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After a long break from reading it (not having time or desire to get back to reading anything), I recently picked up where I left off around a year ago and, tonight, finished reading The Day of the Locust.

It's really pretty astounding to know a book this "gritty" and cynical was written in 1939, and about Hollywood (the land of sunshine and oranges), of all places, along with the by-then jaded and embittered people who came to live out their unfulfilled hopes and desires.

Reading The Day of the Locust has left me feeling only gutted by the the fucking cartoonishly-nihilistic reality that lies just underneath the thin veil of bullshit romanticism, and appalled at its despicable characters, of which none you can feel sympathy for in the end.

It didn't feel good to read The Day of the Locust. If anything it made me feel sick. sick and empty... and disgusted by what monsters every single person in this story became. At the same time, I feel sympathy (or pity?) for many of them.

A good, albeit short, book.

foomanfat wrote:Man, this thread makes me feel dumb.

right there with ya!!!

do owners manuals count??? in that case tascam dp004!

Reading? HAH! This is 'merica. readin' is for faggots. *snort, spit*

Kellanium wrote:readin' is for faggots.

That explains a lot about all this faggy reading I've been doing!

I just finished The Wasp Factory and need a new book.

I'm not even sure what to say about The Wasp Factory. "Gothic Horror" indeed. Surprise twist at the end... an odd book, but an enjoyable one to read with a less-than-clearly-stated underlying significance (which is funny since the things that are most vague/undisclosed--all the crap you'd have to discuss with the book club because the author never spells it out for you--are probably the most valuable and "DEEP" things one could take from reading it).

Brutal.

Just went over to my girlfriend's parents place and scored me two old ass copies of "the picture of Dorian Grey" by Oscar Wilde and "the Rubiyat" by Omar Khayyam - two books that I've been looking to read for a very long time!

I also scored a super old book on German grammar, which is just a fun thing for me, as I'm a linguistics nerd and I like to collect these sort of things.

I don't know if anybody's suggested it yet, but "Far from the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy is a great book. I recently finished it and throughly enjoyed it.

Kellanium wrote:readin' is for faggots.

I'm actually reading this right now

and er.. I'm supposed to be writing a paper on it that's due in 8 hours. No sleep for the wicked

This is my list of books :
1. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
2. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
3. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

smithdwsn wrote:Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

I've just started this...

The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi.



Best sci-fi I've read in a while. Heavy stuff about a post peak-oil, post gmo-food, post-plague (or three) future Thailand (and world). There's some amazing world-building going on, and the various subplots are coming together in a way that feels inevitable. Good stuff.

smile_man wrote:

1,2,3, Pull Out! wrote:

smile_man wrote:Gravity's rainbow...

Shut up.
I 'm actually thinking of conquering that bad boy after exams are over.

P:
It's not so difficult after a few pages when you start to understand the writing style.

haha my name is from a character from GR. it's a fun book. i think pynchon is really incredible at introducing characters and slowly integrating them into the story. some people say pynchon's characters 'have no heart' but i think that's rubbish, just read the the pokler section of gravity's rainbow where he's working at peenumunde, it's pretty touching in parts.

it's also pretty hilarious...

blicero wrote:

smile_man wrote:
haha my name is from a character from GR. it's a fun book. i think pynchon is really incredible at introducing characters and slowly integrating them into the story. some people say pynchon's characters 'have no heart' but i think that's rubbish, just read the the pokler section of gravity's rainbow where he's working at peenumunde, it's pretty touching in parts.

it's also pretty hilarious...

I always found your name to have something GR about it, I don't know if I'm up to a part where he plays a big enough role to be noticed yet.

I just took a break from GR to read "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said" by Philip K. Dick, my friend gave it to me before he was killed, just finished it today, I liked it.

Vineland is going to be the next fiction book i read. currently reading two other books & have a Collection of Walt Whitman prose i've been meaning to read as well.

i've said this before but you really have to THROW OUT the way you read when you approach that book. otherwise you won't finish. (its kind of like a mindfuckinglyweird endurance test.) there are a LOT of references--even literally references--that if you aren't aware of you'd totally miss out on them. i would highly suggest some sort of reader guide read in tandem w/ GR if you could nab that--

it is funny though. it does seems true that only the weirdos really dig & read GR in earnest...

(& my current user_nom de plume directly references a John Barth novel if you're scoring at home kiddies..)

I finally decided to nerd-up and start reading the copy of Dune that I have been moving around the country for years.

I hope that the movie hasn't tainted me too much...

floating opera wrote:Vineland is going to be the next fiction book i read. currently reading two other books & have a Collection of Walt Whitman prose i've been meaning to read as well.

i've said this before but you really have to THROW OUT the way you read when you approach that book. otherwise you won't finish. (its kind of like a mindfuckinglyweird endurance test.) there are a LOT of references--even literally references--that if you aren't aware of you'd totally miss out on them. i would highly suggest some sort of reader guide read in tandem w/ GR if you could nab that--

it is funny though. it does seems true that only the weirdos really dig & read GR in earnest...

(& my current user_nom de plume directly references a John Barth novel if you're scoring at home kiddies..)

'
i was like half way through vineland but i haven't read it in a while. it was definitely very 'pynchonesque', although far easier to read than GR. i also read his latest book, inherent vice, when it came out but i didn't really enjoy it. it was kinda self indulgent and not in a cool way like GR

i reckon the best way to read GR the first time is just to not worry about getting every little esoteric reference and just powering through, saving the companion reader guide thing for your next read through this sprawling literary monolith. there's also a 'one picture for every page of gravity's rainbow' thing on the internet somewhere which is worth checking out.