Joy Evangelion wrote:I read that one in a couple days or so back in December 2011, so I barely remember it, but I do recall it being pretty cool and entertaining. Not as good as his four masterworks(duhhhh), but better than Intruder in the Dust and If I forget Thee, Jerusalem. The Snopes trilogy(Hamlet, Town, Mansion) was super dope as well.

I think Absalom and SnF are a cut above the other two of his (generally regarded) masterworks, but those being the only I've read to completion other than a few of his short stories I'm not sure what to compare them to. I've finally had the chance to read more of Go Down, Moses the past few days and I think it's great so far. I've finished Was, The Fire and the Hearth, and Black Pantaloon. The former and the latter held my attention but I loved The Fire and the Hearth. When race is central in a Faulkner story it's always done well and never feels preachy. I'm starting to get the bigger picture of how all these stories are connected.

On a different note, I've been going through this complete works volume of Plato with renewed vigor as part of my plan to read the Greeks and The Bible in order to read medieval theology. I read the Gorgias dialogue today, interesting takeaways being the parable told at the end (like those told in Phaedrus and Republic) and a less developed idea of irrational desires being present in all people that appears more fully in Republic.

Kazuki_Fuse wrote:The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Yea, read this one ASAP. Loved every page of it.

caragnafog dog wrote: Absalom and SnF are a cut above the other two

Yea, very much agreed. L.I.A. and A.I.L.D. were the first two of his I read, so I love them for sentimental reasons, but Absalom and SnF are clearly Bill F. working with everything he had. I don't have any real desire to reread LIA or AILD, but the other two are works that I'm basically always thinking about and drawn to reread.

After finishing Go Down, Moses I plowed through Heart of Darkness (le the horror face). It was fantastic, steeped in ambiguity and morally nebulous behavior. When the semester is over I'm going to go on a Conrad kick and read his longer novels.

Right now I'm about 160 pages into Crime and Punishment (the McDuff translation). It lives up to its page-turning reputation, very compelling beyond a shadow of a doubt, but I'm still anxious to get to the core of Raskolnikov. I haven't been privy to many of his inner workings or frustrations that led him to commit the deed, and that's often what the novel is hailed for. I can tell he's another one of Dostoyevsky's fucked up neurotics, but I'm eager to see what sets him apart from the Underground Man.

So I’m just past halfway in The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and loving every bit of it. I had meant to start The Lord of the Rings with The Fellowship of the Ring but this was sat next to it on the shelf and after flipping through the first couple pages I was effortlessly pulled into Murakami’s distinct style of prose (it was also on my mind a bit from the current mentions of it in here). His kind of surrealist storytelling is probably exactly what I need to loosen me up after reading King’s The Shining before starting a sprawling fantasy epic. So far I’d even say I’m enjoying it about as equally as Kafka on the Shore - maybe even a little more - and Toru Okada’s day-in-day-out reminds me of when I was out of work for nearly six months or so back in early 2012.

Wind-Up Bird is one of Murakami's better ones. I'm a big fan of May Kasahara and the side story in Manchuria.

Finished Crime and Punishment a few days ago. I was astounded by the sheer positivity of the epilogue and as impressed by the rest of the novel as I expected to be; Raskolnikov is a great character.

Yeah, the Nomonhan Incident and Lieutenant Mamiya's story seem to cast something of a lateral shadow through the rest of the book - kind of like the event with the school kids on the hillside hike in Kafka. I also love how Murakami can weave a sense of either dread or myth into the most mundane of daily exercises.

At this rate I will probably have finished Wind-up Bird by the weekend, I reckon.

Finished up The Fall of Hyperion today. Not as good as the first and the Keats fanboyism was barely tolerable at times, but the world was still engrossing and the conclusion satisfying. I doubt I'll read the Endymion section of the cantos.

also

Just finished up Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought by Garrigou-Lagrange. Probably the best summary of the works of Aquinas (with Edward Feser's book coming close), though I wouldn't recommend this for beginners at all; some prior philosophical knowledge is essential.

Next I will tackle Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics, a book edited by Feser but has essays contributed by numerous philosophers. Wish me luck.

My second Murakami is done and dusted; just finished Wind-up Bird then (Gee, that last part of the book is much larger than it initially appears). Have to say I really enjoyed the ending. In a lot of ways it's not as ambiguous a riddle as Kafka and is a little more self-explanatory. The only thing really left unrevealed is the relevance of all the events in Manchukuo/Manchuria - though, they're so intrinsicly layered with the main story as to make parallels and explain gaps elsewhere. I also think all the mystic stuff going on is because the characters are in some way mantling something that occurred there, whether it happened on-page or not (Toru explains that the legacy of the Nomohan Incident binds them all together in a kind of invisible circle).

One of my favourite scenes was that bizarre baseball bat execution in the Hsin-ching Zoo. It's so malevolent, almost blood-curdling, yet detailed in the most casual manner, and all the characters gathered carry it out with a malaise of resignation. Very vivid stuff. It's just one example of the many vignettes of that kind in the book, which is why it's so great and enjoyable.


Now what to start next, EGF? The Fellowship of the Ring or Red Dragon?

I would say Red Dragon, but maybe that's because I just finished In The Miso Soup, so I've got a hankering for more serial killer material. Frank is one of the most terrifying characters I've ever experienced in a novel.

Blue Monday wrote: that bizarre baseball bat execution in the Hsin-ching Zoo

Man, somehow I had completely forgotten about that little side story until now... yea, that part was fantastic. Read the book too fast because I liked it too much and didn't absorb as much of it as I could have. Oh well. I'd go back and read that part again, but I loaned my copy to an ex-friend

And as caragnafog dog said earlier, May Kasahara is a super dope character.

Early last year I explained Kafka as having the feeling of a whimsical fairytale or myth, shadowed by a dark, ravenous abyss. An abyss with fangs and claws dripping with saliva, waiting to tear the reader apart should they step wrong. Whilst crafted in a similar fashion (and with first/third person perspective differences aside), Wind-Up Bird has the sense of a wry epic infused into the very minutiae of daily routine. Magic(k) is hidden in day-to-day reality yet no one knows how it works or where it comes from - we are only teased with hints as guided by the story - and everything has a shadow-world and a double-meaning.

And yeah; May is indeed a splendid character - loved her letters and Toru's reaction to them in the end.

Kazuki_Fuse wrote:I would say Red Dragon...

RD it is. Read the first chapter on my lunch break at home today already. Truth be told, True Detective has put me in the mood for more hard-boiled psychological crime drama, but as always, I require coercion in all things.

Allisa Nutting's Tampa. I'm ready to deem it the American Psycho for the millennial generation.

Big day today, as I am finally done with this pile of shit:





god damn plato I hate you so much but the Forms game ridiculous

I exaggerate of course. It's been a long few months, but I read the last book of Laws today (much drier than Republic, as you'd expect) and I am done with this thing. There were a few dialogues that are supposed to not have been written by him that I skipped but those only made up a small bit of the volume. I'm very glad to move on, but I really did like reading many of the dialogues, the Socratic Method is still strangely exhilarating (barring the Parmenides dialogue, which was by far the most difficult and confused the shit out of me).

I've swapped it out for a basic works of Aristotle volume that I need to pick and choose the most expedient sections to go through; I'm reading him with Aquinas in mind so that should help narrow it down.

EDIT: Finished The Plague by Albert Camus today. I think it is more fully-formed than The Stranger, though I was more affected by the latter and prefer it. I'd still recommend The Plague even if you aren't a Camus completionist.

Finished John Crowley's Aegypt. Shit, I like this guy. Damn fine writer, and he can come up with the most original ideas too. Highly recommended.

I just read a description of that and now I must read it.

Just finished Red Dragon. Superb book. Harris' writing is incredibly sharp yet utterly strict in the detail. I read the whole last third in one sitting, I was that hooked with suspense. Was also surprised to find how much of the story comes from the Tooth Fairy's/Dragon's POV and the last chapter's reflection is fittingly haunting. Highly recommended.

reread kokoro by natsume soseki these past few days. recommend it to everyone, soseki speaks for himself but kokoro is really incredible in its tortured relationships.

Oh wow, I read Kokoro years ago on a whim. There used to a be a second-hand bookstore in town I'd browse through on lunch break sometimes (ended up getting to know the owner pretty well) and it was a title I just picked up one day at random. I remember feeling like I'd been hit by a steam train at the end of Sensei's letter. IIRC the revelation is quite masterfully done. I imagined Sensei looking like Katsura Kogorō from the Rurouni Kenshin OVAs.

I'd love to read it once again in the future, too.

you absolutely should. it was only a little easier this time; I was distraught when I reached the end on my first reading. even now I'm unsure what to take away from it, I just know that it's a very impactful book and that I don't like to think about it too much. maybe I'd feel more secure in my understanding of it if i knew more about soseki himself, I don't know.

that being said it's a very quick read so what's been written above should not be a deterrent.

also, secondhand bookstores are great. a new one opened in my hometown, when the semester is over and before I go off to language school I plan on spending a lot of time in it. There's something comforting about them.