Well, I am attempting to once again do something that I have come to find difficult in this age of ADD and Internet: actually read entire books front-to-back. I had my first success with I'm Perfect, You're Doomed by Kyria Abrahams, the memoir of an ex-Jehovah's Witness. It is a pretty easy read, told with a casual irreverence and morbid sense of humor, and reveals a far more demented side to the JWs than I'd previously been aware of*. The dark humor is probably the only thing that keeps this memoir from being outright disturbing, given the kinds of extreme human dysfunction recounted. I think the book could have benefited from more thematic coherence; it felt like there was a stronger narrative about "here's how everything I thought was true turned out to be wrong, but I found the strength to keep on living anyway" buried within, awaiting further refinement.

Now attempting Ursula K. LeGuin's A Wizard from EarthSea, although her tendency so far to engage in run-ons is making progress slow.

* The only JW I know collects old video games that he buys on the web in whatever condition he can get them. The JWs in this book are shown blaming second-hand items on bringing Satan's presence into the household, and subsequently stuffing said item into a paper bag and destroying it with a hammer. What a tragedy, if my friend's dad ever did this to his Sega Saturn and copy of Panzer Dragoon Orta.

Read Confession's of a Mask really quick, it was great. That's not to say I enjoyed reading it, the protagonist was frustrating and it's not a happy story. Great for a 2nd novel though.

About 60 pages into Temple of the Golden Pavilion now.

EDIT: Finished Temple of the golden Pavilion on sunday. It was much denser than Confessions of a Mask to be sure, some of Kashigawa's monologues were admittedly difficult to follow at times. The introduction of the edition I read made a good point in saying that it addresses existential questions from a buddhist foundation, which isn't something I'm used to. I look forward to re-reading it.

I've started As I Lay Dying.

Stephen King's The Stand.

This has been sitting on my bookshelf for close to 7 years now and I never bothered cracking it open until 4 nights ago. Now I'm 625 pages in, with the final 198 before me and I can conclude this is not only one of King's finest works, but one of the best novels I've ever read.

Oh man, The Stand is one of my all time favourite books, alongside the likes of Blood Meridian, House of Leaves, Kafka on the Shore, et cetera.

There should be laws against such seven years neglect.



Coincidentally I'm halfway through another Stephen King epic at the moment; It.
Almost, if not equally, as good.

Blue Monday wrote:Coincidentally I'm halfway through another Stephen King epic at the moment; It.

There's something morbidly hilarious about the sex scenes in this. God bless Stephen King but he just writes them strange.

Nearly finished with As I Lay Dying. It's not nearly as dense as Absalom, Absalom but it's very compelling and the multiple narrator approach is great. Darl is a man after my own heart with all his quiet brooding.

It is awesome. Probably my favourite book of his.

As for sex scenes I found them strangely heartwarming in a "not normal" way.

Stillborn wrote:It is awesome. Probably my favourite book of his.

As for sex scenes I found them strangely heartwarming in a "not normal" way.

I loved it too, despite what I said. This reminded me that I need to read Different Seasons again.

The sex scene in It is a more mature version of Susan Pevensie's fate in the Narnia books.

caragnafog dog wrote:As I Lay Dying

Finished this. Darl was right and did nothing wrong.

Kazuki_Fuse wrote:Now I'm 625 pages in, with the final 198 before me

I see you're reading the incomplete version.

In other news, I'm reading some William S. Burroughs and he seems to have a gross fixation on precum. Can anyone explain why?

Atropos wrote:I'm reading some William S. Burroughs and he seems to have a gross fixation on precum. Can anyone explain why?

He's a homosexual.

Also, don't really care cause its a first edition hardcover with this sweet artwork.
[/img]

Kazuki_Fuse wrote:He's a homosexual.

Uh, yeah, I kind of got that. Your point?

But you should read the full version. It fleshes out some characters in more depth and overall feels like a more successful work—not to mention it includes the Dark Tower lead-in.

caragnafog dog wrote:Finished this. Darl was right and did nothing wrong.

My mother is a fish.

The ending is so dark and funny...

The sad thing about As I Lay Dying is how that band took the title for their name, so most people will probably associate a fantastic novel title with some lame band. Also, James Franco decided to make a totally unwanted and unneeded film adaption probably just so he could play Darl... A film adaption of a Faulkner novel written from a first person perspective in the present tense is almost as stupid as making a live action Eva movie...almost.

And if you like Faulkner that much and enjoy Southern Gothic writing you've got to check out Flannery O'Connor's short stories if you haven't already. Girl was dark and awesome.

Joy Evangelion wrote:My mother is a fish.

The ending is so dark and funny...

SPOILER: Show

The whole Anse stealing Dewey Dell's abortion money to get teeth to marry a duck shaped woman is pure genius. The Bundren's are sooo jacked up... not as jacked up as the Compsons though, IMO.

Agree completely. The ending renders everything that came before it absurd. Only other Faulkner I've read is Absalom, Absalom! (which was brilliant), but I feel like the Compsons are bound to have some issues considering how Quentin was affected by that story. Funny thing about this is that I'm about to start The Sound and the Fury, I can't wait. Thanks for the recommendation too, I've heard all about Flannery O'Connor but haven't checked her out.

Oh, and I'm eternally grateful I didn't see the James Franco movie.

All that aside, I just finished Kafka on the Shore. Murakami novels all sort of blend together for me, but I'd say I enjoyed it about as much as Wind-Up Bird, more than Norwegian Wood and less than Hard-Boiled Wonderland. I'm going to read him sporadically from now on, his style gets tiresome if I don't fill the gaps between his novels with other things.

EDIT: Just finished The Sound and the Fury. Hard to pick which Faulkner family I've read about is the most tragic, but the Compsons are certainly a mess. Dilsey stronk though.

I plan on reading the Snopes trilogy for my next Faulkner but for now I'm going to read some James Joyce, starting with Dubliners.

I picked up Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card yesterday.
Heard about this book for a while now and finally now started to read it.

The book is super enjoyable (right up my ally) I know their are other books in the
series I may pick them up as well at some point the the future.

Dataprime wrote:I picked up Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card yesterday.
Heard about this book for a while now and finally now started to read it.

The book is super enjoyable (right up my ally) I know their are other books in the
series I may pick them up as well at some point the the future.

There are 3 sequels to Ender's Game. The second is pretty good but the 3rd and 4th veer off into lolscottcard territory. I still liked them though.

Current queue:

Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
The Plague by Albert Camus

Oh, also I should probably fit The Damning Moths by Ashlee Scheuerman in there somewhere since she's a friend of mine and she just published it and is all excited about it and stuff.

Dataprime wrote:I picked up Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card yesterday.
Heard about this book for a while now and finally now started to read it.

The book is super enjoyable (right up my ally) I know their are other books in the
series I may pick them up as well at some point the the future.

Well for what it's worth I read the second book, if I remember correctly not only was it pretty much about as much a sequel to the first as Hamlet is to Julius Caesar, but the whole set-up with the intergalactic ban on contact which is apparently worthy of annihilating planets over being enforced by a... chain-link fence at the edge of town under the control of a single poor family is about as silly as it sounds, and beyond the terrible moderation they're pretty lousy scientists for not picking up on the aliens' life cycle sooner. And Ender's planet choice for the Buggers is made of lolsymbolism and liberalism and impracticality. I've never had the desire to read the third.

I read the original short version of Ender's Game when it came out in the '70s, where it was just another of the wave of "let's forget Vietnam ever happened" future war stories that filled the gap between the New Wave and cyberpunk; and not even one of the better ones. It's funny that it's that one (along with Haldeman's Forever War) that survived.

Lavinius wrote:Well for what it's worth I read the second book, if I remember correctly not only was it pretty much about as much a sequel to the first as Hamlet is to Julius Caesar, but the whole set-up with the intergalactic ban on contact which is apparently worthy of annihilating planets over being enforced by a... chain-link fence at the edge of town under the control of a single poor family is about as silly as it sounds, and beyond the terrible moderation they're pretty lousy scientists for not picking up on the aliens' life cycle sooner. And Ender's planet choice for the Buggers is made of lolsymbolism and liberalism and impracticality. I've never had the desire to read the third.

Also, Orson Scott Card has completely lost his mind.