I haven't read a Stephen King book since like high school, but I liked the idea of the book so I gave it a shot. It's actually really good. I like how he didn't dick around for a 100 pages before the dome drops.....you start reading and boom, things start to get crazy.

I'm on page 750.

Can't wait for the HBO series that King said is in the works.

krastian! Haven't seen you round here in a time - how you been?

The Tropic of Cancer (a re-read)

Not too bad....just busy with work and whatnot.

Thought I'd stop by and shoot the shit.

250 pp into Imperial by Wm Vollmann, that's like 1/4 of it, the guy is a sadist, but I like it. It's almost too heavy to read in bed....

I just finished that today. I really liked it, especially his stuff on education, which i thought was spot on.

I read Alain Badiou's book on Sarkozy too, which I didn't really get into. I finished it but it was a bit of a slog, even for just over a hundred pages.He just seemed to be making the same point over and over again.

some poe...some whitman...keeping it 19th century for the winter

Shatner is the man.

Belladonna

who was it that was reading the psychic soviet? my copy just arrived yesterday and holy shit is it great.

At times the language/vibe of the book reminds me of a horror novel because he loathes tennis so much.

Big props to Andre for writing this himself and not getting a ghost writer....it is a really smooth and enjoyable read.

Currently reading this:




after a tiny feeling of disappointment about The Collector.

What is it? Sci-Fi? Horror? What?

Tripe.

Yeah, the Magus is the absolute paradigm of overwrought tosh.

The Fall of the Towers by Samuel R. Delany

I haven't read The Magus in years but I do remember really liking it at the time (which would've been about twenty odd years ago). Probably best that I leave it at that. Maybe if I read it again now I'd feel different.:confused:

i have spent months reading blogs that reference things i don't understand, at a loss as to which direction in philosophy to start in, i had a period were i thought i needed to work at hegel then marx but now i'm not so drawn to that area. i tried to have a go at badiou's theoretical writings but lack the proper conceptual grounding. when i have the net back i may try again since i can google at it to see if it opens up more. but at the moment i am very, very, interested in agamben/tiqqun and the points at which they converge. that, and gaining some sort of basic idea about what the hell speculative realism is all about. i've sustained myself thusfar on zizek and now have some slight insight into deleuze and a faint idea about what lacan was on about, altho i fear delving into him now when i have so much else to do. so first task is to get grounded in agamben and find the part of his work i have been obsessed with after reading an excerpt of on a blog and then forgetting.

I'm not qualified in any of this but I suppose a lot of the problems that come from starting with writers like Deleuze, Badiou, Zizek, etc, is that they all assume that their readers have an understanding of earlier more foundational writers and traditions. Glice, PBradley and some others here would be able to offer some good advice on that topic, although I imagine the best place to start would be with the Greeks.

I keep meaning to read some Delany but never know where to start. Is that a good starting point?

your exactly right. I'm now aware of lot's of lacanian and hegelian jargon without knowing what it means. i need to go all the way back to plato then?

Or better still,

You mean House of Leaves?

I am really enjoying Tropic of Cancer. So much different reading it now compared to at 23. God, what a funny fuck Miller was!

Savoring the book, in fact. Like a long and languid fuck.

had it even been written when you were 23?

Proust.

So bite it.

Yes. Study up on your literary history.

Oh, I get it. You were making a joke.

Ha. Ha.

Russell's 'A history of Western Philosophy' is a good place to start. I think, in fairness, you can get away with not reading Plato. I think I may be repeating myself here, but a couple of 'introducing Lacan/ Hegel/ continental philosophy/ psychoanalysis' books should see you right. I really wouldn't bother with Hegel. As someone's who's read him a few times I honestly feel I'm better off reading secondary texts on him than the text itself. Same with Descartes and countless others, as it happens.

I had an argument about Agemben this evening. Fucking teleology can fuck the cunt off in my book..

I've not read that but I've never known anyone to actually like it, so I'm happy leaving it on the shelf.

I know too many people that like A History of Western Philosophy more than they should. In fact, I don't know too much about them, but Russell fans seem to always remain in that introduction to philosophy stage without getting much further beside Dennett or some other 'plain language' philosophers. The bit on Nietzsche is infuriating.

Plato helped me out with understanding Hegel by providing a frame of reference for understanding transcendental idealist dialectics. You don't really need to read Plato to know that about Plato, though.

And House of Leaves was obnoxious. I was hoping there was going to be some string-thin narrative that would tight-rope walk across all that bizarre formatting but, no, it just kind of dropped the story. Maybe I missed and am just not clever enough to get it but that gives it a selling point I'd rather not allow. It's a skimmer.

I haven't read a word of Russell, unless he wrote an essay on animal ethics, which was probably Singer. But it's a stock recommendation, and I know more people that got a lot out of it than got by without it.

It's a very biased history, far more than by simply being a history.

However, recognizing its bias and where Russell is coming from, I think, gives the reader a more involved insight into the history of philosophy as not anesthetized and detached. Russell isn't kind to Hegel, either. They were all pissing on each others' legs.

So what about the Tropics novels, eh? I know Jerry Seinfeld has read at least the first one.

Oh, also, there's a graphic novel that has come out about Bertrand Russell and set theory called 'Logicomix.' I've left sufficient hints to get it for Christmas. Spoon full of sugar will help the Russell go down.



pwn3d

Has anyone done a graphic novel of Tropic of Cancer?

If not, are there any graphic artists here who would consider collaborating with me on an edition? (I would be the editor/word guy.)

haha,fuck yeah

is that the 2009 translation? saw it in the store and am really tempted to check it out

no i couldnt find the cover of the edition i am reading but the translation was first published in 1966.