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Finally bought Shelly's-"Frankenstein" today.

Started by currincomics,

56 posts in this topic

FFB

FFB

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"And he piled upon the whale's white hump, a sum of all the rage and hatred felt by his whole race, if his chest had been a cannon he would have shot his heart upon it."

 

Amazing metaphorical imagery in that book. One of the greatest books ever written. Enjoy.

 

Call me Ishmael.... grin.gif....check THIS out...you can read the whole thing online .... 893whatthe.gif
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Red Hook

Red Hook

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Books that are hard work, but worth it.....

 

Walden - Thoreau - there are more thought provoking ideas per paragraph than any other book I've ever read. Perfect antidote to endless coverage of Janet Jackson's Boobie.

 

Moby - Melville - the Great American Novel IMHO

 

Dracula - Stoker - stick with it, it pays off

 

Ulysses - Joyce (but if you can, take a support class for this.)

 

Dubliners - Entry level Joyce if there is such a thing

 

The Glass Bead Game - Hesse - dense but intriguing

 

Good Pop Lit.

 

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or anything pretty much by John Le Carre

 

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon * a must for anyone on these boards.

 

Fun:

 

Philip K. , William Gibson, Bruce Sterling (all SF) K.C. Constantine (police/detective novels)

 

oh, and the occasional comic book, Alan Moore a fave.

 

 

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rob_react

rob_react

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Philip K. , William Gibson, Bruce Sterling (all SF) K.C. Constantine (police/detective novels)

 

 

Have you ever read Jack Womack? He's a buddy of Gibson's apparently and his stuff is off the wall. I just read the full "Ambient" series this past year, and all of them are worth reading. Two, Elvissey and Random Acts of Senseless Violence, are brilliant.

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currincomics

currincomics

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Rob, actually I have a college degree, BA in Communication with a minor in Journalism. I'm currently working on my first novel at the moment, and hope to shop it in '05. After classes on Rhetorical theory, just to name a one, I've had to read some pretty deep and introspective stuff. Had Classic and Modern Lit. in my undergraduate studies, and for classic we had to read the "Canterbury Tales" or parts of it I sould say, but now I look forward to reading some of the books in the Classic vein. I like to read as it keeps my own juices flowing as a hopeful author. 893crossfingers-thumb.gif

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tilleycs

tilleycs

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I tried to read Frankenstein when I was young because I LOVED movie monsters - unfortunately, I could never get that far into it. Fortunately, we read it in college (I ended up being an English major; started out in electrical engineering, but that's another story). I liked it.

 

You're right about "Jaws" being a great book. Interesting that Hooper gets killed by the shark in the book but not in the movie. The book also explains a lot about sharks. Good book.

 

I've only read the excerpts from Moby that are in everyone's high school English textbooks. Like someone else posted, from what I understand, there's a ton of stuff in there about the whaling industry that you have to wade through to get to the next part of the actual story. I've never been curious enough to invest the time to read the whole thing.

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rob_react

rob_react

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Rob, actually I have a college degree, BA in Communication with a minor in Journalism. I'm currently working on my first novel at the moment, and hope to shop it in '05. After classes on Rhetorical theory, just to name a one, I've had to read some pretty deep and introspective stuff. Had Classic and Modern Lit. in my undergraduate studies, and for classic we had to read the "Canterbury Tales" or parts of it I sould say, but now I look forward to reading some of the books in the Classic vein. I like to read as it keeps my own juices flowing as a hopeful author. 893crossfingers-thumb.gif

 

Well there you go then.

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rob_react

rob_react

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I've only read the excerpts from Moby that are in everyone's high school English textbooks. Like someone else posted, from what I understand, there's a ton of stuff in there about the whaling industry that you have to wade through to get to the next part of the actual story. I've never been curious enough to invest the time to read the whole thing.

 

Just skip the technical sections about whales. They're separate chapters so it's as easy as flipping through to find the next chapter break to ignore them.

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FlyingDonut

FlyingDonut

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Books that are hard work, but worth it.....

 

Speaking of "Books that are hard work, but worth it," how about Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

gossip.gif Ladies and Gentlemen, I just pulled a Donut.

 

27_laughing.gif27_laughing.gifthumbsup2.gif

 

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chrisco37

chrisco37

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Moby is an incredibly dense, complicated book. Unless you're into that sort of thing (I am), you might find it painful. It's really a book for people that looked forward to English class in high school and college.

 

No, Moby is classic literature-- dense, yes, but a good read on many levels nonetheless... the painful stuff is the "high art" genre. Johnathan Franzen's "The Corrections" comes to mind... 893frustrated.gif

 

Classic literature? Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Khaos, you fool! Moby is nothing more than liberal garbage! told us as much! tonofbricks.gif

 

But, seriously, it is an amazing novel. "Jeckyl and Hyde" was pretty good as well. Good to hear you're going to look into the "classics", Currin. They are the classics for good reason. (Well, except for Hawthorne. Faulkner's pretty boring too tongue.gif)

 

Chris

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Red Hook

Red Hook

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Books that are hard work, but worth it.....

 

Speaking of "Books that are hard work, but worth it," how about Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon?

 

Tried it, got 100 pages into it last year....too much for my aging brain! Another time! One other author I'm a big fan of is Kim Stanley Robinson, especially his Gold Coast Trilogy. His Mars trilogy is something I have on my "to read" list. Nice, humanistic futurism, if that's your cup of tea.

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chrisco37

chrisco37

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Rob-I also have "Death of a Salesmen"on my to read list-what do you think of that one? Worth the read or not?

 

"Death" is allright. Like Rob said, it's Miller, so it's on the depressing side. If you find it slow, try "The Crucible". It's a look at the Salem Witch Trials and is very good at portraying th e"mob mentality". Also, kind of entertaining if you're a fan of the "Witch Scene" in Monty Python.

 

If you're looking for some other plays to read, I'd suggest "A Streetcar named Desire" and "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams. Great portrayal of the broken dreams. Very surreal quality to his writing.

 

And Hook....I've been meaning to pick up "Amaz. Adventures of Kav and Clay" for sometime now. Had good recommendations from many people, including our own Lantern!

 

Chris

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rob_react

rob_react

Posted
Posted
Books that are hard work, but worth it.....

 

Speaking of "Books that are hard work, but worth it," how about Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon?

 

Tried it, got 100 pages into it last year....too much for my aging brain! Another time!

 

I fought my way through 27_laughing.gif. It actually paid off. About 200 pages in, it turns into a basically coherent narrative and that basically coherent narrative is actually fun. It's still complex and he still take off on these sometimes impenetrable stylistic jags, but, overall it's just this wild, perverse, drug addled ride through postwar Europe for a good 450 pages- so it's not all a test of intellectual fortitude. The last fifty pages are like the first two hundred though- it again takes some effort. I was reading it, enjoying the ride, and all of a sudden I realized he had once again switched voice, time, place and style without warning or any road signs. I thought to myself "Oh [!@#%^&^], it ends like this?" IT did 893frustrated.gif

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minutekev@50

minutekev@50

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Kavalier and Clay---- thumbsup2.gifthumbsup2.gifthumbsup2.gif Stan Lee even makes an appearence! And if I remember right, Chabon actually dedicated the book to Jack Kirby.

 

Tried reading Ulysses in college, stopped, went out and got drunk.

 

I have read Portrait of the Artist as aYoung Man, though.

 

Other books of note on my bookshelf:

 

"Sanctuary" By Faulkner. Old Willie's pulp novel for the masses. Villian molests 18-year-old Southern socialite with a corn cob! 893whatthe.gif

 

"The Lake in the Woods" by Tim O'Brien. Amazing novel about a politician who has his Vietnam dirty laundry aired during a campaign. O'Brien leaves you guessing about what happens in the end.

 

"Chronicle of a Death Foretold." by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marquez is captivating.

 

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being." Great novel, but the movie sucked.

 

"A Man in Full" by Tom Wolfe. You want detail; Wolfe, the ultimate realist, gives you detail and a great story to boot!

 

I also recommend anything by John Irving. "World According to Garp," especially.

 

Also, not fiction, (well it was ghost written), but 'My Wicked, Wicked Ways'...the actor Errol Flynn's autobiography. It reads like novel anyway. thumbsup2.gif

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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