Author Topic: Special Topics in Literature and Books and Things of that Nature  (Read 27139 times)

oneaprilday

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Re: Special Topics in Literature and Books and Things of that Nature
« Reply #20 on: October 21, 2011, 05:05:26 PM »
Moving this conversation from the Write about the last movie you watched thread:

Have you read Remains of the Day, verbALs?  Just curious.

. . .


Spoilers in reply:

No I haven't read it,it's not my kind of thing ;D (maybe in a few years like I mentioned before). Unrequited to the extent of a bizarre final bus stop scene in the rain. Hopkins expressing the depths of his admiration by raising his hat. It's m, I know, it's just me.
verbALs, verbALs, you disappoint me.  You "haven't read it, but it's not [your] kind of thing"?  How do you know what kind of a "thing" it is (unless you've read other Ishiguro)?  Honestly, you sound like some of my students,eg.: "I just don't like movies with subtitles, Prof. T.; I saw one once and it was weird and boring."  ::)   I know you are much smarter than that.  :)

 A movie, I know you know, never equals a book.  And if this movie version of the story is primarily about unrequited love, then it is not the same thing as the book, which, if I had to condense what it is "about," I'd say is about subconscious self-deception and self-justification . . . and too-late regret.  The love angle of that is only a part of the self-deceit - illuminating it without overshadowing it.  Ishiguro is a masterful writer - saying everything in subtext.  How he gets us inside the motivations of the first-person narrator who never admits to himself or anyone else what he is really thinking is incredible.  (And there's no way what Ishiguro does with words can be translated onto the screen.)  It's not a "girly" book or even a British book, believe me.  It's human. :)

smirnoff

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Re: Special Topics in Literature and Books and Things of that Nature
« Reply #21 on: October 21, 2011, 10:38:27 PM »
If verbALs doesn't read it I might. That description was very good. :)

oneaprilday

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Re: Special Topics in Literature and Books and Things of that Nature
« Reply #22 on: October 21, 2011, 10:49:51 PM »
It's so good - do it!   It is the 45th best book of all time, you know. :)

verbALs

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Re: Special Topics in Literature and Books and Things of that Nature
« Reply #23 on: October 22, 2011, 01:06:25 PM »
Oi Lady! Does Ishiguru or McEwan or another other of these namby pamby authors really seem like my thang? I am too busy reading Batman!

I think I said that what I want to do (maybe between the ages of 50 & 60, and before my eyesight completely goes) is read the classics. All the Dickens, Doystoyevsky, Hemingway, Tolstoy etc I can handle. Like a book a month. So that would be 120 books over the course of ten years. Now that's fair enough isn't it? ps I thought it was EM Forster! haha!

pps that Flannery O'Connor collection is sitting staring at me right now, not got to it.

I am ashamed of my reading these days, I never find the time I should and that I always used to. The main reason is the books I used to tear through in days, and the authors that made me want to do it, I've read everything of those books. The only author that makes me feel that way these days is...gulp.....Lee Child haha.

But since you haven't read Iain Banks' Culture novels or any Hammett maybe you shouldn't be casting too many stones around that greenhouse. 8) (and I can't take anyone seriously on this subject until they have read all 21 Travis McGee books).

{and if anybody else takes me seriously this week I'm just going to...stop making stupid jokes.}
« Last Edit: October 22, 2011, 01:17:09 PM by verbALs »
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

oneaprilday

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Re: Special Topics in Literature and Books and Things of that Nature
« Reply #24 on: October 22, 2011, 02:07:32 PM »
You do know I was having a little fun with you, right? :) 

And I know you'll read all those lovely classics in good time - just be sure The Remains of the Day is on your list, just like Banks and Hammett and McGee are already on my list of assigned reading.  (If you read Remains of the Day, I promise I'll read, at the same time, whichever book from one of those guys that you assign me. Whaddya think?)

Happy to hear you got O'Connor!  Can't wait to hear what you think - her short stories are quick and easy, too, remember - nothing like a commitment to Dickens.  ;)

jim brown

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Re: Special Topics in Literature and Books and Things of that Nature
« Reply #25 on: October 22, 2011, 02:09:33 PM »
Oi Lady! Does Ishiguru or McEwan or another other of these namby pamby authors really seem like my thang? I am too busy reading Batman!

I think I said that what I want to do (maybe between the ages of 50 & 60, and before my eyesight completely goes) is read the classics. All the Dickens, Doystoyevsky, Hemingway, Tolstoy etc I can handle. Like a book a month. So that would be 120 books over the course of ten years. Now that's fair enough isn't it? ps I thought it was EM Forster! haha!

pps that Flannery O'Connor collection is sitting staring at me right now, not got to it.

I am ashamed of my reading these days, I never find the time I should and that I always used to. The main reason is the books I used to tear through in days, and the authors that made me want to do it, I've read everything of those books. The only author that makes me feel that way these days is...gulp.....Lee Child haha.

But since you haven't read Iain Banks' Culture novels or any Hammett maybe you shouldn't be casting too many stones around that greenhouse. 8) (and I can't take anyone seriously on this subject until they have read all 21 Travis McGee books).

{and if anybody else takes me seriously this week I'm just going to...stop making stupid jokes.}

I read all of Hammet during a two week period one summer when I was twenty.  Then I walked around the remainder of the year barely saying anything, just taking it all in, like I was the Continental Op.  I live for a good mystery series.  Must try this McGee fellow you speak of.
Kevin: Yes, why does there have to be evil?

Supreme Being: I think it has something to do with free will.

-------------------------------------------------------

Verna: I suppose you think you raised hell.

Tom: Sister, when I've raised hell you'll know it.

verbALs

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Re: Special Topics in Literature and Books and Things of that Nature
« Reply #26 on: October 22, 2011, 02:34:30 PM »
Mel, I got the gag and I would be horrified if you thought I was being rude to you. Hammett's Red Harvest would be my choice. At least you will know what "Blood Simple" really means.

@jim. I watched most of Miller's Crossing again yesterday. "I open my mouth, the whole world turns smart". The Coens have to be geniuses to update Hammett and make it post-modern. You read Hammett you expect everyone to talk this way.

The one author I have missed who I wonder if anyone has read is James Crumley. More up to date; post-Vietnam, 50 year old private eyes, using automatic weapons and having access to hard drugs and painkillers. The most extreme stories. I have a suspicion Cormac McCarthy stole his style for No Country For Old Men. His best books are Dancing Bear, The Mexican Tree Duck and Bordersnakes.
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

oneaprilday

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Re: Special Topics in Literature and Books and Things of that Nature
« Reply #27 on: October 22, 2011, 02:56:05 PM »
Mel, I got the gag and I would be horrified if you thought I was being rude to you. Hammett's Red Harvest would be my choice. At least you will know what "Blood Simple" really means.
Cool.

Just ordered a copy of Red Harvest.  When you pick up Remains of the Day, let me know.  :)

(Btw, haven't been called Mel since high school-early university days.  You make me feel all youthful again.  :-* )

verbALs

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Re: Special Topics in Literature and Books and Things of that Nature
« Reply #28 on: October 22, 2011, 03:22:53 PM »
I suddenly felt the responsibility of having you buy a book on my say-so. Then I read the first page, and I felt like I needed showering down. I know you like noir so you understand how it tries to capture a casual, lazy, greedy evil, so Red Harvest is the right choice. If you have seen Yojimbo then reading RH will bring the film back, and if you haven't watch it soon after.
« Last Edit: October 22, 2011, 03:28:19 PM by verbALs »
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

oneaprilday

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Re: Special Topics in Literature and Books and Things of that Nature
« Reply #29 on: October 22, 2011, 03:39:01 PM »
Don't worry - I bought a used copy, an easy $5. :)   And I've been wanting to read Hammett anyway - I just needed the push.  Haven't seen Yojimbo yet, so I will catch up with that, too, after I read RH.  Actually, there's a "Masters of Japanese Cinema" series currently on at the indie cinema, and Yojimbo will be there in March, so I'll have to time my reading with that!

 

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