luka

Well-known member
Yeah, really enjoyed it despite his usual rapes and molestations of young women by old men/monsters
 

catalog

Well-known member
Yeah, really enjoyed it despite his usual rapes and molestations of young women by old men/monsters

Yeah there's a couple bits which are just ridiculous and you think, why are you doing this? He's proper weird and dark is Alan Moore, no mistake. I think he must do it because he deliberately wants to go beyond the pale. I do think both bits add to the story tho. Years ago I would've liked those bits but now they make me wince more than anything
 

luka

Well-known member
It's not unusual to want to fuck young girls and it's not unusual for authors work to include large chunks of wish fulfilment
 

catalog

Well-known member
one for the gaddis readers (from this blog i found https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/04/28/alamut-bosch-gaddis-introduction-to-epochal-art/)

In 1955, William Gaddis published The Recognitions, which is, among other things, the greatest novel ever written on the art and act of painting. Structured as a triptych, it investigates the spectrum between the original and the mimetic, the djinn of imitation, the real and the fake, and the real in the fake, ad nauseaum. It is, as you may well imagine, another of our vertiginous epochal artifacts: the one to lend its name, and spirit, to our catoptric inquiry on artworks that have passed the Turing test of time across the ages.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm reading a children's (well young adult) book called The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman, it's part of the follow series to the Dark Materials one called The Book of Dust. I like that it's set in an alternative Oxford and they go to St Aldates and the covered market and so and I like that the first series was about trying to kill God, let's see where this one goes...
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
i want to learn more about greek mythology, i know almost nothing about it. do you guys know if there is some standard work about it?
 

catalog

Well-known member
i had a flick through the robert graves greek myths book... it's probably a pretty good intro, and it's definitely comprehensive, but there's no fizz to it at all, it's very dry in the way it's written, like reading a dictionary or encyclopedia. i suppose that's what it is, so it's perhaps wrong to criticise it for being that. i've much preferred ovid's metamorphoses, although this is obvs roman, not greek, but there's considerable overlap between greek and roman myths in that the roman ones are using the same source material, doing new spins etc. but having said that, it's also hard to read, cos its so of its time, you have to get into it, give it time, and i've left it now, so the thought of going back to it is not so enticing. but once you get into the rhythm, it's pretty enjoyable.

maybe just read the odyssey or the iliad? whatever decent translation you can find?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm surprised. I've never read that Robert Graves book but I thought that the issue that people had with it was the way he interpreted stuff and switched it up rather than being too dry and scholarly. But like I say I never read it so... EDIT wait up I'm thinking of the White Goddess rather than this book, ignore me.
The Odyssey, I remember reading it but no idea about the translation. As a kid I read loads of kind of simplified Greek myths and I really enjoyed them, presumably cos they are such kinda archetypal stories, and as a result I remember most of the general simplified versions and that has given me a good basis to occasionally read more in-depth versions or to understand references in other literature. I wonder if there is some kinda quick overview like that you can read and that would give you a framework to dig more specifically into the bits that most appeal.
 
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catalog

Well-known member
yeah ive not read the white goddess, ive heard that is good - i think both of you and craner recommended it.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
yeah ive not read the white goddess, ive heard that is good - i think both of you and craner recommended it.
I may have done... but I've never read it, or the myths one, though I have that on my shelf. Not really what you're after now but if you've never read his I Claudius and Claudius the God you should put that right immediately, one of my favourite novels. EDIT although it does give you a lot of historical stuff about Rome.
 
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WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
The White Goddess is a mixed blessing & i don't want to spoil anything. The crux of the material is ultimately unprovable, but Graves makes a compelling case, even if linguistic research has more tools today to extract so much of the inherent symbolism. The language alluded to is alive enough in Britain & within the broader academic community to justify a revision. If you've heard of The Battle of the Trees (Tolkien ripped it off), jump right in. Dry, dated, but still fun.

"When the trees were enchanted there was hope for the trees,
that they should frustrate the intention of the surrounding fires"
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I've been reading very patchily lately, and enjoying it. Books of essays and reviews rather than novels.

Robert Hughes - Nothing if not Critical
Ian Macdonald - Revolution in the Head
Nick Cohn - A Wap Bab Aloobop... (Thanks Woebot!)
Martin Amis - The Zone of Interest (a novel, but Amis I find easy to read, addictive to read, infectious... And besides this is one of his better novels in my view. Amis is good at doing shits and the Nazis were the biggest of shits imaginable. His Nazis are stereotypes ofc, but that doesn't seem to matter with Nazis, who made themselves stereotypes. Not so good, tellingly, at the suffering victims.)
Pascal - Pensees (I really recommend flicking through these fragments - a lot of hopelessly antiquated religious stuff but the best of which diagnose human folly with an accuracy that hasn't slipped in centuries)

On a similar tip, I've been glancing at Naked Lunch. Maybe version was right after apl.
 
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