I re-read these two selected texts once a year. All the other texts that I have read recently are very specific to my architecture thesis that I am working on. I'm guessing that not too many people would be interested in those texts.
<strong>Did ever an author get more milaeage from one novel of questionable importance? "Catcher in the Rye" We still foist this thing on students? Yuck. Matsu pencils a new entry into his to-do list -- write adolescent angst story and market to public schools. Amazing... <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />
Yes, the diamond age is pretty good book. Thanks for the input on the essay. Its for a ninth grade english class. Also I wrote it before i bought my printer yesterday, so i was taking my stuff up to my moms computer, and my mom edits a magazine for a living, so she helped me edit it. Handed it in, and I only had two mistakes and other than that, she liked it.(the teacher that is.) Yes, I feel that i did too much sumerizing in it, and it felt silly. The teacher told up that when talking about the book, to talk about in the past tense.Not one of my better essays.
Next up on my shelves: Any Kurt Vonnegut I can get my hands on, and this one Isabel Allende book, called 'The house of spirits'
ummm, actually, catcher in the rye is a nationally banned book from schools.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What? Good God why? It's not been so long since I was out of high-school; we read it. Then again, in Canada, not nearly as much P.C. stupidity penetrates curriculum decisions. Come to think of it, yes, yes it does, though usually it has to do with Canadian content -- paranoid little nationalists that we are. I can only imagine Holden curses a bit too much for PTA tastes, or some idiot school psychologist deemed it harmful to the possibly suicidal, who knows? Does someone say "nigger" ??? Egads!
So here I find myself defending a book which I don't particularly care for. I'm sure it takes a bit of skill to nail the diction of a slacker teen loser and re-paint a pathetic picture for us, but the question should be, "why bother?" Spoken to a 17 year-old lately? Holden is as annoying as our own modern day teens; coming out of polite 1950's America, that's quite an achievement. ermm... Holden needs to be kicked in the teeth, or maybe he could just jump of a roof 20 pages in and spare us 4-5 hours worth of his plodding whiny bullsiht.
What a piece of crap. Would I be too optimistic to hope it's been dropped in defence of good taste?
EDIT: Ooops, it's 17 years old, who'd have thought? The kid sounds considerably less mature.
All the other texts that I have read recently are very specific to my architecture thesis that I am working on. I'm guessing that not too many people would be interested in those texts.
Cheers!<hr></blockquote>
C'mon, try us. Some of us are refugees from architecture school with our own thesis reading lists.
I just finished Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London.
ummm, actually, catcher in the rye is a nationally banned book from schools.</strong><hr></blockquote>
well, this is partly true. catcher in the rye was one of the top ten "most frequently challenged" books of the 1990s, and was the most frequently banned book from the mid-60s to the mid 70s. however, since each school district gets to choose curriculum, it was never banned nationally. most of the time, the reasons were profanity, sexual content, improper behavior for an adolescent, etc. silly if you ask me.
ooh, and one more thing, "house of the spirits" is next on my reading list too. errg, when i get free time, that is.
As trite as it is thematically (after the fact, you should note, copycats bring its image down), The Catcher In The Rye is a fantastic book.
I recently finished Lolita for an English course and it's one of the best books I've ever read. I was amazed at how much I loved it; Nabokov has a wonderful style.
Also recently:
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Lolita, especially, sets up an interesting problem for aesthetics and morality. Wait, that's not really true, a skilled reading reveals no problem at all, rather a masterful manipulation of aesthetic sense. Now you're talking literature my friend.
But it's been a problem for some and that's exactly the point. 'Sin' (if we may apply such an outmoded concept) is tempting, beauty is tempting, why shouldn't sinfully tempting writing be beautiful too? It's a book that calls on you to judge yourself, virtually all the complaints about it come from people who, for whatever reasons, don't get that bit.
Doesn't help that most people know it by the film...
As expected the writing style is the same as House Atreides/Harkonnen/Corrino series, and once you get over the fact of a Dune series being written by someone other than Frank Herbert (albeit his son) it is pretty good. This is the first of a series, but you will find some things very odd, especially how some of the great families started out. Without giving away any plot I can safely say it is more 'sci-fi' than any Dune novel written so far. You will understand.</strong><hr></blockquote>
i was quite a bit disapointed in house atreides when i read it. not horrible, mind you, just didn't feel that brian was able to draw me into the story as his father could. not to mention some of the story line got kind of hoaky at times. didn't seem to fit very well, to me at least, with franks work.
[quote]Originally posted by running with scissors:
<strong>
i was quite a bit disapointed in house atreides when i read it. not horrible, mind you, just didn't feel that brian was able to draw me into the story as his father could. not to mention some of the story line got kind of hoaky at times. didn't seem to fit very well, to me at least, with franks work.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Interesting, what parts did you find hokey? I'm not arguing against but i may agree with you. It has been over a year since I read it. I may have to peruse it. I agree though that Brian is not his father. Frank would immerse you so deeply into the plot that you could not put down the book until you finished it. But Brian does have his way...
Comments
but the next one will be a cocoa guide that they don't sell in italy so i'll have to order it from NY ...
and
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.
I re-read these two selected texts once a year. All the other texts that I have read recently are very specific to my architecture thesis that I am working on. I'm guessing that not too many people would be interested in those texts.
Cheers!
sur la sexualité féminine
<strong>Did ever an author get more milaeage from one novel of questionable importance? "Catcher in the Rye" We still foist this thing on students? Yuck. Matsu pencils a new entry into his to-do list -- write adolescent angst story and market to public schools. Amazing... <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />
[ 10-27-2002: Message edited by: Matsu ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
ummm, actually, catcher in the rye is a nationally banned book from schools.
Next up on my shelves: Any Kurt Vonnegut I can get my hands on, and this one Isabel Allende book, called 'The house of spirits'
edit=spelling
[ 10-28-2002: Message edited by: xionja ]</p>
By, Bill Watterson.
This is the best comic strip in my opinion. I know it isn't really a book, but I enjoy this strip as much as any novel.
I really like the Yeats poem, The Secong Coming, which is the inspiration for the title of Achebe's book.
<strong>
ummm, actually, catcher in the rye is a nationally banned book from schools.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What? Good God why? It's not been so long since I was out of high-school; we read it. Then again, in Canada, not nearly as much P.C. stupidity penetrates curriculum decisions. Come to think of it, yes, yes it does, though usually it has to do with Canadian content -- paranoid little nationalists that we are. I can only imagine Holden curses a bit too much for PTA tastes, or some idiot school psychologist deemed it harmful to the possibly suicidal, who knows? Does someone say "nigger" ??? Egads!
So here I find myself defending a book which I don't particularly care for. I'm sure it takes a bit of skill to nail the diction of a slacker teen loser and re-paint a pathetic picture for us, but the question should be, "why bother?" Spoken to a 17 year-old lately? Holden is as annoying as our own modern day teens; coming out of polite 1950's America, that's quite an achievement. ermm... Holden needs to be kicked in the teeth, or maybe he could just jump of a roof 20 pages in and spare us 4-5 hours worth of his plodding whiny bullsiht.
What a piece of crap. Would I be too optimistic to hope it's been dropped in defence of good taste?
EDIT: Ooops, it's 17 years old, who'd have thought? The kid sounds considerably less mature.
[ 10-28-2002: Message edited by: Matsu ]</p>
All the other texts that I have read recently are very specific to my architecture thesis that I am working on. I'm guessing that not too many people would be interested in those texts.
Cheers!<hr></blockquote>
C'mon, try us. Some of us are refugees from architecture school with our own thesis reading lists.
I just finished Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London.
<strong>
ummm, actually, catcher in the rye is a nationally banned book from schools.</strong><hr></blockquote>
well, this is partly true. catcher in the rye was one of the top ten "most frequently challenged" books of the 1990s, and was the most frequently banned book from the mid-60s to the mid 70s. however, since each school district gets to choose curriculum, it was never banned nationally. most of the time, the reasons were profanity, sexual content, improper behavior for an adolescent, etc. silly if you ask me.
ooh, and one more thing, "house of the spirits" is next on my reading list too. errg, when i get free time, that is.
[ 10-29-2002: Message edited by: roo ]</p>
I recently finished Lolita for an English course and it's one of the best books I've ever read. I was amazed at how much I loved it; Nabokov has a wonderful style.
Also recently:
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Nabakov, a master? Oh yes!
Lolita, especially, sets up an interesting problem for aesthetics and morality. Wait, that's not really true, a skilled reading reveals no problem at all, rather a masterful manipulation of aesthetic sense. Now you're talking literature my friend.
Doesn't help that most people know it by the film...
[ 10-29-2002: Message edited by: Matsu ]</p>
<strong>Calvin and Hobbes-The Days Are Just Packed
By, Bill Watterson.
This is the best comic strip in my opinion. I know it isn't really a book, but I enjoy this strip as much as any novel.</strong><hr></blockquote>
agreed!
sadly i haven't read a book in long time..
<strong>
As expected the writing style is the same as House Atreides/Harkonnen/Corrino series, and once you get over the fact of a Dune series being written by someone other than Frank Herbert (albeit his son) it is pretty good. This is the first of a series, but you will find some things very odd, especially how some of the great families started out. Without giving away any plot I can safely say it is more 'sci-fi' than any Dune novel written so far. You will understand.</strong><hr></blockquote>
i was quite a bit disapointed in house atreides when i read it. not horrible, mind you, just didn't feel that brian was able to draw me into the story as his father could. not to mention some of the story line got kind of hoaky at times. didn't seem to fit very well, to me at least, with franks work.
<strong>
i was quite a bit disapointed in house atreides when i read it. not horrible, mind you, just didn't feel that brian was able to draw me into the story as his father could. not to mention some of the story line got kind of hoaky at times. didn't seem to fit very well, to me at least, with franks work.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Interesting, what parts did you find hokey? I'm not arguing against but i may agree with you. It has been over a year since I read it. I may have to peruse it. I agree though that Brian is not his father. Frank would immerse you so deeply into the plot that you could not put down the book until you finished it. But Brian does have his way...