What are you reading right...

I'm enjoying all of the epics. I wanted to read Ulysses before Bloomsday but I've been too busy. Paradise Lost is cool if you realize that Milton plays with the genre by making Satan the epic hero. Or I think it's cool.

Also, Kegs, it's better if you look at the deities as romantic, conceptual human constructs: as a way they developed to determine how different aspects of nature embodied human tendencies in order to understand how parts of the world formed a whole. Or how the whole formed parts.

It's a pretty poetic notion, and I also sometimes wonder if they thought the gods were real or they knew they were just invented in literature and just kept quiet about it, but really everyone only invoked the gods on a poetic level and everybody these days completely misunderstands the Greeks.

etc., etc.

Out by Natsuo Kirino

Sometimes I feel guilty for reading works inspired by the classics but never having read the classics. Sometimes.

Fuck american literature

Dante wrote:

Be forewarned you can skip most of book two. When Homer is describing all of the boats and where they come from.

Yeah, I already did that. When he started talking about the ships I skimmed the following pages and realized I should just proceed to Book III.

I wasn't crazy about Dante, honestly. I thoroughly appreciate his actual writing. His ability to write, to develop a motif, and etc. is worth of applause, but the general message I suppose falls on deaf, heathen ears... which really takes some of the punch out for me. I just couldn't connect with it, though I recognize his obvious talent. I know some people aren't as affected by that, but I was.

Also, I still need to read Ulysses. If it is anywhere near as good as A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (I know it is supposed to be leagues better), I'm sure to love it.

Justin is a Punk wrote:

Fuck american literature

Maybe you need to check out some more progressive stuff like shit from the Beat Generation, Hunter S. Thomson or stuff like Fahrenheit 451 or Catch 22, or Death of a Salesman, or stuff by Salinger. Or stuff like Vonnegut, Heinlein or Phillip K. Dick. Or Palaniuk. Fuck, there's so much.

I finished The City & the City today. Like all of Miéville's stuff I've read so far, it's hugely inventive and utterly engrossing.

I've got a ton of other stuff I'm reading as well, but I'll comment when I actually finish stuff.

Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Waste Land and Other Poems.

The Waste Land is class stuff.

ryth have you ever read the ego and his own

Justin, I hate Lenin. I'm on Tzara's side.

Incidentally, Gravity's Rainbow is better than whatever you're currently reading, unless of course it's Gravity's Rainbow.

I take it you're reading/read it now?

Abel wrote:

Justin, I hate Lenin. I'm on Tzara's side.

lenin is ten times more remarkable than any dadaist

Roger Mexico, Gentleman wrote:

I take it you're reading/read it now?

Yeah. Still only on page 110 but it's amazing. I realised it was amazing last time I tried to read it too, but it was too intense to keep track of during school and so I just kind of stopped reading it after about 80 pages. I'm more fully realising its brilliance this time around though.

I want to get Stephen Weisenburger's annotations to assist with a reread later since there's so much stuff I don't understand. Zak Smith's illustrations for each page would be pretty awesome to have too.

If by remarkable you mean remarkably yawn-inducing, sure.

I ponder whether whatever concept is keeping people busy is working.

Been reading more Lovecraft short stories but man, everything he writes is exactly the same. Shit's going down with the inbred folk in New England that's beyond human comprehension and we're all doomed.

Drav wrote:

Been reading more Lovecraft short stories but man, everything he writes is exactly the same. Shit's going down with the inbred folk in New England that's beyond human comprehension and we're all doomed.

Yes. And it is awesome.

So, if I wanted to get into Lovecraft, where would be the best place to start?

Doesn't really matter.

I have to disagree there. Some of his more 'poetic' stories and most of the Randolph Carter dream stories aren't very accessible for those unfamiliar with Lovecraft's universe. Others are so racist and/or misogynist that they can scare off new readers.

I'd say start with At the Mountains of Madness, Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow over Innsmouth or The Dreams in the Witchhouse.

So, this collection would be what you recommend, yes?

I must admit, some of this stories left more of an impression on me then others. Looking over the list of titles in my collection, I can't for the life of me remember what In the Vault was about. Even reading several passages from it doesn't jog any memories.

The Music of Erich Zann is good though. If the first two on that list don't do anything for you (the Outsider is ok I guess) then skip to that.

I got the complete fiction from Barnes & Noble for $10, but that probably won't be an option for someone living in South Africa. (it's $13 list incidentally, but employees get a discount )

I finished reading The Eye of the Leopard by Henning Mankell and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Both are good novels with great character development and memorable scenes.