Books - What are you reading?

Dorset Echo

Emmet Grogan's Ringolevio. Took it as a blueprint for life when I first read it at 15-years-old.
He turned out to be a bigger bullshitter than you know who...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Grogan

http://www.diggers.org/ringolevio.htm

Now you're being interesting…

okay. the novel that divides opinion more than any other.

a confederacy of dunces.

for? against? most important book of the 20th century? overrated crap? discuss...

Now you're being interesting.

okay. the novel that divides opinion more than any other.

I think opinion would be divided on that statement itself.

This thread is very heavy on novels. Plura..........lity anyone?

You are talking about one of the finest writers of the 20th Century here.

And if his fiction isn't good enough for you then try his journalism. The essay he wrote for Harper's when sent him off on Carribean Cruise ship holidays (A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again) is one of the funniest pieces of non-fiction I have ever read. Or his essay on the work of David Lynch. Or the one about the Las Vegas Porn Star Awards. Or read about his own moral crisis when he visits the Maine Lobster Festival. They're all brilliant.

Heck, DFW was also a mathematical genius, so if that's your thing then check out Everything and More - his book on the concept of infinity. Wrap your brain around that one.

I could go on and on.

He was of the most talented and versatile writers to have lived in our time, and OK is the antithesis of DFW.

I completely agree with you. DFW was an astonishingly innovative and talented essayist. I thoroughly enjoyed 'Consider the Lobster' and consistently recommend it to others. I have recently bought 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again' and 'Infinite Jest' - ooh the size of it, lovely. His writing is such that I can't help myself from sticking post-it notes all over it, marking out visceral description, razor sharp wit and pure poetry, a practice that sadly makes my books (theory and leisure) look the same.

Nerd-y.

The very last thing I read, about an hour ago, was this. Not A Novel.

**Be near me when my light is low,
When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
And tingle; and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow. **
**Be near me when the sensuous frame
Is rack’d with pangs that conquer trust;
And Time, a maniac scattering dust,
And Life, a Fury slinging flame. **
**Be near me when my faith is dry,
And men the flies of latter spring,
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing
****And weave their petty cells and die.
****Be near me when I fade away,
To point the term of human strife,
And on the low dark verge of life
The twilight of eternal day. **

Well, if *you're *going to start posting other people's PMs too....

Anyone for Tennyson?

I took out the rude bits.

Yeh, he had a foul mouth for a Lord.

"the low dark verge of life" is tremendous though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Ships

I loved H G Wells' Time Machine, especially the alternative final chapter, but I'd be lying if I said this wasn't a worthy if not slightly better offering to the idea.

I'm currently juggling between From Russia With Love and The Man With The Golden Gun, and I'm halfway through The World Without Us by Alan Weissman and Brave New World. I'm also a few chapters into The Road and Kingdom of Fear. I really need to finish one before moving on.

Next in line is Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. Sci-fi mentalism. Star Maker, his other book, is so vast in scope that it blew my mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Maker

Tom's a nice guy; I'm sure he'll acknowledge that his comment was just passionate belief coming out wrong. Won't you Tom?

Jebus, I feel like Miriam Stoppard this week.

I don't think my post was rude. It didn't come out wrong, for sure. It was prompted by my thinking that to sweep aside such an incredible author with the label 'OK' is exceptional arrogance, especially from a person labelling themself as a writer and academic. Anyway, it's all good and we can agree to disagree - it remains a great deal easier to criticise others' writing than to write oneself.

I'm glad Kat gets what I'm going on about though ;)

Next in line is Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. Sci-fi mentalism. Star Maker, his other book, is so vast in scope that it blew my mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Maker

First and Last Men... be prepared for heavy repetition. It starts off shit, then gets better and better, then you start to realise that the same situation is repeating itself again and again. You may love it! I tried my hardest to get through it but in the end it bored me to tears and I put it back onto the shelf for another day. Haven't read Star Maker yet, heard a lot of good things about it but I'm really skeptical about buying it because of the outcome of FALM.

Miriam Stoppard is crying now.

I used to be a literary agent, too, funnily enough. Kind of.

Ooh, I get it now. You had Infinite Jest on your reading pile for 18 weeks but never got around to finishing it, and by the time you did it was too late to sign him!

Now she's looking for that bottle of whisky and her sleeping pills

To sleep perchance to dream?

This is the sleep from which heartbroken Miriam shall never awake...

"Readers are not sheep, and not every pen tempts them."

I don't think my post was rude. It didn't come out wrong, for sure. It was prompted by my thinking that to sweep aside such an incredible author with the label 'OK' is exceptional arrogance, especially from a person labelling themself as a writer and academic. Anyway, it's all good and we can agree to disagree - it remains a great deal easier to criticise others' writing than to write oneself.

I'm glad Kat gets what I'm going on about though ;)

This is a bit bonkers. I am perfectly entitled to think he's just 'ok'. I made a throwaway comment saying that I don't much care for a particular writer, in response to someone soliciting opinions on him, on a thread where that's par for the course. I would have been perfectly happy to say why, or to engage with a discussion about his merits or otherwise. I've read a fair bit of his stuff, though not all, by a long shot, and would have been delighted to talk about it, or to hear from someone who had read more. But you had no interest in that. If there is any 'exceptional arrogance' then it lies in the fact that you could not see someone having an opinion with which you disagree without launching a pretty nasty attack.

And I don't 'label myself' anything, for goodness' sake. You've gone on to my profile and used the bit where it asks you to fill in what you do for a living as some how relevant here, which is a bit weird. I never pulled rank, I just said I didn't much like him*. Which I fucking don't!

I fail to see how that's somehow controversial.

But hey, 'it's all good', right?

*though some of his short stories are ok ;)

Ooh, I get it now. You had Infinite Jest on your reading pile for 18 weeks but never got around to finishing it, and by the time you did it was too late to sign him!

Ha, no. I was a very lowly assistant literary agent when I was 22, and I left to go back to college as it wasn't really my cup of tea.

I read Where Angels Fear to Tread yesterday. So-so.

The copy I have weirdly includes a frank, critical letter at the back from someone I'd never heard of (RC Trevelyan?) and I basically agree with everything he wrote. In fairness though, I may not have fully appreciated the book thanks to all the underlining and yellow highlighting that someone had done throughout. What the fuck is up with that?

Sorry to have instigated an argument about DFW, BTW.

^ sounds like NLP and all that bobbins to me!