Now Reading

  On 11/13/2019 at 7:12 PM, drillkicker said:

I just finished Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima.  I spent the first 340 pages waiting for it to strike any kind of interest in me, and just when I was about to give up the last 50 pages finally delivered what I was waiting for.  Pretty good book, but too political for my taste.  Hopefully Runaway Horses is more consistent.

Runaway Horses is the most political of the tetralogy (if I'm remembering it correctly).

  On 11/19/2019 at 12:23 AM, QQQ said:

Runaway Horses is the most political of the tetralogy (if I'm remembering it correctly).

I like how it uses Spring Snow as a foundation for a completely different type of story so far.  I can relate much more to Honda than to Kikyoaki, so I'm definitely liking it.

Finished a cool art-deco scifi novel called Radiance by Catheryne Valente recently, really loved the first half and the alt-20th-century-history world building was lush with lots of cool but short descriptions of the politics of galaxy-wide expansion from Earth.

Currently dipping my toes in a few books until something sticks, so far have begun The Trial, Count Zero by Gibson, and a collection of short stories by J.G. Ballard after reading a bunch of essays by Mark Fisher that praised him.

I'm realising I hate hospitality and want to just work in a bookstore:(

  On 11/19/2019 at 9:37 PM, drillkicker said:

Kikyoaki

*Kiyoaki

Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore

After finishing Lou Reed’s biography (which was very good), I feel like this might be both a 180 and a proper follow-up. So far, so good!

One main reason I’m choosing this is because a friend suggested that I read this and loaned it to me 7 or 8 years ago and I never got around to reading it. It’s kinda out of one thirds guilt, one thirds obligation and one thirds curiosity that I’m finally reading it now. 

Someone in another thread (forgot who, sorry) recommended this: Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life by Peter Godfrey-Smith

Very good read. Lots of amusing facts and interesting ideas, all about a subject you probably never gave much thought to before (well, I didn’t, anyway). Will leave you smarter when you finish it than you were when you started, not just about cephalopods and evolution but also about what it means to be intelligent and self-conscious.

I would have been one of those recommenders of the Rob Lowe book back in 2011-12. Was racing through The West Wing at the time and decided to check it out. The childhood super-8 stuff with the Sheens & Penns, the Outsiders section, and the date with Cary Grant's daughter, is still pretty memorable to me.

Just finished Murakami's Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki. I liked all Murakami books so far. This one was especially subtle and an easy read. Can recommend

Now I'm reading The Peregrine by J. A. Baker. Very beautiful language and imagery.

Also reading Thinking Animals by Richard David Precht. Precht is a very smart and innovative thinker, his thoughts on the relationship between animals and humans are eye-opening

Also started 4321 by Paul Auster. Couldn't really get into it yet, maybe mostly because I'm reading too many books at the same time

  On 11/30/2019 at 12:24 AM, darreichungsform said:

Just finished Murakami's Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki. I liked all Murakami books so far. This one was especially subtle and an easy read. Can recommend

Now I'm reading The Peregrine by J. A. Baker. Very beautiful language and imagery.

Also reading Thinking Animals by Richard David Precht. Precht is a very smart and innovative thinker, his thoughts on the relationship between animals and humans are eye-opening

Also started 4321 by Paul Auster. Couldn't really get into it yet, maybe mostly because I'm reading too many books at the same time

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Did you read Tsukuru in German? What did you think of the translation?

No, read it in English. Can't judge the translation as I don't speak Japanese

inlaws gave me ed snowden's biography titled "permanent record" this weekend, which was actually thoughtful cause they know i think we live in a society, but holy shit––these the worst 200 pages i've ever skipped (i mainly read the last 100 out of 300, which were about NSA rather than himself). now, i usually shy away from bio:s cause i suspect them to be self-absorbed bullshit and boy oh boy was i right this time.

who the fuck told eddie that anybody at all is interested in whatever life lessons this or that video game taught him (which, by the way, i highly suspect are just rationalizations), that his mom is a descendant from american settlers, or that his then-gf-now-wife (who also seems like an absolute dork) is/was a pole dancer? cause i pray it wasn't the 9 month long writer's course he apparently took in anticipation of writing this crap. never have i ever seen so many one-sentence cliff hanger paragraphs (i.e. "i had no idea how wrong i was" or some shit like that). it was like reading a high school over-dramatization of nothing at all.

after suffering through the odd pages i had to read to establish that i hadn't missed anything pertinent, the take home message was basically that NSA is literally looking at your nudes and that GDPR is good.

speaking typing of 

  On 12/3/2019 at 12:43 PM, splbt said:

self-absorbed bullshit

bios, found this in a 2nd hand store for $2, & not knowing anything at all about him coz olny ever seen his performance in Apocalypse Now which is p f awsm ("the horror") decided on a whim 2 give it a burl:

     ok boomer/10

i mean nothing beats the biebs writing his bio at 16, but then again hating on bieber is almost as old as his book. i remember being absolutely floored when i heard about it though lol

yeh lol olny just heard bout it now in yr post. nvr listened 2 his tunes or seen his movies. what is it w. these celebrities?

  On 11/30/2019 at 10:21 PM, IDEM said:

Did you read Tsukuru in German? What did you think of the translation?

i can never tell if Murakami translations (English) are bad or if he's bad. i've ranted about it many times in this topic in years gone by so won't go in to detail, but his novels annoy me so much. I've been reading Killing Commendator for nearly a year (amongst other things), but fuck me is the prose amateurish and clunky

  On 12/9/2019 at 11:40 PM, QQQ said:

i can never tell if Murakami translations (English) are bad or if he's bad. i've ranted about it many times in this topic in years gone by so won't go in to detail, but his novels annoy me so much. I've been reading Killing Commendator for nearly a year (amongst other things), but fuck me is the prose amateurish and clunky

Fuck off, Murakami is da man

I like this simple style of writing. His story telling is finely composed and well paced. Economical I'd almost say. Da man doesn't need complicated sentences and longwinded descriptions. It's all simple and tidy but doesn't lack depth (at least for my shallow mind)

  On 12/9/2019 at 11:40 PM, QQQ said:

i can never tell if Murakami translations (English) are bad or if he's bad. i've ranted about it many times in this topic in years gone by so won't go in to detail, but his novels annoy me so much. I've been reading Killing Commendator for nearly a year (amongst other things), but fuck me is the prose amateurish and clunky

Then why do you bother trying? Looks like he just ain't doing it for you.

I liked Killing Commendatore better than Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, but the second volume dragged on a bit, much like 1Q84 Vol. 3 with all the recaps. To me, his books are almost like background jazz in a way; I find that they reward a more casual, almost atmospheric reading. That's certainly not for everyone, and yeah, most of them could (and maybe should) be shorter, but I think a lot of that can be chalked up to cultural differences. I recently attended a Japanese award ceremony, and it was a very long, very formal event with lots of repetitions that kind of made me see his novels in a new light.

  On 12/9/2019 at 11:48 PM, darreichungsform said:

Fuck off, Murakami is da man

I like this simple style of writing. His story telling is finely composed and well paced. Economical I'd almost say. Da man doesn't need complicated sentences and longwinded descriptions. It's all simple and tidy but doesn't lack depth (at least for my shallow mind)

I guess most people here will know this, but he has this method of writing in English and then translating it into Japanese. Not sure if he still applies it to all his novels, but it certainly honed his style.

  On 11/26/2019 at 8:04 AM, rhmilo said:

Someone in another thread (forgot who, sorry) recommended this: Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life by Peter Godfrey-Smith

Very good read. Lots of amusing facts and interesting ideas, all about a subject you probably never gave much thought to before (well, I didn’t, anyway). Will leave you smarter when you finish it than you were when you started, not just about cephalopods and evolution but also about what it means to be intelligent and self-conscious.

Expand  

started reading this as well based on the reccs here, it's good. speeds along and is already presenting things from an interesting perspective. i've read various bits and pieces concerning the subject over the years but never a deep dive into it, from the point of view of a philosopher no less. expecting to breeze through it quickly as well-written as it is.

and i've been reading plenty of Quanta Magazine stuff. if you're into science news that goes deep then it's a must, top-notch reads on a range of topics. https://www.quantamagazine.org/

also there's a Murakami thread for you all to repeat things someone else already said there. 

Finishing up The Crying of Lot 49, plan on reading Confessions of a Mask after.

Just finished In The Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami, read it in about two days n was well disturbed>:)!

Now just diggin through Mark Fishers articles/interviews in K-Punk which i'm lovin. Also started Atrocity Exhibition but fuck knows when i'll actually finish it, ballard is a bit of a unit.

Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer 

I'm not really sure what's going in this novel based in his Borne universe. It's very psychedelic and abstract but with more focus than stream of consciousness. I'm enjoying being lost in a haze of time and dimension shifting realities, traversed by three beings attempting to correct wrongs committed by the Company. Oh, and psychic blue foxes. 

the vatican library has been digitizing thousands of manuscripts, books (mostly from the middle ages and humanist periods) etc

https://digi.vatlib.it/

also started reading this

Goethe - Faust

Robert Schneider - Schlafes Bruder (Brother of Sleep)

William Gibson - Neuromancer 

First two books I read because a German lady (who I'm very fond of) gently demand I read Faust, and I read Brother of Sleep as its one of her favourite books of all time. Both were enjoyable reads.

Neuromancer? Well to be honest I'm on the last chapter and I struggled with it, it has been a chore to get through it. Strange book as it has these stunning descriptive passages like

His vision crawled with Ghost hieroglyphics, translucent lines of symbols arranging themselves against the neutral backdrop of the bunker wall. He looked at the back of his hands, saw faint neon molecules crawling beneath the skin, ordered by the unknowable code. He raised his right hand and moved it experimentally. It left a faint fading trail of strobed after-images.

Which are just incredible then when it shifts to the dialogue and what the characters are doing it's just boring and tedious, and if I was honest I didn't have a clue what the fuck was actually going on. I found it confusing. But the paragraphs like above? I wish I had book compiled of just them. Just beautiful. In fact in hindsight I wish I had book marked the pages where they are because I'd read them over and over. 

  On 1/29/2020 at 7:28 PM, beer badger said:

Neuromancer? Well to be honest I'm on the last chapter and I struggled with it, it has been a chore to get through it. Strange book as it has these stunning descriptive passages

you're probably recognizing why neuromancer is mainly remembered for having initiated the cyberpunk movement. i can't remember having seen it mentioned or praised for it's writing (correct me if i'm wrong here), but nobody in their right mind would deny its aesthetic influence

----

finished 2666 the other day and am highly recommending it. there's this self-aware passage which describes the qualities of lengthy works, as opposed to shorter more refined pieces, quite well, while lamenting that people aren't reading longer books anymore. it's a cliche, but w/e––there's a kernel of truth to it. bolaño, or at least his most prototypical character, reflects over that people rather read the metamorphosis over the trial, or bartleby the scrivener over moby dick (dunno if that's the case though. i feel like nobody's even heard of bartleby, but what do i know). anyhow:

"Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze paths into the great unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle against that something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench." (p. 227)

the fact is, bolaño died before being able to fully revise 2666, which contributes to its imperfection. to me, and what seems like a few scholars on the subject, that's not very noticeable, as a major aspect of bolaños writing is digressional anyway. either way, having read it during a time of upheaval in my own life has been somewhat of a comfort: it's long as shit (900 pages) and allows for distraction, it's very readable in comparison to many other massive classics, it details lives that are going far from according to plan (much like bolaño's own; a consolation), and it is at times hilarious.

myself, i feel like these massive works are like long term therapy: you're opening all these doors, some of which lead to revelations, insights and some form of transformation (to the your own narrative as well as the books'). some are a dead end through which you'll have to backtrack. others are enormous detours which may or may not have consequences. the point being that shorter pieces don't allow for as many digressions, disappointments and whatever else life may bring. as such, they're simply not lifelike. from this point of view, they may be too perfect.

at the end of the day i suppose this is all just a big case for reading long novels and classics in general and 2666 in particular. it's just a real bummer to them bring along when you need a book somewhere. and some people think you're a douche, but fuck them tbh. either way, 10/10 will probably read again. someday.