The Books/Reading Thread
- Thread starter Matt
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Cronopio
Glorious Imperator
I enjoyed that one quite a lot, actually. It's like an alien invasion plot, but with most of the mystery actually left intact ... hard to describe.
monoxide_child
New Metal Member
- Jul 30, 2008
- 6,210
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viewerfromnihil
Vein-Marbled Tower
I ordered my score book of Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra so that I could read along while listening to the piece and include some of my own harmonic analysis. I received it yesterday and the dimensions ended up being half the length and width that I was anticipating. About the size of my hand. Man, this thing is a bitch to read along with. I'm flipping pages every few seconds during quick sections. When the orchestration expands to its full parameters, the page format flips. Basically, putting one page on two. From this:
To this:
On the bright side, for being somebody who is crap at sight reading, my score reading should improve significantly because of this. Since I'm not a music major, I follow along by reading textures.
To this:
On the bright side, for being somebody who is crap at sight reading, my score reading should improve significantly because of this. Since I'm not a music major, I follow along by reading textures.
crimsonfloyd
Active Member
Finished Karen Armstrong's "Islam" today. Very informative on the development of Islam the various cultures and ideologies that have developed around it. I would definitely like to read some more of her works; her insights on colonialism, modernity and fundamentalism were all excellent.
Went to a Persian bookstore in Westwood today. Really cool place. They had entire bookshelves of Saadi, Hafez, Rumi etc. About 90% of it was in Farsi but there was still more than enough translated material. Picked up more material for the novel I'm working on and will probably make another trip once I figure out the specific poets that will influence my main character.
I had to buy a second copy of the Quran. The first one was horrible. It was translated by a Jesuit priest who tried to make it sound like the King James Bible, making for an awkward and uneven read. So today I picked up a modern translation that is in poetic verse. Way more fluid, coherent and captivating.
Went to a Persian bookstore in Westwood today. Really cool place. They had entire bookshelves of Saadi, Hafez, Rumi etc. About 90% of it was in Farsi but there was still more than enough translated material. Picked up more material for the novel I'm working on and will probably make another trip once I figure out the specific poets that will influence my main character.
I had to buy a second copy of the Quran. The first one was horrible. It was translated by a Jesuit priest who tried to make it sound like the King James Bible, making for an awkward and uneven read. So today I picked up a modern translation that is in poetic verse. Way more fluid, coherent and captivating.
Einherjar86
Active Member
crimsonfloyd
Active Member
No I haven't. I saw the movie (which I've heard isn't too different) but was thinking of getting a copy of it and actually reading it. I'm reading a collection of interviews on Iranian diaspora, so Persepolis would fit right in.
unknown
fuck ftagn
Einherjar86
Active Member
I think it's great as well. The film is actually a very good adaptation, but that graphic novel is fantastic. I went to see Argo a few days ago and the opening sequence reminded me entirely of Persepolis; if only the rest of the movie was as good...
EDIT: so, not sure if anyone else has read it, but Matthew Lewis's The Monk is fucked up. And splendidly awesome at that.
EDIT: so, not sure if anyone else has read it, but Matthew Lewis's The Monk is fucked up. And splendidly awesome at that.
SaxonThunder
Vulgaris Magistralis
Einherjar86
Active Member
The Stand by Stephen King
Die Trying by Lee Child
I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan
The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud
The Mask of Sanity by Hervey Cleckley
All of that on top of my weekly course readings, so I'm not making any huge progress on those currently.
Die Trying by Lee Child
I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan
The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud
The Mask of Sanity by Hervey Cleckley
All of that on top of my weekly course readings, so I'm not making any huge progress on those currently.
monoxide_child
New Metal Member
- Jul 30, 2008
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viewerfromnihil
Vein-Marbled Tower
Do any of you guys have experience with removing odors from books? I received a used primary source textbook that is in great condition, but it reeks of mothballs. I'm going to seal it in a bag filled with baking soda to see if that helps. Of course, I'll have to clean a ton of baking soda out of the book and will probably never get it all out, but it's better than trying to read something that smells like shit. Very distracting 
wandering_taco
Minstrel of Woe
Einherjar86
Active Member
I'm still working through it; I have to give a presentation on it next week, so I'm taking my sweet time.
The introduction gives me great hope; the author outlines his approach (historicism, largely Foucauldian) and explains what his intentions with each chapter are. He makes some claims that I don't agree with (e.g. that A Tale of Two Cities is more deserving of being called "Gothic" than Frankenstein...), but those claims are also what I find intriguing about his argument. He suggests that true Gothic literature is profoundly concerned with representations of history; how older eras look to the present (i.e. modern) era, and how modernity represents older eras to itself. Furthermore, he asks how these older eras come to take on "Gothic" personalities (the term "Gothic" actually derives from an intentionally derogatory label: the Renaissance artists and writers thought the architecture of medieval Europe so hideous that it could only have been built by the savage Germanic tribes, hence it became referred to as "Gothic" architecture).
He also tackles the influence of science and Enlightenment in later chapters, and discusses how these came to influence categories such as detective fiction and sensationalism, neither of which are strictly "Gothic" but which both sometimes adopt Gothic characteristics. All in all, it seems like a really great book (thus far) if you're interested in 19th-century Gothic fiction.
The introduction gives me great hope; the author outlines his approach (historicism, largely Foucauldian) and explains what his intentions with each chapter are. He makes some claims that I don't agree with (e.g. that A Tale of Two Cities is more deserving of being called "Gothic" than Frankenstein...), but those claims are also what I find intriguing about his argument. He suggests that true Gothic literature is profoundly concerned with representations of history; how older eras look to the present (i.e. modern) era, and how modernity represents older eras to itself. Furthermore, he asks how these older eras come to take on "Gothic" personalities (the term "Gothic" actually derives from an intentionally derogatory label: the Renaissance artists and writers thought the architecture of medieval Europe so hideous that it could only have been built by the savage Germanic tribes, hence it became referred to as "Gothic" architecture).
He also tackles the influence of science and Enlightenment in later chapters, and discusses how these came to influence categories such as detective fiction and sensationalism, neither of which are strictly "Gothic" but which both sometimes adopt Gothic characteristics. All in all, it seems like a really great book (thus far) if you're interested in 19th-century Gothic fiction.
wandering_taco
Minstrel of Woe
That sounds super interesting. I'll have to remember to look for that this summer. I've been reading a lot of Jungian criticism/theory this last week, as I did decide to do my thesis on Lovecraft. I'm still trying to narrow down my approach, though. Reading criticism on Lovecraft has taught me that there are a ton of approaches to take, but most of them work on interpreting the same thing, or the same group of things, particularly the question of the limits of language at describing his "unnamable" entities and "incomprehensible" experiences, which I find super interesting. There's also of course the reader interaction with the text, which some have looked at via cognitive dissonance theory. And then there is the underlying thread of Lovecraft's 'cosmicism', which seeks to use the text to illustrate the insignificance of humanity. What I'm thinking is perhaps sketching out a framework of Jung's ideas and drawing parallels between them and Lovecraft's work, because Jung focuses a lot on the primordial nature of the unconscious, and I feel like Lovecraft either knowingly or unknowingly manipulates archetypal ideas in seeking to draw the reader back to the psychic level of 'archaic' man, where the world at large is a fearful unknown. Also, Jung's ideas of psychological and visionary modes of literature seem to speak directly to Lovecraft. So hopefully soon I figure all that out.
Einherjar86
Active Member
That sounds great. I'm not really familiar with Jung's work beyond the archetypes; and I'm mainly only familiar with that because Northrop Frye used Jung's theory of archetypes to generate his own approach to literary studies.
There's a guy who teaches at The New School named Eugene Thacker who's done some work on Lovecraft. Not sure if you've come across him or not; he's actually in Media Studies/New Media, and his approach is more generally philosophical. He's interested in how we define "life" and what the theoretical underpinnings of life and death are, going all the way back to Aristotle. He's also very interested in medieval demonology.
Anyway, he has two books that you might consider looking at (if you have time; in academic writing, you eventually just have to cut yourself off somewhere): After Life, and In the Dust of This Planet.
The latter is newer and might be less helpful, if only because there's no index and it's difficult to navigate; but it is short, so flipping through it can't hurt. The former, After Life, is denser, but it has an index and definitely has bits on Lovecraft and "supernatural horror" (one of Thacker's main literary/cinematic interests). Depending on your approach to your thesis, you might give some of his material a glance. I saw him speak at University of Chicago once; he's a young guy, very intelligent, so hopefully he has a lot to offer his field.
And on top of that, he also writes academically about black metal.
There's a guy who teaches at The New School named Eugene Thacker who's done some work on Lovecraft. Not sure if you've come across him or not; he's actually in Media Studies/New Media, and his approach is more generally philosophical. He's interested in how we define "life" and what the theoretical underpinnings of life and death are, going all the way back to Aristotle. He's also very interested in medieval demonology.
Anyway, he has two books that you might consider looking at (if you have time; in academic writing, you eventually just have to cut yourself off somewhere): After Life, and In the Dust of This Planet.
The latter is newer and might be less helpful, if only because there's no index and it's difficult to navigate; but it is short, so flipping through it can't hurt. The former, After Life, is denser, but it has an index and definitely has bits on Lovecraft and "supernatural horror" (one of Thacker's main literary/cinematic interests). Depending on your approach to your thesis, you might give some of his material a glance. I saw him speak at University of Chicago once; he's a young guy, very intelligent, so hopefully he has a lot to offer his field.
And on top of that, he also writes academically about black metal.
wandering_taco
Minstrel of Woe
Cool thanks for the rec! I'll definitely try and check it out, because I really want to work some philosophy in there, since cosmicism is definitely a sort of philosophical outlook. There were a couple really interesting philosophical approaches I read towards Lovecraft, one was that the incomprehensibility of the characters' experiences denotes an apprehension of the Kantian sublime. It was really well argued, but then I read one refuting that article which holds that because Lovecraft's universe does away with the notion of anthropocentrism it precludes any apprehension of the sublime by the characters. I tend to agree with that more, because Lovecraft himself admits to doing away with a humanistic approach in his literature. And then there is of course a sort of existentialist approach, since existence is affirmed by language according to thinkers like Heidegger, so what are the implications of things which language cannot adequately signify?
But anyway, I will definitely look into that author. I'm always interested in academic writing about metal I wrote a paper last semester actually in which I argued that Agalloch's works as a whole (albums, art, live performance, lyrics) can be construed as an unorthodox embodiment of the genre 'nature writing'. One of the best things I've ever written imo.
But anyway, I will definitely look into that author. I'm always interested in academic writing about metal
I wrote a paper last semester actually in which I argued that Agalloch's works as a whole (albums, art, live performance, lyrics) can be construed as an unorthodox embodiment of the genre 'nature writing'. One of the best things I've ever written imo.
