The Books/Reading Thread
- Thread starter Matt
- Start date
Dak
mentat
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
Ah, you're probably right. I've only skimmed 2-3 books and cherry picked what I liked and could take.
Dak
mentat
I'm halfway through "In Defense of Women", and although slightly out of touch with the times (it's almost 100 years old), it's lightyears of ahead of contemporary constructs on the opposite sex.
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
Dak
mentat
I can't think of anything I read that's concise enough to fit in soundbyte form. It's not a long read though.
monoxide_child
New Metal Member
- Jul 30, 2008
- 6,210
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are you implying that the 3rd person is "more limiting" than 1st person
most people see it the other way around
Einherjar86
Active Member
He's talking about the limitations that Martin places on the third-person narrative. He's talking about the use of POV chapters, which is a version of third-person limited; it's actually rather close to first-person. It still uses the pronouns "he" or "she," but it restricts itself to that character's perspective.
Vimana
Member
- Mar 2, 2007
- 11,671
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I just finished Atlas Shrugged and Anthem a couple days ago.
Atlas Shrugged I thought got way too verbose. Rand spent more time describing the outfits of one of the characters than she spent describing the way the USA was descending into chaos towards the end. The rest was just overly-detailed descriptions of things, or creating paragraph-sized run-on sentences that repeat a single idea with more metaphors, similes, and supporting points that are required to understand it. However, the times her writing style was not over-the-top, it created a lot of entertaining depth in otherwise ordinary situations, and even more depth in the others.
As for the philosophy, I agreed with pretty much all of it, but I think the political ideals she represents in the characters are unrealistic. The businessmen only get ahead by having better products, and the government just makes up irrational bullshit and fucks up all the time. The plot was predictable, but I found it a very engaging read with some good lessons. I thought the ending sucked, though.
Anthem was not verbose at all, and I found it kind of disturbing at first, but very thought-provoking overall.
Now I'm going to start reading Mother Nature by Sarah Hrdy. It's about the role of maternal instincts in human evolution. I'd been putting off my reading about human evolution for the past few months, so this is my return into it.
Atlas Shrugged I thought got way too verbose. Rand spent more time describing the outfits of one of the characters than she spent describing the way the USA was descending into chaos towards the end. The rest was just overly-detailed descriptions of things, or creating paragraph-sized run-on sentences that repeat a single idea with more metaphors, similes, and supporting points that are required to understand it. However, the times her writing style was not over-the-top, it created a lot of entertaining depth in otherwise ordinary situations, and even more depth in the others.
As for the philosophy, I agreed with pretty much all of it, but I think the political ideals she represents in the characters are unrealistic. The businessmen only get ahead by having better products, and the government just makes up irrational bullshit and fucks up all the time. The plot was predictable, but I found it a very engaging read with some good lessons. I thought the ending sucked, though.
Anthem was not verbose at all, and I found it kind of disturbing at first, but very thought-provoking overall.
Now I'm going to start reading Mother Nature by Sarah Hrdy. It's about the role of maternal instincts in human evolution. I'd been putting off my reading about human evolution for the past few months, so this is my return into it.
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
Anthem is her best work imo. After that meh. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff is worth a look.
SomeGuyDude
My name is sorrow.
- Apr 26, 2011
- 2,159
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Got a Kindle Paperwhite, started picking up some stuff. Here's my current list:
1) Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
2) Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar
3) Denis Johnson - Jesus' Son
4) George Saunders - CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
5) Ernest Hemingway - The Complete Short Stories
Any suggestions on others that might go along in the same line? I've got my eye on Harlan Ellison but I don't know his work enough to pick one.
1) Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
2) Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar
3) Denis Johnson - Jesus' Son
4) George Saunders - CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
5) Ernest Hemingway - The Complete Short Stories
Any suggestions on others that might go along in the same line? I've got my eye on Harlan Ellison but I don't know his work enough to pick one.
Dak
mentat
@Jimmy: Mencken says the average woman is better than the average man [by leaps and bounds] (paraphrase).
I doubt that lines up well with your views lol.
I doubt that lines up well with your views lol.
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
I don't know dude, I mean, the average Dude in America just takes shit from Women on a level that just makes them pathetic. In this respect Men are deplorable.
and don't take anything I say seriously in the M & F thread, half the time I'm drunk, trolling and playing devils advocate in an attempt to work out my own demons (bias, misconceptions, fallacies etc)
and don't take anything I say seriously in the M & F thread, half the time I'm drunk, trolling and playing devils advocate in an attempt to work out my own demons (bias, misconceptions, fallacies etc)
Einherjar86
Active Member
That's a good list. I've only read Ellison's short fiction, but I have his collection I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. It's very good, although terrifying stuff.
Is this serious? Why bother writing over whether men or women are "better"? And what the fuck does "better" even mean? I can't stand shit like that, especially after the mid-19th century. Unless this is Mencken somehow being satirical, of course...
In all honesty, men writing about the status of women is practically worthless. It's much more helpful to read actual women; de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, etc. I'm sure Mencken is an invaluable writer, but when it comes to the status of women and politics of feminism, I don't buy much that any man has ever had to say.
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
All I'm saying is that today, in our culture, Women are taking Mens balls away and then asking why they're not being Men. It's the decline of the "masculine male" or at least the symbolic castration of him.
Einherjar86
Active Member
That sounds like a very specific minority class of women, if I'm being honest. Probably a good deal of it is perpetuated by popular television, but I don't think most women are like that at all.
I'm also nervous about what exactly the socio-political position of such a view is... and by that I mean: I feel that view may be slightly misogynistic. Women have had their "balls broken" by men - socially, economically, and politically - for much longer than men possibly have by women, since the advent of the recent feminine angst. I think that it might possibly be a reaction to feminine authority that perceives it as "breaking men's balls."
I'm not calling you misogynistic, just to be clear.
I'm also nervous about what exactly the socio-political position of such a view is... and by that I mean: I feel that view may be slightly misogynistic. Women have had their "balls broken" by men - socially, economically, and politically - for much longer than men possibly have by women, since the advent of the recent feminine angst. I think that it might possibly be a reaction to feminine authority that perceives it as "breaking men's balls."
I'm not calling you misogynistic, just to be clear.
Master_Yoda77
Juggalo
Einherjar86
Active Member
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
I disagree. I think It's everywhere. This I feel is the problem. It's like when I hear black people talk about reparations or the use of the word my pals (who can or can't say it). I had nothing to to with it, it dies with the people and culture that perpetuated it (as far as the individual goes, socially it's a different story). You know the saying - two wrongs don't make a right - So Women were treated badly therefore I can't call a woman a cunt without possibly being hit (reverse this btw and I go to jail) and/or socially ostracized for using a "bad word", or make a joke about rape within the context of the joke itself without hearing how I'm a misogynist pig and condone "rape culture". This part of the culture wants to control your language and limit your freedom.
Overall, I hear ya. I'm not saying I can't be wrong here either. This is just how I (a white man/ lower middle class) perceive things.
If ya want to continue this I'll see ya in the Dak-shit thread. I don;t want to destroy the book thread.
Dak
mentat
In writing about intergender relations, a man's viewpoint is every bit as worthy of consideration as a womans.
Mencken describes what he means by better. It's possible the book is satirical, either in parts or in the whole, but I imagine it is not. He refers to the majority of men as boastful, vapid creatures only good for "mental tricks" like arithmetic, or brainless brute force applications. The majority of women on the other hand, according to Mencken, had been winning the "Battle of the Sexes" for years, and it is by and large the suffragettes that were bringing women down to the banal level of the average man, out of pure spite.
I think he quite accurately predicted that the "2nd wave" of "freed" women would rebel against their hardcore feminist leadership.
