Hahaha,I know what you mean. Why was this Character that does one thing in the entire novel not fleshed out for 20 pages? Goddamnit!

Nathaneil West - Miss Lonelyhearts

It's a short story bordering on novella, but I will never forget the midget.

I'm about halfway through DeLillo's Underworld, and I'm pretty much blown away by his language.

I think his dialogues are way too 'jumpy' to be really believable though, not because conversations can't be like that, but he uses it just about in every part of dialogue. That's probably my only gripe though.

Whoops, missed the talk about Gormenghast. Yeah, it's totally excellent, the characters in large part contributing to that. How was the character development hard to follow, though? They were complex, sure, but I didn't find things particularly hard to follow.

Flay, Prunesquallor, Fuchsia, Titus' father and Steerpike are all like real characters to me. Though Swelter is slightly unreal, the describtions og him are magnificient. Titus is the only one that is truly strange to me (only counting the first two books). Great stuff.

I wouldn't call Swelter 'unreal', he just gets a lot less time in the spotlight than the other characters. His character doesn't really develop beyond his quest for revenge because he's already an adult.

Is everyone ready for my bi-monthly Jack Vance worship? Alright here we go:

So I just finished The Brave Free Men last night. Stayed up waaaaaaay later than was appropriate but that book turned from "pretty good" to "holy fuck me" for the last 100-150 pages or so. It's so refreshing to see Vance write for a character who is still just a musician at heart, fumbling his way through solving a whole nation's problems. The Aun Sharah/Finnerack situation completely duped me, and then the introduction of the asutra as a complete alien force on Durdane changed the whole dynamic of the series. Not to mention I was just so god damn excited to see Ifness again. I can't wait to see where he goes with this, the scope of the story just got blown wide open.

Mostly been reading what's been assigned to me in school. Just finished "The Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac, a founder of beat culture. I was pretty indifferent towards the first two-thirds of the book, but the last third was grueling. I'll summarize his prose: "We walked on the trail. We saw a deer. We drank some wine." I wish I was kidding. Now we're on "Beloved" by Toni Morrison, a book that's been lauded on over the years especially by Oprah (because, you know, a black person wrote it). It is actually quite good, though. Very Faulknerian.

I picked up "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond a few days ago because I plan on using it as a source for a paper I'm writing. Very well written and informative, so far. Also nabbed "2666" by Roberto Bolano, a posthumous novel which is supposed to be pretty amazing.

Currently reading Molière's Le Misanthrope and after that I'll jump into La Peste by Albert Camus.

Yeah! Awesome..and things are about to get a lot darker. I was excited to see Ifness again too, but ...haha well, better not say anything else. Just let me know what you think of him once you finish the series.

Haha I'm prepared for the possibility that he's incredibly devious, and also treating Durdane like its some kind of science experiment. I just can't help but love his detached amusement at Etzwane's troubles. I'm ready for darker, definitely.

Yeah, the ending to "The Brave Free Men" was really depressing. Ifness's totally deadpan, uncaring way of telling Etzwane that his friend had been killed at the removal of the Asutra really shook me. "Oh, him? He's dead, of course." A pointless death robbed of all personal significance. As Abom said, get ready for more of that in the last one! It probably won't be what you're expecting, though. Still, I found it really really good, and a fitting end for the series. Pay attention because it's a little confusing at some points, but it's supposed to be confusing for Etzwane too.

Yeah that's what I love about it, how much Etzwane is still just grasping at straws. Finnerack and Etzwane confronting Aun Sharah with their list of charges has to be one of my new top 5 Vance-penned scenes. That dude so casually shut down every single accusation they threw at him with such poise and collection it was hilarious to me.

Not solely development, although in Swelter's case his turning completely insane and becoming enamoured with the tool of his revenge against Flay he eventually wandered far outside the realm of easily followable human logic. Titus' behaviour in the third book seemed arbitrary at times. The underlying reason behind his strangeness is obvious enough, but the things that triggered his tantrums and such always weren't to me. Hard to follow may be poor wording as the reasons behind each character's actions, no matter how silly, could be traced down to something, but the sheer magnitude of their responses to events and surroundings was more than perplexing sometimes.

It's not a negative aspect at all. It's only fitting that the characters are no more mundane than their surroundings.

Oh, Swelter didn't exactly go insane, he suffered a tremendous insult from someone he already didn't like and wanted revenge. Plus, he was introduced from the beginning as a drunk given to weird, grandiose ramblings.

As for the third book, I can see what you mean with that one. It's definitely rough around the edges and leaves a lot of questions unanswered, such as the identity of the two silent men who chase Titus throughout the book. Peake was struggling with Parkinson's at the time and was mentally and physically deteriorating. It wasn't ever really finished, and it's hard to know how he would have revised it had he been given the chance while in full command of his mental faculties. It was never supposed to be the end of the series, either, so who knows if later volumes would've cast Titus Alone in a new light.

I think his insanity became quite apparent in that ultimate duel between the two. I should read it again, but I recall him going to a fit of maddened soliloquy and ingoring the fact that

Well, yeah, he did get pretty damn obsessed with revenge, but at the same time he was a total drunk. I'm not sure his behavior is especially hard to understand, at least compared to other characters (like Lord Sepulchrave).

Yeah, Sepulchrave and that death owl shit. In his case, I just accepted that he was totally cuckoo . How did that happen again, that he went so completely insane? Depression hardly causes that.

Well, I think it was because the library had been his entire life. He was a morose person and reading all those books was the only thing he really enjoyed, and when it was abruptly destroyed he just snapped I guess.

Oh yes. It was Swelter's crazed, drunk speech to his apprentices ("a dash of prickling pepper!) in the second or third chapter that made me realise I just had to read this trilogy at all costs.



Yeah...I actually really enjoyed reading the third book, but it seemed delerious, unhinged almost. Although it wasn't all dark and drear or anything it felt a little bit like being inside a man's wild insanity.

You guys should read Peake's story "A Boy in Darkness". It's about TItus making a pilgrimage from Gormenghast as a young child and encountering more very strange things...sort of.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I really liked Titus Alone too. It had a lot of intensely memorable scenes, like the homeless community living under the river, and the mysterious and terrifying factory that Cheeta's father runs...it wasn't ever really revealed what went on there, but what you did find out was tantalizingly horrifying. The book just seemed to lack coherence, really, with the ending not being very satisfying. I think it was supposed to be a transitional book that depicted formative events in Titus's adolescence, and in the next book he'd be a more level-headed adult who had a better idea of what he wanted out of life. But who knows.

Oh yeah, that was it. It has been a while since I read it, I didn't even remember the library was burned.

I enjoyed the third book aswell, though it lacks the brilliant, poetic descriptions. What initially captivated me was the way he seemed to create paintings with words. He did not describe, in my opinion, in the way most fiction writers do, living scenarios and happenings, but still-life pictures.

I just read 2666 a couple weeks ago, it's cool, but I'm kinda ambivalent about it. The language is really, really, really great at places, and some very well fleshed-out characters, but you gotta realize, that it is five different stories at heart that (sometimes only vaguely) share a theme or two but has almost nothing to do with each other. Each one adds another layer or dimension to the theme.

It's a book I really look forward to delve into again - in half a year or so, maybe. But it's way worth reading for the language alone.

Aw, come on! I was just having fun. Okay, okay it was stupid and I take it back. I'm about halfway through the book and like I said up there, I think its really good. Apparently part II is supposed to be harder than "Blood Meridian". We'll see.



Yeah, I've heard about the several stories within the book and the infamous "About the Crimes" section. One thing's for sure, it probably won't be a boring read.

Finally finished Latro in the Mist, so glad. It was just too long, disjointed and filled with too many uninteresting characters that pop up too randomly.

I still recommend going with "Book of the New sun" series.

Now i am currently reading Nordic Gods and Heroes by Padraic Collum. Pretty sweet so far as it contains all the stories behind the gods and heroes like the building of the wall in Asgard, Thor receiving his hammer and Odin the Traveler. Very cool and reads pretty fast.

Also, still leafing through The Slayer Mag Diaries. This book is epic.

If you think there were a lot of uninteresting characters popping up randomly, you weren't paying attention. There aren't that many characters, most of them are just people Latro already met but has forgotten, introduced in a new context and giving him a different impression.

Yeah, i understand that, but i guess i meant to say unnecessary as well. I mean they had to have a glossary to help you remember who they were as well. I found myself referring back to it multiple times so i could see who they were again. maybe that was the whole point, i dunno. I only found few parts to be really cool, like when they went to resurrect the dead girl. The second book started out alright, but it really started to lag about half way in. I just could not get into it.

Like i said before, i have yet to find a sci-/fantasy novel that could rival The book of the New sun series. It was so original and unique with characters that you really get attached to. With Latro in the Mist i wasn't really sold on the character development and the story was just ok.

Currently re-reading To Kill A Mockingbird for English class. Also, just started on the Song of Fire And Ice series.

Anyone study deconstruction / post-modernism?

So far, I've read Derrida (Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences - http://hydra.humanities.uci.edu/derrida/sign-play.html) and Lyotard - Defining the Post Modern.

I sort of have my own take on what they're saying, but I know the school of thought is highly contested. Can anyone recommend some books that either support or attack post-modernism? If they are in favor of post-modernism, I would prefer source documents to work with and not "post modernism distiled" narrative bsaed books. It makes more sense for an attack to come after the school was established, so the retrospective view is fine in that case. I'd also love to hear your own thoughts on the matter.

I'm not an expert on post modernism, as it is a loaded subject, and my experience with it is somewhat limited, but Don DeLillo's White Noise is a superb novel. There's both intellectual and humorous devices used to critique consumerist culture and well, its just fantastic. Check it out.

Delillo's been on my reading radar for a while now (Bought a copy of Underworld just a few days ago). I'm no pomo connoisseur or anything, but I'm really interested in it. The only ones I've read are a few of Pynchon's novels, Infinite Jest, and to some extent, 2666. Currently, tackling on Gravity's Rainbow, and it's a gargantuan mindfuck to say the least. In fact, its so difficult I actually had to read half of my usual speed just to fully comprehend on what's happening on each page. To those who've finished it, I'd love to hear some thoughts on it.

I wrote a paper on DeLillo's Falling Man a few semesters ago. Fun stuff.

But I also have a nebulous grasp on pomo. It's a slippery, elusive subject.

Be aware, though, that Derrida is not a post-modernist, but a post-structuralist; whilst these schools of thought overlap, and have some very similar ideas, they're not quite the same. Sounds wankerish, I know, but it's important nonetheless.

There are too many subsections in the postmodern debate. A lot of it is strawmen arguments on both sides, especially in the debate of science and truth.

Myself, I feel that the importance of the text is over emphasized although i find discourse has its values in the right context.

Critical theory, poststructuralism and postmodernism are interchangable for the public and its opponents. One interesting notion is that these schools, generally thought as the same, are irrelevant in the real world or policy. What seems to be happening now is that poststructuralist scholars are being used by intelligence communities more often and the IDF, always the spear of military advancement it seems, to be using french theory in general.

http://roundtable.kein.org/files/roundt ... theory.pdf

http://roundtable.kein.org/files/roundt ... theory.pdf

Just goes to show that no idea is really irrelevant to the 'real world' (whatever that may be). I think, though, that the potential for theories to be used and abused in favour of so many different, conflicting interests makes it all the more important to become conversant with the concepts involved - the ability to deploy the terms of a theory to undermine its own nefarious manifestations is a useful skill in a world that sees, for example, repressive regimes use post-modernist critiques of universal values to challenge the legitimacy of global human rights treaties. As someone whose sympathies lie with both the left (whatever that means nowadays) and post-structuralism, critical theory, etc, it was hard for me to recognise that the 'battlelines' are not (if they ever were) between people who agree with these theories and those stereotypical fascist-imperialist conservatives who want to preserve old-fashioned notions of Truth and Identity in order to impose them on others. These days, megacorporations and militaries are often the most accomplished post-modernists (and even post-structuralists). One response amongst those who want to oppose these parties and their interests has been to abandon the whole 'post' enterprise and instead resurrect theories that allow for universal notions of truth, justice and the good. I don't know where I stand anymore, but I don't think we have to go that far - often, concepts from post-modernism and post-structuralism have been misrepresented and misappropriated by parties who use them to maintain their power, and we can use those same terms to challenge them being put to exploitative ends. Post-structuralism, for example, is not about abandoning truth, ethical responsibility or justice - just read Derrida's later works, for example, in which those last two themes especially become the key driving forces and ultimate goals of discourse.

Okay, way off topic for the lit thread. Returning to sortalikeadream's original query, I'd recommend you read Habermas. If you haven't heard of him already, which I suspect you would have, I'd point to him as one of the most profound, influential and strident critics of post-modernism (as well as of post-structuralism and associated movements in hermeneutics). His massive list of works consider the issues involved from many different angles, taking in not only metaphysics, the philosophy of language, hermeneutics, and epistemology, but also (especially in his later works) global politics (both theory and practice, as in his essays about global policy and the UN, human rights, etc), legal theory, and of course ethics. His influential debates with Gadamer (whose critique of the Enlightenment was very influential for later 'post' thinkers), Derrida and Rorty also provide a really good overview of some of the key perspectives and arguments on both sides; if any of them interest you, you could follow up on their work. Personally, I dislike Rorty's theories, but he does write about a lot of the issues in a very approachable way, and is pretty good at summarising much of the key literature. Check out 'Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature' and 'Contingency, Irony and Solidarity'; the latter is a pretty short introduction to major themes and has some interesting readings of Derrida, Habermas and novels (such as '1984' and 'Lolita') - just don't trust his interpretations of what those writers actually say, and be aware that he massively oversimplifies a lot of complex arguments.

Another interesting tidbit regarding pomo being used for nefarious purposes is the global warming debate. Indeed, climate change critics will use some familiar language in their criticism of the science as well as those who defend things such as astrology or palm readings.

I should've guessed this would be the wordiest thread on the forum.

But anyways, I bought a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories the other day. It's pretty good so far, though the casual racism gets a little distracting. Other than that, the guy really knew how to create a bleak, almost paranoia-inducing atmosphere, which is rare even for most good horror writers. So yeah, I'll definitely check out more.

Lovecraft rules, my friend; I'm always glad to see someone get into his stories, although it continues to amaze me that there are metalheads out there who haven't done so (considering how many bands reference him). Anyway... My favourite of his stories remains "The Rats in the Walls" - it was my introduction to his work, and the imagery (and aural descriptions, of course) remain with me to this day; everytime I hear a possum scratching around in my rafters, a little part of me freaks out. And no one put the world 'eldritch' to better use.

I read parts of Gravity's Rainbow for a class a couple of years ago. There's a really weird part about dragons or whatnot. I've heard that Pynchon has no recollection of writing that passage. (because he was high on LSD)

Have you read The Crying of Lot 69? That one is easier and way shorter than Gravity's Rainbow.