Metal Reviews

I loved this one! He's great at explaining complex concepts in layman's terms.

Ramachandra Guha- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy

Finished Anna Karanenina. The first part gave me high expectations that the rest of the book didn't always meet. Overall I liked it. Now reading The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.

Plowing through For Whom the Bell Tolls for school. 'Tis good. Hemingway builds tension like a champ.

After this I gotta read Native Son and after that I dunno.

Huuuuge Hemingway fan. Loved For Whom the Bell Tolls. I wonder if reading it now I'd notice more stuff about anarchism or communism by the Spanish forces.

Fanon goes to the utmost length to describe every single possible minute event that could occur through and after the insurgence against colonialism. It's tedious yet profound. His ideas on rejecting the growth of a bourgeoisie in Africa as a positive fact is interesting because it reflects my understand of history insofar as wealthy classes in post-colonial states often lack the revolutionary capacity Marx praised so highly in the Manifesto. Overriding Marx's authority in this manner puts him on the same podium as Lenin in terms of influence. I really like reading post-Marxist revolutionary works. Sometimes it really clicks with me but other times it doesn't and in this way it's really productive.

Bernard Cornwell- The Burning Land

followed by

Salman Rushdie- Shalimar the Clown

Finished Wretched of the Earth. Skimmed my highlights in Foucault's Discipline and Punish. Just began some early reading for school, Hannah Arendt's On Revolution. So apparently, communism is a disconnected from reality19th century ideology which should go to the rubbish heap along with revolution. The only thing left in politics is apparently freedom vs tyranny. I wonder if her conception of freedom has anything to do with inequality. This quarter is going to be so volatile reading this kinda stuff.

I finished The Sound and the Fury last night, was awesome. Lots of tasty experimentation with language while also letting having the plot reveal itself at a perfect pace. Now reading Don Quixote.

Clive Barker - Mister B. Gone

Cool idea that is pretty yawnsome at 70 pages in. I hope it gets better, but I don't think it will.

It doesn't. Sorry.

David Harvey has a new one out, The Enigma of Capital: and the Crises of Capitalism. It's supposed to be a more accessible version of his ideas than his past works. Maybe I'll get into it come winter break.

Recently read:

Karen Armstrong- Islam: A Short History. One of the worst histories I've ever read. No context for anything, blanket statements without any citations at all, bare use of any type of footnoting, and an apologist's agenda rearing its head every five seconds (not that I disagree with a lot of her points, but you don't need to tell me that Islam is not a more violent religion than others after EVERY GODDAMN WAR). What a piece of shit.

Mohsin Hamid- The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Interesting read, and a nice counterpoint to Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown, which I just read and which has some similar themes. They actually balance each other quite nicely- here the protagonist's transformation into an anti-American quasi terrorist is much better handled than in Shalimar the Clown, but Hamid's take on Pakistani society and the Middle East's relationship in general with the West is pretty one note. In Shalimar, the Kashmiri problem is presented tragically, as multifaceted, and in extreme depth, but Shalimar the Clown's transformation into a cold blooded terrorist killer comes a bit out of nowhere. Shalimar is definitely the more ambitious book, though, dealing with a large cast of characters and other events such as the WW2 resistance. Both very good books with some flaws.

Then read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. A very interesting read, but as someone who hasn't taken more than high school physics, obviously I only understand about half of it. Still good to get a basic understanding of some of the ideas and theories about the nature of the universe.

Now reading:

Gore Vidal- Julian. Loving it so far.

Yes, I read Wilson's A History of the Crusade a couple years back and she could simple not restrain her bias.

Glad you are enjoying Julian so far.

Julian is pretty awesome. My Latin prof loled when he saw me reading it. Not always historically accurate (correct me if I wrong, Brahm) but some of Vidal's best.

Picked up Henry Rollins' First Five today. Really picked me up out of a bum mood I was in with only ten pages. It's rough, unprofessional but it's honest, ya know? Also snagged Adorno's Minima Moralia and a collection of essays on Foucault and feminism.

Is Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon worth reading? I read a couple pages in a store today and it was interesting but I'm wondering if I try to slog through 900 pages of convoluted old timey language.

It apparently rivals Gravity's Rainbow for being his best. I don't know it's Pynchon so it's going to be crazy but you'll get used to the language just like it is in A Clockwork Orange.

re-reading The Shining

Interesting. I will probably buy it tomorrow then, was mainly hoping it wasn't some book widely regarded as his failure or smth. Don Quixote is cool for reading 10 pages before bed but I want something more inspiring to read in the last 2 weeks before school. And I also love long books.

I've only read Crying of Lot 49 and tried to get into Vineland, which was way too out there for me but Mason Dixon sounds quality. You just have to be prepared for absurdity and how the story is told provides a structure to what the story is.