Terroir a myth?

[Sharon Bowman]

originally posted by MLipton:
My OCD takes the form of feeling compelled to finish books that I start, hence I'm known among my friends as the guy who actually finished Gravity's Rainbow, Ulysses, Gödel, Escher, Bach, The White Goddess and other tomes.

My very first boyfriend liked, um, Atlas Shrugged and said I should read it. Talk about feeling the haul.

That was also the year I read Maugham's Of Human Bondage at the behest of a guy in my dorm.

Formative events that shaped my future "let it drop" stance.

 

[Cory Cartwright]

If someone asks me on deathbed if I have any regrets I'll say no, knowing in my heart I'm lying having read Ayn Rand.

 

[Michael Lewis]

On the subject of Joyce, has anyone tried Finnegan's Wake? I made it about 3 pages in.

 

[fillay]

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
My very first boyfriend liked, um, Atlas Shrugged and said I should read it. Talk about feeling the haul.

Reminds me of an ad lib I once heard Billy Bragg perform to 'Walk Away Renee'...

And then one day it happened
She voted Conservative
And I stopped loving her

 

[Saina Nieminen]

I've read bits and pieces but never managed the complete thing. Foerster's syndrome is necessary if you want to get through it.

 

[Jay Miller]

originally posted by Otto Nieminen:

I love this book. Bach and genetics is for me just the perfect match.

Most books I start I won't finish. I never feel like I must finish a book if I don't like it. But Proust took a couple tries. And that's because the beginning with the famous Madeleine scene is probably the most difficult part of the book. But once I got through that, a wonderfully readable comic novel started. Why do so few people talk about the comedy of this huge work?

Hey, I was talking about almost nothing else once I made my way into the books. The party at the Verdurin's in volume 5 was hilarious until the tragic conclusion.

 

[Zachary Ross]

originally posted by Michael Lewis:
On the subject of Joyce, has anyone tried Finnegan's Wake? I made it about 3 pages in.

Me too, but I loved it.

 

[Zachary Ross]

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:

originally posted by Michael Lewis:
Infinite Jest.

No matter how great an essayist DFW was, his fiction always seemed so leaden....

Consider the lobster.

 

[Christian Miller (CMM)]

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Sometimes I feel like books require momentum. Set them aside for a bit, and there you go. Even if you intended to continue.

But maybe that's just me.

Not just you.

 

[wrrntl]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by Rahsaan:

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Sometimes I feel like books require momentum. Set them aside for a bit, and there you go. Even if you intended to continue.

But maybe that's just me.

That definitely happens to me as the books get set aside in-between trips. The problem is remembering the names of all the characters when I come back to the books!

Read history... the characters don't change.

or Ivy Day in the Committee Room for that matter

 

[Keith Levenberg]

originally posted by fillay:

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
My very first boyfriend liked, um, Atlas Shrugged and said I should read it. Talk about feeling the haul.

Reminds me of an ad lib I once heard Billy Bragg perform to 'Walk Away Renee'...

And then one day it happened
She voted Conservative
And I stopped loving her

Atlas Shrugged is a good yarn, but slow to start and obviously you have to skip the speech at the end. Conservatives were not very fond of it though. Whittaker Chambers' book review for NR called her a Nazi.

 

[Sharon Bowman]

That and, like, the characters are made out of cardboard and the writing is on the level of a microwave manual or one of those CHOKING signs in a restaurant.

Didn't even really matter what the "ideas" were, the way they were couched was in hokey, awkward 2-D.

 

[Sharon Bowman]

originally posted by Zachary Ross:

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
how great an essayist DFW was

Consider the lobster.

That's a great one.

Also "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again."

 

[Sharon Bowman]

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
That and, like, the characters are made out of cardboard and the writing is on the level of a microwave manual or one of those CHOKING signs in a restaurant.

Didn't even really matter what the "ideas" were, the way they were couched was in hokey, awkward 2-D.

Though the throwing the strong woman down on the couch stuff might titillate the Fifty Shades of Grey set.

 

[SFJoe]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:

originally posted by fillay:

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
My very first boyfriend liked, um, Atlas Shrugged and said I should read it. Talk about feeling the haul.

Reminds me of an ad lib I once heard Billy Bragg perform to 'Walk Away Renee'...

And then one day it happened
She voted Conservative
And I stopped loving her

Atlas Shrugged is a good yarn, but slow to start and obviously you have to skip the speech at the end. Conservatives were not very fond of it though. Whittaker Chambers' book review for NR called her a Nazi.

I read it when I was still in my "finish the book" phase. I amused myself with things like seeing how many pages she would go without a single color descriptor (triple digits, as I recall), and marveling at the weird bondage stuff.

Anyhow, if that's "a good yarn," I have shelves of books available to you at a good price, and there is a bridge around the corner I'd like to discuss as well.

 

[SFJoe]

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
in hokey, awkward 2-D.

And B&W.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Conservatives were not very fond of it though. Whittaker Chambers' book review for NR called her a Nazi.

Here it is.

He did write it after he stopped being a Soviet spy, a member of the Communist Party, and a homosexual. I guess that makes him conservative.

Anyway, it's a good read. He not only compares her to a Nazi, he compares her to Marx, to Nietzsche, and is generally/broadly disparaging.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by MLipton:
My OCD takes the form of feeling compelled to finish books that I start, hence I'm known among my friends as the guy who actually finished Gravity's Rainbow, Ulysses, Gödel, Escher, Bach, The White Goddess and other tomes. However, I did put down a couple of books that just didn't grab me: Don Delillo's Underworld, several books my Michael Chabon and Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae.

Mark Lipton

Dhalgren?

... To wound the Autumnal City .... I have come...

(point of fact, I've read all of Delany's oeuvre apart from a few nonfiction works)

Mark Lipton

 

[scottreiner]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Conservatives were not very fond of it though. Whittaker Chambers' book review for NR called her a Nazi.

Here it is.

He did write it after he stopped being a Soviet spy, a member of the Communist Party, and a homosexual. I guess that makes him conservative.

Anyway, it's a good read. He not only compares her to a Nazi, he compares her to Marx, to Nietzsche, and is generally/broadly disparaging.

TNR used to be something worth reading (granted, mostly before I was born), but no longer. For a timely example read the present cover story attacking Neil deGrasse Tyson. Well, don't actually read the whole thing, you will end up dumber than when you started.... The battle in the modern United States against science is shocking to live through.

Idiocy

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by scottreiner:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Conservatives were not very fond of it though. Whittaker Chambers' book review for NR called her a Nazi.

Here it is.

He did write it after he stopped being a Soviet spy, a member of the Communist Party, and a homosexual. I guess that makes him conservative.

Anyway, it's a good read. He not only compares her to a Nazi, he compares her to Marx, to Nietzsche, and is generally/broadly disparaging.

TNR used to be something worth reading (granted, mostly before I was born), but no longer. For a timely example read the present cover story attacking Neil deGrasse Tyson. Well, don't actually read the whole thing, you will end up dumber than when you started.... The battle in the modern United States against science is shocking to live through.

Idiocy

The author may be right about the trendiness of self-identification as a nerd, but I sure don't see that from my perch. Regardless, it's hard to take seriously any article that couches their central thesis in soo many logical fallacies.

Mark Lipton