Books Part V, featuring Benny Profane and the Whole Sick Crew

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Another opera prep:

The Adventures of Falstaff, by Myron Stagman

This was a nice little book outlining the character of Falstaff, especially in the Henry IV plays of Shakespeare. I really didn't want to read Henry IV, Part 1 or Part 2, so this book was a good idea. Stagman gives much of the pertinent (or impertinent) dialogue involving Falstaff, along with summaries and explications. He didn't cover much of The Merry Wives of Windsor, so I had to go get that from the library today. That's what's up next.

But when I was at the library today, I found this:

Jane Austen's History of England. It's not very long, but it's funny and charming. She wrote in when she was almost 16, and it's a funny parody of histories of England that were used as textbooks when she was young. I liked it very much.
 
I swear I'm never going to finish the Novak/Grubb Dungeons & Dragons novel I've been trying to read for several months now. I kinda want to, just to tie up the particular series with the characters from it, but I also just find their books, for the most part, beyond dull. The settings are drawn merely okay, and there's virtually no character development. It's trope-y and generic stuff, and while the books are pretty short (300 pages of simply written, geared toward ages 12 and up or so), the fact that they routinely put me to sleep prevents them from being the quick read that they should be. In a world where there are way too many books and far too little time to read everything I want to read, I shouldn't have as difficult a time giving up on a crappy read as I sometimes do. Call it being OCD about finishing a series or something.

The next book up for interrupting my slog through the aforementioned, would be R A Salvatore's The Companions. I ceased to be a big Drizzt fan several series ago, but I do want to know what happened to him after the ending of the last one. And this whole D&D shift to fifth edition/Sundering thing could make for some decent storytelling (although if I'm honest, the Paul S Kemp installment is really the only one I'm chomping at the bit to get my hands on. The other authors I'm fairly lukewarm on). But buying it as an ebook presents me with the spoilerific opportunity to type a certain name into the search function to see how prominently he may feature in the novel. And since my favorite character only seems to be mentioned by the other characters a handful of times, I just went from planning to spend the day reading it to meh, maybe it's just nap time.
 
Someone was talking about Infinite Jest in here recently. I've also been reading it, and it's been lasting me a few months and I'm still early on. Mainly because I read slowly, duh, and because I tend to read three things at once. Typically a real long novel, and one or two shorter ones which tend to finish then be replaced with new short ones and the long one goes on forever and ever. It's a terrible way to read, so I've started dedicated all my read-time to IJ. It's really hit a groove though, and gotten considerably funnier than I felt it was at the start. Though that might also just have something to do with the period of adaptation in the beginning before I really tuned into Wallace's particular structural and comedic strategies here. Meaning I'm sure it was hilarious the whole time, I'm just a retard.
 
Someone was talking about Infinite Jest in here recently. I've also been reading it, and it's been lasting me a few months and I'm still early on. Mainly because I read slowly, duh, and because I tend to read three things at once. Typically a real long novel, and one or two shorter ones which tend to finish then be replaced with new short ones and the long one goes on forever and ever. It's a terrible way to read, so I've started dedicated all my read-time to IJ. It's really hit a groove though, and gotten considerably funnier than I felt it was at the start. Though that might also just have something to do with the period of adaptation in the beginning before I really tuned into Wallace's particular structural and comedic strategies here. Meaning I'm sure it was hilarious the whole time, I'm just a retard.

I read it when I was 26 or so (around when the first paperback edition was released) and there's definitely a hump I had to get over before I was able to fully engage with it.

A common piece of advice at the time was to re-read the first 50-80 pages after completing the book. This was partially to come down from the ironic addiction to reading the whole thing, partially to make sense of the ending, and perhaps also to savor what might have been initially hard to get through.
 
I was admittedly confused with the first chapter, but the second was already pretty hilarious. I'm now about 100 pages in. It's going slow, it's going to take a couple of months, but I got into it quite quickly and I'm not seeing that I'll give up on it. In fact, according to some comments and impressions, it should only get better.
 
Initially a lot of the digressions from the tennis stuff came like a slap to the face and would really disorient me and slow me down for the first hundred or so pages, but now I think I've fallen into the rhythm of the thing and savor every new thread.
 
I can only read one book at a time.

Normally I do only read one at a time. When I'm reading something I don't particularly care for is when I start getting easily pulled off it by new releases or things I'd otherwise just add to the to-read pile. Should really be a red flag right there.


Seems like everyone I know is trying to read infinite jest. Most of them are people who don't normally read books, and whine about it kicking their ass.
 
I have never heard of Infinite Jest except in this thread.

I'm still reading The Iliad and have gotten over my dislike for the translation. The story was was hard to get into at first because I didn't catch on to all the names for a while. Apparently a lot of the gods and characters that we all know, like Athena and Paris, have other names, and the author indiscriminately switches from one to the other. So it took me a little while to realize that Alexandros is Paris, Cronion is Zeus, Atriedes is Agamemnon, Pallas is Athena, etc. Or maybe that's totally wrong and I am more confused than I thought. :scratch: :shrug:
 
I have never heard of Infinite Jest except in this thread.

I'm still reading The Iliad and have gotten over my dislike for the translation. The story was was hard to get into at first because I didn't catch on to all the names for a while. Apparently a lot of the gods and characters that we all know, like Athena and Paris, have other names, and the author indiscriminately switches from one to the other. So it took me a little while to realize that Alexandros is Paris, Cronion is Zeus, Atriedes is Agamemnon, Pallas is Athena, etc. Or maybe that's totally wrong and I am more confused than I thought. :scratch: :shrug:

Yes they have more than one name. Great book!
 
Initially a lot of the digressions from the tennis stuff came like a slap to the face and would really disorient me and slow me down for the first hundred or so pages, but now I think I've fallen into the rhythm of the thing and savor every new thread.

If you're sometimes confused about the acronyms as I am, this site might prove to be helpful (it also explains some funny words and countless references to grammar, mathematics, philosophy, literature etc.):

Infinite Jest Page by Page - David Foster Wallace Wiki : Infinite Jest

It's completely spoiler-free.
 
I was familiar with Henrietta Lacks but haven't read the book - I should get on that.

Recently finished Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan, and absolutely loved it. Brillant dark comedy set in colonial Tasmania - grotesque, funny and heartbreakingly sad all at once. Sometimes you read a book that almost seems tailor made to your interests, this was certainly one of them for me. I'm gonna have to check out all his other stuff now.
 
I never post in this thread, so I might as well start:

The Orphan Master's Son (Adam Johnson, 2012): a harrowing genre-crossing work (coming-of-age story, political thriller, psychological novel) about a rural boy who climbs the social ladder in North Korea and, serendipitously, finds himself in Kim Jong-il's entourage. This is a plot-driven book, and a page-turner, but it ceases to explore a number of interesting questions at a deeply personal level (the meaning of identity in a totalitarian state, the power of stories, etc). It's also a well-researched analysis of life in North Korea - Johnson spent, I believe, some six years researching for this book, and you can feel his deep knowledge on the page.

The Emperor's Children (Claire Messud, 2006): Messud is as perfect a novelist as it gets. She's been described before as a writer's writer, and I can see why: her prose is perfectly crafted, nuanced, elegant, and flat-out gripping. But this novel is also thematically very strong, and I would say it's one of the best literary portraits of pre-9/11 New York City, and in particular of its liberal intelligentsia. This is probably the best book I've read this year.
 
The Orphan Master's Son sounds very, very interesting.
 
It is. I was a bit skeptical at first, but it really captivated me.
 
I said I was getting well into a groove with Infinite Jest, and I am, but that's kindle territory, and I found myself convalescing from a fever today in my living room with plenty of natural non-vampire-friendly light, and pulled Murakami's Norwegian Wood off the shelf which has been there for ages, and read close to half of it in a single sitting, which is rare for me. Wonderful novel so far.
 
This is my first though I also have The Windup Bird Chronicle. So far my Exposure to Japanese literature has been limited to Kawabata and Oe.
 
Karl Marx- Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy Edited by Maximilien Rubel

I am venturing ever leftward. Always useful to understand the history and philosophical underpinnings of your arguments.
 
Read The Kreutzer Sonata by Tolstoy. It was a riveting description of a failed marriage. It had such accurate descriptions of ego fights. The murder sequence was so detailed and realistic that the reader feels they actually witnessed or took part in it. I have a suspicion that Tolstoy didn't have a good marriage.
 
I'm trying really hard to read A Dance with Dragons, but it just doesn't seem to be happening. I don't find myself getting into that groove of wanting to read it, so much as feeling that I should be reading it. It's not that it's bad, but wow, I don't care about some of these characters he's focusing on so far in this one.
 
I've about a quarter of the way into Rowling's (under a pen name) new murder mystery. Thus far it's a bit meh.

It sold, what, 1,000 copies under the pen name? That whole situation left such a bad taste in my mouth. The only thing positive about it was that before they "outed" her, it was receiving positive reviews.



So, after my post yesterday, Travis and I started catching up on GoT season 3. Was enjoying watching it so much, I stayed up all night reading Dance with Dragons. I'm hooked in now. Maybe not as strongly as I was with the first four, but I'm finally a good chunk of the way in and the book is far more active. I just feel like

All of the stuff in the Free Cities is getting a touch ridiculous. Especially with Tyrion now running around with Jorah. It's not that I don't believe he could've run into him, I just don't quite yet see the purpose of having hm waylaid, only for him to get to exactly where he was aiming to go before (granted, staying with Griff, he never would have arrived in Mereen).

Anyways, I love this books series, I love these characters, I'm just anxious to arrive at the point in the book where we meet up with Feast For Crows characters again.
 
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