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I don't know why I keep reading the series, but I'm about to finish White Night, of the Dresden Files.
This one was a little more enjoyable than the preceding couple of books, though some of the emo crap is really starting to annoy me. Now he's even getting emo with Lasciel and unless this becomes a major plot-twist, it'll annoy me even more.
What I enjoyed were the mystery-elements and some of the more bad-ass moments, though the 5-chapter-long fights against ghouls tend to get a bit tedious. The distinct side-characters are also really fun...
What I'm missing so far is an overarching storyline that I care about for more than one book.
The fallen Angel kind of fits the mould and his apprentice has potential, but other than that...
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Baa?21243 Posts
On September 05 2013 18:40 123Gurke wrote:Just to talk about something someone has just read again  Finished:![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51he4bGB4jL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_SX385_SY500_CR,0,0,385,500_SH20_OU03_.jpg) Good book. Some of the philosophic parts were a little lengthy and the ending is quite unsatisfying, but Sherlock Holmes as a monk is fun. Read it nearly completely during several train rides, so I have probably missed most of the more subtle aspects. I am undecided about what to read next: I still have some sort stories by David Foster Wallace here. Also my mother told me to read the Virgin Suicides. I might also read some of the several thousand pages by the Strugatzki brothers that are still left. Finally, I might want to try Heart of Darkness because of the discussions you have had here. So any advice on where to start?
The end is deliberately unsatisfying, the empty, sad-but-not-quite-sure-why feeling you get at the end was just perfect imo
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On September 05 2013 20:56 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2013 18:40 123Gurke wrote:Just to talk about something someone has just read again Finished:Good book. Some of the philosophic parts were a little lengthy and the ending is quite unsatisfying, but Sherlock Holmes as a monk is fun. Read it nearly completely during several train rides, so I have probably missed most of the more subtle aspects. I am undecided about what to read next: I still have some sort stories by David Foster Wallace here. Also my mother told me to read the Virgin Suicides. I might also read some of the several thousand pages by the Strugatzki brothers that are still left. Finally, I might want to try Heart of Darkness because of the discussions you have had here. So any advice on where to start? The end is deliberately unsatisfying, the empty, sad-but-not-quite-sure-why feeling you get at the end was just perfect imo
I completely agree. I was a little confused at first but when you step back and really analyze the message it makes complete sense.
On a different subject. Anyone here read Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez. Is it similar to One Hundred Years of Solitude, stylitically speaking.
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Ahah, that discussion made me very happy somehow. Shira, you should probably be saying that there might other operative concepts beside ideology we need to consider. But don't forget it either, or you'll end up a closet objectivist before you know it.
I'm halfway through the Dialectic of Reason. Very interesting reading, it even manages to annoy me, which is probably a good sign. The "litterary criticism" part was awesome, even though I think they go a bit fast over some stuff in the Sade part (for instance I think saying that Merteuil is just another kind of Dolmancé or Juliette is really short, but anyway). The Odissey part was just better than expected though, and just after I read it to make it even better !
Reading the part on mass culture now, it's too functionalist or something for me, and it identifies too many things I think need to be analyzed more. To take an extreme example, how would they account for Cimino's movies I wonder... I guess that's my work to think about it.
That's probably just me being a more optimist version of sam! though^^
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Okay, I think I just reworded things a bit wrong. What I should've said was popular ideology rather than ideology in general. Basically, another word for that is political participation if you will but I have a meeting to get to so I once again cannot elaborate. I will though try to clear up some misunderstanding once I get back.
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gurke read hod so we can know if you are a racist or not
syn love in the cholera is different but also awesome. Don't see the movie.
igne is just trolling, he's cool. I haven't forgotten your pm btw but I will wait for my keyboard (edit: I say 'trolling' but actually he's giving a pretty good precis about what morons like fukuyama actually think)
shira habermas is the theorist of a dead age when everyone thought the cold war was over and we could all be happy and rational and communicative together. Same with fukuyama. This stuff is just useless for our situation today, with the cold war as hot as ever and algos taking over everything. You gonna do with communicative action with a drone or a high speed trading algo? Bah
remember kids, ideology is not slogans and platforms and programmes. We call thse 'ideology' but that is a wrong use. Ideology is the air we breathe. Ideology Is all the things you know that are so obviously true that you've never even become conscious of the fact that you know them. If you know you know it, it's not ideology
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has anyone here read artaud? Especially you gallic types. D&g keep talking about him and I don't really know what it is. Some crazy poet or smth
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reading siddharta, because the east is cool
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shiragaku has convinced me that it may be the case that fukuyama is perhaps merely a former idiot, and not a current idiot
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david harvey thinks diamond is an idiot, but I forget why.
yes I'll read that book
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On September 06 2013 10:47 sam!zdat wrote:
david harvey thinks diamond is an idiot, but I forget why.
yes I'll read that book
Diamond is more or less the the Descartes of social sciences right now. Very important figure, but picked apart for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and desert.
Talking from a political point of view, Diamond is too dogmatic in his thinking that it is largely geographic luck which creates civilization and dismisses the role of politics, religion, and culture. I am sure a geographer like Harvey has his own criticisms about Diamond's geography.
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ah yes, that's it. It's like in hegel if you read the introduction to the lectures on the philosophy of history. He has a sort of geographical determinism theory, especially about africa iirc. Hegel on africa is probably the dumbest hegel has ever been. Susan buck-morss has an interesting discussion of this in 'hegel haiti and universal history'.
edit: corum yes doe is a kind of annoying book, that was my group's reaction as well
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On September 05 2013 19:49 SixStrings wrote:
I don't know why I keep reading the series, but I'm about to finish White Night, of the Dresden Files.
This one was a little more enjoyable than the preceding couple of books, though some of the emo crap is really starting to annoy me. Now he's even getting emo with Lasciel and unless this becomes a major plot-twist, it'll annoy me even more.
What I enjoyed were the mystery-elements and some of the more bad-ass moments, though the 5-chapter-long fights against ghouls tend to get a bit tedious. The distinct side-characters are also really fun...
What I'm missing so far is an overarching storyline that I care about for more than one book.
The fallen Angel kind of fits the mould and his apprentice has potential, but other than that...
With out spoiling anything, you are moving towards the big over arching plot, with villains starting to have more obvious connections, all though they have been there but not easily discernible for awhile now.
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On September 06 2013 10:31 sam!zdat wrote:
shiragaku has convinced me that it may be the case that fukuyama is perhaps merely a former idiot, and not a current idiot
He did think Bush was a terrible president. He's not totally impervious to reason.
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On September 06 2013 01:22 sam!zdat wrote:
remember kids, ideology is not slogans and platforms and programmes. We call thse 'ideology' but that is a wrong use. Ideology is the air we breathe. Ideology Is all the things you know that are so obviously true that you've never even become conscious of the fact that you know them. If you know you know it, it's not ideology
Ideology "is" the way we think not realising that it is the way we think. Nice to have you back on these boards, sam!zdat.
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On September 06 2013 10:47 sam!zdat wrote:
david harvey thinks diamond is an idiot, but I forget why.
yes I'll read that book
It's probably because Diamond is not a Marxist. Harvey is a rarity, an old school Marxist.
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well yes, but there are specific failings that make people not a marxist. With diamond it was the unidimensional nature of his analysis and geographical determinism. Harvey is a true dialectician and will not stand for such things.
I love harvey with a blazing passion. I have read all but two of his books and I will get to those soon.
edit: actually, it was reading harvey's _spaces of hope_, benjamin's _arcades project_, and kracauer's _the salaried masses_ my sophomore year that made me a marxist
edit: it just occurred to me... Why has there not been more talk here about philip dick? Philip dick is the greatest american novelist there has ever been or will ever be. All of you need to be reading more philip dick.
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I've only read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", but it was rather nice.
I especially liked the part about mechanical pets as a status symbol.
But what else to read by him?
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Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
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EPT
