Steve's Pretentious Lit. Bit

Red Hand Devil · 13th January 2012, 16:18

De Selby · 13th January 2012, 16:41

I have 3 books sitting on the bedside table that I haven't started yet: a collection of George Orwell's essays, a biography of Brendan Behan and something by Will Self (can't remember the name of it).

Edit: 4,000 posts.

Pogue Mahone · 13th January 2012, 16:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Hand Devil

Puzzles, eh?

There's a massive fucking one on the front cover.

SmashedHombre · 13th January 2012, 16:51

I was given The Great Gatsby for Christmas. I'm yet to read it though- or anything else by Scott-Fitzgerald for that matter. Obviously I'm familiar with Benjamin Button, but that's about as far as my knowledge of his work goes. Has anyone read Great Gatsby? I know it's considered his magnum opus, so I'm looking forward to starting it if I ever get the chance.

The_Red_Hope · 13th January 2012, 17:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by SmashedHombre

I was given The Great Gatsby for Christmas. I'm yet to read it though- or anything else by Scott-Fitzgerald for that matter. Obviously I'm familiar with Benjamin Button, but that's about as far as my knowledge of his work goes. Has anyone read Great Gatsby? I know it's considered his magnum opus, so I'm looking forward to starting it if I ever get the chance.

I have and I quite enjoyed it. It's a very polarizing novel, especially because of the hype that surrounds it. I'm not a lit-major or anything but I can see why its so highly rated, the prose flows very freely and the characters and especially well written. The romanticism of the Jazz age is something I didn't quite get into or understand very well but even despite that I can see why people consider it to be a masterpiece. It's on my list of books that I will definitely re-read again at some point.

The_Red_Hope · 13th January 2012, 17:13

Just finished reading Brotkhers Karamazov and can I just say that my mind has been BLOWN. I'm so glad I stuck with it. I'm still digesting all the little bits and layers and intricasies but wow, I'm so glad I stuck with it ... what a rewarding reading experience.

SteveJ · 14th January 2012, 12:28

Quote:

INTERVIEWER:

Your books are taught widely in schools.

BRADBURY:

Do you know why teachers use me? Because I speak in tongues. I write metaphors. Every one of my stories is a metaphor you can remember. The great religions are all metaphor...

Paris Review - The Art of Fiction. An Interview with Ray Bradbury

SteveJ · 19th January 2012, 13:44

How Bram Stoker's Count created the template for modern vampires:

Quote:

Ruthless and horrible, Dracula is attractive because he calls on the forces of nature while defying its laws, and harks back to cliff-edge castles and mighty forests while casually using the modern urban environment as his blood-bank.

The Many Lives of Count Dracula | Fortean Times

SteveJ · 19th January 2012, 23:55

Quote:

If ever an age called for the kind of self-conscious maximalism pioneered by Wilde, Baudelaire and Huysmans, it is ours. Instead, we are beset with dreary naturalism.

A century on, though, where does the decadent novel's legacy lie? I know I'm not alone in my enthusiasm for those bejewelled, subversive, gloriously unhealthy texts. The wider culture is awash with artists inspired by them: Marc Almond, Pete Doherty, Baz Luhrman, Pedro Almodóvar and the Chapman brothers to name just a few. Casting around for an equivalent literary line of succession, however, proves more problematic...

Where did the decadent novel go? | guardian.co.uk

SteveJ · 23rd January 2012, 19:56

Quote:

The Handmaid's Tale has not been out of print since it was first published, back in 1985. It has sold millions of copies worldwide and has appeared in a bewildering number of translations and editions. It has become a sort of tag for those writing about shifts towards policies aimed at controlling women, and especially women's bodies and reproductive functions: "Like something out of The Handmaid's Tale" and "Here comes The Handmaid's Tale" have become familiar phrases. It has been expelled from high schools, and has inspired odd website blogs discussing its descriptions of the repression of women as if they were recipes. People – not only women – have sent me photographs of their bodies with phrases from The Handmaid's Tale tattooed on them, "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum" and "Are there any questions?" being the most frequent.

Margaret Atwood: Haunted by The Handmaid's Tale | The Guardian

Gio · 23rd January 2012, 22:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by De Selby

a collection of George Orwell's essays.

I've just started on that, so far so good.

downxandxout · 23rd January 2012, 22:19

The primary texts I need to read for this semesters lit module are as follows:

D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928; London: Penguin, 2006)
Walter Greenwood, Love on the Dole (1932; London: Vintage, 1993)
Lewis Jones, Cwmardy (1937; Cardigan: University of Wales Press, 2006)
Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (1956; London: Penguin, 2006)
John Braine, Room at the Top (1957; London: Arrow, 1989)
Buchi Emecheta, Second-Class Citizen (1974; London: Heinemann, 1994)
Pat Barker, Union Street (London: Virago, 1982)
Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting (1993; London: Vintage, 1994)

Just started reading Love on the Dole which is pretty interesting as it's set in 1930's Salford.

Agent Red · 23rd January 2012, 23:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by downxandxout

The primary texts I need to read for this semesters lit module are as follows:

D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928; London: Penguin, 2006)
Walter Greenwood, Love on the Dole (1932; London: Vintage, 1993)
Lewis Jones, Cwmardy (1937; Cardigan: University of Wales Press, 2006)
Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (1956; London: Penguin, 2006)
John Braine, Room at the Top (1957; London: Arrow, 1989)
Buchi Emecheta, Second-Class Citizen (1974; London: Heinemann, 1994)
Pat Barker, Union Street (London: Virago, 1982)
Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting (1993; London: Vintage, 1994)

Just started reading Love on the Dole which is pretty interesting as it's set in 1930's Salford.

Not generally a Lawrence fan, but I enjoyed that one.

Adzzz · 26th January 2012, 11:22

Just some light reading for me currently;

Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus
Goethe, Faust I & II
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown
Nietzsche, Will To Power
Schopenhauer, The World As Will and Representation Vol. 1

Aside from the last two, I've read them all.

SteveJ · 28th January 2012, 00:56

Quote:

A selection of the essential fiction library

100 novels everyone should read - Telegraph

downxandxout · 28th January 2012, 01:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Agent Red

Not generally a Lawrence fan, but I enjoyed that one.

I've cheated and downloaded the audiobook...

Scrumpet · 28th January 2012, 01:52

I've read a grand total of 7 out of that 100

Adzzz · 29th January 2012, 20:05

This Nietzsche fella is quite clever, he's also approaching meta-astrophysical levels.

Anyway, Middlemarch 1st? Atonement before LOTR?

LOTR at 100?

Moby Dick at second is quite cool though.

peterstorey · 29th January 2012, 20:09

Lucky Jim at 36 is a joke.

Adzzz · 29th January 2012, 20:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by downxandxout

The primary texts I need to read for this semesters lit module are as follows:

D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928; London: Penguin, 2006)
Walter Greenwood, Love on the Dole (1932; London: Vintage, 1993)
Lewis Jones, Cwmardy (1937; Cardigan: University of Wales Press, 2006)
Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (1956; London: Penguin, 2006)
John Braine, Room at the Top (1957; London: Arrow, 1989)
Buchi Emecheta, Second-Class Citizen (1974; London: Heinemann, 1994)
Pat Barker, Union Street (London: Virago, 1982)
Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting (1993; London: Vintage, 1994)

Just started reading Love on the Dole which is pretty interesting as it's set in 1930's Salford.

Where are you reading literature mate?

SteveJ · 30th January 2012, 01:37

Quote:

Once upon a time, when the novel was young and self-confident, inventiveness was its raison d'etre. Telling a story was all it had to do and it celebrated being made up or, as Daniel Defoe put it, "lying like truth".

In the beginning, the novel was a transcendent genre and the artists of fiction a secular priesthood. Overcoming its bourgeois origins as entertainment for a booming middle class, the novel inspired the greatest imaginations of the day, from Dickens to Lawrence.

Not any more. Not only has it lost its mojo, it often seems to want to be something else – a travelogue, perhaps, or a psycho-history or a "meditation" on who knows what. The "baggy monster" of its 20th-century prime has become a neurasthenic wreck, prey to fears and self-loathing.

As long as words are cool, the novel will flourish | The Observer

CLK_FPC · 30th January 2012, 02:21

Lorenzo Carcaterra does good crime fiction:
Sleepers and Gangster are two of my favourite novels ever. You've probably seen the Sleepers film

MG · 30th January 2012, 22:55

I know I went all modern (by that, I mean post 1750!) and weird in my last post but lets go back to my specialist area with some medieval literature.

I read 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' and Sir Thomas Malory's 'Le Morte Darthur' last semester - really excellent literature and fantastic tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table - some of the best works of the middle ages. Malory's has easier language and is more dramatic but Gawain was a simpler story (although the Middle English is very complicated in that one).

MG · 30th January 2012, 22:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveJ

100 novels everyone should read - Telegraph

I've read 43 of those.

It's not a very good list though (some glaring omissions).

Adzzz · 31st January 2012, 15:54

I studied Gawain in the first semester of my first year, I liked the bit where they rip on wirral folk.

SteveJ · 31st January 2012, 17:55

Despite being Welsh, I missed out on Gawain. And I only read Wolfram and Chrétien de Troyes because I was madly in love with the whole Rennes-le-Château mystery biz. What a twit.

MG · 1st February 2012, 17:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adzzz

I studied Gawain in the first semester of my first year, I liked the bit where they rip on wirral folk.

It's very good but I think Malory is better for a definitive Arthurian legend.

De Selby · 6th February 2012, 13:50

A member of my family just gave me a £50 Amazon gift card thingy, so I'm going to order a few books.

Ya'll seem to know your stuff, so any recommendations? I'm drawing a blank here for some reason.

I'm open to anything except the effeminate vampire genre.

SteveJ · 6th February 2012, 13:51

Give us a clue about your interests, mate.

peterstorey · 6th February 2012, 13:52

Robert Musil's 'The Man without Qualities' it's leering at me (unread) from the bookshelf.

SteveJ · 6th February 2012, 13:58

Colin Wilson is interesting on Moosbrugger, mate. Y'know...back in the day when Wilson's writing & ideas seemed fresh.

De Selby · 6th February 2012, 14:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveJ

Give us a clue about your interests, mate.

Once it's not crime or romance, I'll read anything.

And I'll give that a look, pete.

SteveJ · 6th February 2012, 17:20

Susan Hill and Jane Goldman on The Woman in Black novella, screenplay & film:

Quote:

Liz White, who plays the woman in black, sees her as sympathetic.

SH: The only person she is sympathetic to is herself. This is the dreadful sadness of it. There is nobody who can sympathise with her.

JG: For her, anger is a disease. Her misery creates more misery.

Touched by evil: Susan Hill and Jane Goldman on what inspired The Woman in Black | The Observer

SteveJ · 10th February 2012, 21:31

Quote:

Deathless prose: the vampire novel of the century

The Horror Writers Association has shortlisted six contenders – do they hit the right vein?

The Vampire Novel of the Century | guardian.co.uk

pillory · 11th February 2012, 02:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by MG

I've read 43 of those.

I've read 43 plus a couple of volumes of Proust and parts of a few others! Yes!

SteveJ · 11th February 2012, 21:35

Courtesy of Jennifer Weiner:

SteveJ · 15th February 2012, 23:48

Quote:

Every time society advances, it faces challenges from those people economically and emotionally invested in the past. Undoubtedly stone age flint knappers were less than happy about bronze-age technology disturbing their business model. The medieval church was none to pleased about printing technology breaking their hegemony over knowledge, but we'd never have had the Enlightenment without it. Today the media-conglomerates, governments and educational institutions that profit from gatekeeping knowledge of all kinds are pushing the Stop Online Piracy Act, and even more draconian legislation to try and hold back the flood of free knowledge that threatens their power. Unless we want to stay in the knowledge equivalent of the stone age, and miss the next enlightenment the knowledge revolution promises to bring with it, we should all redouble our efforts to make sure they lose.

Are books and the internet about to merge? | guardian.co.uk

jveezy · 16th February 2012, 00:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveJ

Are books and the internet about to merge? | guardian.co.uk

Absolutely they are. Tablets allow books to be far more interactive than ever before and allow the insertion of movies or sound to enhance the reader experience. The best example I've seen recently is the Scam School book (I follow the author's internet shows pretty religiously) which is kind of a textbook for fun magic and mind tricks/illusions.

Brian Brushwood - Bizarre Magic: America's #1 College Magic Show - Books

Each separate trick comes with a video showing you how it's done and audio commentary talking about context or interesting stories about how the author has used the trick before.

This is all stuff we've previously seen on web pages, and it's fantastic to see them incorporated into books. After all most of the encoding behind eBooks is based on html anyways. I'm excited for what this means for textbooks and education in general.

hungrywing · 16th February 2012, 15:09

Drinking Vodka Makes You Talk More Better

SteveJ · 23rd February 2012, 17:12

Quote:

Magic seems to live at the heart of English identity, as much today as millennia ago if the hordes reading Harry Potter are any indication.

Why English culture is bewitched by magic | guardian.co.uk

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13th January 2012, 16:18	#121 (permalink)
Red Hand Devil Dear RHD.. I need your advice. My girlfriend recently.. Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: "i said a hip hop the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop, a you dont stop the rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat.........." Posts: 13,768

13th January 2012, 16:41	#122 (permalink)
De Selby Likes them tattooed and bald Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Look at that fucker Dance. Posts: 4,702	I have 3 books sitting on the bedside table that I haven't started yet: a collection of George Orwell's essays, a biography of Brendan Behan and something by Will Self (can't remember the name of it). Edit: 4,000 posts.

13th January 2012, 16:51	#124 (permalink)
SmashedHombre Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Lake Ch... Posts: 28,154	I was given The Great Gatsby for Christmas. I'm yet to read it though- or anything else by Scott-Fitzgerald for that matter. Obviously I'm familiar with Benjamin Button, but that's about as far as my knowledge of his work goes. Has anyone read Great Gatsby? I know it's considered his magnum opus, so I'm looking forward to starting it if I ever get the chance.

13th January 2012, 17:13	#126 (permalink)
The_Red_Hope Reserve Team Player Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 2,439	Just finished reading Brotkhers Karamazov and can I just say that my mind has been BLOWN. I'm so glad I stuck with it. I'm still digesting all the little bits and layers and intricasies but wow, I'm so glad I stuck with it ... what a rewarding reading experience.

23rd January 2012, 22:19	#132 (permalink)
downxandxout Supports Manc...ini Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Salford, Manchester. Posts: 2,332	The primary texts I need to read for this semesters lit module are as follows: D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928; London: Penguin, 2006) Walter Greenwood, Love on the Dole (1932; London: Vintage, 1993) Lewis Jones, Cwmardy (1937; Cardigan: University of Wales Press, 2006) Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (1956; London: Penguin, 2006) John Braine, Room at the Top (1957; London: Arrow, 1989) Buchi Emecheta, Second-Class Citizen (1974; London: Heinemann, 1994) Pat Barker, Union Street (London: Virago, 1982) Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting (1993; London: Vintage, 1994) Just started reading Love on the Dole which is pretty interesting as it's set in 1930's Salford.

26th January 2012, 11:22	#134 (permalink)
Adzzz Astrophysical Genius Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Don't Put My Swag on a Pedestal, I'll leave you like Owen Hargreaves at a Medical, passing me ain't credible Posts: 21,961	Just some light reading for me currently; Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus Goethe, Faust I & II Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown Nietzsche, Will To Power Schopenhauer, The World As Will and Representation Vol. 1 Aside from the last two, I've read them all.

28th January 2012, 01:52	#137 (permalink)
Scrumpet First Team Sub Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Ipswich Town (SM) Posts: 8,320	I've read a grand total of 7 out of that 100

29th January 2012, 20:05	#138 (permalink)
Adzzz Astrophysical Genius Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Don't Put My Swag on a Pedestal, I'll leave you like Owen Hargreaves at a Medical, passing me ain't credible Posts: 21,961	This Nietzsche fella is quite clever, he's also approaching meta-astrophysical levels. Anyway, Middlemarch 1st? Atonement before LOTR? LOTR at 100? Moby Dick at second is quite cool though.

29th January 2012, 20:09	#139 (permalink)
peterstorey Bitter Arse hole Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Happy those, who can remain at Highbury! Posts: 25,997	Lucky Jim at 36 is a joke.

30th January 2012, 02:21	#142 (permalink)
CLK_FPC First Team Sub Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: ★I Be That Pretty Motherfucker...☆ Posts: 7,399	Lorenzo Carcaterra does good crime fiction: Sleepers and Gangster are two of my favourite novels ever. You've probably seen the Sleepers film

30th January 2012, 22:55	#143 (permalink)
MG First Team Regular Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now Posts: 10,625	I know I went all modern (by that, I mean post 1750!) and weird in my last post but lets go back to my specialist area with some medieval literature. I read 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' and Sir Thomas Malory's 'Le Morte Darthur' last semester - really excellent literature and fantastic tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table - some of the best works of the middle ages. Malory's has easier language and is more dramatic but Gawain was a simpler story (although the Middle English is very complicated in that one).

31st January 2012, 15:54	#145 (permalink)
Adzzz Astrophysical Genius Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Don't Put My Swag on a Pedestal, I'll leave you like Owen Hargreaves at a Medical, passing me ain't credible Posts: 21,961	I studied Gawain in the first semester of my first year, I liked the bit where they rip on wirral folk.

31st January 2012, 17:55	#146 (permalink)
SteveJ Nicest fella on the Caf and Newbie of the Year 2011 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: The Divided Kingdom Posts: 11,919	Despite being Welsh, I missed out on Gawain. And I only read Wolfram and Chrétien de Troyes because I was madly in love with the whole Rennes-le-Château mystery biz. What a twit.

6th February 2012, 13:50	#148 (permalink)
De Selby Likes them tattooed and bald Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Look at that fucker Dance. Posts: 4,702	A member of my family just gave me a £50 Amazon gift card thingy, so I'm going to order a few books. Ya'll seem to know your stuff, so any recommendations? I'm drawing a blank here for some reason. I'm open to anything except the effeminate vampire genre.

6th February 2012, 13:51	#149 (permalink)
SteveJ Nicest fella on the Caf and Newbie of the Year 2011 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: The Divided Kingdom Posts: 11,919	Give us a clue about your interests, mate.

6th February 2012, 13:52	#150 (permalink)
peterstorey Bitter Arse hole Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Happy those, who can remain at Highbury! Posts: 25,997	Robert Musil's 'The Man without Qualities' it's leering at me (unread) from the bookshelf.

6th February 2012, 13:58	#151 (permalink)
SteveJ Nicest fella on the Caf and Newbie of the Year 2011 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: The Divided Kingdom Posts: 11,919	Colin Wilson is interesting on Moosbrugger, mate. Y'know...back in the day when Wilson's writing & ideas seemed fresh.

11th February 2012, 21:35	#156 (permalink)
SteveJ Nicest fella on the Caf and Newbie of the Year 2011 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: The Divided Kingdom Posts: 11,919	Courtesy of Jennifer Weiner:

16th February 2012, 15:09	#159 (permalink)
hungrywing First Team Sub Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Your Left Ventricle Posts: 5,561	Drinking Vodka Makes You Talk More Better