what are you reading now?
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
It's obviously not dull, it's the greatest story ever told, the foundation. just need to find the right version. The chapman one looks good from what little I've seen of it.
william_kent
Well-known member
the Robert Fagles translation is pretty decent
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
The Iliad sounds brilliant - full on war, blokes getting dragged behind chariots and that. Just needs someone to bring it to life for us. It's probably only accessible piecemeal through various poets's interpretations over the years.
version
Well-known member
There's a great version by this Irish bloke.
william_kent
Well-known member
yet two of the greatest works of 20th century art were based on the Odyssey: Joyce's Ulysses and Walter Hill's "The Warriors"
The Warriors trailer
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Started on the hamlet chapter today, the most difficult bit so far but going through it veeery slowly with the notes and quite surprised and pleased by how much I understand.
Must say, I haven't given much thought or attention to how the odyssey maps on to it so far, and it doesn't seem at all necessary to enjoy the book. Maybe it's just an extra layer that you might want to delve into on a second reading.
The only overt references I've picked up on have been in the lotus eaters chapter. Hard to believe anyone would have independently noticed the structure was based on the odyssey if Joyce hadn't himself dropped loads of hints to early readers in private letters and so forth (aside from the title, obviously)
Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
Yeah I hadn't read Odyssey before Ulysses, but I definitely had a rich experience anyway. As you say, I'm sure I'll have a bunch of new stuff to appreciate if I were to reread Ulysses after Odyssey.
jenks
thread death
Biography of X - Catherine Lacey. Think this will appeal to a few on here, I mentioned it in the slipstream thread. A biography of a shapeshifting artist told by her widow but set in an alternate United States where the South splits after 2WW.
Also re-reading Vonnegut - Player Piano made me think that he and Pynchon have much in common. Technology, silly names, fear and paranoia - lots of other similarities.
Reading all of Willa Cather - astonishingly good, I think maybe Death Comes to the Archbishop is one of the best things I’ve read in ages. The Leopard level good.
Also re-reading Vonnegut - Player Piano made me think that he and Pynchon have much in common. Technology, silly names, fear and paranoia - lots of other similarities.
Reading all of Willa Cather - astonishingly good, I think maybe Death Comes to the Archbishop is one of the best things I’ve read in ages. The Leopard level good.
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
Another secure unit temp library steal, dilapidated copy of Haunted Weather by David Toop
Probably out of date with regards to technology, a curiously nervous writing style. Anything which forces you to source intriguing sound/audio examples at regular intervals as you read is no small achievement if such sounds return the pleasure of your attention
A reappraisal or new edition could take in much much more, the works cited average about 60% known, but it did throw up Alan Splet’s wind recordings as a reminder to re listen again this morning
Probably out of date with regards to technology, a curiously nervous writing style. Anything which forces you to source intriguing sound/audio examples at regular intervals as you read is no small achievement if such sounds return the pleasure of your attention
A reappraisal or new edition could take in much much more, the works cited average about 60% known, but it did throw up Alan Splet’s wind recordings as a reminder to re listen again this morning
the best thing Ballard ever wrote was Empire of the Sun bc it was his most human book...
I've been thinking of him paired with Philip K Dick lately, bc they wrote in the same time period and both started more or less as standard sci-fi writers before becoming themselves...
I've been thinking of him paired with Philip K Dick lately, bc they wrote in the same time period and both started more or less as standard sci-fi writers before becoming themselves...
PKD or Ballard?
I think they're both great, but they both started writing genre dimestore bus station sci fi that barely hints as to who they'd become
version
Well-known member
My dad's been rereading Vonnegut too. Apparently it's been about 40 years since he last read some of them. I didn't know he'd been to see him lecture somewhere in the 80s. He mentioned it on the phone the other night and said he was really funny in person.