Corpsey

bandz ahoy
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

Well-known member
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

Well-known member
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

Well-known member
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

Well-known member
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
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
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

bandz ahoy
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

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.
 

version

Well-known member
A book about people who hurt themselves for art and entertainment, runs from Buster Keaton to Jackass. Good read, tbh. Some of the stuff described is alarming to say the least, like a woman who protested against the Vietnam war by climbing up and a down ladder made of knives until her hands and feet were destroyed, and a bloke who spent five days in a school locker. There's also an S&M performance sort of guy who grew up in a religious family that believed his cousin would be the messiah and his aunt would get to marry Elvis as a reward for birthing him... He turned out to be gay and they disowned him so he found his way into a completely different world and puts needles through his scalp and whatnot.

One of the main threads is the difference when men and women do this sort of thing, that with men it's assumed to be a macho thing, competing with themselves or other men, a show of strength, whereas with women it's always linked back to men, e.g. a woman destroying her own body is a political statement on what society values her for and a rejection of that. There's also a trans artist covered who records her procedures and has them projected onto a screen during her performances.

It's one of Repeater's books and it's called Which as You Know Means Violence: On Self-Injury as Art and Entertainment. The title's from an answer machine message Hunter Thompson left Johnny Knoxville:

" ... we were just sitting here talking about you, and then we started talking about my needs, and what I need is a 40,000-candlepower illumination grenade. Big, bright bastards, that’s what I need. See if you can get them for me. I might be coming to Baton Rouge to interview [imprisoned former Louisiana governor] Edwin Edwards, and if I do I will call you, because I will be looking to have some fun, which as you know usually means violence."
 
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