OT: What are you reading?

Images: My Life in Film by Ingmar Bergman

In case you’re wondering, yes this is first time. Also I’ve never seen Truffaut’s film that Roeg shot. This falls under the “I may not have read it but it practically feels like I have so I might as well get it over with in case there’s something to it that goes undiscussed” tag.

—DiB

Hell I might just finish this in one day, it burns by pretty quickly.

I think this book is interesting in the fact that many of its passages and descriptions seem to have been transcribed into a form of popular consciousness, not just the story concept itself. Those sorts of bumper sticker like arguments like, “Of course I drive slowly, I’m looking at the trees!” and conversation, not inaccurate, about whether schools are teaching thought or data. Bradbury isn’t the first to say this but the vibrancy of writing is such that most of the arguments that surround these issues today seem to take on his language.

1984 is different in that people responded to the concept but did not really take in the language. Some imagery here there, such as Big Brother, or memorable verbal cues, such as double plus ungood, but the conversation between Beatty and Montag is almost repeated word for word variously on this board, whereas I struggle to find people who can remember much about the O’Brien and Winston conversation beyond “2+2=5”. The structural historical breakdown of social organization that Orwell reveals is forgotten most of the time. People who say “1984 is coming!” missed the point, Orwell points out that it’s always existed as a function of mass complex civilization.

Note that O’Brien and Beatty are both characters who have power and lead the suppression, but have actual access to truth and the history that’s being repressed. And they both believe in what they are doing as a logical conclusion to what they know from philosophy and history.

—PolarisDiB

Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist
by John Piper

Yep, finished. But a day’s read, especially for us Satantango sit-through types.

—DiB

Halfway through Rules of attraction. Ellis is such a boring writer imo. once you get over the ‘shock’ value—which doesnt really work anymore—there is very little to sink your teeth into. it is impressive that he got so many novels written at such a young age but he isnt for me. never was.

Right now, 80 pages in, this book is really funny. Don’t know if the humor will stick and the character’s prose (nudging toward purple prose) starts getting annoying. But I do like the moment when Renee realizes that intellectuals are opening up about being intellectually open to pop culture and she feels like she’s been betrayed because she thought she was the only one who simultaneously reads Proust and loved The Hunt for Red October.

This is of a pile of stuff I started when I was sick at my mother’s house, once I’m done with this I’m done I may start with a stack of Vonnegut.

—PolarisDiB

I like Proust and The Hunt for Red October. Well, I read it a long time ago. Dig the movie, tho.

Book references the movie. It’s in context to actually two significant events in the narrator’s life, the death of her husband and the first stirrings in her narration so far of desiring to investigate what other people think about the things she thinks about (in the previous 80 pages, it’s all snark and exasperation).

—DiB

ROSARIO + VAMPIRE (manga)

Thanks for reminding me about that Bradbury novel. i’m going to pick up a copy this weekend.

Some heavy reading:

Blood in the Moonlight: Michael Mann and Information Age Cinema by Mark E. Wildermuth

Information Age Cinema sounds like something I want to read about.

….Michael Mann??!

In other news, like a boss:

—PolarisDiB

Wish me luck. I’m going in…

" Ellis is such a boring writer imo."

Flatness, both of style and of affect, is part of his thing, though. Rules of Attraction among my least favorite of his books, though.

Has anyone read the Penguin Classics edition of Fantomas and would it be recommended as a blind buy? Only asking because there isn’t any copy of the novel in the local library system and I don’t own a Kindle.

Finished The Recognitions last night, it’s going to take rereadings to catch everything. So many cases of mistaken identity and coincidence.

Started Moby Dick today, and whutzisname was a little mistaken: Ishmael walks into the inn and looks at the painting 15 pages in, not 50. Ya stopped at 15 pages of a 600+ page book! Ah, but to be fair… his version had more text on each page. Perhaps it was only 10 pages? “It was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to [the painting], and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose.” Har! But really, a great ominous opening! The etymology and extracts! The first thing he does is tackle the word “Whale” in english and other languages. Then a chronological series of Whale quotations, beginning with:

“And God created great whales.”
-Genesis

Honestly I had expected to read it through a couple of days ago but I spent all day chatting with you all instead.

—DiB

DiB -

I’ve queued up some Vonnegut for future reading. Haven’t read anything by him yet. Which would you recommend I start with?

Unfortunately all I’ve read is Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions. I’ve known even when I read Slaughterhouse Five first that it’s sort of an exception in his career, yes very good but also not really quite the same ‘style’ as he typifies, so really you could read either of the two books I read first and get a very good appreciation for the dude’s mind. Some other Vonnegut scholar here could probably answer that question better.

I’m only reading Cat’s Cradle and Mother Night next because right now I’m attacking my roommates’ bookshelves and just burning through stuff that I’ve both not read and looks interesting, and the four books I’ve mentioned are the ones they own (though I read Slaughterhouse Five when I was, like, thirteen). I’m not necessarily on a specific Vonnegut binge.

—PolarisDiB

@SCAMPI
Cat’s Cradle get’s Kurt’s personal highest grade (along with Slaughterhouse-Five). He graded his work for a Rolling Stone article later republshed in Palm Sunday (1981).

Player Piano (1952) B
The Sirens of Titan (1959) A
Mother Night (1961) A
Cat’s Cradle (1963) A+
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) A
Welcome to the Monkeyhouse (1968) B-
Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) A+
Breakfast of Champions (1973) C
Slapstick (1976) D
Jailbird (1979) A
Palm Sunday (1981) C

He is a little hard on Slapstick and Breakfast of Champions (two of my favourites). By all means start with the terrific Cat’s Cradle and perhaps then move on to The Sirens of Titan, his most “science-fictiony”.
For what’s worth there isn’t a Vonnegut novel I haven’t liked and I’ve read most of them (I still haven’t read Player Piano, his first, or Timequake, his last).

^ Interesting. Thanks guys :)

Slaughterhouse Five, Cat’s Cradle, and Mother Night are the top tier of his work. And make sure you read “Harrison Bergeron”, which is collected in Welcome to the Monkey House, but should also be pretty easy to find free on-line.