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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 6:26 am        Reply with quote

Now reading Stanislaw Lem's A Perfect Vacuum, and it is a fucking riot. It's a compilation of book reviews written about books that don't exist, and all these books are elevated postmodern "masterpieces" that Lem describes, interprets in the context of its theoretical achievements, and then (according to the persona he's adopted for the reviewer's voice) lauds or dismisses.

It seems that Lem had the same notion for this book as Vonnegut had with Kilgore Trout....

Stanislaw Lem wrote:
The author had ideas that he was unable to realize in full form; he could not write, but regretted not writing--and there you have the whole genesis of this aspect of A Perfect Vacuum.


That quotation, by the way, comes from the introductory essay written like a review for the very book it's part of. This book is brilliant in the way that it legitimately performs the kind of postmodern tricks it lampoons, all while keeping skepticism and fascination with those meta-textual elements finely balanced.

Some fun selections:

"Snibbins is gone, that is true; but he has left his absence."
~ Review of Les Roninsonades

"Nothing, or the Consequence is not only Mme Solange Marriot's first book; it is also the first novel ever to have reached the limit of what writing can do. Not that it is a masterpiece of art; if I had to call it anything, I would call it a masterpiece of decency."~ Review of Rien du tout, ou la consequence

"Literature always is parasitic on the mind of the reader. Love, a tree, a park, a sign, an earache--the reader understands, because the reader has experienced it. It is possible, of course, with a book to rearrange the furniture inside the reader's head, but only to the extent that there is some furniture there already, before the reading."
~ Review of Rien du tout, ou la consequence

"Creative work of value is possible when there is resistance, either of the medium or of the people at whom the work is aimed; but since, after the collapse of the prohibitions of religions and the censor, one can say everything, or anything whatever, and since, with the disappearance of those attentive listeners who hung on every word, one can howl anything at anyone, literature and all its humanistic affinity is a corpse, whose advancing decay is stubbornly concealed by the next of kin. Therefore, one should seek out new terrains for creativity, those in which can be found a resistance that will lend an element of menace and risk--and therewith importance and responsibility--to the situation."
~ Review of Pericalypsis

The made-up book Pericalypsis which proposes that a government program (called "the Salvation Program") be enacted in order to suppress the overwhelming volume of bad and mediocre literature that is holding back world culture. In the Salvation Program, all artists get an initial set stipend at the beginning of their careers, and their stipend decreases whenever they get published. This would in effect pay hacks not to write, while ensuring that the ones who actually do write are those with the sincere desire for the art who will work within it regardless of the material consequences. Anyone writing for the sake of either gain or glory will be penalized, but those who cannot help themselves will be aided and abetted.

So here are a couple of (I think) brilliant and funny excerpts from that review.

"Egoism manifests itself as a hunger for mammon combined with a hunger for glory: in order to scotch the latter as well, the Salvation Program introduces the complete anonymity of the creators. [...] However, graphomania, which does not look for gain, is called a Disorder of the Mind and is not punishable, though persons so afflicted are removed from society, as constituting a threat to the peace, and placed in special institutions, where they are humanely supplied with great quantities of ink and paper."
~ Review of Pericalypsis

"Obviously world culture will not at all suffer from such state regulation, but will only then begin to flourish. Humanity will return to the magnificent works of its own history; for the number of sculptures, paintings, plays, novels, gadgets, and machines is great enough already to meet the needs of many centuries. Nor will anyone be forbidden to make so-called epochal discoveries, on the condition that he keep them to himself."

So yeah. If you like to see literature and mindgames swirled in a sci-fi brew, get this book.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 2:56 pm        Reply with quote

falsedan wrote:
Adilegian, high 5 :high 5:

Goddamn skrait.

I've got Pirx the Pilot around here somewhere, and I might get into it after I've finished A Perfect Vacuum. I had read the first two stories in Pirx several years ago, and I was frustrated by the fact that Lem's writing simultaneously put such clear images and ideas in my head, but that those images and ideas seemed to be the most banal aspects of his stories. I don't think I'd have quite the same frustration now (having matured a bit more), so I'll revisit his fiction.

The great thing about A Perfect Vacuum is that it creates a universe that is immersive by implication. That is, I'm captivated by imagining the state of a world that would lead to the creation of the made-up books that he describes. It's like a book that details the atmosphere or a science fiction or fantasy world, sans the source material that would make everything gel together. It's that incohesive quality that's attractive, while all being bound by an author of likeable intelligence.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:46 am        Reply with quote

chriservin22 wrote:
I just dropped $40 bucks on the new War & Piece translation, done by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I hope I can get though a big chunk of it this holiday season. I greatly doubt that I will.

A little late to respond here, but I was listening to a program about this translation (I think) over NPR. Is this the one that's supposed to rely upon Tolstoy's first manuscript for its source material?

EDIT: I read through Howard Moss's Instant Lives again over Christmas, and it has improved with age. Moss's book contains several 2 to 5 page mini-bios of famous composers, painters, and writers, and they're either written as stylistic parodies, as deliberately wrong, or somehow quirky otherwise.

My favorites (and I think booji might appreciate this) are the ones treating John Donne and Henry James. The Donne one is written as a parody of an old school academic article (e.g., not a post-structuralist article) and the James one parodies James's style.

Here're scans of each.









I love Ed Gorey's rendition of Henry James.

2X EDIT: "Chain Songs for the Guitar." lol
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 2:52 am        Reply with quote

chrisservin22 wrote:
Yeah, though -- I haven't really read much of it yet, just enough to recognize the language is not that late Victorian English style I usually associate with the great Russian novels of the 1800's.

Yeah, that's an idiosyncrasy of English translations of 19th c Russian novels that I've wondered about. It's nearly impossible to get away with that kind of style in contemporary literature, and sometimes I wonder if translation is where all the impulses for dated composition eventually incarnate.

chrisservin22 wrote:
Nothing like Henry James, I should add. I do love extremely long, circuitous sentences that aren't about anything, however.

I do sometimes, too. I've got nothing against the style, exactly... just what Henry James does with it. Those kinds of sentences make me think of a dog pawing and arcing around the same spot trying to figure out where to ground himself for a nap. This in itself is a fine thing. It's just that James chooses the least interesting (to me) places to swirl. As opposed to, say, Faulkner, whose work I love.

I'm reading Robert Penn Warren's long long poem Brother to Dragons right now, and it is fucking incredible. Warren amazes me because he started out as a political reactionary and had a fairly conservative aesthetic, and, shit, he even wrote the single overtly racist essay in I'll Take My Stand. Then he gets older and pulls a complete 180 and writes stuff like Brother to Dragons, which is a complete renunciation of his former racism. Here's the narrative framework of the poem, from the dust jacket:

"In the middle of December, 1811—on the night of the first in the series of great earthquakes which shook the entire Mississippi Valley—a terrible crime was committed. Two brothers, Lilburne and Isham Lewis, brutally murdered a Negro slave. Their act is a matter of record, but would long since have taken its place with other forgotten episodes of gratuitous cruelty and violence, were it not for the fact that the two criminals were the sons of Thomas Jefferson's sister. Jefferson, despite the fact that the crime was a matter of common knowledge, apparently could not bring himself to comment on or even acknowledge it."

So Warren "resurrects" Jefferson, the Lewis brothers, and the other relevant historical figures (including Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis & Clark expeditions) and forces them to confront the fact of the violence, its implications, and how it resonated within them

And he's got some goddamn gorgeous verse in there like this:

How can there by
Sensation when there is perfect adjustment? The blood
Of the creature is the temperature of the sustaining flow;
The catfish is in the Mississippi and
The Mississippi is in the catfish and
Under the ice both are at one
With God.

Would that we were!

Wind rises. Even the deep
Intimacy of the thicket shudders. The last burr that clung
On the chestnut bough surrenders, the last haw-fruit,
And what crimson berry of dogwood the possum has spared
Falls now, in the hour past pain, of the relaxed tendon.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 3:45 pm        Reply with quote

I am reading James Fenton's collection of poems, Children in Exile. The first American edition was published around 1984. It is stunning.

Some excerpts:

Along the wet spar and the hornbeam sky
Night is secreted into the orbit's gland.
[from "The Kingfisher's Boxing Gloves"]

Let's make our suicide really gay.
It is the most aggressive way
Of being superior.
[from "Letter to John Fuller"]

For the solitary,
The velveted only child who wrestled
With eagles for feathers
And the young girl on the hill, who heard
The din on the causeway and saw the large
Hound with the strange pretercanine eyes
Herald the approach of her turbulent lover,
This boxroom of the forgotten or hardly possible
Is laid with the snares of privacy and fiction
And the dangerous third wish.
[from "The Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford"]

There is a taste associated with hot exhaust,
Of a carious tooth and nicotine on the gums
And there is a feeling as if a poisonous moth
Had landed softly on the nape of my neck.
[from "South Parks Road"]
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 8:20 am        Reply with quote

I'm listening to the audiobook of Mark Frost's The List of Seven.

Frost was David Lynch's co-writer on Twin Peaks, and listening to Frost's work solo really reveals who was responsible for what elements of the show.

This is just great.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:49 am        Reply with quote

I'm reading Heidegger. This is probably the best philosophy I've ever read.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:06 am        Reply with quote

CubaLibre wrote:
Adilegian wrote:
I'm reading Heidegger. This is probably the best philosophy I've ever read.

What, then, is time?


its undecidable lol
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 5:43 am        Reply with quote

chrisservin22 wrote:
If you would be so kind as to quantify "best," I would be eternally grateful. In my (admittedly very limited) reading of Heidegger... it's, like, his whole definition of thinking is Husserl's "Back to things Themselves," school of phenomenology expanded upon, only confusing and severely defined and above my level of comprehension.

I admire Heidegger for taking Husserl's general philosophical approach and turning it inward – with specific attention to language as its conductor – and asking higher level questions that refresh my own approach to asking questions.

On the most formal level, I admire the way in which Heidegger performs philosophy as a creative act that has language as philosophy's primary influence – and that has language as central to comprehending both what is thought AND the act of thinking itself. Also, for having the lucidity to realize the difficulty (if not the impossibility) underlying any attempt to deal with HOW we think about something apart from WHAT thing we're thinking about.

I don't mean that I adhere mainly to Heidegger's conclusions.

And, yeah, the Nazism is deeply problematic. Given what I know, his association with the Nazi party seems to have resulted from his own misguided beliefs in what the government could accomplish. However, I've read in several places that he frequently showed cowardly and unlikable personal characteristics, so I don't mean to defend the man as a moral being when I say that I find value in his work.

I'm mainly interested in what could proceed from his philosophical work as an alternative from Derridean deconstruction. I'm no longer wholly against deconstruction, as I once was, and I see the value in what it has (and can) perform – but it feels insufficient for its own purposes. I'm not sure I can clarify that last statement further just yet, though.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 6:43 pm        Reply with quote

This kind of straddles the fence between literature and shameless self-promotion, but the online poetry journal that I edit has just put up its latest issue.

http://www.towncreekpoetry.com

Dan Albergotti, our featured poet, kind of looks like an alternative Toups.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:07 am        Reply with quote

lawl svenska.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95537900
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 9:39 pm        Reply with quote

shrugtheironteacup wrote:
Alnilam wrote:
Farther of stood an engineless aircraft, awkward and raped

I've been writing about James Dickey's earlier poems as influences on my writing for the critical intro to my MA thesis!
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 3:40 am        Reply with quote

dark steve wrote:
wait you're supposed to do WHAT for your thesis?

That level of self-reflexivity sounds... corrosive?

It's not, really.

The critical intro isn't the thesis itself. The main body of material consists of the best drafts of poems that I've written over the past three semesters, and that part adds up to about 50 pages. The critical intro has been a nebulous brat to write, and I've been asked that it focus upon my aesthetic, mentioning the writing that's influenced my sense of what my poems should become.

I've found that I cannot read traditional accentual-syllabic prosody (described with Latin names that sound painfully like scientific nomenclature: iambic pentameter, for example). It isn't a matter of misapplying technical words to metrical feet -- I consistently misidentify which syllables take a stress and which don't. Dickey's poems violate certain traditional metrical forms in a way that really excited me when I was younger, so I'm mainly describing what those are, why I value them, and then put my poems in the context of those observations.

Scrutinizing my own aesthetic is tough, but identifying it at all is even tougher! Self-awareness can be gutting to creativity, sure, but it also helps you to recognize when you're repeating yourself unhealthily.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 1:16 am    Post subject: Re: for stotelheim    Reply with quote

shrugtheironteacup wrote:
the Aeneid of Virgil
I shat myself and so shall you

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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:49 pm        Reply with quote

Reading Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki, which is pretty awesome. A quick read, and a great account of an awesome adventure.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 6:49 pm        Reply with quote

I'm starting to read H. G. Wells' Outline of History, volume I. Last time I tried reading it, I remember some awesome stuff in there about gigantic South American armadillos, so this should be pretty sweet.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 1:16 pm        Reply with quote

I'm reading selections of Meister Eckhart's sermons and commentaries in translation. There's a world of difference between the Latin tracts and the German sermons, both in terms of accessibility and pleasurability. The Latin stuff has all the trappings of technical form, being written by clergy for clergy within the Augustinian rote of logic, but the sermons are great due the the fact that he had to turn it into something that people would want to hear.

I mean, this is gold.

Eckhart wrote:
"Virgin" is as much as to say a person who is free of all alien images, as free as he was when he was not. Observe that people may ask how a man who has been born and has advanced to the age of reason could be as free of all images as when he was nothing; he who knows so many things that are all images: How then can he be free? Keep in mind this distinction, which I want to make clear for you. If I were so rational that there were present in my reason all the images that all men had ever received, and those that are present in God himself, and if I could be without possessiveness in their regard, so that I had not seized possessively upon any one of them, not in what I did or what I left undone, not looking to past or to future, but I stood in this present moment free and empty according to God's dearest will, performing it without ceasing, then truly I should be a virgin, as truly unimpeded by any images as I was when I was not.

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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 5:05 pm        Reply with quote

108 wrote:
for example: reading philosophy always felt like Life Spoilers, to me :-/

Most of philosophy is red herrings though.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:15 am        Reply with quote

I'm reading Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd and Sixty Poems by Charles Simic.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:41 am        Reply with quote

This is incredible.

"A Book Full of Pictures" (Charles Simic)

Father studied theology through the mail
And this was exam time.
Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book
Full of pictures. Night fell.
My hands grew cold touching the faces
Of dead kings and queens.

There was a black raincoat
in the upstairs bedroom
Swaying from the ceiling,
But what was it doing there?
Mother's long needles made quick crosses.
They were black
Like the inside of my head just then.

The pages I turned sounded like wings.
"The soul is a bird," he once said.
In my book full of pictures
A battle raged: lances and swords
Made a kind of wintry forest
With my heart spiked and bleeding in its branches.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:25 am        Reply with quote

So Sarah Palin's book came out today.

"Real America" reads and loves this book SB.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:37 am        Reply with quote

shrugtheironteacup wrote:
When I was at the family Thanksgiving in Pierce, Idaho last year everyone was talking about how, if Palin were too run for president, they would vote for her.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

SpoilerNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

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PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:49 am        Reply with quote

Cocaine Socialist wrote:
The Original of Laura, sent to die again.

lol NO ONE BOUGHT THIS TODAY

There were quite a few Louis L'Amour buyers though.

For some godforsaken reason.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 1:07 am        Reply with quote

shrugtheironteacup wrote:
Hey Louis L'Amour is big in northern Idaho too maybe there is an inexplicable family reunion all the way in Texas that I wasn't told about.

This might be the case shrug.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:34 pm        Reply with quote

CubaLibre wrote:
To be fair I also treat rote pleas by employees of giant corporations to give them more money so that they can give it to a charity I know nothing about as fairly laughable.

I do to, actually! The difference with this one is that it's local. The way it works is someone at checkout -- IN REAL TIME -- buys a children's book along with their regular purchase. They then have the satisfaction of seeing me take a children's book of their choice off the shelf behind me and put it in a box marked "Kiwanis Christmas Reach Out and Read Book Drive."

Honestly, I hate loading people with, like six different WANT TO SPEND MORE MONEY offers at checkout. I hate being on the receiving end of it, and I assume that others feel likewise. The book drive one is good by me, though, and I have that added spice of sincerity in my voice when I give that spiel.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 10:17 pm        Reply with quote

108 wrote:
Adilegian wrote:
108 wrote:
for example: reading philosophy always felt like Life Spoilers, to me :-/

Most of philosophy is red herrings though.


now you've gone and spoiled both life AND philosophy!

Only "Heidegger" is true.

NOW I've "spoiled" philosophy.
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2009 9:01 am        Reply with quote

Said is pretty swank! His cultural critique of Orientalism is good work.

I'm reading George Eliot's Felix Holt. I'm about 60 pages into it, and it's a really good piece of work. It does such a good job of revealing how poorly most of us are equipped for acting within political theaters of the size we're expected to enter these days -- and, actually, how poorly most of us are equipped for really understanding theaters of that size.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:20 pm        Reply with quote

shrugtheironteacup wrote:
Cocaine Socialist wrote:
An excellent interview with Cormac McCarthy and John Hillcoat. McCarthy reveals his next book, a novel set in New Orleans during the 1980's.


Quote:
WSJ: Brotherly conversation just turns to the apocalypse?

CM: More often than we can justify.


Quote:
WSJ: But is there something compelling about the collaborative process compared to the solitary job of writing?

CM: Yes, it would compel you to avoid it at all costs.

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 6:15 am        Reply with quote

Finished reading Eliot's Felix Holt. Lovely overall, though I felt the characters were difficult to connect to. The intrigues were mostly based in Victorian English legal statutes, which isn't the most engaging material.

I'm going to start Robert Penn Warren's Flood.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 10:40 am        Reply with quote

Currently reading Robert Penn Warren's novel Flood. Will probably read some of his poems while I'm at it. I like his poem about Audubon right now.

So stirs, knowing now
He will not be here when snow
Drifts into the open door of the cabin, or,
Descending the chimney, mantles thinly
dead ashes on the hearth, nor when snow thatches
These heads with white, like wisdom, nor ever will he
Hear the infinitesimal stridor of the frozen rope
As wind shifts its burden, or when

The weight of the crow first comes to rest on a rigid shoulder.
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 4:41 am        Reply with quote

I'm really enjoying Middlemarch.
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 5:46 am        Reply with quote

CubaLibre wrote:
Everyone is an Eliot man or an Austen man. Sophisticated men choose Eliot.

TRUTH TO POWER.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Mon May 03, 2010 6:17 am        Reply with quote

This might be old, but here's apparently a nasty ending to one of the children from Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that Dahl had nipped from the final copy.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Mon May 03, 2010 5:12 pm        Reply with quote

boojiboy7 wrote:
Overall though, I am not so much a fan of 19th Century British novels though.

but but bulwer lytton
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Mon May 03, 2010 7:02 pm        Reply with quote

boojiboy7 wrote:
it's ok, dog. I'm not talking them down or nothing, just acknowledging they aren't my thing, from my limited experience. Reading Emma while looking for clues as to how much Austen hated Emma herself was fun though.

Eliot works for me better than Austen, as indicated in my response to Cuba, because she seems to struggle more with moral problems that expand beyond the conflicts of a particular class in a particular society. Austen remains relevant, but less so than Eliot I think.

Henry James is more or less impossible for me to enjoy, I'm afraid.

Intentionally Wrong wrote:
Adilegian wrote:
but but bulwer lytton


I like Lyttle Lytton better.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees. I will enter that contest next time around.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 3:45 am        Reply with quote


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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Sun May 09, 2010 6:42 pm        Reply with quote

Tempest 1610 wrote:
Actual Literature and commentary on literature

idk man eliot does a pretty good job of blurring those distinctions
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2010 1:17 am        Reply with quote

Cocaine Socialist wrote:
HOLY SHIT!

If it's 100 years after his death, hasn't the copyright expired thus making this public domain material?
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2010 3:15 am        Reply with quote

Ronnoc wrote:
I don't think it was copyrighted, and the article did say anyone could read them if they went there.

Someone needs to transcribe that shit ASAP for the internet.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 24, 2010 6:11 am        Reply with quote

So this is kind of a big deal to some.
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Adilegian
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 5:42 am        Reply with quote

Cocaine Socialist wrote:
Ass


Nabokov quotation from this.

Amis wrote:
"Curiously enough, one cannot read a book," he once announced (at the lectern), "one can only reread it."

This is pretty much the only way I can read poems at all. The first five readings are usually getting acclimated, and finally the readings after those are the poem.
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