IdleRich

IdleRich
Great study of a benign (in his own eyes) dictator... just gotta do this one thing that can't be fucked up and then I will relinquish my powers honest...
Relevant today when we were talking about Marquis de Pombal who kinda took over Portugal and forced through needed reforms... by killing people who disagreed. Also Philip the Fair in the Accursed Kings.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Wasn't it Claudius whose wife was so contemptuous of him that while he was away campaigning with the legions she challenged the most famous whore in Rome to see who could fuck the most men in a day?

Something like that, anyway.
 

catalog

Well-known member
BTW finished the ‘providence’ alan moore comic the other day, its very good. You need to have read the courtyard and the neomonicon first. I think fans of lovecraft (im not familiar with him, but this is persuading me) will like it, lots of spins on him
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Claudius was famously ugly... lame and stuttering and everyone thought he was an idiot, hence he was the only one not murdered and ended up emperor by default
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Speaking of emperors, I'm sure I mentioned this in the GoT thread, but it was a stroke of genius to cast a lad who's the dead spit of Caligula as Joffrey:

2SNwe3ploU8e7AV3ETMYs12ZGphTrZt-kSfW792-Bj4.jpg
 

version

Well-known member
-- finished Carpenter's Gothic last night. It gets difficult to work out exactly what's going on toward the end but thought it was great. It's a shame there isn't as much out there on Gaddis as there is Pynchon as there's a ton of stuff to chase up and he purposefully leaves gaps in the narrative.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
That does sound intriguing. My mind has gone to mush at the moment, I can hardly concentrate. Read a book called Big Machine by some guy called Lavalle... strange book with some interesting ideas but it somehow wasn't that interesting over all. Took me ages to get through it for some reason. Possibly cos it wasn't that good but possibly because I'm a zombie.
Realised I had one of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series unread on my shelf, dunno if I'm gonna finish all fifteen 1000 page plus books(!) but this one is absolutely the kind of undemanding nonsense I can bathe my brain in for a few days without having to think too hard. The first one is an absolutely shameless rip-off of Lord of the Rings but as you go it diverges from that - it has to have some extra stuff in it really, there are around 20,000 pages to fill if it carries on at this rate.
 

version

Well-known member
That does sound intriguing.

It's apparently considered one of his two weakest novels but he's good enough that it's still decent. It's a bit like a collapsed and fragmented soap opera, lots of domestic disputes and infidelity and everyone's scamming or hiding something from someone. He writes himself in as a ranting, untrustworthy geologist working for the CIA.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I know nothing about his other novels, not even the names, gonna look at his wiki page now and fill in some blanks.
 

version

Well-known member
I finally managed to get a copy of J R the other week. It's always been like £40 second hand and I managed to find it on eBay for £17 so had to swoop in and nab it.
 
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