the literature thread

Krazii Bakon Lypes · Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 3:02 am

I have finished Catch-22 in three days. It has technically taken me, literally, five years to complete. I have read and reread the first 200 pages countless times, but this time I have actually completed it. I purchased it while at my grandmother's house before my senior year of high school. I am now a junior in college, and am once again at my grandmother's house, thus completing the cycle. This may be the most significant day of my life.

Krazii Bakon Lypes · Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 3:20 pm

I don't know if I have the heart to go back to Heller unless I buffer it with something else. More Vonnegut, I suppose.

Krazii Bakon Lypes · Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 6:44 pm

I bought it when I was 16 at a local bookstore because I didn't have anything to do. Every time I got to that 200 page milestone, I stopped and started reading something else, either because I had to or because I got into a phase. And every time I got back to it, I had forgotten everything, so I restarted.

Krazii Bakon Lypes · Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 5:25 am

Sirens of Titan now. All of these Murakami recommendations keep piling up, and I DO have a copy of Hard-Boiled Wonderland lying around.

I feel that Catch-22's ending was sort of unfortunate. I like the idea that the only way to leave a world that is structured around its insanity is to pretend that you're "sane," and persevere, as the Chaplain did. I tend to like unhappy endings, and virtually every piece of media and art that I've consumed that I truly enjoy has had an unhappy ending. This one sort of bothered me. The book had a lesson to teach, but by saying that there was a way out of it, it made it seem like there needn't be a lesson taught at all, you know? It really only falls apart in its last five pages, once the Chaplain comes in with news of Orr. Until that moment, though. Fuck.

Krazii Bakon Lypes · Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 5:59 am

Well, not every work of art is enjoyable. Happiness is an incredibly difficult movie to watch. Marie Antoinette is fucking boring, and so is Shenmue. Catch-22 is definitely more enjoyable than those are, but you get my point.

Krazii Bakon Lypes · Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 5:28 am

I started Naked Lunch the other day. Boy, it sure doesn't waste any time not discussing anal rape.

Is Thomas Pynchon considered a beat author?

Krazii Bakon Lypes · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:38 am

Faulkner is HARD and CONFUSING.

Finished Moby Dick!

Krazii Bakon Lypes · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:39 am

Krazii Bakon Lypes · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:51 am

No, As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury. I want to read more, though. Perhaps he will become my next Vonnegut?