Master_Yoda77
Juggalo
Erikson is the only fantasy author that has left me confused and wondering with an ending. He's so good. I'm about 100 pages into the 2nd book "Deadhouse Gates" and I have no fucking clue what is up. He's great. lol
The Books/Reading Thread
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Erikson is the only fantasy author that has left me confused and wondering with an ending. He's so good. I'm about 100 pages into the 2nd book "Deadhouse Gates" and I have no fucking clue what is up. He's great. lol
Manic Ferocity
Active Member
- Nov 5, 2006
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I'm about 200 pages in and I can't put it down. Every chapter is a new scene featuring characters caught in some kind of chaos. I'm definitely a bit confused on some points but I'm a sucker for deep, complex plot. Definitely seems like it's going to warrant a second read.
~Neurotica
perfectly insane
- Mar 27, 2006
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So Kafka lovers... Did you actually enjoy The Castle?
I couldn't believe that it's one of his "best works" after I've finished the book.
I couldn't believe that it's one of his "best works" after I've finished the book.
Zephyrus
Tyrants and Slaves
~Neurotica
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Einherjar86
Active Member
~Neurotica
perfectly insane
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That's the thing, I loved Metamorphosis, read it like 3 times. Then a few more of short stories. But then The Castle... and was like - what? I didn't think it was bad, but definitely not one of his "best works"...
Master_Yoda77
Juggalo
~Neurotica
perfectly insane
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"The Desire Machine" by Strugatsky brothers.
Pretty much the book that inspired Tarkovsky to film Stalker. Really great piece of work.
Pretty much the book that inspired Tarkovsky to film Stalker. Really great piece of work.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Huh, interesting. The Metamorphosis is some crazy shit. I'm actually interested in the representation/deployment of insect imagery in Western literature. It has an interesting history.
Yes, but you're not a modernist scholar.
Very cool; I love that film.
I'm re-reading this since I'm teaching it to my students next week:
~Neurotica
perfectly insane
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Oh? I have an interest in entomology, and when they mix it with symbolism - it's even better. You think you could recommend me any other thing to read with particular topic?
Thrūmun Edar
Omeda Morjatharzu
rms
Active Member
~Neurotica
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Einherjar86
Active Member
To go a bit further back into the nineteenth century, Edgar Allan Poe has a splendid little short story called "The Sphinx" that you might find of interest.
Later on, of course, there's Stoker's Dracula. The character Renfield ingests insects in hopes of altering his being (consumption => metamorphosis => Kafka). There's also something insect-like, bat-like, and reptilian about Dracula himself.
Philip K. Dick has some very explicit references to insects in his short stories from the fifties, specifically "The Father-Thing" (in which metallic insect-like creatures masquerade as humans) and "The Hanging Stranger" (which features insect-like things from an alternative dimension; they even have "stingers"
).More recently, China Miéville employs insect imagery for several of the characters in his Bas-Lag trilogy (there's a certain race of beings that have human bodies and insect heads, with "mandibles," as I recall).
I'm mostly interested in insect imagery as it relates to a culturally normative sense of animal hierarchy. When we anthropomorphize dogs, for instance, we tend to see them positively, or as figures of "good"; insects, on the other hand, often exude malice and conjure up dread in characters. Their relationship to our concept of "the other" is very interesting.
Dak
mentat
We generally have a tendency to positively anthropomorphize other mammals, or non-carrion feasting birds. Insects are so foreign. Ants might be the only exception due to their social organization.
Einherjar86
Active Member
True, but their appearance in literary texts rarely manifests so simply. Insects enjoy an extraordinarily complex and conflicting representational history in literature. The insect is, in my opinion, a nexus for a large and varied network of cultural terrors and anxieties.
clschniffer
New Metal Member
Dracula... Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll, The Fly.... And next thing you know we're going to start naming Harry Potter too?! You should go for Werber's Empire of the Ants. Now that is a real interesting book that contains analogies between insects and humans.
Einherjar86
Active Member
clschniffer
New Metal Member
There's nothing obvious really into Werber's work, but it sure tops for me every single crappy horror books that metal people are always all over about yeah...
