what are you reading now?
or the Scum Manifesto...
you
Well-known member
Hello Dissensus... im reading
"The Road" at the moment, after I got to grips with his writing style, ive found it readable and almost gripping, but im kinda wary of it, the image and idea is so stark and simple I think one could project umpteen different meaning into it ( kinda like paulo cuelo ?sp? , except McCarthy is at least 12 times better ), I also cant help but feel that what makes it so compulsive is an easy language and plodding plot, like Mark Haddon. I dont mean to slate this book, its just im not sitting reading being blown away by it, maybe when I finish it ill come back eat my words and edit this post.
EDIT-SPOILER------ I finished it last night, its quite an optimistic book?!?! I kept expecting him to kill the boy and himself, hence why the number of bullets where mentioned, in a pretty negative nihilistic fashion but no! Its was much more uplifting than I expected, pretty optimistic in my mind.
I read Dorian Gray some months ago, I feel bad it didnt impress me. The style of writing really narc''d me and I found myself getting annoyed at the relentless descriptions of silk or gilding or jewells or whatever......
So, yeah, one too simplistic and one to waffly and overly expressive.
Ive been on a dostoevsky binge and have read "notes from the underground", "the gambler" and "the double" - the double really got to me, wonderful stuff, so many books and films are like it, it really got me thinking. "notes.." is great but as an intellectual piece, a response to "what is to be done" by wotshisname(?)chernysove??. I have my eyes on Bros Karamazov next.... anyone read it?
I also have found myself drawn to Sci Fi - ... I havent read much, just Atwood, 1984, fahrehheit 451, War of the worlds etc etc.... im thinking of looking into some P.K.Dick or Assimov, ive been kinda distracted with Cyberpunkism, extropianism.... Hans Moravecks "mind children" ??? Guess I should start with neuromancer really?
"The Road" at the moment, after I got to grips with his writing style, ive found it readable and almost gripping, but im kinda wary of it, the image and idea is so stark and simple I think one could project umpteen different meaning into it ( kinda like paulo cuelo ?sp? , except McCarthy is at least 12 times better ), I also cant help but feel that what makes it so compulsive is an easy language and plodding plot, like Mark Haddon. I dont mean to slate this book, its just im not sitting reading being blown away by it, maybe when I finish it ill come back eat my words and edit this post.
EDIT-SPOILER------ I finished it last night, its quite an optimistic book?!?! I kept expecting him to kill the boy and himself, hence why the number of bullets where mentioned, in a pretty negative nihilistic fashion but no! Its was much more uplifting than I expected, pretty optimistic in my mind.
I read Dorian Gray some months ago, I feel bad it didnt impress me. The style of writing really narc''d me and I found myself getting annoyed at the relentless descriptions of silk or gilding or jewells or whatever......
So, yeah, one too simplistic and one to waffly and overly expressive.
Ive been on a dostoevsky binge and have read "notes from the underground", "the gambler" and "the double" - the double really got to me, wonderful stuff, so many books and films are like it, it really got me thinking. "notes.." is great but as an intellectual piece, a response to "what is to be done" by wotshisname(?)chernysove??. I have my eyes on Bros Karamazov next.... anyone read it?
I also have found myself drawn to Sci Fi - ... I havent read much, just Atwood, 1984, fahrehheit 451, War of the worlds etc etc.... im thinking of looking into some P.K.Dick or Assimov, ive been kinda distracted with Cyberpunkism, extropianism.... Hans Moravecks "mind children" ??? Guess I should start with neuromancer really?
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mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
Yeah, I definitely start with that. Gibson's like crack or a casual sex binge, you just go through it really fast and then don't touch it again but it's good while it lasts.
I'm re-reading Jack Black's 'You Can't Win' which is just a fabulous criminal underworld bio/novel, set around 20s America and hobos and prisons and all that romantic shit. I got into all sorts of trouble when I read it first time, it's such a bad influence, I'd recommend it to anyone.
Wilde's hard to get into, you have to really get into the period or read around decadence or his life to go there without finding it overmannered, but he was a total master of something, but I went really heavy into all the decadent shit.
it turns out that one can go back to it, and there is something there to go back to ... at least this is my recent experience with gibson. he has some pretty interesting things to imply.
don_quixote
Trent End
read titus groan on holiday. i had actually tried to start it about three times before but found the start almost unpenetrable for casual reading and once i'd got through it (it's not particularly bad, i don't know why i found his at all!!) i couldn't put it down. fuschia fascinated and thrilled me, surely 1946 is way too early for this teenage angst stuff? i'm never entirely sure how old she is, nanny slagg seems to suggest she's fifteen at some point, but it's always suggested she's a lot younger than steerpike (who i initially loved in the tv series and was delighted that he lived up to expectations) at seventeen. which was confusing.
does keda commit suicide? i could never quite make it out.
don_quixote
Trent End
i would say please don't spoil the future books for me, but it was really strange reading the book eight years after watching the tv series, because certain things came back to me and i knew what was going to happen.
Just finished Miranda July's book of short stories No One Belongs Here More Than You.
Started off thinking them sort of contrived in their fey-ness but by the end I was convinced that the quirks are all quite genuine. The stories all deal in observation rather than emotion, which makes it read somewhat like The Curious Incident of the Dog.
If enjoyed her film (the name of which temporarily slips my mind) then this book is pretty much in that vein.
Served as a good interlude to Satanic Verses which I'll continue battling my way through next, if I don't get side-tracked by wifey's copy of Belle du Jour.
Started off thinking them sort of contrived in their fey-ness but by the end I was convinced that the quirks are all quite genuine. The stories all deal in observation rather than emotion, which makes it read somewhat like The Curious Incident of the Dog.
If enjoyed her film (the name of which temporarily slips my mind) then this book is pretty much in that vein.
Served as a good interlude to Satanic Verses which I'll continue battling my way through next, if I don't get side-tracked by wifey's copy of Belle du Jour.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Just read Hunger by Knut Hamsun and The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille, both good fun and short and easy to read so you'll be done with them in a day or so. Hunger is definitely great whereas the other one was just silly but if you're into watersports and stuff I guess it's for you. Next on the pile is Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse which ought to be good.
By way of first post I will say, yes, I too just finished reading this book and found it insightful and at times down right creepily so. I think it carries her style well.
The film is "Me, You, and Everyone We Know" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0415978/
which I would recommend highly.
Currently reading Bass Culture - Lloyd Bradley
so.... yeah... hello and all that
I had some problems to get into it as well, I blame it on the language, Peake's ornamental gothic style was a bit hard for a foreign reader like me. But it fits the whole atmosphere of the castle. I agree with you on Fuchsia. The chapter about her attic is just beautiful.
heroesandvillains
Lono ̴
Roberto Bolano
The late Mexican author Roberto Bolano has got me hooked.
Recently finished his The Savage Detectives which was absolutely spellbinding. And now and working my way through his collection of short stories Last Evenings On Earth which may be one of the more melancholy things i've ever read, but I still can't put it down.
This New Yorker article lays bare his compelling place as one of the most important authors in contemporary Latin American literature.
The late Mexican author Roberto Bolano has got me hooked.
Recently finished his The Savage Detectives which was absolutely spellbinding. And now and working my way through his collection of short stories Last Evenings On Earth which may be one of the more melancholy things i've ever read, but I still can't put it down.
This New Yorker article lays bare his compelling place as one of the most important authors in contemporary Latin American literature.
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mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
I came to Gormenghast late, and read them all back to back, and I'd highly recommend making it to Titus Alone, Peake's syphilis was really kicking in at that point I think, and I remember being really shocked at what he does with it.
His sense of creating space within books is paralled only by Dante I think, reading them just feels huge.
this might mean i am a retard or a pervert, but i read Story of the Eye in like a day, but got like 20 pages into Hunger and quit b/c i thought it was one of those books that would take me 6 months to read...
jenks
thread death
Donne : The Reformed Soul.
Not that anyone here will actually engage in a discussion about books and writers.
He wrote on the death of one of his children:
"By children's births, and deaths, I am become
So dry, that I am am now mine owne sad tomb"
And that makes me ache with sadness.
This is absolutely brilliant, a real insight into his world and where his poems and sermons came from. Lucid and convincing - in the way that Greenblatt, Bate and Shapiro have been on Shakespeare.
I said it before here, but in my pisssed rage I'll say it again. What is the point in this forum? I am sure that amidst all this intelligent comment there are readers who read more than the dissensus reading list if Ballard, Gibson and Dick.
Maybe we should just give up the ghost and just have a place to discuss dubstep and ephemera and not bother with books - it's why i came here originally and why i really don't bother posting so much any more - i thought people might broaden my horizons but generally they haven't. Shame.
C'mon readers let's see a bit of reaction here.
Not that anyone here will actually engage in a discussion about books and writers.
He wrote on the death of one of his children:
"By children's births, and deaths, I am become
So dry, that I am am now mine owne sad tomb"
And that makes me ache with sadness.
This is absolutely brilliant, a real insight into his world and where his poems and sermons came from. Lucid and convincing - in the way that Greenblatt, Bate and Shapiro have been on Shakespeare.
I said it before here, but in my pisssed rage I'll say it again. What is the point in this forum? I am sure that amidst all this intelligent comment there are readers who read more than the dissensus reading list if Ballard, Gibson and Dick.
Maybe we should just give up the ghost and just have a place to discuss dubstep and ephemera and not bother with books - it's why i came here originally and why i really don't bother posting so much any more - i thought people might broaden my horizons but generally they haven't. Shame.
C'mon readers let's see a bit of reaction here.
you
Well-known member
So what did you think of Harry Potters last????
but seriously.... its difficult to have a discussion about a book or writer unless everyone is familiar... So unless you can find many people with similar reading history its unlikely its going to happen, obviously. But I like the fact that everyone reads something the next man hasnt, it means one can scan over dissensus whilst adding stuff onto ones wishlist!!!
Even on book forums, or author forums the disscusion is not consistently interesting, even over at dostoevsky forum ( that you would expect to attract people with some intelligence, more than Mark Haddon forum, if there is one ? at least ) the dialogue often derails into "so is he good or bad" or "which book is best" surprising for such a complex author- but I really think its down to the forum nature that makes 'lemming' reply styles all to easy to fall into. And so a question - reply - agreement - agreement - agreement etc etc etc starts to happen all too often.... I think the most interesting threads ive ever read usually contain just 2 or 3 intelligent people discussing/exploring a specific topic.
Perhaps the best way to get a discussion of some worth would be to have a book of the month thread where the previous months book themes could be discussed in detail between a dozen or so dissensus members????
The other tendency of these "what are you reading" threads is it encourages a tendency to just state what your reading, and unless you state 1984 or naked lunch or something people can rarely contribute.
Sooooo
Im reading Houellebecq's "Lanzarote" and Flauberts "Bouvard and Pecuchet".
but seriously.... its difficult to have a discussion about a book or writer unless everyone is familiar... So unless you can find many people with similar reading history its unlikely its going to happen, obviously. But I like the fact that everyone reads something the next man hasnt, it means one can scan over dissensus whilst adding stuff onto ones wishlist!!!
Even on book forums, or author forums the disscusion is not consistently interesting, even over at dostoevsky forum ( that you would expect to attract people with some intelligence, more than Mark Haddon forum, if there is one ? at least ) the dialogue often derails into "so is he good or bad" or "which book is best" surprising for such a complex author- but I really think its down to the forum nature that makes 'lemming' reply styles all to easy to fall into. And so a question - reply - agreement - agreement - agreement etc etc etc starts to happen all too often.... I think the most interesting threads ive ever read usually contain just 2 or 3 intelligent people discussing/exploring a specific topic.
Perhaps the best way to get a discussion of some worth would be to have a book of the month thread where the previous months book themes could be discussed in detail between a dozen or so dissensus members????
The other tendency of these "what are you reading" threads is it encourages a tendency to just state what your reading, and unless you state 1984 or naked lunch or something people can rarely contribute.
Sooooo
Im reading Houellebecq's "Lanzarote" and Flauberts "Bouvard and Pecuchet".
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Well, it's Dissensus so wouldn't we have to poo-poo Kerouac while praising John Clellon Holmes as an undervalued master
? Great idea to raise some kind of discussion, though. I'm always amazed by the lack of proper book-related message boards on the internet. I remember that the book threads always seemed more lively when I was a spectre around a year or so ago.Just finishing off a Zola kick, digging through "The Earth" after finishing "Therese Raquin". Would love to see a proper chat get started! (That being said, I must confess to reading Ballard's "Concrete Island" in between, jenks...mea culpa!). I'm not familiar with Donne myself, but the couplet quoted above is incredibly moving.