What are you reading?

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post-modernism is addictive

right now i'm reading kerouac on the road. surprised it took someone like me this long to finally get to this book. it's been in the back of my mind for the past decade.

[skecr8r_l8r]

Kerouac is in my mind just someone you need to have read, regardless of background or literary knowledge. I have always been more fascinated by Howl, though.
I'm reading Borges' "Ficciones" as bedtime stories. He is an author I identify with on all levels -- personal, aesthetic, and critical -- but I feel like he is so horribly translated that it ruins the depth of the stories. Am I the only one that feels like Hurley is decimating his reputation for non-native speakers of spanish?

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yeah I think Kerouac is a must read for any young person trying to find themselves - which is basically everybody. It's a shame that the adult world of today has forgotten the joy in such aimlessly futile idealism and curiosity...restlessness is a rare virtue today.

Right after I'm done with this i'm gonna hunt down the books that were listed at the back which were also put out by Penguin - Steppenwolf, A Confederacy of Dunces, Junky. Never even occurred to me to check out all this work which is probably taken for granted in most literary circles much like how cinephiles don't really need to speak about Taxi Driver or The Godfather any more. This type of writing is the vehicle through which I identify with the world these days...

[Faust]

I envy you Faust, I am still too lost in post-modernism's foggy universe to begin with Mieke Bal, but I am as anxious as a little child waiting for christmas to see what she offers. Thanks for reminding me of her works!

What post of mine are you referring to? I'm lost :-)

On the Road was O.K. I suppose. Howl, yea, that's another story.

[Faust]

yeah I think Kerouac is a must read for any young person trying to find themselves - which is basically everybody. It's a shame that the adult world of today has forgotten the joy in such aimlessly futile idealism and curiosity...restlessness is a rare virtue today.

Right after I'm done with this i'm gonna hunt down the books that were listed at the back which were also put out by Penguin - Steppenwolf, A Confederacy of Dunces, Junky. Never even occurred to me to check out all this work which is probably taken for granted in most literary circles much like how cinephiles don't really need to speak about Taxi Driver or The Godfather any more. This type of writing is the vehicle through which I identify with the world these days...

So, postmodernism won?

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hahahaha touche

what's this Howl? I'm intrigued...the title alone appeals to me.

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i was thinking about the very word 'postmodernism' and have come to realize that it is probably the hardest word to define out any in my immediate vocabulary. It's definitely the thing that would take the most words to define a single word. If i had to explain it in Chinese, to a local native, I would most likely find it impossible. I haven't gotten into any local literature or philosophy, but with the general cultural mores on this side of the world, I wonder if such a thing is even conceivable.

[Faust]

i was thinking about the very word 'postmodernism' and have come to realize that it is probably the hardest word to define out any in my immediate vocabulary. It's definitely the thing that would take the most words to define a single word. If i had to explain it in Chinese, to a local native, I would most likely find it impossible. I haven't gotten into any local literature or philosophy, but with the general cultural mores on this side of the world, I wonder if such a thing is even conceivable.

The word is not definable. It's best to read something on it.

Howl is the most famous Allen Ginsberg's poem. You will like it.

[Purity]

Howl is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg (Carlo Marx in "on the road").

Edit: Faust beat me to it.

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The word is not definable. It's best to read something on it.

yeah that's the best way to sum it up. Whoever coined the name for this concept was brilliant...i don't know if intentionally so, but the very mind-fuck nature of its ineffable essence itself i think just about sums it up. The ultimate paradox.

[Faust]

yeah that's the best way to sum it up. Whoever coined the name for this concept was brilliant...i don't know if intentionally so, but the very mind-fuck nature of its ineffable essence itself i think just about sums it up. The ultimate paradox.

The essense is very "effable," just not easily definable. It's too broad of a subject to define in a few sentences, that's all.

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yeah...perhaps i haven't even grasped the full meaning of the term yet. i feel like postmodernism is something i can feel rather than actually put into words. i dunno...

[Faust]

yeah...perhaps i haven't even grasped the full meaning of the term yet. i feel like postmodernism is something i can feel rather than actually put into words. i dunno...

Not sure what you mean. Can you explain?

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well, the first time i heard the word used, i went to look it up on Wiki, and this little blurb pretty much captures how I personally define the concept:

"Largely influenced by the Western European disillusionment induced by World War II, postmodernism tends to refer to a cultural, intellectual, or artistic state lacking a clear central hierarchy or organizing principle and embodying extreme complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, diversity, interconnectedness or interreferentiality,[3] in a way that is often indistinguishable from a parody of itself. "

so basically, i interpret postmodernism as any kind of presentation of aesthetic or intellectual form that serves as a reaction/criticism to dissatisfaction with modern values by proposing a dimension of something surreal, or maybe unreal. Thus the idea of bringing back a conceptual repackaging of 'traditional/old' values (i say repackaging, because the term traditional itself i think is largely reinvented as the 'now' eventually becomes the 'old/traditional,' hence i think anything that is described as such is often the reflection of an ideal that never really existed in full similarity), or hypermodern values, basically anything that challenges the existing status quo. Postmodernism is a reactionary tool.

I don't really bother with reading the whole article every time i hear the word used to apply meaning to something i was unfamiliar with, as the article is far too long and dense and my attention span is short (e.g. that example in the wiki about wooden booth being postmodern...i would have no idea how the fuck to visualize or grasp such an image, but perhaps if i actually saw it, i'd be able to kinda form in my mind an idea of why the label was used).

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on that note, i don't think it's healthy to spend all of one's time doin nothin but reading and writing, which is practically what i've been up to this entire past week.

i just wiki'd derrida, and this guy's shit is so complex, he looks like he's sayin a lot but i think he's not really sayin shit...lol @ that criticism of him using impossible language to get across very simple ideas. lately i've been finding myself falling into this bad habit...obviously not to that degree, but in regular conversations i find myself trying to express a simple idea with a really abstract analogy that i think only really made sense when i was piecing it together, or contains a reference too obscure to a passerby (well, they aren't really obscure, but over here, something like Tony Soprano is considered complicated to the point that the show "is boring. Nothing ever happens, i don't get what this is supposed to be about.")