So about Atlas Shrugged. I first read it when I was maybe 20, rabidly conservative, and knew very little. Target market, you say? Maybe. But then I learned more and became somewhat less enamored of the book, gave it another shot. Then I started to learn more about what she was reacting against, and went a couple more times. Not a criticism of her work, that's for elsewhere, but some of the things her antagonists say are direct quotes from various philosophers and economists with whom she disagreed. There's a lot more to the book when you know that, for good or for ill. It's my opinion that many of her most vocal and influential fans closely resemble the villains in her book(s), but that's true of a lot of literature and philosophy. In IMB circles, Elon Musk is known as Veppers and for good reason.
Iain (M) Banks. The middle initial is appended to his SF works, just given and surname for his literary output.
I'm having trouble sticking to my fiction reading. Keep reverting to my nonfiction reading. Started today: Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, by Kathryn Schulz Apparently the author argues that being wrong is the fundamental human condition.
I read Broken Harbor by Tana French (I think it's her second best book, but I'll always have a soft spot for In the Woods). I'm not sure where I'll go next, but I have several options. My biggest contender is one I forgot I had, The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard. Or I might read War of the Worlds. I'm not giving up Rand, just don't know if I feel like reading something so... Well, it's Rand.
Murder your darlings by Roy Peter Clark. This is a difficult book to get through, due to the pompous tone of the writing.
Nah, the public library frowns on that kind of thing. I may chuck in The Girl That Died by Ragnar Jonasson, though. The MC is in serious competition for the title of Lamest Heroine.
Finished two books. Shadow Games, Glen Cook. This was a big step down from Cook’s The White Rose. I actually expected it to be — though not quite to the extent it was — and I had decided not to read any more Black Company books after finishing The Books of the North. I was happy to stick the landing and then get out. But my brother has been encouraging me to continue on with the series, and because he usually reads the books I recommend to him, I’m indebted to him. Rating: 2.5 stars One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church, Richard Abanes. This was much more captivating than what you might imagine, especially during the book’s first half which covers the nineteenth century. Plenty of intrigue, scandals, persecution, and bloodshed. My kind of history. It obviously offered more than that, though. And I learned lots of cool stuff about Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and the Mormon migration to Utah, among other things. Rating: 4 stars
I am currently reading Babel or The Necessity of Violence by R. F. Kuang. It is a fantasy novel, and it is rather entertaining. The MC is rescued by his father who doesn't acknowledge him but plays the guardian and takes him to the institute of translation known as Babel at the University of Oxford during the colonial period of the 1800s. At Babel scholars produce silver bars that with inscriptions in different languages activate different powers, depending on the difference of translation of the same word in different languages. (wow, what varied use of the word 'different' I made ). This magic is a very interesting concept about magic and how the world building comes from it. The book is a historical fantasy, and it tries to explain social unrest of the time, a bit like Asimov did with the Foundation series (just to give you an idea, they are different). I am enjoying it, although at first the author would show you a scene and then add a sentence after telling you what just happened. By mid-book it stopped this terrible habit . . . it was really annoying while reading (note to myself for my own writing). Aside from this mishap, I recommend it with 4 stars.
Three books right now: Europe's Orphan: the future of the Euro and the Politics of Debt by Martin Sandbu Best Loser Wins: why normal thinking never wins the trading game by Tom Hougaard Split Decision: Life Stories by Ice-T & Spike and Douglas Century Plus assorted magazines.
Ice T is an interesting dude with an interesting career. He's genuinely credited with popularizing gangster and West Coast rap. Then had a solid acting career. He's not Humphrey Bogart or anything, but he's stayed relevant for over 40 years.
I always found Ice-T's opinion on free speech interesting. I'm probably misquoting, but he said that his critics were "confusing him with a character he plays." I'd never considered that approach for lyrics . . . This was during the old Body Count "Cop Killer" controversy. That album has such an awesome guitar tone. I saw him way back in the day touring with Pro-Pain. They had a duet called "Put the Lights Out." Seems really strange to call that a duet, haha. Can't remember if that was on the tour though. It's been a while . . . anyway, they released that later at least. It's a cool track.
It has something to do with pedals and such that I'm sure you understand more than I do. It's just very aggressive. Rage Against the Machine had that sound too back in the '90s, though Morello did a bunch more wah-wahing effects and that distrcated from it. Ministry had it too. I just love that particular metal tone. Quintesential '90s metal. Maybe listen to that infamous "Cop Killer" track, because it's all over it. Remember, Ice-T's playing a character, haha. (edit: I shouldn't need to warn about the obvious lyrical content.)
Finally finished Neuromancer by William Gibson, very interesting book. Not the easiest novel to read but a memorable one. I know there are two other follow-on novels but not sure I liked the book enough to read the others. I'm taking a break from hard sci-fi now to read Constance by Matthew FitzSimmons, about human cloning, but will get back to another Gibson book later, probably Peripheral, when I've finished the tv series, which I'm really enjoying.
I've been reading The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss aloud to my thirteen year old grandson. It ahs been so long since I read it myself that I don't recall what happens, so no spoilers please.
Read Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy yesterday. The other one I mentioned earlier was a bit too dense for my mindset these days, but I'll get to it eventually. Now I am going to read War of the Worlds.
Look at those blurry pics. Put some effort into it, Goodreads. Maybe next time I'll assemble this in Photoshop. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (★★★★) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (★★) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (★★★★★) Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (★★) Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (★★★★) The Stranger by Albert Camus (★★★★★) --------------------------- The Color Purple by Alice Walker (★★★★) A black woman in Georgia (early 20th century) tries to find meaning as she deals with an awful upbringing and a husband who abuses her. I found this to be really well done. Beautifully written, though you'll need to be okay with dialect in patois (see also, Huck Finn). This poor lady goes through hell in her home life and is married off to a man who's not much better than what she avoided. Most of the story takes place after she's married (traded) off. Her main concern is her little sister, who's left behind with a monster. She also has to be a mother to kids who aren't hers while she wants to know what happened to her own child, who was given away. The main focus isn't racism, IMO, it's the MC's non-interest in men and her infatuation with her husband's girlfriend. Yes, you read that right. The movie downplays that relationship, but it's fully explored in the book. Other characters get more of the racist brunt. It's element number two in this story, which kind of surprised me. The real theme deals with a woman who has been dismissed by men and who dismisses them in return. One of the better Pulizters. --------------------------- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (★★) The story of a small South American town is explored through a founding family and the fantastic events that surround them. Okay, I don't know what the deal with this is. Is the author skilled: Yes. Does it show up on the page: Sometimes. Is the story easy to follow: Not in any way, shape, or form. We're dealing with magical realism here, and some of it is fascinating, but most of it comes off as being just plain weird for weird's sake. To me, it just doesn't feel sincere. Everything has the fabricated feel of plastic artifacts you might find at a tourist trap or a truck stop bordering a Navajo reservation. There's something repulsive in the effort. The process is: set up a character, blah blah blah, now he/she does something weird, blah blah blah, now refer to local cuisine, blah blah blah, magic happens, blah blah blah, repeat. Complicating issues is the fact that kids, grandkids, and so on have the same names of their ancestors. I mean, I get it, they're shared souls, or some sort of hocus. It's deliberately circuitous and tries to impress you with its structure. I suppose that's meta-textual and metaphorical at the same time. Eh, it just feels inconsequential, and this book really doesn't deserve the attention it's gotten. Jorge Luis Borges stomps a mudhole in this effort. He knows how magical realism is done, and everyone else comes off as a pretender. --------------------------- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (★★★★★) Huck Finn flees from home and travels with his friend, Jim, an escaped slave, down the Mississippi river. I found this to be delightful. It was so funny. The characters and situations are just nuts. Huck is afraid his drunken father is going to kill him and steal his fortune (which is held in trust for him in town), and so Huck devises a plan to fake his own death and escape. He steals everything and sets sail on the Mississippi with Jim, who is also escaping. Jim is afraid he's going to be sold to a plantation in Lousiana, which is not a situation any sane man would volunteer for. And yes, they sail down the Mississippi. They head south, which struck me as crazy. The plan is to catch a riverboat back. I had pulled out some funny quotes here, but I guess I probably shouldn't do that, and so they're deleted. There is a phrase that's repeated about 200 times in this book that gets it banned today. I don't feel like discussing politics, and so I'm not going to say anything more than the word is in there many, many times. There is no euphanism for it, other than maybe "slave." You really have to keep the author's intentions in mind. I still give this a perfect score. This is very much a picaresque. Reminds me a lot of Don Quixote. Its story will endure just as long. ----------------------- Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (★★) A child born at the stroke of midnight, as Pakistan becomes a nation, is tied to the country's fate. Imagine 100 Years of Solitude scooted over to Bombay. It's the same whimsical nonsense. This one's a bit grosser though and constantly stoops to scatalogical shock to prove how it's "keepin it real!" (Imagine Dave Chappel shouting that last bit.) The story feels like one of those old Hanna Barbara cartoons with wacky happenings and slide-whistle effects. It's supposed to delight you, I guess. My criticism is the same as for 100YoS. It feels fake. It feels like a collection of magical vignettes. And I get it. It's using 1001 Arabian Nights as a template of sorts. Once again, you can pull out beautiful paragraphs, but that doesn't mean you'll find a meaningful story. And this massive book is held in even higher regard than 100YoS. I don't understand it. Rushdie's "Quichotte" was far superior and no one seemed to like that story. Midnight's Children was awarded the Booker Prize of the Booker Prize, meaning not only did it defeat every other book that year for this prestigious award, but it was declared the greatest Booker Prize winner of all time. No other book in the history of books equals it. Supposedly. Don't believe every esteemed critic. Two stars, and that's being generous. Jorge Luis Borges stomps another mudhole in this effort. ----------------------- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (★★★★) Jim finds a treasure map and sets sail with adventurers to find it. Is their one-legged galley cook, a jolly guy named Long John Silver, actually a pirate plotting to mutiny? This was fantastic. I give it four stars, but for a young boy, five stars is probably more fair. This would have been one of my most fondly remembered books if I'd read it when I was kid, and I wish I had. What I'm impressed with from a writing standpoint is how Jim gets to have adventures and affect the plot even though he's just a kid. He gets to fight the pirates some, rather believably. He gets to steal a ship and do all kinds of adventures that a young boy would love. There is no language that would be inappropriate for kids. It's still very readable. ----------------------- The Stranger by Albert Camus (★★★★★) A man who feels only modestly, never in extremes, is confronted by the world which hates him. If you'd like a short, high-brow book from back in the day, well here you go! It's only a 100 or so pages. It's similar to Dostoevsky's "Notes From the Underground." You can consider it existential, but it's not overwhelming and the writing isn't too florid. There are nicely descriptive passages, but it's somewhat to the point. Still, you can feel the city the main character is in. Enough is there that the setting has presence. What impressed me is how the first half of the book, where nothing really seems to be important, rolls into the second half, where every single incident comes back to haunt the MC. The story is going to a very specific place even though you might not see it at first. The MC is too much. For example, his girlfriend wants to get married. That evening Marie came by to see me and asked me if I wanted to marry her. I said it didn't make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted to. Then she wanted to know if I loved her. I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn't mean anything but that I probably didn't love her. "So why marry me, then?" she said. I explained to her that it didn't really matter and that if she wanted to, we could get married. Besides, she was the one who was doing the asking and all I was saying was yes. Then she pointed out that marriage was a serious thing. I said, "No." She stopped talking for a minute and looked at me without saying anything. What a weird guy. He literally can't have a human response. Everything is so tempered that the world doesn't know what to do with him. And so what does it ultimately decide to do? I think you know . . . Oh, this is a French author. "Al-bear Ca-myou." It's hard for me to spell French, but you get the idea. You don't want to embarrass yourself by calling him "Al-bert Cam-us." Genius author and I'll be sure to read more by him. I already have the next book picked out.
Ah, I loved that book. It was revelatory for me. Hands down one of the most important things I've ever read. I think its power comes from atmosphere; the combination of ridiculous and tragic that Marquez manages throughout the whole book is literally all I want to accomplish even in one story. If Borges is really better, then I should read him.
Sorry for putting down a book you like. I can see the skill of it, and there are little parts of it that are really pretty good, but I'm dumb or something. I just can't follow how it's hopping about. Borges is king. He has perfect translations too, which help. (Not all authors do, e.g., Abe Koubou) His stories are elegant and strange. They're not easy reading at all, but I'd say they have a similar density to this book, though their plot is much more compact. And that helps me, haha. You're aware of the television series of this? It looks very promising. Kind of like how "The Underground Railroad" looked better than the book. The imagery seems to translate to the visual nicely. We'll see what the story does . . .
You're good haha, I just wanted to put a counter-opinion on record you know That might be enough to make me subscribe to Netflix, along with All Quiet on the Western Front which is supposedly good.
