Books etc.

[Daemonik]

That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and Americans. A European says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with me?" An American says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?"

-- Terry Pratchett


Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them.

-- Terry Pratchett

[vtkitty1313]

"I need that like i need teeth in my asshole"

From the book I am currently reading..........Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.
The chapter that quote comes from is sick and disturbing (i.e masterbating with a pool pump) but overall a great book with some interesting social commentary.

[perclissigi]

Originally Posted by vtkitty1313

"I need that like i need teeth in my asshole"

From the book I am currently reading..........Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.
The chapter that quote comes from is sick and disturbing (i.e masterbating with a pool pump) but overall a great book with some interesting social commentary.

Spooky posted that entire section a while back, amazing writing, but highly disturbing. I finished "Running With Scissors", wondering which of my many books I should read next...

[william]

My first real full-time job involved running back-up tapes at night. In college, idealist, afraid of losing my soul to the workforce, I scoffed at "worker-drones," people caught up in office life. So judgmental back then, filling in life stories on the merest glimpse.

Anyway, knowing enough to be able to configure my log-in terminal page, I had it display the following:

Most men even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.... the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day... He has no time to be anything but a machine.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

--Walden. Henry David Thoreau

These are words to contemplate. Words which in many ways, indirectly, have influenced who I have become.

Hopefully each one of us will come to know what our individual "finer fruits" are. For some, work itself is succulence, for others our livelihood support our lives. In either case, "This above all: to thine own self be true."

Read that comic book, bake those cookies, log onto the chat, watch a game, read the Economist, go to work, stand over your child's bed, knit.

Know what makes you happy and fuck it if everyone else thinks it's dumb.

Reach for that fruit as often as possible.

[Dana]

First paragraph of the book.

"Her name was Bullwinkle. We called her that because she had a face like a Moose. But Tommy, even though he could get any girl he wanted on the Sunset Strip, would not break up with her. He loved her and wanted to marry her, he kept telling us, because she could spray her cum across the room."

The Dirt By: Motley Crue

kinda gives ya a nice little peek at what you are getting yourself into for the next 430 pages.

[william]

Its been years since I read this book and yet, oftentimes my mind floats back to it, to the following section in particular.

This was Hijelos first book, and of all of them, I think its the one that rings the most true. His later books are certainly more lyrical and he has honed his skills well, but in this one we see a foreshadowing of themes he will revisit and expand upon in books to come.

Virgina and Maria found work in a factory in Jersey City, and Pedro came home one evening with news that he had landed a fright dispatcher's job in an airport. Just like that. He had brought home a big box of pastries, sweet cakes with super-sweet cream, chocolate clairs, honey drenched cookies with maraschino cherries in their centers.

As Alejo devoured some of these, he said to Pedro, "Well, that's good. You're lucky to have such good friends here. Does it pay you well?"

Pedro nodded slightly and said, "I don't know, it starts out at seven thousand dollars a year, but it will get better.

Alejo also nodded, but he was sick, because after twenty years in the same job he did not make that much, and this brought down his head and made him yawn. He got up and went to his bedroom where he fell asleep.

- Oscar Hijelos, Our House In The Last World

Reading it now, its not how I recalled it, not how Ive played it back countless times. Ill try to capture the phantom of my memory:

Pedro wanted to thank Alejo for having put him up those first few months in New York. Through another Cuban, he had landed a fright dispatcher's job in an airport.

Cubans were like that back then New York was a different city. Spanish was still an exotic language, spoken only by busboys and laborers. Every Cuban who arrived came with an address, the name of a distant relative or friend. And they were always met with open arms, a hearty meal, and a sofa to sleep on. Nothing was asked in return. No one was ever turned away. You came to the United States to work, to better yourself, or to reclaim the glory you once held before the Bastard took over. You worked and took care of your own and of others. To ask for welfare, for help, when there were good jobs to be found cleaning offices, washing dishes, packing groceries would be shameful. What did it matter that you held a university degree or used to own property. You spoke a different tongue, ate different foods, looked different, and raised your children differently.

If it wasnt for you, Cousin, I dont know what I would have done.

Alejo wiped his lips on an A&P paper towel. It was nothing, Pedro. You would do the same for me.

Still, to put us up for months until I found a job. Maria and I will never forget it. One day we will pay you back. You will see.

Pedro your friendship is all I ask.

Nonsense. You will see. Im only making seven thousand dollars at the airport, but one day, if I work hard enough, I will repay you.

Alejo smiled and shook his head, but inside he was dying. He felt as if someone had kicked him in the stomach, and for a moment the room blacked out. Seven thousand dollars. After twenty years in the same job he did not make that much.

- William

[william]

Sometimes you'll find words in an introduction that sum up the majesty of a novel in ways that a single passage from it's content can not. I'll quote two of my favorite introductions - one from an unfortunately forgotten autobiography and the other from one from a masterpiece of 20th Century fiction.

First we begin with the introduction by Theodore Rosengarten from, "All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw."

When we came up to the crucial events of the thirties the sessions turned into heated dialogs. I pressed Shaw for his motivations and challenged him to justify himself. Here, I want to make my sympathies clear. Nate Shaw was - and is - a hero to me.

Nate Shaw is also a hero to me. A uneducated man, a sharecropper, who knew enough about what was right and was willing to sacrifice his life for it. He did not change history, but he was part of the force that moved it, a person whom we should pay homage to. Read this and you will understand why I do not and will never use certain pejoratives, words that were spit in Shaw's face. So many have been tortured, tormented, destroyed because of the nature of their skin. It saddens me that certain derogatory terms have entered our vernacular and are uttered without any reckoning of the sufferings that were felt as said words rang in the air. If one truly believes they hold no dominion over any man, then they should never be charged, no matter who utters them. I don't know how Nate Shaw would react, if he would be glad that in a way it's been emancipated or if he'd be sadden to hear his kin utter it without care.

In the end, I am not worthy to stand in the shadows of a man such as Nate Shaw.

---

The second introductory quote comes from a novel that all readers should have.

But the lady was persistent, and it somehow came to pass that she stood in my office hading me the hefty manuscript. There was no getting out of it; only one hope remained - that I could read a few pages and that they would be bad enough for me, in good conscience, to read no farther. Usually I can do just that. Indeed the first paragraph often suffices. My only fear was that this one might not be bad enough, or might be just good enough, so that I would have to keep reading.

In this case I read on. And on. At first with the sinking feeling that it was not bad enough to quit, then with a prickle of interest, then with growing excitement, and finally an incredulity: surely it was not possible that it was so good....

The tragedy of the book is the tragedy of the author - his suicide in 1969 at the age of thirty-two. Another tragedy is the body of work we have been denied.

-Walker Percy, Introduction to "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

This is how Dunces strikes you – at first you might be bored, wondering what’s going on, but then you give the novel a chance and begin to marvel as it’s excellence progresses, grows, until you’re left flabbergasted, speechless, almost. This surely can not be this good!

Like Don Quixote, "A Confederacy of Dunces" is a novel that shouldn't be tackled unless you're in the mood for it. Is anyone reading these write-ups? To have to sit down are be forced by assignment to read it or to address it simply because one feels one must is to do it a disservice.

[Euro]

Originally Posted by vtkitty1313

"I need that like i need teeth in my asshole"

From the book I am currently reading..........Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.
The chapter that quote comes from is sick and disturbing (i.e masterbating with a pool pump) but overall a great book with some interesting social commentary.

Yes, if you havn't read that book yet, go and get it now.

[Hagge]

Curious discussion to find in a forum that is mostly discussing titties and masturbation, though i'm not surprised considering the extremely broad reach KATG has.

Anyway - to the books. william's books seem so high-brow that it feels like i should contribute from the more intellectual side of books..

So - try The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, it's from 1890 or something like that so it's out of copyright and you can download it from the Gutenberg project - http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4078 . It's just stunningly well written and _ALOT_ of movie quotes etc come from that book, for a reason.

Speaking of Gutenberg, if you haven't read Jules Verne you might want to - one of the first real Sci-Fi writers and wrote wonderful books which several have been made movies (several editions of those too). Also found on Gutenberg.


Personally i'm a sucker for more fact-based books such as writings by Malcolm Gladwell or Freakonomics by Steven Levitt. Try Simon Singh if you want to see how the heck anyone can write about geeky stuff like math and cryptography and make it intresting.

William Gibson's Pattern Recognition especially is extremely well written while the Neuromancer-trilogy should be must-read for all geeks. Geeks should also of course read Neal Stephenson too, Cryptonomicon is one of my favourites but Snow Crash and Zodiac are great too. The rest depends abit on your taste.

Looking forward to more discussion about books.. And fuck you guys too

[devilishone]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck You and the reindeer you rode in on, welcome to the forums ;])