what are you reading now?

[Corpsey]

Oh don't get me wrong I'm sure it's good

When you're that young nothing could be more hideously boring than a bunch of toothless rustics dancing around a furze faggot at night

Get enough of that at home, if you're from a village

 

[Benny Bunter]

my dad always advised me not to read the books cos it would only confuse me. just learn what you are supposed to think about them.

Yeah that's pretty much what I did with most of them, you'd get those York Notes books and they would get you through no problem.

.

 

[DLaurent]

One of my favourites is Isle of Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. I mentioned it elsewhere and was told it was curriculum in the states. We read Shakespeare, Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies for GCSE, but were allowed to choose our own book for part of the study. I chose Matilda and my teacher ridiculed me saying it was too simple.

 

[luka]

choosing a book written for 8 year olds was genius. dont listen to her. we did lord of the flues too i forgot that

 

[0bleak]

never heard of that Scott O'Dell book
Animal Farm and LotF were standard over here, too
of course curriculum varies from district to district and also over time

 

[version]

Giving Ulysses a crack. Got stuck on the Shakespeare library dialogue a week ago and haven't picked it up since.

Keep going.

 

[Corpsey]

I can't conceive of reading Ulysses without annotated notes, unless you just give up on understanding huge chunks of it which I suppose is a valid way of reading it, certainly most of the people who read it before the scholars decoded it must have spent lengthy stretches quite bemused and irritated

 

[Corpsey]

I quite enjoyed the library bit as I recall but I did have the notes to guide me through the strait between scylla / Charybdis

What I remember is the contrast between Aristotle and Plato - and Stephen representing Aristotle by clutching to the rock of actuals, of biography, vs. the airy abstractions (and mystic bard worship) of the theosophists

But also you are to understand that Stephen is bullshitting a lot of the time

Anyway, isn't wandering rocks after that? That's one of the best bits

 

[IdleRich]

one of the first times I went to London a girl tried to chat me up coz I was reading songs of experience and innocence or whatever it's called, some edition with the carvings or paintings in or whatever they are, on the tube. it was absolutely amazing. nothing remotely like that has ever happened to me again

Tried? What went wrong?

I've read some really random stuff lately. I found The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen on the shelf and I enjoyed it a lot, a strangely detached yet affecting story of a normal/dysfunctional family with some properly funny bits.