the literature thread

PianoMap · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: victoria, british columbia

Oh shit yeah the 120 days of Sodom... yeah I did not enjoy that shit.

The movie, "Salo", was just the kinda stuff I firmly attempt to avoid remembering or thinking about.

I am reading Mishima's "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea." I'm suprised that I'm actually really enjoying it.

Man, Yukio Mishima. What a joke. What a gong show.
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PianoMap · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: victoria, british columbia

PianoMap · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: victoria, british columbia

I have thought over nhilism and... while I agree it's an outlook that is good to consider and learn about [and certainly that a work rife with it is not demerited because of that, just that I end up taking it with a couple dozen more grains of salt.], it most certainly leads to the dark side.

So to speak.
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PianoMap · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: victoria, british columbia

I just re-read "The Catcher In the Rye" and that seemed to get me back in the mood for reading things until they're finished. So I'm getting back to Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore", now.

I think 'Catcher in the Rye' is one of the most uplifting books I've ever read.

and I just read Camus' "The Outsider", and I really enjoyed that. I don't really understand where this whole absurdism thing could end up but I love the concept. Right now it seems like something I can get behind. As you mentioned, Dracko, Camus' responds to the question of suicide. Since suicide appears to be the endpoint of nhilism to me, I'd all but ignored it. I've just got no desire to approach that well again. Still though, it's always time for changing perception and things are never so simple.
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PianoMap · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: victoria, british columbia

PianoMap · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: victoria, british columbia

I think I'm forgetting something here. Where does it say that he's getting institutionalized into an asylum or whatever?

and yeah, I definitely enjoyed the book much more when I was young, dumb and ugly, though it hasn't lost much of it's relevance to me, I think. It's nostalgic, at the very least.

Adilegian, I would consider suicide to be the "worst possible conclusion" of depression and... I guess the best part of 'Catcher' in that respect is that it always holds out some hope for Holden.

I dunno, I guess I just don't find it as depressing as everyone seems to think it is?
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PianoMap · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: victoria, british columbia

Oh man I am so excited for that. Forgot that it came out yesterday. Going to the bookstore tomorrow to get it.

...I think this is the first book I have ever been truly anticipating the release of.
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PianoMap · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: victoria, british columbia

read this book, sb.
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PianoMap · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: victoria, british columbia

Three generations of Japanese-Canadian women [one born Canadian] narrate their various stories in a kind of stream-of-consciousness clusterfuck that combines oral-tradition storytelling with scrapbook memories of living on the Canadian prairies. Their family runs a mushroom farm.

It's magical realism told in layers: the grand-daughter tells her life story from her own perspective as well as her mother's and grand-mother's, recalling events as well as twisting them [and making some up to fill in the holes in her memory], to her boyfriend in-between bouts of marathon fucking.

Mainly the use of language in the writing is beautiful. Japanese onomatopoeia is used a lot [without translation]. The grand-mother's sections flow like a sound poem.
When I say life-story, it's not really a biography. Traditional Japanese folk tales pop up [though they're never identified as such. they just kinda... slip in. easy to tell though if you already know them or you look for a change in the voice] and get twisted a bit and a lot of the conversations that take place are more or less telepathic.
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PianoMap · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: victoria, british columbia

Another book everyone should read. Some of the best first-person narration I've ever read. The main character is an almost-teenage boy with what is I'm thinking most likely Asperger's syndrome, and it is about family, the ups and downs of relying only on yourself [in unusual ways], and a Sherlock Holmes-inspired investigation into the murder of a neighbourhood dog.
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