Metal Reviews

The Stone Diary by Carol Shields. back to reading for school

By complete coincidence, I've recently started The First Law, book I. Not finding it that great so far but am only a couple of chapters in so I'll persevere.

The Winter War - Antti Tuuri.
Great novel on the Russo-Finnish war of 1939.

I warn you, the first book is pretty average. It really only starts to pick up in the second book, and then the third book is awesome. It's worth it in the end, so keep going.

Reading Juvenal: Satires

He's a terrific writer, it's just a shame he's a misogynist, racist and anti-Semite, no to put too fine a point on it.

But he's also hilarious! And hypocritical. Juvenal is a great time for everybody.

But who wasn't? The guy's a Roman. (also thanks for resetting my shit, yo)

William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
(I have to take notes to understand everything without someone telling me what it all means. So worth it.)

Well, of course. Juvenal is certainly a lot more vitriolic in his appraisal than most, but then I suppose that's what makes him so fun to read.

Oh, and welcome the fuck back

finished Before They Are Hanged and started Peter Pan last night.

BTAH was quite good, i'll either ask my uncle to buy book III from Amazon or order it from fnac. thing about the latter is that they take like 4 or 5 weeks to get the god damn book.

Finished Marquez's "100 Years of Solitude". Bloody brilliant.

His Excellency:George Washington - Joseph J. Ellis

Great book with an immense amount of information about the 1st American president that was never taught to me in school.

To Green Angel Tower pt 2 - Tad Williams

This is apparently the second part to the third book but I just consider it a fourth book considering it's over 800 pages long.

friedrich nietzsche-the will to power

Hey Traptunderice, since you study philosophy, I've been curious about your views of Nietzsche. What do you think of him?

reading Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children a 2nd time.

Now that school's over, I finally got back into some pleasure reading this week. I read Gene Wolfe's Soldier of Sidon and Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Gene Wolfe is awesome as usual, and I recommend Philostratus just because of the role it has played in Christian debate with non-Christians since late Antiquity; Apollonius, whom Philostratus writes was a holy Pythagorean philosopher in the 1st century AD who performed many miracles similar to Christ's, was brought up by later "pagans" in the ancient world as a counterpoint to Christ's divinity. Very interesting, even if sometimes Apollonius' philosophical discourses cause you to snooze. But it can also be very entertaining- he fights vampires! He throws rocks at hobos! He can fucking teleport! The emperor Domitian gets served by him! I love ancient history.

Anyway, I'm going away in a few days (will be gone for about a month and a half), and I'm bringing a few books with me:

Nabokov- Pale Fire
Jeff Vandermeer- Veniss Underground
Gene Wolfe- The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Dan Simmons- The Terror
Apollonius- The Voyage of the Argo

I should probably read Gene Wolfe someday. I looked him up on Wikipedia, and he sounds like an author I could probably get into.

Don't laugh, but right now I'm reading Heir To The Empire by Timothy Zahn and enjoying it.

Is that the chess one? I loved Lolita despite it slowing down towards the end. Have you checked it out.

That's always been described to me as a really bad book of his to read unless you're at a grad student level with Nietzsche. His sister edited it, rewrote and added her own thoughts to a lot of it, slanting pretty hards towards some anti-semitism. I would recommend Twilight of the Idols, The Anti-Christ or The Genealogy of Morals before you delve into The Will to Power.

As for my thoughts on Nietzsche, I love his style but I don't always agree with his views. He's a very poetic writer with an unabashed approach to the ideas. The concept of genealogy where you essentially challenge all of standardized history just seemed too hokey but it is what Foucault does too and I still love him. Nietzsche puts too much emphasis on the individual for me to love him entirely. Much of his ideas are used against social democracy, but I definitely agree with and respect his ideas on how individuals should step it up.
Have you read either Shame or The Satanic Verses? They create a trilogy supposedly. I've had Satanic Verses on my shelf for a while but it looks so time consuming. Is it smooth reading?

Ha, I read that back in the day, a loooooong time ago. It's hard for me to say, because back then I gobbled any Star Wars shit up, but from what I remember, that trilogy is one of the few Star Wars books that can be called decent. Maybe.

And yes, check out Gene Wolfe- start with The Book of the New Sun. He's an extremely challenging author to read, and you will not understand half of what you read the first time through. But it's always a unique, interesting and thoughtful experience, and his books are meant to be reread over and over.

traptunderice: Pale Fire is a book disguised as an epic poem and its commentary. Supposed to be awesome and postmodern and all that. I definitely want to read Lolita, but that'll have to wait.

i read Shame last summer. i haven't read the Satanic Verses yet. it's really dense but i've found with most of Rushdie's books for about the first 50 pages i'm like "this is hard to read," then i get totally hooked, can't put it down, and burn through the rest of the book pretty quickly. except The Ground Beneath Her Feet; that one never caught my interest and i eventually gave up on it.