#1664

Sounds incredible. If only I could track down reasonably priced editions of McElroy’s novels :thinking:

1 Like
#1665

Dzanc reprinted a trade paperback/digital edition of Women and Men (my favorite novel actually, which im perpetually rereading). They also have done digital reprints of Plus and Lookout Cartridge (and supposedly Hind’s Kidnap soonish)

2 Likes
#1666

I love “Dhalgren” and have never found it overly difficult, vaporous, or amorphous. It is one of the two basic stories; in this case ‘a stranger comes to town.’ Then a whole lot of stuff transpires and the stranger leaves town changed for the experience.

Anyway, now I would like to see “Plus.” As noted above, affordable print copies are in short supply. I am going to the library when the library here re-opens (if?!) to request it via inter-library loan. Then I can read it for freeeeeeee.

1 Like
#1667

Since I only commented on “how difficult” Dhalgren is, I wanna say that I think it’s really good and the “amorphous” elements all make sense in terms of what it’s trying to represent: the experience of what it’s like to live with disassociation/mental illness/trauma.

2 Likes
#1668

I agree. Did Delaney mention these influences in an interview or something? I’m not a scholar but always curious to hear from authors what their intentions may have been.

#1669

I can’t say for certain. I’ve never read any interview with him about that particular book but I used to hang around with a Delaney fanatic who might have imparted some of that information indirectly. I know in the very least that part of it’s inspired by his dyslexia.

2 Likes
#1671

just finished the Three-Body Problem trilogy.
Now that is an ending!

4 Likes
#1672

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The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism by Kyle Chayka

I read The Longing for Less over the weekend, and enjoyed it. I’d consider it a challenging read, in that it’s not so much looking to provide you with answers to specific questions so much as providing context for Minimialism Δ minimalism by looking at history. Rather than merely provinding a scathing cultural critque of where language has taken the term, it seeks to create portraits of a few notable figures as a means of providing insight into different kinds of reduction. Why do these ideas return?

I was alredy very familiar with many of the book’s prominent figures, but Chayka does a good job weaving them together with personal experience into a poigninet context that allows you to juxtapose their ideas and failings. It allows the reader to ask how these questions relate to themselves rather than a “one size fits all” minimalism of commercial entities like Kondo who’ve come to dominate the term and it’s diffusion in meaning within broader culture. This book isn’t for everyone; and I’m honestly not sure how this book would land for people who aren’t at least loosely invested in the modern art canon, but if you struggle with meaning, especially as a creative, this book offers a lot to chew on.

6 Likes
#1673

I just finished it last week——-amazing! So much to chew on.

#1674

Morality, mortality and mutability!

1 Like
#1675

Lines book club report. Most of my recent fiction selections were found on this thread. Thanks everyone!

The Dispossessed: immensely satisfying and hypnotic

Agency: rapid fire dialogue was off-putting as was the “app whisperer” protagonist

Seveneves: nearly as good on the second read as it was on the first a few years ago

Currently reading Killing Commendatore and the left hand of darkness

Nonfiction:

The Decadent Society by Ross Douthat was an engaging read even though I’m not really on the right as it avoids over baked culture war religious patronization

What is Real by Adam Becker was surprisingly easy to follow along as a walkthrough of quantum mechanics history

Heaven and Hell by Bart Ehrman was a somewhat intriguing history on the development of the idea of the afterlife in western society

Until the End of Time by Brian Greene was a cosmology catalog with personal commentary. The science explanations were fine but the spiritual journey type stuff was clumsy.

5 Likes
#1676

If you want to read a book on how how much recent archaeology can change understandings of the past, I recommend this.

https://www.wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk/past-winners/2019-winners/building-anglo-saxon-england/

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5 Likes
#1677

I’m half way through this, which is excellent although possibly not the thing to cheer me up in the current situation

#1678

I’m intrigued. Honestly I cannot stand minimalism in the lifestyle marketing term sense, but being an obsessive about exploring every nook of minimal/post-minimal and related visual art and music I’m kind of curious how these things are rectified since for me one actually has nothing to do with the other despite their constant association by many people. I only had the question posed very directly to me once and I feel like I’ve spent years mulling over how to articulate a proper answer in my head since of “minimalism is becoming very popular right now in terms of design and aesthetics, how does that make you feel about it in an artistic context?” and always coming up short with a good explanation other than it makes usually makes me very rant-y. Maybe someone found a better way to explain all of that? haha

somewhat related commentary- https://www.thecut.com/2020/03/will-the-millennial-aesthetic-ever-end.html

1 Like
#1679

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https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/102/SoundAn-Acoulogical-Treatise

Half-off through today

2 Likes
#1680


Poetry. East Asia Studies. Women’s Studies. Translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi.

excerpt

DARK GIGGLE CLUB

Bodies filled with filthy water
Pigs oink-oink in the sty
Why, they all look alike!

A girl goes dancing after sorting her family’s trash

Oh that fantastic-sewer-daddy hit me
Oh that water-filled-jar-mommy abandoned me

Daddy pig eats numbers and buttocks dangle from the cheeks of mommy pig

The filthiest thing in the world are
little swine who want to become mommy
sniffling little swine who want to become daddy

Daddy raises me to make me daddy
Mommy raises me to make me mommy

I’m shaking my body to brush off
the mommy-daddy smell stuck to my body

I’m filthy at the moment
My body spotted with mommy-daddy shadows is really dirty

Me me me me die but mommy and daddy live forever

Mommy is filthy like greasy clouds
Daddy is filthier as mucky water boils inside him

A gigantic black envelope opens up between the ground and the clouds
The night when the darkness carries us and dances wavering-wavering
Why, everyone’s confession in the world is ultimately the same!

Dirty, dirty, mommy-daddy only shit out death
They are as filthy as the truck loaded with pigs
The night when I get sloshed at a jam-packed club

The night when a knife-blade from faraway, shining like a new moon, arrives to cut out the shadows from my body

The night when I vomit while shaking the intestines that will become mommy’s or daddy’s someday in the future

4 Likes
#1681

“Phone”, by Will Self.

For a “difficult” read, it’s surprisingly easy.

It’s the final part of a trilogy so probably best to attempt “Umbrella” and “Shark” first, rather than skipping straight to the final book.

#1682

Next up:

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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjm9KH12pDpAhUIr54KHWwnBd8QFjAAegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.curiousmusic.us%2Fall-products%2Fthe-book-the-autobiography-of-hans-joachim-roedelius&usg=AOvVaw2XncWo7-8Rkus3gL9z6_zu

Plus, this:

2 Likes
#1683

Wow! Instabuy! Thanks for posting! :pray:

#1684

Very happy you enjoyed! Don Mee Choi has translated a number of her books into English so there’s more to explore beyond this one…

1 Like