What're you readin'

Such a moldrous thing, damp naked. I like it but it was enervating to read.

So hey, I think I need a new Murakami book to read so if anyone wants to throw a non-Kafka/Wind-Up/Hard-Boiled recommendation my way feel free to. If you dare say 1q84 I will not listen as I’d like a book I’d be able to finish before I die.

I got this at the $2 table but forgot that it’s the second book.

The New York Trilogy ? yes I know it’s not Murakami

Jokes, on you, I read that already! It was rather good.

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Norwegian wood is the obvious one, but you’ve probably already read it. You could always check out similar authors- Banana Yoshimoto is aight, and I would also recommend Bae Suah for similar vibes

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I guess Auster is sort of the American Murakami in that he wrote a small handful of interesting, powerful works before settling into a dull rut for decades.

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A million blood potions for this. It is exactly right.

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Shoutout to whatever past sb poster led me to THE INVENTION OF SOLITUDE on old sb’s lit’rature thread on all those years ago.

Fuck you, me, for picking up HAND TO MOUTH and actually reading the entire recap of the part about his early writing career just without any of the emotional punch, intelligence, or prose that didn’t make me want to place my head in a waffle iron and just relax.

edit: That wasn’t me

but everyone seems to have the same experience of reading the new york trilogy and the invention of solitude

his short stories in “the elephant vanishes” are rather consistenly great. they strike me as light enough not to be too taxating to read more than one on the same day while condensing charming descriptions and scenarios without the weight of having to link many subplots or make a big deeal out of the happenings.

uhh i guess no one saw this or cared but if you did and were also curious, i found this which covers a lot of the same ground i was hoping to.

[i am kind of think piece’d out for the moment, if you are too just scroll down to the “Longer form” section at the bottom]

So I have been thinking of reading Vladimir Bartol’s Alamut. Has anybody here read it? I can’t seem to find out how many pages it is online anywhere. Is it very long?

https://www.amazon.com/Alamut-Vladimir-Bartol/dp/0972028730/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480923234&sr=1-1

sez 391pp

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I though The Beginning Place (le Guin) was going to be about disaffected middle American working class going to Narnia. By the end, I thought it was a commentary on the role of the masculine & how the ability to fuck and/or kill things isn’t a measure of success in modern society. The final third of the book takes place in the other world, and gets more and more dream-like as the protagonists become less full-featured and more atavistic/anima+anumus.

Coming off some of the drivel I’ve read lately, it’s really obvious how excellent a writer le Guin is. I was halfway down the second page & though: hey, here’s someone who knows what’s up with words! Nice.

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It is gut. I’d elaborate on it more but have limited time here at the military. Assasins’s creed is heavily influenced by it, although it twists it to banality.

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Thanks I appreciate it, but since my post I already started reading it. I am about 200 pages in of the 500 page ebook. It’s been an amazing read so far. I will give a full review once I am done.

anna karenina. I am underlining sentences and paragraphs I find beautiful, life-affirming, or thought-provoking. however, this is a long book, and I don’t think I have enough lead in my pencil, so to speak

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I finished reading Alamut by Vladimir Bartol and I am actually kind of mad that they didn’t assign this novel in high school or college. Is it because it focuses on Islam so much or because it is so anti-religion? The book is about one mad self-proclaimed prophet who deceives followers into thinking heaven is guaranteed for those who die for his cause. He does this by drugging his followers with hashish and sending them to his secret garden harem. All the girls at the harem are young and beautiful and knowingly deceive the followers as well. Parallels to Osama Bin Laden have been made to compare with the story’s main character, but really you could compare it to the US preparing it’s own troops for war. I am sure many Christians in America believe that their troops will be sent to heaven when they die. Is that the true purpose of religion?

i read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho today. i quite liked it + found it relatable in aspects but i expect it’s the kind of thing that will receive disdain here

the bit about “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” is rubbish and it irritates me that this is most ppls main takeaway from the book
but i suppose i ought not to be surprised given most people would rather wish and hope for shit to happen rather than actually do something about it (like the book explicitly says you should do)

also people criticizing it for being too on-the-nose and people claiming it has some mystic wisdom embedded between the lines are both being dumb. it’s quite straightforward but so is most enduring advice about life. try to figure out what you’re supposed to be doing with your life, struggle to do that thing, stand up when you get knocked down, avoid the comfortable path, etc

reading reviews of this book is making me dislike either the book or most people

anyways book has a good story, can recommend

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