what are you reading today?

[B-15C]

I'm not Tweedles, but After the Quake was the first Murakami I read, and Underground was the second. I'm a Kafka fan, so discovering everything else was sort of a huge relief, it meant the overlaps weren't just incidental. It's some of the most jarring and compassionate reading of what feels like causeless tragedy, triggering some strobe effect of empathy and confusion.

After the Quake is a quickie, so if you're saving it for a rainy day or something you might as well pull it off the shelf now for a train ride so you can come back to it later. I'm pretty sure it's also fiction. If you're thinking of picking up some of his nonfiction, try Underground.

[ordo]

I'm not Tweedles, but After the Quake was the first Murakami I read, and Underground was the second. I'm a Kafka fan, so discovering everything else was sort of a huge relief, it meant the overlaps weren't just incidental. It's some of the most jarring and compassionate reading of what feels like causeless tragedy, triggering some strobe effect of empathy and confusion.

After the Quake is a quickie, so if you're saving it for a rainy day or something you might as well pull it off the shelf now for a train ride so you can come back to it later. I'm pretty sure it's also fiction. If you're thinking of picking up some of his nonfiction, try Underground.

Cheers - I had just assumed that After the Quake was non-fiction, like Underground. I will have to add it to the list to read.

[breams]

Cheers - I had just assumed that After the Quake was non-fiction, like Underground. I will have to add it to the list to read.

Yeah, After the Quake is a collection of short stories all involving earthquakes. I didn't enjoy it as much as The Elephant Vanishes, but still worth a read. Haven't been able to find a copy of Underground in person and will probably have to resort to ordering it online, but does anyone have any thoughts on this one? It's supposed to be a collection of interviews, so I'm wondering how his fictional writing style applies to this, if at all...

[B-15C]

Haven't been able to find a copy of Underground...I'm wondering how his fictional writing style applies to this, if at all...

It really does. The editorial process as well as the insight and context all contribute to an overall vision. As with other interviewers/documentarians, or even someone like Studs Turkel, the ideology shines through. Some interviewers are also better at letting people tell their own stories. Murakami has a talent for this editorial juxtaposition in order to create amazing empathy.

Underground does feel very Murakami, but it helps that the events surrounding the Tokyo subway gas attacks were so surreal to begin with.

[chantheman]

just finished finally

[tweeds]

didn't see this until today...

after the quake is the only title i've read by murakami, and if it's a question of whether i like it--i don't like all of it, that's for sure. but i think it is very very well-written all the same. i remember reading 'all god's children can dance' from that collection and feeling deeply moved, because the closing description of dancing in a field captured the sense of dreamlike vigour with such clarity that it really snared me emotionally.

reading (for the first time, believe it or not) the great gatsby at the moment.

[denimdestroyedmylife]

just finished SWANNS WAY

and am continuing with MALDOROR until SPOOK COUNTRY comes out

MALDOROR is bananas----in one chapter, Maldoror stands on the shore shooting at people that are trying to swim to shore as their ship sinks. sharks arrive and start eating the swimmers. maldoror shoots the weak sharks and then swims out to kill the fierce female shark with a dagger. instead, he makes love to the shark. next chapter, he is a winged octopus.

[buffalocloud7]

intrapartum management modules...wow this sux!

[lllllllllllllll]

the fountainhead by ayn rand

[suremanok]

A Farewell to Arms

[link]

Gaiman's Neverwhere

[notesee]

Homme+ magazine.

[whizkit]

[tweeds]

A Farewell to Arms

responses to it? hemingway seems to elicit a particularly wide spectrum of responses

[suremanok]

^ Well I'm still early into the book but so far it's been good. The relationship between the two main characters is starting to develop. I chose to read the book particularly because I enjoy Hemingway's writing. Also, I really liked The Sun Also Rises so I decided to give this one a chance.

[chund]

slaughterhouse 5

[jeepster]

hardball by chris matthews

its ponderous, condescending, somewhat funny, interesting, and generally slow. chris matthews wants to suck tip o'neils dick.

its for a class.

[aziz]

latest issue of concrete wave magazine

[asuzano]

death on the installment plan by louis ferdinand celine. my favorite writer currently...

[shut up alex]

responses to it? hemingway seems to elicit a particularly wide spectrum of responses

i read the snows of kilimanjaro today, and i think im going to switch to kerouc tomorrow. i guess ill finally read on the road.

[lucky_cloud]

just finished SWANNS WAY

and am continuing with MALDOROR until SPOOK COUNTRY comes out

MALDOROR is bananas----in one chapter, Maldoror stands on the shore shooting at people that are trying to swim to shore as their ship sinks. sharks arrive and start eating the swimmers. maldoror shoots the weak sharks and then swims out to kill the fierce female shark with a dagger. instead, he makes love to the shark. next chapter, he is a winged octopus.

Kudos for finishing Swann's way AND for reading Maldoror. I read the first page of the latter and decided that it would be too much of a slog. I was at the library and I decided to borrow Venus In Furs instead (which was awesome). I've found Proust to be pretty slow going, too, but I'm sure I'll eventually tackle it again.

I'm just about to finish Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita right now.

whizkit, you look like the sort of guy that would actually read a book by Walter Benjamin all the way through, and I mean that in the best possible way.

[Speak]

Gaiman's Neverwhere

One of his best works! Did you read Stardust prior to this?

[B-15C]

whizkit, you look like the sort of guy that would actually read a book by Walter Benjamin all the way through, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Not a book by Benjamin, but the Cambridge companion to him. We should all have such distinguished companions.

Gaiman's high fantasy wasn't as interesting to me as American Gods and Anansi Boys were. I was just talking about Gaiman's Matrix universe story with someone, and I'm pretty sure you can find a copy of it in his recent short story collection Fragile Things; it's set up in such a way that I wish Gaiman wrote even a single science fiction story a year.

I just finished Bret Easton Ellis's The Informers, a novel that treats B&L Wayfarers like they were their own character. LA circa 1983, it reads like the collective superfuture journal for the vapid, addicted, and derranged. It's the first thing I read of his since Less Than Zero in at least a few years, and only read it because a friend sent it to me. I'm not sure he wasn't just getting rid of it.

[whizkit]

whizkit, you look like the sort of guy that would actually read a book by Walter Benjamin all the way through, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Ha, thanks. As of now, I still need some assistance in reading Benjamin and I'm using the companion to help me bash through some of his writings, to illuminate it if you may. Moving on this weekend to some readings by Susan Buck-Morss.

[superBobo]

MALDOROR is bananas----in one chapter, Maldoror stands on the shore shooting at people that are trying to swim to shore as their ship sinks. sharks arrive and start eating the swimmers. maldoror shoots the weak sharks and then swims out to kill the fierce female shark with a dagger. instead, he makes love to the shark. next chapter, he is a winged octopus.

Maldoror by Lautremont? I tried to read it as a teen, but gave up half way...

[hazel]

I just started to reread the picture of dorian gray by wilde

as soon as I finished it I think I will read Maldoror

denimdestroyedmylife's excerpt made me curious ....

[broneck]

just finished SWANNS WAY

and am continuing with MALDOROR until SPOOK COUNTRY comes out

MALDOROR is bananas----in one chapter, Maldoror stands on the shore shooting at people that are trying to swim to shore as their ship sinks. sharks arrive and start eating the swimmers. maldoror shoots the weak sharks and then swims out to kill the fierce female shark with a dagger. instead, he makes love to the shark. next chapter, he is a winged octopus.

how....i can't even think of an adjective.

currently enjoying this

After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn's for an oyster supper.

I'd say its worth a look, sitting at page 216.

http://www.amazon.com/Meaning-Night-Confession-Michael-Cox/dp/0393330346/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-3918996-1963242?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186202517&sr=8-1

[doctorworm]

lol proust lol

[Minkous]

Not really reading a full book but I'm reading Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreou AGAIN!

[Pie.cr]