What are you reading?

[PrinceOfCats]

^I actually just read it for school. I can't read it to make it anything different from Sade, boredom arranged in a complex pattern. (Admittedly, writing a dissertation à la française can make just about anything seem boring.) Same goes for Ionesco and Beckett... Duras is about the earliest this stuff starts to get readable.

Good for learning French sex vocab though. My translation dictionary only gives the slightly prim 'la sperme' for 'come'.

[Fade to Black]

yeah I read the text in English my French is very rusty.

I think the afterword by the author explaining his choice in imagery ties it up together somewhat...but the meat of the novella (ie the whole story) just doesn't really work without that last part, which is why it doesn't gel with me.

[Real Real]

John Cheever?

http://web.sbu.edu/english/faculty/mjackson/CLAR110/cheever.htm

[Fade to Black]

faust good call on Kundera's Immortality. Reading it right after ULOB was a one-two punch that had me completely floored. The sixth sequence ("The Dial") left me breathless, that section on its own was unbelievable - out of this world, out of this universe, out of time and space. Consider my mind thoroughly blown, my worldview and notions of things like self, being, sex, love, chance completely altered yet again in just a 2nd reading of MK. He went far with ULOB in his lofty philosophical meditations, but on this one he just took it even further beyond even what I was expecting. Sounds hyperbolic, but haven't had any experience that left me after I was done with the book, I was kinda staggering and disoriented for a good while.

Not too often I say this even though I seem to dish out praise a lot - but this is one of those rare books that can really change a person. I've heard this description used for a lot of things, and even though they may have been things I appreciated, didn't really get the impact of that sentence til now. The guy is saying things with a novel that even a powerful nonfiction treatise like The Black Swan doesn't quite tie together as finely.

[Faust]

I'm glad you liked it. It had the same exact effect on me when I read it for the first time, which was a while ago. The sucky thing is that when you come to these masterpieces later and you want to talk to people about it, and people tell you (in academia), "well, he is not very fashionable to read now." Funk you.

Reading Summer in Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin. Real-real, a must read for you, I think.

[Fade to Black]

The sucky thing is that when you come to these masterpieces later and you want to talk to people about it, and people tell you (in academia), "well, he is not very fashionable to read now." Funk you.

this is one of the reasons I'm hesitant about re-entering the world of academia for some higher-higher education. In theory it's nice to have a community of people who also like reading and discussing this kind of stuff, but at the same time I have spent some brief time within social circles populated by such 'literati' and notice there's the same politics and fickle maneuvering amongst even such a crowd which I would've expected to be the opposite of a bureaucratic organization like a large corporation or the government. I find that sharing each other's original work or even discussing commonly admired famous works becomes more like a show of one-upmanship and schmoozing as if it was some cocktail party, I'd rather read for my own enjoyment if that's the case. Looks like everywhere you go it's the same old, same old...

[kira]

Academia is not bad. It depends upon who you are learning with. I found the best exchanges with my students were when I pushed outside what is fashionable, which was most of the time.

[mamaboy]

baudelaire....talking about parfums in every second verse...

[kira]

I just read this small 'self-help' piece by Scott King. It is called Anxiety & Depression: Climb Out of the Cellar of Your Mind. Quite funny.

Small excerpt from Illustration of Anxiety #01: Binman Hates Me

I shouldn't have put broken glass in that bin bag.

Or at least I should've wrapped it up in the newspaper- several sheets, then taped it up as well.

The binman is bound to cut his hand.

He's going to sue me. It's not the suing that I am bothered about.

He'll think I'm some ignorant thoughtless arsehole who doesn't care about him or his hand.

He'll probably stop taking my rubbish, and I don't blame him.

If he won't collect my rubbish I'll end up with rats in my garden.

I'm trying to sell my house.

How will I ever sell my house with rats running about?

It'll be my fault. It is my fault.

I'll write to the Council and apologise.

But, If I let them know that I'm still here, they'll start chasing me for unpaid Council tax.

Then I'll have to pay off the three year backlog of Council tax.

I haven't got three-and-a-half grand to pay the fucking Council tax.

They'll send the bailiffs round. I can't let them take my computer.

It's got all my ideas on it.

I should start to print of all my ideas and save them in a binder.

My printer doesn't work...

[kira]

kira, that was fucking priceless. nearly sent me to the floor.

That is just a small part of one 'exercise'. It is quite brilliant.

[Real Real]

Reading Summer in Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin. Real-real, a must read for you, I think.

Thanks for the recommendation, I will check it out.

[mamaboy]

kundera,bulgakov.....why waist time?
appollinaire is much better touching.....

[grapz]

Reading Infinite jest

[skecr8r_l8r]

kundera,bulgakov.....why waist time?
appollinaire is much better touching.....

How can you even compare them?

[Fade to Black]

at this point i am convinced mamaboy is dominidior/dioruchka of the Golden Age of Hedi Slimane at MSN Groups Dot Com

Even if it's not, I'd like to pretend it is. Long time no see, my main man.