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El Protoolio wrote: Sat Nov 02, 2024 1:33 pm

Gramsci wrote: Sun Oct 27, 2024 4:48 am Grinding through The Sillmarilion… Christ it’s tough. Like reading the bible but less crazy. The first third is almost unreadable. The “story” kicks from there but it’s still a hard read.

Reading it is very much like that. It is like reading a translation of an ancient text, like The Iliad and Odyssey or Livy's Roman Histories or Caesar's Gallic War reports or Greek classics. A stilted translation of a dead language.

I finished it!

Now I’m even angrier about The Rings of Power.

Other than the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the Gene Wolfe books are the only books I have read more than once. Book Of The New Sun is DENSE, as is Long Sun, and Short Sun. In New Sun when Severian is in the House Absolute there is this passage -

"The picture he was cleaning showed an armored figure standing in a desolate landscape. It had no weapon, but held a staff bearing a strange, stiff banner. The visor of this figure’s helmet was entirely of gold, without eye slits or ventilation; in its polished surface the deathly desert could be seen in reflection, and nothing more."

He is describing a picture of an Apollo astronaut on the moon next to the American flag in the world of the story's distant past. And that's one of the reasons the books demand a reread. You have to figure that out. The key is the use of the word "desolate". Some of Buzz Aldrin's first words after setting foot on the moon outside the lunar lander and viewing the landscape were "magnificent desolation".

Currently reading "Laughter In Ancient Rome" by Mary Beard.

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/6e8 ... 107a9ee2ba

Well worth reading. Utterly bleak and maddening, but suffused with warmth.

The Neneh Cherry memoir looks good. I picked it up for my partner for Xmas and will probably read it when she's done.

Just finished:
Death and the Penguin : Andrey Kurkov
I liked this one. An eerie mood laid over a gentle everydayness, odd pairings of individuals, a protagonist who seems only half-connected to his environment, laconic writing, all these things made me think of Murakami, while the book is still rather different from him.

Now reading:
The Moscoviade : Yurii Andrukhovych
Similar in tone to Zhadan's Depeche Mode. With a kind of free association thing going on at times which I don't care for at all.

^ And also, Asimov's Foundation. Seems good.

Dovira wrote: Wed Dec 18, 2024 8:59 am Just finished:
Death and the Penguin : Andrey Kurkov
I liked this one. An eerie mood laid over a gentle everydayness, odd pairings of individuals, a protagonist who seems only half-connected to his environment, laconic writing, all these things made me think of Murakami, while the book is still rather different from him.

Fantastic book, as are his following three.

Dovira wrote: Wed Dec 18, 2024 9:22 am ^ And also, Asimov's Foundation. Seems good.

My only problem with Asimov, as it is with Clark and, this is a controversial opinion and will trigger some folks mainly fm Mike Upchurch, Frank Herbert, is that they are all terrible writers. Cool stories, other than Herbert, but absolutely terrible writing.

El Protoolio wrote: Thu Dec 19, 2024 5:29 pm

Dovira wrote: Wed Dec 18, 2024 9:22 am ^ And also, Asimov's Foundation. Seems good.

My only problem with Asimov, as it is with Clark and, this is a controversial opinion and will trigger some folks mainly fm Mike Upchurch, Frank Herbert, is that they are all terrible writers. Cool stories, other than Herbert, but absolutely terrible writing.

It’s been a while with the others but yeah, Herbert’s prose is so mundane and pedestrian that while I hate Dune in all forms, it’s actually better as a movie..

zorg wrote: Thu Dec 19, 2024 8:18 pm

El Protoolio wrote: Thu Dec 19, 2024 5:29 pm

Dovira wrote: Wed Dec 18, 2024 9:22 am ^ And also, Asimov's Foundation. Seems good.

My only problem with Asimov, as it is with Clark and, this is a controversial opinion and will trigger some folks mainly fm Mike Upchurch, Frank Herbert, is that they are all terrible writers. Cool stories, other than Herbert, but absolutely terrible writing.

It’s been a while with the others but yeah, Herbert’s prose is so mundane and pedestrian that while I hate Dune in all forms, it’s actually better as a movie..

I have to admit I have seen the Lynch version and the early 2000's TV version and am planning to watch the new ones. When I said his story wasn't cool that is not totally true, I just think his agenda is thinly veiled, an agenda I agree with, but it is not good writing. Seeing the ideas on the screen works better for me. I am also interested in that prequel TV show. I love sci fi.