Why so surprised? The collection has some weird stuff on there sometimes. We sometimes get hard to find foreign films and other times we get Michael Bay or Wes Anderson stuff.
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Gay and Bisexual thread |OT2|Bears and Twinks and Otters. Oh My!
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Why so surprised? The collection has some weird stuff on there sometimes. We sometimes get hard to find foreign films and other times we get Michael Bay or Wes Anderson stuff.
Is that a good Oh, jeez or a "Man, you are dumb. How have you not read these books?" oh, jeez? I'm going to stress out about this for hours on end.
The only Nabokov I've ever read was Natasha, a short story that ran in one of The New Yorker's Summer Fiction issues. It's been four years since the issue came out and I read it, so I don't remember it all too well. I read an excerpt from Murakami's memoir in that same issue, too. I'm interested in Pale Fire mostly because I've always liked the idea of meta-fiction, but quite a bit of it seems fairly gimmicky, so I was hoping to tackle the genre with the very best.
Robocop was in the Criterion Collection. Their standards are lower than you think.
Box of Bunnies
Banned
You mind your mouth sir, Robocop is a masterpiece.
I don't get the love for this movie. There was only one good thing about it and that was seeing that one guy get disintegrated.
A masterpiece.
umop_3pisdn
Member
Narcissus and Goldmund is probably my favorite novel, because Hermann Hesse does the whole 'existentialist' thing rather well. I like Steppenwolf as well, it's such a cliché but that book changed my life in a rather significant way when I read it at seventeen. And Heart of Darkness is probably my second favorite novel. I hardly read fiction anymore, though.
MyAbsolution
Member
I saw that scene when I was 4. I can't believe my mother allowed me to watch Robocop.
Good to know someone here is sane. It's been ages since I've seen it, but I've never been so bored by an action movie.
Not familiar with any of Hesse's books, so I'll have to check those out as well. Thanks for the recommendations. What do you read now, then?
Giovanni's Room and Naked Lunch are easily my two favorite books. I'm not nearly intelligent enough to offer any decent criticism, but they're both so incredibly written and honest, yet completely different in their approach and style, that I can't help but love them. To recycle your cliché, Giovanni's Room was life-changing and really the first work of fiction that challenged my own perspectives, whereas Naked Lunch challenged my ideas and definitions of literature. It also got me suspended, so I guess it's kind of life-changing as well.
Well actually....
It is BeesEight
It is good!
My order for Nabokov was Invitation to a Beheading, then Lolita, then The Eye, then Mary, then Pale Fire, and most recently Pnin. Pale Fire was a really, really fun novel to read. Very multilayered, very interesting protagonist, lots of possible interpretations for the relationships between characters and who wrote what (though my interpretation, as I later learned from reading a literary analysis of it (Yes, I liked it that much) turns out to be the dominant one, though I did miss quite a bit of the subtle details), as well as parsing out what the actual story is.
It is also beautifully written, of course.
And I have only read two Hesse books. Siddhartha was pretty amazing; The Journey to the East was pretty tedious and drove me nuts.
umop_3pisdn
Member
Nonfiction. A lot of it is related to Buddhism, or other topics.
I enjoyed Siddhartha, too. And I didn't really get The Journey to the East. I didn't exactly find it tedious, I remember mostly enjoying it but I also remember being stumped by the ending and trying to find some kind of analysis or explanation on the internet to no avail.
Haha, seeing you call it fun makes me glad, because I'm always afraid that I'm going to find classic novels uninteresting and monotonous and end up on the wrong side of the accepted opinion. Everything I've heard about Pale Fire sounds great though, and I'm hoping it'll turn me into a more active (by which I mean how much I think about books, not how much I read) reader.
I used to worry about that, and also just "getting" the novel. I don't like feeling dumb or having things just go completely over my head. But I read the Penguin edition of The Complete Fairy Tales of George MacDonald (which are really "The Complete Short Fairy Tales," but I digress), and at the beginning they have his essay, The Fantastic Imagination. I have tried to take it to heart, particularly this part:
"You write as if a fairytale were a thing of importance: must it have a meaning?"
It cannot help having some meaning; if it have proportion and harmony it has vitality, and vitality is truth. The beauty may be plainer in it than the truth, but without the truth the beauty could not be, and the fairytale would give no delight. Everyone, however, who feels the story, will read its meaning after his own nature and development: one man will read one meaning in it, another will read another.
"If so, how am I to assure myself that I am not reading my own reading into it, but yours out of it?"
Why should you be so assured? It may be better that you should read your meaning into it. That may be a higher operation of your intellect than a mere reading of mine out of it: your meaning may be superior to mine.
"Suppose my child asks me what the fairytale means, what am I to say?"
If you do not know what it means, what is easier than to say so? If you do see a meaning in it, there it is for you to give him. A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean. If my drawing, on the other hand, is so far from being a work of art that it needs THIS IS A HORSE written under it, what can it matter than neither you nor your child should know what it means? It is there not so much to convey a meaning as to wake a meaning. If it does not wake an interest, throw it aside. A meaning may be there, but it is not for you. If, again, you do not know a horse when you see it, the name written under it will not serve you much. At all events, the business of the painter is not to teach zoology.
But indeed your children are not likely to trouble you about the meaning. They find what they are capable of finding, and more would be too much. For my part, I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.
It cannot help having some meaning; if it have proportion and harmony it has vitality, and vitality is truth. The beauty may be plainer in it than the truth, but without the truth the beauty could not be, and the fairytale would give no delight. Everyone, however, who feels the story, will read its meaning after his own nature and development: one man will read one meaning in it, another will read another.
"If so, how am I to assure myself that I am not reading my own reading into it, but yours out of it?"
Why should you be so assured? It may be better that you should read your meaning into it. That may be a higher operation of your intellect than a mere reading of mine out of it: your meaning may be superior to mine.
"Suppose my child asks me what the fairytale means, what am I to say?"
If you do not know what it means, what is easier than to say so? If you do see a meaning in it, there it is for you to give him. A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean. If my drawing, on the other hand, is so far from being a work of art that it needs THIS IS A HORSE written under it, what can it matter than neither you nor your child should know what it means? It is there not so much to convey a meaning as to wake a meaning. If it does not wake an interest, throw it aside. A meaning may be there, but it is not for you. If, again, you do not know a horse when you see it, the name written under it will not serve you much. At all events, the business of the painter is not to teach zoology.
But indeed your children are not likely to trouble you about the meaning. They find what they are capable of finding, and more would be too much. For my part, I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.
Maybe I won't get everything out of it that someone more well-read or smarter than me might, but I'll get what I can and that should be enough.
Great passage. I don't worry too much about misinterpreting novels (The Great Gatsby was one of my favorite books, especially when I realized I was the only one who found it hilarious) so much as not liking them, especially since I'm not the best at expressing my opinion, and I always fall back on the fact that I'm too young or lack the perspective to understand the work like everyone else does. I've never read anything by Pynchon, but the recent posts in the What are you Reading thread? are interesting to read because both groups are great at articulating their points. I'd feel more confident in my opinions if I could back them up.
MyAbsolution
Member
The animal cracker scene was the show stopper that won them over.
And I just finished watching that movie "Weekend" you guys mentioned. Really good
Jinfash
needs 2 extra inches
I love everyone who doesn't take himself too seriously and isn't an emotional mess.*pat-pat* I still love you two... though Rez slightly less so.
You guys are going to make me start reading again.
In my opinion, art is still primary entertainment so finding enjoyment over some deep literary meaning is probably the best way to approach things. And that is why sometimes I have such difficulty with some highly regarded works that strive to be more thematically important than actually enjoyable.
Personally, I would use the Great Gatsby as an example of such a novel. I just did not enjoy that book until the last chapter but the pay-off certainly wasn't worth the drudge to get there. I mean, I understand the reason it was plodding and dull in order to highlight the emptiness of the upper class and whatnot... but I didn't really need a novel to point out the frailty of the American Dream and the dreary lives of bored wealthy families.
In my opinion, art is still primary entertainment so finding enjoyment over some deep literary meaning is probably the best way to approach things. And that is why sometimes I have such difficulty with some highly regarded works that strive to be more thematically important than actually enjoyable.
Personally, I would use the Great Gatsby as an example of such a novel. I just did not enjoy that book until the last chapter but the pay-off certainly wasn't worth the drudge to get there. I mean, I understand the reason it was plodding and dull in order to highlight the emptiness of the upper class and whatnot... but I didn't really need a novel to point out the frailty of the American Dream and the dreary lives of bored wealthy families.
Amibguous Cad
Member
I suspect that this happens to you very seldom.
I agree, more or less.
Sometimes I'll read something like that and find that during the actual reading of it, I don't enjoy it as much; I'm learning to read that author's prose, which might be more challenging than what I normally read, and I'm trying to think about what else is going on in the text, and I sometimes don't really have as firm a sense of immersion in the novel because I am so caught up in thinking about it. It often isn't as seamless a process as it is when I am reading something else.
But that said, oftentimes I find that after I finish a novel like that and I have had time to think about it, my appreciation for it in retrospect is much, much greater than it is for a novel that challenged me less, and the story seems to somehow become more estimable in my eyes, probably just due to my having time to process it.
Haha
It happens more often than you'd think! Especially when it comes to reading "classic" works. I wouldn't admit to having, you know, the plot and most character motivations go over my head, but I miss a lot of historical references and sometimes subtext and intertextual connections between great works (though as I have read more, I am noticing more and more of these on my own, and that's sort of exciting for me).
I don't mind missing some stuff, though. Pale Fire is a great example of that. I hit nearly all of the important items in the 'standard' interpretation these days, but there's so many amazing things I missed (and what a perfect title for the experience) that gave me a whole new appreciation for how beautifully well-constructed the whole edifice was.
I need to read the annotated edition of Lolita as well. I watched one of those free online lectures for it not long after I read it, and it had a lot of interesting things that I missed. I think my favorite was the reference to Poe's poem, Annabel Lee, in the name of the character Annabel Leigh. The annotated edition has ~150 pages of annotations so I can only imagination how much more went over my head.
There are a lot of great moments in Robocop. I'm especially fond of the scene where the security robot malfunctions and shoots one of the executives for a good five minutes.
And if we're talking Hesse, then I'd second (third?) the Siddhartha recommendation. It's the only one that I've enjoyed and managed to finish, and of course, if you're interested in Buddhism then all the better.
Where is the original image in your avatar from?
Agreed. If an author is writing a work of fiction and can't make their story readable and enticing, then regardless of how impactful and incredible their themes are, they've failed, as I'm not going to finish the book and reach the point where I can appreciate the author's message, and I may as well be reading a summary online.
Haha, I mainly just found the idea of calling people old sport funny, so I don't really remember anything else. One of the reasons I latched onto Kate Beaton's work is because her Gatsby comics are almost identical to how I read the book. I didn't find The Great Gatsby to be boring, I just missed a lot of its points because I didn't really know the cultural background of the time.
I don't see anyone talk about the book in comparison to Gatsby, but I feel like Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty did an excellent job of updating some of the The Great Gatsby's themes and putting them into a more gripping (but then I find any gay fiction, decent or not, gripping) story. It has the same slow burn of Gatsby, but there's a greater rising sense of tension as the story builds and the class divide becomes more and more apparent, and the last chapter is so damn good. There's nothing I love more in a book than vitriolic, hateful dialogue.
I think i watched robocop when i was very young (6?), and i remember that
. that was so disturbing. I think i had nightmares about it for a week. Then i never had the urge to watch another robocop movie ever again.
On unrelated news, waiting in the airport is so boring. But the male flight attendants in uniform are so hot :3
robocop was being chop to piece
On unrelated news, waiting in the airport is so boring. But the male flight attendants in uniform are so hot :3
Really? Every male flight attendant I've seen looks like a variation on that guy from Torchwood.
Well not EVERY flight attendant, but there are those who are good looking. Besides, they are in uniform :3
excelforward
Member
I do would everything with John Barrowman. I just finished watching all of Doctor Who (yes, Mumei, I do occasionally find things to watch on the TVs instead of just video games and books), and loved the Empty Child episodes where he gets introduced.
Obligatory:
Are you my mummy?
Jinfash
needs 2 extra inches
Those series of episodes were the first Doctor Who episodes I had ever seen, and I had never even heard of DW before, except that I knew my mom had some of the older shows on VHS or something. I told her "This looks stupid", and she told me to shut up and sit down. So I did, and I was hooked :lol The Empty Child is one of my favorite episodes still, to this day!
I thought for the longest time that it was a painting. I feel so stupid.Blackadder.
Thanks.
It was until he edited his(?) face into it. He had that default avatar (and changed it to... forgetting the name...) MvC3's "Ghostrider" non-Ghostrider dude. "Dormmamu?" for a long time.
I suppose it also depends on how well they explore those themes. Though, I really need to read more classics. I think the last one I attempted was Atlas Shrugged and really didn't get far in that.
I haven't read any gay fiction. Maybe I should look into some of it. A stronger sense of tension would certainly help Gatsby's story.
Not really. It needed more explosions
I'm kidding. Settle down.
Jinfash
needs 2 extra inches
That's understandable; Atkinson's regal pose lends itself to that perception.
Ahhh yes, I've never been a fan of giving in to games' hype and changing avatars, but MvC3's hype was too much to bear.
haha, I never even thought of that ... but no, I meant 'the' olympic torch.
excelforward
Member
Punctuation nazi incoming. Quotes around text doesn't add emphasis. I believe you're looking for italics or bolding. Put quotes around something is the general way in text to show you're making a euphemism. Usually it's double quotes that you'd use, but my point still stands.
http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/
excelforward
Member
I like you.
But when you're referring to somebody who's Nazi like, it's no longer a proper noun. These things are important.
But it's easier to use 'these' rather than have to click italic or bold, yes I'm that lazy.
dragonlife
Member
You can just hit ctrl + b, ctrl + i, or ctrl + u.
umop_3pisdn
Member
I usually gravitate towards fiction more if I think it has an interesting theme. Though I think this is more a reflection of my attitude towards life and my developing worldview in general. I've always been motivated by a sense of 'purpose' or some kind of supposed meaning behind things, and for some reason entertainment doesn't seem like that substantial of one anymore. I mean, I still seek diversionary entertainment, but whatever grip it has is gradually loosening and I don't really notice an absence. While I think the benefit of storytelling is that it acts as a substitute for experience, unless the prose is such that it functions as a very close simulacrum of direct experience (say, The English Patient), I find myself inclining more towards theme or what I think it says about some problem posed by human existence or whatever. At least that's something that I find has some kind of longevity to it.
xxczx
Member
so gaf, i need your help, kinda.
ive been seeing a guy for about five (I had to check, can't believe it's been that long) months, it's nothing serious, i stop over at his house every weekend but this Saturday he said to me that he wants to know what this is and what we actually are relationship wise, bad timing to talk about it too since I had to go and we haven't said anything about that since.
I have no idea what I'm doing to be honest, I don't want to keep him hanging like that but I don't want to mess anything up since I've never talked about stuff like this properly with exs before so I have no idea what to say.
and there's like a weird age gap between us (about 6 years), which isn't that weird but when it starts to get serious, it feels like it will be, for me anyway.
ive been seeing a guy for about five (I had to check, can't believe it's been that long) months, it's nothing serious, i stop over at his house every weekend but this Saturday he said to me that he wants to know what this is and what we actually are relationship wise, bad timing to talk about it too since I had to go and we haven't said anything about that since.
I have no idea what I'm doing to be honest, I don't want to keep him hanging like that but I don't want to mess anything up since I've never talked about stuff like this properly with exs before so I have no idea what to say.
and there's like a weird age gap between us (about 6 years), which isn't that weird but when it starts to get serious, it feels like it will be, for me anyway.
excelforward
Member
First off, I'm just going to address the age gap: it's only going to be weird if you make it so, or if there is a huge level in maturity. I'm six years younger than my boyfriend, but it's never been an issue for us (key word being for us, everyone's relationships are different). Secondly, perhaps just laying out where you want the relationship to go is where he wants. Are you wanting to just keep dating, be romantically (and/or physically) monogamous, just regular friends with benefits? I think he's just looking for some confirmation on how you're feeling in where you two as a couple is going.
Basically, just tell him where you feel like you are in the relationship and for the love of Jeebus: be honest. By this I mean be honest with him AND yourself. Don't let yourself start thinking that he wants it one way and you should do that, too. Go with what you feel, not necessarily what he wants. If he agrees with you, great! If not, well, there's always time to talk and space to grow.
xxczx
Member
im 19...
yeah I want to talk as soon as but he is mostly busy during the week and doing it over the phone is just, no.
thanks for quick help, I have time to think it over before I next speak to him face to face so I'll hopefully have decided what I want by then. The age gap is only weird since I'm not 20, but with what you just said now, it's probably just me making it weird
lunch, I just remembered. If you are interested in metafiction, have you read Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night, a traveler?
Mmhm.
I don't necessarily know that I even need to ultimately get all of the themes to have that effect happen to me, though. I had it happen with Don Quixote when I read it last year, and I would be lying if I claimed to have any real understanding of the literary milieu in which it was written. I know on that it is parodying those sorts of novels (and it really is funny), but without that background I know a great deal of it goes right over my head. Or something like Love in the Time of Cholera, I think any subtext in it went right over my head, but I enjoyed the story and the characters and the prose and the atmosphere and the subtle magical realism elements so much that my sense of not really understanding what he was trying to say (if anything) didn't bother me so much.
I don't believe it. And I have seen everything of the Doctor Who reboot up until the most recent season (which I haven't seen), I think, and about the same amount of Torchwood. Torchwood wasn't nearly as good but it was still enjoyable for all the wrong (right?) reasons.
And to the spoiler tag: So creepy.
Mmhm.
I don't necessarily know that I even need to ultimately get all of the themes to have that effect happen to me, though. I had it happen with Don Quixote when I read it last year, and I would be lying if I claimed to have any real understanding of the literary milieu in which it was written. I know on that it is parodying those sorts of novels (and it really is funny), but without that background I know a great deal of it goes right over my head. Or something like Love in the Time of Cholera, I think any subtext in it went right over my head, but I enjoyed the story and the characters and the prose and the atmosphere and the subtle magical realism elements so much that my sense of not really understanding what he was trying to say (if anything) didn't bother me so much.
I don't believe it. And I have seen everything of the Doctor Who reboot up until the most recent season (which I haven't seen), I think, and about the same amount of Torchwood. Torchwood wasn't nearly as good but it was still enjoyable for all the wrong (right?) reasons.
And to the spoiler tag: So creepy.
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