IdleRich

IdleRich
Musil’s Man Without Qualities - vol 1 700 pages of mitteleuropean fiction set just before the start of 1WW. It’s quite slow going but I’m appreciating its rather dilatory pace. I am enjoying it enough to have ordered the second volume - another 700+ page behemoth.
One day I may attempt that... still not ready I fear. Problrm is, sometimes I get less ready as I get older.
 

jenks

thread death
One day I may attempt that... still not ready I fear. Problrm is, sometimes I get less ready as I get older.
I know the feeling. Partly why I finally committed to it and accepted it’d take a big chunk of reading time. It’s not like a 900 page Dickens that rattles by.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Reading Sabbath's Theatre by Roth. I reached a point quite early on where I was bored with all the fucking and cunts etc. But I pushed past it and I'm glad I did now.

He's evoking a sex obsessed mindset which means being boring and monomaniacal at times. But there's obviously something more painful going on that the satyromaniac is trying to fuck and wank away. (And YES, I identify with this, this mastering-me masturbation.)

Not sure what a woman would make of it, mind you. My mum is a huge Roth fan but this is the one she couldn't read, presumably because of the horrific obscenity of it all.
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Unexpected bonus of reading it is that there's a great Yeats poem in it that I've never read before...

Meru


Civilisation is hooped together, brought
Under a rule, under the semblance of peace
By manifold illusion; but man's life is thought,
And he, despite his terror, cannot cease
Ravening through century after century,
Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come
Into the desolation of reality:
Egypt and Greece, good-bye, and good-bye, Rome!
Hermits upon Mount Meru or Everest,
Caverned in night under the drifted snow,
Or where that snow and winter's dreadful blast
Beat down upon their naked bodies, know
That day bring round the night, that before dawn
His glory and his monuments are gone.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
It’s not like a 900 page Dickens that rattles by.
This is what surprises me about some of the classics. How bloody readable and enjoyable they are. Unputdownable even. I'm reading Anna Karenina at the moment and I bloody love it, it's wonderful. What other classics are entirely enjoyable in this way?
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I got halfway into AK, stopped for forgotten reasons but I remember really appreciating how short the chapters were.

A 50 page chapter takes the wind out of your sails before you've even started reading it.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Reading Sabbath's Theatre by Roth. I reached a point quite early on where I was bored with all the fucking and cunts etc. But I pushed past it and I'm glad I did now.

He's evoking a sex obsessed mindset which means being boring and monomaniacal at times. But there's obviously something more painful going on that the satyromaniac is trying to fuck and wank away. (And YES, I identify with this, this mastering-me masturbation.)

Not sure what a woman would make of it, mind you. My mum is a huge Roth fan but this is the one she couldn't read, presumably because of the horrific obscenity of it all.
Did she like Portnoy's Complaint?
 

version

Well-known member
About halfway through Blood Meridian now. It's great. Much better than I'd expected after semi-jokingly slagging off McCarthy a while back. Alarming to think the judge was a real guy and not far off the way he's described in the book.
@linebaugh sent me a good thing re: Blood Meridian and Gnosticism I've just gotten round to. The idea being the world depicted is one of the fallen, material worlds and The Judge an archon.

It's pretty convincing.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
A riot of a read. The ending is so stark, even if you intuit it along the way it’s a punch to the guts when the veil closes

Cheers for the link
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Monolithic Undertow by Harry Sword (you can’t have that name), an exploration of drones


You can probably gauge the usual suspects, but from what I’ve been able to gleam dipping in and out of it so far is an extended origins trope and early discussion on theory (without being overtly academic). Keep getting interrupted, long way to go
 

wektor

Well-known member
beyond dream syndicate
mainly about tony conrad and the ny scenius, well written so far, looking forward to the bit on Flynt

You can probably gauge the usual suspects, but from what I’ve been able to gleam dipping in and out of it so far is an extended origins trope and early discussion on theory (without being overtly academic). Keep getting interrupted, long way to go
was supposed to pick this one up, seems like drone is in favor these days, I consider myself glad
 
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