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Post by Montage on Aug 3, 2011 0:34:34 GMT -5
Unfortunate as it's some of the finest prose I've ever read. I thought I was going to hate it too, but I committed myself to finishing this "classics" collection I have and I wasn't ready to tackle War & Peace quite yet
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Post by solitude on Aug 4, 2011 20:20:55 GMT -5
It is good prose, but my students still hated it no matter how hard I tried to sell it. It was hard for them to relate to the characters, which is important in capturing teenagers attention.
What's next on the classic list?
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Post by Montage on Aug 4, 2011 23:03:02 GMT -5
Read Dorian Gray and now I'm finishing up Tender is the Night. Can't decide what's after that.
I think Gatsby is the kind of book you really can't relate to until you're actually becoming (or are) an adult---and not in the "I am a grown up!" way teens see themselves. It's so easy to put yourself in the shoes of the characters because I think most of us have faced some of the moral dilemmas they all go through. But some dope that had read it for a project in high school spoiled the ending for me back then, so I knew what was going to happen--otherwise I may have cried.
I think I read something by Vonnegut instead back then, which was probably silly enough to keep my attention.
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Post by beyondthepale on Aug 5, 2011 2:18:20 GMT -5
I love Kurt Vonnegut.
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Post by solitude on Aug 5, 2011 10:20:32 GMT -5
I have only read God Bless you, Dr. K. and Slaughter-house Five--both excellent.
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Post by Montage on Aug 5, 2011 12:48:04 GMT -5
I've now read everything by him but Breakfast of Champions, which is what they used to read that one in schools around here, before it was banned. Not surprised there.
Slaughterhouse Five was the first one I read--back in grade 11--and I really should read it again.
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Post by solitude on Sept 3, 2011 9:31:44 GMT -5
In My Own Way ~ Alan Watts Solid Ground ~ Boorstein, Fischer, Rinpoche
Both magnificent!
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Post by solitude on Oct 15, 2011 7:50:18 GMT -5
High Fidelity ~ Nick Hornby---love his sense of humor and writing style. ....and a 528 page Social Studies Content Knowledge test prep book to save my job I could put off reading that forever! I did order Duff's new autobiography to have something to look forward to. The reviews are extremely positive.
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Post by Psychotropic Snake on Dec 5, 2011 1:56:04 GMT -5
I recommend you read Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky, but stay away from the movie.
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Post by silence on Dec 6, 2011 7:47:04 GMT -5
Just finished Animal Farm - A Fairy Story for the nth time, need to get back & finish The Master & Margarita again...
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Post by frauleinkül on Dec 6, 2011 12:02:55 GMT -5
need to get back & finish The Master & Margarita again... Uh, need to read that one again. It is most brilliant
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Post by silence on Dec 6, 2011 12:20:41 GMT -5
Last time I read it, I'd got as far as the end of Book 1, went to play outside for about six months and when I next picked it up the story had gone more than a little bit mad
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Post by frauleinkül on Dec 6, 2011 12:30:14 GMT -5
;D It's a mad book - I especially love the cat.
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Post by Psychotropic Snake on Dec 6, 2011 12:31:03 GMT -5
I would seriously like to read a few books Mark has gone through. If only the man would share his love of the written word with us. Anyway, I have to re-read Hemingway, just to name a name (I read much of his work when I still didn't use to do my now-mandatory post-read research on books, so I might have missed a lot on them)
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Post by frauleinkül on Dec 6, 2011 12:46:57 GMT -5
By chance, I found this: "Isobel Campbell is insanely pretty. Mark Lanegan is insanely tall. I may have been the sole person at our venue that he had an actual conversation with. They brought their own monitor engineer who had no idea what he was doing, so I sat back there babysitting him while reading Blood Meridian. Mark saw it and started talking to me about how it's his favorite book of all time, and told me to read Child of God next. Then he left out the backdoor to go to a Chicago Bulls preseason game. He only came back in time for their performance, and left the stage at the end of the night without having spoken a word to the audience." forums.hipinion.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25762&start=180I'll admit than I'm enough of a fan that this prompted me to read "Blood Meridian" - along with other boardmembers' recommendations. Read it. There's not much else to say. It's an absolute masterpiece, and McCarthy's writing is incredibly beautiful and poetically sparse. It's brutal and violent, but because McCarthy is such a stylistically brilliant writer, it never succumbs to violence for the sake of violence. He manages to keep it in check all the way through. It's a book that screams for a re-read though - in my case because I got so enthralled by the language that I forgot to pay attention to what happened...
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Post by silence on Dec 6, 2011 12:49:37 GMT -5
;D It's a mad book - I especially love the cat. Behemoth's ace! Which gives me an idea...
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Post by frauleinkül on Dec 6, 2011 13:07:25 GMT -5
;D
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Post by frauleinkül on Dec 6, 2011 15:01:26 GMT -5
Can't resist.... One of my favourite parts of "The Master and Margarita"
"Your ID cards?" she asked, looking with astonishment at Korovyov's pince-nez and at Behemoth's primus stove and his torn elbow. "I beg a thousand pardons, but what ID cards?" asked a surprised Korovyov. "Are you writers?" asked the woman in turn. "Of course we are," replied Korovyov with dignity. "May I see your ID's?" repeated the woman. "My charming creature..." began Korovyov, tenderly. "I am not a charming creature," interrupted the woman. "Oh, what a pity," said the Korovyov with disappointment, and he continued, "Well, then, if you do not care to be a charming creature, which would have been quite nice, you don't have to be. But, here's my point, in order to ascertain that Dostoevsky is a writer, do you really need to ask him for an ID? Just look at any five pages of any of his novels, and you will surely know, even without any ID, that you're dealing with a writer. And I don't suppose that he ever had any ID! What do you think?" Korovyov turned to Behemoth. "I'll bet he didn't," replied the latter, standing the primus stove on the table next to the register and wiping the sweat from his sooty brow. "You are not Dostoevsky," said the citizeness, who was becoming addled by Korovyov. "Well, but how do you know, how do you know?" replied the latter. "Dostoevsky is dead," said the citizeness, but not very confidently. "I protest!" exclaimed Behemoth hotly. "Dostoevsky is immortal!" "Your ID's, citizens," said the citizeness. "Excuse me, but this is, after all, absurd," said Korovyov, refusing to give in. "It isn't an ID that defines a writer, but what he has written! How can you know what ideas are fermenting in my brain? Or in his?" and he pointed at Behemoth's head, whereupon the latter immediately removed his cap so that the citizeness could get a better look at it.
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Post by frauleinkül on Jan 3, 2012 15:59:27 GMT -5
Just read the (long) poem "That's What" by Vladimir Mayakovsky (translated by Larisa Gureyeva & George Hyde). Mayakovsky is one of my favourite poets, and his poetry (especially his love poems) manages to be both brutal, boisterous, and tender.The lyrical "I" both surrenders himself to the mercy of the reader/an Other, while at the same defying it. His poetry seems bigger than the world it inhabits, full of wry sentimentality, pathos, and humour. It is - at times - really really funny.
On a sidenote: when I first started listening to Lanegan, his music and lyrics reminded me of Mayakovsky's poetry, and the other way around too. It's not really that they are similar in tone or imagery (Mayakovsky was a Futurist and a devoted communist, hailing the Revolution to no end (well, until he found himself disappointed with how everything turned out, and he killed himself...)), but there is something about them that resonates with each other. I think John Wakeman is on to it in his introduction to "That's What": "Strangely akin to modern rock poetry in its erotic thrust and bluesy complaints and cries of pain, not to mention its sardonic humour, Mayakovsky's poetry is aggressive, mocking and tender all at once, and often fantastic or grotesque."
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Post by Psychotropic Snake on Jan 3, 2012 16:09:42 GMT -5
I write poetry myself, so whenever I read the poems of Garcia Lorca or Neruda, I'm inspired to start writing. I just love their surreal, passion-filled poetic worlds of imagery. Those poems make me think that magic powers are real.
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Post by chapeuzinho on Jan 3, 2012 19:30:16 GMT -5
It's a book that screams for a re-read though - in my case because I got so enthralled by the language that I forgot to pay attention to what happened... It really inspired a renewed love for words for me.
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Post by frauleinkül on Jan 4, 2012 17:56:55 GMT -5
@psychotropic Snake . It's been years and years since I've read anything by Garcia Lorca, but I seem to remember that I quite like it. The lyrics to Leonard Cohen's "Take This Waltz" is Lorca, right? And Neruda is one I turn to when ever me and the world have a go at each other. His odes flows with such joy that it's impossible to stay mad chapeuzinho I love writers that know their way around words. Somehow - for me - the world seems a better place, when I read something that well-written. Even "Blood Meridian" (...I'm such a word nerd...)
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Post by Psychotropic Snake on Jan 6, 2012 14:14:49 GMT -5
@psychotropic Snake . It's been years and years since I've read anything by Garcia Lorca, but I seem to remember that I quite like it. The lyrics to Leonard Cohen's "Take This Waltz" is Lorca, right? And Neruda is one I turn to when ever me and the world have a go at each other. His odes flows with such joy that it's impossible to stay mad Exactly, those lyrics are an english rendition of Pequeno Vals Vienès by Garcia Lorca (which was published in Poet In New York, arguably Lorca's most surrealistic and nightmarish collection) I think both he and Neruda have this crazy gift of extracting beauty from whatever situation they're describing, whether it's the joy of erotic love or the despair of loneliness and exile. There are other poetic styles that influence my writing (the poems of Li Po, for example, or Japanese haiku) but I do have a thing for their flights of fancy. Since this is a recommendation thread, I would like to add a few titles to the list: One Hundred Years Of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The melding of reality and dream is poetic and fascinating. This is an epic book, more akin to mythology than to a proper novel. Ana Isabel, Una Nina Decente - I read this one in Spanish. A fantastic book by Antonia Palacios, a Venezuelan novelist. I fear you might need to be extremely lucky to find it in English. Anise Koltz - pretty much anything you can find. She's a great poet. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris. His stories are hilarious. Neuromancer - William Gibson. If a creepy, nocturnal world of technology, crime and dystopian paranoia is your kind of sci-fi setting, this one is fantastic.
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Post by solitude on Jan 7, 2012 9:24:44 GMT -5
I think both he and Neruda have this crazy gift of extracting beauty from whatever situation they're describing, whether it's the joy of erotic love or the despair of loneliness and exile. One Hundred Years Of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The melding of reality and dream is poetic and fascinating. This is an epic book, more akin to mythology than to a proper novel. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris. His stories are hilarious. Yes, Yes, and Yes! ;D Neruda is my stranded island choice. One Hundred Years of Solitude is such a solidly entertaining read. I think of it often. I gave my copy away, or else I would read it again soon. And Sedaris is hilarious. Every Christmas I think about him despising his college job as an elf and running out of weed. He was so desperate that he tried to crush stems and seeds into smokable material. ;D
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Post by solitude on Jan 7, 2012 9:29:09 GMT -5
Oh, and I am embarrassed to say that because I have been studying, I have only read magazines and Duff McKagan's book in the past month or so. But I must say, it is very well written! About 3 people want to borrow it, but I am reluctant to give it up!
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