This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)

#51 | Back to Top12-10-2006 12:25:10 PM

SexingTouga24/7/365
is on a BOAT!
Registered: 12-10-2006
Posts: 2267

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

I etc-love  books and reading but dont have the time to really do much anymore sigh. Anyway one of the last books i have read was Devi Goddesses of India and after i get the time i want to really read some good sci-fi/fansasty books any good suggestions people?

Last edited by SexingTouga24/7/365 (12-10-2006 01:22:24 PM)


"If all the world is a stage and all the people players"...then I demand a less shitty part or the ability to get off of the stage. Slowly my sanity slides, slipping, swirling, spiraling...Save Me I need Sleep...Shattering Soon. school-devil "RukaxTouga equals the Fourth of July" MY patriotic celebration...FUCK ME TOUGA AND RUKA NOW!! etc-wankgirl etc-wankdude

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#52 | Back to Top12-10-2006 01:50:16 PM

Trench Kamen
Eternal Eschatologist
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 12-08-2006
Posts: 903
Website

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

morosemocha wrote:

Giovanna wrote:

morosemocha wrote:

I've been rereading Hannibal by Thomas Harris for possibly the umpteenth time, I love it soo, soo much.

Hannibal etc-love You must be reading up in time for Hannibal Rising! And if you're not, well obviously you should be! Hannibal, both the book and the movie, has to be one of my worst guilty pleasures. Mmm. Classy, intelligent, psychotic cannibal snobbing it up in Florence. etc-love

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! HANNIBAL RISING! SOOOOOOOOO READY FOR YOU! /fangirling.

I cannot believe I am talking to people who actually read Thomas Harris. Everybody else has just "seen the movies". I absolutely LOVED Hannibal, as well as The Silence of the Lambs. Red Dragon was good, but not my favorite as much as the former two. Still haven't seen the movie for RD, actually.

We're going to have to have a Hannibal Rising party when we all finally read it. emot-dance

At the moment, I am currently reading Idoru  , the second book in William Gibson's Bridge Trilogy. He is an absolutely astounding writer; in the company of so many other excellent books I've seen mentioned here, I cannot believe he has not been mentioned. Or I missed him. He is highly recommended not only to cyberpunk fans, but to anybody with a penchant for brainy books. Nice gritty sense of realism, too, slangy, not a lot of pretentious bullshit in the prose.

Other favorite authors and books would include:

--Terry Pratchett (Discworld! I've seen some fans.)
--Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials Trilogy is absolutely spectacular. I fell madly in love with it, couldn't put them down. And the movie is coming out soon. Daniel Craig (the new James Bond) will be a main character! It better kick ass.)
--China Mieville (Perdido Street Station is absolutely astounding, and highly recommended. I can't wait to read his other stuff. He's a newbie on the block, but goddamned amazing. Neil Gaiman endorses him! That's gotta be worth something.)
--Thomas Harris (of course)
--Hermann Hesse (Demian, my eighth grade love, right after I got into Utena)
--Garth Nix (The Abhorsen Trilogy is freaking badass)
--Tamora Pierce (Whaat? I grew up on her, and I still love to re-read the old favorites, In the Hand of the Goddess being the favorite. This is some fun pulp fantasy. Girl power!)
--Dan Brown (He's a blast.)
--Neil Gaiman (Good Omens, much?)

Only to name a few... emot-dance I'm a bibliophile.

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#53 | Back to Top12-10-2006 02:00:18 PM

Lightice
Azure Paleontologist
From: Finland
Registered: 10-21-2006
Posts: 1255

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

SexingTouga24/7/365 wrote:

I etc-love  books and reading but dont have the time to really do much anymore sigh. Anyway one of the last books i have read was Devi Goddesses of India and after i get the time i want to really read some good sci-fi/fansasty books any good suggestions people?

Well, you can't go wrong with R.A. Wilson, if it's scifi and fantasy you're after. The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles are good, if you want to start off lightly. On the other hand, if you're ready for a serious acid-trip, the original Illuminatus-trilogy, or the Schrödinger's Cat-trilogy are the ones to choose.


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#54 | Back to Top12-10-2006 06:12:28 PM

Hinotori
The Notable Death Mantis
From: Soviet Ohiostan
Registered: 10-23-2006
Posts: 1335

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

I can always be counted on to toss the staples your way. I love the staples.

Stephen Baxter - He digs the global catastrophes. I love his writing.
Neil Stephenson (previously mentioned) - The father of cyberpunk. This is not as bad as it sounds.
Kurt Vonnegut - A pretty direct influence over a lot of quirky British scifi/fantasy authors. Everyone with two brain cells should read at least one book by him even if it's God Bless You Dr. Kovorkian, which is readable in two hours and pretty much awesome. It's basically Chicken Soup for the Bizzaro Soul.
If you want quirky british Scifi/Fantasy authors, you can't go wrong with Pratchett and Gaiman.
H.G. Wells/Jules Verne - Both of these doods were the earliest recognised SciFi authors. A lot of their work (especially Verne) has a pretty distinctive romantic feel to it. Think the music video to Tonight, Tonight
Samuel R. Delany - Writes Scifi like only a big gay black man can. A lot of speculative work (like Baxter).
Heinlein - Yeah, he's a dirty old man but goddamit he wrote Stranger!. If you only read three Heinlein works you read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, and Stranger in a Strange Land. You should probably read three Heinlein works.


Hinotori made this post, and then went back and changed it later. Such is life.

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#55 | Back to Top12-11-2006 10:08:35 AM

Giovanna
Ends of the Fandom
From: Edmonton, AB
Registered: 10-12-2006
Posts: 8797
Website

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Trench Kamen wrote:

I cannot believe I am talking to people who actually read Thomas Harris. Everybody else has just "seen the movies". I absolutely LOVED Hannibal, as well as The Silence of the Lambs. Red Dragon was good, but not my favorite as much as the former two. Still haven't seen the movie for RD, actually.

I'm guilty of being one of the OOO SEEN THE MOVIES people. I actually haven't read Red Dragon yet, though I plan to. It's one of those rare occasions where both the books and the movies just totally kicked my ass. Although to be honest...I preferred the way they ended Hannibal in the movie. The book ending was just a wee bit absurd, and not depressing enough for me. emot-keke

Trench Kamen wrote:

We're going to have to have a Hannibal Rising party when we all finally read it. emot-dance

Maybe not. It's getting slammed. emot-frown

I mean, I'll read it anyway, but by all reports it's just not measuring up. Then again Hannibal didn't do very well in that regard, and I loved it. That may be fangirlism, though. I can't say no to Hannibal skipping around Florence being...Hannibal. etc-love

Hinotori wrote:

Samuel R. Delany - Writes Scifi like only a big gay black man can. A lot of speculative work (like Baxter).

I've read Babel-17, and upon doing so I promptly bought Nova. I really liked this guy's style and I nerd all over seriously speculative sci-fi. Have you read Dhalgren? I know I will eventually but I'm a bit intimidated by it, it's apparently rather a dense piece of work.


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#56 | Back to Top12-11-2006 10:56:59 AM

Hinotori
The Notable Death Mantis
From: Soviet Ohiostan
Registered: 10-23-2006
Posts: 1335

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

I haven't yet, but that has less to do with my intimidation and more to do with the fact that I can't find the damn thing.

I'm sure at some point I'll get it off an online book shop, but the library and second hand shops are a billion times better.

Related: Has anyone tackled House of Leaves yet? I'm on the waitinglist for it at the library and I'm basically reading it because of all they hype, but I'm still a little scared of anything that's embraced wholeheartedly by 4chan.


Hinotori made this post, and then went back and changed it later. Such is life.

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#57 | Back to Top12-11-2006 12:08:33 PM

Yasha
Bitch Queen
From: Edmonton, AB, Canada
Registered: 10-15-2006
Posts: 6031
Website

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Hinotori wrote:

Related: Has anyone tackled House of Leaves yet? I'm on the waitinglist for it at the library and I'm basically reading it because of all they hype, but I'm still a little scared of anything that's embraced wholeheartedly by 4chan.

I've read House of Leaves. I recommend listening to Poe's 'Haunted' with it, as it's planned to go along with the book.

As to the book itself... mixed review here. It's a complicated book, but as far as I saw, it dealt with a simple main theme. I could not get past the simplicity of the theme as opposed to the complexity of the book. I'm not going to talk about it too much here, because I suspect that this is like SKU in that you see something of yourself in the material, and the theme may be dependent on that.

That said, I found it a little pretentious for my tastes, but a worthwhile read. The references are fun to chase-- the footnotes sometimes refer to real things, and sometimes they don't. If you can accept a castle floating upside down over an arena at the top of an endless staircase, you will be able to accept a house being larger on the inside than on the outside, and understand that it's metaphorical. The downside is, it loses some of its impact if you can accept and understand something like that right off the bat.


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#58 | Back to Top12-11-2006 12:36:58 PM

rhyaniwyn
Myth is my Bitch
From: Tallahassee, FL
Registered: 11-09-2006
Posts: 684
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Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Hinotori wrote:

Heinlein - Yeah, he's a dirty old man but goddamit he wrote Stranger!. If you only read three Heinlein works you read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, and Stranger in a Strange Land. You should probably read three Heinlein works.

I'd say Time Enough for Love, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, and To Sail Beyond the Sunset.  For continuity and weirdness.  ;)  But if you only read 1, it's gotta be Stranger in a Strange Land.

Reading Heinlein in high school totally blew my mind.  Yeah, he was a dirty old man, but he was damn smart.

I have a friend who really wanted me to read House of Leaves, but when I took a look at it on Amazon, the description irritated me so much I put it out of my mind.  I'm judgmental.

Last edited by rhyaniwyn (12-11-2006 12:37:37 PM)


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#59 | Back to Top12-11-2006 01:20:35 PM

Hinotori
The Notable Death Mantis
From: Soviet Ohiostan
Registered: 10-23-2006
Posts: 1335

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

My main interest in House of Leaves is keeping up with the literary jonses. It's what all the kewl kids are reading these days and part of me is a little curious if it lives up to the hype.

But yeah. I come from a long line of SciFi snobs and my mom pretty much told me when I was 14 if I didn't read Stranger In A Strange Land I wasn't allowed in the clubhouse. I'm happy she did. :P One of my major aspirations in highschool was probably to become a dirty old man.


Hinotori made this post, and then went back and changed it later. Such is life.

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#60 | Back to Top12-11-2006 01:44:30 PM

rhyaniwyn
Myth is my Bitch
From: Tallahassee, FL
Registered: 11-09-2006
Posts: 684
Website

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Hinotori wrote:

My main interest in House of Leaves is keeping up with the literary jonses. It's what all the kewl kids are reading these days...

Haha.  You may have noticed my comment that I have an aspiration to read Vonnegut because it's so fashionable.  You'd think, with as much reading as I do, that I would have read far more "literature" (imagine that being said with a bit of a snobby accent) than I have.

*shrug*  I read Fantasy and SciFi.  And I'm sufficiently snobby about that.  Now, this could easily be a question of personal taste, but I have snobby lit-reading friends who like Buffy...and I will go on a tangent about the disservice shows like Buffy and Charmed (which I will occasionally watch with a sense of pervading guilt) do to the genre.  ...Though I suppose it's more the medium and the attitude of American TV executives that should get the blame and upon whom I should cast aspersions...

Anyway, I mentioned my distaste for House of Leaves to an English-major friend of mine...who began talking about post-post-modernist fiction with awareness of its own fictional nature.  And, I confess, I tuned out.  Some part of me doesn't want to like it.  I try to pretend I just don't want to be playing that "the bookshelf in my living room makes me look smarter than you" game, but it's really a stupid, reactionary prejudice on my part.

Is it true that some pages are printed upside-down and backwards? -_-;  When I'm reading a book, I wanna read it, not do gymnastics.


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#61 | Back to Top12-11-2006 02:02:39 PM

Yasha
Bitch Queen
From: Edmonton, AB, Canada
Registered: 10-15-2006
Posts: 6031
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Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

It's true. It's used pretty effectively in some spots, but in other spots it's just irritating.

Bottom line about House of Leaves, if you go into it with an open mind and you try to enjoy it for what it is, it's worth a read. It tells a pretty good story about the separation between people, and explores why it happens and what effect it has on people. If you're going to bring in literary style considerations and whether or not it's pretentious art-house bullshit, you're going to dislike it, because unfortunately, the way it's done is pretentious bullshit.

That sounded a bit bitchy, sorry guys. It's just the truth. Myself, I found the pretentiousness irritating instead of deep, and it ruined the effect a bit for me. I'd like to give it a shot again once I can ignore that aspect and focus on what it has to say about people, because I think that was worth it.


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#62 | Back to Top12-11-2006 02:33:23 PM

Hinotori
The Notable Death Mantis
From: Soviet Ohiostan
Registered: 10-23-2006
Posts: 1335

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

I suspected as much about the pretentious bullshit thing, but I'm pretty good at ignoring things like that if the story's good enough.

rhyaniwyn wrote:

Hinotori wrote:

My main interest in House of Leaves is keeping up with the literary jonses. It's what all the kewl kids are reading these days...

Haha.  You may have noticed my comment that I have an aspiration to read Vonnegut because it's so fashionable.  You'd think, with as much reading as I do, that I would have read far more "literature" (imagine that being said with a bit of a snobby accent) than I have.

Completely missed it emot-tongue and I have a hard time picturing Vonnegut in that fine literature kind of way. If he's *literature* then he has to be the only member of the club who's books include hand drawings of crude anuses. Either way, in all honesty he's been my favourite author ever since I could get my grubby hands on his books. emot-tongue I think I'm more adventurous with literature than most people because I'm a relatively fast reader. Even if something turns out to be pretentious crap there isn't much time lost because I can easily put away a 200 page novel in less than two hours.

Television and movies, however, are a completely different story. I have a hard time being able to justify wasting the time on those I want to watch, and I don't think I've sat through an entire episode of Buffy regardless of what anyone thinks of it.


Hinotori made this post, and then went back and changed it later. Such is life.

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#63 | Back to Top12-11-2006 02:39:49 PM

rhyaniwyn
Myth is my Bitch
From: Tallahassee, FL
Registered: 11-09-2006
Posts: 684
Website

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

I'm not sure he's literature like Hesse...or this House of Leaves...but he's far more widely "accepted" as being something "smart people" read than many of my favorite authors.

I just started on Hocus Pocus.  Picked out for the title, cuz I figured, who cares where I start.  And, hmm... He has not sold me yet.  But I know many people who don't like Buffy (and, thus, whose taste I trust) ;) who love the guy, so...


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#64 | Back to Top12-11-2006 02:49:05 PM

Hinotori
The Notable Death Mantis
From: Soviet Ohiostan
Registered: 10-23-2006
Posts: 1335

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Could be. I try not to associate with too many smart people though.

But yeah. At least you won't find any backwards text in his books. He saves his creative liberties for fucking with the editors.


Hinotori made this post, and then went back and changed it later. Such is life.

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#65 | Back to Top12-11-2006 04:09:42 PM

Syna
Rose Bride
From: Never-Neverland
Registered: 12-03-2006
Posts: 105
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Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Even the worst snobs tend to admit Vonnegut's classic. Got to love his experimentations with form in Slaughterhouse Five. He's wonderful.

I loved House of Leaves. Granted, the liberties he takes are pretty over-the-top, but all things considered he really tried to do something original with layout and presentation - and I personally totally dig metafictional (err, postpostmodern) stuff like that, it's fascinatingly mindbendy if you're willing to go along with the ride. I really admire the audacity. The accusation that it's pretentious is merited, but it doesn't phase me, personally; I don't think being pretentious is a crime... 's better than being trite, for me. emot-smile

I tend to kind of skip around centuries... a lot. I love all kinds of literature from all kinds of eras (which is good, otherwise school would be miserable). In terms of contemporary literature, the last thing I read that I loved was Donald Barthelme's fiction -- good place to start if you want to give postmodern lit a chance, btw, he's not pretentious, he's hilarious, and he specializes in shortshortfiction so it's rather weightless. I also just finished the utterly glorious The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which was just startlingly poignant and meditative. It made modern life interesting to me, which takes some doing sometimes. (I have about as much success rate with "mainstream" lit as fantasy/sci-fi... I'm open-minded, but a lot of mainstream novels strike me as totally mundane, whereas genre fiction -is- often steeped in cliche.)

I'm also really digging John Donne's poetry -- fascinating, convoluted imagery, and wicked, cynical, twisted takes on love and religion.

Last edited by Syna (12-11-2006 04:10:40 PM)

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#66 | Back to Top12-13-2006 08:10:41 AM

MissMocha
Bettie Page Princess
From: Tallahassee, Fl
Registered: 10-19-2006
Posts: 4632

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Purely fluff, but I'm reading the Dresden books right now, and waiting for Hannibal Rising to come out in TPB. Has anyone picked it up yet? I know there's Hanniphiles on here, so I'd be surprised if the answer's no. I really want to hear if all the negative words are deserved, though...


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And sunk in their teeth, bit your heart and released
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#67 | Back to Top12-13-2006 09:57:37 AM

Alexa
Anthy Assailer
Registered: 12-13-2006
Posts: 74

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Right now I'm reading the first volume of Tomie by Junji Ito, and The Ladies of Grace Adeiu, which is a collection of short stories related to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susannah Clarke.  One of my favorite books evar.

Some of my other favorites are the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Sparrow, House of Leaves, the Harry Potter series, and the works of David Sedaris.

EDIT: Oh hey, House of Leaves has been discussed... has anyone gotten through Mark Z. Danielewski's newest book, Only Revolutions?  It annoyed my pretty badly on my first attempt.

Last edited by Alexa (12-13-2006 10:00:02 AM)

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#68 | Back to Top12-13-2006 12:32:39 PM

Almaser
Qualified Duellist
From: Brisbane
Registered: 10-16-2006
Posts: 727

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

I agree with Yasha on House of Leaves, to an extent. If you're willing to suspend any sort of disbelief going in, the whole story becomes sweet, and a little simplistic, but still something I very much felt empathy for.

That said, I absolutely adored the way Danielewski fucked with the reader's heads constantly. I still remember the great Hall of Text that starts around page 130, and being dragged backwards and forwards across it only to find dead-ends just made me laugh. Yes, it's pretentious, no it's not really that deep, but God it's fun. Plus, Camile Paglia hitting on a fictional character = inexplicable hilarity.

I just finished Demian and A Brief History of Time (oh my god awesome books), and am about to tackle Ulysses starting this afternoon.

Outside of that, my favourites are;
Haruki Murakami - I've only read Kafka on the Shore, but it's such a fun ride
Patrick White - an Australian author, long maligned here, who writes these loving, soulful works that make my heart fill up,
David Zindell - Pretty awesome author who mixes modern interpretations of transcendence with fantasy/sci-fi elements. Fun, if blunt about philosophy.
Umberto Eco - because Foucault's Pendulum is a wanky, know-it-all, hilarious novel. And The Name of the Rose is just as good.

Oh, and Leonard Cohen. Beautiful Losers is so absolutely lovely a book.

I've been so bad with reading the past two years... and yet I've still managed to accumulate about 60 books since moving out of home. Poor wallet, you just don't get a break. emot-keke

EDIT: Oh, and definitely listen to Poe. Haunted is a whole new dimension that gives a lot of insight to the book, and also gives you a look at the situation that brought her brother to write the thing in the first place. That, and the last track almost always puts tears in my eyes.

Last edited by Almaser (12-13-2006 12:35:34 PM)

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#69 | Back to Top12-13-2006 03:06:14 PM

Personal_IceQueen
Covert Diarist
Registered: 11-27-2006
Posts: 822
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Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

well along with Danieleskwi's prose, Arthur Nerseian has a similar type of writing, you have to suspend your belief in what can happen and what can't.


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#70 | Back to Top12-15-2006 08:53:25 AM

Yasha
Bitch Queen
From: Edmonton, AB, Canada
Registered: 10-15-2006
Posts: 6031
Website

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Please consider this post NWS in its entirety.

I just read American Psycho, and my feelings are very mixed. On one hand, this is a funny, funny book, especially if you have a strong stomach for things like ***NWS*** this ***NWS***. The guy goes from noting clothing designers for every item a person wears to talking about how he drilled through a girl's teeth until her jaw was a gaping black hole, and is so disconnected from reality that he won't set a rat trap without sprinkling dill on the brie. His obsessiveness is really hilarious, if you can get into the mindset to appreciate it.

Unfortunately, although it's a well-crafted book, Patrick Bateman is very unsympathetic. I'm an empathetic person, and I could not connect with Bateman. I only felt amusement, pity, and contempt for him, and I felt it made the book shallower than it otherwise could have been. This may be the problem, however-- I may be too empathetic to connect to a character that has no empathy. Also, I can't stand a person who has no appreciation for sensation, such as the taste of good food, and determines its worth by the price tag. Bateman is amusing enough to get beyond that, but still, if you want a killer that enjoys life, stick to Hannibal.

Although the mental image of Bateman getting all happy over being able to walk around with his dick so hard that a severed head can hang on it is just absolutely hilarious. emot-dance


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#71 | Back to Top12-15-2006 11:37:08 AM

Personal_IceQueen
Covert Diarist
Registered: 11-27-2006
Posts: 822
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Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

My fave books include:
the forum fave House of Leaves and Also Only Revolutions. I wanted to be a part of the audio project that Danieleswki had over the summer. Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night. Douglas Coupland's Generation X and God Hates Japan (I'm a Douglas completist).

Yasha have you read Ellis's Lunar Park? If not...anyone who has read American Psycho or felt that it was lacking substance should check out Lunar Park, the book addresses American Psycho and how Bateman haunts Bret Easton Ellis.

Along with being a Douglas completist, I'm terribly fascinated with Bret Easton Ellis. For my college's newspaper I was able to participate in a conference with him and ask him questions, he is a funny, funny man. If I were not crushing on Gio, and if he was not Gay, I'd totally want him.


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#72 | Back to Top12-15-2006 01:09:24 PM

Yasha
Bitch Queen
From: Edmonton, AB, Canada
Registered: 10-15-2006
Posts: 6031
Website

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Personal_IceQueen wrote:

Yasha have you read Ellis's Lunar Park? If not...anyone who has read American Psycho or felt that it was lacking substance should check out Lunar Park, the book addresses American Psycho and how Bateman haunts Bret Easton Ellis.

Along with being a Douglas completist, I'm terribly fascinated with Bret Easton Ellis. For my college's newspaper I was able to participate in a conference with him and ask him questions, he is a funny, funny man. If I were not crushing on Gio, and if he was not Gay, I'd totally want him.

I haven't, American Psycho was my first shot at his books. While I feel ambiguous about the character of Bateman, I thoroughly enjoyed the book-- maybe I'll check out Lunar Park. I don't know much about the author, really I only know the one book and that's it.


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#73 | Back to Top12-15-2006 10:50:34 PM

Personal_IceQueen
Covert Diarist
Registered: 11-27-2006
Posts: 822
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Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Yeah, I consider American Psycho the gateway drug to the twisted world of Ellis.


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#74 | Back to Top12-15-2006 11:55:40 PM

Archambeau
Muffy, the Forums Trophy Wife
Registered: 11-20-2006
Posts: 499

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Melusina -- you have another Anglophile Victorian fiend over here.  Ever so delicious.

Favorite books of mine would have to be Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red -- an amazing retelling of Stesichorus' Geryoneseis as a novel in verse with a decidedly homoerotic bent.  It is a gorgeous read, if not terribly melancholy.  It's certainly one of those books that put you out of your own mind, as if you're watching yourself from above.  It's been in my bag for months now; I often pull it out to read over when I have a moment.

I'm also a cliche of an Utena fan in that I adore Hesse's Demian.  But I really just love Hesse in general.  The exaggeratedness of his writing takes some getting used to, but it seems most social commentary is structured that way, and it makes the archetypes forgivable in that you realize you must take them as such: as archetypes.

Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead is such a mentally sensual book to me.  Rand's eroticism is so psychological, hence why I find it so enjoyable.  Though the objectivism is bound to get heavy-handed, it's nonetheless a wonderfully structured book, and one I don't mind sloughing through when I'm afforded the time.

Also a Thomas Harris fan, though I've heard Hannibal Rising received nothing short of terrible reviews.  A shame, that.

Lastly, the bulk of this semester's reading has imparted me with a new love of the ancient Greeks.  Anything with the Atreides has me enthralled.  It's a bit sad that I now have a full psychological profile of Agamemnon from my obsessive cross-referencing.

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#75 | Back to Top12-16-2006 05:28:40 PM

Clarice
Well hello, Clarice...
From: New Zealand
Registered: 10-16-2006
Posts: 3102
Website

Re: Favorite books/Books you are currently reading

Yasha wrote:

Please consider this post NWS in its entirety.

I just read American Psycho, and my feelings are very mixed. On one hand, this is a funny, funny book, especially if you have a strong stomach for things like ***NWS*** this ***NWS***. The guy goes from noting clothing designers for every item a person wears to talking about how he drilled through a girl's teeth until her jaw was a gaping black hole, and is so disconnected from reality that he won't set a rat trap without sprinkling dill on the brie. His obsessiveness is really hilarious, if you can get into the mindset to appreciate it.

Unfortunately, although it's a well-crafted book, Patrick Bateman is very unsympathetic. I'm an empathetic person, and I could not connect with Bateman. I only felt amusement, pity, and contempt for him, and I felt it made the book shallower than it otherwise could have been. This may be the problem, however-- I may be too empathetic to connect to a character that has no empathy. Also, I can't stand a person who has no appreciation for sensation, such as the taste of good food, and determines its worth by the price tag. Bateman is amusing enough to get beyond that, but still, if you want a killer that enjoys life, stick to Hannibal.

Although the mental image of Bateman getting all happy over being able to walk around with his dick so hard that a severed head can hang on it is just absolutely hilarious. emot-dance

A friend of mine in university bought the book immediately after seeing the movie at the theatre the year it came out, and because he couldn't talk me into the movie he got me to read the book instead (because I am a book-whore and will read next to anything...including the dictionary, if nothing better presents itself...). And...well, I later watched the movie, and I probably preferred it over the book because it was funnier. The movie was more absurd, which is where I thought the book was going, but I found the book a little bit too real in places. Not so much in its graphic descriptions, but actually more for the chapter about Whitney Houston's album. Yes. That disturbed me more than any chapter about murder and executions. Because I mean DUDE. O_o

With that said, it's a very well-written book and I liked it for what it was. It's like Lord of the Flies or something (perhaps Alex Garland's The Beach is another fair example, although if you've only seen the movie don't quote me on that; the movie and the book are two very different kettles of fish). I didn't like what happened, but the way it was executed was excellent. It's a fascinating book, but I wouldn't read it again.

At any rate, I am being morbid myself at the moment and reading a historical non-fiction novel about Henry VIII's six wives that I picked up -- surprise surprise -- at the Tower of London last weekend. Alison Weir's the author; although it is essentially a text book it's a very easy read and I am really enjoying it. I mean, I have a rather morbid fascination with Henry's wives right now anyway, but it's worth the read because of the fact it deals with so much HISTORY. And I am tired of walking around historical monuments while not knowing a damn thing about them. (Hell, the first time I was at Westminster, I thought the Mary that Elizabeth I is buried with was Mary, Queen of Scots, and BOY did I ever do a double-take then...!)

And oh, yeah, I'd like to hear anyone's opinion on the new Thomas Harris. I mean, I really liked Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, but I was quite ambivalent about Hannibal. The Italian detective was the only bit I really liked, and naturally he doesn't get to stick around. [sulks] I have to stop liking characters; they always disappear from books when I like them...


It takes forty-seven New Zealanders eight months to make just one batch of 42 Below Vodka. ...luckily, that leaves one of us free to be Prime Minister.

Beyond The Silver Leaves

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