Which books kicked your butt?

[b_dubb]

Finnegans Wank, really. The most self-indulgent book ever written.

Rhanks for clearing that up for us. I thought Joyce was master of his craft. Thank goodness we have self important fuck nuggets like yourself to keep us informed.

[Eddie Coyle]

       I'm a jaded bibliophile and it's been far too long since any book kicked my ass for better or worse. But if I had to name one book that made an impact on me...

       Jack Olsen's The Man With the Candy about Dean Allen Corll and his charges in Houston. I read it in October, 1980. My father took it out of the library and 5 year old Coyle already had chronic insomnia, so I started reading it while my parents slept. I was reading this book as The Atlanta Child Murders were leading the Nightly News(and overnight news which I watched in the pre-cable days). So, at 5, this precocity lead to new anxieties. Serial killing, child killing suddenly became very real in my mind and a morbid fascination began.

     

       

       

[zeebo]

Finnegans Wank, really. The most self-indulgent book ever written.

Rhanks for clearing that up for us. I thought Joyce was master of his craft. Thank goodness we have self important fuck nuggets like yourself to keep us informed.

Jeez what's up with this?  I think he was just trying to agree with you.  And I would agree that "self-indulgent" is a fair criticism of Finnegans Wake, probably one of the least accessible books ever written.

[zeebo]

I re-read most of FD the last year or so. Nabokov didn't rate him much and there are a lot of these very Russian conversations about the Russian soul and things that outsiders might not care much about. The idea that civilisation can be redeemed by the Russian people and all the rest of it. 'Karamazov' has great things, like the poema of Ivan, but it can get bogged down in boring stuff over who killed the old man. Also the stuff about Kolya Krasotkin was a hangover from his previous idea that the novel would be all about children, and got carried over into this darker work. It makes it all seem too baggy and doesn't really need to be there. There is a dark humour that he got from Gogol,  that often isn't recognised in the West, where we see him as utterly serious, but there are episodes of insane humour (like the made Father Ferapont) that don't always get noticed.

Good post.  Thianks for the info, it clears a few things up for me.

[SredniVashtar]

Rhanks for clearing that up for us. I thought Joyce was master of his craft. Thank goodness we have self important fuck nuggets like yourself to keep us informed.

Rhanks for the comment. If you have read it cover to cover you are either a) a liar or b) Joyce himself. And if you are the latter that probably accounts for the spelling error, as he was blind as a bat. Don't get testy with me. We all have our opinions. You might have something interesting to say, who knows, it might leak out eventually. Finnegans Wake is the very definition of unreadable, all taking place in a dream, fusing all sorts of ideas together and often in a variety of languages. Nobody really knows what its about, but some people say it is to do with Earwicker's incestuous feelings for his daughter. Ulysses is another matter, but Finnegans Wake is the logical outcome of what he was trying to do in that book and it led to total insanity. If you want to go down on your knees for everything that a writer did then that's up to you. It doesn't strike me as very interesting, that's all. Remember, he could only write that book while being supported on subventions from a rich patron. He might have been a master of his craft, but he would not have made a red cent out of it, and he knew it. He is a fascinating figure, of course, but hardly a saint who cannot be criticised. If you want an argument, go read the first page and then come and tell me what the hell it all means. We are not talking about 'difficulty' but wilful obscurity, and your attitude is just intellectual laziness.

And if you want to mix it with me, try a little harder than 'fuck nugget'. You might get some respect. By the way, miss you terribly on the GabCast. Have had dreadful trouble sleeping since you left.

(b_dubb's first tentative steps into the wider world of irony, I guess that post was. Keep going, you'll get there eventually )

[b_dubb]

DPS in the house

I didn't bother to read your response.  But I hope it made you feel better about yourself.

[SredniVashtar]

Why would you? You're a complete human being who knows it all. I must endeavour to learn from your example. You endearing little fellow.

[zeebo]

...Finnegans Wake is the very definition of unreadable, all taking place in a dream, fusing all sorts of ideas together and often in a variety of languages. Nobody really knows what its about, but some people say it is to do with Earwicker's incestuous feelings for his daughter. Ulysses is another matter, but Finnegans Wake is the logical outcome of what he was trying to do in that book and it led to total insanity.....

I've heard that FW was the night-time dream world to compliment Ulysses which took place during the waking hours of a single day.  Highly experimental to the point where he's almost creating his own language.  As you said, seems like he was trying to express the kind of subconscious world which emerges in dreams - where fragments of experience are conveyed in enigmatic forms, as bits of memory, symbols, fantasy, etc.

This may account for all the obscure language, impressionistic stream-of-consciousness stuff.  The weird thing is if you read it, even if it makes no conscious sense, one gets a feeling that there is content and meaning there, i.e. it's not just gibberish.  Sometimes I'll just leaf through it and read a page or two and I'll find it fascinating even though I usually have no clue what he's going on about.  And often some phrase or portmanteau word or whatever will pop up and make me smile at it's curious beauty.

But as it is, I'm still trying to get through Ulysses.  If I ever make it through to the end, I'll probably leave the riddle of FW for another lifetime. 

[3OctaveFart]

Disagree about BH. It has padding, sure, but it was written in serial form, remember. And,  just as today when thinking about series like Breaking Bad, it has dull stretches. But that doesn't ruin the best bits. Read Orwell's essay on Dickens for a balanced summary of the writer, if you haven't already. BH has a bad last 100 pages, yes, And Esther is a terrible character (like so many of his female characters that aren't parodies) but there is greatness, there. It is not always a crime to skip bits in books, however big their reputations. Take, Pickwick Papers, probably his most enjoyable and funniest book, but full of bits you can easily glance over without missing anything.

Duly noted. I am willing to admit I might have missed something.

I just recall literally pages on . . . nails. I know he was paid by the installment, and it takes skill to be able to drone on about that, but come on man.

He is great with goofy names. They are singularly unforgettable.

[b_dubb]

Why would you? You're a complete human being who knows it all. I must endeavour to learn from your example. You endearing little fellow.

Best of luck with that

[zeebo]

....I just recall literally pages on . . . nails. ....

This reminds me of a passage in Gravity's Rainbow, where he goes into obsessive detail about the contents of someone's desk. 

"... tiny red and brown curls of rubber eraser, pencil shavings, dried tea or coffee stains, traces of sugar and Household Milk, much cigarette ash, very fine black debris picked and flung from typewriter ribbons, decomposing library paste, broken aspirins ground to powder ... paperclips, Zippo flints, rubber bands, staples, cigarette butts and crumpled packs, stray matches, pins, nubs of pens, stubs of pencils of all colours including the hard-to-get heliotrope and raw umber, wooden coffee spoons, Thayer’s Slipper Elm Throat Lozenges sent by Slothrop’s mother, Naline, all the way from Massachusetts, bits of tape, string, chalk ... above that a layer of forgotten memoranda, empty buff ration books, phone numbers, unanswered letters, tattered sheets of carbon paper, the scribbled ukulele chords to a dozen songs ... "    (... and so on)

.... This is around where I bailed out.   :

Still, I want to try again.  I think there's some greatness in that novel if you can get past the more exasperating parts.

[Juan]

Victorian novels go to great lengths of description because, during part of the era photography was non-existant, and during the rest, rather rare.  People had no knowledge of what things looked like except through the written word.  What interests me more about them is their use of  a distant, third-person narrator who expresses emotion, rather than the expression of emotion through character action as is done today.  Of course the movies have ruined us in that way.

[zeebo]

I'm a huge J.R.R. Tolkien fan, but have struggled with the Silmarillion over the years... and it is the only book of his I just can't get through no matter how hard I try.

I always thought it was just an elaborate collection of background history meant to inform his other works, but according to the wiki page apparently he did in fact mean to have it published.  Only when an earlier draft was rejected by the publisher did he go on to LOTR.   

[SredniVashtar]

Duly noted. I am willing to admit I might have missed something.

I just recall literally pages on . . . nails. I know he was paid by the installment, and it takes skill to be able to drone on about that, but come on man.

He is great with goofy names. They are singularly unforgettable.

No, you are entitled to feel that way, he is not to everyone's taste. BH is not among my favourites either, although it is for a lot of people. I think we find it hard to adjust to that kind of culture where everything was big and weighty, and they expected books to go on for 700-800 pages and be full of a kind of style that sounds pompous to our ears. If you don't like the opening page then you won't like any of it, because it is all like that. To give him his due, he created more memorable characters than anyone else that I can think of. But he has huge flaws, and it is a question for the reader of whether the pluses outweigh the minuses. If you have never read Great Expectations, I would recommend you go with that, as it is reasonably short and his most 'grown up' book. As to names; yes, you have to tip the hat to a man who can name one of his characters 'Dick Swiveller'.

[phrodo]

Marshall McLuhan's -- Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man ... we had to read it in broadcasting school and it literally made my brain spin. A lot of what he delineated back in '67 has and is happening and likely will happen. It's some seriously VERY deep shit.

[Nick el Ass]

I always thought it was just an elaborate collection of background history meant to inform his other works, but according to the wiki page apparently he did in fact mean to have it published.  Only when an earlier draft was rejected by the publisher did he go on to LOTR.   

Yeah, he wanted it to be a follow up to The Hobbit... but when Professor Tolkien wrote The Silmarillion then sent it to the publishers they basically asked why there were no Hobbits in the story. Then one of them said something along the lines of it being too Celtic in nature. So Professor Tolkien scrapped it to begin working on what became The Lord of the Rings which took another 17 years to complete because of the languages he created and whatnot. Unfortunately The Silmarillion wasn't published until after the professor passed away, and had to be pieced back together by his son Christopher Tolkien. It is a shame because it would have rounded the whole thing out by making one story about Dwarves, one about Elves, and one about the Hobbits.

[Mind Flayer Monk]

Marshall McLuhan's -- Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man ... we had to read it in broadcasting school and it literally made my brain spin. A lot of what he delineated back in '67 has and is happening and likely will happen. It's some seriously VERY deep shit.

McLuhan thought Joyce was the most brilliant writer of all time.

but Finnegans Wake is the logical outcome of what he was trying to do in that book and it led to total insanity. If you want to go down on your knees for everything that a writer did then that's up to you. It doesn't strike me as very interesting, that's all.

Finnegans Wake:

"He dug in and dug out by the skill of his tilth for himself and
all belonging to him and he sweated his crew beneath his auspice
for the living and he urned his dread, that dragon volant, and he
made louse for us and delivered us to boll weevils amain..."

it is beautiful.

[zeebo]

McLuhan thought Joyce was the most brilliant writer of all time....

Joseph Campbell was also a fan and saw him as a kind of mythmaker who expressed the collective consciousness of his time.  Someday I'll have to take a look at his book "A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake".

[Mind Flayer Monk]

Joseph Campbell was also a fan and saw him as a kind of mythmaker who expressed the collective consciousness of his time.  Someday I'll have to take a look at his book "A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake".

I would suggest reading Pattern Recognition by William Gibson instead.

IMHO Joyce is about destroying common patterns we have seen (brand slogans, prayers, political talking points). So many books are "Killed by (Professor Plum/Mrs White/Colonel Mustard) in the (Kitchen/Parlor/Ballroom) with the (candlestick/axe/revolver) for (revenge/inheritance money/jilted in love)". Norry's index card questions.

Then there is Pynchon; his books have the theme of can you destroy common patterns with different common patterns?

[zeebo]

I would suggest reading Pattern Recognition by William Gibson instead....

I have, my fave of his actually, along with Neuromancer and Idoru.  Anyway I was just hoping someone can explain what this FW line means:

"Ping an ping nwan ping pwan pong."

...Then there is Pynchon; his books have the theme of can you destroy common patterns with different common patterns?

That, that's ... jeez no wonder the guy scrambles my brain.   

[Mind Flayer Monk]

I have, my fave of his actually, along with Neuromancer and Idoru.  Anyway I was just hoping someone can explain what this FW line means:

"Ping an ping nwan ping pwan pong."

That, that's ... jeez no wonder the guy scrambles my brain.   

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust?

[Avi]

James Michener's The Source. It became a doorstop, then toilet paper, after which I buried it - returning it to its source (ba-da-bing).

[SredniVashtar]

McLuhan thought Joyce was the most brilliant writer of all time.

Finnegans Wake:

"He dug in and dug out by the skill of his tilth for himself and
all belonging to him and he sweated his crew beneath his auspice
for the living and he urned his dread, that dragon volant, and he
made louse for us and delivered us to boll weevils amain..."

it is beautiful.

It's a fair point, but a few lines in a book of 600 pages is a bit different, wouldn't you say? The bit you chose is fairly lucid, but most of reads like this:

    The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
    ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-
    nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later
    on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the
    offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan,
    erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends
    an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes:
    and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park
    where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since dev-
    linsfirst loved livvy.

Someone once told me that Ulysses is best appreciated when you hear it rather than read it, and maybe it is the same here. The later Joyce is still very difficult for most people, myself included. The last time I discussed him with someone, it was with a MIT graduate who was brought up in Dublin, and he hadn't finished Ulysses either, so it takes all sorts.

[Avi]

    The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
    ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-
    nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later
    on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the
    offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan,
    erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends
    an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes:
    and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park
    where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since dev-
    linsfirst loved livvy.

"Sappy, stream-of-consciousness, Irish nostalgia," if I may quote my Irish-raised mother.

[SredniVashtar]

If people can get something out of FW then I genuinely envy them that experience. I suspect that it is a book more often known of and quoted (Don Quixote being another example) than read, though. I read somewhere that Joyce's biographer, Richard Ellmann, was the only person who had read the whole book and, what's more, understood it.

If we stay in the island of Ireland, then I would recommend 'At Swim-Two-Birds' by Flann o'Brien. It is impossible to describe really,  but worth seeking out if you are looking for something adventurous.

Also, 'The Master and Margarita' by Mikhail Bulgakov. All about the devil turning up in modern-day Moscow, while telling the story of Pontius Pilate at the same time. Can't recommend this one highly enough.

[zeebo]

... I read somewhere that Joyce's biographer, Richard Ellmann, was the only person who had read the whole book and, what's more, understood it....

Maybe this line I found is a bit self-referential:

"We are circumveiloped by obscuritads."

[Mind Flayer Monk]

If we stay in the island of Ireland, then I would recommend 'At Swim-Two-Birds' by Flann o'Brien. It is impossible to describe really,  but worth seeking out if you are looking for something adventurous.

Also, 'The Master and Margarita' by Mikhail Bulgakov. All about the devil turning up in modern-day Moscow, while telling the story of Pontius Pilate at the same time. Can't recommend this one highly enough.

Thanks for the recs. I think other people here (?) have recommended 'At Swim-Two-Birds' so I will try and get to it this year.
I did read 'The Master and Margarita' and thought it was very interesting. 

    The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
    ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-
    nuk!)...

Is Joyce taking some kind of jab at Milton's Paradise Lost?

[SredniVashtar]

I am sure that some clever computer science type could come up with a Finnegans Wake program to turn everyday sentences into something that sounds like it has come straight out of the dreams of HC Earwicker.

[zeebo]

For some time I've been leisurely making my way through various sci-fi/fantasy lists.  One series which pops up alot is Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. 

I wouldn't say it totally kicked my butt, it was more like a half-kick.  I could have ground through it if I really wanted to, but I found it too dreary and disorienting and got tired of all the archaic language.  He does have some nice prose in there but alot of it is over-descriptive and meandering for my tastes.  Moving on. 

[Mind Flayer Monk]

For some time I've been leisurely making my way through various sci-fi/fantasy lists.  One series which pops up alot is Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. 

I wouldn't say it totally kicked my butt, it was more like a half-kick.  I could have ground through it if I really wanted to, but I found it too dreary and disorienting and got tired of all the archaic language.  He does have some nice prose in there but alot of it is over-descriptive and meandering for my tastes.  Moving on.

I didn't like that one either. I liked Eyes of the Overworld much better.