what are you reading now?
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Interviewer: ‘When do you take drugs?’
Fausto Coppi: ‘Whenever it is necessary.’
Interviewer: ‘And when is it necessary?’
Fausto Coppi: ‘Almost always.’
Fausto Coppi: ‘Whenever it is necessary.’
Interviewer: ‘And when is it necessary?’
Fausto Coppi: ‘Almost always.’
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
30-somethings are leaving da yoot in the dust last time I looked...
slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
Great book, that. Really captures the attitude of 'grunts'. And the whole madness of the war.
slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
The Beetle - Richard Marsh > late-Victorian horror which, for the first book, is amazing in it's depiction of the grotesque scenario, but Book Two settles into a more normal, but quiet enjoyable, adventure.
woops
is not like other people
basically agree but not with the transition bit. Queer is so unlike Junky which shows signs of all the warped and drugged out humour and madness to come. Queer is very different, a lot more personal and not really a 'Burroughsian' (?) book. That is far from a criticism by the way.
slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
Burroughsian in the sense that as a multi-dimensional author who constantly fed his own life experience and world view into even the most fantastical scenarios it's an early chapter in a life that formed the whole ever-evolving Book of Burroughs. Probably.
Lucia Lanigan
Member
I wrote a thing about Arthur Machen ages ago, which went up today, if anyone's interested: http://thequietus.com/articles/08758-leave-the-capitol-the-weird-tales-of-arthur-machen
(I've finally abandoned the ambitious series about books I'd intended it to kick off - too much work for 0p a word, sadly.)
(I've finally abandoned the ambitious series about books I'd intended it to kick off - too much work for 0p a word, sadly.)
blacktulip
Pregnant with mandrakes
Nice Machen thing, good work.
Another great article I found time to read this week: http://harpers.org/blog/2012/10/monopoly-is-theft/
Covers the fascinating history of the board game Monopoly, its mechanics, its roots in anti-landlordism and its subsequent co-opting by the forces of greed and er... monopolism.
Another great article I found time to read this week: http://harpers.org/blog/2012/10/monopoly-is-theft/
Covers the fascinating history of the board game Monopoly, its mechanics, its roots in anti-landlordism and its subsequent co-opting by the forces of greed and er... monopolism.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
This is great timing, I've just re-read The Great God Pan and there's loads of Machen talk right now on a Lovecraft forum I post on. Lovely article, especially your focus on London's peculiar aptness as a setting for weird fiction.
I haven't read The Red Hand but loved this passage:
reminds me of:
"There rolls the deep where grew the tree;
O Earth, what changes hast thou seen!
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central Sea."
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Lucia Lanigan
Member
Thanks for the kind words all. It's nice being able to write about tales you can link directly to for free, actually, cause books time tends to be quite slow normally.
Idlerich - hah, you've hit on a thing about Machen there. People who write/talk about him soon drift away from the subject to ride their hobby horse instead. Occultists call him an occult writer, then ignore his tales to talk about Aleister Crowley instead. Psychoegeography types big him up as a London detail man, then sort of talk about local history instead (the locations in his tales actually tend to be either vague and fictional, or major and central like the British Museum or Oxford Street). Horror fans tend to mention him and then talk about Lovecraft instead.
Idlerich - hah, you've hit on a thing about Machen there. People who write/talk about him soon drift away from the subject to ride their hobby horse instead. Occultists call him an occult writer, then ignore his tales to talk about Aleister Crowley instead. Psychoegeography types big him up as a London detail man, then sort of talk about local history instead (the locations in his tales actually tend to be either vague and fictional, or major and central like the British Museum or Oxford Street). Horror fans tend to mention him and then talk about Lovecraft instead.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Believe the hype.
slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
Skip the descriptions of every whale in the ocean and your larfing. As Tea says, believe the hype.
empty mirror
remember the jackalope
Moby Dick is amazing. Wish I was reading it now.
I am reading Dead Zone. I've only ever read one other book of King's before. Enjoying this one a lot. Took me a long time to get over myself to try reading him.
I tried reading World War Z but it is so poorly written. And (un)dead boring.
I am reading Dead Zone. I've only ever read one other book of King's before. Enjoying this one a lot. Took me a long time to get over myself to try reading him.
I tried reading World War Z but it is so poorly written. And (un)dead boring.
viktorvaughn
Well-known member
I'm loving Alan Hollinghurst at the mo.
The Line of Beauty was great an am not enjoying The Strangers Child - little echoes of Brideshead Revisited, Atonement and also reminding my of Downton Abbey strangely having watched that at Xmas with the fammo.
I love his minutely observed ebbs and flows of human emotion most I think, very acute. Some of the touches are almost too heavy in plotting, eg in TLOB the main character is called Nick Guest, like er i get the fact he's a 'guest' throughout the entire book and doesn't quite fit in.. both the observations and prose are fantastic.
The Line of Beauty was great an am not enjoying The Strangers Child - little echoes of Brideshead Revisited, Atonement and also reminding my of Downton Abbey strangely having watched that at Xmas with the fammo.
I love his minutely observed ebbs and flows of human emotion most I think, very acute. Some of the touches are almost too heavy in plotting, eg in TLOB the main character is called Nick Guest, like er i get the fact he's a 'guest' throughout the entire book and doesn't quite fit in.. both the observations and prose are fantastic.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
The film is classic too, chronically underrated - one of Cronenburg's best, if (because?) comparatively unweird.
Reading Marie Darrieussecq's Pig Tales - fun and easily digestible. Concurrently starting Lolita for the first time, and finding it difficult going.
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viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Lolita is stylistically mind-bending but i found the bit where they go on the road trip a bit boring/hard going. All the run up to going away in the car I loved tho...
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Lolita is exhaustingly brilliant.
I failed to read Moby Dick
Just couldn't keep it up, I was really enjoying it too.
This is becoming a real concern for me now, this inability to get any reading done. I probably should start restricting my access to a computer, it distracts me too much.
I'm reading 'The Mountains Of Madness' on the train to/from work, having read 'The Haunter In The Dark' recently (and the Holleubecq (sic) book on Lovecraft). I think Lovecraft is almost starting to click for me now as a stylist - was reading a paragraph today about a mirage of a city hovering above the mountains and all the hammy anti-romanticism that usually makes me roll my eyes actually carried me away. I was almost luxuriating in it, as absurd as it is. I love the way the main scientists have just happened to have read 'the Necronomican'! There's certainly something fascinating about Lovecraft's stuff - I suppose the fact that he situates horror in the scientific world, on a truly universal and unfathomable scale, and suggests that 'nature' is not something to be worshipped by the thinking man but to be recoiled from in cowed horror.
Which is how we all feel now, post-Christianity, on a Monday morning.
I failed to read Moby Dick
Just couldn't keep it up, I was really enjoying it too.This is becoming a real concern for me now, this inability to get any reading done. I probably should start restricting my access to a computer, it distracts me too much.
I'm reading 'The Mountains Of Madness' on the train to/from work, having read 'The Haunter In The Dark' recently (and the Holleubecq (sic) book on Lovecraft). I think Lovecraft is almost starting to click for me now as a stylist - was reading a paragraph today about a mirage of a city hovering above the mountains and all the hammy anti-romanticism that usually makes me roll my eyes actually carried me away. I was almost luxuriating in it, as absurd as it is. I love the way the main scientists have just happened to have read 'the Necronomican'! There's certainly something fascinating about Lovecraft's stuff - I suppose the fact that he situates horror in the scientific world, on a truly universal and unfathomable scale, and suggests that 'nature' is not something to be worshipped by the thinking man but to be recoiled from in cowed horror.
Which is how we all feel now, post-Christianity, on a Monday morning.