Which Book Are You Reading Now? Volume XII

[Cutlass]

I've been reading a bunch of Batman and related graphic novels lately.

 

[Takhisis]

Fay Weldon came up with her own classification system,

In the nineties, moved by the new GOO (‘GOOd read’) classification in Camden public libraries, I devised my own classification scheme as follows.

Good-good books – the best of contemporary literary novels, plus classics which were best-sellers in their day and have withstood the passage of time: all engaging with the intellect, if ‘difficult’.

Bad-good books – pretentious and dreadfully boring, yet taken seriously by the occasional reviewer (usually a friend of the author) and funded by the Arts Council.

Good-bad books – intensely readable, unpretentious and seldom reviewed.

Bad-bad books – worthy only to be hurled into the corner or dropped in the bath.

I think I can write good-bad books. Hopefully I'll one day be writing good-good books.

(getting published is another thing entirely)

 

[Birdjaguar]

I think I can write good-bad books. Hopefully I'll one day be writing good-good books.

(getting published is another thing entirely)

What language will they be in?

 

[Dekker]

Reread 1984. Very prescient Mr. Orwell, except the commie Party will never happen (thankfully) because the current world capitalists and populists have 1984 as a prescription manual to bring about the same reality in many regards. Truth isn't truth in Trumpland. The endless war is on terrorism. The UK took its rightful place breaking off from Eurasia to chart course with the five eyes of Oceania, China is actively forming Eastasia, and the rest of the world is already the proxy battleground for resources and labour, to be exploited by their own corrupt leaders, and many who work in concert with their masters abroad to gain ground like China is doing in Africa. Thankfully the capitalists know that the pursuit of commodities and illusion of happiness is better to placate the masses than the outrageous antics of the Party so we won't be robbed of basic pleasures, but our privacy didn't have to be forced away from viewscreens, we freely are giving it up, and our own Party of authoritarian capitalist technologist military industrialists will reign for a long while yet because our divisions will keep growing while we feel our lives are eventually improving because technology keeps advancing and we'll be satisfied just consuming. So there will be no disappearances(that'll be left to the wannabe states like Saudi Arabia) no puritan restrictions (that'll be left to he Church which thankfully won't become more prominent) and no bleak living in squalor with rationing (that'll be left to the third world) and so we won't realize just how much we are living in 1984. But we'll be there forever, Star Trek ain't coming.

 

[Kyriakos]

Euania has always been at war with ukasia.

 

[Dekker]

Euania has always been at war with ukasia.

I swear 3 years ago they were allies no?

 

[Lexicus]

I finished Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism a few days ago, that is quite a cogent little book, about 80 pages. Now reading Reclaiming The State by Bill Mitchell and Thomas Fazi. @innonimatu it is quite good as I thought it would be, I'm around page 60 now.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Sorry, in greek those terms tend to mean the same...
Btw, 'classic' is ultimately derived by the classes system in the 5th century bc (iirc), and started being used as a synecdoche for anything golden-era like

classic and high literature are vastly different. classics are classics because of a (scholarly or not) consensus, because of their longevity and because many feel they convey a subject matter (a tale, a phenomenon, or such) that is timeless and always relevant.

high literature may be completely obscure, not recognized, not relatable at all, it's basically anything that is intellectually challenging, complex, insanely well-crafted and has a certain edge (of madness or grandeur) to it.

the odyssee is a classic, zettel's dream is high literature, for example

just my 2ct

There is this quote, attributed to Oscar Wilde, that says there's only two kinds of literature: good litersture, and bad literature. Whether it is high(brow) or not has little to do with it.

At this point we can say that classic is the same as canonic: a corpus that academia has deemed worth talking about. Much of it is good, much of it is bad, much of it has been forgotten in time and much more has been purposefully excluded from it.

It is a useful category insofar as these are most usually well-written, but it is worthless as a category to help determine your taste.

I think that's dumb, there is no "de facto" good or bad lit, just lit with different ambitions (noble or selfish) and different levels of craftsmanship, which is already bordering on arbitrary territory (from brute to master or something). so, say a 50 shades of grey has the amibition of arousing the reader and making bank, and isn't very well crafted. whether or not it is bad or good art still cannot be judged objectively.

"high brow" - what does this really refer to? it's honestly more about subject matter, aesthetic and discourse than it is about the writing itself. high brow could be joyce's letters to Nora about fart sniffing - the subject is edgy and controversial enough, the prose is weird enough, the discourse (sexuality, power dynamics, deviation, fetishism) is contemporary and hip enough. most importantly, "high brow" says little about substance, it's mostly a stylistic description imo.

I 100% agree that classic is the same as canonic, that is pretty much the definition

 

[cardgame]

most importantly, "high brow" says little about substance, it's mostly a stylistic description imo.

Well of course, we have plenty of ways to describe the substance.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I finished Tyson and Lang's Accessory To War. Right at the very end they wrote something that summarized the whole thesis of the book:

Given the Cold War underpinnings of NASA's very existence, no astrophysicist should see NASA as our personal science-funding agency. We are the wagging tail on a large geostrategic dog, which makes decisions without direct reference to the desires of astrophysicists. Hegemony drives science because science piggybacks on geopolitics.


The book started in the literal Stone Age and marched singularly toward the present without really skipping a beat. The whole way he pointed out all the ways scientific advancement has been tied up in warfare and the military. It's a solid thesis and a supported by 150 pages of notes and annotated sources. There is so much content in the notes section I am going to treat it as a separate, mini-book when I need a break from my next title.

In general I agree with his hypothesis. I also thoroughly enjoyed the book and was never bored with it as I feared due to my familiarity with the subject. Excellent read.

Also worth noting: it was cowritten with Avis Lang and I can't tell where one is writing or the other. It is totally seemless in that regard.

 

[downtown]

Working through two at the moment, one for professional reasons, one for personal.

John Steinbeck's East of Eden

King Football: Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio and Newsreels By Michael Oriard

 

[EnglishEdward]

Finished last night:

Rig

by

Jon Wallace

an author I had not read before.

 

[Kyriakos]

The book of imaginary beings (by borges)
Ie a collection of referrences to some imaginary beings. It's ok, though not that impressive imo. I liked the eastern myth about the mile tall three legged donkey, and sventemburg (spelling) angels and demons

 

[Traitorfish]

On a lefty whinging kick.

 

[Kyriakos]

Re the book of imaginary beings, there are obviously tons missing. Not sure why borges termed it thus. Eg there is nothing from the tens of beings in lucianos's alethes istoria. Not even the massive nephelocentauroi

 

[Kyriakos]

(Re)read henry james' the figure in the carpet (or similar). Seems to be partly about celibacy. Similarities with the beast in the jungle. I liked most of james i have read, but not the turn of the screw.

 

[tjs282]

Got the 2 sequels to both Annihilation (Southern Reach trilogy, Jeff vanderMeer) and The Quantum Thief (Hannu Rajaniemi) for Christmas, so have re-read Annihilation to get me back up to speed (still haven't watched the movie, probably won't) and am now halfway through Authority.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

You should definitely watch the movie. They did a fantastic job with it. I can't remember how precisely it tracks the book (years passed between reading it and watching the movie for me) but it nailed the general atmosphere and suspense of the book.

 

[Takhisis]

I've been catching up on paperbacks. This week it was Árabes: Poemas, crónicas y relatos en Sudamérica (Arabs: poems, chronicles and tales in South America). Apparently the third-largest immigration group by origin to Latin America, after the ubiquitous Spanish and Italians, are the (Syro-Lebanese) Arabs.
And the poems are quite good, too.

What language will they be in?

You'll see.

Edit: new thread

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: Thread closed.