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  • Fade to Black
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 5340

    read David Foster Wallace's short story "Backbone" at the bookstore yesterday in the New Yorker

    Fiction: “Every whole person has ambitions, objectives, initiatives, goals. This one particular boy’s goal was to be able to press his lips to every square inch of his own body.”


    Really just a fantastic piece of writing, one of those pieces where if you like to write (even as an amateur or just a message board/blog/facebook writer) you get a very pleasant rush in your head paradoxically informing you "I'll never be this good, ever." Shame he's gone.

    edit - whoops found out it's an excerpt from his lost novel. Oh well...when I read it to the last sentence, as a standalone short story it works terrifically still.
    www.matthewhk.net

    let me show you a few thangs

    Comment

    • Faust
      kitsch killer
      • Sep 2006
      • 37852

      Originally posted by Fade to Black View Post
      read David Foster Wallace's short story "Backbone" at the bookstore yesterday in the New Yorker

      Fiction: “Every whole person has ambitions, objectives, initiatives, goals. This one particular boy’s goal was to be able to press his lips to every square inch of his own body.”


      Really just a fantastic piece of writing, one of those pieces where if you like to write (even as an amateur or just a message board/blog/facebook writer) you get a very pleasant rush in your head paradoxically informing you "I'll never be this good, ever." Shame he's gone.

      edit - whoops found out it's an excerpt from his lost novel. Oh well...when I read it to the last sentence, as a standalone short story it works terrifically still.
      I couldn't get through it. All these long medical descriptions of body and its functions bore me to death.
      Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

      StyleZeitgeist Magazine

      Comment

      • HreP
        Member
        • Mar 2011
        • 50

        Originally posted by Johngd View Post
        I know Brothers Karamazov are considered to be a masterpiece but I must have missed something. I agree its a great book, but not his best. Have to read it again I guess My favourite Dostojevsky book is The idiot and some of his shorter novels tbh
        I'm glad to see other people appreciating The Idiot as well. I haven't read Brothers Karamazov or Crime and Punishment yet, but The Idiot is such an amazing work. The Gambler is also worth reading.

        I have just finished The Decameron by Boccaccio. Amazing stories, very light, only a bit symbolism around the names of the characters that you might wanna look up. I've really enjoyed every part of it.
        I also read some more 'serious' literature. Currently I'm reading Die Verachtung der Massen which would be translated as Mass/Crowd and Contempt. Besides that I'm also reading some shorter stuff on various philosophers.

        Comment

        • HWith
          Senior Member
          • May 2007
          • 665

          I'm trying to read Umberto Ecco's History of Beauty for the second time, but I simply can't make it pass page 100. While the idea behind the book is interesting (an analysis of the Western beauty ideal through the ages) the book is so tedious and boring it's unbelivable. It has some interesting bits but it doesn't make up for the rest - I think. Has anyone made it thought the book and can tell me if it's worth it?

          Comment

          • michael_kard
            Senior Member
            • Oct 2010
            • 2152

            It's not. It's so superficial and naive, definitely not academic work. It's more of a novel idea, really.
            ENDYMA / Archival fashion & Consignment
            Helmut Lang 1986-2005 | Ann Demeulemeester | Raf Simons | Burberry Prorsum | and more...

            Comment

            • kbi
              Senior Member
              • Feb 2009
              • 645

              imperial by william t vollmann
              kazua shinohara

              Comment

              • theconsumer
                Senior Member
                • Feb 2009
                • 139

                Finished 2666 from Roberto Bolano. Enchanting, truly great writing but often frustrating reading, in a good sense. Especially at the beginning I felt like an insect crawling on surface of some intricate painting, often wondering what the fuck the whole picture is, or is there something as the whole picture at all. Reminds me of Tarkovsky's Stalker and the Zone: what seems complex, even seemingly capricious system of traps is ultimately the mirror of human condition. This book is the Zone, just as Stalker (the film) is.

                Then there is Jonathan Littell, The Kindly Ones. I find this book extremely relevant for our times, where someone like Galiano is vilified for stupid drunken rant, while the real fascism (in some aspects worse that anything Hitler managed) is so inscribed into status quo that it's not even being perceived as such. Just a taste:

                "By killing the Jews,” she said, “we wanted to kill ourselves, kill the Jew within us, kill that which in us resembles the idea we have of the Jew. Kill in us the potbellied bourgeois counting his pennies, hungry for recognition and dreaming of power, but a power he pictures in the form of a Napoleon III or a banker, kill the petty, reassuring morality of the bourgeoisie, kill thriftiness, kill obedience, kill the servitude of the Knecht, kill all those fine German virtues. For we’ve never understood that these qualities that we attribute to the Jews, calling them baseness, spinelessness, avarice, greed, thirst for domination, and facile malice are fundamentally German qualities, and that if the Jews show these qualities, it’s because they’ve dreamed of resembling the Germans, of being Germans, it’s because they imitate us obsequiously like the very image of all that is fine and good in High Bourgeoisie, the Golden Calf of those who flee the harshness of the desert and the Law. Or else maybe they were pretending, maybe they ended up adopting these qualities almost out of courtesy, out of a kind of sympathy, so as not to seem so distant. And we, on the other hand, our German dream, was to be Jews, pure, indestructible, faithful to a Law, different from everyone else and under the hand of God. But actually they’re all mistaken, the Germans as well as the Jews. For if Jew, these days, still means anything, it means Other, an Other and an Otherwise that might be impossible, but that are necessary.” She drained her glass in one long swallow. “Berndt’s friends didn’t understand any of that, either. They said that in the end the massacre of the Jews wasn’t really important, and that by killing Hitler they could lay the crime on him, on Himmler, on the SS, on a few sick assassins, on you. But they’re just as responsible for it as you are, for they too are Germans and they too waged war for the victory of this Germany, and not any other. And the worst thing is that if the Jews pull through, if Germany collapses and the Jews survive, they’ll forget what the name Jew means, they’ll want to be more German than ever before.”

                Comment

                • viv1984viv
                  Senior Member
                  • Feb 2008
                  • 194

                  Originally posted by HreP View Post
                  I'm glad to see other people appreciating The Idiot as well. I haven't read Brothers Karamazov or Crime and Punishment yet, but The Idiot is such an amazing work. The Gambler is also worth reading.

                  I have just finished The Decameron by Boccaccio. Amazing stories, very light, only a bit symbolism around the names of the characters that you might wanna look up. I've really enjoyed every part of it.
                  I also read some more 'serious' literature. Currently I'm reading Die Verachtung der Massen which would be translated as Mass/Crowd and Contempt. Besides that I'm also reading some shorter stuff on various philosophers.
                  Yeah, the idiot is perhaps the most powerfully human dostoevsky I have read. In a literary aspect it's not perfect.. from almost every angle it's flawed, incomplete, and a point of contention or discussion. For me this makes it all the more meatier and interesting. Whereas Bros K is a rather perfect example of illustrating religion and mans flaws The Idiot is a story that contains these flaws in the most organic of ways, so much so it's not as 'nicer' piece as his other works.

                  The Gambler is not a great read in my opinion, nor is Notes from the Underground ( unless you are studying his work )..... The Double however is a fantastically rip roaring read, and for me ( comparing to 6 or 7 other books ), the most readable for first timers. Lots of people pick up NFTU as their first Dostoevsky and it's actually his toughest work.

                  Eco's 'Foucaults Pendulum' is on my desk, along with Potockis 'the manuscript found in sarogossa'........
                  Notes from the Vomitorium - The Nerve Of It -

                  Comment

                  • Johngd
                    Senior Member
                    • Feb 2009
                    • 152

                    Yeah, the idiot is perhaps the most powerfully human dostoevsky I have read.
                    ^^Furst Myskjin should be the new rolemodel for teenagers instead of 50cent

                    Comment

                    • Faust
                      kitsch killer
                      • Sep 2006
                      • 37852

                      Originally posted by HWith View Post
                      I'm trying to read Umberto Ecco's History of Beauty for the second time, but I simply can't make it pass page 100. While the idea behind the book is interesting (an analysis of the Western beauty ideal through the ages) the book is so tedious and boring it's unbelivable. It has some interesting bits but it doesn't make up for the rest - I think. Has anyone made it thought the book and can tell me if it's worth it?
                      I can only go by one book, On Literature, but if that's any indication, Ecco is a miserable failure as a critic.
                      Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                      StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                      Comment

                      • Faust
                        kitsch killer
                        • Sep 2006
                        • 37852

                        Originally posted by theconsumer View Post

                        Then there is Jonathan Littell, The Kindly Ones. I find this book extremely relevant for our times, where someone like Galiano is vilified for stupid drunken rant, while the real fascism (in some aspects worse that anything Hitler managed) is so inscribed into status quo that it's not even being perceived as such. Just a taste:

                        "By killing the Jews,” she said, “we wanted to kill ourselves, kill the Jew within us, kill that which in us resembles the idea we have of the Jew. Kill in us the potbellied bourgeois counting his pennies, hungry for recognition and dreaming of power, but a power he pictures in the form of a Napoleon III or a banker, kill the petty, reassuring morality of the bourgeoisie, kill thriftiness, kill obedience, kill the servitude of the Knecht, kill all those fine German virtues. For we’ve never understood that these qualities that we attribute to the Jews, calling them baseness, spinelessness, avarice, greed, thirst for domination, and facile malice are fundamentally German qualities, and that if the Jews show these qualities, it’s because they’ve dreamed of resembling the Germans, of being Germans, it’s because they imitate us obsequiously like the very image of all that is fine and good in High Bourgeoisie, the Golden Calf of those who flee the harshness of the desert and the Law. Or else maybe they were pretending, maybe they ended up adopting these qualities almost out of courtesy, out of a kind of sympathy, so as not to seem so distant. And we, on the other hand, our German dream, was to be Jews, pure, indestructible, faithful to a Law, different from everyone else and under the hand of God. But actually they’re all mistaken, the Germans as well as the Jews. For if Jew, these days, still means anything, it means Other, an Other and an Otherwise that might be impossible, but that are necessary.” She drained her glass in one long swallow. “Berndt’s friends didn’t understand any of that, either. They said that in the end the massacre of the Jews wasn’t really important, and that by killing Hitler they could lay the crime on him, on Himmler, on the SS, on a few sick assassins, on you. But they’re just as responsible for it as you are, for they too are Germans and they too waged war for the victory of this Germany, and not any other. And the worst thing is that if the Jews pull through, if Germany collapses and the Jews survive, they’ll forget what the name Jew means, they’ll want to be more German than ever before.”
                        This sounds so dated.
                        Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                        StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                        Comment

                        • michael_kard
                          Senior Member
                          • Oct 2010
                          • 2152

                          And wrong, too...
                          ENDYMA / Archival fashion & Consignment
                          Helmut Lang 1986-2005 | Ann Demeulemeester | Raf Simons | Burberry Prorsum | and more...

                          Comment

                          • theconsumer
                            Senior Member
                            • Feb 2009
                            • 139

                            It might well be. However, outdated history is like food, if consumed past expiration date, it may come back. And we've been on this nazi/anti-nazi diet for half a century at least. As for Littell, he did his research of Nazi era. I wouldn't wave it away just like that.

                            But, in the big picture, perhaps Nazism is truly dated and we've moved on. Billions of surplus worthless human beings in slums are atrocity which is way beyond concentration camps.

                            Originally posted by Faust View Post
                            This sounds so dated.

                            Comment

                            • BECOMING-INTENSE
                              Senior Member
                              • Jan 2008
                              • 1868



                              A relatively new danish translation (2008) after:

                              Franz Kafka: Schriften, Tagbücher, Briefe, kritische Ausgabe.

                              A two volume translation: All the texts that was published during
                              his life, and major texts and text fragments that was left behind
                              after his death.

                              Are you afraid of women, Doctor?
                              Of course.

                              www.becomingmads.com

                              Comment

                              • BeauIXI
                                Senior Member
                                • Nov 2008
                                • 1272

                                Still deliriously blundering through A Thousand Plateaus.
                                Originally posted by philip nod
                                somebody should kop this. this is forever.

                                Comment

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