Interested to see that people think Ayn Rand's philosophy is 'fascist'. I'm no supporter of her brand of libertarianism, but in many ways it's quite the opposite of fascism.
*What book are you reading ?
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ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Norman Dixon's "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence", after many fulsome recommendations by our own Bernie Gunther.
(It's excellent, btw.)
(It's excellent, btw.)
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Oh excellent stuff. My favorite book from the Revelation Space series
Dirty Martini
gets what he cant want
Not read any Lovecraft, but that's a formula from German Romanticism -- the uncanny unheard-of event related third-hand. Can be really eerie in the right hands.
---
Finished If This Is A Man and The Truce by Primo Levi.
I don't know what to say really. Fascinating, gripping, unbearable. What a great man Levi was, and a great writer.
Yeh, those two totally floored me.
There's a line in the former about mothers getting their kids clothes ready for the next day (or something like this) and when Levi considers the futility, just writes "but what else could we do?"
Dirty Martini
gets what he cant want
'But the mothers stayed up to prepare the food for the journey with tender care, and washed their children and packed the luggage; and at dawn the barbed wire was full of children's washing hung out in the wind to dry. Nor did they forget the diapers, the toys, the cushions and the hundred other small things which mothers remember and which children always need. Would you not do the same? If you and your child were going to be killed tomorrow, would you not give him to eat today?'
It strips you bare.
The bit that haunts me is his passage about how no one was ever woken by the reveille in Auschwitz, because they were already awake an hour before dawn, waiting. So the Kapo just has to tell them to 'get up' in the gentlest voice, no coercion needed, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that people could take you halfway across Europe, control and ultimately destroy you.
It's probably the darkest thing I've read
Fictionist
Serving Eargasms....
I have finished 'The Fountainhead'!!! (phew)
And I have just started '1985' by Anthony Burgess.
And I have just started '1985' by Anthony Burgess.
Never wallows, never shirks.It's probably the darkest thing I've read
Asa Briggs A social history of England.
Dirty Martini
gets what he cant want
It's remarkable for that.
So, I've read The Periodic Table and the two mentioned above. What next from Levi (apart from 'everything he wrote')?
I've read some of his essays, but can't remember which. Helpful...
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
Started reading The God Of Small Things last night, and already it's pissing me off.
QueenOfGoths
Fuck you Dave!
That is on the 'worthy' section of my bookcase. Along with a number of other books I feel ought to read but am just too lazy
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Stick with it. I hated it to begin with, but there's a moving story hidden amonst Roy's irritating sort-of magic realism.
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
That is on the 'worthy' section of my bookcase. Along with a number of other books I feel ought to read but am just too lazy
Innit
It's this month's book club choice *sigh*Aha, that's good to know. I trust your judgement so will plough on
Dirty Martini
gets what he cant want
Other People's Trades?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
If Not Now, When?
I wasn't as impressed by Other People's Trades as I was by his others, not by quite a long chalk, iirr
Dirty Martini
gets what he cant want
Yeh, I'll have a go at that soon.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Just finished Children of Hurin, which was okay, if you like your sagas. Could have done with moar quoting from the poetry version of the tale tbh.
Looking for something similarly epic. Not Beawulf or illiad though. Might try the oddesy one. And actually finish it this time.
Looking for something similarly epic. Not Beawulf or illiad though. Might try the oddesy one. And actually finish it this time.
Fictionist
Serving Eargasms....
Gilgamesh is worth reading, if you don't fancy the wanderings of Mr O and pondering if the extant text has a significant addition at the very end.
Nikkormat
Well-Known Member
Not so much reading as looking at Wilfred Thesiger - A Life in Pictures.
Fictionist
Serving Eargasms....
Has anyone else on here read the Burgess '1985'? I've finished it today and it has to be one of the most thought provoking but strangely unattractive books that I have read for a very long time. Islam, socialism, trade unions, it is a very dark response to Orwell's 1984.
John Quays
the reverend relapse
I've completed my Siri Hustvedt reading cure with her first, The Blindfold. It's disappointing to me in comparison with the other two. The elements that make What I Loved and particularly The Enchantment Of Lily Dahl so compelling and mysterious are there all right, but left too bare, too unadorned with story and purpose.
It reminds me of Auster so much though. The ideas of pushing oneself to extremes (in life as in art and anyway where is the boundary?) and of never really knowing anyone still less yourself, of chancy yet meaningful encounters (scrap that, meaningful BECAUSE by chance), it's all there in both authors' work.
What I would say about The Blindfold is that I'm pleased to have read it after my year of panic attacks and belief that I had succumbed to schizophrenia. I think Siri Hustvedt might have been through similar things...
It reminds me of Auster so much though. The ideas of pushing oneself to extremes (in life as in art and anyway where is the boundary?) and of never really knowing anyone still less yourself, of chancy yet meaningful encounters (scrap that, meaningful BECAUSE by chance), it's all there in both authors' work.
What I would say about The Blindfold is that I'm pleased to have read it after my year of panic attacks and belief that I had succumbed to schizophrenia. I think Siri Hustvedt might have been through similar things...
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
I thought it was a load of crap - dunno why it is so acclaimed.
I have just read the worst book I've ever read - 13 by Sebastian Beaumont.
Now reading The Steep Approach To Garbadale by Iain Banks - it and the 13 book are late B-day presents from my brother, so I guess I have to read them.
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
I must say, having made it to chapter 2 of the Roy, I'm still finding it intensely irritating. As you might say OU, it's very bookclub.
Yu_Gi_Oh
天天好心情
The God of Small things is meant to be really good, May, but I couldn't get into it because of the language. If you persevere then you might be rewarded by it though, wish I could.
I've started Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, I know I should be loving it but all I can think is that is feels like it's written by Martin Amis' dad, which obviously it is. But reading Martin Amis doesn't feel like a challenge or a chore and Lucky Jim is feeling a teensy bit hard going. Does anyone have any words of encouragement?
I've started Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, I know I should be loving it but all I can think is that is feels like it's written by Martin Amis' dad, which obviously it is.
But reading Martin Amis doesn't feel like a challenge or a chore and Lucky Jim is feeling a teensy bit hard going. Does anyone have any words of encouragement?
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
It's the language that's putting me off - her twin habits of Randomly Capitalising Things to show their significance and running two words together in a flowerybollocks bit of trickery are just so annoying.
Fuck it, it's only a bookclub choice, I'll just jack it in if things don't improve. Life's too short to waste time on books that don't do it for you. Besides which, there's a person in my bookclub whose reaction to seemingly every month's choice is "I didn't get on with it, so I didn't read it". Am unsure of what, if anything, she does like. Strange girl.
Fuck it, it's only a bookclub choice, I'll just jack it in if things don't improve. Life's too short to waste time on books that don't do it for you. Besides which, there's a person in my bookclub whose reaction to seemingly every month's choice is "I didn't get on with it, so I didn't read it". Am unsure of what, if anything, she does like. Strange girl.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
It's the purpely prose that did my nut as well. I read it for my course last year. I was pleasantly suprised to find myself engrossed in the story by the last few chapters.
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