Yeah, i'm pretty sure it'll be nowhere as good as the book, but i want to see it anyhow. And I happen to think E. Wood is adorable. So it'll be worth the rental price...i hope.

You're going to bouf my spelling, but you use a word like "fantods"? I now regret forgiving you for the Mounds Incident.

David Foster Wallace fans, UNITE!!

The "Everything Is Illuminated" movie was actually quite good, even if they -- literally -- only filmed every other chapter in the book.

I'll dissent.

Also not a fan, but they were both recommended by the same person/internet recommender.Loved it! Foprah!

Yeah, the movie is based more on the short story Foer wrote for the New Yorker. It doesn't go into historical Trachembrod at all.

By the way, the trailer for the movie (understanding that it is only a one minute representation of the entire story) is much better than the actual movie. Don't get me wrong, I like the movie, but the trailer blew me away so when I went to the theater, letdown was inevitable.

for those who haven't seen the trailer

Everything is Illuminated

(That DeVotchka song is used to perfection)

Finally getting around to reading this:



Baldwin is great. I need to read more after this.. and for anyone looking to read a good short story, read "Sonny's Blues" by him. The only redeeming part of a terrible class(or terrible teacher rather) i took a couple years back.

yet.
darkly dreaming dexter by jeff lindsay. i don't know how i feel about it

Don't know much about the French Revolution, so I figured this would be a good place to start. Interesting read so far.


I needed something to angry up the blood.

Aggie is right: "Howling Fantods" is a nod to Infinite Jest's Hal Incandenza.

Now on to



...which is brilliant so far.

I am HOME. First thing I did was go to the library (don't worry, not entirely of my own volition, but to visit a friend who was finishing a late final):




(I'm taking a seminar about decolonization next semester, and surprise! I know nothing. I need to know something.)


I was overzealous...probably won't get to this.

To get me in the X-Mas spirit:

Pretty good so far. Good stories. Easy to read. Lots of "when I first saw [insert band name] my life changed forever. I just knew everything else was bullshit. Blah blah blah..." moments though. It gets a little ridiculous.

It's awesome how Blake informs ones perspective on Jung. Add a liberal dash of Kant's rationalism and a pinch of Schopenhauer and you're all good.

One of my favorite books.

Currently reading:

+ +

All get three out of four possible stars.

i just finished now you know by tony arcabascio. it's a collection of his how-to columns from arkitip. chapters include "torch a car", "make $1 into $20", "avoid assault charges", and a handful of others that are wild. it was very good airplane reading. highly recommended.

Anyone plowing through the new Pynchon? Is it worth the investment? Anyone?

Oh, wow. Really great book. Anyone interested in 20th century avant-garde shit would be doing themselves a great favor by reading this. Lots of insight into all of the studio albums, but also shit about Tony Conrad and the Dream Syndicate and all sorts of crap. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

I read the short story in McSweeney's last year. Pretty interesting. I don't know if he used it in the novel but I liked the descriptions of animals with terminal illnesses.


I've been wondering about it too, but I think I should just fucking read it myself.

So far (I'm at 200 of 700 pages), the short story was the best part. Now I'm reading 4-5 pages at a time. I'll update when further along.

Wester... can you tell me a little about that " The Schopenhauer Cure " tome? Thanks!

Finished Rory Stewert's journal of his walk across Afghanistan, The Places In-Between. It's nice. I learned things and enjoyed myself.

Now I'm working on A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr, The Red and the Black by Stendahl, and running through As You Like It again just for fun. I never understood Jaques' pun about spending our lives from 'hour to hour' until this edition pointed out that hour was pronounced much like 'whore'.

Just started this the other day:



It's okay so far, nothing special... but a nice little breather of a quick novel.

The real reason for my post is this, where should a Pynchon newbie start? Been wanting to get into him for some time now, but I often get scared off by the people that tell me how difficult he is to get into. I understand its important to take your time and very worthwhile to read with a dictionary and pocket encyclopedia by your side, that part doesn't scare me though.

Yalom is somewhat of a guru in existential psychotherapy and has written several novels in which he applies existential philosophy to stories about psychotherapy. In The Schopenhauer Cure, a former president of the American Psychiatric Association is diagnosed with a terminal illness and reflects about all of the clients with whom he's worked throughout the course of his career. He recalls one man with sociopathic tendencies with whom he'd worked for a few years but who never seemed to benefit from the sessions. On a whim, he contacts this man, who is now a college professor at a shitty college, and attends one of his lectures, in which the professor lays out the healing properties of studying Schopenhauer's life and philosophy. So far, it's a pretty compelling read.

If that sounds interesting, you might also like

which has Freud's mentor, Josef Breuer, and Frederik Nietzsche as its two main characters.

Another excellent book by Yalom is

in which he writes about a dozen or so cases in which he made mistakes and what he learned from his clients.

I think the consensus is that you should start with The Crying of Lot 49. It's only about 150 pages as opposed to the 600-800 pages of his other novels (1100 pages for the new one). The plot and prose still has a way of confusing the reader but the shorter length keeps it manageable. His longer novels usually have about 10-20 central characters and it becomes hard to keep track.

Lor 49 is usually considered his greatest novel (that or Gravity's Rainbow). It's amazing. Don't give up on it.

If you can buy into the strangeness of Lot 49, you can go up from there to V and Gravity's Rainbow. (I didn't care for Vineland or Mason & Dixon).

Again, what's up with Against The Grain anyone?

Thanks for the advice guys, sounds like I'll start things off with Lot 49.

Raleigh, you forgot the customary "FIXED" addition.

For me, I read and didn't get The Crying of Lot 49 (mid-eighties). And then I read a chapter or so in The Norton Anthology of Postmodern Fiction and was intrigued. Then I re-read the whole book and LOVED it. Then I got Mason and Dixon and, not only didn't get it, but sold it to a used book seller (who put it in their prime display) within a week of its release. That was around ten years ago, or whenever M&D was released. Now I'm thinking I need to re-read M&D.

See, I'm kind of afraid that I will get horribly disappointed by what I do read, but the whole post-modern aspect of his writing is what intrigues me.

Then The Crying of Lot 49 will not disappoint. But I'd still recommend picking up The Norton Anthology of Postmodern Fiction anyway. And what I love even more is post-post-modern, like short short stories, but that's just me.

Thank God someone's reading it, so the rest of us don't have to.

My sister gave me this for Christmas. Looks amusing.

I haven't read anything in weeks. I also got "What is the What" from Eggers, but I've just had no interest in reading lately. Been spending all my entertainment time catching up on Battlestar Galactica and playing video games.

Boy would I love to own a Klimt. Despite the orange.

Still creeping through The Republican War on Science. It's good stuff, but not a fun read. Skipping between that, Winter's Tale (savoring slowly like a rich confection), and one of Lindsay Davis' historical potboilers, a pleasure of which I am chronically guilty.

I'm a little late to the table (by about 60 years) but I just started reading Richard Wright's Native Son. It's really exceptional. Duh.

Excited about starting this up.

i heard this book was pretty awesome. someone recommended it to me when i became an economics major.

Good times, comrades.

Finished these two books. Both were excellent.

his take on the threads of "perpetual fear" well they ring damn straight and true dont' they..

This is for a Faulkner class. Of the five books we are reading in it, this is the only one I haven't read before. Well I have read Benji's section before, but never moved past that.

This is for my Dickens class. It's odd, I am really digging Dickens more than Faulkner lately (despite Faulkner being my favorite author)


this is just for the heck of it.

yeah i had to pick up some old books by dead authors for school today too

johannes climacus by kierkegaard, beyond good and evil by nietzsche, the nicomachean ethics, and a problem from hell: america in the age of genocide by samantha power. they look ok i guess.

friedman, he's a silly old fat man... His shit is as dry as meet ther press or something...