contemporary literature is written sloppily. pick me someone worthy of balzac. :p


well now that's just bad spelling. don't get cranky, you are more fun when you maintain your sarcastic detachment.

i saw a poster for the film adaptation of atomized the other day. that is sure going to be interesting because the book sure is fucked up. i like the book.

i'd just returned home from a drunken rampage when i wrote that, but i maintain the sentiment.

im reading Angela's Ashes for AP english

Reading 'OLd Goriot' by Balzac, had to stop for a while cause of exams, start it again soon

Fountainhead turned out to be better than I thought when I read it.

white teeth

i just started reading "a farewell to arms" by hemingway... a friend of mine told me that when i will have finished this book, i will want to cry and quit my job immediately... is that true?
but the guy who said that is actually full of shit so for all i know he might have said that about just any book he liked, without it meaning something in particular...

If you want to read something depraved but mainstream you can't go wrong with Palahniuk. Other then his short story "Guts", I would read "Invisible Monsters", probobly his most depraved book.

I've only once read something that was so good/sad it made me want to die, which was a frightening thought at the time, but looking back on it, I'm just so overwhelmed by the fact that someone's writing was so real to me that I was able to feel that way at all. So, hooray for talent.

Im reading: Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham and its bringing me down.

Chomsky is too adament in his own arguments, and has a tendency to put motives where there may only be machination, he also denied the Khmer Rouge Genocide was occuring, and more recently that there was no Genocide in going on in Serbia before the NATO bombing.

But his books have a lot of information in them, and he does point out some pretty blaring hypocrisys, a lot of what he says is inarguable despite the contexts of his arguments. He's probably best used as a stepping stone into issues than as an authority of them. Fateful Triangle his account of the Israel/Palestine conflict is one of his better ones (although its long and dense)

How is he a self denying hypocrite?

For Political books I'd recommend - depending on your interests


Crimes Against Humanity - Geoffrey Robertson (one of the best books about the international human rights structures, it's critical but only of their unfulfilled potential).

What Is Al Quada - Jason Burke (calm lucid analysis)

One No Many Yesses - Paul Kingsnorth (pretty inspiring account of the myriad Social Movements internationally umbrella'd together as anti globalisation movement)

farewell to arms is great and beautiful but my favorite of his is "a moveable feast". oh man. that book... you'll forever be discontent with your life after it.

This board.

Plan on wading into Atlas Shrugged tonight. Hopefully it'll catch my interest quick, or I might have to put it down for some Dostoyevsky.

chomsky's work in linguistics is pure genius; unlike french wankers, his work has been corroborated by solid scientific evidence.

chomsky on politics is another story. feel free to agree/disagree, it's a matter of opinion.

the thing with this guy is that he's too smart for the rest of us-- i've seen him live, by the way, and the lights went off for a second, and i could swear he was glowing in the dark. i suspect he's an alien, or at least a genetically engineered mutant.

Maybe I should check out some of Chomsky's linguistics work...

gross.

cut the bullcrap & read nietzsche.

chomsky himself is rather abstruse; i recommend steve pinkert's "the language instinct" as an intro to chomskian linguistics (& the amazing discoveries it's spawned)

Right now I'm listening to a Chomsky lecture on language.


I guess your not an Ayn Rand fan?

she's truly vomity.

if you want a refutation of herd politics & a call for individuals to become their best and greatest, as i said, skip the bullcrap & go straight for nietzsche.

for my taste, "beyond good and evil" is his best work.

I've tried reading Beyond Good and Evil. All I got out of it, was that society is a 'herd', people who rely on common values living together, seeking guidance, a commander, someone to institute morals. And that fear is the mother of morals.
Most of it went over my head and I never completely finished it.


Someone else was saying Rand is nuaseating, especially in Atlas Shurgged...Fuck it, I'll try it anyway.

My friend once read a book called "Satan Wants You!" and did a report on it for class. That teacher was such a cool guy.

Or read Emerson.

if you are not ready to read nietzsche (which i admit can be a bit harsh at first) i'd try this book which is not bad at all, actually it's pretty accurate, unlike those shitty-ass comic-book versions of philosophers that sell in hip bookstores. the book in question is:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080...lance&n=283155
best review/summary i've read of him-- ever.

i'd lend you mind but already gave it to a friend who never returned it.

another option would be zarathustra, which to me reads like a kid's book, but it's the one of his books nietzsche loved best, and you might enjoy the allegory.

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ps-- OH YES!!! EMERSON!!!!! FUCKING A!!!!!!!

Hah no I haven't read it. I heard it was. I kind of want to read it, too. I've just heard things that prevented me from reading it so far.

Atlas Shrugged...yikes...I concur

She's far more "nauseating" in Anthem & her ridiculous essay, The Virtue of Selfishness though.

Actually I thought Anthem was a great book, if not cliche. Not for philosophical reasons, but because it was a good quick read. Easily done in one or two sittings, and well worth the little time I put into it.

Anthem is extremely cliche & only written to establish her stance as "I may be from Russia, but I sure as hell ain't no communist...here read this shit I ripped off...It proves it."

Ayn Rand was helping Nixon & McCarthy & testified on thier committee's behalf during the infamous Unamerican Activites proceedings in the fifties.

On a sidebar, I think Anthem inspired George Lucas' student film at UCLA which launched his film career with a budget from a studio to make it into a motion picture. That movie, THX-1138, was his first & while it did discover Robert Duvall, it is purely & simply one of the absolute worst films ever made. Meanwhile, his best buddy, Francis Ford Coppola, wasn't faring any better with dogs like Finian's Rainbow & The Rain People. If it had not been for Coppola having good subject matter in Mario Puzo's The Godfather book & the hiring of cinematographer Gordon Willis, then that movie would have tanked also, & would have most likely spelled the end of both of their careers. The world would have then been deprived of the brilliant things they went on to do.

I might have to get that book..
I actaully have the Basic Nietzsche, which collectively has all of his 'major' works: The Birth of Tragedy, BG&E, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Case of Wagner, and Ecco Homo, along with a section of aphroisms.

Hah, that reminds me of a comic-book version of Wittgenstein I saw in a used book store. After flipping through a couple pages I couldn't keep from laughing. Bullshit I say.

All this Rand bashing is making me hesitate...

let's quite talking about ayn rand. it's like replying on a sonic susie thread-- only giving more attention than it's due.

that nietzsche book i posted is not a reader, but a sort of excellent summary & explanation. think cliff notes on steroids.

Psh. I'm going to read Atlas Shrugged to spite you. Next you'll be telling us Ray Bradbury should be banned from discussion. Communists. :mad:

Note: I'm far to lazy to actually read Atlas Shrugged. It's the thought that counts.

i would go for it, if only so you can see for yourself what indigestible prose you'll expose yourself to. but don't spend a dime on it.

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happy weekend

im getting the fuck out of here

hey, I read Rand, & apparently so did !@#$%!, but, in my opinion, it was a waste of time...haha even if Anthem is a slender volume.

I've never read Ayn Rand, but in high school there were no less than 2 trillion scholarship offers on the table for the person who could best dissect in an essay whatever novel of Rand's it happened to be for that particular contest. So the temptation was there in the form of a hell of a lot of money. Obviously I was too lazy to partake.

Edit: ^ Our teacher had us write essays and if we wanted to submit, them in a contest. We won't find out if any of us won until sometime this summer though.



I had to read Anthem. It was really boring, and cliche. My teacher thought I'd love Ayn Rand because of how unreligous she supposedly was.

I hate it when teachers tell me I'll love something that I end up hating. It makes me wonder if everyone thinks I'm a fool. "Oh Becky, I bet you would just love Rent." I actually never saw Rent, whether onstage or onscreen, but I'm familiar with a few of the musical numbers, and I can't say it's all that appealing.

Holy crap, I know who wrote that book.

Right now I'm reading some pretty lame threads.