Metal Reviews

Has anyone read "Dhalgren", by Samuel R. Delany?

I saw it on this list that suggested new reading alternatives for the things we read "when we were kids", since those books supposedly suck once you're older. It was listed as the better alternative to Wheel of Time, and while I will wholeheartedly say fuck them--I'm still finishing the next two WoT books over my 1-week break--I'm still intrigued. So anyways, is it good?

Recently finished Meg, by Steve Alten, which was surprisingly hard sci-fi regarding Megaladons. Dude did his research. However, some of the dialog was a bit ham-fisted, but writing believable dialog is hard and it was the guy's first novel, so I won't begrudge him too much.

Before that it was The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I liked it, but I'm not sure how much I enjoyed the "Historical Note" at the end of the novel, which was a "transcribed speech" from after the novel took place, which was kind of interesting, but by its very existence, and its looking back on the events of the novel, it implied that the nation described in the novel itself eventually ends or collapses, which I think takes away from what was scary about the novel to begin with.

Also, I've been reading The Boys by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, which mixes the juvenile humor and violence that I expected from GE with some more interesting world-building that I wasn't anticipating. And I'm a total sucker for the romantic subplot, apparently.

Next up is...? Thor comics? Waylander by David Gemmell? Raymond Chandler? Some book about parallel universes? Carl Sagan? I have no idea. We'll see.

Loved Handmaid's Tale. Didn't remember the Historical Note at the end hmmm.

Could have been a different edition or something.

I like this format, which is a collection of essays on unrelated topics rather than one large idea. I think this is one problem I have with finishing some books; about halfway through I feel like the author has ceased to add anything and is just churning to generate page counts.

I remember reading Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and feeling like he was bringing out more and more evidence to make the same point over and over again.

Yep.

Still struggling through Notes From Underground, but also reading:

The Picture of Dorian Gray

American Psycho

White Noise

and The Man in the High Castle (Philip K. Dick)

American Psycho got pretty rough with the details. I have mixed feelings towards it.

I really want to put what I'm reading in bold so that everybody sees it because it sounds so awesome having finished the foreword and been waiting to read it for months. Dun dun dun:

Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music.

Written by an economist, it talks about the primacy of hearing over seeing and points to how music rather than developing out of the economic base as Marxists always point to, he makes the claim that music preceded the economic system which fit it. I don't have the historical examples in my own head to explain how Beethoven preceded individualistic capitalism but here is where it gets cool. Music preceding the economic structure makes music the foundation of any radical politics. Music can become the liberating force of the future or the predecessor to a dystopian malaise, i.e., punk and metal can bring about radical change or the pop music of mass culture can lead us to a zombified homogeneity.

Basically, he builds the foundation where I was kinda drawing out implications based on a summary of the book but I really really really think I'm going to love this. I really want to do music and theory in the future but I just don't know enough music terminology to do it commonly. Writing a paper tomorrow on hip hop and revolutionary violence to present at a conference. This book might become a fave.

If you mean the White Noise by Don Delillo, I have read all of these. And they are all quite good.

I read White Noise for "fun", though, and I definitely feel like I'd have to write a paper about it or something to appreciate it fully.

Also that Economy of Music book looks fucking awesome. Pretty much my two favorite things...

I actually liked the added "Historical Note" at the end. I dunno, to me the disconcerting part was not that the regime collapsed because evidently all civilisations eventually come to an end. What was disconcerting about the novel for me was, rather, how the regime came to be (from what we're told) and the parallels Atwood was making with modern American society.

I just finished reading the latest of Bernard Cornwell's Saxon series and can't wait for him to publish the next book in the series. Not sure what to read yet. Thinking of rereading some Lovecraft en lieu of the new At the Mountains of Madness movie they're apparently filming here in Toronto

Man do you ever go out and like enjoy life?

Bash the academic much? I went for a jog today after I got home from work. Tomorrow I'm going to listen to a speaker, Sara Ahmed, and reception and dancing afterwards. Friday going out to lunch with said speaker then that night an Evil Dead performance on campus. Sadly probably by myself. Then Saturday probably homework and dancing and Sunday I'll work and do more homework. Books are my joy.

Finished Arendt's Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy over the weekend. Was supposed tor read it for an Arendt course last semester but never did. Read it for an Aesthetics course now. Didn't finish the Sara Ahmed book I was supposed to read, Strange Encounters. Starting Lyotard's Analytic of the Sublime soon. Read some John Mill and Jeremy Bentham for the class I'm teaching tomorrow. Some Spivak and Alcoff for my Feminist Epistemology course for Monday.

Just bought a whole bunch of books online. All 3 volumes of Capital, Harvey's companion to Capital, the Grundrisse (4000 pages of Marx right there total), a Deleuze on Spinoza book, Axel Honneth bridging the Frankfurt School with Foucault, Merleau Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, Terry Eagleton Why Marx Was Right, Harman's Zombie Capitalism, Ollman's Dance of the Dialectic, Zizek on women, Ranciere on aesthetics.

The only people that truly enjoy life enjoy ballroom dancing.

Being a war nerd I just finished reading Hitler's Ardennes Offensive, compiled by Danny Parker and featuring interviews from a whole heap of German generals who participated in this campaign.

Includes interviews from Hasso von Manteuffel (CO 5th Panzer Army), Erich Brandenberger (CO 7th Army), Josef Dietrich (CO 6th Panzer Army) as well as general Fritz Kramer who on the Staff of 6th Panzer Army.

Also been reading heaps of Dean Koontz - just finished Sole Survivor and then False Memory. Intense stuff as always.

K.J. Parker - Devices and Desires

Pretty good so far.

Just started The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho). So far so good.

American Psycho was pretty good. Just skip the unnecessarily long Genesis reviews and shit and the rest is one of the best killer novels I've read.

Been reading The Crippled God by Steven Erikson (the last book of his Malazan Book of the Fallen, technically).

What a coincidence... I'm starting on the first book in that series now.