read any good books lately...

Just received Finnegan's Wake for Christmas...looking forward to the linguistic density.

sleeper wrote: Just finished Pratchett's latest, Raising Steam. It doesn't have the fall-out-of-your-chair funny moments that older books of his had (Drop Bears anyone?), but his story telling is still brilliant.

I've been meaning to get this one. What you've I find really valid too regarding later Pratchett. Up until around Wyrd Sisters I find he mostly focuses on joke telling, whereas the later he gets the better the storytelling is. I prefer his later works, The Truth and Going Postal especially...

Man With Hat wrote: Just received Finnegan's Wake for Christmas...looking forward to the linguistic density.

Good luck with that one........I tried reading it over 20 years ago at age 42 and only got about 50 pages in before I developed a serious case of frustration.

JJLehto wrote: Back to Infinite Jest for now.

dr wu23 wrote: Man With Hat wrote: Just received Finnegan's Wake for Christmas...looking forward to the linguistic density. Good luck with that one........I tried reading it over 20 years ago at age 42 and only got about 50 pages in before I developed a serious case of frustration.

My uncle (who gave me the book) said something similar. Though I think it was more due to finding other things to read than frustration.

Man With Hat wrote: JJLehto wrote: Man With Hat wrote: Just received Finnegan's Wake for Christmas...looking forward to the linguistic density. ...that doesn't even touch it, from what I know. Be sure to tell us how truly mind melting it is.  Hermetic obtuse linguist aerobatics vomited in a dense fog filled ubiquitous disorder?

Are you playing Mad Libs?

Yeah, it's one of the strangest nonfiction books I've ever read. Basically Spengler presents a sociological theory-of-everything that constantly jumps into art history, scientific theory and theology yet is perfectly internally coherent despite not fitting into any existing political ideology. Though he's often categorized as conservative or traditionalist, if he is so it's in an uniquely selective manner I haven't seen anywhere else.

Well, cyberpunk's godfather William Gibson has a similar intentionally awkward and hyper-fragmented prose style. In his case I get the impression the point is that he's not writing for his contemporary readers, but for readers living in the futuristic society of the setting where language will have changed from now with society. (a more subtle version of what Anthony Burgess was doing with A Clockwork Orange)

I'm reading this anthology of journalistic articles and satirical fiction:

Really feels like a time machine trip back to the late 1990s, at it collects Wolfe's writing from that era. It's fascinating how good he is at throwing out comparisons to many different academic disciplines and cultural/historical contexts in order to explain the one an article ostensibly describes, without ever making it too confusing for the reader. He might be the most genuinely thought-provoking contemporary nonfiction author of note I've come across in a long while.

Some of the articles, like the "what's wrong with modern American literature" stuff or the constant digs at Continental philosophy, would even have come across as extremely petty in the hands of a less talented writer but Wolfe just has the kind of wit required to pull it off. His sardonic commentary on not just the sociobiology/evo-psych fad of the time but also its critics are hilarious too, and probably the high point of the book so far.

Edited by Toaster Mantis - January 25 2014 at 09:21

Is that the book about the aircraft (or spaceships, can't remember exactly) supposedly mentioned in Hindu scriptures?

LSDisease wrote: It's about the ancient flying machines of India that were called vimanas. Really interesting thing, a mixture of science and the ancient beliefs.

So what was his take on this...does he believe they were alien ufos or 'magical aircraft' of Hindu origins? btw..as Toaster alluded to ufo buffs use this as another proof that aliens were flying around in mankind's past.