Books

[Mormagil]

just picked up a load of books from the library and the bookstore so i'm in for an exciting week of reading. what a way to spend spring break!!

 

[Conspicuously Absent]

what is this "spring break?" I am unfamiliar with the concept.

 

[Mormagil]

it's something schools do to humiliate people without social lives by giving them a lot of days off in which to find something else to do!

 

[Conspicuously Absent]

ahhh... glad I don't have that then

 

[Krilons Resa]

When I'm reading hard drinking authors such as Kerouac or Bukowski it just feels like the right thing to do, and it's only a dram or two so as I'm not fucked up and unable to read or remember. Although once or twice I've read Harry Potter while consuming whiskey as well, that was just boredom / excitement to drink whoopsie.

Or when I'm reading something mindmelting like Rushdie sometimes I have one just to cope, haha.

Thanks for the response. So there is no great meaning behind it. FUCK!

How is Rushdie "mindmelting?" I may have to investigate further!

 

[NAD]

Well, I've told you about Fury before, and that was Rushdie.

He makes up his own language, it rules. It's like Finnegans Wake but more understandable.

 

[Dick Sirloin]

I've only read one book, but Rushdie rules for parodying "Ulysses" in "The Ground Beneath Her Feet":


The hanged man and I were alone for a long time. His feet swung not far from my revolted nose and yes I wondered about the heels of his boots his when I got the ropes off I made myself approach him yes in spite of his poong like the end of the world and the biting insects yes and the rawness of my throat and my eyes sore from bulging as I puked I took hold of his heels one ater the other yes I twisted the left heel it came up empty but the right heel did the right thing the film just plopped down in my mind yes and I put the and I put an unused film in its place from my own boot yes and I could feel his body all perfume and my heart was going like mad and I made my escape with Piloo’s fate and my own golden future in my hand yes and to hell with everything I said yes because it might as well be me as another so yes I will yes I did yes.

 

[NAD]

Dude your signature just cracked me the hell up.

 

[Dick Sirloin]

Nump's latest may crack my top 10 this year

 

[Krilons Resa]

Well, I've told you about Fury before, and that was Rushdie.

He makes up his own language, it rules. It's like Finnegans Wake but more understandable.

'

I remember that. Maybe I'll pick it up after I read The Stranger.

 

[spaffe]

Finished one of my traveling books some days ago: The Illiad (!). It ruled immensly after I hade forced myself through the first 100 pages, which I found to be pretty dull. This is seriously recomended reading for everyone; it's jolly good and it gives a lot of high brow culture points having read it

 

[+?Catalyst?+]

I'll just list my favorite book and then get going.

City Infernal by Edward Lee - Amazing.

 

[MajestikMøøse]

Finished one of my traveling books some days ago: The Illiad (!). It ruled immensly after I hade forced myself through the first 100 pages, which I found to be pretty dull. This is seriously recomended reading for everyone; it's jolly good and it gives a lot of high brow culture points having read it

yay, you're back!

Iliad is pretty cool, though that beginning bit, particularly the catalogues of the ships and the people on them can pretty much be skipped. One of the characteristics of oral poetry is that it is not only a story, it tells the history of the people (as mythical as it may be). So people were tracing their ancestry to all those heroes mentioned there.

Anyway, yes, excellent poem. Try the Odyssey next, it's a lot more fun and adventuresome.

Hey everyone, it's my first post in a week! I think I'll go back into hiding now.

 

[Reign in Acai]

Hey everyone, it's my first post in a week! I think I'll go back into hiding now.

Welcome back, hope everything's working out for the best.

 

[lizard]

don't go, moose!

 

[spaffe]

yay, you're back!

Iliad is pretty cool, though that beginning bit, particularly the catalogues of the ships and the people on them can pretty much be skipped. One of the characteristics of oral poetry is that it is not only a story, it tells the history of the people (as mythical as it may be). So people were tracing their ancestry to all those heroes mentioned there.

Anyway, yes, excellent poem. Try the Odyssey next, it's a lot more fun and adventuresome.

Hey everyone, it's my first post in a week! I think I'll go back into hiding now.

Yah, it's epic in every possible sense of the word. I really love how he - or whoever wrote it - when describing a battle uses metaphors taken from the daily life of farmers or events in nature; it gives a scope much greater than just the war. Also the ending was very good; all the way through the book the men and their acts of bravery are the center of everything, but it all ends with the lament of tze wimen over their lost sons.

I guess the Odyssey is a more natural choice for travel litterature, but I'll do that one this summer instead.

 

[Chromatose]

so I'm back to reading Gravity's Rainbow.

Seriously was difficult at first, and had to go a few pages (at most) at a time to get through a rocky beginning..

but now I'm in a groove. I am fascinated, appalled, intrigued .. mesmerized. I have no doubts that by the end I will be proclaiming this the greatest book ever written (barring anything Joycian).

 

[Dick Sirloin]

so I'm back to reading Gravity's Rainbow.

Seriously was difficult at first, and had to go a few pages (at most) at a time to get through a rocky beginning..

but now I'm in a groove. I am fascinated, appalled, intrigued .. mesmerized. I have no doubts that by the end I will be proclaiming this the greatest book ever written (barring anything Joycian).

:Smokin:

Yeah, there are some days when I say it's the best book ever... until I pick up Ulysses. It just amounts to what I've read more recently, which is amazing considering I thought nothing would EVER top Joyce.

I'm halfway through the book again, reading sporadically. It's much better second time around. There's a chapter about halfway through the book (it centers on Franz Pokler and his work on the rocket) and, I swear, it might just be the greatest segment from any novel ever. I almost cried the first time I read it.

Beware though, the fourth and final part of the book is WEIRD and will probably piss you off. Just fight through it and have fun, it'll make sense eventually. The novel has a clear progression from weird to absolutely insane... true entropic paranoia!

 

[Chromatose]

Yeah for now I'm just trying to read it for what it is. This is the kind of thing where I know I'm going to have to go through it again and research references and the like to get the full picture, since I know I'm nowhere getting the full intake of what lies before me. It just flows in such a way that is completely insane. One moment I'm following it completely, as in "oh hey back to the plot again, I think I'm getting the hang of it!" and then it goes off on nightmarish convolutions about steel wool vaginas and who knows what else, eventually settling back into a sensible reality. And there's like a new batch of scenarios and characters every handful of pages, suddenly jumping out of nowhere, but always settling back into the whole picture. Astonishing, to say the least. Addictive is a certainty.

 

[Dick Sirloin]

Haha, you're caught now. You will probably be reading through this book for the rest of your life (like me) and still find new stuff. Just wait until you get caught by Ulysses. I keep both of these books next to my bed... that's how often I pick them up.

You will love V. and The Crying of Lot 49 too. They're every bit as addicting and somewhat easier to follow.