I've read a little of Wilson's work myself—"H.P.L.", the blot story, and the one with the exterminators—and I have enjoyed them all, although I think that the second of those three was the most unsettling; the latter was more blackly comedic, the former more... nostalgic, I suppose?
"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
So Dorian Gray, Salome, and the fairy tales are all extremely critical of opulence and immorality. It's hard to believe that Wilde the writer and Wilde's persona were the same man.
Appian is a highly underrated historian. No one else seems to have realized that the Roman civil wars had economic causes.
Considering how contemptible Tacitus makes even Tiberus look, it's a shame that the books covering Caligula were lost.
^^ Well, Wilde was critical of a very particular kind of haughty decadence that he saw in Victorian society at large, particularly in how people use their power over others for their own gratification without care for what comes of it. That said, he was not afraid to self-deprecate, however subtly.
While Caligula was mad, Tiberius was probably even more depraved. It just so happens that while the latter was all but exiled for the most extreme period of his degradation, the former held the full powers of office and was not afraid to exercise them freely.
Started to read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, because it occurred to me that, for my sanity, I really should read fiction. I've been warned that it is quite a doorstopper, and that it might be way too "historical" for my liking. However, I am very found of Fair Folk antagonists, I'm liking the style so far and I enjoy the social commentary aspect, so I think I might like this book
Gaiman and Pratchett both generally write fiction worth reading, in my experience. Unfortunately, I only got a few chapters into Good Omens before I don't even know what distracted me.
Heh, my parents used to read a book about Greek mythology (simplified but not exactly censored one) as a bedtime story. I liked it very much, but look how messed up I've grown up to be :)
I've read Gaiman's Neverwhere. Didn't like it, and I really wanted to like it because I paid for it.
I believe that part of it is because it's adapted from a TV show, and it probably would have worked in the original format. Still not going to jump at the next Gaiman book I get my hands on.
Heh, my parents used to read a book about Greek mythology (simplified but not exactly censored one) as a bedtime story. I liked it very much, but look how messed up I've grown up to be :)
Heh. We have a intro to Greek myth book that this describes perfectly.
I still have a massive poster encompassing nearly the entire family tree of the Greek gods, with small notes on things like homosexual liaisons, being conceived via a shower of gold coins, getting eaten by one's parents... I think I got it when I was eight.
"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
@Sredni: Oh, I'm sure the fairy tales are criticizing Victorian society much more than they're self-critical. Even a dandy didn't wear pearls, which the Young King sees workers dying to collect. But the moralizing is blatantly Catholic (the Young King who's criticized for wearing a shepherd's tunic instead of the finery poor people suffer to produce is transfigured by a beam of light from a monstrance). Wilde was a self-identified socialist, but surely not in a Marxist or any other atheistic way.
Good point about Tiberius's depravity vs. Caligula's. Tiberius was the first Julio-Claudian born to power, and seems to have rationally tested how much depravity he could get away with rather than being mad.
@Beholderess: I really like this version, which combines the merits of a picture book (simple syntax but rich vocabulary, and illustrated on every two-page spread) with lack of censorship.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
I thought Neverwhere was okay at best. I liked a lot of the characters, but something I can't put my finger on made me not enjoy as much as I thought I would.
"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
Wikipedia: "The Second World War can still be read with great profit by students of the period, provided it is seen mainly as a memoir by a leading participant rather than as an authoritative history by a professional and detached historian."
I'm intruiged by the concept that an academic with no personal experience is authoritative and a participant is not. Of course a Caesar or Churchill is going to arrange facts in a self-promoting way, but an academic is going to promote his ideology, and doesn't have the advantage of having lived the facts being written about.
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
I've caressed my copy of Matilda from time to time
That probably sounds creepier than I intended it to but whatever, I'm a fool
"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'm now 2/3rds of the way through The Great Big Book of Horrible Things, which I snatched in hardcover off Amazon because of the bargain price. The author is a Virginia librarian and statistics nerd who has a webpage of atrocity statistics. As people have argued with his numbers, he's read a couple of thousand primary and secondary sources to see who's right and who's a partisan hack. The result is a new kind of history book. The best description I can think of is "history from below" using numbers rather than Marxist bias to document ordinary people's suffering.
I quite enjoyed it, despite the fact that it has about the worst pacing ever. However, it's charm is more in how it is written - from wry humor (every second phrase tends to make me snicker) to equally wry social commentary to an excellent feel for eerie and enchanting.
been reading the first volume Winston Churchill's A History of English Speaking Peoples.
It's pretty good, but heavily biased in favor of both christians and "civilized" peoples (he doesn't like the Danes and often glosses over interesting or important facts about them). That said in the subjects he does favor it's very in-depth and it's well written. I'm currently just before Simon de Montfort's coup, chronologically.
"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
@Mo: Hmm, maybe I should get that. My first priority for British history is Hume, but since he ends in 1688, there may only be one volme of overlap.
OTOH it's said that he ignores the Industrial Revolution while spending a third of a volume describing the American Civil War...
"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 grabbed the last copy of Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics by Gino Segre off Amazon. I'm fascinated by this era of science, since it was the last time physicists were brilliant enough to reveal a new paradigm, so many of them were generally educated enough to have respectable philosophical opinions, and they were caught up in the last great war.
Reading Herodotus. It is more amusing than I've expected, though the author clearly cannot stay on topic. Also, I guess at some point I'll need a chart of who is who :)
Also, way too often it makes me think of Howard and Conan the Barbarian. Probably because of names, and abundance of gold.
Also, it is strange that the history of ancient world feels more relevant to me than that of the "modern" one, even though the latter deals with the countries I know while the former - with those I don't.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
I read the first chapter of Badass: A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters, and Military Commanders to Ever Live.
I think I can sum it up pretty well:
TESTORONE, MURDERING, HISTORY, MORE TESTORONE, KILLING, CHOPPING OFF THINGS FROM PEOPLE, TESTORONE, HISTORY, INTERNET MEMES, TESTORONE.
Comments
I've read two stories by him, and I really like his style of horror, but I haven't seen any collections.
Yes, there is one: The Cleft and Other Odd Tales.
So Dorian Gray, Salome, and the fairy tales are all extremely critical of opulence and immorality. It's hard to believe that Wilde the writer and Wilde's persona were the same man.
Appian is a highly underrated historian. No one else seems to have realized that the Roman civil wars had economic causes.
Considering how contemptible Tacitus makes even Tiberus look, it's a shame that the books covering Caligula were lost.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I believe that part of it is because it's adapted from a TV show, and it probably would have worked in the original format. Still not going to jump at the next Gaiman book I get my hands on.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
@Sredni: Oh, I'm sure the fairy tales are criticizing Victorian society much more than they're self-critical. Even a dandy didn't wear pearls, which the Young King sees workers dying to collect. But the moralizing is blatantly Catholic (the Young King who's criticized for wearing a shepherd's tunic instead of the finery poor people suffer to produce is transfigured by a beam of light from a monstrance). Wilde was a self-identified socialist, but surely not in a Marxist or any other atheistic way.
Good point about Tiberius's depravity vs. Caligula's. Tiberius was the first Julio-Claudian born to power, and seems to have rationally tested how much depravity he could get away with rather than being mad.
@Beholderess: I really like this version, which combines the merits of a picture book (simple syntax but rich vocabulary, and illustrated on every two-page spread) with lack of censorship.
Wikipedia: "The Second World War can still be read with great profit by students of the period, provided it is seen mainly as a memoir by a leading participant rather than as an authoritative history by a professional and detached historian."
I'm intruiged by the concept that an academic with no personal experience is authoritative and a participant is not. Of course a Caesar or Churchill is going to arrange facts in a self-promoting way, but an academic is going to promote his ideology, and doesn't have the advantage of having lived the facts being written about.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
a good book
* The Guns of Navarrone(the book, not the movie)
I quite enjoyed it, despite the fact that it has about the worst pacing ever. However, it's charm is more in how it is written - from wry humor (every second phrase tends to make me snicker) to equally wry social commentary to an excellent feel for eerie and enchanting.
been reading the first volume Winston Churchill's A History of English Speaking Peoples.
It's pretty good, but heavily biased in favor of both christians and "civilized" peoples (he doesn't like the Danes and often glosses over interesting or important facts about them). That said in the subjects he does favor it's very in-depth and it's well written. I'm currently just before Simon de Montfort's coup, chronologically.
@Mo: Hmm, maybe I should get that. My first priority for British history is Hume, but since he ends in 1688, there may only be one volme of overlap.
OTOH it's said that he ignores the Industrial Revolution while spending a third of a volume describing the American Civil War...
Also, way too often it makes me think of Howard and Conan the Barbarian. Probably because of names, and abundance of gold.
Also, it is strange that the history of ancient world feels more relevant to me than that of the "modern" one, even though the latter deals with the countries I know while the former - with those I don't.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
I read the first chapter of Badass: A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters, and Military Commanders to Ever Live.
I think I can sum it up pretty well:
TESTORONE, MURDERING, HISTORY, MORE TESTORONE, KILLING, CHOPPING OFF THINGS FROM PEOPLE, TESTORONE, HISTORY, INTERNET MEMES, TESTORONE.