Like I said, the person ranting about this had no idea what they were talking about, nor did they attempt to see the book in any sort of bigger picture. They just saw "heroic white man helping downtrodden black people" and assumed it was more James Fenimore Cooper-ish Mighty Whitey crap. :P
Admittedly, the arguments do implode on themselves under scrutiny, but the fact that you were so able to articulate exactly how they do with out resorting to "aww, screw this..." at any point impresses and pleases me. Your thoroughness and relative lack of snark were also refreshing; while I love sarcasm, I don't appreciate simply dismissing a viewpoint where one can highlight its faults in a way that even a person sympathetic to the original view could accept it, at least as a premise for reasoned argument.
So I've been reading Laird Barron's Imago Cycle and at this point, I think I can safely call myself a Laird Barron fan. The Procession of the Black Sloth was an awesome story, even if I'm not 100% sure I understood it.
Speaking of horror authors that don't get as much reception online as people like King, Lovecraft, Ligotti or even Machen, I like a lot of Richard Matheson's short fiction, as well as Ray Bradbury's horror stories.
I once tried to read Fahrenheit 451. I was crying at the first sentence when I realized what it means. At the end of the first paragraph, I was shaking so hard, I could hardly see the words. At the end of the first page, I had had a panic attack / nervous breakdown and had to stop.
Book-burning is a trigger of mine, and I'm very faint of heart on the subject.
The book Wicked made me literally throw up, as in, vomit. That puts it in a very rare category of Things-that-are-so-bad-they-make-me-throw-up, which also includes The Secret Of Nimh 2: Timmy to the Rescue!, and that one Fudge book where Fudge eats a turtle and abuses his brother and gets absolutely no comeuppance.
I have an unread copy of F451...been meaning to get to it...but I think the subject-matter kind of scares me too. Although it's unlikely my reaction would be as visceral as Aliroz's.
I finished Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy a week ago. The first two stories were very good, but the third one kind of lost me because I found the character of Fanshawe a little annoying. It still come recommended.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Trying to commit much more time to reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
I'm much more familiar with the games and Television programs, but the book deals a bit more in reality even if it does embellish quiet a bit.
Sun Jian dies a bit more ingloriously in the book then most other adaptions, but because the book devotes a bit more time to him, he also kicks more ass than most other adaptions.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Actually, I just love how frickin' snarky that entry is. It's actually an entry about Cthulhu and while legitimately discussing it, also references a crappy HBO special and points out how Lovecraft was racist.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
"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
I just finished Francois Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, which I bought at Powell's because they had the English edition with the most Gustave Dore illustrations (that's the defunct Franklin Library's leatherbound Great Books of the Western World edition from the '70s).
It's a weird book. It's transitional between prose romances and novels (Don Quixote was published half a century later). Like a romance, the fantastic is present, with giant protagonists from Utopia, goblins, and journeys to allegorical places. Like Don Quixote, it's mercilessly satirical and drops the strong female presence. It's a cornerstone of French literature (adding an estimated 500 words to the language).
I'm still not sure how much I like it. There are many hilarious passages, but they thin out the further along you get. Rabelais found certain things funny and couldn't stop himself from running them into the ground. These include feces, lists (when the scoundrel Panurge is introduced, his physical description includes everything in his pockets), and mocking the way intellectuals talk. The humor often has a philosophical point, but often it doesn't. And the man had trouble with pacing: while each of the first two books is a complete adventure, the third is just Panurge going to different sources to learn if he'll be a cuckold.
There's something refreshing about the book, though, warts and all. It's beyond genre: how many books can you think of where characters's bodies matter, to the extent of needing to defecate? It's certainly the bawdiest book in the Western canon. And Rabelais has something important to say about the body, though I'm skeptical how correct he was.
Another clever thing he did, centuries before Lewis Carroll, was to write nonsense prose to make the reader laugh and then think. One of the funnier examples is when Panurge hits on a woman who expresses her disinterest by shoving him "several miles away"... and the prose immediately transitions to a passage of standard novelistic dialogue between them.
I started reading that a few years back, only got about a quarter of the way through before i kinda wandered off. guess i'll borrow my dad's copy when i'm at his place this weekend and read the whole thing
ive been reading iain banks "iain m. banks" material (basically his scifi) since my boyfriend has a load of it
first one i read was Look to Windward and this one was cool because it was basically very little like a typical scifi and just had loads of long philosophical conversations about the consequences of machines basically ruling a civilisation/people being immortal and shit like that, some cool ass characters and a plot that was just a really long-ass build up. it was good even though there was a whole branch of the story which basically went nowhere, and the ending was sort of anticlimactic
the second one (Consider Phlebas) is a bit more disappointing in that its all actiony and shit but it is the first big space opera that he wrote so you cant expect it to be as adventurous i guess, and is still kindof gripping really even though i can moan about some of it
also reading The Third Policeman by flann o brien. its a lot about bicycles and a guy who keeps making smaller and smaller and smaller chests, and also bicycles. you should get it if youlike Joyce for being really Irish and weird, and also if you like bicycles
Comments
Possibly "Leaning from the steep slope". I also liked "In a network of lines that enlace" and "Looks down in the gathering shadow".
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Speaking of horror authors that don't get as much reception online as people like King, Lovecraft, Ligotti or even Machen, I like a lot of Richard Matheson's short fiction, as well as Ray Bradbury's horror stories.
YNTKT
Book-burning is a trigger of mine, and I'm very faint of heart on the subject.
The book Wicked made me literally throw up, as in, vomit. That puts it in a very rare category of Things-that-are-so-bad-they-make-me-throw-up, which also includes The Secret Of Nimh 2: Timmy to the Rescue!, and that one Fudge book where Fudge eats a turtle and abuses his brother and gets absolutely no comeuppance.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Then, and only then, we will know.
That some people really do enjoy crunkcore.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
I just finished Francois Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, which I bought at Powell's because they had the English edition with the most Gustave Dore illustrations (that's the defunct Franklin Library's leatherbound Great Books of the Western World edition from the '70s).
It's a weird book. It's transitional between prose romances and novels (Don Quixote was published half a century later). Like a romance, the fantastic is present, with giant protagonists from Utopia, goblins, and journeys to allegorical places. Like Don Quixote, it's mercilessly satirical and drops the strong female presence. It's a cornerstone of French literature (adding an estimated 500 words to the language).
I'm still not sure how much I like it. There are many hilarious passages, but they thin out the further along you get. Rabelais found certain things funny and couldn't stop himself from running them into the ground. These include feces, lists (when the scoundrel Panurge is introduced, his physical description includes everything in his pockets), and mocking the way intellectuals talk. The humor often has a philosophical point, but often it doesn't. And the man had trouble with pacing: while each of the first two books is a complete adventure, the third is just Panurge going to different sources to learn if he'll be a cuckold.
There's something refreshing about the book, though, warts and all. It's beyond genre: how many books can you think of where characters's bodies matter, to the extent of needing to defecate? It's certainly the bawdiest book in the Western canon. And Rabelais has something important to say about the body, though I'm skeptical how correct he was.
Another clever thing he did, centuries before Lewis Carroll, was to write nonsense prose to make the reader laugh and then think. One of the funnier examples is when Panurge hits on a woman who expresses her disinterest by shoving him "several miles away"... and the prose immediately transitions to a passage of standard novelistic dialogue between them.
ive been reading iain banks "iain m. banks" material (basically his scifi) since my boyfriend has a load of it
first one i read was Look to Windward and this one was cool because it was basically very little like a typical scifi and just had loads of long philosophical conversations about the consequences of machines basically ruling a civilisation/people being immortal and shit like that, some cool ass characters and a plot that was just a really long-ass build up. it was good even though there was a whole branch of the story which basically went nowhere, and the ending was sort of anticlimactic
the second one (Consider Phlebas) is a bit more disappointing in that its all actiony and shit but it is the first big space opera that he wrote so you cant expect it to be as adventurous i guess, and is still kindof gripping really even though i can moan about some of it
also reading The Third Policeman by flann o brien. its a lot about bicycles and a guy who keeps making smaller and smaller and smaller chests, and also bicycles. you should get it if youlike Joyce for being really Irish and weird, and also if you like bicycles