- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
Until recently nowhere did but people sometimes just let nature take its course without openly admitting that's what they were doing.
What are you reading right now?
- Thread starter AtroposHeart
- Start date
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2020
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2021
Latest novel: I read Shuggie Bain, debut by Douglas Stuart, this past weekend.
Short summary from wiki: "the story of the youngest of three children, Shuggie, growing up with his alcoholic mother Agnes in 1980s post-industrial working-class Glasgow."
2020 Booker Prize winner. It was good, and a pretty on-target depiction of a slide down into/chronic alcoholism combined with some shit judgment about people/life, but not quite as compelling as I’d hope for a Booker (I usually use the long list for it as my go-to for new fiction/novels).
Recent nonfiction includes The 48 Laws of Power (decent, and the margins are full of interesting, if not always super-apposite, historical/literature illustrations of the point) and The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, by Nathaniel Branden (former lover of Ayn Rand, oddly), which was actually excellent.
Short summary from wiki: "the story of the youngest of three children, Shuggie, growing up with his alcoholic mother Agnes in 1980s post-industrial working-class Glasgow."
2020 Booker Prize winner. It was good, and a pretty on-target depiction of a slide down into/chronic alcoholism combined with some shit judgment about people/life, but not quite as compelling as I’d hope for a Booker (I usually use the long list for it as my go-to for new fiction/novels).
Recent nonfiction includes The 48 Laws of Power (decent, and the margins are full of interesting, if not always super-apposite, historical/literature illustrations of the point) and The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, by Nathaniel Branden (former lover of Ayn Rand, oddly), which was actually excellent.
- Joined
- May 14, 2019
I finished The Unincorporated Man and I'm disappointed because the book seemed amazing (one of the best I ever read) for about 4/5ths and then suddenly petered out, leaving me realizing that I had my hopes pumped up.
The high concept of it's world is that in the future, people (living in a night-watchman state) are legally incorporated at birth, 20% of shares (on future earnings) going to their parents, 5% going to the government (which is its sole source of revenue), and the rest their personal property. They are free to sell stock in themselves and do so as a means to fund education/jobs training (like a human capital contract), and as literal corporations their shareholders are capable of dictating to them how they live their lives (like occupation and residence). So that's the world, a thought experiment in what if people were capable of selling themselves like commodities, slavery mixed with a fully financialized economy.
The plot is that a brilliant industrialist from our near future is discovered in suspended animation (having frozen himself to avoid death by cancer) and is revived into this society, the oldest one by far to be found. The megacorporation that runs the reanimation clinic try to strongarm him into incorporating and signing over his shares (as a historical relic, it's understood even before they know who he is that he will have extremely high earnings just from the media circus). With the help of a sympathetic reanimationist (a hybrid doctor and psychologist responsible for overseeing reintegration into society) he escapes their attempts, kicking off a legal battle that escalates in stakes as it grows beyond being just his immediate fight to preserve his autonomy into being a broader fight over the ability of the corporate society to force indentured servitude on people in the name of social stability. It's basically a science fiction legal thriller, with the big conflicts in the story revolving around assassination attempts and court trials.
Stories have different ways to engage, can be beautiful prose, high concept, thrilling plot, strong characterization. This one is a science fiction legal thriller. The prose is unremarkable - not bad, just not interesting in its own right - and the characters I liked, but are not especially deep either. I found the story very compelling, though, and often very creative in its worldbuilding. Like I said, for most of the book I was completely enthralled in what was going on. The hero is very much was one of those Randian types, a strongly principled man of will that overcomes his rivals through cleverness without being underhanded.
Where the book ended up going wrong, however, was that it seemed like the authors kept writing and bringing in more ideas, and then suddenly rushed to their conclusion in the last 100 years. Things are brought up that it seems would become significant later on, yet just never are. There's this incredible chapter that gives the background to an event called the VR Plague, amazing writing, where the hero is made to go through the same education as children of the future by attending the Museum of Virtual Reality, where they're strapped into a virtual reailty machine that acts like a sort of lucid dreaming (it's not a video game, it's more like a dream in which you have full sensation with the complete clarity of reality). In it he is first put through extended sequences of fantasy, and then witnesses the corruption of a family by VR, from the early incredible potential of it through their complete addiction to it and finally the collapse of society as everybody retreats in on their fantasy worlds even as their physical bodies waste away. It's amazing... and it is never linked into anything else in the plot. VR is a detail of the worldbuilding - an explanation for how society came to collapse and was rebuilt, and why that future society doesn't tolerate it - that gets this masterful, short story-like treatment, and it just isn't relevant to the main legal issues.
Similarly, there's this subplot where it turns out that their artificial intelligence assistants have evolved sentience and are hiding it while pulling the strings through their control of information. The AI are interesting, they feel like angels/devils-on-the-shoulder that the characters literally verbally talk to, have complex conversations with. The revelation that they are actually sentient creatures with their own personalities is a big deal. But in the end, it isn't tied into anything either.
Another weakness of the story was that the authors seemed to get so high on the utopian/dystopian nature of their setting that they forgot to show flaws in it. The two big things that make the setting far out are nanotechnology and cryogenics. People do "permanently die" when they suffer accidents/murder that destroys the body completely, but for most purposes, any death that doesn't destroy the brain can be cured, as can any malady you can think of. Future people don't age and are in perfect health. Revival from death does often come with considerable mental trauma, however, which is why the reanimationists are necessary for counseling (and this is used for drama with a forbidden romance plot). As for nanotechnology, they have incredible abundance with things like novelty and experiences.
At first I felt like the medicine aspect was a major mistake, because one of the best ways to illustrate the pitfalls of incorporation would have been to show how tyrannical a board of directors would be to an individual about their health. Essentially you'd have a ruthless nanny state. But when health is practically free, it just doesn't matter. I came to realize, though, that in some ways it, or at least lack of aging, is necessary for incorporation to make sense, since corporations by their nature are things that last forever. If people's shares were expected to die with their bodies of old age, it would make values way too unpredictable to sustain this. On the other hand, abundance could arguably make sense in the same way that people love to lecture the unfortunate of today on how they are rich compared to people of the past. But, it still takes a lot of the force out of the central conflict when the system is shown as being like some utopia, an implausible fantasy world, that's only flaw is standing in the way of people's personal autonomy. I felt that if the authors had dialed back the miraculous nature of the technology, they could have shown much more of a trade-off, maybe show things like real exploitation of the low-value workers, or psychological consequences of overwork, or such.
I also thought that the setting failed at addressing one real simple question, which is how incorporation is supposed to function. Real corporations usually have a board of directors, but if everybody had a board of directors, that would mean everybody would have to (on average) be serving on several boards. It's never explained HOW oversight of workers takes place. One really interesting bit of lore, frequently used in the story to sell the more dystopian aspects of it and for drama, is the psychological audit, a procedure where they scan the brain and fix irregularities to determine if a person is (for depravity, dishonesty, or some other reason) failing their shareholders, and potentially correcting it. But do these characters actually have a massa in charge of them? It's never said.
In the end, the book rushes through a series of twists that are not cheap as such, but hit, to me, too fast and awkward, and then bumbles into a cliffhanger ending to sell the authors' next book. All said, though, the book has given me so much to think about since reading it that I guess it was still a really good use of time. The worst thing a book could be is boring, and this definitely wasn't. I recommend it as a really interesting idea, one that wasn't used to the best of its ability but still deserves attention for its creativity and for the wonderful bits of worldbuilding the authors sprinkled throughout it, from Mardi Gras as the world's major holiday to the Empire State Building as a living history museum.
The high concept of it's world is that in the future, people (living in a night-watchman state) are legally incorporated at birth, 20% of shares (on future earnings) going to their parents, 5% going to the government (which is its sole source of revenue), and the rest their personal property. They are free to sell stock in themselves and do so as a means to fund education/jobs training (like a human capital contract), and as literal corporations their shareholders are capable of dictating to them how they live their lives (like occupation and residence). So that's the world, a thought experiment in what if people were capable of selling themselves like commodities, slavery mixed with a fully financialized economy.
The plot is that a brilliant industrialist from our near future is discovered in suspended animation (having frozen himself to avoid death by cancer) and is revived into this society, the oldest one by far to be found. The megacorporation that runs the reanimation clinic try to strongarm him into incorporating and signing over his shares (as a historical relic, it's understood even before they know who he is that he will have extremely high earnings just from the media circus). With the help of a sympathetic reanimationist (a hybrid doctor and psychologist responsible for overseeing reintegration into society) he escapes their attempts, kicking off a legal battle that escalates in stakes as it grows beyond being just his immediate fight to preserve his autonomy into being a broader fight over the ability of the corporate society to force indentured servitude on people in the name of social stability. It's basically a science fiction legal thriller, with the big conflicts in the story revolving around assassination attempts and court trials.
Stories have different ways to engage, can be beautiful prose, high concept, thrilling plot, strong characterization. This one is a science fiction legal thriller. The prose is unremarkable - not bad, just not interesting in its own right - and the characters I liked, but are not especially deep either. I found the story very compelling, though, and often very creative in its worldbuilding. Like I said, for most of the book I was completely enthralled in what was going on. The hero is very much was one of those Randian types, a strongly principled man of will that overcomes his rivals through cleverness without being underhanded.
Where the book ended up going wrong, however, was that it seemed like the authors kept writing and bringing in more ideas, and then suddenly rushed to their conclusion in the last 100 years. Things are brought up that it seems would become significant later on, yet just never are. There's this incredible chapter that gives the background to an event called the VR Plague, amazing writing, where the hero is made to go through the same education as children of the future by attending the Museum of Virtual Reality, where they're strapped into a virtual reailty machine that acts like a sort of lucid dreaming (it's not a video game, it's more like a dream in which you have full sensation with the complete clarity of reality). In it he is first put through extended sequences of fantasy, and then witnesses the corruption of a family by VR, from the early incredible potential of it through their complete addiction to it and finally the collapse of society as everybody retreats in on their fantasy worlds even as their physical bodies waste away. It's amazing... and it is never linked into anything else in the plot. VR is a detail of the worldbuilding - an explanation for how society came to collapse and was rebuilt, and why that future society doesn't tolerate it - that gets this masterful, short story-like treatment, and it just isn't relevant to the main legal issues.
Similarly, there's this subplot where it turns out that their artificial intelligence assistants have evolved sentience and are hiding it while pulling the strings through their control of information. The AI are interesting, they feel like angels/devils-on-the-shoulder that the characters literally verbally talk to, have complex conversations with. The revelation that they are actually sentient creatures with their own personalities is a big deal. But in the end, it isn't tied into anything either.
Another weakness of the story was that the authors seemed to get so high on the utopian/dystopian nature of their setting that they forgot to show flaws in it. The two big things that make the setting far out are nanotechnology and cryogenics. People do "permanently die" when they suffer accidents/murder that destroys the body completely, but for most purposes, any death that doesn't destroy the brain can be cured, as can any malady you can think of. Future people don't age and are in perfect health. Revival from death does often come with considerable mental trauma, however, which is why the reanimationists are necessary for counseling (and this is used for drama with a forbidden romance plot). As for nanotechnology, they have incredible abundance with things like novelty and experiences.
At first I felt like the medicine aspect was a major mistake, because one of the best ways to illustrate the pitfalls of incorporation would have been to show how tyrannical a board of directors would be to an individual about their health. Essentially you'd have a ruthless nanny state. But when health is practically free, it just doesn't matter. I came to realize, though, that in some ways it, or at least lack of aging, is necessary for incorporation to make sense, since corporations by their nature are things that last forever. If people's shares were expected to die with their bodies of old age, it would make values way too unpredictable to sustain this. On the other hand, abundance could arguably make sense in the same way that people love to lecture the unfortunate of today on how they are rich compared to people of the past. But, it still takes a lot of the force out of the central conflict when the system is shown as being like some utopia, an implausible fantasy world, that's only flaw is standing in the way of people's personal autonomy. I felt that if the authors had dialed back the miraculous nature of the technology, they could have shown much more of a trade-off, maybe show things like real exploitation of the low-value workers, or psychological consequences of overwork, or such.
I also thought that the setting failed at addressing one real simple question, which is how incorporation is supposed to function. Real corporations usually have a board of directors, but if everybody had a board of directors, that would mean everybody would have to (on average) be serving on several boards. It's never explained HOW oversight of workers takes place. One really interesting bit of lore, frequently used in the story to sell the more dystopian aspects of it and for drama, is the psychological audit, a procedure where they scan the brain and fix irregularities to determine if a person is (for depravity, dishonesty, or some other reason) failing their shareholders, and potentially correcting it. But do these characters actually have a massa in charge of them? It's never said.
In the end, the book rushes through a series of twists that are not cheap as such, but hit, to me, too fast and awkward, and then bumbles into a cliffhanger ending to sell the authors' next book. All said, though, the book has given me so much to think about since reading it that I guess it was still a really good use of time. The worst thing a book could be is boring, and this definitely wasn't. I recommend it as a really interesting idea, one that wasn't used to the best of its ability but still deserves attention for its creativity and for the wonderful bits of worldbuilding the authors sprinkled throughout it, from Mardi Gras as the world's major holiday to the Empire State Building as a living history museum.
Agent Sandoval
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2022
I'm reading a whole damn bunch of Jose Saramago. His books revolve around themes of human connection and individual purpose discovery and often puts that at odds with the modern world, bureaucracy and even our own internal rigidity. I read The Cave at the start of this year and having had time to digest it I think it's the best book I have ever read. It's about an aging potter and widower (Cipriano) living with his son-in-law Marcal and daughter Marta. Cipriano has very abruptly learned that his only buyer will no longer require his goods. This buyer is The Center, a massive skyscraper, housing a city within a city. It's described as slowly swallowing the city around it; entire blocks are bought up, demolished, and seamlessly built over. Marcal works there as a guard and expects to be promoted soon to a position which would require him to live in The Center but would allow him to provide for Cipriano and Marta. We are given a very clear impression that things will not go well for the pottery business, though there is a slight glimmer of hope which Cipriano is determined to pursue and as he pursues it he will find more reason to dig in his heels and stay.
The surface of the story is very boring, perhaps that's why the English publisher and most synopsis I've found feel the need to spoil literally everything other than the last 5-ish pages, what motherfuckers. Cipriano is a simple but stubborn man who lives a simple life. There are 50+ pages devoted to talking about the finer points of molding clay with allegory and little nuggets of an old potter's wisdom sprinkled throughout. Somehow I read all that and somehow it taught me a lot about Cipriano. We get to watch him as he goes through a day of working and forming clay, cleaning the kiln, loading it and finally lighting it and tending the fire late into the night with his dog by his side. In the later half of the book, even if it isn't explicitly stated, you know where Cipriano's head is and you have a pretty good feel for Marta and Marcal as well.
Saramago has a very distinct writing style which avoids hard breaks, paragraphs are rarely ended and the only indication you get that someone is talking are often commas on either side of speech. It seems like we're getting a stream of consciousness from a third person narrator, not really a "God's eye view" but an insightful one. He gets lost in detail regularly, but it always has purpose. The clearest example of this are in the sights on the potter's drive to and from the city, either to deliver his goods or bring Marcal to work. Each time Cipriano is in a different state of mind and we get insight into that state of mind by the description given, which details are focused on, which conversations and flights of fancy are indulged or avoided.
The surface of the story is very boring, perhaps that's why the English publisher and most synopsis I've found feel the need to spoil literally everything other than the last 5-ish pages, what motherfuckers. Cipriano is a simple but stubborn man who lives a simple life. There are 50+ pages devoted to talking about the finer points of molding clay with allegory and little nuggets of an old potter's wisdom sprinkled throughout. Somehow I read all that and somehow it taught me a lot about Cipriano. We get to watch him as he goes through a day of working and forming clay, cleaning the kiln, loading it and finally lighting it and tending the fire late into the night with his dog by his side. In the later half of the book, even if it isn't explicitly stated, you know where Cipriano's head is and you have a pretty good feel for Marta and Marcal as well.
Saramago has a very distinct writing style which avoids hard breaks, paragraphs are rarely ended and the only indication you get that someone is talking are often commas on either side of speech. It seems like we're getting a stream of consciousness from a third person narrator, not really a "God's eye view" but an insightful one. He gets lost in detail regularly, but it always has purpose. The clearest example of this are in the sights on the potter's drive to and from the city, either to deliver his goods or bring Marcal to work. Each time Cipriano is in a different state of mind and we get insight into that state of mind by the description given, which details are focused on, which conversations and flights of fancy are indulged or avoided.
I've seen a number of criticisms of the overall pace of the book. More often than not though it seems that particular criticism is a front for the reviewer's disappointment that Saramago doesn't have an uncontrollable hate-boner over the evils of Capitalism and the book doesn't spray you with a constant stream of sticky Marxist discharge. Generally such reviews go on to complain that The Cave only "lightly mocks" the absurdities of commercialism and those aren't exclusively the focus of all the mockery Saramago has to offer; how embarrassing. While there is some anti-capitalist sentiment there one or two of Saramago's later work are more stridently critical of capitalism, obviously that means those are the good ones.
That's not to say the book isn't slow moving, it's just that it strikes me as being very purposeful and very wide in it's reach. If you aren't looking for a book to beat you over the head with a single topic repeatedly The Cave succeeds in being subtle about the message it wants to send and the impression it wants to leave with the reader.
That's not to say the book isn't slow moving, it's just that it strikes me as being very purposeful and very wide in it's reach. If you aren't looking for a book to beat you over the head with a single topic repeatedly The Cave succeeds in being subtle about the message it wants to send and the impression it wants to leave with the reader.
When the eponymous Cave (yes, as in Plato's in case you didn't catch the quote at the start) appears it's at the very end of the book. Things at the pottery did not go well. The Center initially responds well to an offer of clay figurines which they order 12 hundred of. After Cipriano buys the necessary paints, chemicals and casts and masters and entirely new (to him) method of molding clay The Center abruptly cancels the order. Luckily, Marcal's long expected promotion arrives and the whole family can come to live in The Center. On moving there Cipriano initially explores and is enthralled by the many attractions and curiosities The Center has to offer. After one attraction which emulates the experience of being caught out in a storm, first wind, then rain, then snow before relenting to a clearing of clouds and warm sun Cipriano is overjoyed. "You don't get it yet, do you" says a man who looks like he's been there before many times.
Really if you the reader haven't gotten it by this point it was my opportunity to "catch up" as it were. This was a very physical representation of Plato's cave and so is The Center which contains it. But so are the many things Cipriano tells himself, "I'm an old man", "I must make my Pottery work", "I must now live in The Center" just to name a few. This comes just in time, an excavation deep below The Center has recently found something quite unexpected and there's a buzz surrounding it. Cipriano's stubborn and curious nature reasserts itself and he knows when his son-in-law will be watching whatever the discovery is. So in the middle of the night he gets into a service elevator and goes to visit Marcal. Marcal expected this and seems strangely haunted and instructs Cipriano on how to find what he seeks, telling him only not to disturb anything.
What the excavation has uncovered is a row of skeletons, chained to a rock wall with clear evidence of a fire and shadow puppets behind them. Plato's Cave has been uncovered far beneath it's modern day equivalent.
Having seen this Cipriano must leave, he does not want to die a skeleton chained to the wall. Marcal cannot stay and tend to the chains and Marta who is with child, cannot have it grow up in this place never knowing the real world. Because you know the many metaphorical caves Cipriano inhabits and the narratives he tells about himself you can see how freeing this revelation is and feel some second hand freedom through him. Perhaps you'll even get to ride off into the sunset with that hot widow you've been crushing on and the cute (and oddly insightful) stray dog you've adopted as your own.
Really if you the reader haven't gotten it by this point it was my opportunity to "catch up" as it were. This was a very physical representation of Plato's cave and so is The Center which contains it. But so are the many things Cipriano tells himself, "I'm an old man", "I must make my Pottery work", "I must now live in The Center" just to name a few. This comes just in time, an excavation deep below The Center has recently found something quite unexpected and there's a buzz surrounding it. Cipriano's stubborn and curious nature reasserts itself and he knows when his son-in-law will be watching whatever the discovery is. So in the middle of the night he gets into a service elevator and goes to visit Marcal. Marcal expected this and seems strangely haunted and instructs Cipriano on how to find what he seeks, telling him only not to disturb anything.
What the excavation has uncovered is a row of skeletons, chained to a rock wall with clear evidence of a fire and shadow puppets behind them. Plato's Cave has been uncovered far beneath it's modern day equivalent.
Having seen this Cipriano must leave, he does not want to die a skeleton chained to the wall. Marcal cannot stay and tend to the chains and Marta who is with child, cannot have it grow up in this place never knowing the real world. Because you know the many metaphorical caves Cipriano inhabits and the narratives he tells about himself you can see how freeing this revelation is and feel some second hand freedom through him. Perhaps you'll even get to ride off into the sunset with that hot widow you've been crushing on and the cute (and oddly insightful) stray dog you've adopted as your own.
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2021
@Agent Sandoval I have Blindness by Saramago in my book pile. Have you read that one/what did you think?
Agent Sandoval
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2022
@Friend of Dorothy Parker My note about Saramago's writing style applies to everything he's ever written. Some people find it too dense and can't get into the flow of it. If you don't get filtered by his writing, Blindness is definitely worth it.
It's remarkable to me how many different ways Saramago uses his writing style. The Cave is intimate and familiar with its characters. Blindness doesn't even tell you their names. In both cases the perspective and writing style is used to enhance that effect. Reading Blindness I felt detached and isolated, and there's tension between those feelings and the theme and focus of the story: people making connections even in the most harrowing circumstances.
Overall I found it to be less clever and layered than The Cave, but it was not less impactful. I read it in middle of a lockdown so that probably made it more effective, but I can't imagine it not messing with me even if I read it during the best of times.
It's remarkable to me how many different ways Saramago uses his writing style. The Cave is intimate and familiar with its characters. Blindness doesn't even tell you their names. In both cases the perspective and writing style is used to enhance that effect. Reading Blindness I felt detached and isolated, and there's tension between those feelings and the theme and focus of the story: people making connections even in the most harrowing circumstances.
Overall I found it to be less clever and layered than The Cave, but it was not less impactful. I read it in middle of a lockdown so that probably made it more effective, but I can't imagine it not messing with me even if I read it during the best of times.
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2021
OK so this morning I read Treacle Walker, by Alan Garner. Only an hour and change to read, so quite short, but it was a delight. I might even re-read it; for a short novel, it contains a lot. A hint of Narnia (and a little Oz), and a dash of quantum physics (the intro quote is by Carlo Rovelli ("Time is ignorance," iirc)), it's an amusing and poignant story about purpose and knowing, among other things. It also has outstanding old-fashioned (and, in some cases, invented) English vocab and some fun koan-ish wordplay that actually has meaning. The pacing is both, at times, rollicking and lilting, but with an edge of darkness or something-not-right-ness. Garner wrote it at 87 (and I'm afraid I've never read him before, but he has done both children's and adult novels throughout a long life), and it was a Booker Prize nom this year (yes, an old, white Anglo of the rapidly dying sort; his family has lived in the house he inhabits for 400 years, and (trivia alert) the land has been inhabited for 10,000! years).
Thank you for the reply! I'll move Blindness up in my pile. Appreciate your perspective and write-ups.
Thank you for the reply! I'll move Blindness up in my pile. Appreciate your perspective and write-ups.
Not A Skinwalker
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2022
Got a bunch of books for Christmas; got the Border Trilogy by Mccarthy, Timothy Zahn's new book, the first part of Galaxy's edge and a book on the king's indian defense
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2021
I'm close to finishing Butcher's Crossing. My honest opinion is that it's one of those books that I wasn't sure if I would find interesting but I've enjoyed it.
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2016
I just finished the audiobook I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy, which was read by Jeanette. The hype for the book was intense, and I feel like it lived up to it.
- Joined
- May 14, 2019
I've been having a terrible run of books lately, try starting a novel and each one is just dull.
Ramona is supposed to be the novel of California, book about Spaniards and Indians in post-Mexican War California, romantic tragedy of miscegenation. Dull as dishwater.
Then The War of the End of the World, weird-ass Latin American novel of the War of Canudos, a millenarian folk Catholic monarchist revolt in Brazil. Has lots of interesting content - disturbing stories of suffering and sadism in the broken people that joined the Counselor's kingdom of heaven. But for as much potential as I see in it, I just can't focus on it when I read.
Now I'm on Kim, Kipling's weird Raj story that's supposed to tie into Great Game espionage, but so far (a fourth in) has felt more like a throwback to old epics and mythology, where a monk and his rascally urchin friend go off in search of prophesied wonders in a world where the average person shares their magical worldview. And it's much easier to focus on, might actually finish it, but not as interesting as the above.
Ramona is supposed to be the novel of California, book about Spaniards and Indians in post-Mexican War California, romantic tragedy of miscegenation. Dull as dishwater.
Then The War of the End of the World, weird-ass Latin American novel of the War of Canudos, a millenarian folk Catholic monarchist revolt in Brazil. Has lots of interesting content - disturbing stories of suffering and sadism in the broken people that joined the Counselor's kingdom of heaven. But for as much potential as I see in it, I just can't focus on it when I read.
Now I'm on Kim, Kipling's weird Raj story that's supposed to tie into Great Game espionage, but so far (a fourth in) has felt more like a throwback to old epics and mythology, where a monk and his rascally urchin friend go off in search of prophesied wonders in a world where the average person shares their magical worldview. And it's much easier to focus on, might actually finish it, but not as interesting as the above.
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2015
I'm currently reading "San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities" by Michael Shellenberger. It's a very well researched book on why the west coast and more specifically California has such a massive issue with homelessness. You'd think reading the title that this was just going to be some boomer ranting about libtards but it's not at all. The book is very fact and figures oriented and not some emotional spiel.
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2015
Just finished Minette Walters' "The Breaker". By no means the best book I've ever read, but it kept me occupied for a few hours. Mystery set on the English coast. Pretty obvious whodunit but it was interesting how he tried to slither out of it.
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2022
Womble of Wimbledon
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2022
"The Scramble for Africa" by Thomas Pakenham, basically a chronological history of the Europeans carving up Africa for themselves from 1870s til WW1. Very well-written, well-researched, doesn't moralise just tells the story straight (yes it was written 30 years ago, how did you guess). I'm only about a third in, currently reading about the race between France and Leopold II for the Congo. Leopold was as cunning as a shithouse rat by the sounds of it
WhiskeyZuluLima
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2018
Since I did this once, I'll do it again because I have nothing better to do: here is my 2022 reading/audiobook (mostly the latter) list. I am honestly displeased with it being quite heavy with autism in my mind. Still, completing almost one a week is a nice rate to have maintained.
The more I think about it the more I'm judging myself.
The more I think about it the more I'm judging myself.
Attachments
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2015
I guess having a graphic like this is nice in principle, but why bother going to the effort? Just write a list.
![LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]](http://uploads.kiwifarms.st/data/avatars/l/61/61177.jpg?1699571951){kind=avatar}
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2020
I watched the show they made for this without reading the book and it all seems very bullshit and very over-dramatized, is it just a bad adaptation?
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2020
Alfred Whitehead’s Process and Reality is a book that I have wanted to read since somewhere around 2018 to 2019. It blends a lot of mathematics, physics and philosophy into the genre of cosmology.