Readers?

[Zero]

:lol: fiction geeks

I read loads, but nothing anyone would find interesting, I'm sure. Most recently I've read stuff like "Winning the Oil Endgame" by Amory Lovins, Crossing the Rubicon (Mike Ruppert), in the middle of Keynes' economic theory, about to go back to Adams... Chomksy, The Art of War - boring stuff.

[jmcphail]

There are some stories that I found impossible to digest quickly, and Ulysses is one of these. Also DeLillo's Underworld.

In those cases I gain a lot of benefit from taking a bite, carrying it around in my head for a while, and thinking about it... or not. I know my brain is working on it even when its not conscious and I honestly think it just takes time for me, conscious or not.

Other stories I read and appreciate very quickly at my more usual pace, just slamming it all in there with a grin on my face.

For some reason your quote struck me and I remembered that when I read Ulysses nothing clicked and things were mysterious for quite a while for me, until I had somehow finally came to an understanding of some sort. Since then I've been repeatedly delighted to find deeper understandings that, for me, seem to come only when I spend enough time with it.

Guess I should get it on with 'Ulysses' now?

[jmcphail]

Definitely!

"I'll show you the life of the mind!" - Charlie Meadows

:lol: fiction geeks

[Coffey]

:lol: fiction geeks

I read loads, but nothing anyone would find interesting, I'm sure. Most recently I've read stuff like "Winning the Oil Endgame" by Amory Lovins, Crossing the Rubicon (Mike Ruppert), in the middle of Keynes' economic theory, about to go back to Adams... Chomksy, The Art of War - boring stuff.

Nothing boring about any of it IMHO Zero. The Art of War is a hell of a read. I really enjoy stuff that makes me think deeply, rather than just an entertaining story. Like I said earlier, I've read Plato's Republic several times, because I find new things every time. Interestingly enough, Tolkien does the same thing for me. They are entertaining stories, but more than that, they have much philosophical depth.

[Zero]

Aye, I found the Dune series to be like that - brain twisting and huge with ideas. Only Herbert could write a line like :

Because of the one-pointed Time awareness in which the conventional mind remains immersed, humans tend to think of everything in a sequential, word-oriented framework. This mental trap produces very short-term concepts of effectiveness and consequences, a condition of constant, unplanned response to crises.

:lol: I do read a touch of fiction, but mostly big epic stuff like that, Tolkien, Heinlen, Asimov...

For anyone with interests in consciousness/intelligence/AI/brains/etc, I highly recommend Gödel Escher Bach (link). It is one of the densest non-academic (non-texbook) books I've ever read, but it is just packed with interesting ideas and very rewarding to finish. Accessible to anyone with sufficient interest and motivation, I think.

[Coffey]

Funny you mention Dune Zero, I was just talking with one of my professors about it today. Will definitely have to look into the work you mention. I'll put it on the must read list, which is quite full right now :shock:

[jmcphail]

Zoinkies, I've heard of this and I can't remember how or when, now here it is again staring at me! I think I see my short-term future waiting for me...

Appreciate the suggestion Zero

For anyone with interests in consciousness/intelligence/AI/brains/etc, I highly recommend Gödel Escher Bach (link). It is one of the densest non-academic (non-texbook) books I've ever read, but it is just packed with interesting ideas and very rewarding to finish. Accessible to anyone with sufficient interest and motivation, I think.

[Soft Morning, City!]

jmcphail:

A momentary digression back to Pynchon (himself king of the digression)...

Have you read his new one yet? Against The Day. I bought it when it first came out, but I haven't had the courage yet to try it out. I mean, I love Pynchon, but 1085 pages of his dense prose seems very, very daunting. Others have told me good things, but I just wanted your take in case you got around to it.

Haven't read Vineland yet either. I've been told that it's not as good as his other work.

You mentioned you started with Lot 49 though. I did the same thing. It's a small, small world.

Of course, that seems to be one the points of Pynchon's work. Everything is related and very little is coincidental.

This digression has come to a close.

[Subtilo]

There are some stories that I found impossible to digest quickly, and Ulysses is one of these. Also DeLillo's Underworld.

In those cases I gain a lot of benefit from taking a bite, carrying it around in my head for a while, and thinking about it... or not. I know my brain is working on it even when its not conscious and I honestly think it just takes time for me, conscious or not.

Other stories I read and appreciate very quickly at my more usual pace, just slamming it all in there with a grin on my face.

For some reason your quote struck me and I remembered that when I read Ulysses nothing clicked and things were mysterious for quite a while for me, until I had somehow finally came to an understanding of some sort. Since then I've been repeatedly delighted to find deeper understandings that, for me, seem to come only when I spend enough time with it.

Guess I should get it on with 'Ulysses' now?

Yes, I too have certain books or authorships that I simply have to spread out over the years (not only for the process of 'understanding', but also to avoid complete and utter madness). An example could be Marcel Proust's 7-books-huge 'À la recherche du temps perdu'. I'm somewhere in book three by now and it'll probably take me the next five years to get through them all. Man, what a project.

Zero, I accept the geek-sticker :wink:

[jmcphail]

I haven't even read it, I didn't even know he had a new book! Now there are two books I need right away. I've been out of it, apparently!

I have Vineland but I think I started it and put it back down. I went searching my books for London Fields and ended up with Gravity and started that last night. I'm missing books, I think, maybe still in boxes from the last time I moved. Aaagh!

jmcphail:

Have you read his new one yet? Against The Day. I bought it when it first came out, but I haven't had the courage yet to try it out. I mean, I love Pynchon, but 1085 pages of his dense prose seems very, very daunting. Others have told me good things, but I just wanted your take in case you got around to it.

Haven't read Vineland yet either. I've been told that it's not as good as his other work.

[Soft Morning, City!]

jmcphail:

Hah! Glad I could inform you! Seriously, when you finally pick up your copy of Against The Day and get a good look at the thing, you'll understand my trepidation. It's truly a monster. One thousand eighty-five pages and it weighs a ton! I really can't wait to tackle it, but admittedly it probably won't happen for quite a while.

Always good to have a copy of GR on hand. Even if you're not reading the entire work, there are always those sections you can go back to and enjoy on their own. The opening pages are spectacular, and the scene of Osbie (sp?) preparing the Amanita Muscaria mushrooms for smoking... the banana frenzy and the horrible scat sex scene midway through the book... countless wonderful passages.

Have you seen the book of illustrations for Gravity's Rainbow? It's buy a guy named Zak Smith and it's called Gravity's Rainbow Illustrated: One Picture For Every Page and is absolutely spectacular. Highly abstract in places, very simple in others, much like the original work itself. I recommend you track down a copy if you can. Well worth the money.

I was reading a bit about London Fields and I think I'm going to go buy a copy sometime next week. It really does sound wonderful.

[jmcphail]

I have Against The Day and London Fields on the way from Amazon, and I'm kind of upset I can't find the LF I *know* I already have, and ordered a paperback. As someone said, "So it goes"...

The Banana Breakfast is just beginning, and the cartoonish scene of Pirate catching the plummeting Teddy Bloat in his rolling cot is fresh in my mind, like a coyote falling on a hay stack, but without an anvil.

I'm viewing the illustrations online right now, just kind of wading in and enjoying. And here it is! http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/zak_smith/5.htm

Something funny about London Fields, I'm not sure if the "Keith" character is first introduced to the readers in this book, but I think Amis reuses "Keith" as a sort of Pere Ubu prole character, dedicated to his own interests and suspicious of anything "beyond his ken". He's sort of a real-world salt-of-the-earth type of figure, lacking the grace and nobility typically imbued in such figures; instead Keith creates antipathy, and subsequent guilt in the reader. Amis is kind of a shit I guess.

[Soft Morning, City!]

Good, good. Did you order the hard or soft cover? The hardcover is really a beautiful looking bundle of paper.

Hah. I loved the Pirate and Teddy Bloat moment. The moment I read it I knew that I would get great enjoyment from GR.

One of my absolute favorite passages is when Pynchon is describing Pointsman's (?) desk... how sloppy it is, literally listing every object upon the manic tableau of the desk's surface. I laughed out loud, as I've done frequently with the book.

Another of my favorites is later in the book (Part II, I believe) when Slothrop has just been with Katje and has climbed out the window onto a tree and winds up falling onto the croquet court for an embarrassing and wonderful moment. Also the very surreal sequence of events that takes place in the child's playhouse, or some such thing. That sequence confused me, but for some reason it really sticks with me, though I can't quite make sense of it.

Man, this makes me want to go read GR right now. In fact, I think I will.

[jmcphail]

Got the hardcover Against The Day, paperback London Fields.

Sounds like you've started Against The Day

Good, good. Did you order the hard or soft cover? The hardcover is really a beautiful looking bundle of paper.

[Soft Morning, City!]

No no, haven't started Against The Day yet. When I said "beautiful bundle of paper" I meant just that. It really is a beautiful looking book.