IC Forum Archive

Sawtooth · Posts: 2350

jutla, a wrote:

The illustrations used to freak me the fuck out, just in a kind of weird, shiveringly pleasant way. I kind of liked Where the Wild Things Are for similar reasons.

If you've ever seen Sendak's other work, it helps explain why. I recall "In the Night Kitchen" giving me nightmares when I was young, for some reason.

Maniac Magee was an awesome book.

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

jutla, a wrote:

Wait, now I remember Fabric of the Cosmos. No, try to...get rid of it, if you can. Pretend the book doesn't exist. The introduction says something like, "I showed Elegant Universe to my dear mother, she was confused on page ten! This book is for my mother! lol!" I think I recall him going on for page after page setting up elaborate metaphors involving Simpsons characters to explain things like electron orbits.

Holy crap, I have to read it now! That's just too hilarious sounding to pass up.

I never had a favorite book as a kid, though as an adult I am quite fond of Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller.

dhex · Posts: 2963

black spring! have you read black spring?

i read black spring a few summers back while living maybe 10 blocks from the place he's describing in black spring. then i walked down there. it was a bakery, i think. it's hard to tell. but it's excellent.

he's such an important writer, but because of his reputation as a neanderthal - not wholly undeserved - he's going to be ignored by the academy for another 100 years or so. which is too bad, because he makes anais nin look like a fucking chump. (which she is, except in her letters, which are quite good)

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

No, but Black Spring is on the list! I've only read Capricorn and a bit of the beginning of Cancer, which is also on my list to finish. I was thinking about checking out The Rosy Crucifixion(sp?) next.

But, yes, the dude has serious flow. It's so easy for me to just get lost in his prose. I think he may well be one of my favorite writers.

dhex · Posts: 2963

i just bought all three, first edition printing hardcovers from the first box set of his work put out in america by grove press. for 2 bucks. on ebay. they're in pristine condition, aside from the acid wear in the paper, but that's mostly a smell thing.

the rosy crucifixion is very long, very very long, and very meandering and very much wrapped up in his personal cosmology. if you read the colossus of maroussi first. if you dig that, then it's worth your time. if not, read the air conditioned nightmare and see what that worthless sack of shit kerouac ripped off.

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

Damn, that's an awesome deal you got there. You'd think the books would be worth more than that, at least in the eyes of the general public. That's the wonder of eBay I guess, that people often don't consider such things to be the same treasures you or I would.

I just ordered a cheap copy of Maroussi off Amazon, so that'll be in the mail and I'll check it out then. Greece, eh? Sounds interesting, especially through the eyes of a guy like Miller. I'll look into getting a copy of Black Spring as well.

dhex · Posts: 2963

well, due to miller's unpopularity most everything he touched can be had pretty cheaply, except...of course, his watercolors. they are stupid expensive, and he's fairly well regarded as an american self taught watercolorist. which sort of freaks me out.

a genuine french-printed first edition of tropic of capricorn in good shape will still go for 800 bucks or more, i would think, but most of the american editions are very cheap.

nICO · Posts: 130

I added Black Spring to my Amazon Wishlist. It looks cool.

Rykker · Posts: 29

Has anyone read the books in The Song of Fire and Ice series?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire)

Ripped directly from Wikipedia:
The books are known for extremely detailed and intriguing characters, sudden and often violent plot twists, and no lack of cunning schemes and intricate political maneuvering. In a genre where magic usually takes center stage, this series has a reputation for its limited and subtle use of magic, employing it as an ambiguous and often sinister background force

Go read them. It takes a while to start off, as they have to introduce 15+ characters that run a total of 6 books, each about 800 pages, but it's worth it.

veen · Posts: 131

Rykker wrote:

Has anyone read the books in The Song of Fire and Ice series?

yes. I really enjoyed them, for what they are. that being pulp fantasy of no import. what I like most is the extreme reservation with which anything magical or supernatural is spoken of or portrayed, the ardour of the author for sickeningly detailed violence, and the flippancy with which major characters are terminated. there's a powerful sense of hopelessness about it all. I'm not very experienced with this genre, or interested in it, but these books were rather fucking cool. is the fourth entry ever going to be published, or what? I stopped keeping track of its (non)progress a few years ago.

edit: !!!! it actually appears to be prepared for publishing in a few months, according to that wiki link. I'm going to feel positively dirty when I put down Proust in order to read it!

Scratchmonkey · Posts: 2229

If you like that series, definitely go check out R. R. Martin's older, mostly science-fiction work.

evnvnv · Posts: 333

In response to the earlier question about childhood books, I'd like to take this moment to endorse the work of David Eddings... man those books completely revolutionized my 6th grade self. He's like the michael crichton of fantasy epics, or something. Rock on belgarath.

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

Black Spring just came in the mail. The "complete, unexpurgated grove press edition" as the back cover puts it. This is a lot thinner than I was expecting so I've gone ahead and started it with the intention to burn through it in a day or so. I'm liking the hell out of it so far.

dhex · Posts: 2963

good stuff. if it sucks you can punch me in the face or something.

ps. it don't suck.

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

Well, I just finished the second story a moment ago and so far it ain't sucking one bit. Though even if it does start sucking near the end it's not like it matters because I only paid like three dollars for it.

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

I haven't burned through Black Spring entirely yet, because Miller's stuff is always just dense enough that it requires full concentration and in some instances another quick reading to be fully appreciated. That said, I've read up to Jabberwhorl Cronstadt and it's been profoundly beautiful. An excellent book, I had to read A Saturday Afternoon twice because I loved hearing him extol the virtues of public urinals and hearing him get philosophical about the communal bond between ancient peoples during the times of the popes. It's made me want to check out ancient Catholic frescoes and seeing the stories they left behind for myself.

I was at the mall yesterday and I had money so I went to the bookstore looking for enrichment. I found Ayn Rand's Anthem, Volume I of Arabian Nights(looks like the most accurate translation too so that should be good fun) and a book by James Reston, Jr. called Warriors of God which is an unbiased account of Richard the Lionheart and Saladin during the Third Crusade. Anthem was short enough that I read it in full yesterday and while I thought it was an okay story it was pretty damned heavy handed at the same time. Talk about getting on a soap box. However reading it made me want to go back and reread 1984 so some good came out of it. Warriors of God looks like it might shed some light on why the hardcore Muslim world hates the West and the Christians so much, on top of being a cool historical telling of that certain time period between those two sides.

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

So the book thread just sort of died, you guys must not be reading as much as I have. I've finished Black Spring, which was great and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for something worth reading, and I've started Henry Miller on Writing, which is just a collection of passages from various books by Henry Miller dealing with the subject of writing. It's a pretty good book so far, lots of perspective in that fantastical Miller style. I have here sitting next to me The Colossus of Maroussi as well and The Air Conditioned Nightmare is in the mail. I've had a hard on for Henry Miller this past week or so and it's been making me reevaluate my own stance as a person who writes things. It's been a good growing process.

I'm thinking of taking a break pretty soon though and finishing A Brief History of Time or American Gods, which I got more than halfway through before realizing it's pretty much any other "pop" religion novel where the author has a neat take on things and can spin a good yarn, only stretched out to twice the normal length. My sister still bugs me about it every time she sees me though, asking when I'm going to be done with it so she can read it, because she read the first chapter or two once a few months ago and has been thinking about it ever since. Hell, that's Neil Gaiman for you, he's a good storyteller but hardly the literary master that people make him out to be from just this book. Good Omens was pretty good though.

ryan · Posts: 297

Mr. Mechanical wrote:

So the book thread just sort of died...

I'm here for you!

(Seneca) Letters from a Stoic

aderack · Posts: 5018

I've got Hard-Boiled Wonderland in the bathroom. I'd read only a chapter of it before The Gallifrey Chronicles (shut up) arrived. I went through that in a couple of days, so it's back to REEL LITURCHUR.

dizzyjosh · Posts: 87

god, y'all are fantastic readers. somehow, i'm not surprised at all. we should totally rock a book club.

Dhex, since you appear to be a dirty-20th-century lit buff, what do you think of DH Lawrence? Too gay?

right now, i'm doing a lot of catch-up:
Pornography, by Andrea Dworkin. much better than I thought it would be: her words are some of the fiercest I've read, and while there's plenty of disagreement to be had with how you think about thinking about genitals or whatever, I am usually interested in allowing someone else to paint a world for me, and she does it in a way that really commands my respect and forces me to say things to myself and that intensity is good to find if you are missing it. A very different direction than bell hooks who i am also reading, but bell is basically trying to lead me into being better and dworkin is just trying to a)make sure I'm not going to rape anyone soon and b) let me know that she thinks I might anyways.

atrocity exhibition by J.G. Ballard
one of the few things i have ever read and felt honestly omgwtfbbq over. i really have no idea what is going on or what he saying or what I should be paying attention to. For any one interested in his stuff I would avoid getting the annotated and illustrated version first, since it really doesn't help. there is clearly a lot going on but it is all so symbolized and fetishized (which is clearly part of the point) and the symbols ( i guess signs, really) are *not mine* and that makes it very hard to settle into.

the stars my destination, by alfred bester
that is it's American title; in other countries, it is called 'Tiger, Tiger". It is very good Old School Sci-Fi; The protagonist, Gully Foyle is the man that most dudes only talk about to themselves when they are very sad and hurt. Space, teleportation, and being completely and totally dedicated to just one thing are all very scary things to think about. the ending feels like a bad ending but I think it might be the Only Right ending that would work.

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

I read The Giver today for the first time ever and was kind of pissed off at the anitclimactic non-ending. It all seemed like it was building towards... something, and the end just seemed like there wasn't anything there. Like the author decided to use "open interpretation" as an excuse for not having a decent ending to an otherwise really good story. I liked the book for the most part, I just felt betrayed when I got to the end because at that point I had actually started to care about the characters.

dhex · Posts: 2963

veen · Posts: 131

dizzyjosh wrote:

what do you think of DH Lawrence? Too gay?

you weren't asking me, but your assumed verdict is spot on. more interesting than his predecessors, but just barely.

Talbain · Posts: 628

Sleight of Mouth - Robert Dilts. Basically an NLP book about the way and reasons behind why we say and do things. Psychology, but simplified and understandable, and even scarier, it actually works.

Also reading that book about Nintendo's rise to power. Don't remember the name, but I paid like 30 bucks for it. Good read.

American Power by Noam Chomsky, and Smoke and Mirrors by Dan Baum. Two books criticizing the way in which the American government has become a consortium of those who like power, and like to make sure others don't have it. Replace power with money and you've basically got what Smoke and Mirrors is about.

edwardappleby · Posts: 129

Today I bought some Hemingway. Men Without Women and A Farwell to Arms, since I haven't read anything by him since high school and since I need stuff to counterbalance the more technical stuff I've been reading for work.

Rud13 · Posts: 3277

For a class I've been told to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Seems to have a bit in common with Hard-Boiled Wonderland. I enjoyed HBW more so far.

nICO · Posts: 130

Mr. Mechanical wrote:

I read The Giver today for the first time ever and was kind of pissed off at the anitclimactic non-ending. It all seemed like it was building towards... something, and the end just seemed like there wasn't anything there. Like the author decided to use "open interpretation" as an excuse for not having a decent ending to an otherwise really good story. I liked the book for the most part, I just felt betrayed when I got to the end because at that point I had actually started to care about the characters.

I've had to read that book FOUR times in different classes. The first time I read it was 6th grade. I think it's a good book for that level, since it's not a difficult read and it's certainly better than most of the Young Adults dreck they still think you're interested in reading (or maybe some people are...I don't know). I didn't like it much, though, because at that point 1984 was probably my favorite book and the Giver is pretty much just a watered down 1984.

I had to read it again in 8th grade and it was then when I realized just how much of a copout the ending was. It was assigned yet again the next two years, though I think I didn't bother. I remember the teacher angrily defending her stance that Jonas (?) survived at the end when it seemed fairly obvious to me that the author did everything but write HE DIES. What did you think happened at the end?

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

nICO wrote:

I've had to read that book FOUR times in different classes. The first time I read it was 6th grade. I think it's a good book for that level, since it's not a difficult read and it's certainly better than most of the Young Adults dreck they still think you're interested in reading (or maybe some people are...I don't know). I didn't like it much, though, because at that point 1984 was probably my favorite book and the Giver is pretty much just a watered down 1984.

Yeah, I think I probably would have been able to appreciate it more had I read it when I was a lot younger. I read 1984 when I was fifteen so it was pretty obvious where all the dystopian references came from, kind of fun reading the same ideas as that book just simplyfied though. Stylewise.

nICO wrote:

I had to read it again in 8th grade and it was then when I realized just how much of a copout the ending was. It was assigned yet again the next two years, though I think I didn't bother. I remember the teacher angrily defending her stance that Jonas (?) survived at the end when it seemed fairly obvious to me that the author did everything but write HE DIES. What did you think happened at the end?

Yeah, that why it felt like such a non-ending, copping out. I was kind of pissed off after I finished it.

bizcwn · Posts: 24

Anybody a fan of neil gaiman?

To me, his sandamn series is outstanding. In particular, the season of mists storyline made it clear that comics could be smart, literary and yes be ART.

In fact, the series itself is a major contributor towards pushing comics out of the genre slum and be evaluated as a valid contribution to literature.

Scratchmonkey · Posts: 2229

bizcwn wrote:

In fact, the series itself has pushed comics out of the genre slum and be evaluated as a valid contribution to literature.

I wouldn't give him as much credit as that, considering that a lot of Moore's most influential work predates Sandman, not to mention the people before that such as Spiegelman and Eisner.

Not to say that I don't enjoy Gaiman; to give him credit for creating 'serious' comics is like saying Green Day created punk.

bizcwn · Posts: 24

Oops, my intention was not to credit sandman as the originator of the 'series' genre, but as one of the few important series that helped the genre along.

I guess my phrasing was rather misleading.

Edit time!

jutla, a · Posts: 240

I have never read Sandman.

I kind of hate Gaiman's novels, though. They feel too obvious--American Gods in particular. When I read that, I kept finding that I could predict where he was going and what he was going to do next, and it was never really very interesting, because the entire novel consisted of a tedious, one-dimensional adventure tale.

It kind of perplexes me, to be honest, how fucking much people like that book. Maybe it's just me. I still think Gaiman would have been better off turning the Lakeside bit alone into a clever short story and calling it quits.

I sort of liked Neverwhere, however.

dhex · Posts: 2963

so, speaking of dh lawrence, or not, i'm reading sons and lovers. i'd forgotten what a miserable fucking bag of whore ears mrs. morel was.

FortNinety · Posts: 4591

bizcwn wrote:

Anybody a fan of neil gaiman?

As a comic book person, I am embarassed to say that I did not read Sandman sooner. But my girlfriend has been lending me her collection and its actually lived up to, and even exceeded the hype.

Anyone who reads comics, or any sort of fiction, owe it to themselves to read this; its quite simply one of the finest comic books ever...

Broco · Posts: 546

Have started reading Kafka's diaries. I've read all of his fiction (there isn't much of it) and was craving more. He writes really tersely and without context I don't understand most of what he's talking about. Often I'm not even sure if he's describing events from his life or composing fiction. But there's passages like this:

February 11. Hastily read through Dilthey's Goethe; tumultuous impression, carries one along, why couldn't one set oneself afire and be destroyed in the flames? Or obey, even if one hears no command? Or sit on a chair in the middle of one's empty room and look at the floor? Or shout "Forward!" in a mountain defile and hear answering shouts and see people emerge from all the bypaths in the cliffs.

I mean, dude. I don't know what it means but the imagery is amazing.

Karoshi · Posts: 968

FortNinety wrote:

Good comics and stuff

I was really big into Sandman during it's run. My sister and brother in law have my entire collection in thier apartment. Dave McKean's cover art defined that series for me. I also enjoyed his contour art style in the short story about condoms with Jon Constantine and Death. In high school, my AP lit teacher required that we read both The Watchmen and Dave Sim's "Church and State" as they were listed on The Princeton Review.

A friend just wrote to me about a book I'd very much like to read:

I finished Genome by Matt Ridley recently - damned great read. Really gives you a wider perspective on human biology, sex, and the whole 'life' thing.

There are a lot of things about human physiology that would fall right into place there. Ie, the placenta is basically a parasite that grows as a byproduct of seminal fertilization. The female body does not grow a placenta in response to pregnancy. It is a parasitic growth that comes from a mans sperm.

Human zygotes contain 22 chromosomes, while Apes have 23. One of our chromosomes appears to be the fused product of two Ape chromosomes.

An embryo develops organs and structures in the same sequence that our ancestral lineage acquired them

95% of your DNA is crap. 1.3% is viral DNA. 3% is the actual genes that make up your body. Each cell contains roughly 6 ft of it.

This book is very easy to read - but its the literary equivalent of shock and awe. Sort of like showing Aristotle quantum electrodynamics, or giving the Wright brothers a copy of Apollo 13.

Crazy Bacon Lips · Posts: 783

Mr. Mechanical wrote:

Anthem was short enough that I read it in full yesterday and while I thought it was an okay story it was pretty damned heavy handed at the same time. Talk about getting on a soap box. However reading it made me want to go back and reread 1984 so some good came out of it.

That's kind of funny, because I just finished 1984, and now I want to reread Anthem.

Rud13 wrote:

For a class I've been told to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Seems to have a bit in common with Hard-Boiled Wonderland. I enjoyed HBW more so far.

It's fantastic, and pleasantly brief. Blade Runner is supposed to have spawned from it, but Ridley Scott changed pretty much everything except the words "Deckard" and "replicant."

Up next for me is a series of short stories and plays by Mark Twain, and probably Catch 22, or as much of it as I can bear to read. It's great, but for some reason I have not a crumb of motivation to continue it.

Mr. Business · Posts: 1530

dhex wrote:

there is no plot. only feel.

A couple of the chapters had some plot. I recall the chapters "AJ's Annual Party" and "The Parties of Interzone" both having relatively coherent narratives. Still, I can agree that there is no real plot at all. There's a story buried somewhere in there for sure, but it has no order or sequence, and for all intents and purposes, I find it more authentic without those things.

I'm not sure if I believe that Burroughs truly didn't remember writing it though. Then again, I haven't been on a 15-year opiate binge, so I can't say whether his inability to remember writing the book is realistic or not.

dhex · Posts: 2963

well, he was off the smack at that point and merely eating majoun every single day. you'd forget a lot too if you were floating around in a sea of jizz and weed.

eeemmecks · Posts: 124

Are there any decent Burroughs biographies out there?

the vinculum gate · Posts: 2868

i just started the dharma bums by jack kerouac

it makes me want to write prose again

evnvnv · Posts: 333

the vinculum gate wrote:

i just started the dharma bums by jack kerouac

it makes me want to write prose again

I liked the Dharma Bums better than On the Road! But I haven't read either since I was... younger.

Also: The Watchmen is one of the better things my eyes have seen... for serious. I'm pretty glad the movie thing fell through.

I just read "Inter Ice Age 9" by Kobo Abe. It (no joke) mysteriously appeared in my house one day, no one knows where it came from. It is fucking unstoppable, I would recommend it to every single person on this board, especially those with an affinity for science fiction from that era (60's 70's)

It gets points for being the spiritual link between War with the Newts and Wind up Bird Chronicle. I can't explain how! But it's true.

Dakravel · Posts: 125

I finished reading After the Quake just a few days ago. I checked it out one day on a whim, finished it the next. It's maybe five short stories by Haruki Murakami that take place just after the Kobe earthquake of 95 (I think?).

I..., I think I liked it a lot. Sometimes I finish a book or a movie and I step away and the book or move will fill my thoughts for the next few days. Sometimes this means I really enjoyed the thing, and sometimes it means it confuses and fills me with rage. All in all, the more I think about it, I think I liked it. I'd never read any short stories by Murakami before and these are just great. I've always felt that short stories were where a gifted author could really shine. I think I might re-read them in a week.

Catch 22 is probably one of my favorite books evar. It's ridiculously depressing though, so it's understandable that it might get hard to read at points. The book starts out low, and things keep getting worse and worse. It does have a happy-ish ending though.., sorta.

Did anyone here NOT like Hard-boiled Wonderland? I liked it, but a friend of mine read it, got halfway through and became thoroughly bothered by the simultaneous storylines. Wondering if anyone else felt the same way, since I rather liked that.

dhex · Posts: 2963

FocusRambo · Posts: 829

I've been thinking about checking this book out. Any good? Anything else Mishima writes that is better than this? (I found out about Mishima from an interview with Carey Mercer, of one of my favorite bands, Frog Eyes)

Also, I saw a fairly worn down book titled Kitsch, though, I am not an advocate of kitsch. You must know your enemy, right?

evnvnv · Posts: 333

Oh... the Kobo Abe book I read is called Inter Ice Age 4 not 9. I have Bokonon/Ice 9/Vonnegut on the brain I guess.

Now I am reading "The Manuscript found in Saragossa" which has been blowing minds for like 200 years.

kirby · Posts: 29

"Bambi and her Pink Gun" surprised me. I didn't expect it to be so violent and fun.

FortNinety wrote:

I got these two books over the weekend:

Good stuff. Hopefully Viz nabs more of Kuroda's stuff like Nasu (can't go wrong with a theme like eggplants) and Japan Tengu Party Illustrated.

mechanori · Posts: 623

I just read Cryptonomicon, as suggested by LargePrimeNumbers. For a 1000 page book, I finished it surprisingly fast, and I loved just about all of it. As a literary epic, I had a hard time looking for... themes, or something, but the way it's written is impeccable. And the subject matter (hackers and World War II secrets and codes and codebreaking and battles and everything) is so... fun. I really enjoyed it.

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

Every time I'm in Vegas I check out this little hole-in-the-wall used book/movie/music store that mostly specializes in books. It's a great place to find stuff I wouldn't normally find in larger retail outlets. For instance, today I found a hardcover copy of Henry Miller's The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder, a modern day parable about a circus clown that isn't really more than 50 pages long and published by Hallmark. Hallmark. Hallmark publishing Henry Miller, I couldn't help but grin. The guy behind the counter raved about how great a find this was, though I told him to be honest I'd never heard of it until I saw it on the shelf just minutes ago. It was about seven bucks. He told me the illustrations were by Miller himself but the title page credits some guy named LaLiberte. Which might be a pen name Miller used, or it might not. It doesn't really matter, it's a pretty good little story. I liked it quite a bit. I'd recommend it and I'll probably go back and reread it again in the near future.

I also found some D. H. Lawrence(The Portable D. H. Lawrence, a collection of short stories, letters, travel writings, and criticisms. All in a nice paperback binding with a good hefty feeling to it.) and Robert A. Heinlein, among some other books about stonehenge and Christ. Rock!

I also found some other Miller books, Quiet Days in Clichy(complete with full page black and white images from the film! Which amounts to nakedness, mostly) Moloch, and Crazy Cock but I didn't get them because the last two were attempts he had tried at writing before "finding his voice" with Cancer and Capricorn and were published after his death so it seemed kind of wrong to look over a man's stumbling first attempts that probably weren't up to par with his later work. I understand he tried like hell, and failed, to get them published when he was first starting out and later went on to see that as a good thing. I'll probably regret not picking up Clichy though.

dhex · Posts: 2963

moloch and crazy cock suck. they're basically pre-versions of tropic of capricorn/tropic of cancer.

but the smile at the foot of the ladder...shit. depending on the edition that was a really good deal. though a bookstore would know better if that was the first edition. (it goes for 300 to 1000 depending on condition)

quiet days in clichy is hit or miss. mostly miss, really.