Now Reading

[Limo]

Just finished Knut Hamsun’s “Hunger”. 250 pages about a guy going, wait for it, hungry.

 

Not a pleasant read, as you can imagine, but very good.

[hello spiral]

That book is so special to me. I bought it when I was about 13/14yrs old because the cover haunted me. I was not ready for any sort of 'literature' at all, I mainly read Clive Barker and Stephen King. That Book did something to me that is beyond description

[Limo]

That book is so special to me. I bought it when I was about 13/14yrs old because the cover haunted me. I was not ready for any sort of 'literature' at all, I mainly read Clive Barker and Stephen King. That Book did something to me that is beyond description

I can imagine. While reading it I felt a bit sorry I hadn’t picked it up 25 years ago. It would’ve made much more impact then.

 

Youth is wasted on the young, but a certain class of books is definitely also wasted on the middle aged.

[hello spiral]

 

That book is so special to me. I bought it when I was about 13/14yrs old because the cover haunted me. I was not ready for any sort of 'literature' at all, I mainly read Clive Barker and Stephen King. That Book did something to me that is beyond description

I can imagine. While reading it I felt a bit sorry I hadn’t picked it up 25 years ago. It would’ve made much more impact then.

 

Youth is wasted on the young, but a certain class of books is definitely also wasted on the middle aged.

 

 

def. It was this cover btw

 

 

Was in a second hand book shop I used to browse in for hours. The cover disturbed me and gave me that weird deja vu feeling of half remembering a dream.

[tec]

 

That book is so special to me. I bought it when I was about 13/14yrs old because the cover haunted me. I was not ready for any sort of 'literature' at all, I mainly read Clive Barker and Stephen King. That Book did something to me that is beyond description

I can imagine. While reading it I felt a bit sorry I hadn’t picked it up 25 years ago. It would’ve made much more impact then.

 

Youth is wasted on the young, but a certain class of books is definitely also wasted on the middle aged.

I felt a bit like this when I read ‘On The Road’ in my twenties. If I had been a teenager it probably would have blew my mind.

[Limo]

On the other hand, I thought Jane Austen was really boring in my teens and twenties.

[splbt]

even though i feel too old (i.e. not a teenager anymore) to be enticed by romantisation of poverty á hamsun's hunger or a beat lifestyle (read quite a few beat/counterculture works; fariñas been down so long is a personal favourite) there's still something extremely appealing/fascinating about those books. to my slight shame i can't get over it or make up my mind about whether it's just a privileged middle class trip. they're always about lonely men, too. i think watching into the wild in my teens was a really formative experience lol

[Limo]

Not sure I'd characterize Hamsun as romantization, but as far as the Beats are concerned I get your point.

[splbt]

fair enough. hamsun aint necessarily romanticising poverty but i'd still contend there's something in my (our?) reaction that counts as such. am i making sense? for some reason his arguably shitty life at the same time has some appeal. maybe in its simplicity

[tec]

even though i feel too old (i.e. not a teenager anymore) to be enticed by romantisation of poverty á hamsun's hunger or a beat lifestyle (read quite a few beat/counterculture works; fariñas been down so long is a personal favourite) there's still something extremely appealing/fascinating about those books. to my slight shame i can't get over it or make up my mind about whether it's just a privileged middle class trip. they're always about lonely men, too. i think watching into the wild in my teens was a really formative experience lol

That’s fine, I kind of envy that as I wish I felt similar. I read Drop City by TC Boyle in my teens instead which sadly may have made me more of a cynical prick.

[splbt]

i sincerely hope hope i didnt come across as derogatory, cause that wasn't my intention at all. am very much a cynical prick myself; trying to work on that.

 

and speaking of formative experiences, my belief is that whatever art that leaves teenagers with a sense of something having hit close to home or having taught them life lessons, has more to do with it rhyming with their actual formative childhood experiences and personalities than insights from the piece of work itself.

[prdctvsm]

'hsin hsin ming' by sosan

 

 

& osho commentary                               

 

 

[KovalainenFanBoy]

i dont think I 'got' 2666. Been trying to find good texts elaborating on its supposed greatness but couldnt find any, though i'm sure there must be and i haven't looked in the right places

[chenGOD]

“A Farewell to Arms”. Manly men doing manly things. But fuck me Hemingway can write. It’s like the third time I’ve read this and his descriptions of places and people still give me thought boners.

[MadameChaos]

Hegel's Philosophy of Mind.

 

Edit: I can see why he's not popular.

[diatoms]

'hsin hsin ming' by sosan

 

                          

 

Thanks prdctvsm, I had not read that before:)

[beerwolf]

Started my HP Lovecraft book.

 

He seems like my kind of lunatic.

[doorjamb]

I'd not grant him legitimate crazy status; more like highly self aware paranoiac with a vivid imagination & a keen feel for style. Much like Poe, he's mostly really good, & very much single-minded in terms of subject matter—but you can tell he's hamming it up quite deliberately. (And, fair enough—the man had bills to pay—but it's far from the genuine "outsider art" of a truly crazy writer just scribbling his/her hallucinations or whatever.)

[auxien]

^well put doorjamb, Lovecraft was surely no loon.

 

Slightly related, reading Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud. Short story collection, good so far. First two stories were very nice.

[MadameChaos]

[beerwolf]

Celephais is spectacular!

[Limo]

...

 

 

 

(Added to wishlist)

[fumi]

New Thomas Harris novel in two weeks.

 

"Twenty-five million dollars in cartel gold lies hidden beneath a mansion on the Miami Beach waterfront. Ruthless men have tracked it for years. Leading the pack is Hans-Peter Schneider. Driven by unspeakable appetites, he makes a living fleshing out the violent fantasies of other, richer men. 

 

Cari Mora, caretaker of the house, has escaped from the violence in her native country. She stays in Miami on a wobbly Temporary Protected Status, subject to the iron whim of ICE. She works at many jobs to survive. Beautiful, marked by war, Cari catches the eye of Hans-Peter as he closes in on the treasure. But Cari Mora has surprising skills, and her will to survive has been tested before. 

 

Monsters lurk in the crevices between male desire and female survival. No other writer in the last century has conjured those monsters with more terrifying brilliance than Thomas Harris. Cari Mora, his sixth novel, is the long-awaited return of an American master."

 

https://geni.us/bGsad

[Limo]

Simon Winder - Lotharingia.

Like his other two books, Germania and Danubia, only heavier and more of a linear history lesson and less of a catalogue of very strange things in places you’d normally find very boring.

Writing still very funny. Thoroughly enjoyable read.

There’s a good sized excerpt here: https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/medieval-innovations

 

[MadellisTheSixth]

Just finished Jenny Hval's novel Paradise Rot. really loved it, wish she had written more. Keen to sus her discography as I'd not heard of her before reading the book.

Edited May 3, 2019 by MadellisTheSixth