Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tonight I'll be starting The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol... I'm rather excited to read it after hearing that Dostoevsky apparently said "We have all come from under The Overcoat."
What Book Are You Reading? Issue.8
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Agree, except I didn't like The Brothers Karamazov that much. Length and propensity to put me to sleep induced a low ranking.
I have barely started, so I cannot really tell you. I will update when I finish some time.
Perfection
The Great Head.
How to Cook Humans
RedRalph
Deity
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How to cook for forty humans
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Finished! It was very good. Maybe I'll write something on it at some point.
For today, I'll be starting The Nose by Nikolai Gogol. The back cover calls it a "masterpiece of comic art", but I suppose we'll have to see!
Finished up The Greeks in Bactria and India just now. Pretty good, and this edition has been nicely updated to compensate for having been written almost sixty years ago. I suppose I'll have to get into more numismatics if I want to go much further with the Baktrians, considering the paucity of written evidence.
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Finished! It was very short.
Friggen bizarre. Its about a guy who loses his nose. A sample:
"Suddenly he stood rooted to the spot near the door of some house and witnessed a most incredible sight. A carriage drew up at the entrance porch. The doors flew open and out jumped a uniformed, stooping gentleman who dashed up the steps. The feeling of horror and amazement that gripped Kovalyov when he recognized his own nose defies description! After this extraordinary sight everything went topsy-turvy. He could hardly keep to his feet, but decided at all costs to wait until the nose returned to the carriage, although he was shaking all over and felt quite feverish.
About two minutes later a nose really did come out. It was wearing a gold-braided uniform with a high stand-up collar and chamois trousers, and had a sword at its side. From the plumes on its hat one could tell that it held the exalted rank of state councillor. And it was abundantly clear that the nose was going to visit someone. It looked right, then left, shouted to the coachman 'Let's go!', climbed in and drove off.
Poor Kovalyov nearly went out of his mind. He did not know what to make of it. How, in fact, could a nose, which only yesterday was in the middle of his face, and which could not possibly walk around or drive in a carriage, suddenly turn up in a uniform!"
edit: Thinking about it... I bet this work influenced Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children...
Well, I picked up Collapse last night. I'm about three pages in.
Japanrocks12
tired of being a man
there's also an akutagawa story of the same name, I think.
Are you considering The Inspector General or Dead Souls? The latter is also pretty bizarre, but pleasurable nonetheless.
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nah, I think the two stories are enough for now (I'm trying to avoid checking out or buying new books until I read the 50+ books I got extremely cheaply last spring and summer).
Been away from here for a while. Still...
The Road by Cormac McCarthy: I've understood that this one got raving reviews and is considered some sort of a modern classic. I don't claim it was bad but again hype seems to be greater than life.
The Road was the first book by McCarthy I've read so I didn't know what to expect. I read a Finnish translation but based on that the writing is pretty good - somehow the text feels as barren and stripped as the post-apocalyptic world of the book.
While that minimalism works in text and settings it in my opinion fails in the story. Despite its shortness the book is somewhat repetitive - the never ending cycle of walking, foraging, eating and sleeping is broken only by few somewhat insignificant encounters. While I understand that it most probably is intentional and I can see what the writer had in mind it still makes the book a little boring.
Another small gripe is the ending which seems more like a required change by the publisher than an actual ending the writer had intended. It just doesn't fit. Still the overall impression is mostly positive and I think 3/5 is a fair rating.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy: I've understood that this one got raving reviews and is considered some sort of a modern classic. I don't claim it was bad but again hype seems to be greater than life.
The Road was the first book by McCarthy I've read so I didn't know what to expect. I read a Finnish translation but based on that the writing is pretty good - somehow the text feels as barren and stripped as the post-apocalyptic world of the book.
While that minimalism works in text and settings it in my opinion fails in the story. Despite its shortness the book is somewhat repetitive - the never ending cycle of walking, foraging, eating and sleeping is broken only by few somewhat insignificant encounters. While I understand that it most probably is intentional and I can see what the writer had in mind it still makes the book a little boring.
Another small gripe is the ending which seems more like a required change by the publisher than an actual ending the writer had intended. It just doesn't fit. Still the overall impression is mostly positive and I think 3/5 is a fair rating.
Ansar
Détente avec l'été
The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future OR Don't Trust Anyone Under 30 by Mark Bauerlein
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