The Gamer's Quarter

[seryogin]

[Scratchmonkey]

To be fair, I haven't tried to read any of his novels since I was 17. They may well have been beyond me.

[GSL]

[dhex]

[dessgeega]

i've been reading some murakami stories at nana's recommendation.

i like a shinagawa monkey.
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[helicopterp]

[Mister Toups]

[GSL]

[helicopterp]

Have you read Life of Pi, Lolita, or Pale Fire? Have you seen Fargo? The first three include forewords that are entirely fictional (though they claim factuality) that are just as much a part of the novel as anything that follows. Fargo opens by claiming to be based on a true story. Blatantly lying to a reader or a viewer can be an incredible asset to one's art. There are plenty of reasons not to like Dan Brown's writing, but he is a novelist. Holding his written word against the truth is short-sighted, and getting your feathers ruffled over it is silly.

Sorry I haven't read any of the other books you mentioned in your post.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[dhex]

the appeal of dan brown is not that he's purporting to be accurate.

his appeal is that he's supporting a version of reality that people wish to be true, and wish enough to enjoy his books on something other than just the thriller level.

or maybe i'm just happy that i can make magdelenist heresy jokes and people get them now.
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[GSL]

I agree that much of the Dan Brown problem is caused by weak-minded readers who take his work to be based in solid fact rather than fiction, but it still doesn't absolve the author of failing to create a convincing reality ("lie well"; this goes double if your work intersects with the 'real world') and failing/refusing to properly clairify where his fiction begins and ends ("always tell the truth"). This is quite different from, say, the editor in Pale Fire, who is most definitely a construct of that fictional world; or from Fargo which, like every Hollywood movie that claims to be 'based on a true story" really means "yeah, there's some part of this that was real. There really was this female cop in North Dakota once, ya?"

[dessgeega]

i read grant morrison and jon j. muth's the mystery play, which is fabulous. i'm probably going to re-read it, since it seems like it would lend well to that.
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[dhex]

[helicopterp]

[Dracko]

Even more interesting in Fargo is how all the parties involved act and react like they'd expect to in a Hollywood thriller film, with pathetic and sometimes hilarious results. The only person who doesn't is Marge Gunderson, the pastiche of the local, simple, but not stupid, police officer.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[seryogin]

I'm reading Camus...
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[Dracko]

Good man. Which works of his?
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dhex]

currently reading the magus by john fowles. it's good. i highly recommend the collector if you can handle it (it's virtually a short story).
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[ryan]

I finished up The Agricola and The Germania. The end of The Agricola was kind of sad, in a good way, while Tacitus's ignorance of geography makes The Germania really dramatic (the edge of the world!) and fun.

I'm still finishing up A Demon-Haunted World, but Carl, as interesting as he is, can't hold my interest for too-too long recently. I'm also going through Hellenistic and Roman Sparta: A Tale of Two Cities. A good book that is proof that some people should just write how they write, regardless of how dry it is, because trying to be poetic when you aren't is just painful for the reader.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Dracko]

ATTN: dessgeega!

I have uploaded a CBR version of the comic adaptation of City of Glass. I know you can get it off of Home of the Underdogs, but version presented there is a PDF file, and has very small pages, and thus, small print. This file is easier to read, and has larger images.

Everyone else is of course invited to enjoy, as it's pretty damn good. I'll probably have to read the book afterwards. That is, once I've finished the The Illuminatus! Trilogy and Dante's Inferno along with the Aeneid for my class on Virgil.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dessgeega]

working bbcode pls ;_;
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[Dracko]

Sorry, I posted too soon. It still had a couple of minutes to go before fully uploaded.

But it's there now!
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Shapermc]

I read Dante's Inferno in HS and really enjoyed it, the re-read it a few years later and still enjoyed it. It's one of the few books which I have managed to read twice and enjoyed it both times (the list of books I've actually read twice is really small).

I had to read the Aeneid for latin class and found it pretty dry. The content is pretty good from an overview perspective, but it's just not very fun to read.

EDIT: What the hell is a CBR file?

PS: Inferno is not a stand-alone book as you probably know. I tried both purgatory and paradise... didn't much like them. Milton's Paradise Lost is pretty good too if you're going for a whole relgion fiction kick.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Dracko]

[seryogin]

[Dracko]

Why the dislike?
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[seryogin]

[Dracko]

Is this an English translation? Because, for all its absurdist themes, I never felt like there was overblown melodrama in Camus' fictions, at least in the original French. Perhaps maybe in his shorts and theatre pieces, but not in his main works.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[seryogin]

[Dracko]

He's a far sight better than Sartre ever was.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[helicopterp]

I have only read The Stranger, so this might be off-topic, but I've read it in both French and English, and I take the melodrama in it as very tongue-in-cheek. Specifically, when Meursault kills the Arab, the way he is overwhelmed by his own angst and the bright glare from the sun is a laughable melodrama rather than a serious one. It is as spiteful as can be written; Camus virtually kicks him in the head and then glances at the reader for a shared chuckle.

But that kind of thing might not be what you are talking about at all.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Dracko]

In French at least, Meursault always came off as detached, not angst-ridden. It's only towards the end, in a social situation he is unfamiliar with, and confronted by a chaplain, where he snaps out. Even then, it's more anger than angst, though it does allow him insight into his existential condition, for which he is grateful for. You're not supposed to laugh ta him any more than you are supposed to empathise with him: He's a sociopath. What Camus promotes in his works is an attempt at understanding, and as pathetic as Meursault may seem to some, I don't feel like Camus wants us to laugh at his expense or hate him.

I've never really found traces of angst in Camus' works, at least not in an adolescent, petulant way. The Plague and The Fall both present ways to deal with the perceived absurdity of life and The First Man in particular, incomplete as it is, not only provides insight into Camus' own issues but also into his desired state of solace. Hos shorts and dramas were more condensed, and perhaps even more intense (Caligula engineering his own assassination springs to mind), so them getting a bit over-emotional didn't worry me.

Just because a novel is existential or caught in the issue of absurd doesn't make it angsty. Camus and Beckett are two such existential writers who seem to go against the grain, and unsurprisingly enough, both of them rejected the existentialists.

I really can't stand Sartre. If his political posturing wasn't bad enough, his works come of as childish as you can get in matters of existential angst. I'd rather read Nietzsche: At least the crazy Kraut knew how to laugh and write.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[helicopterp]

[Dracko]

Interesting. I've always used "Maman" in the same way as a American child might use "Sir" to refer to their father. I've never considered it all that involved.

Though I do agree there may be an issue of misdirected grief. In fact, it was something I explored in one of my dissertations, and is evidenced by the last few words in the book, when he claims to have reached an understanding of how his mother felt when about to pass away. But I didn't find that it was purely on those terms that he gunned the man down. There seems to be more to it than that, and the sunlight inspiring him (Sun and heat are recurring themes in Camusian fiction) towards the revelation intrinsic to his execution overshadows his inability to reasonably emote. It's just as conceivable to identify the Arab man in question as a potential threat, in light of how they met.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[helicopterp]

[Dracko]

I had to do two because administration here is to the dogs and I ended up doing a course which involved writing one alongside my standard one. Both in French, no less. It's a long and tedious story which reflects academic incompetence and I'm still caught in the throes of it.

The relevant one in question was an awkward deal because I tried to cover every single facet of Camus' works, and due to silly word counts, could only ever handle the odd detail here or there. It's a pretty sophomoric effort, I find, and not anywhere near the level I'd hope to achieve eventually.

[Shapermc]

So, I’ve been reading V for Vendetta based on Dracko’s words about it being better than the movie (which was unmemorable at best). It also helps that I now consider From Hell to be one of the best books I’ve ever read (same author).

Luckily I read the intro for this book where Alan Moore says something to the effect of “in the beginning of this project I was young and dumb, so please excuse it being less than good.” The first book is at times very generic, and at other times the writing is even poor. I have just gotten a few chapters into the second book and it seems to be a step up, but I hope it gets better.

Honestly, to me, it seems like the movie covered the first book fairly well, though I assume that’s not the point.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Dracko]

It isn't. The comic is a Thatcher-era parable. The movie a NO BLOOD FOR OIL BUSH DID 9/11 screed.

It gets better, but you do have to keep in mind that, yes, it's an early work. I still think it's better than The Watchmen. The film was politically clueless and insultingly stupid. You'll find that Moore, for all his adolescent anarchist tendencies in the book, never lets himself get ideologically shrouded or deluded. He won't tell you anarchy is easy. It asks a simple question, and it expects you, as a reader, to be smart enough to answer yourself. The film allows nothing of the sort, and just wants you to cheer on a strawman form of fascism being torn down and replaced with another form of fascism, with extra cult of personality bonus points, as if it was somehow preferable to the obvious liberal subtext it attempted to convey.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[GSL]

[Scratchmonkey]

I'm going to be an ass and say that it's about right for the "depth" of the Wachowskis.

NOTE: I am fairly bitter because I worked in a company where every man jack went butt-nuts about the mind-destroying revelations of The Matrix, which reached an utter nadir with the 50-something CEO who had given VPs to a number of people from his church picked up on this and gave a well-received corporate pitch while wearing a floor-length trench coat, ridiculous suglasses and comparing "us" to the red pill and Microsoft to the blue pill, or however it's supposed to go.

[Dracko]

And I'd agree full-heartedly. The Wachowskis have done nothing of worth, and are incapable of doing so. The first Matrix film was cool because, hey, live-action anime, albeit ripping off The Invisibles shamelessly. After that, it went right to their heads.

I don't know, the only superlative things to come out of that franchise were the Animatrix shorts World Record and Matriculated.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dessgeega]

and the second renaissance.
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[Dracko]

Can't say I was too impressed with that. I own the Animatrix, but it didn't amaze me like the other two I mentioned. A Detective Story and Beyond were also quite good.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dessgeega]

i saw the second renaissance part 1 and it left my breathless. the only other one i saw was the cgi sexy duel which was gross and made me want to throw up all over the uncanny valley.
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[Dracko]

Well, the majority of the shorts were damn pretty, but Second Renaissance's plot didn't sway me like World Record's and Matriculated's did.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dessgeega]

i think it was mostly because it made all these allusions to american slavery, trans hate violence, and zionism. i mean i guess it was pretty too?
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[Dracko]

Oh, I noticed those, but they didn't feel as clever as they should have been, maybe? I enjoyed it, but not much food for thought beyond that, is all.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dhex]

the magus: holy fucking shit.
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[GSL]

[Harveyjames]