Kierkegaard strikes me as kind of annoyingly preachy, to be perfectly honest. I don't get that vibe from other apologists like Pascal or Chesterton, either; it's not the content so much as the tone, and the manner in which he implies that finding Jesus cures existential anxiety. Sure, I dig the whole finding the Spirit inside yourself and coming to terms with the fear of oblivion—gnosis is my bread and butter—and some of his rhetoric is interestingly framed, but he's just so precious about it all, and so self-righteous.
I guess what it feels like is reading one of those anecdotes where someone says, "I beat depression and SO CAN YOU!"
Kierkegaard strikes me as kind of annoyingly preachy, to be perfectly honest. I don't get that vibe from other apologists like Pascal or Chesterton, either; it's not the content so much as the tone, and the manner in which he implies that finding Jesus cures existential anxiety. Sure, I dig the whole finding the Spirit inside yourself and coming to terms with the fear of oblivion—gnosis is my bread and butter—and some of his rhetoric is interestingly framed, but he's just so precious about it all, and so self-righteous.
Either/Or kind of isn't about his views on religion, so I haven't encountered that yet.
I read the first chapter of The Sickness Unto Death and skimmed some later chapters. The attitude kind of pissed me off, even if I did find it interesting. Maybe I should try reading it in a less judgemental mood.
There is also something else, however, in married life which you characterize by the word "custom": "its monotony," you say, "the total lack of events, its everlasting vacuity, which is death and worse than death." You know that there are neurasthenics who may be disturbed by the slightest noise, who are unable to think when someone is walking softly across the floor. Have you observed that there is also another sort of neurasthenia? There are people so weak that they need loud noise and a distracting environment in order to be able to work. Why is this, unless for the fact that they have no command over themselves, except in an inverse sense? When they are alone their thoughts disappear in the indefinite; on the other hand, when there is noise and hubbub around them, this compels them to pit their will against it. It is for this reason you are afraid of peace and quietness and repose. You are within yourself only when there is opposition, but therefore you are never within yourself. That is to say, the moment you assimilate opposition there is quiet again. Therefore you do not dare to do so. But then you and the opposition remain standing face to face, and so you are not within yourself.
The same thing, of course, applies here which we noted earlier in the case of time. You are outside yourself and therefore cannot dispense with "the other" as an opposition; you believe that only a restless spirit is alive, whereas all men of experience think that only a quiet spirit is truly alive; for you, an agitated sea is the image of life, for me it is still deep waters. Often I have sat by a bit of purling water. It is always the same, the same soft melody, the same green plants on its floor, swaying beneath its quiet waves, the same little creatures running about at the bottom, a little fish which glides under the protection of the overhanging flowers, spreading out its fins against the current, hiding under a stone. How monotonous, and yet how rich in change!
my mom is starting an audiobook yt channel and is trying to focus on children's reading, does anyone have any suggestions for stuff she should look into?
my mom is starting an audiobook yt channel and is trying to focus on children's reading, does anyone have any suggestions for stuff she should look into?
I have always been a huge fan of Henrik Drescher's Look-Alikes, but the drawings are just as important as the text there.
But most of my potential recommendations are picture books. Really good picture books, of course, but that's not a whole lot of text as compared to, say, drawings and paintings.
i want to like it. it plays with a lot of conceits and ideas that i like. clearly scarlett thomas is a talented writer and particularly has a cool flair for metaphor and small, telling details
despite this it is contriving to annoy me and not really go anywhere. it sets up a v cool sounding mystery and a building collapses at the start and then its like 'ha now im just not going to touch any of this. have fun with like 50 pages of egregious descriptions of how poor the main character is, boring summaries of the "cursed" book she is reading, and entirely unconvincing dialogue attempting to be 'philosophical' at an incredibly superficial level'
i get the feeling shes a good writer let down by a bad editor, and she needs one who would tell her to cut this shit out already
like shes trying to be neil gaiman and italo calvino at the same time, but with the end result that her book loses the depth you get in a calvino, and lacks the pacing of a gaiman, and i, reading it, am kinda bored and want her to actually do something with everything shes setting up
i will have a look at those but right now for my course i am reading/have just read:
- susan sontag on photography, which keeps up a fairly constant rate of 2-3 cool ideas per page. as you can imagine at that rate some of them hit and some of them miss but it's interesting as hell to read - a book on rubbish theory which is p cool - edgelands, a book (half) written by one of my professors which is actually really fucking good esp. if you are as interested in the various wastelands of britain as i am - white is for witching by helen oyeyemi which i only just started but im feeling quite positive about it so far. i like it when buildings start talking in my novels
I am reading customer, amateur and critical reviews of David Searcy's second novel, Last Things, and all of the truly negative ones (of which there are a surprising number for such an obscure author) all seem to amount to "too many words, not enough explanations, do not want."
Which is to say that they are complaining about the exact things that made Searcy's first novel, Ordinary Horror, extremely disturbing. The tension builds by tiny degrees and your mind fills with these stark, inexplicable scenes that gradually add up to something like the plot equivalent of things flickering at the edge of your vision. If you read between the lines, a partial explanation presents itself, but the holes in that picture enhance rather than detract from the quietly ghoulish ending. It's basically T.S. Eliot's "this is the way the world ends" passage writ large, and all your hackles stand up and you're looking at your bedroom furnishings funny all night.
white is for witching by helen oyeyemi which i only just started but im feeling quite positive about it so far. i like it when buildings start talking in my novels
This turned out to be quite a good book even if it got overly florid at fairly consistent intervals
now for contemporary gothic i have to read some massive book about vampires called 'The Passage' by justin cronin which is very readable so far iguess but not what i usually go for
also some critical books about technology and the gothic
More people have said that and been killed than there are thorium decay products.
Sifting through Mason & Dixon at a leisurely pace, understanding much of it. I guess I'm doing this to myself yet again, "this" being Pynchon. But, I always was a masochist.
My parents despise that book. It's kind of hilarious to bring it up and watch their reactions. I think my dad liked Gravity's Rainbow, though, which tells you something I guess.
my research methods supervisor was going on about how great the crying of lot 49 is, that is a book that i should read soon, it's not even a big pynchon.
my research methods supervisor was going on about how great the crying of lot 49 is, that is a book that i should read soon, it's not even a big pynchon.
I never got far in it, but I really liked what I read.
Incidentally, I seriously wonder if Andrew Hussie likes Pynchon, because their senses of humour and writing style are weirdly similar in certain respects. I am not even joking.
Comments
I suppose I have reached the point in my life where the ethical is more satisfying than the aesthetic.
just whatever you do don't go with The Magic Treehouse those books are generally unpleasant to read aloud
i want to like it. it plays with a lot of conceits and ideas that i like. clearly scarlett thomas is a talented writer and particularly has a cool flair for metaphor and small, telling details
despite this it is contriving to annoy me and not really go anywhere. it sets up a v cool sounding mystery and a building collapses at the start and then its like 'ha now im just not going to touch any of this. have fun with like 50 pages of egregious descriptions of how poor the main character is, boring summaries of the "cursed" book she is reading, and entirely unconvincing dialogue attempting to be 'philosophical' at an incredibly superficial level'
i get the feeling shes a good writer let down by a bad editor, and she needs one who would tell her to cut this shit out already
maybe itll happen later in the book idk
it was my first China Miéville book now that i think about it
gues it'll be un lun dun and embassytown
HOLY SHIT LOOK WHAT CAME OUT lAST MONTH
HOLY SHIT
HOLY SHIT
(*flails*)
- susan sontag on photography, which keeps up a fairly constant rate of 2-3 cool ideas per page. as you can imagine at that rate some of them hit and some of them miss but it's interesting as hell to read
- a book on rubbish theory which is p cool
- edgelands, a book (half) written by one of my professors which is actually really fucking good esp. if you are as interested in the various wastelands of britain as i am
- white is for witching by helen oyeyemi which i only just started but im feeling quite positive about it so far. i like it when buildings start talking in my novels
I'm about halfway through Jeff Noon's Vurt, now this is a weird book. It's about feathers.
now for contemporary gothic i have to read some massive book about vampires called 'The Passage' by justin cronin which is very readable so far iguess but not what i usually go for
also some critical books about technology and the gothic
very knowledgeable about sci fi though but had some weird opinions, called michael moorcock 'one of the greatest english authors' (?!)
i rec'd him I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream which he had never read somehow
(stealing this from juan who posted it on fb)
i have a copy of against the day but i only got a few chapters before getting bored
I am afraid of M&D because of its archaic style, sad to say
I don't think AtD is Pynchon at his best, honestly. It's huge but it seems kind of uninspired compared to GR, somehow.