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*What book are you reading? (part 2)

Beats & Pieces said:
It is written in a very spare, almost elegant way. But I found it to be too superficial in the treatment of an immensely important subject, almost cynical in the attempt to capture or reflect a narrative moment.
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There is that, yes. I'm never sure about post 9/11 literature - what the approach should be. Iain Bank's Dead Air is another I wasn't sure about, initially. But it turned out to be full or anger and indignation and pretty funny, as well.

I believe Hamid's book was turned into a film some years ago - I don't think that would work - the elegance, as you put it, would be lost.
 
krtek a houby said:
There is that, yes. I'm never sure about post 9/11 literature - what the approach should be. Iain Bank's Dead Air is another I wasn't sure about, initially. But it turned out to be full or anger and indignation and pretty funny, as well.

I believe Hamid's book was turned into a film some years ago - I don't think that would work - the elegance, as you put it, would be lost.
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I didn't know about the film, I will see if I can find something online.

:)
 
krtek a houby said:
There is that, yes. I'm never sure about post 9/11 literature - what the approach should be. Iain Bank's Dead Air is another I wasn't sure about, initially. But it turned out to be full or anger and indignation and pretty funny, as well.

I believe Hamid's book was turned into a film some years ago - I don't think that would work - the elegance, as you put it, would be lost.
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You liked Dead Air? Blimey, I was embarrassed for Banks, it was so bad.
 
DotCommunist said:
Prana-bindu bene gesserit training. Jessica was breaking the rules by training him and marrying the wrong man. For the father nothing. Giaus Helen Mohiam is fearsome. One of Herbert's themes in the Dune books is the development of humans as special weapons (and the bene gesserit centuries spanning breeding project). After the Butlerian Jihad humans never again trusted machine intelligence. So space fuedalism sort of. This is why they have Mentats, you cannot trust a clever machine.
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I finished the second part of the book last night, and it struck me that Jessica Atreides is the real protagonist of the book. What do you reckon?

And if the Fremen were meant to be JIHADIS IN SPAAAACE! they're really just hippies.
 
Idris2002 said:
I finished the second part of the book last night, and it struck me that Jessica Atreides is the real protagonist of the book. What do you reckon?

And if the Fremen were meant to be JIHADIS IN SPAAAACE! they're really just hippies.
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I'd say to start with, till paul comes into his own. For me the benegesserit breeding project as a whole was a mind blower, but then I was a teen.

the fremen also come into their own. I'll not say more except the novella length 'Dune Messiah' which follows should have been included in the same novel as a kind of 'part 2' or addendum.
 
krtek a houby said:
I read that & cannot remember a thing about it. Was it something to do with big business and an all powerful elite?
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a transnational corporation that predates the vatican. I quite liked it, shite ending tho, she just marries some princling or some shit. I was checking to see where the missing pages containing an ending were
 
DotCommunist said:
I'd say to start with, till paul comes into his own. For me the benegesserit breeding project as a whole was a mind blower, but then I was a teen.

the fremen also come into their own. I'll not say more except the novella length 'Dune Messiah' which follows should have been included in the same novel as a kind of 'part 2' or addendum.
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That's what I was going to ask - should I bother with Dune Messiah and Children of Dune? Or is it one of those "good thing they never made a sequel to the Matrix" situations?
 
Idris2002 said:
That's what I was going to ask - should I bother with Dune Messiah and Children of Dune? Or is it one of those "good thing they never made a sequel to the Matrix" situations?
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Messiah is a thoughtful, melancholy piece- a repudiation of presience and ultimate power. You know those character internal monolouges he does so well? theres a great one in Messiah 'The Moon Falls'

Children is also great, th OG trilogy is brilliant. As for the later books, well, ymmv
 
I concur with DC - MoD and CoD are worth the read but tbh, the following output (there seems to be many) just got on my nerves...lots of chit-chat, politicking and vague action with nothing of the sense of epic innovation and solid world building of the initial trilogy...not helped because I despised Paul Atreides (what a whiner). Mind, I was 12 or so when I first read them.

I have tried (and failed) to love (or even like) China Mieville. Starting The Scar (again) because I have nothing else and it has a lot of pages thereby requiring no effort to look for anything else. Finding myself increasingly bewildered by bookshops these days - either everything or absolutely nothing looks suitable and the effort of sorting the trash from the jewels is...just...too...much..
 
DotCommunist said:
Blott on the Landscape. I tell you no lie, its his funniest work. They kicked sharpe out of SA for doing satire on the regime as well. He is very funnyy, its perfect farce writing. The narrative builds and rolls with a few lols till eventually its all gone south and you are cracking up at the sheer dysfuntion of it all. Porterhouse blue also. Here's the one that got him kicked out of apartheid era SA as well. Riotous Assembly.
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I have always enjoyed his books but don't bother with 'The Wilt Inheritance' from 2010. Read it till the end thinking it must get better but was utter shite.
 
mentalchik said:
Just finished The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers
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This is just beautiful science fiction. Glad it seems to be the first of a series but wish I could have done my usual trick of discovering stuff way way waaay after everyone else, such that she'd written the next one or several by now! :)
 
Ismail Kadare - The general of the dead army

Post WWII an Italian general returns to Albania to recover the bodies of soldiers killed by the partisans. In his journey he meets a German general on a similar mission. There is lots to enjoy in this novel, especially the descriptions of Albania, the different cultures of the Albanian people and the story is surprisingly gripping.
 
with, i fear, no interest in yer high falutin' litritur, i'm currently reading the Penguin History of Britain: The Struggle for Mastery - Britain 1066 to 1284 by David Carpenter.

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one of the most easily read - and easily absorbed - history books you're likely to read. packed with detail but above all else its a story, an engaging, interesting, well-written human story.
 
Francis Bacon in Your Blood - a memoir by Michael Peppiatt. To paraphrase Francis himself, i am not a fan of fiction, having a preference for biography over novels, and ....this book is extremely good thus far. Well written and compelling by a protege that Francis hung around with for 30 years and entrusted with explaining him. You get to discover Francis Bacon's rather fatalist but cheerful view on life 'I'm optimistic about nothing' and raising his glass in celebration. There are lots of seedy bars, opulent surrounds, decadent meals and off colour characters. You get the sense of Francis having a kind of grandiosity, machismo, ruthlessness but also tenderness and massive generosity. His waspish, unwavering convictions in nothingness remain deliciously freeing. I'm a fan of his masochistic art and there is room for opinions, analysis, arousal, ideation. It never ends.
 
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DotCommunist said:
which ones man! I got three non fiction and two fiction on the go and its doing my head in, stopped this multi-book behaviour in my teens but it has crept back up on me. I blame non-fiction for it.
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Haven't got them with me.

But at the moment I am reading "H.G. Wells and the World State" which I thought was a book by Wells but turns out to be an academic book about Wells. I have made it to page 130 but I am not as thrilled by it as I had hoped to be.

I may switch to the Arthur C Clarkes.
 
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