i really need a page turner and some sort of fun "goal" so I decided to read all the Vampire Chronicles books no matter how bad they get (I've read the first two before and loved em though I've heard plenty how they get really overwrought)
anyways, I had the don don in a similar way of "time travel is only cool for white people" that being a Vampire was only cool once like good lighting for night time was invented. Imagine being a vampire in the middle ages, there was fucking NOTHING to DO at night!!
[PEACE] [LOVE] [UNITY] [RESPECT] (stay posi)
You are a sacred being of light projected into reality for a purpose. Demand the right to your moment in this holographic gift with no rules, no borders, except for those you choose to accept and live by.
Without Labour there is no Rest; nor without Fighting can the Victory be Won ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
started exhalation by chiang, first time reading him. the first couple of stories had me a lil concerned that he was just doing philosophical thought experiments in a more literary form, but i'm onto the longer-form life cycle of software objects (the digients) and i'm definitely enjoying the lean, brisk prose.
Started reading Lincoln in the Bardo and just kept thinking sheeeeit Tony Soprano already did this.
OK at first I just kept thinking "Tony Soprano in the Bardo", but now that I'm a 1/3rd of the way through it's more like the experimental version of Spoon River Anthology, for better or worse. I just wanted to correct that point.
lincoln on the bardo was good, but it revealed just how much saunders flourishes in the short fiction format. when he tried to take a cool premise but spend several hundred pages on it, rather than like 30, he eventually started to wear thin, is my opinion
after david berman recommended it in final interviews. it's amazing to see the principles operating behind the writing of 'actual air' when you read it. there's a chapter called "the dialectics of outside and inside" and you understand where berman was coming from when he writes "when it snows the outdoors seem like a room"
"I myself consider literary documents as realities of the imagination, pure products of the imagination. And why should the actions of the imagination not be as real those of perception?" (Bachelard, Poetics of Space, pp. 176-177)
Finicums Wake wrote:lincoln on the bardo was good, but it revealed just how much saunders flourishes in the short fiction format. when he tried to take a cool premise but spend several hundred pages on it, rather than like 30, he eventually started to wear thin, is my opinion
About half way through now and I can get behind this sentiment, kind of dragging with just like laundry lists of spirit life. Beginning got me good because I have a son and am highly susceptible to that kind of stuff. Even if I don’t really see the point of it I like how it’s written, though how it’s marketed as an “experimental” novel seems a little pretentious.
Finicums Wake wrote:lincoln on the bardo was good, but it revealed just how much saunders flourishes in the short fiction format. when he tried to take a cool premise but spend several hundred pages on it, rather than like 30, he eventually started to wear thin, is my opinion
About half way through now and I can get behind this sentiment, kind of dragging with just like laundry lists of spirit life. Beginning got me good because I have a son and am highly susceptible to that kind of stuff. Even if I don’t really see the point of it I like how it’s written, though how it’s marketed as an “experimental” novel seems a little pretentious.
i didn't enjoy it that much either didn't finish it and was pretty stunned when it instantly entered the canon
i'll have to read earthsea next. i've had the collection for a while now. also have always coming home coming in the mail after hearing gary snyder praise it
I think there are like hardly any copies in the wild. I bought the third book (I have them in order here) and it came with the author's signature in it thanking someone as a friend. There are no e-books available so I think when this guy dies these books are just done. But they are really really good if the pitch of the series seems far fetched:
In Barlough’s fictional world the Ice Age never fully ended. With much of its north covered by ice and snow, medieval England sent its ships out around the world looking for new lands. Some of the most successful colonies were planted on the west coast of what we call North America. Devoid of people, it is instead home to great megafauna such as smilodons, megatheres, teratorns, and mammoths.
With great cities such as Salthead and Foghampton (located around the same places as Seattle and San Francisco), the western colonies flourished and expanded. Then, in 1839, terror struck from the heavens: “Then it was a great disaster struck, a tragedy of near-incomprehensible proportions.” Something crashed into the Earth, and almost instantly, all life except in the western colonies, was obliterated and the Ice Age intensified. Now, one hundred and fifty years later, the “the sole place on earth where lights still shine at night is in the west.
But somehow it really works. They are reallllllly cozy books but then they can have real shocking twists. The end of the second book was legitimately shocking and moving.
You are a sacred being of light projected into reality for a purpose. Demand the right to your moment in this holographic gift with no rules, no borders, except for those you choose to accept and live by.
Without Labour there is no Rest; nor without Fighting can the Victory be Won ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
tarantula wrote:the poetics of space, gaston bachelard
after david berman recommended it in final interviews. it's amazing to see the principles operating behind the writing of 'actual air' when you read it. there's a chapter called "the dialectics of outside and inside" and you understand where berman was coming from when he writes "when it snows the outdoors seem like a room"
"I myself consider literary documents as realities of the imagination, pure products of the imagination. And why should the actions of the imagination not be as real those of perception?" (Bachelard, Poetics of Space, pp. 176-177)
i started this book a few days ago - i had no idea Berman had recommended it!! it’s my first time reading anything in the realm of philosophy (really my first time venturing into anything outside of fiction/poetry) but it’s beautifully written. i’m not too far into it but the descriptions/references to one’s childhood home make me ache
I think they are worth reading in order, though I've only read the first 4. I think the second one is my favorite, but the first one does a good job setting up the world and why it's weird/interesting. The world building isn't as important to the 2nd book, aside from flavor, which is a weird thing about the series because the world building sort of ebbs and flows as being Important.
The only thing I'll say is that don't get attached to characters because each story is pretty self-contained and isn't about building up an overarching narrative (though I guess that slightly changes in the later books!) and is kind of just like different stories from the world rather than 1 story
[PEACE] [LOVE] [UNITY] [RESPECT] (stay posi)
You are a sacred being of light projected into reality for a purpose. Demand the right to your moment in this holographic gift with no rules, no borders, except for those you choose to accept and live by.
Without Labour there is no Rest; nor without Fighting can the Victory be Won ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
I finished The Interview with a Vampire today. I'm gonna read the whole series I think, I don't care how crazy and weird it gets. (I've read this and Vampire Lestate before)
But now I'm gonna read Voss which came in the mail recently
[PEACE] [LOVE] [UNITY] [RESPECT] (stay posi)
You are a sacred being of light projected into reality for a purpose. Demand the right to your moment in this holographic gift with no rules, no borders, except for those you choose to accept and live by.
Without Labour there is no Rest; nor without Fighting can the Victory be Won ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
covid ennui has me rereading old shit instead of being capable of experiencing anything new BUT continuing though the complete jg ballard short stories is the most rewarding shit
Slartisfgh is never mentioned in The Bible, but it is here, during one of the early battles, that Matthew spontaneously became liquid. Radiation trace: negligible
Kenny wrote:I finished The Interview with a Vampire today. I'm gonna read the whole series I think, I don't care how crazy and weird it gets. (I've read this and Vampire Lestate before)
But now I'm gonna read Voss which came in the mail recently
lol I legit wanted to reread this last summer but I didn't like how corny all of the paperbacks I found were (v much judge a book by its cover). actually almost bought a copy at an expat bookstore in berlin while pretty day drunk but instead I lost a 50€ note somewhere on the sidewalk nearby