wrote a letter to a student of his talking about how the student shouldn't jump around to too many authors, but instead stick on one for a while and really allow yourself to understand their worldview before moving on to another. I thought it was wisdom.
Now workin on Beyond Good and Evil. Looove it.
Last thought to anyone who's read Nietzsche: Do you notice some sort of social aversion to talking about the man? In my perception it almost seems like he's danced around. We can talk about eight hundred authors who are clearly disciples of him, but for some reason bringing him up is almost a faux pas, like it's something that should be kept very much to yourself, because it's so personally revealing. Or something. I dunno. Response?
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so far this summer I read:
ayan rand - atlas shrugged/ can become tedius when she describes how great her characters are but there's enough interesting things going on to warrant this rather large book.
david sedaris - when you are engulfed in flames/ perfect summer read, very funny.
dbc pierre - vernon god little/ lot of people dont like this one but I thought it was a nice satire and can definitely recommend it.
then I started readin david mitchel's ghostwritten but it was a missprint so I send it back and while waiting for a new copy I decided to read 2 small books
jay mcinery - story of my life/ really got into this, was only dissapointed by the ending. for fans of "rules of attraction"
kurt vonnegut - slaughterhouse five/ very good read and interesting structure but I guess I just expected a little more after reading the reviews.
now I got my new copy of ghostwritten so i started reading where I left off. So far it's quite good. especially the tokyo chapter, reminded me of "murakami" novels.
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...I've been meaning to read Mrs. Dalloway and Lolita and Walden and People's History of the United States and a million others, but so far I've read:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Maybe I let the things I read affect me too much, but that's kinda how I like to roll. Complete absorption, completely coming over to the author's way of thinking. And then I finish the book, get a little distance and look at it a bit more objectively. I remember in the first portion of The Stoic by Seneca he wrote a letter to a student of his talking about how the student shouldn't jump around to too many authors, but instead stick on one for a while and really allow yourself to understand their worldview before moving on to another. I thought it was wisdom.
Now workin on Beyond Good and Evil. Looove it.
Last thought to anyone who's read Nietzsche: Do you notice some sort of social aversion to talking about the man? In my perception it almost seems like he's danced around. We can talk about eight hundred authors who are clearly disciples of him, but for some reason bringing him up is almost a faux pas, like it's something that should be kept very much to yourself, because it's so personally revealing. Or something. I dunno. Response?
I highly recommend Lolita. I really enjoy Vladmir Nabokov's writing. I also really enjoyed his memoir Speak, Memory. I hope you get around to reading it eventually. Also, I was really pleased to see that someone else has read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Not many people that I know around here have read it much less heard of it.
As far as Nietzsche is concerned, I really enjoyed the philosophy class that I took that was centered entirely around his works, but I too noticed that there seem to be a lot of preconceived notions of him and his works. I think that Nietzsche is probably one of the more misunderstood well-known philosophers (well-known meaning that most people have at least heard of him but not necessarily read anything by him, and "God is dead" is quoted out of context so frequently it makes me a little sick), and because I doubt that there are a significant number of people that are willing to put in the work to understand Nietzsche better, the misconceptions are a standard that is pretty well unavoidable. I suppose I just don't have a lot of confidence in the majority of the public to care enough about something to understand it. Anyway, in my experience the people that are most averted to talking about Nietzsche's philosophy are those that do not properly understand him and those that are content with thinking that he was a bad person. Anyway, I am sorry if that was incomprehensible. I have been up all night working, so my brain is quite fuzzy at the moment. :)
I wouldn't worry too much about becoming so involved in the things that you read. I am very similar in that respect, and I always viewed it as being a positive thing. I suppose I kind of feel that one needs to get to know the book before one can fully comprehend it, and what better way to do so than to become emotionally attached/involved?
Book I am reading now: Letters from the Hive: An Intimate History of Bees, Honey, and Humankind by Stephen Buchmann, Banning Repplier.
I am really enjoying this book. I am a dork and I love my bees, what can I say? :) Even if you are not a beekeeper, I recommend this book. It is rather poetic, and those little insects have more an effect on our lives than you may think. Here is a link to the google book search page: http://books.google.com/books?id=Z_Z4AAAACAAJ&dq=letters+from+the+hive (http://books.google.com/books?id=Z_Z4AAAACAAJ&dq=letters+from+the+hive)
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The Acid House by Irvine Welsh
I love summer reading.
I love you.
I didn't know anyone really knew Irvine Welsh. Although, I do believe Glue is his best novel.
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I am so pissed right now. I literally wait well over a year (something like 15 months since I actually purchased it on Amazon) for this book (Fearful Symmetry for anyone who wants to know the title). Let me explain this book a little bit. This book is the latest in a series (or a "reboot) of DS9, a tv show that ended in 1999. Back to the book. It advances the story by a minuscule amount. Most of the information in the first half of the book is obtained directly from 2 episodes of the show. There is a 20 page portion that attempts to fill in a gap that doesn't get fully explained until well over 100 pages into part 2. Then we get the cliffhanger. 140 pages in, the story is over. Part 2 is to paint the new villian as a tragic picture. Oh, but lets throw in references to America's "occupation" of Iraq, and compare them to the Nazis. GREAT, way to win over an audience. We get a couple of references to episodes from the show, they explain why our new villain is so twisted (the villian from the show would regularly rape and beat the new villian) The suspence builds (not really) and builds to the point where we end the novel 8 months before it began. So, I'm sitting here waiting for 15 months to be told, "wait longer."
Okay, admittedly, the book is well written (its the authors first published novel, and she got a lot of pointers from two of my favourite authors), and as a stand alone (with a little bit more info) it would hold up faily well. But, as part of a series, especialy following the previous one, I want more. More Story, more action. Break the Villian's past into segements that begin each chapter, a couple paragraphs to 2 pages at the beginning of each one, and attack the story.
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As far as Nietzsche is concerned, I really enjoyed the philosophy class that I took that was centered entirely around his works, but I too noticed that there seem to be a lot of preconceived notions of him and his works. I think that Nietzsche is probably one of the more misunderstood well-known philosophers (well-known meaning that most people have at least heard of him but not necessarily read anything by him, and "God is dead" is quoted out of context so frequently it makes me a little sick), and because I doubt that there are a significant number of people that are willing to put in the work to understand Nietzsche better, the misconceptions are a standard that is pretty well unavoidable. I suppose I just don't have a lot of confidence in the majority of the public to care enough about something to understand it. Anyway, in my experience the people that are most averted to talking about Nietzsche's philosophy are those that do not properly understand him and those that are content with thinking that he was a bad person. Anyway, I am sorry if that was incomprehensible. I have been up all night working, so my brain is quite fuzzy at the moment. :)
i've been reading beyond good and evil all week, and listening to a berkeley professor's lectures about his On Truth and Lies, and reading various peoples' interpretations that always seem to be flawed, one-sided, short-sighted (i don't mean that pejoratively, simply stating what i perceived), and i am coming to the conclusion that nietzsche is not a writer that can be comprehensively understood. the man will slam something. HARD. and then a few sections later he will justify it, change its definition. and then he will seem to slam people who do what he just did. or some variant of that. perpetually shifting perspectives, shifting angles, but always finds a way to crush something that previously seemed invulnerable, or to build up something that seemed indefensible.
i love it. his writing doesn't directly persuade to any way of thinking by means of affect; it forces the mind to reshape its own thought patterns, regardless of whether or not you consciously wish to be changed. it's basically made me into a rhetorical acrobat. existance becomes a whole lot more fun, simply because everything that seemed so heavy has been exposed as hilariously inconsequential. puts "unbearable lightness of being" in the proper context, i suppose.
i apologize for sounding like such a shameless convert, but i kind of am one.
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I don't think any pardon is necessary in regards to being a shameless convert. I don't see that there is any need to feel any sort of shame whatsoever, especially when it comes to being interested in a very provocative philosopher. :)
I agree that his writing doesn't necessarily persuade to any one way of thinking, but I also like the fact that there are issues in which he is very adamant on and his sentiments on those subjects are made very apparent with the way he writes about them. I know that I will never be able to fully comprehend him, and I do think that it is probably an impossible undertaking to try. But I am enjoying trying just the same. :) With all of this talk I picked up Thus Spoke Zarathustra again, and I am diving back in. It should be a good time.
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My mom and I went to a bunch of garage sales on Saturday and I bought three books that I am quite excited about. I got Slaughterhouse-Five, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and Holy Blood, Holy Grail. All for $1 total. I love garage sales.
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If I may quote the late Pope Robert Anton Wilson:
"Nietzsche masturbated too much."
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I don't think any pardon is necessary in regards to being a shameless convert. I don't see that there is any need to feel any sort of shame whatsoever, especially when it comes to being interested in a very provocative philosopher. :)
I agree that his writing doesn't necessarily persuade to any one way of thinking, but I also like the fact that there are issues in which he is very adamant on and his sentiments on those subjects are made very apparent with the way he writes about them. I know that I will never be able to fully comprehend him, and I do think that it is probably an impossible undertaking to try. But I am enjoying trying just the same. :) With all of this talk I picked up Thus Spoke Zarathustra again, and I am diving back in. It should be a good time.
that book is great. walter kauffman translating?
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I've been reading some good books this summer. So far, I've made it through:
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
The Temple of the Golden Pavillion by Yukio Mishima
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
I'm currently working on:
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote
And I'm hoping to read:
The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
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JPOD! JPOD! JPOD!
XD I can't read this book in public I laugh so hard...
Douglas Coupland is fantastic! I can't even explain what happens in the story without people giving me funny looks. Here's a sample
Writing Ronald McDonald love letters so he can choose a mate
Competition to sell yourself on ebay
A hugging machine
Desperate housewives go wild -- For Ronald
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lol wut?
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Guys.
I just read the first three books in the "Twilight" series within the last 27 hours.
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Oh. Okay, what'd you think 'bout it?
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They are freakishly addicting. They're written well enough, but at the same time they're complete cheese and entirely too predictable. But I still cannot wait for the fourth one, it comes out tomorrow at midnight...
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Douglas Coupland is the single worst thing to happen to modern literature.
Really.
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They are freakishly addicting. They're written well enough, but at the same time they're complete cheese and entirely too predictable. But I still cannot wait for the fourth one, it comes out tomorrow at midnight...
That's just about what everyone I know who has read it, including myself, have said about it.
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They are freakishly addicting. They're written well enough, but at the same time they're complete cheese and entirely too predictable. But I still cannot wait for the fourth one, it comes out tomorrow at midnight...
Is that the one about the vampires? Man, I got like 120 pages into the first one and put it down in disgust. Yet, I did preorder the fourth one from Amazon for my sister.
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Yep, vampires and werewolves. They're so bad but at the same time they're so, so good...
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What's wrong with Douglas Coupland? I think he's hilarious.
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I just think Douglas Coupland is a horrible writer. Generation X, Shampoo Planet, Life After God, Microserfs and fucking Girlfriend in a Coma were an uninterrupted string of five abominations unto Nuggan. Maybe he improved after the 90s, who knows, but I don't care. He was so absolutely the epitome of horrid 90s pop culture (like the film Reality Bites) that I cannot ever imagine taking him seriously.
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Um dude, almost everything was an abomination unto Nuggan.
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Guys.
I just read the first three books in the "Twilight" series within the last 27 hours.
Good fucking god, every female I work with and my sister are now rabbidly obsessed with this book. Why does it appear everyone is just discovering it now?
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I've known about them for a long time, really, just never had the urge to read one. But lately I kept getting pages about them on StumbleUpon so I figured I would start reading one for the heck of it. I went into Barnes and Noble, grabbed the first one from the shelf, and read it straight through.
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When I saw the trailer for the Twilight movie, I laughed out loud. I mean, vampires -and- werewolves? It's like a fricking white wolf LARP.
Vampires are too good as villains to go to waste as mopey protagonists. Fuck Anne Rice. (yes, there may be exceptions to this--I liked the vampire priest in Astro City, for instance, even though I never finished the comic and I was in 8th grade).
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Underworld had vampires and werewolves.
Also, that White Wolf based TV show was remarkably good, too bad it only had like five episodes.
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They are freakishly addicting. They're written well enough, but at the same time they're complete cheese and entirely too predictable. But I still cannot wait for the fourth one, it comes out tomorrow at midnight...
Certain people tease me about my love for cheesy predictable teenage trash novels. And my love for vampire stories. This series combines the two in such a way that I get excited over them, but at the same time feel a bit dirty for enjoying them. They are terribly predictable and clichéd, but for some reason I have to read them all. The movie looks like it's not going to be an excellent piece of cinematic genius, but the books aren't great literary works either, really.
I have to read :
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
New York Trilogy
The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak
Guilty Pleasures - Laurell Hamilton (another cheesy vampire book)
Dead Girls' Dance - Rachel Cane (another teenage cheesy vampire book)
The first two are for uni and therefore I can't remember who they are by. I probably won't read any of those other books until the uni break in september, and even then I have assignments due that I will be working on. Stupid uni not letting me read.
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I have just finished the first 9 books in the Dresden files. They slump and get a bit samey in the middle, but then Butcher finds his legs again and starts coming up with interesting plot developments in the last couple. I am looking forward to the 10th book (Small Favour) hitting paperback in the cover style I have the other 9 in :)
Currently reading Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I am only a few pages in, but it's pretty good so far. It's supposed to be a big work on censorship, but at the moment I am reading it as an allegory to waking from ignorance.
At home I currently have awaiting my eye-lookin':
- The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (Aready half-read this. It got a bit slow and I wanted something else at the time, ie: the much faster-paced Dresden series)
- Voltaire's Bastards - John Ralston Saul (Already half-read this. It is a fairly thick philosophical essay. While I like it I wanted a break)
- The Scar by China Mieville (heard good things about this)
- The Beach by Alex Garland (ditto, I think Han was reading it a while back)
- Catch 22 by Joseph Heller (bought during my "classics" period)
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (ditto)
- Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck (ditto ditto)
I also recently picked up Naked Lunch by William Burroughs and was turned off almost immediately by the encounter with the rube on the train. To me it was basically Burroughs explaining that the reader was the rube and he was shining us on. I didn't really appreciate it, so I put it down. I may attempt to read it again at some point, but the style of writing was pretty shit in my opinion so I am not sure if it'll go any better than the first attempt.
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Actually, that would be Dan Motherfucking Brown, if one is to call his books literature.
I don't think you should call his books literature. I think they're adventure stories. They shouldn't be taken in the same vein, in my opinion.
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Dan Brown doesn't even pretend to be literature.
Douglas Coupland does.
Coupland is like what would happen if you took Mark Leyner and made him stop doing drugs, removed his brain and replaced it with a "television tuned to a dead channel".
Let's just stop talking about him and talk about Mark Leyner instead because ET TU BABE IS THE GREATEST PIECE OF MODERN LITERATURE EVER.
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Stuff about Twilight.
Yeah, I've been meaning to read these for a while, too. I snuck a look at a coworker's copy back when the third came out and even though it wasn't a challenging read, it did suck me in pretty quickly.
So yeah. I haven't done any of my planned summer reading, as I haven't been to a bookstore or library to get any of them, but I have been rereading just about every book I own.
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I am right in the middle of reading Coupland's newest book, The Gum Thief. I thought jPod was a pretty great book. Off of that, I read Hey Nostradamus and Microserfs, neither of them were very good. The Gum Thief started out pretty good, I thought, but about halfway through, I'm starting to get very bored.
In other readings, in the passed two weeks or so I have read:
Doubt: A parable - John Patrick Shanley
I Am My Own Wife - Doug Wright
Copenhagen - Michael Frayn
The Laramie Project - Moises Kaufman
The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? - Edward Albee
I guess that I really like plays? Plays are actually really great reads. They are always really smooth reads, and playwrights are able to use great economy in their writing due to the medium, so they're often really well paced.
I'd like to read some more contemporary plays, but I have basically dried the supplies of plays at my library.
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Right now I'm reading the Koran. After that I'll be onto the Tanakh. I recently finished reading the Bible, so frankly I'm looking forward to leaving the Old Testament and related texts behind and moving onto some eastern religions.
In case anyone's wondering, a while ago I decided I ought to educate myself a bit about the major religions of the world, seeing as how I was raised in a completely secular household. For down-time I've been giving my brain a break by reading Iain M. Banks's Culture novels.
Also, reading and re-reading and re-re-reading a manuscript I'm working on. But that probably doesn't really count.
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I'd love to hear some opinions on how you feel the different scriptures relate to each other and differ from one another. That's an admirable goal you've set.
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Right now I'm reading the Koran.
Techinquly you're not, unless you can actually read Arabic.
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Oh, shush.
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Dan Brown doesn't even pretend to be literature.
Douglas Coupland does.
Coupland is like what would happen if you took Mark Leyner and made him stop doing drugs, removed his brain and replaced it with a "television tuned to a dead channel".
Let's just stop talking about him and talk about Mark Leyner instead because ET TU BABE IS THE GREATEST PIECE OF MODERN LITERATURE EVER.
And this folks is what happens when someone who just started college reads David Foster Wallace. This post here. Scientists are working on a vaccine, but they're not hopeful.
I'm reading Rilke right now and I think I'm going to start McCarthy's The Road. I hear Oprah has really good things to say about it. Weren't we discussing a book club at some point? We should try to do that again, that would be fun.
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In point of fact, I fucking hate David Foster Wallace, and if you've actually read Et Tu, Babe you'd know I was making a joke.
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In point of fact, I fucking hate David Foster Wallace, and if you've actually read Et Tu, Babe you'd know I was making a joke.
Yes and it sounded like a joke that DFW made in 1993 (http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-5495526_ITM). But I'm with you in the Wallace dislike.
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One reason fiction writers seem creepy in person is that by vocation they really are voyeurs.
SIG'D SO HARD
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What I done? I've created a monster. A Monster.
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Guys I just read the first few pages of Titus Groan before I left for work tonight.
Summer reading is looking up.
Along with Gormenghast, these are my favourite books ever. I've never been brave enough to re-read them, though.
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The Road is excellent, well worth your money/time.
I don't know if I'd say it was excellent but it was definitely worth reading. The only way I could conceive of a movie based on this book working is if zombie Ingmar Bergman directed and one of the optional popcorn toppings was the Sweet Embrace of Death. However I see that instead, zombie Yul Brenner (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0384825/) is directing, and his two projects involved Nick Cave.
Which means that Nick Cave will have a cameo in the movie, perhaps as "Desperate Man in Cannibals' Cellar With Legs Burnt Off" or "Roasted Baby on Spit". Oh, I just can't wait.
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Uh-huh. I finished, then spent the last hour clutching a bottle of scotch and looking for sleeping pills.
EDIT: Chabon writes in the New York Review of Books that the book hews much closer to the gothic horror of Lovecraft (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19856) than it does to the typical post-apocalypse novel. It's a literary haunted house for parents. Which leads me to believe that this all started as an elaborate revenge plot when McCarthy didn't get a scone at a PTA meeting.
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Which means that Nick Cave will have a cameo in the movie
Also it probably means that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis will do the soundtrack.
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I'm reading Money by Martin Amis.
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I'm also reading The Watchmen. I've always meant to and now I'm getting around to it.
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maaaaan you are gonna look so internet-silly if he means this one (http://www.amazon.com/The-Watchmen/dp/B000FA5Q18/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218247978&sr=8-16)
Currently reading The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy and Blindness by Jose Saramago. Both: good so far.
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Currently reading The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy and Blindness by Jose Saramago. Both: good so far.
Speaking of dark, dark, dark apocalypse minded books with movies coming out....
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oh man if he means that one I am soooo fucked
Dude, I highly doubt it's that, so just chill.