ABOUT THE GOTHS IN DISNEYLAND
"Things to do in Disneyland if you're goth:
1. carry a Cure lunchbox as a purse,
2. make devil horns whenever photographed.
3. insist you're "not really goth"."
ABOUT RADIOHEAD
"The dumbest guy in Radiohead is still smarter (by himself) than all three members of the Beastie Boys and two-fifths of the Strokes."
ABOUT CULTURAL BETRAYAL:
"If you really have integrity - if you truly live by your ideals, and those ideals dictate how you engage with the world at large - you will never feel betrayed by culture. You will simply enjoy culture more. You won't necessarily start watching syndicated episodes of Everybody loves Raymond, but you will find it interesting that certain people do. You won't suddenly agree that Amelie was a more emotive movie than Friday Night Lights, but you won't feel alienated and offended if every film critic you read tells you that it is."
ABOUT MUSIC CRITICS
"If you are the kind of person who talks about music too much, ther eare two words that undoubtedly play an integral role in your day-to-day lexicon: overrated and underrated."
ABOUT STEM CELL RESEARCH:
"These tissues are pockets of cells with specific functions and unique properties. I would like to assume these properties might include invisibility, bulletproof skin, the ability to verbally communicate with horses, immunity to static electricity, the ability to subsist solely on a diet of wood, self-cleaning hair, immortality, and an innate understanding of Jim Morrison's music and poetry."
Above are only a few of the many ...diverse viewpoints of Klosterman. I was dorkily shopping around the "indie" used bookstores in Berkeley when visiting and found this book, read the first page, and loved his gutsy style. Chuck is not only a pop culture expert and journalist of several magazines, but also a music, movie, and sports critic focusing mainly on the curious personalities of celebrities (and non celebrities). A master of all trades, seriously, and a compulsive writer, he brings what he sees in the world to you.
Just read the quotes above and you'll get a taste of his humor. I didn't read all of his articles because I don't know about some of these people (even though I felt like I should have), but I loved his advice and viewpoints on monogamy, cultural betrayal, the government, and many, many other topics. A critic by all means, but more of an opinionated know-it-all that helps you become more equipped to a) be less of an elitist pop-culture snob and b) delve deeper into the meaning of The Ashlee Simpson Show. Jumping from Lost to Radiohead to Batman to Steve Nash, Klosterman will astound you: not with this vast knowledge of seemingly everything media related, but rather the point and meaning of what we ignorantly clump into a mush of "media". If anything, his amusing daily journals will entertain you enough, even if you don't get his references: he spends a week eating Mcnuggets (which he calls "Mcdiculous") and 24 hours watching VH1 classics.
What is this book about? It's about everything you see and entertain yourself with. What every show, every track, every movie means and what it should mean and how you should interpret it. He doesn't force anything down your throat: quite the opposite, actually. He takes preconceived half-baked biases that you hold in what you think to be your trendy and politically correct viewpoint and rips it away from you. You're left standing there wondering what you really believe without people and phrases and ideals pushing on you what you think you should believe to be "cool". Vague enough? Read it yourself.
"Not a day would pass without somebody I knew turning out to be adopted or illegitimate, or to have mothers who were about to hare off with some bloke, or to have dead fathers and shabby stepfathers. What busy lives they led. How I envied their excuses for introspection, their ear-marked receptacles for every just antagonism and noble loyalty"
"Rachel seemed to be enjoying herself, rather than the reverse, but it was hardly the response I had been banking on. For instance, she hadn't grabbed my cock once."
"This may be bluffing, but I think that one of the dowdiest things about being young is the vague pressure you feel to be constantly subversive, to sneer at oldster evasions, to shun compromise, to seek the hard way out, when really you know that idealism is worse than useless without example and that you're no better. The teenager can normally detach his own behavior from his views on the behaviour of others."
If a week in the life of Holden Caulfield was entertainment for you, a day in the life of Charles Highway will be 10 times more raunchier, smarter, and cynical. Charles is one of the most notoriously believable adolesents to wander and lust his way through a few months of his life. It is a coming of age story, and while there is no "stream of consiousness" effect like Catcher in the Rye, it definitely has its own style.
In his pursuit for Rachel, a girl he met at a party, he tries to glorify and romanticize their relationship when they finally get together. His description of her: "She seemed physically smaller and emphasized this by playing dumb, deliberately mispronouncing long words - the whole routine", his environment, and basically any person that walks by him suffers a severe cynical analysis of their decidedly pathetic lives. Annoying and arrogant? Yes. Hilarious? Most definitely.
He plans meticulously to bag Rachel by planning every single move physically and intellectually. When she comes over he spends the whole day before thinking about which albums/LPs he wants to "display" trying to figure out what kind of girl she is and despaired over which art gallery to go to (he researched artists before he went and memorized what he was going to say about each painting before they went). Every time he went through this, Rachel would swart his plans with her genuine disinterest in his pretentious attempt to impress her. He slowly falls in love with her despite his woven net of intellectuality he uses as an analogy that surrounds his life. Because, even if Charles Highway is an ordinary 19 year old male looking for something to satisfy his raging hormones, he is extraordinarily smart. His daily routine consists of 6+ hours reading and the other time is spent having one night stands and writing "the Rachel Papers". Which makes this book an interesting read: on one hand, quite intellectual with all the authors he throws out in reference to his life, and quite adolescent with his description of his sex life. I think that it is also a cultural thing, in that the British, I'm sure, are much more open about sex.
At first I thought the guy was incredibly horrible in his misogynist antics, as if girls were machines that, if you found the right music, mood, art gallery, emotion all at the right time, they would spread their legs. He spent the better half of his relationship trying to act like someone he was not, a critic of everything and anything. But when she deflects his superficial attempts to please her, he actually does fall in love with her.
For literary buffs, Highway throws out a lot of famous authors (T.S. Eliot, anyone?) and describes his life in an esoteric manner as well: "Intense Consciousness of Being, pathetic fallacy plus omnipresent deja vu, cosmic angst, metaphysical fear, the teenager's religion." This was his description of his mood as he strolled around a park. In the end, however good he has it (brains and The Girl), all his knowledge of artists, musicians, and authors really just hinder him from his own point of view. What about him? What does he really like and want? As he pursues Rachel, he also pursues his own maturity in the realization that all his intellectuality amounts to nothing when it comes to being a person.
This book was amazingly smart, raunchy, and hilarious at the same time. Some of it is because of British humor, you know, the dry and open kind that would be considered dirty in the U.S. But most of it was because of Amis' writing, colorfully capturing a teenage mind complete with vulgarities and the hormones that rage through any adolescent boy. His intellectuality and intuition allows him to morph into any character is a double edged sword: while pleasing everyone else, he fails to find a purpose in his own life. The Rachel Papers is a refreshing break from the disillusion and despair so prominent in other postmodern reads. I will definitely check out Amis' other works.
"Rachel seemed to be enjoying herself, rather than the reverse, but it was hardly the response I had been banking on. For instance, she hadn't grabbed my cock once."
"This may be bluffing, but I think that one of the dowdiest things about being young is the vague pressure you feel to be constantly subversive, to sneer at oldster evasions, to shun compromise, to seek the hard way out, when really you know that idealism is worse than useless without example and that you're no better. The teenager can normally detach his own behavior from his views on the behaviour of others."
If a week in the life of Holden Caulfield was entertainment for you, a day in the life of Charles Highway will be 10 times more raunchier, smarter, and cynical. Charles is one of the most notoriously believable adolesents to wander and lust his way through a few months of his life. It is a coming of age story, and while there is no "stream of consiousness" effect like Catcher in the Rye, it definitely has its own style.
In his pursuit for Rachel, a girl he met at a party, he tries to glorify and romanticize their relationship when they finally get together. His description of her: "She seemed physically smaller and emphasized this by playing dumb, deliberately mispronouncing long words - the whole routine", his environment, and basically any person that walks by him suffers a severe cynical analysis of their decidedly pathetic lives. Annoying and arrogant? Yes. Hilarious? Most definitely.
He plans meticulously to bag Rachel by planning every single move physically and intellectually. When she comes over he spends the whole day before thinking about which albums/LPs he wants to "display" trying to figure out what kind of girl she is and despaired over which art gallery to go to (he researched artists before he went and memorized what he was going to say about each painting before they went). Every time he went through this, Rachel would swart his plans with her genuine disinterest in his pretentious attempt to impress her. He slowly falls in love with her despite his woven net of intellectuality he uses as an analogy that surrounds his life. Because, even if Charles Highway is an ordinary 19 year old male looking for something to satisfy his raging hormones, he is extraordinarily smart. His daily routine consists of 6+ hours reading and the other time is spent having one night stands and writing "the Rachel Papers". Which makes this book an interesting read: on one hand, quite intellectual with all the authors he throws out in reference to his life, and quite adolescent with his description of his sex life. I think that it is also a cultural thing, in that the British, I'm sure, are much more open about sex.
At first I thought the guy was incredibly horrible in his misogynist antics, as if girls were machines that, if you found the right music, mood, art gallery, emotion all at the right time, they would spread their legs. He spent the better half of his relationship trying to act like someone he was not, a critic of everything and anything. But when she deflects his superficial attempts to please her, he actually does fall in love with her.
For literary buffs, Highway throws out a lot of famous authors (T.S. Eliot, anyone?) and describes his life in an esoteric manner as well: "Intense Consciousness of Being, pathetic fallacy plus omnipresent deja vu, cosmic angst, metaphysical fear, the teenager's religion." This was his description of his mood as he strolled around a park. In the end, however good he has it (brains and The Girl), all his knowledge of artists, musicians, and authors really just hinder him from his own point of view. What about him? What does he really like and want? As he pursues Rachel, he also pursues his own maturity in the realization that all his intellectuality amounts to nothing when it comes to being a person.
This book was amazingly smart, raunchy, and hilarious at the same time. Some of it is because of British humor, you know, the dry and open kind that would be considered dirty in the U.S. But most of it was because of Amis' writing, colorfully capturing a teenage mind complete with vulgarities and the hormones that rage through any adolescent boy. His intellectuality and intuition allows him to morph into any character is a double edged sword: while pleasing everyone else, he fails to find a purpose in his own life. The Rachel Papers is a refreshing break from the disillusion and despair so prominent in other postmodern reads. I will definitely check out Amis' other works.
"The point was, it's not the sex part of pornography that hooked the stupid little boy. It was the confidence. THe Courage. The complete lack of shame. The comfort and genuine honesty."
"Women don't want equal rights. They have more power being oppressed. They need men to be the vast enemy conspiracy. Their whole identity is based on it."
"I mean, in a world without God, aren't mothers the new god? The Last sacred unassailable position. Isn't motherhood the last perfect magical miracle? But a miracle that is impossible for men."
Another Palahniuk book with the same recycled Palahniukisms. While I will admit there are some new perspectives that wanders in every now and then, the majority of the story seems like a mix of all his other books with a different gimmick. This book was especially graphic.
This story is about Victor Mancini. He makes his money by choking in high class restaurants and expecting people to save him. Like the Confucious saying, the person who saves your life is responsible for your entire life, his heroes continue mailing him birthday cards, money, and letters of concern. It's a small price to pay for his mother's stay at a hospital, barely hanging on to life. From a disruptive childhood because of his psychotic mother trying to pry him away from his foster families (going from code words in malls on the intercom to escape from his foster family to kidnapping him during school) his perspective and outlook on life is rather bleak and pathetic. While he hates his mother for a paranoia and lack of love he never got from his parents, his mother is all he has. And she doesn't even remember him because of mild amnesia/senilism, etc.
Victor, a failed med-school student, also happens to be a sex addict and his job is to be an actor as part of the 19th century colonial times. The job is insufferable, and his friend Denny is just as pathetic and if not more disgusting than Victor. They wear uncomfortable costumes to please bratty kids and bossy parents. While the plot isn't entirely clear to me, his main goal is to find out what his mother really thinks of him by making her doctor translate the Italian diary. Unfortunatnelty, that comes to no real value, and somehow, in order to save his mother, he must have sex with the doctor herself. Don't ask me how that works, it's a Palahniuk book. Weird scenarios. Funnily enough, he actually likes the doctor and feels that sex would defile and trivialize the relationship ("I just want to be somebody's guardian angel"). Near the end of the book, he thankfully matures into enough of a human being to grasp an ounce of reality he's been numb to and approach his problems.
The book, as fragmented and crazy as it was, did really highlight the social commentary of the self-imposed oppression of women. Palanhiuk is not exactly countering feminism, but advocating for the down-trodden men. As he stated, "A male chauvinist pig isn't born, he's made. How many times can everybodty tell you that you're the oppressive, prejudiced enemy before you give up and become the enemy?" It's an interesting perspective, especially applicable in society today when women are becoming more and more powerful. While they become more powerful, they still use the excuse that men are naturally oppressive, giving them perhaps an excessive amount of power they don't deserve.
Not the best I've read, but perhaps it requires a second reading. I've realized Palahniuk isn't as deep as people think he is; he just writes in a very esoteric and catchy, rebellious way that attracts a lot of people to him. His ideas are innovative, but he tends to just keep building on the same idea for all of his books. Don't get me wrong though, they're all catchy and memorable scenarios that people will always talk about in hush-hush tones: "Hey did you ever read this book about a sex addict who chokes on food to earn money....?" will always serve as a great ice breaker.
"This book is about four individuals who pursued the American Dream, and the results of their pursuit. they did not know the difference between the Vision in their hearts and the illusion of the American Dream. In pursuing the lie of illusion, they made it impossible to xperience the truth of their Vision. as a result everything of value was lost.
Unfortunately, I suspect there never will be a requiem for the Dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn its passing. Perhaps time will prove me wrong. As Mr. Hemingway said: "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
-Selby.
Selby sums up the intent of the whole book in that quote included in the foreward. A rather pessimistic view of the American Dream, isn't it?
This tragic story of Sara Goldfarb, her son Harry and his friends Marion and Tyrone encompass the intent to achieve the American Dream. From the moment it starts everyone and everything is in denial of reality. Sara Goldfarb, overweight, overaged, is parked in front of the TV, wooed away from her drab reality through soap operas and game shows. When she gets spam mail of the possibility of her appearance on a game show, she seeks a doctor to help her lose weight within a month to fit in a red dress and gold shoes. Her son Harry and his girlfriend Marion find a quick way to buy cheap heroin and make money off of it. As drug sellers only, they don't use it themselves. At least for the first half of the book...
What makes this book so good is the tragedy of these characters. You see them suffer through the most ridiculous denials, yet you identify with their struggles to achieve whatever unrealisticdream they have. Anyone can identify with that; who hasn't had unrealistic expectations to lose weight, who doesn't dream of owning their own business? All of the things they do, no matter how pathetic, low, dirty, is all done for this bright and shiny future. They strive for it, just like you and I: a horribly delayed gratification. I read this foreward by a person from Brooklyn who claims the depiction of the Coney island is so real, so pathetic that he couldn't finish the book. Having not come from this type of background, I can only imagine the helplessness, the addiction that consumes any addict: whether it be to diet pills, heroin, or the illusion of the American Dream. The indignities, the suffering, the injustice of these pawns of the Dream really get to you and you are left with a weight of sadness that lingers even after you have finished it long ago. This is also my last drug book for awhile... been watching The Wire, Trainspotting, and having finished Trainspotting and Requiem, enough is enough. Life is just too bleak in these addicts' lives.
Unfortunately, I suspect there never will be a requiem for the Dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn its passing. Perhaps time will prove me wrong. As Mr. Hemingway said: "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
-Selby.
Selby sums up the intent of the whole book in that quote included in the foreward. A rather pessimistic view of the American Dream, isn't it?
This tragic story of Sara Goldfarb, her son Harry and his friends Marion and Tyrone encompass the intent to achieve the American Dream. From the moment it starts everyone and everything is in denial of reality. Sara Goldfarb, overweight, overaged, is parked in front of the TV, wooed away from her drab reality through soap operas and game shows. When she gets spam mail of the possibility of her appearance on a game show, she seeks a doctor to help her lose weight within a month to fit in a red dress and gold shoes. Her son Harry and his girlfriend Marion find a quick way to buy cheap heroin and make money off of it. As drug sellers only, they don't use it themselves. At least for the first half of the book...
What makes this book so good is the tragedy of these characters. You see them suffer through the most ridiculous denials, yet you identify with their struggles to achieve whatever unrealisticdream they have. Anyone can identify with that; who hasn't had unrealistic expectations to lose weight, who doesn't dream of owning their own business? All of the things they do, no matter how pathetic, low, dirty, is all done for this bright and shiny future. They strive for it, just like you and I: a horribly delayed gratification. I read this foreward by a person from Brooklyn who claims the depiction of the Coney island is so real, so pathetic that he couldn't finish the book. Having not come from this type of background, I can only imagine the helplessness, the addiction that consumes any addict: whether it be to diet pills, heroin, or the illusion of the American Dream. The indignities, the suffering, the injustice of these pawns of the Dream really get to you and you are left with a weight of sadness that lingers even after you have finished it long ago. This is also my last drug book for awhile... been watching The Wire, Trainspotting, and having finished Trainspotting and Requiem, enough is enough. Life is just too bleak in these addicts' lives.
"Perhaps Ammu, Estha, and she were the worst transgressors. But it wasn't just them. It was the others too. They all broke the rules. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much."
"Ammu loved her children (of course), but their wide-eyed vulnerability and their willingness to love people who didn't really love them exasperated her a nd sometimes made her want to hurt them - just as an education, a protection."
"Silence filled the car like a saturated sponge. "Washed-up" cut like a knife through a soft thing. The sun shone with a shuddering sigh. This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt."
The God of Small Things is the story of an Indian family and the forces of ancient history that rips them apart, chews them up, and spits them back out. A rather depressing but beautiful book, it rightfully won the booker prize. Roy is also an extremely political writer, so it was also a social commentary on the caste system and colonialism in India.
Like the Poisonwood Bible, the God of Small Things includes a lot clashing of social and religious boundaries symbolized in the strife of Rahel and Esta's family. Born as twins, they have an uncanny ability to telepathically connect with each other, and often the forces antagonistic towards them separates them. The story is not told in chronological order, rather, it jumps around from present to past to show the fragmentation of Esta and Rahel's lives. Their mother, a rare gem in much of Kerala, is stuck between choosing the "cost of living" and suffering the societal consequences that comes with her status as a divorced love-marriage or forcing herself to remain forever scorned in the face of the disapproving community. It's the classic scenario of a divorced woman being subtly scorned by her perfect neighbors: what really sucks about it is that you can't do anything without being criticized for it. It's even more critical that the neighbors, or in Roy's case, the family, is hypocritical in the breaking of the "love laws" that bind them as well. The Love Laws basically pertains to the caste system inherent in society in even modern India (and doesn't it really exist everywhere?) upper class marries upper class, lower class marries lower class. A damaged woman of quirky twins moving to lower class out of love is just despicable and unacceptable.
The childlike clumping of words adds a new kind of postmodern style that is actually not that uncommon in books these days. It adds a new layer to the text itself when you see words manipulated: the word "never" is really just the two words "not" and "ever" combined or when esta and rahel pronounce words over and over again so the text represents their pronunciation. It's nothing new, but people like to gaggle over it. And yeah it does add an extra layer to the book in that you are reminded of the innocence of these children suffering through the consequences of their elders.
I really liked the book in that it was very personable and evoked a lot of emotion just because the narrators are kids. The incidents that occur in the book are unfair and you just want to correct all the wrongs inflicted on the pure kids and Velutha the scapegoat. But that's not how the world works, and Arundhati Roy really paints reality in that way. Life is just consequences and irresponsibility... it's the cost of living.
"Ammu loved her children (of course), but their wide-eyed vulnerability and their willingness to love people who didn't really love them exasperated her a nd sometimes made her want to hurt them - just as an education, a protection."
"Silence filled the car like a saturated sponge. "Washed-up" cut like a knife through a soft thing. The sun shone with a shuddering sigh. This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt."
The God of Small Things is the story of an Indian family and the forces of ancient history that rips them apart, chews them up, and spits them back out. A rather depressing but beautiful book, it rightfully won the booker prize. Roy is also an extremely political writer, so it was also a social commentary on the caste system and colonialism in India.
Like the Poisonwood Bible, the God of Small Things includes a lot clashing of social and religious boundaries symbolized in the strife of Rahel and Esta's family. Born as twins, they have an uncanny ability to telepathically connect with each other, and often the forces antagonistic towards them separates them. The story is not told in chronological order, rather, it jumps around from present to past to show the fragmentation of Esta and Rahel's lives. Their mother, a rare gem in much of Kerala, is stuck between choosing the "cost of living" and suffering the societal consequences that comes with her status as a divorced love-marriage or forcing herself to remain forever scorned in the face of the disapproving community. It's the classic scenario of a divorced woman being subtly scorned by her perfect neighbors: what really sucks about it is that you can't do anything without being criticized for it. It's even more critical that the neighbors, or in Roy's case, the family, is hypocritical in the breaking of the "love laws" that bind them as well. The Love Laws basically pertains to the caste system inherent in society in even modern India (and doesn't it really exist everywhere?) upper class marries upper class, lower class marries lower class. A damaged woman of quirky twins moving to lower class out of love is just despicable and unacceptable.
The childlike clumping of words adds a new kind of postmodern style that is actually not that uncommon in books these days. It adds a new layer to the text itself when you see words manipulated: the word "never" is really just the two words "not" and "ever" combined or when esta and rahel pronounce words over and over again so the text represents their pronunciation. It's nothing new, but people like to gaggle over it. And yeah it does add an extra layer to the book in that you are reminded of the innocence of these children suffering through the consequences of their elders.
I really liked the book in that it was very personable and evoked a lot of emotion just because the narrators are kids. The incidents that occur in the book are unfair and you just want to correct all the wrongs inflicted on the pure kids and Velutha the scapegoat. But that's not how the world works, and Arundhati Roy really paints reality in that way. Life is just consequences and irresponsibility... it's the cost of living.
"The Cult sensation that hit UK" = pretty much worth all the hype. Apparently it was rejected for the Booker prize because it offended some feminists.
Beautiful, nasty, hard-to-read sinful quotes:
"Ah take some more crass humiliation for what seems like an eternity. Ah get through it nae bother though. Ah love nothing (except junk), ah hate nothing (except forces that prevent me getting any) and ah fear nothing (except not scoring)."
"Who's the best fuck? why me, of course. I might even find something at the club. Three groups; women, straight guys and gay guys. The gay guys are cruising the straight guys who are club bouncer types with huge biceps and beer guts. The straight guys are crusing women, who are into the lithe, fit buftie boys. No basthurd actually getsh what they want."
"Underpinning them was the belief that the grim reality of empending death can bet alked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. I didnt' believe that at the time, but now I do . By definition, you have to live until you die. better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be."
"It's nae good blamin it oan the English fir colonising us. Ah don't hate the English. They're just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We can't even pick a decent, vibrant, healthy culture to be colonised by. No. we're ruled by effete arseholes. What does this make us? The lowest of the fuckin low, the scum of the earth."
"Life's boring and futile. We start oaf wi high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we're aw gaunnae die, withoot really findin oot the big answers. We develop aw they long-winded ideas which juist interpret the reality ay oor lives in different weys, withoot really extending oor body ay worthwhile knowledge, about the big things, the real things. basically, we live a short, disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up oor lives wi shite, things like careers and relationships tae delude oorsels that it isnae aw totally pointless. Smack's an honest drug, because it strips away these delusions. Wi smack, whin ye feel good, ye feel immortal. Whin ye feel bad, it intesified the shite that's already thair. It's the only really honest drug. It doesnae alter yir consciousness. It just gies ye a hit and a sense ay well-being. Eftir that, ye see the misery at the world as it is, and ye cannae anaesthetise yirsel against it."
Not for the weak hearted, especially if you can't take cussing, graphic detailed sex, drug abuse, disgusting bodily functions, and any sin you can really think of. If you can get past all that and the Scottish pronunciation of the words then you'll enjoy this book of a group of junkies and mess-ups through their lives as alcoholics, HIV positives, drug abusers, thieves, womanizers, punks, etc. How can anyone sympathize with these ruffians we avoid contact with on a daily basis? It's easy. We are fascinated with the ugly truth of the scum of Scotland, just as we are fascinated with the idea of hitting rock-bottom in Fight Club.
Each member of the group has a vice, or is going to be drawn into one by one of their friends. It's interesting that while we all as readers consider each one of these people as screwups, they each think of themselves in a "better place in life" than everyone else: Begbie is a horrible alcoholic but thinks he is better than heroin users, Sick Boy is clean but a sleazy womanizer, Tommy is clean but starts using when he breaks up with his girlfriend, Spud is the stereotypical doofus who gets constantly gets taken advantage of ('scoobied'), and Mitchell, who is HIV positive and seemingly normal until you learn about his revenge plan. Unlike the movie, the book encompasses the lives of Renton's entire group, not just Renton himself. The book presents such a mashed up, fragmented view of all their lives that I was often confused whose story it was (wikipedia for the win). Welsh starts each chapter in the middle of an event, with no introductions, no obvious direction of who is speaking, where they are... or maybe I'm just a terrible reader. I watched the movie first and then read the book, so I had an idea who was who. If it weren't for that, I would have been horribbly lost.
I cannae even summarize the book properly because of all the subplots. I don't think I can even name the main characters. There were whole chapters where I did not know who was speaking. And this confusion comes a little from the rough scottish pronunciation and slang but I think Welsh meant to confuse the readers on purpose. A druggie never really has a good sense of time anyway. I eventually got used to this chaos, even though I would put it down for a week or two and come back to it. Don't be intimidated by it!
I liked the book, as confusing and disorienting as it was. Everyone had interesting insights, even when it seemed like they were just trying to justify their actions. There are some pretty disgusting parts, but hey, every book needs that grotesque factor to drag the reader in. It shows how low some of these people will go to fund their bad habits. As the quotes above show, they show a little insight to their miserable scummy lives and why they do what they do. I thought it was very fight clubesque, in that doing smack just gives you more truth, gives you a reason to live through the illusion of society, capitalism, etc. More disillusionment of civilization. Some of their opinions of how Scotland is run is quite amusing. Offensive, but amusing.
Despite these rough characters, there are definetly tender moments. You wouldn't think so with all the casual sex and using, but there are genuine moments when Renton tries to get off heroin for good, when people die, and most of all, their guilt for getting their friends involved in drugs. It's all very real. And it's no' a buttered up book or romanticized version of what drugs do to you. It's ugly, offensive, in your face, and it definetley will not get you hooked on drugs - perhaps even encourage you never to try them. I think we need more authors that gross us out so we can stop being "stuck up Victorian prudes" as one of my teacher likes to say about Americans. And I learned a lot about drug using. In a good, avoid-sharing-needles kind of way.
I don't know what to say about the ending: it was ambiguous and left me wanting more (PORNO, anyone?). I thought it was cute that Welsh included a dictionary/translation of some of the Scottish slang. I had fun reading stuff out loud. In the end.... I think I need a second read to grasp all the subtleties and insanity of it.
Beautiful, nasty, hard-to-read sinful quotes:
"Ah take some more crass humiliation for what seems like an eternity. Ah get through it nae bother though. Ah love nothing (except junk), ah hate nothing (except forces that prevent me getting any) and ah fear nothing (except not scoring)."
"Who's the best fuck? why me, of course. I might even find something at the club. Three groups; women, straight guys and gay guys. The gay guys are cruising the straight guys who are club bouncer types with huge biceps and beer guts. The straight guys are crusing women, who are into the lithe, fit buftie boys. No basthurd actually getsh what they want."
"Underpinning them was the belief that the grim reality of empending death can bet alked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. I didnt' believe that at the time, but now I do . By definition, you have to live until you die. better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be."
"It's nae good blamin it oan the English fir colonising us. Ah don't hate the English. They're just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We can't even pick a decent, vibrant, healthy culture to be colonised by. No. we're ruled by effete arseholes. What does this make us? The lowest of the fuckin low, the scum of the earth."
"Life's boring and futile. We start oaf wi high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we're aw gaunnae die, withoot really findin oot the big answers. We develop aw they long-winded ideas which juist interpret the reality ay oor lives in different weys, withoot really extending oor body ay worthwhile knowledge, about the big things, the real things. basically, we live a short, disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up oor lives wi shite, things like careers and relationships tae delude oorsels that it isnae aw totally pointless. Smack's an honest drug, because it strips away these delusions. Wi smack, whin ye feel good, ye feel immortal. Whin ye feel bad, it intesified the shite that's already thair. It's the only really honest drug. It doesnae alter yir consciousness. It just gies ye a hit and a sense ay well-being. Eftir that, ye see the misery at the world as it is, and ye cannae anaesthetise yirsel against it."
Not for the weak hearted, especially if you can't take cussing, graphic detailed sex, drug abuse, disgusting bodily functions, and any sin you can really think of. If you can get past all that and the Scottish pronunciation of the words then you'll enjoy this book of a group of junkies and mess-ups through their lives as alcoholics, HIV positives, drug abusers, thieves, womanizers, punks, etc. How can anyone sympathize with these ruffians we avoid contact with on a daily basis? It's easy. We are fascinated with the ugly truth of the scum of Scotland, just as we are fascinated with the idea of hitting rock-bottom in Fight Club.
Each member of the group has a vice, or is going to be drawn into one by one of their friends. It's interesting that while we all as readers consider each one of these people as screwups, they each think of themselves in a "better place in life" than everyone else: Begbie is a horrible alcoholic but thinks he is better than heroin users, Sick Boy is clean but a sleazy womanizer, Tommy is clean but starts using when he breaks up with his girlfriend, Spud is the stereotypical doofus who gets constantly gets taken advantage of ('scoobied'), and Mitchell, who is HIV positive and seemingly normal until you learn about his revenge plan. Unlike the movie, the book encompasses the lives of Renton's entire group, not just Renton himself. The book presents such a mashed up, fragmented view of all their lives that I was often confused whose story it was (wikipedia for the win). Welsh starts each chapter in the middle of an event, with no introductions, no obvious direction of who is speaking, where they are... or maybe I'm just a terrible reader. I watched the movie first and then read the book, so I had an idea who was who. If it weren't for that, I would have been horribbly lost.
I cannae even summarize the book properly because of all the subplots. I don't think I can even name the main characters. There were whole chapters where I did not know who was speaking. And this confusion comes a little from the rough scottish pronunciation and slang but I think Welsh meant to confuse the readers on purpose. A druggie never really has a good sense of time anyway. I eventually got used to this chaos, even though I would put it down for a week or two and come back to it. Don't be intimidated by it!
I liked the book, as confusing and disorienting as it was. Everyone had interesting insights, even when it seemed like they were just trying to justify their actions. There are some pretty disgusting parts, but hey, every book needs that grotesque factor to drag the reader in. It shows how low some of these people will go to fund their bad habits. As the quotes above show, they show a little insight to their miserable scummy lives and why they do what they do. I thought it was very fight clubesque, in that doing smack just gives you more truth, gives you a reason to live through the illusion of society, capitalism, etc. More disillusionment of civilization. Some of their opinions of how Scotland is run is quite amusing. Offensive, but amusing.
Despite these rough characters, there are definetly tender moments. You wouldn't think so with all the casual sex and using, but there are genuine moments when Renton tries to get off heroin for good, when people die, and most of all, their guilt for getting their friends involved in drugs. It's all very real. And it's no' a buttered up book or romanticized version of what drugs do to you. It's ugly, offensive, in your face, and it definetley will not get you hooked on drugs - perhaps even encourage you never to try them. I think we need more authors that gross us out so we can stop being "stuck up Victorian prudes" as one of my teacher likes to say about Americans. And I learned a lot about drug using. In a good, avoid-sharing-needles kind of way.
I don't know what to say about the ending: it was ambiguous and left me wanting more (PORNO, anyone?). I thought it was cute that Welsh included a dictionary/translation of some of the Scottish slang. I had fun reading stuff out loud. In the end.... I think I need a second read to grasp all the subtleties and insanity of it.
"The conquest of the eart, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightyl flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only."
"It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be. it is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset."
"The best way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second or two, I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth"
Heart of Darkness, is a school book that I forced myself to read. It is about the journey of Marlow into the "heart of darkness" which serves really as an allegory of white imperialism in the Congo. Exceedingly dense in context, it is the perfect book for analyzing symbolism, narrative technique, allegory, etc. It's a classic, so obviously it presents itself for lots and lots of soul searching and whatnot.
The story parallels Dante's Inferno and based off of The Hollow Men (or the other way around). From that, one can imagine the bleak and depressing setting the book takes place in. At face value the book is simply of Marlow's journey to the Inner Station to find Kurtz, who had gone "savage" and needed to be taken back to civilization. At a deeper level, it's all about the values of civilization and to what extent it should be forced on others. Arguably a racist book, Conrad explores the "ugly kinship" between black and white as well as civilization to primitive pre-literate societies. Cleverly, he has Marlow narrate it so nobody can really for sure point the finger at him for being a racist.
I liked the book at first; it was full of imagery and eloquent language. But it got boring because everything was so subtle that the events that happened in the book blurred together. I read the book and seriously could not remember some of the points along his journey that were supposedly important. I felt it was highly inaccessible the first time through. I only truly appreciated it for what it was after three weeks of analysis and putting together missing pieces.
"It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be. it is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset."
"The best way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second or two, I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth"
Heart of Darkness, is a school book that I forced myself to read. It is about the journey of Marlow into the "heart of darkness" which serves really as an allegory of white imperialism in the Congo. Exceedingly dense in context, it is the perfect book for analyzing symbolism, narrative technique, allegory, etc. It's a classic, so obviously it presents itself for lots and lots of soul searching and whatnot.
The story parallels Dante's Inferno and based off of The Hollow Men (or the other way around). From that, one can imagine the bleak and depressing setting the book takes place in. At face value the book is simply of Marlow's journey to the Inner Station to find Kurtz, who had gone "savage" and needed to be taken back to civilization. At a deeper level, it's all about the values of civilization and to what extent it should be forced on others. Arguably a racist book, Conrad explores the "ugly kinship" between black and white as well as civilization to primitive pre-literate societies. Cleverly, he has Marlow narrate it so nobody can really for sure point the finger at him for being a racist.
I liked the book at first; it was full of imagery and eloquent language. But it got boring because everything was so subtle that the events that happened in the book blurred together. I read the book and seriously could not remember some of the points along his journey that were supposedly important. I felt it was highly inaccessible the first time through. I only truly appreciated it for what it was after three weeks of analysis and putting together missing pieces.
"'Who? Who does not take you seriously?' his father wanted to know, lifting his fingers from his plate, looking up at him.
'People,' he said, lying to his parents. For his father had a point; the only person who didn't take Gogol seriously, the only person who tormented him, the only person chronically aware of and afflicted by the embarrassment of his name, the only person who constantly questioned it and wished it were otherwise, was Gogol."
"In so many ways, his family's life feels like a string of accidents, unforeseen, unintended, one incident begetting another. It had started with his father's train wreck, paralyzing him at first, later inspiring him to move as far as possible, to make a new life on the other side of the world. They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end."
Gogol Ganguli, born to Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli, is a typical American teenager. Ignoring his parent's increasing worry of him becoming someone foreign to him, his independence as an American that comes with the inevitability of growing up in the US, annoys Gogol and pushes him increasingly far away from them. The book starts with Ashima and Ashoke's first few days in America, beautifully illustrating their insecurity and fear of being in a foreign country where they know no one. At Ashima's pregnancy with Gogol, she awaits for her great-grandmother's letter that will name Gogol, but it never comes. They are forced to give him a "pet name", waiting for his "real name" to show up in the mail. His father names him after a Russian writer who had saved his life in a train wreck, but Gogol never knows this. Instead, he grows up hating the absurdity of his name, hating that his teachers can never pronounce it, that it will never be said sexily from the lips of a girl, and resolves to change it when he enters college.
Gogol is not the stereotypical Indian who becomes an engineer or a doctor, nerdily studying from books his entire life. Instead Lahiri writes him as a genuine, personable human being. In high school, he has American friends, dislikes his parents' meddling, and is actually sort of popular. I was relieved because of this: that she did not depend on the Indian stereotype to fill out her character. He is actually quite charming, considering he dates these intelligent, sexy girls who drink wine every night and know how to cook and eat exquisite meals and listen to French music.
The rest of the book details his life as he grows older, showing his increasing dislike for where he came from, the happiness of his freedom from his parents when he leaves for college and beyond. His freedom is something we can all understand, the final break from our parents to become adults, as if physically separating from them instantly matures you. His love affairs with beautiful, smart girls open a little part of him each time, showing that as much as he hated being forced into Bengali parties and influences, it is a part of him. His displacement in the U.S. is paralleled by having a Russian name as a Bengali Indian. And really, that's what the whole book is about: guilt of changing his true name to another one. It's a cultural thing as well I think, the name for Indians is something more important than just a label; it has to do with who you are: identity, soul.
The farther he gets away from his parents, the more frustrated he becomes with his loyalty to his parents and the fact that they will never experience the joys and freedom America offers. For example, at a vacation spot with his girlfriend in New Hampshire, Gogol is frustrated that his parents will never appreciate, can never learn to appreciate enough to spoil themselves to enjoy themselves like he is at the moment. The point is, even if he is happy himself, he is forever annoyed that his parents will never be happy like him. But the question remains; is he really happy from his escape away from them, and who is he to say that his parents are not happy? Only through a family tragedy does he go back home to his mother, and thoroughly search his feelings of family bonds, and most of all, his namesake.
It's a very hollywood-esque book, in that it will make a good movie. And I'm sure it did. The Namesake reminded me of Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone, in which the author outlines the entirety of the main character's life. It's a fluffy book, but Lahiri writes really well and it kept me interested/distracted enough to finish it. I also like the way Lahiri did not over dramatize the Ganguli's feelings of displacement in America. The way she writes about it is very real and genuine; the parents aren't hardcore traditionalists who beat their children, nor have they sold out to American culture. They try to compromise themselves and find a middle ground: something that all immigrant families can relate to.
All in all it's a good read when you can't find a good book to read. It wasn't exactly captivating, but reading about someone else's life and waiting for that happy ending isn't always such a bad thing. I was skeptical at first because of the cliche and overly done use of cultural identity crisis, but it really wasn't that way at all. Her work brings back the traditional storytelling filled with good writing and imagery and good ole' character development, going back to what makes a good fiction story. While not ground breaking, it's a good break from all the weird contemporary fiction going on out there.
'People,' he said, lying to his parents. For his father had a point; the only person who didn't take Gogol seriously, the only person who tormented him, the only person chronically aware of and afflicted by the embarrassment of his name, the only person who constantly questioned it and wished it were otherwise, was Gogol."
"In so many ways, his family's life feels like a string of accidents, unforeseen, unintended, one incident begetting another. It had started with his father's train wreck, paralyzing him at first, later inspiring him to move as far as possible, to make a new life on the other side of the world. They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end."
Gogol Ganguli, born to Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli, is a typical American teenager. Ignoring his parent's increasing worry of him becoming someone foreign to him, his independence as an American that comes with the inevitability of growing up in the US, annoys Gogol and pushes him increasingly far away from them. The book starts with Ashima and Ashoke's first few days in America, beautifully illustrating their insecurity and fear of being in a foreign country where they know no one. At Ashima's pregnancy with Gogol, she awaits for her great-grandmother's letter that will name Gogol, but it never comes. They are forced to give him a "pet name", waiting for his "real name" to show up in the mail. His father names him after a Russian writer who had saved his life in a train wreck, but Gogol never knows this. Instead, he grows up hating the absurdity of his name, hating that his teachers can never pronounce it, that it will never be said sexily from the lips of a girl, and resolves to change it when he enters college.
Gogol is not the stereotypical Indian who becomes an engineer or a doctor, nerdily studying from books his entire life. Instead Lahiri writes him as a genuine, personable human being. In high school, he has American friends, dislikes his parents' meddling, and is actually sort of popular. I was relieved because of this: that she did not depend on the Indian stereotype to fill out her character. He is actually quite charming, considering he dates these intelligent, sexy girls who drink wine every night and know how to cook and eat exquisite meals and listen to French music.
The rest of the book details his life as he grows older, showing his increasing dislike for where he came from, the happiness of his freedom from his parents when he leaves for college and beyond. His freedom is something we can all understand, the final break from our parents to become adults, as if physically separating from them instantly matures you. His love affairs with beautiful, smart girls open a little part of him each time, showing that as much as he hated being forced into Bengali parties and influences, it is a part of him. His displacement in the U.S. is paralleled by having a Russian name as a Bengali Indian. And really, that's what the whole book is about: guilt of changing his true name to another one. It's a cultural thing as well I think, the name for Indians is something more important than just a label; it has to do with who you are: identity, soul.
The farther he gets away from his parents, the more frustrated he becomes with his loyalty to his parents and the fact that they will never experience the joys and freedom America offers. For example, at a vacation spot with his girlfriend in New Hampshire, Gogol is frustrated that his parents will never appreciate, can never learn to appreciate enough to spoil themselves to enjoy themselves like he is at the moment. The point is, even if he is happy himself, he is forever annoyed that his parents will never be happy like him. But the question remains; is he really happy from his escape away from them, and who is he to say that his parents are not happy? Only through a family tragedy does he go back home to his mother, and thoroughly search his feelings of family bonds, and most of all, his namesake.
It's a very hollywood-esque book, in that it will make a good movie. And I'm sure it did. The Namesake reminded me of Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone, in which the author outlines the entirety of the main character's life. It's a fluffy book, but Lahiri writes really well and it kept me interested/distracted enough to finish it. I also like the way Lahiri did not over dramatize the Ganguli's feelings of displacement in America. The way she writes about it is very real and genuine; the parents aren't hardcore traditionalists who beat their children, nor have they sold out to American culture. They try to compromise themselves and find a middle ground: something that all immigrant families can relate to.
All in all it's a good read when you can't find a good book to read. It wasn't exactly captivating, but reading about someone else's life and waiting for that happy ending isn't always such a bad thing. I was skeptical at first because of the cliche and overly done use of cultural identity crisis, but it really wasn't that way at all. Her work brings back the traditional storytelling filled with good writing and imagery and good ole' character development, going back to what makes a good fiction story. While not ground breaking, it's a good break from all the weird contemporary fiction going on out there.
"'You have to stop talking about God, OK?' He didn't say anything, but I was pretty sure he was awake now. 'You're going to be twelve soon. You have to stop making weird noises, and jumping off things and hurting yourself.' I knew I was pleading with him, but I didn't care. 'You have to make some friends,' I said. 'I have a friend,' he whispered. 'Who?' 'Mr. Goldstein.' 'You have to make more than one.' 'You don't have more than one,' he said. 'The only person who ever calls you is Misha.' 'Yes, I do. I have plenty of friends,' I said, and only as the words came out did I realize they weren't true.'"
"I passed the old man. There was a card safety-pinned to his chest. It said: MY NAME IS LEO GURSKY I HAVE NO FAMILY PLEASE CALL PINELAWN CEMETERY I HAVE A PLOT THERE IN THE JEWISH PART THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION"
"Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist. There are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piec of music no one has ever written, or a painting no one has ever painted, or somethign else impossible to predict, fathom, or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in history of feeling, the heart surges, and absorbs the impact."
I read this book in a haze of a lack of sleep in the duration of three weeks, so my opinion of this book is not what it could be. Initially it reminded me of House of Leaves with a touch of Borges (he's even mentioned in the book!), but it's something else altogether. With a bit of melancholy humor and the eccentricy of weird adolescents, the book weaves together the end of a pathetic life and the beginning of an adolescent.
The book is narrated by two people, Leo Gursky and Alma Singer, from what seems like different time periods until you start to put together all the pieces. Krauss never explains anything, just describes bits and pieces of feelings and leaves it up to you to connect the dots. Leo Gursky, as you can see from the quote above, is a rather lonely, pathetic figure who will, in his own words, be "survived by an apartment full of shit". While depressed in some aspects, he remains a very humorous man staying alive so he can see a son that his lover never let him see. Trying to fill his days with meaningless actions and things he thought would be exciting, he always comes home miserable to an old friend. They share a tapping system in which three taps means "Are you alive" which is supposed to be answered dutifully. In this way, they make sure that they will not die unknown for a week until someone discovers their rotting corpse.
The second story is told by Alma Singer, a young girl who takes care of her strange brother who believes himself to be one of the thirty six messiahs in the world. Her mother is depressed from her father's death, so the family is dependent on her to keep a sense of normalcy. Obsessed with being prepared for living in the wild, she constantly makes lists of things when life gets the best of her. When someone takes interest in Alma's mother's obsession with translating post-humous works, Alma hopes that the mysterious sender will date her mother. Her search for this mysterious man is linked to Leo Gursky's search for his son. And the puzzle pieces fall into place.
Krauss includes some visually innovative stuff, sometimes a page is just one sentence, and plays around with Alma's list making. But since, and I don't mean to brag, I've read House of Leaves, which is visually ten times more stimulating, Krauss's work was like child's play. It was a cool idea, having all these narrators linked, but I've read about it before, and when you read the masterpiece before the watered-down-for-public piece, you kind of just shrug your shoulders. But it's certainly much more light hearted and accessible, and there are definitely times I chuckled whereas Danielewski's monster of a work would never illicit such a response.
Nonetheless, the characters are strange and quirky, blindingly Jewish (there's something about being Jewish that makes your quirkier and weirder than being... anything but Jewish - see The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay), and dysfunctional. And everyone loves that!
"I passed the old man. There was a card safety-pinned to his chest. It said: MY NAME IS LEO GURSKY I HAVE NO FAMILY PLEASE CALL PINELAWN CEMETERY I HAVE A PLOT THERE IN THE JEWISH PART THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION"
"Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist. There are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piec of music no one has ever written, or a painting no one has ever painted, or somethign else impossible to predict, fathom, or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in history of feeling, the heart surges, and absorbs the impact."
I read this book in a haze of a lack of sleep in the duration of three weeks, so my opinion of this book is not what it could be. Initially it reminded me of House of Leaves with a touch of Borges (he's even mentioned in the book!), but it's something else altogether. With a bit of melancholy humor and the eccentricy of weird adolescents, the book weaves together the end of a pathetic life and the beginning of an adolescent.
The book is narrated by two people, Leo Gursky and Alma Singer, from what seems like different time periods until you start to put together all the pieces. Krauss never explains anything, just describes bits and pieces of feelings and leaves it up to you to connect the dots. Leo Gursky, as you can see from the quote above, is a rather lonely, pathetic figure who will, in his own words, be "survived by an apartment full of shit". While depressed in some aspects, he remains a very humorous man staying alive so he can see a son that his lover never let him see. Trying to fill his days with meaningless actions and things he thought would be exciting, he always comes home miserable to an old friend. They share a tapping system in which three taps means "Are you alive" which is supposed to be answered dutifully. In this way, they make sure that they will not die unknown for a week until someone discovers their rotting corpse.
The second story is told by Alma Singer, a young girl who takes care of her strange brother who believes himself to be one of the thirty six messiahs in the world. Her mother is depressed from her father's death, so the family is dependent on her to keep a sense of normalcy. Obsessed with being prepared for living in the wild, she constantly makes lists of things when life gets the best of her. When someone takes interest in Alma's mother's obsession with translating post-humous works, Alma hopes that the mysterious sender will date her mother. Her search for this mysterious man is linked to Leo Gursky's search for his son. And the puzzle pieces fall into place.
Krauss includes some visually innovative stuff, sometimes a page is just one sentence, and plays around with Alma's list making. But since, and I don't mean to brag, I've read House of Leaves, which is visually ten times more stimulating, Krauss's work was like child's play. It was a cool idea, having all these narrators linked, but I've read about it before, and when you read the masterpiece before the watered-down-for-public piece, you kind of just shrug your shoulders. But it's certainly much more light hearted and accessible, and there are definitely times I chuckled whereas Danielewski's monster of a work would never illicit such a response.
Nonetheless, the characters are strange and quirky, blindingly Jewish (there's something about being Jewish that makes your quirkier and weirder than being... anything but Jewish - see The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay), and dysfunctional. And everyone loves that!
Kafka's short story of a human-turned-cockroach is a much cooler concept than the way he writes it. Sure he writes great and all, but the overall shock factor is dwindled down with his fancy intelligent writing style. I guess the idea sounded a lot cooler when said in 3 sentences rather than dragged out over 54 pages.
Gregory Samsa is very low on the social ladder. He's basically everyone's bitch, and his family doesn't appreciate him as much as he'd like to. He never realized the meaninglessness and triviality of his life until one day he wakes up to find that he is a cockroach. The idea is a METAmorphosis: he has become what others have been perceiving him as. Rather than freaking out and screaming, he thinks about how he's going to be late to work and how his boss is going to throw a hissy fit. He spends a long time trying to navigate himself around the room and gradually makes it out to the dining room, where his family gets freaked out and shooes him back to his room. Suspend your belief about his family's reaction. They lock him up in a room and feed him like a filthy pet. It's pretty unreal and weird and sad that his family doesn't care about him.
The end of the short story kind of trails off and I was surprised it ended like that. I just blinked and continued the next short story. Cool concept and great writing, just wish he had included more cool ideas other than zomg human turned into cockroach! shocks for the hype its given. ALSO, I'm not exactly well read, so I probably missed out on a lot of heavy symbology (hehe) and other stuff.
Gregory Samsa is very low on the social ladder. He's basically everyone's bitch, and his family doesn't appreciate him as much as he'd like to. He never realized the meaninglessness and triviality of his life until one day he wakes up to find that he is a cockroach. The idea is a METAmorphosis: he has become what others have been perceiving him as. Rather than freaking out and screaming, he thinks about how he's going to be late to work and how his boss is going to throw a hissy fit. He spends a long time trying to navigate himself around the room and gradually makes it out to the dining room, where his family gets freaked out and shooes him back to his room. Suspend your belief about his family's reaction. They lock him up in a room and feed him like a filthy pet. It's pretty unreal and weird and sad that his family doesn't care about him.
The end of the short story kind of trails off and I was surprised it ended like that. I just blinked and continued the next short story. Cool concept and great writing, just wish he had included more cool ideas other than zomg human turned into cockroach! shocks for the hype its given. ALSO, I'm not exactly well read, so I probably missed out on a lot of heavy symbology (hehe) and other stuff.
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khaayczii said:
it was.! J.K. Rowling has captivated my inner magic. =)mugglenet.com has nice facts and little interesting theories too! read more
on Simply... epic. -
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Rose of Malice said:
I read this for school and found it quite boring the first time around. When I gave it a second... read more
on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
on A Bengali Cultural Identity Crisis. I swear I'm not trying to be multi-cultural in my readings.