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Post by fuckface on Jul 25, 2023 3:34:46 GMT
shit, now i'm feeling stupid for apologising...
i'm going round in circles
i'm really very happy
going round in circles
and i'm having so much fun
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Jul 25, 2023 5:57:54 GMT
Why were the students in their mid-20s?? FWIW, the first filmic version of 1984 came out in 1956 and the second came out in...1984! "Many of the film's scenes were shot on the actual dates mentioned in the novel." Now that's post-modern...Richard Burton's last film. I am not sure if I ever saw it... A new one is coming...well, prolly not available for viewing in the West: 60 pages in now and it seems palpably malsuited to being made into a film. The entire story happens inside Winston's head. He can't say any of his thoughts aloud. He can't even give a nod and a wink to anyone. Silent blank faces do not a movie make. Maybe they could have the dreaded narrator voiceover running right the fuck through the thing, start to finish. Plus it is bleak as shiiiiiiiiiit. Ain't finished the book yet but after the miserable ending to Animal Farm I'm guessing Georgie Orwell ain't gonna pencil in The Rock breaking free of the shackles of Big Brother. Would hazard a guess Arnie and Sly as Winston And Syme ain't gonna be required. |
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Post by fuckface on Jul 25, 2023 7:15:25 GMT
^exactly. thats why the film version falls flat
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sukebegg
Whacked it raw to Schindler's List
熟女の力
Posts: 857
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Post by sukebegg on Jul 25, 2023 14:45:00 GMT
I read the three or four core books by CC, a rather controversial character. Assigned it in an Intro to Sociology class taught by a young and somewhat controversial prof. at UCLA, where CC had written his, again, controversial doctorate dissertation. Anyhow, I read the other books a decade later, down and out in LA, latching onto metaphysical nuggets wherever I could. The idea of coming to hold indifference to the fact that death is stalking us, everywhere and always, is a nice little encapsulation of a timeless spiritual goal. tbh, holding that mindset CC describes above is the real "woke" (shhhhhh)
I also read a couple of Whitley Strieber books around that time, Still maintain he is pretty fascinating.
More on this later...
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Jul 31, 2023 23:20:18 GMT
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Post by fuckface on Jul 31, 2023 23:52:32 GMT
ha. i used to frequent the'soon fatt' restaurant when i was working in ipoh, malaysia  |
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Aug 24, 2023 11:41:01 GMT
God Bless You, Mr Rosewater - Kurt VonnegutAnother mad, maddening and madly fun Vonnegut outing that again reads as if the author got drunk and/or high, started typing out any old shit, made it up as he went, chundered the whole thing out in a week, and that was that.
InMyIHomo, Eliot Rosewater shouldve been one of the greatest characters in all of literatrurrre. Instead, this book is a deranged and choppy mess. Characters flit in then are never heard from again. It's a fun mess but still, it finished abruptly after 188 pages leaving you wondering wFT just happened. It is ALL loose ends. This book needed to be 3x longer. 8/10
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Sept 5, 2023 10:00:09 GMT
The Clergyman's Daughter - George Orwell.
9/10
I read this cunt in 1 day.
1 day mind you!
What a monumental literary achievement by me. Sure the wee fucker was only 90 pages long but still. A legendary effort by me.
Written 15 years before 1984 and you can see Georgie boy is tuning up the bleak "society is fucked and humans are shit" rhetoric.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Sept 8, 2023 0:32:42 GMT
The Ticket That Exploded - William S.Burroughs
0/10.
Made it to page 5. Just a mess of shit dialogue and oooh aren't I being shocking stream-of-consciousness twaddle.
1962, I guess someone had to be shocking. Too bad it was a guy who got high and couldn't write for shit. Guess there's a reason this fraudulent dingus isn't spoken of with the Updike's and Roth's and Vonneguts. Dudereeno couldn't write for toffee. Get over yourself buddy. Writing "orgasm addict" 5 times in the first 5 pages just cos it gives your high-as-fuck cock and ballz the jollies dont mean it makes a lick of rock and roll sense to the rest of us.
Skimmed through the rest of the book and it was a total mess. A shambolic torrent of shapeless shiftless self-indulgent shartblastery written seemingly for the edification of the author and hisself alone.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Oct 4, 2023 10:14:28 GMT
1984 - George Orwell
10/10
What a ride. Learnt from past experience with his novels that ol' Georgie boy DOES NOT do seppo-style happy endings. There aint gonna be some matinee idol swooping in to get the chick and save the day. There's going to be classic pommy bleakness and bad shit happening to everyone in the book then things will get worse and fucking worse then the book will end. Still, at least Winston {Spoiler}
didn't get the bullet. Gets to sit out his days at his cafe, a broken man getting sozzled on pure ethanol I mean "gin".
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Oct 26, 2023 10:06:04 GMT
American Pastoral - Philip Roth
7/10
Seemed like a solid 9/10 but kind of just petered out in the end.
What really hit home with this one is the insane degree to which the USA changed from 1949 to 1969. The straight-laced hopeful adults of barely postwar 1949 gave birth to kids who, by 1969, may as well have been total fucking aliens to them. ROCK had happened, society had turned upside fucking down. Everything had happened. 20 years. What's changed between now and 2003? Slightly better definition on your shartphone piccies? I suppose the big one is everyone disappearing into the twin-turboed self-doubt abcesses of Facebook and Twitter......
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Nov 1, 2023 8:13:45 GMT
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Nov 5, 2023 21:42:47 GMT
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Nov 21, 2023 9:38:01 GMT
Kurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan.
1959 ffs.
That shit was a LONG time ago.
His 2nd novel.
God knows what the reception for this totally bonkers book wouldve been back then. The USA was still fresh and hopeful. Before Nam. Before JFK ffs. Man had never been to the moon and could make up any old shit about space, who the fuck knew.
Again for Mr Vonnegut, this book barely makes a lick of sense.
Again, it seems 100% made up on the fly with not a scrap of fore-planning.
That's fine. I just went with the flow of daft unpredictability and the general air of LOLfuck.
8/10
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beta
today's multi-task: stretch and cough
Neophyte
Posts: 682
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Post by beta on Nov 22, 2023 14:58:58 GMT
Kurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan.
1959 ffs. That shit was a LONG time ago. His 2nd novel. God knows what the reception for this totally bonkers book wouldve been back then. The USA was still fresh and hopeful. Before Nam. Before JFK ffs. Man had never been to the moon and could make up any old shit about space, who the fuck knew. Again for Mr Vonnegut, this book barely makes a lick of sense. Again, it seems 100% made up on the fly with not a scrap of fore-planning. That's fine. I just went with the flow of daft unpredictability and the general air of LOLfuck. 8/10 I love this book. Of course, I love all his books. This one, though, I read in high school so wasn't all jaded and shit. I might read it again this summer now that it has been brought to my attention. Cheers! |
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Nov 23, 2023 5:16:47 GMT
Tried my first Salman Rushdie book. "The Ground Beneath Her Feet".
Gave up after 20 pages.
Amazing way with words but... maybe too amazing. Felt a bit like Umberto Eco in that he seemed like he was writing to land an award.
Salmon you fish-eyed fuck, how about a bit more character/story, and a bit less showing off your knowledge of Indian culture/social mores. Not a huge lot of fucks given on that front bud.
Fatwa Status: UNRESCINDED.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Dec 9, 2023 5:41:37 GMT
George Orwell - Keep the Aspidistra Flying
The unrelenting cynicism and miserly poverty of Georgie O's setting here might be too much for most merry fucks but for a bleak cunt like myself it was perfectly in my wheelhouse. 10/10 1936 and it's all half a bob and ha'penny shillings squid and me not knowing wft thats all about but still, Jorge's writing style is so perfectly economical and evocative I was gripped to shit by this book. Mofo should really get more credit as a novelist. Fuck knows why he doesnt. Or does he? Seems like "1984, oh yeah, they teach that in schools don't they?" but that's it as far as his novels go in popular culture?. And - holy shit - George O actually {Spoiler}wheeled out a happy ending! FFS after his other efforts just tapered off into nihilistic gloom I was fully braced for much of the same. But no! Georgie O, you cheerful fucker!
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Jan 12, 2024 23:39:14 GMT
John Updike - A Month Of Sundays
1967 and very "formative". That being he aint got his legendary style down yet and instead, like many new authors, biffs the whole fucking thesauras at every single sentence. Just impenetrable verbiage. After 10 pages I was reading it in my head in the voice of Martin Prince from the Simpsons.  From then on I couldnt unsee that and gave the fuck up on the novel completely. A story that was completely unfollowable due to the density and showboaty complexity of the sentences. Thank fuck he got this bullshit out of his system and went onto the Rabbit trilogy etc. 3/10 and that 3 is due to the name John Updike alone
Kurt Vonnegut - Timequake
1997 and his rep seemed to allow any self-indulgent unedited twaddle to get published. This book is just nonsense. It has a couple of nifty soundbyte quotes but someone should have sat the old coot down and told him "Sir, the words on the pages of this book are completely incomprehensible once they've left your brain and entered the page".
Maybe he shouldn't have marketed it as a "novel". It's more a memoir of zingers. 4/10
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Jan 15, 2024 9:18:25 GMT
Nick Hornby - Fever Pitch
10/10.
A maniacal Arsenal fan details the extent of his fan sickness. Compared to this guy my various obsessional hobbies are but whimsical fanciful frolicry. The guy is fuuuuuuckinnnnng fannnnaaaaaaaaticalll about the Arsenal.
Fantastic read. Would read his other shit in a heartbeat. Also wrote "High Fidelity"
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Jan 25, 2024 9:29:31 GMT
Bernard Malumud - The Assistant
1/10
Gave up after 15 pages.
15 pages of Jewish characters whining about money in shitty pidgin English? Yeah not sticking around for another 200 pages of that miserable punishment, sorry Bernie
Some self awareness please. Such tropes just feed into the anti-semitic stereotype of Jewish parsimony involving money.
What's that you say? It's not a trope, it's real life?
OK, I'll just back away from the computer now...
Thomas Pynchon - Slow Learner.
5/10
Tommy's first 4 short stories, written in 1958 when he was 21. The highlight of the book was actually his 25-page intro (written in 1984) where he absolutely lambasts his earlier efforts and apologises for everything wrong with them. My take
story 1: 8/10. really good haha
story 2: 1/10 very quickly got on the nonsense train to Nowheresville, pop: most of his books
story 3: 1/10. ditto. just too much self indulgent drivel, like most of his books
story 4: 3/10 started ok then oh ffs I give up, this is unfollowable
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Jan 31, 2024 7:35:58 GMT
Jack Kerouac - On The Road
5/10
I'm sorry, hipster hepcat beatsters, but your bible is a piece of shit.
Gave up on this hallowed tome halfway the fuck through.
Your hero "Dean Moriarty" is a one-dimensional poser shithead who can't be trusted around money or girls or any thing or any one.
In fact all the "characters" in this book are one dimensional nothings. This Kerouac superstar can't write for shit. The book just rambles along like a little girls diary. Shit prose is shit.
Given the amount of wank surrounding this book I was expecting a lot better. Of its time perhaps. In 1957 this must have blown the minds of a disillusioned generation of young postwar men. "Oh, I'm going to change my name by deed poll to 'Montana Slim' and ride the boxcars with no purpose and live a wild and crazy hepcat life. Money? My aunty will send me money so I can maintain my hipster beatcat way of life riding the rails and nailing broads and having deep, deep hepcat all-night conversations with my fellow disaffected generationers".
Wankers. I think I like the squares better. At least you can trust them and their shirts aren't full of shit.
tl/dr perhaps this book is best read as a young man
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Jan 31, 2024 23:05:11 GMT
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Feb 7, 2024 11:43:47 GMT
Martin Amis - Night Train
9.5/10 Murder mystery of sorts. Proper copper detective stuff. Would make a fine True Detective season. 175-pages was way too short and I absolutely did not want this to end. Guardian has this as his 3rd best book. www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/24/martin-amis-novels-countdown-to-top-john-selfFirst time with this author and right from the start you felt safe and sound in the hands of a proper novelist. He ain't no twitter.literatii_#alt lit "author" who will blunderbuss impenetrably prolix all over the pages and chunder out a novel on the weekend thinking he's Jack Kerouac on motherfucking stilts.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Feb 16, 2024 10:41:24 GMT
massive wft here  |
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pussycat
thinks "perineum" might be a type of disinfectant
Posts: 288
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Post by pussycat on Feb 16, 2024 16:05:40 GMT
Jack Kerouac - On The Road
5/10I'm sorry, hipster hepcat beatsters, but your bible is a piece of shit. Gave up on this hallowed tome halfway the fuck through. Your hero "Dean Moriarty" is a one-dimensional poser shithead who can't be trusted around money or girls or any thing or any one. In fact all the "characters" in this book are one dimensional nothings. This Kerouac superstar can't write for shit. The book just rambles along like a little girls diary. Shit prose is shit. Given the amount of wank surrounding this book I was expecting a lot better. Of its time perhaps. In 1957 this must have blown the minds of a disillusioned generation of young postwar men. "Oh, I'm going to change my name by deed poll to 'Montana Slim' and ride the boxcars with no purpose and live a wild and crazy hepcat life. Money? My aunty will send me money so I can maintain my hipster beatcat way of life riding the rails and nailing broads and having deep, deep hepcat all-night conversations with my fellow disaffected generationers".Wankers. I think I like the squares better. At least you can trust them and their shirts aren't full of shit. tl/dr perhaps this book is best read as a young man They updated it a while ago and the new version is much better: stephanienikolopoulos.com/2012/04/15/on-the-brod-a-parody-of-jack-kerouacs-on-the-road%E2%80%8B%E2%80%8B/ |
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Apr 7, 2024 10:31:01 GMT
Stephen King - 11/22/1963
10/10
850 pages and I only picked the cunt up about 6 times. Unfuckwithable and unstoppable. I fucking LOVE these groundhog day styled things. That Tom Cruise film "Edge of Tomorrow". {Spoiler}
I wanted more fuckery with the portal. Or more Dark Tower-style sequels where he kept going back to roger shit up in different ways. Go back to 1957 and kill Oswald on the same day. See what happens Go back to 1957 and kill Dunning on the same day. See what happens Go back to 1957 and kill Sadie's psycho hubby on the same day. See what happens Surprised there was no soppy chick ending here. Instead it dawned on him "if you continue to pull the strings it's just going to fuck everything up anyway so just let it be". The green card man at the end casually saying "we've had training" sounds like grounds enough for a sequel to me ffs
Couple of sticky points for me though:
no mention of racism until about age 200. It was 1958, it would have hit you over the head with a fucking mallet everywhere you looked. Separate everything. Bogs, barbers, the works. It was basically apartheid and it took you a quarter of the book to notice or mention it?
Jake finally telling Sadie he was from the future, around page 600. She took that remarkably well didn't she? "I believe you" she says all doe eyed. Steve-o King's brain has been in fantasyland for too long if he thinks that's an accurate reaction to someone telling you they're a "time traveller". Have to wonder how I would handle waiting from 1958-1963. Sure as hell wouldnt be teaching and putting on school musicals. Would prolly be plonked in the pub for the first year getting blotto on 10 cent beers. Then would go nuts on the sports betting and get whacked by the mob after 3 weeks Guess I'd head to NY and witness the budding Bob Dylan in 1962. maybe start wholesale hoarding 1st press lp's in readiness for opening my record store. Would probably completely forget about JFK. No WAY I'd want to come back to 2011. fuck your 57 channels and crying into your phone about your twitter likes. you can keep all that shit. I'll take $300 57 Chevys, 10 cent beers, vinyl records cheap as shit....
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Apr 22, 2024 10:17:56 GMT
Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go
10/10
Had long avoided this guy due to his Japa name. Another Murakami plodder I dopily assumed. MORAN. I now need to read everything by this motherfucking grandmaster of his medium. He dont wheel out the flashy vocab or $20 words or lustrous scene setting but fuck all that, his writing is completely unstoppable. WFT happens neeeeeeeexxt. LOL@ all of Japan pining and pleading and pressuring for Murakami to win the Nobel Prize every year, it must KILL them that this guy, with his totally Japanese name, just saunters in and picks up the Nobel in Lit in 2017. And sorry Japan but he is very English. In this novel he somehow perfectly assumes the catty, cruel and repressed voices of - FFS - little English children. {Spoiler}
There aint no seppo style happy endings here. When the kids discover the boat you just know a seppo author would take that as a cue to break out the bunting and underwood out a heroic hollywood escape and a happily ever after ending.
Brits dont do that.
The kids quietly turn and traipse back home to donate their organs and quietly "complete" which means die ffs. The End
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Apr 28, 2024 8:20:25 GMT
Kazuo Ishiguro - Nocturne
9/10
4 short stories, all top notch. Bugger all happens in the stories and that's completely fine.
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