The Book Lair - all book talk ITT

[eddyak]

Every time I read something that contains the words "moral degeneration", or some variation thereof, I can no longer take it seriously.

[Dullahan]

read a fascinating essay by umberto eco about that time Joseph de Maistre attempted to do comparative linguistics and ended up flailing his arms around like an idiot child

[Snow]

I'm reading The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. While the premise reading a bit fanfic-y put me off from taking it up at first, now that I have I've found it quite good and wittily written so far.

[In-N-Out Double-Double & Animal Fries]

Penguin Galaxy edition books

Some of these look nice but are barely legible but damn, that Dune cover.

[GundamFSN]

Finally got this apparently depressing book. I'll read it after I finish 1984 for maximum sensation of...something.

[Frostyvale]

Finally got this apparently depressing book. I'll read it after I finish 1984 for maximum sensation of...something.

Have fun.

[Five_X]

Finally got this apparently depressing book. I'll read it after I finish 1984 for maximum sensation of...something.

It's a pretty good read.

[Dullahan]

don't worry, be happy

[Five_X]

Now I'm hungry for some caprese.

[Sesto]

I just finished reading Gustav Meyrink's The Golem and now I regret holding it off so long. I had originally stopped around halfway through because it was frustrating to read, but I picked it up again a couple days ago and just sped through it. It's a really great read. I'm actually thinking of rereading it immediately.

[Prix with a Silent X]

Since I'm supposedly going to be an English teacher, my content class has this knowledge gaps self reading project thing. I picked from the provided list and first reread The Great Gatsby because I needed to for my student teaching and enjoy it. Now I've moved on to primarily listening to Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.

About halfway into the recording and all I've got to say is what the fuck is the point of this? It's somewhere between sad and hilarious. Is that the point?

Also I notice when asked about books we're interested in or actually like to read in the general American English curriculum, I seem to mostly prefer translated works I may or may not have realized were not originally in English prior to adult context. Wonder if that means I'm in the wrong niche or something.

[GundamFSN]

Metamorphosis is the projection of Kafka's miserable life.

[Prix with a Silent X]

"I turned into a bug" is more ridiculous than emo.

[GundamFSN]

Yes, and that is not an understatement. And to be fair, the definition for emo does not exist during his time.

Well, let me expand my reasoning a bit (I just felt like writing something).

First and foremost, Kafka's life can be easily related with loneliness. He had brothers and sisters, but they all died before him. His parents were always out working, so Kafka and his siblings were mostly neglected. When they did get their attention, it was not a good attention for the most part. Kafka's father was a total authoritarian and abusive. His mother who was quiet and shy, was rendered powerless to cover for him. There was one traumatic moment in which he called out for some water during nighttime. What happened after was his father barged into his always cold room, and threw him out to the balcony, leaving the child Kafka to stand in an even colder atmosphere with only his pajamas. Due to this, he grew up as a timid, quiet, and nerdy man.

Kafka had to live fulfilling the expectations of his father. His aspiration was to become a writer, but his father expected him to take over his company. He ended up working in an insurance company, working 10 hours a day. There was hardly time for writing, not to mention he was a sickly man both in mind and body. He did switch to a more comfortable company, at the despicable price of being nicknamed "bread job" (working only to pay bills) by his father. Even after having some successes, he never really did like his jobs. All he wanted to do was focus on his writing.

On society, he had a few good friends and one close friend for he was perceived as a good fellow by them (he doesn't think so, because he thinks that he is a trash), but never a life partner. Now, he had traces of love life, but sadly all never sailed smoothly. One was out of disapproval from his father, and others were due to his low self-esteem and fear. He was shy of his body and prone to indulge in porn. Contracting tuberculosis also didn't help him in any positive way. He died from starvation, alone in a sanitarium.

Metamorphosis, perhaps in a sense, reflected his own state of mind; a sickly, bug-like creature unworthy of tender care.

[Prix with a Silent X]

Well, that's interesting and sad. I was being glib, but I guess I can see more what you're saying now. I knew a tiny bit about his life but most of my research was halting because I did it for a German class and I tried but never really took to the language.

Low self-esteem and fear screwing up interpersonal relationships seems highly relatable at least, even if the application is abstract and bizarre. I'm almost finished with the recording but keep dozing off. I'm still finding audiobooks a more effective way to get through stuff these days.

[RoydGolden]

Do Light Novels count here? I've started reading The Empty Box And The Zeroth Maria lately on Baka-Tsuki. It's... interesting, though I'm not really sure what to think as of yet. Essentially a mystery novel with a very unusual premise wherein, due to some strange phenomenon, a certain day of highschool is being repeated endlessly with only a select few (the MC and transfer student heroine) able to retain any memories between 'loops'. There's a lot more going on involving 'boxes' and supernatural powers but that's more-or-less the gist so far.

The premise is obviously quite compelling but the characters are just subtly... off enough that they're hard to relate to at times. I'm sure that's intentional to at least some extent (particularly the titular heroine, whose specifically noted to have trouble interacting with people) but even the supposedly 'normal' characters such as the MC come off like that. For instance, nobody shows anywhere near the amount of horror or incredulity I'd expect any ordinary person to upon learning they'd been repeating the same day for thousands of times.

Overall, this strikes me as the kind of series where nearly every character is messed up in the head to some degree. It's also very Monogatari-like in that (so far at least, I'm about halfway through the first volume writing this) there's a lot of talking and banter (ranging from trivial to abstruse) with little else in the way of action going on. To the point that, when reading it I actively imagine a lot of scenes unfolding in Shinbo's usual trippy style (strangely deserted backgrounds, sudden cuts, etc).

[LJ3]

What are the 'good' classic mystery writers

besides Doyle and Poe, I'm looking around the vein of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Rampo. Foreign i.e. non American is what I'm also looking for.

[SeiKeo]

Agatha Christie?

[LJ3]

Ah, I have read her and enjoyed.

i think G K Chesterton did Father Brown and he's a writer I'm interested in.

[Cruor]

got into a binge of swiss history

A Very Civil War: The Swiss Sonderbund War Of 1847 by Joachim Remak (from ILL as this book is way too expensive)
Three Weeks in November: A Military History of the Swiss Civil War of 1847 by Ralph Weaver
The Triumph of Liberalism: Zurich in the Golden Age, 1830-1869 by Gordon Alexander Graig
Liquid Assets, Dangerous Gifts: Presents and Politics at the End of the Middle Ages by Valentin Groebner
History of the Swiss Watch Industry by Pierre-Yves Donzé
Network Neutrality: Switzerland’s role in the genesis of the Telegraph Union, 1855–1875 by Gabriele Balbi, Simone Fari, Giuseppe Richeri, Spartaco Calvo

Want to find more about the initial cantons and the Tagsatzung but it seems all of that stuff is in german