[Literature] Currently Reading (discussion)

[Joy Evangelion]

I was feeling a little down last week for whatever reason so I decided I'd pick up good old Battle Royale for the third time. I read it for the first time in 2004, and then again in '08 but it was still all very much brand new.

Since I basically majored in literature in college I hadn't read a book that was as fun to read as Battle Royale is in about four years or so before I picked it up again. I had this thing a couple years back where I was kinda against sci-fi or horror because I thought the writing was too poor or easy and BR really showed me how silly I was being.

With that being said, (I have the first English translation) there are parts in which the writing is atrocious, but I didn't really mind. And there are some things that got me rolling my eyes

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Would Kazuo really had left Shogo/Shuya/Noriko's shotgun and S&W on the farm field after their first battle even if they weren't loaded?

but I guess it's not that crazy.

Surprisingly though, I found myself a little more grossed out by the brutalness of it all, much more so than when I was fourteen. But I think at the same time I appreciated the more humane moments more than before. Have I softened as I've grown older? Yes!

Definitely one of my top five novels; there aren't a lot of books I could have loved when I was 14,18, and 24. Also, for the record, Takako Chigusa was for sure my favorite student this time around.

[caragnafog dog]

I've heard so much about Battle Royale. I'll get to it someday.

However, moments ago I finished The Grapes of Wrath. I was promised something personal and American and I was not disappointed. I've read several of Steinbeck's shorter novels but this was my first time reading a longer work of his; his ability to give proper attention to and flesh out so many characters and make you care is really fantastic. The Joads were a slowly crumbling but principled unit, and despite the dire circumstances of the ending (an extremely hard-hitting one for me, especially given the aftermath of Rose of Sharon's labor) the reader leaves on an optimistic note. Not everything was for naught, some good will come of the desperate situation the Joads and many other families of the time found themselves in.

I should add that Tom is as much of an American hero as a fictional character can be. Steinbeck has struck a chord with me several times before but Grapes was phenomenal.

[ChaddyManPrime]

I'm reading so much crap right now, here's the list;

1) Cross Roads: Creative Writing Exercises in Four Genres

2) If You Want To Write: A Book about Art Independence and Spirit

3) The DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics

4) Figure Drawing for Dummies

5) Insight into The Scriptures

6) NGE: Vol 5

7) Keep Yourselves in God's Love

I'm trying to learn so much crap it's a bit overwhelming but it's stuff I want to know so what can I do I'm just reading NGE: Vol 5 for pleasure though.

[caragnafog dog]

I read two things:

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. I was recommended this as a good introduction to pinecone, whose other works are much longer. Lot 49 is not lacking in complexity though, the conspiracies found within are as ambiguous as they are interesting and the ending prompts reflection on the reader's part. Was Oedipa just having paranoid delusions, was Inverarity taking her for a ride from beyond the grave? Those are only 2 possibilities, and honestly I have no idea yet what is actually behind it all. I'm definitely going to read more Pynchon in the future, because while difficult Lot 49 was very interesting (he uses plenty of actual history alongside some pseudo-historical additions, something I've heard is common in his stuff) and often hilarious.

Snow Country (again) by Yasunari Kawabata. Not much to say here, about as wistful and sad as the first time, maybe a little more so because I found myself identifying with some aspects of Shimamura (the dilettantism of course) this time. Something much larger than the story itself is being conveyed here, but I have trouble putting it into words and would only confuse things if I tried. I hope to read more Kawabata in the future but I'm glad I revisited this.

[MAGI_01]

Started on Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNab last night after having it sit on my shelf since my sister gave it to me a number of years ago. So I decided to crack it open since I want to do a ton of reading while I have some time off over the next few months.

Written by a member of an 8 man SAS patrol that was in Iraq during the first gulf war. So far the first 4 chapters have been a tad slow. I'm hoping it picks up soon, but I will say the level of detail in explaining things so far in it has been pretty good.

[Madonna]

Karen Armstrong - A History of God

Interesting read and highly informative. Unsure if everything in the book is accurate, but Armstrong is reputable so I trust her word.

[Shinoyami65]

Philip K. Dick- VALIS.

Somehow that copy I thought someone bought ages ago was still at the bookshop today.

It reads a lot better than I thought it would; I definitely prefer it over Ubik at least, and it's about on par with Palmer Eldritch at the moment.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Childhood's End

Gave me a few moments of existential terror before bed, but otherwise an excellent novel.

[child of Lilith]

Yet one more of the many books I need to read.

[Joy Evangelion]

Read Norwegian Wood for the first time this past week(after reading the NGE manga for the first time the week before that. So my theme for the past couple weeks were loneliness, I guess. ) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was the third Murakami I've read, after Mocking Bird and Hard-Boiled. Definitely liked it more than the latter, and I connected more personally with this one than Mocking Bird. None of my friends are into Japanese culture, so I didn't really know anything about the book until I started reading. I'm sure everyone loves to compare it to the Catcher in the Rye, but people like to say that about every book. Mostly Norwegian Wood reminded me of Philip Roth's wonderful Goodbye, Columbus; hopeless young love abounds in both.

Sometimes we discover something at just the right point in our lives, and I think I read Norwegian Wood at just the right time.

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No one I know has committed suicide recently so it wasn't that, I've just been in a funk since the summer had started. Just floating by, with the weeks blurring together. But man, Norwegian Wood made me feel pretty good today when I finished it and I hadn't felt good on a Monday afternoon in a long time. Some of my favorite things about the novel;

Reiko's story about her psyche falling apart piece by piece, as opposed to fictional characters having that one grand moment in which everything falls apart.

The relationship between Nagasawa and Watanabe and Nagasawa and Hatsumi. So many times in my life I've found myself thinking "why am I even friends with that guy?" or "why is that girl dating that guy?" And Nagasawa's line about only assholes feeling sorry for themselves was great; imagine if every young sad soul had a friend that would say that.

And then basically any passage with Watanabe/Naoko or Watanabe/Midori, as they felt very honest and real to me, and moving. The book as a whole really made me miss being young and in love.

[Trajan]

Currently re-reading A Clash of Kings. Last time I read up till the middle of A Storm of Swords and stopped for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who's up to date with the novels or the show. We'll see if I can get through the five books in the series this time, especially since I've heard rumblings that The Winds of Winter may be released early next year.

[Wanderlust]

@ Joy Evangelion:

Personally I didn't find Norwegian Wood to be very uplifting at all, but it definitely moved me. Nagasawa was great and had some of the best quotes, like this one:

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"Where Watanabe and I are alike is we don’t give a damn if nobody understands us… That’s what makes us different from everybody else. They’re all worried about whether the people around them understand them. But not me, and not Watanabe. We just don’t give a damn. Self and others are separate.”

I also really enjoyed this exchange between Watanabe and Midori:

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"You're very clear about what you like and what you don't like," she said.
"Maybe so," I said. "Maybe that's why people don't like me. Never have."
"It's because you show it," she said. "You make it obvious you don't care whether people like you or not. That makes some people angry."

Also, for fans of Norwegian Wood (and Murakami in general) who also read manga, I recommend Oyasumi Punpun. It's a great (and very bleak) coming of age story which is very reminiscent of Norwegian Wood, with many similar themes and with the same kind of existential surrealism that pervades Murakami's other works.

[Chuckman]

I wouldn't get my hopes up.

[Trajan]

I wouldn't get my hopes up.

I prefer to remain cautiously optimistic.

[Ieyasu]

After asking a buddy to send me over a few books that set the benchmark for "f-ed up literature", I need to read something else. For want of something a little more upbeat, I'm reading "Let the Right One In" by Lindqvist.

[Stillborn]

I recently finished "The Officer Factory" by Hans Hellmut Kirst.

Awesome book.

[Atropos]

Endless Things (2007): With this slim volume, I've completed John Crowley's AEgypt Cycle. Wow, that was quite a trip. I think I need to write something of my own just to sort my thoughts out.

[zlink64]

Novel version Of NHK:
Half way. Pretty fun. The book adds some details that either weren't in the show or I missed because the show skimmed over it fast with out me noticing. For example Saitou is apparently on drugs during that intro where he talks to his appliances.

Dracula, Bram Stroker:

Only up to chapter 3. This guy Bram loves description. I usually hate that but so far I like they way he handles it. Like his intro is actually pretty creepy and all he does is describe what the protagonist sees. Seems really promising so far but I wish I had read this as a kid. I think it may have actually have scared me back then, where as now it just impresses me.

[caragnafog dog]

Somehow had time to read a few things:

V by Thomas Pynchon

Somehow I found this much more engrossing than The Crying of Lot 49. tCoL was so short that I don't think I had time to adjust to Pynchon's style, and the first 150 or so pages of V certainly felt the same way: like a whirlwind that felt like it should make sense but for some reason didn't stick. Regardless of that, after those first 150 pages or so everything clicked, and whether I understood the progression of events from that point on or not I was completely engaged. Pynchon once again uses history to stunning effect, the most notable example being an extended memoir of the Herero Genocide in German South Africa. Of course it's also very funny, if I could compare the humor to something familiar it would be The Simpsons, similarly biting and referential. Far be it from me to presume I understood a Thomas Pynchon novel but my biggest takeaway was the contrast between Stencil, who in his investigations comes across dozens of fascinating and important events yet ignores them in favor of his dogged pursuit of a woman who may or may not have existed, and Profane, who has no real goal but takes some joy in the bizarre hedonism of the Whole Sick Crew. I'd recommend this strongly to anyone looking for an introduction to Pynchon, this or Lot 49 are probably your best bet.

Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs by Soren Kierkegaard

Read these back to back, despite their differences. Repetition is like a novella, Crumbs more like dialectic. Repetition has another biblical episode used to explain one of Kierkegaard's concepts, Job's Whirlwind. This much I understood, the distinction between socratic recollection and repetition too, but the aim of the work in general escaped me. Constantius, trying to invoke it himself, fails at Repetition; the young man does too, merely arriving back at himself instead of at something new (this I'm not 100% about, someone please say something if I'm wrong).

Philosophical Crumbs was more work but also more straightforward. It being described as the more dialectic of the two belies how beautiful parts of it are, particularly The God as Teacher and Savior essay. Kierkegaard outlines how difficult it is for the christian god to come and give mankind the "condition" for understanding, compares and contrasts it with Socratic recollection, and discusses the problem of contemporary disciples versus the generations who came later. I will certainly be rereading this in the future, it and F&T gave me a new appreciation for how difficult these problems of faith are, and it was beautifully written (in translation anyway).

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Too sad for me to express. Every word of praise for this book falls short. I hardly even noticed the rambling chapters that describe whaling because of Melville's skill in weaving them back into something metaphysical. I was surprised most by my transfixion with Ahab; he is ill to be sure but he fought against something innately unfair and often cruel. The famous quote by Ishmael sums it up more beautifully than I or likely anyone else could hope to:

"All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby-Dick."

Here is another quote that helps in explaining my fixation with Ahab, it comes shortly after one of the mates implores Ahab to set for home during a thunderstorm; the crew makes to do this but he threatens them with a harpoon whose tip is on fire:

"As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, men fly the neighborhood of some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and strength but render it so much the more unsafe, because so much the more a mark for thunderbolts; so at those last words of Ahab many of the mariners did run from him in a terror of dismay."

Strong though he was, I knew he couldn't possibly win, that he was destined to fail from the beginning of his voyage. The Symphony, one of the last chapters of the book, lyrically describes the beautiful scenery of a clear day at sea and how it belies Ahab's twisted purpose. A conversation between Ahab and one of his mates takes place, and the reader is given, for the last time, the full breadth and sadness of Ahab's commitment to his cause. It is the best 4 pages of American literature.

I would recommend this to anyone, but be wary of the metaphysical baggage it carries. It will give you a lot to think about (in my case: you can be as strong as Atlas or Satan or Gilgamesh, it doesn't matter) and will definitely leave you exhausted by the end. The best American lit I've read, maybe the best novel, and the most magnificently sad and futile struggle I've read in my whole life.

[Joy Evangelion]

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

I read this about three years ago when I was a senior at DePaul for a class about Melville and Stowe and I definitely feel the same way about it as you do(though it's not my favorite piece of American lit). At the time I was reading it though I was also in two other literature classes and taking advanced German, so I couldn't focus on it as much as I would have liked to. Still though, I have a lot of wonderful memories of finding a few free minutes here and there and taking it in a little at a time.

I seem to remember myself really liking Starbuck and Queequeg, and enjoying the chapters in which the Pequod came in contact with other ships. IIRC a criticism of the book was that the technical chapters about whaling and whales weren't for everyone, but I didn't mind them at all. Sadly it's been so long since I read it that I don't remember as much about it as I'd like to.

What was funny though about reading it in a class with like, twenty other people, was that most of my classmates couldn't stand the book, didn't know what was going on, thought it was boring, etc. I remember raising my hand for some reason and telling the poor professor that I had as much fun reading it as I did reading Harry Potter and all these people just laying into me for it.