What Are You Reading?

[O. Van Bruce]

It would help if you can tell me what did you find affected and cloying. Was the melancholy in his writing or the way he exagerates the reality?

Anyway, I'd love to help you "get" what he's saying. Characters are the center of Marquez novels so you should focus on then more than in the story... most of the times they represent ourselves through an exagerated and "magical" point of view. If you can recall 100 years of Solitude then you would recognize how every member of the Buendia Family is condemned to solitude even if every one of then had a very different live. Most of the times you'd feel recognized in then.

The context of the story only brings some easter eggs that a latinoamerican and a Colombian would find, but anyone can understand the story without it.

Anyway, you should be missing something, it's innusual to dislike a person's style when he has received a Nobel Prize. Furthermore. 100 years of solitude has been classified as one of the 25 most influential novels of the XX century...

[Obiwanshinobi]

Finished.

[Ganelon]

I recently finished "A Memory of Light" by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. It's been over 15 years since I started The Wheel of Time series (for those who began at the very beginning, it's been 23 years) and the saga is finally over. Since that time, a lot of things have changed. The internet has exploded; when I started, I found zero online Wheel of Time resources outside of the WoTMUD and now there are 3 separate communities and dozens more comprehensive resource sites. I read nowhere near as many books as I did then, and no fantasy/sci-fi novels anymore. There has been 1 long-released FPS game based on the series that's pretty solid yet underrated.

The series did seem to meander a bit in the middle but has been rushing to its conclusion in the final books. Robert Jordan died before he could finish writing The Wheel of Time but the series still ended on a very satisfying note with Sanderson's help on the final 3 books. The decision for now is to respect Jordan's wishes and not continue onward into side stories, avoiding the disconnect that Dune—another series in a similar situation—experienced.

I can't say that the books were ever literary masterpieces or that the final books had the level of detail of earlier books but the series certainly has had the most threads of any I've read and manages to resolve just about all of them by the end. For those who haven't read the series before with a lot of patience still into high fantasy with thousands of characters, I give it my highest recommendations. "The Eye of the World," the first book, is an excellent starting point to form an opinion.

[Ed Oscuro]

Finished.

Did you make the soup?

There has been 1 long-released FPS game based on the series that's pretty solid yet underrated.

Played through it recently. Found the combat rather horrible most of the time which may or may not be more or less inconsequential because this is about as pure an adventuring experience as you get outside of Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, which is to say quite picturesque and very ahead of its time. The combat could've been tightened up somewhat to play more like Phantom Dust, though. It's a close thing that the series could be finished after Jordan passed away.

[ColonelFatso]

I tried very hard with the Wheel of Time, I really did. I really liked the first couple of books, but as the series dragged on and Jordan kept using the same plot devices to resolve seemingly every conflict, I began to lose interest, finally dropping out entirely after book 8 or 9. I do owe at least The Eye of the World a re-read one of these days, though.

Speaking of re-reading, I'm winding down with an old favourite, Macroscope by Piers Anthony. It's a little weird at places, and the pacing is a little disjointed at times, but it does a fantastic job of conveying the sense of wonder and exploration that I'm always looking for in science fiction.

[drauch]

I've been reading Richard Matheson's Bid Time Return, which is probably better known as Somewhere in Time, due to the popular film adaptation title. About exactly half way, which is divided into a Part 2 or sorts. Really like Matheson, but I'm not sure how hooked I am on this one yet. I feel as if I've been reading more than enough to discover if I like the book thus far, and although the story is just about to kick off, I'm not sure how compelled I am to finish it. Any fans that can persuade me?

[sjewkestheloon]

I polished off a couple of PK Dick novels, Simulacrum and Our Friends From Frolix 8, and I am a small way into Carlo Emilio Gadda's That Aweful Mess on the Via Merulana. The later is ok so far but not as good as I had hoped. It is a different take on modernism when compared to Joyce, but the endless digressions do bring him to mind somewhat. I will finish it but I can't help feeling that I have the book sussed from the first 100 pages and that I have 300 pages of repetition to look forward to.

I am also reading The Book of Fantasy which was initially compiled by Borges, Bioy Casares and Ocampo, but the edition that I am currently reading has had a few additions and has a Le Guinn introduction. I was hoping for some introductions to each story and maybe a Borges preface, but I can't complain too much considering the stories within are almost entirely gold. It is an eclectic mix of stories collected under the genre before the genre became particularly established as we now know it. Thankfully there is a complete lack of dwarves and elves, and instead there are myriad mysterious items, satanic visitations and a general enthusiasm for the unexplainable.

[blackoak]

Reading two things now: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and JD Salinger's Nine Stories (spurred on by the recommendations above). Earlier today I finished the first story, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." One of the best short stories I've ever read... brought some tears to my eyes. Mixed feelings on The Jungle so far. A novel about wage slavery is right up my alley, but the prose is so turgid and dramatic.

[NTSC-J]

Hitch-22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens

Our greatest Atheist/Antitheist, Christopher Hitchens, talks about his robust career as a Journalist, his political views, and life as an American citizen. I think fans of his will enjoy it, but I understand the complaints I've seen online about it being kind of boring. There are some passages where he drops references to names, places and events that I have no clue about, and those sections sort of drag. But everything else is a pleasure to read because its just so well-written. I would have liked to have heard about his experiences going across the country debating religious fundamentalists, so for me that was the one let-down. Still worth reading for all of his crazy anecdotes (going to a party in college where he saw Clinton eat pot brownies and thus "not enhaling" the foul stuff) and the chapter on 9/11.

[Rob]

Garfield Gets in a Pickle

[mesh control]

lately
The Stranger - Albert Camus
No Exit - Jean-Paul Sartre
The Abortion - Richard Brautigan
A bunch of books on the factory girls of Lowell
No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai
and

[NTSC-J]

mesh, have you read Darkness Visible?

[mesh control]

No, I have not. It sounds depressing, so I'll add it to my list.

[NTSC-J]

I think you'll find a lot of it rings true for you.

There's a great anecdote about it in Hitch-22. Hitch was having dinner at a restaurant with William Styron. When the waiter brings Styron's credit card back to him, he says "You have the same name as a famous author." Hitch gives Styron a look to see if he should say anything, but he doesn't. The waiter then adds "That guy saved my life." Styron then invites him to have a seat and they talk for a while. Afterwards, Hitch asks if this kind of thing happens a lot. "All the time."

[Ed Oscuro]

Speaking of works that ring true, a short essay: Raymond Chandler rips the crime fiction genre apart.

Then puts it back together. If you can read around the apparent chauvinism at the end I think he's pretty much nailed it. I read a bunch of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries again recently, and while I'm still quite astounded at all the good stuff he managed to push in these early stories, and while maintaining a reasonable variety, there's also a lot of problems with the stories in many of their facets. Incidentally, I don't know if Chandler was taking the piss but in the section of that essay where he talks about the easiest and hardest crimes to solve, that is almost exactly what Holmes himself said.

[mesh control]

Finished No Longer Human a couple days ago and I have been going back and reading certain parts.
5 out 5

Code: Select all

"I should never have had to dread human beings so, nor should I have opposed myself to human life, nor tasted such torments of hell every night."

I need to develop a opiate addiction.



edit: Suicide is boring. It's interesting for the first few pages, but it's 100+ pages of "You were"/"You did".

[CMoon]

No, I have not. It sounds depressing, so I'll add it to my list.

Dude, would you just read Death Ship (B.Traven) already?

[mesh control]

Added to my list giant backlog.

I'm probably going to go through a bunch of post-war Japanese lit., until I become bored.

Persona: A biography of Yukio Mishima
When I Whistle - Shusaku Endo
Sculpting in Time - Andrei Tarkovsky

Too much fiction.

[CMoon]

Added to my list giant backlog.

Yeah, but it is a book about you, the sooner you read it, the sooner you'll...oh, nevermind

[mesh control]

[xbl0x180]

If you liked No Longer Human, you should check out Sadegh Hedayat's The Blind Owl; although its language is a lot more figurative and dream-like, I got the same feeling from it

[Rob]

Garfield Chews the Fat -- just started. Has me in stitches.

[Rob]

Garfield Life in the Fat Lane -- deceived by cover.

[Brasseye]

Christopher Hitchens' No One Left To Lie To : The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton, written before Hitchens' 'God That Failed Transition.' It's alright I suppose, I still can't stand Hitchens' as a human being, he was a vile, decadent, treacherous slug. I have absolutely no respect for Bill Clinton so I'll happily read anything calling him out for the cunt he is.

[Rob]

Garfield Blots Out The Sun -- maybe the worst thing I've ever read.

[Moniker]

Ran out of light reading, so revisiting P.K. Dick's collected 60's novels (Man in the High Castle, Do Androids..?, Three Stigmata, Ubik). I could reread Man in the High Castle a hundred times and not get bored. Ditto Ubik. Need to track down a copy of The Martian Time-Slip and Dr. Bloodmoney. Probably in the basement somewhere.

[EmperorIng]

The Decameron - Seedy, sleazey medieval Italian stories, often involving copious amounts of body humor and sex. It's a great, funny read!

The first volume of Conan the Barbarian short stories - These are lots of fun. I bought the volume to get me through a week's vacation, and am quite happy with how exciting, gritty, and fun the stories are. Just finished The Queen of the Black Coast, and see how the character of Belit inspired the female warrior in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

[GaijinPunch]

Read the first two books of Game of Thrones. Started them both a couple of months ago (I think July) and considering that I'm not a reader (really, I suck... at best I read like 3 books a year, but I think those two make 4 this year) that is quite a feat. I will start A Swarm of Swords hopefully tonight, or tomorrow, but it is a daunting 1200 or so pages, whereas the last two were in the 750 range. So yeah, this is going to take me a while. However, I think it's dope ass shit that I'll catch up w/ the TV show halfway through this book. Really excited.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I have a whole bookcase full of Jack Vance to go through. I've just discovered how he's basically the best writer ever, with the most insane worldbuilding and ridiculous plots ever. Showboat World is particularly awesome. Why, you've staged a theatrical performance your audience doesn't like? Hose them off the deck and get the hell outta the port before they can get a refund.

The Eyes of the Overworld is similarly awesome and absurd in tone, and even his more serious short stories or his longer Planet of Adventure works are classic sci fi.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The first volume of Conan the Barbarian short stories - These are lots of fun.

I'm almost certain a book of those Howard writings about Conan was the first virtually pictureless book I read through.
One of those things World War I did to literature: Conan, Cthulhu... Just to name a couple of North American examples. It can't be a coincidence that the harbinger of it - Ambrose Bierce - was greatly influenced by the American Civil War.