i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
The Big Book of Horrible Things sounded like a more analytical and scientific view of atrocities with a slightly humors bent, wares Badass reads like a Cracked article where the writer took a line of cocaine before he started typing.
"It is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected.... Whosoever alters them to suit his own opinions, whatever they are, is guilty, to our thinking, of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him." -- Charles Dickens
The great science fiction writer Frederick Pohl died earlier this week. He was ninety-three years old; in 2009, he won a Hugo Award for his blog on recent developments in speculative fiction and basically everything else. Yes, a man that first published when Lovecraft was alive had a blog, and it managed to win a Hugo Award. Because Frederick Pohl was just that kind of guy.
I've read parts of Finnegans Wake before. It's a trip. People talk about stuff being too clever for its own good, but Joyce kind of reached a new level in that noble pursuit.
I'm convinced that there's some kind of, I dunno, non-standard way of reading you're supposed to apply to it but I'm not sure what it is.
There's a website with thorough annotations for every line of the book that elucidates one of many explanations for various things in the book. Said annotations nearly double the number of pages.
I'm convinced that there's some kind of, I dunno, non-standard way of reading you're supposed to apply to it but I'm not sure what it is.
There's a website with thorough annotations for every line of the book that elucidates one of many explanations for various things in the book. Said annotations nearly double the number of pages.
Reminds me of Roland Barthes' S/Z, which is a book-long exegesis on Honoré de Balzac's short story "Sarrasine".
I actually have the Annotations to Finnegans Wake book. It's the same number of pages as the actual book but each page is twice as large. Big freakin' thing.
Samuel Beckett's essay on it (Dante... Bruno. Vico.. Joyce) suggests some kind of alternate reading method, I think. I should look at that again.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
I'm trying to read more Badass, but it's like someone giving you a candy-bar as a present and they warped the damn thing in salty-lemon juice soaked barbed wire.
^^ Again, think of it like one big language game and just go with the flow. The story isn't going to make too much sense—Joseph Campbell boiled it down to basically being a shaggy dog story about a farmer's son in a village in Ireland—but the ride should at least be entertaining.
Anyway, I finished Tropic of Cancer which had quite a beautiful ending; now it's on to Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America which looks like it'll be fun.
The beginning is kinda important. Just be warned that the series doesn't really pick up before book 3. Storm Front and Fool Moon are decent, but not great.
Each book builds on the others as the series goes on, introducing a bunch of major players in the overarching plot. 1 and 2 introduce some plot points that become important later, too. (Prior to book 3, it was more episodic. Once it hit 3, it started becoming a massive metathing.) You could feasibly start with , but you'd have to go back to 1 and 2 eventually for reasons. Although 2 does introduce some major characters that show up in pretty much all the books.
i guess what i'm really asking is, are they like, say, Cornwell's Scarpetta novels, where new characters get introduced over time and there's a loose continuity but each book is its own standalone story, or are they more of a saga akin to, say, A Song of Ice and Fire?
At this point? The continuity is pretty damned strong. In particular, the really late books would make far less sense if you haven't read the earlier ones.
"It is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected.... Whosoever alters them to suit his own opinions, whatever they are, is guilty, to our thinking, of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him." -- Charles Dickens
Most recently read Dracula and Just So Stories. I knew the latter from childhood but had never read the former. Honestly I found Dracula slow paced and the "scary" prose merely workmanlike. Although people always say Lovecraft was an idea man who wrote bad prose, I think it's better than Stoker's. Now I'm on a Dore-illustrated edition of Don Quixote.
I honestly find lovecraft's prose to be very enjoyable, even if it can be very clunky it's all part of the charm.
like as things get more perilous he just starts cramming the adjectives in and it's always good fun.
That's the thing about Lovecraft that most of his lesser imitators and detractors miss: The stories build toward the baroque and grotesque by degrees. That's what makes his work fun and, when he really gets it right, truly sinister.
Machen is a bit like that, but more structurally adventurous and less linguistically flamboyant. Blackwood is even more stripped down, but he does some of his builds remarkably well. "The Willows", in particular, despite some little issues here and there, is terrifying.
Squamous means scaly, but less reptilian or fishy than "this is something that has scales that really shouldn't." And it sounds weirder and a bit gross to wit.
So yes, I think that it can be sinister.
Also, tell me that "The Rats in the Walls" and "The Colour Out of Space" don't have disturbing sections.
like first off it's got that whole "qu" thing going on, and then it's like super ultra specific, and ALSO due to it's specificity and obscurity it's a word that most if not all people won't reach for in a high-stress situation, which takes you the reader out of the moment.
Also The Colour Out Of Space gave me this kinda weird melancholy kinda feeling, not really scary...
I think the thing that lovecraft does best are the little bits where he makes things seem gross. like there was this one story that currently eludes me where he was describing the coarse skin quality of this man, and just like the way he did it was so vivid and ewww
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i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
I suppose not, I'm just hoping The Big Book of Horrible Things is better written.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
I saw this in Barnes & Noble today.
That's right: Star Wars in iambic pentameter with woodcuts.
Samuel Beckett's essay on it (Dante... Bruno. Vico.. Joyce) suggests some kind of alternate reading method, I think. I should look at that again.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Anyway, I finished Tropic of Cancer which had quite a beautiful ending; now it's on to Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America which looks like it'll be fun.
only problem is, they're not the first two books
can they be enjoyed out of sequence, or should i start from the beginning?
i'm not especially fussed about spoilers, so i won't worry about that
(they're Dead Beat and Blood Rites)
(i ask because i already have more books than i know where to put them, i picked these up cheap, and you just said the first two aren't that great)
i guess what i'm really asking is, are they like, say, Cornwell's Scarpetta novels, where new characters get introduced over time and there's a loose continuity but each book is its own standalone story, or are they more of a saga akin to, say, A Song of Ice and Fire?
i guess i'll start from the beginning, then
thanks
Honestly I found Dracula slow paced and the "scary" prose merely workmanlike. Although people always say Lovecraft was an idea man who wrote bad prose, I think it's better than Stoker's.
Now I'm on a Dore-illustrated edition of Don Quixote.
So, I'm finally reading Catch-22. About 50 pages in, this is gonna be a trip.