Since one thread consists of fantasy discussion and the other is some arcane conversation Mark is having with himself about moving messages, here's my attempt to get back into the realm of lit-RA-ture.

I'll start: Hemingway's a fag. Discuss amongst yourselves.

-Tom

And now for my real message:

Just got two books in I forgot I'd ordered, both based on recommendations from the inestimable Mr. Wolpaw:

The Ice at the Bottom of the World, a book of short stories by someone named Mark Richard, who shares with Tom Arnold and Peter Gabriel the misfortunate of having been given two first names instead of a first and last name

and

Civilwarland in Bad Decline by George Saunders.

My lurking friend, Mr. Cain, has also spoken highly of Mr. Saunders. Mr. Cain, since I know you're reading this and that you have plenty of time on your hands on account of your recently acquired unemployed status, why don't you jump in and join us?

Oh, here's a thought. How the hell do you guys read more than one book at a time? I can *maybe* read one fiction and one non-fiction book concurrently. I also find myself locked into books I'm not enjoying simply because I have a hard time giving up on something that requires as much of a time investment as a book. I'd never read any Russell Banks, so I picked up his latest. It was an 800-ish page magnum opus about John Brown, the pre-Civil War anti-slavery crusader. It was tedious. I knew after 200 pages I wasn't enjoying it. But I finished the whole damn thing more out of a sense of obligation than anything else.

-Tom

"Just got two books in I forgot I'd ordered"

When you start receiving merchandise you forgot you had paid for, I think you are well on the way to contracting what I can only describe as "Hiles Syndrome."

Six thousand books? Fuck me.

"I'd never read any Russell Banks, so I picked up his latest. It was an 800-ish page magnum opus about John Brown, the pre-Civil War anti-slavery crusader. It was tedious. I knew after 200 pages I wasn't enjoying it. But I finished the whole damn thing more out of a sense of obligation than anything else."

You need to acquaint yourself with the corporate finance concept of "sunk costs."

"Oh, here's a thought. How the hell do you guys read more than one book at a time? I can *maybe* read one fiction and one non-fiction book concurrently."

7:30am-8am: Breakfast
8am-10am: Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain
10am-10:30am: Break
10:30am-12:30pm: Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel
12:30pm-1:30pm: Lunch
1:30pm-3:30pm: George Johnson's Fire in the Mind
3:30pm-4:30pm: Walk
4:30pm-6:30pm: Charles Fraizer's Cold Mountain
6:30pm-7:30pm: Dinner
7:30pm-7:45pm: Sex
7:45pm-10:00pm: Patrick McManus' Real Ponies Don't Go Oink!
10:00pm-7:30am: Sleep

Obvious observations:

1. John Brown's Body is sung to the tune we normally associate with "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah"

"John Brown's Body lies a'mouldering in the grave... His truth goes marching on!"

2. John Brown is known for his stand at Harper's Ferry (and his gallows speech). The Colonel sent to suppress his "revolution" was Robert E. Lee. Making Lee one of the earliest, and latest, players in the Civil War.

These are obvious observations, but I've found them to be "little known" so I'm mentioning them here. I also like to think of it when I think of fiction writing. Casting Lee in the John Brown story and then ending with Appomattox seems very... Hollywood.

Anyway, I also found the Russell Banks book dull. But, I didn't feel obligated to finish it. I preferred this biography:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0590475746/ref=pd_sim_books/103-7608315-5902232

Fiery Vision : The Life and Death of John Brown
by Clinton Cox

-Andrew

"Since one thread consists of fantasy discussion and the other is some arcane conversation Mark is having with himself about moving messages...."

Thank you for all your support and help. :)

John Brown is also known for his May 1856 "work" in "Bleeding" Kansas:

John Brown and four of his sons seized five proslavery settlers from their homes along Pottawatomie Creek and, in front of the settler's families, hacked them to death with broadswords.

"Hiles Syndrome"-- it's like the "Helsinki Syndrome" but with books and not terrorists...

Yeah Bill, his truth came marching on but it was an ugly psycho kind of truth. Still, his story is fascinating.

Broad swords. Yow.

-Andrew

>his truth came marching on

S.M. Stirling:

Marching Through Georgia - Under The Yoke - The Stone Dogs

Literature, Mr. Chick? How about John Skelton, the original rapper? I've always thought that would make a good paper. Here's a sample:

No man may him hide
From Death hollow-eyed
With sinews widered*, [withered]
With bones shidered*, [shattered]
With his worm-eaten maw,
And his ghastly jaw
Gasping aside,
Naked of hide,
Neither flesh nor fell.
Thou by my counsel
Look that ye spell
Well this gospel,
For whereso we dwell
Death will us quell
And with us mell*. [intermingle]

See how the rhyme continues or breaks off at his whim? There was no real form he followed if I recall correctly from my english lit classes from long ago. He was a 15th century hip hop artist!

Actually, don't discuss this. It's another message board test.

Word to thy mater.

The End Of All Good Things
By
Ernest �Not a Fag� Hemingway


He remembered . . .

Tom was an old man who read alone on the bridge in the noonday heat. He was brown and wrinkled and stooped from long hours of peering over his books. He had used that spot since May and now it was late August and in all that time he had never smiled. The boy who brought him lunch watched from the bank and waited patiently under the shade. The boy�s parents had told him that Tom was muy loco and that was the worst form of loco to be.

The boy had gone to run lunch for other readers after that but there was a sadness to this work. These old men from the college talked too loudly in the morning quiet. They turned pages without grace and their eyes were hard and shiny as pennies in a cold stream. Tom was a true reader. His heart shown clean and good like the library in springtime, full of new book covers that flashed white in the sun.

�Books and I have an understanding,� Tom had told the boy. The man had the look of being in love when love is all you have and the world is still young enough to understand. �When it is time for me to go in and play computer games, books will no longer make me smile.�

The boy watched Tom in the noonday heat and he knew it was the end of all good things.

I think we can close this thread now. [sniff]

-Tom

OK - here's my contribution for the morning:

Tom - go get James Lee Burke's first in the Dave Robicheaux series. New Orleans Noir. The antithesis of all of these damned fantasy books with fairies and trolls and wizards.

Second: Updike sucks. He's one of the 5 most overated writers in history. He writes like a freshman in an honors college writing class.

George Saunders is just marvelous. Tom, don't miss his second collection of stories, Pastoralia.

And also "The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip" a children's book he did that's certainly not (just) for children. He's a sick, wonderful writer.

"The 400-pound CEO," I think it's called, it's in Civilwarland -- it won a National Magazine Award for Fiction when it was first published years ago.

Hmm, books that my eyes have been crossing over lately that don't involve orcs and elves and gee-whiz spaceships and shit?

I'm working my way through Sword & Citadel, the second half of Gene Wolfe's Book Of The New Sun, based on Ron Dulin's recommendation. Yea, one finds it in the sci-fi/fantasy section, but it doesn't really seem to fit there.

Stuff I've gone through recently:
Barrow's Boys by Fergus Fleming: Book about 19th-century British explorers. The crazy fools who went into the Arctic/Africa/Antarctica. The guys who went crazy in the snow and ate their own boots, for the good of map-making.

Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa: I guess from reading Lone Wolf & Cub, getting Kurosawa flicks on DVD, and then this, I'm fulfilling some sort of weird ancient Japanese samurai fetish.

The Secret Agent by Joe Conrad: I'm not a big Heart Of Darkness fan, but I did like Conrad's shorts, and a classmate described this to me as a spy novel for Ingleesh majors. It still retains Conrad's rambling style. Bastard.

Dictionary Of The Khazars, Male Edition by Milorad Pavic: Trippy little work of magic realism. It was a funky read, because it's not laid out conventionally. I ended up cross-referencing stories across the three dictionaries (it makes sense when you see the book), and read it chunks at a time, in-between other books. It was pretty cool, in that surreal kinda way.

Stuff in the queue:

Contingency Cannibalism : Superhardcore Survivalism's Dirty Little Secret by Shiguro Takada: From the shelf of an acquaintance at Apple. In-between his various reference books about Java and OS Development and crap. It sounds like a must-read, heh.

Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble by Stefan Fatsis: I think these people would be the one fanboy-type that even gamers and comic book dorks can mock.

Tokyo Underworld : The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan (Vintage Departures) by Robert Whiting: Golly, first samurai, now yakuza? Why the hell am I reading so much about the Japanese? Heh.

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon: Because I can't escape my new degree.

I'm gonna pick up some Cormac McCarthy and Jim Thompson based on the other thead.

And yes, Tom, Ernest is a fag. How else can you explain, what was it, "Ernestine" or somesuch? =)

The only thing Ernest Hemingway *is* is dead.


Last I heard anyway.

I just read "Black Hawk Down", a riveting account of the botched Somalia operation in 1993.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0871137380

The book complements the documentary "One Day in September"-- which I also saw recently-- nicely.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000059H77/qid=999215210

Eg, War, what is it good for, good god ya'll, absolutely nothing, say it again, repeat ad nauseam.

Damn, forgot to add. Seeing One Day in September will permanently disabuse you of the notion of "German Efficiency". It would have been comical if it wasn't so damn depressing.

"How the hell do you guys read more than one book at a time? "

I keep one in my car, and usually one or two in different parts of my house. If I go out to eat somewhere by myself (yes, a very sad and lonely life has Kazz), or sitting in bed before nodding off, or at the table with breakfast, there's a book handy. If one really gets ahold of me, though, it goes with me wherever I go until I can knock it out.

"The Secret Agent by Joe Conrad: I'm not a big Heart Of Darkness fan, but I did like Conrad's shorts, and a classmate described this to me as a spy novel for Ingleesh majors. It still retains Conrad's rambling style. Bastard. "

I actually did a thesis on Conrad... was supposed to be used for my entrance to graduate school for English (yay...), anyway, he was a good writer.. considering English was his second language!

And watch Sgt York... I saw it again recently... some good WW1 footage at the end. a Howard Hawks movie.. and did you know Howard Hawks is John Carpenters favorite director? so that makes John Carpenter pretty film literate right?

And Killing Pablo I liked just a little better than BLack Hawk Down. Pablo Escobar was estimated at one time in the late eighties to be the fourth richest man in the world... can you believe that? he practically built whole cities up in Columbia. also, the guy was a freakin sadist. The Violence.

etc

"anyway, he was a good writer.. considering English was his second language!"

Considering nothing. Conrad has an amazing command of English that should embarrass allegedly native speakers of English like Terry Brooks. Reading Conrad, you have no idea that he essentially taught himself English.

I remember being caught reading some collection of pulp short stories (some alternate history/sci-fi called "Hitler Victorious") when I was in high school. "Have you read all of Flannery O'Connor?" I was asked. No, of course I hadn't. "Then what the Hell are you doing?"

Good question.

"I remember being caught reading some collection of pulp short stories (some alternate history/sci-fi called "Hitler Victorious") when I was in high school. "Have you read all of Flannery O'Connor?" I was asked. No, of course I hadn't. "Then what the Hell are you doing?""

I have nothing to add to this, but it's worth appearing on the board at least twice.

-Tom

Yeah, but what if Hitler hadn't invaded Russia and Germany won. What would have happened? That's what I want to know.

If you really want to get down to it, the backbone of literature is poetry. It's always been the deeper art. Read that first.

"Yeah, but what if Hitler hadn't invaded Russia and Germany won. What would have happened? That's what I want to know."

The Soviet Union would be more powerful. Germany never had the manpower to hold on to the whole of Europe and since Stalin was as paranoid as Hitler, he would have attacked soon enough.
If Hitler hadn't been so paranoid and power-hungry he wouldn't have been in a position to invade Russia in the first place so it's a question that has lost its charm with me.

What would have happened if Karl XII had either gone for Russia's throat directly after Narva or perhaps consolidated his position after Poland, now that's an interesting question :)

"Churchill...Churchill wasn't a painter. Now the Fuhrer, he was a painter. He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon...TWO COATS!"

I think a more pertinent question than any of this Hitler crap is where we'd all be if Canada had never existed.

-Amanpour

>>I think a more pertinent question than any of this Hitler crap is where we'd all be if Canada had never existed.

Neil Young wouldn't exist, which would be bad. But neither would Bryan Adams, which would be good. No Kids in the Hall, which would be bad. But no Celine Dion, which is the clincher.

We'd be better off if Canda never existed.

"Yeah, but what if Hitler hadn't invaded Russia and Germany won. What would have happened? That's what I want to know."

The Cold War, except with Germany & the USSR & China being the Bad Guys, instead of just the USSR & China. "Germany" here translates to "all of Europe but Great Britain, with that reduced to a panicky Tiawan-style US protectorate."

I'm not sure how the US would have dealt with being the only major democracy left on the planet, though.

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We'd be better off if Canda never existed.

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All files on the board are currently locked, as the board is being regenerated. This process will be finished in 157 seconds or less. Please wait 15 seconds and then submit your request again. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

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That's awesome! 157 seconds or less. How wonderful! Now, if only Windows had error messages like that!

And, no, I'm not really quite as excited by that error message as the last post might indicate...

Woops! Sorry David, that was me.

I did managed to fix the broken links on the topics page, so at least it was for a good cause.

Well, good for you, Tim!! I noticed that it was working. I wondered if it was you or Asher.

Hats off to you both for working together to fix the boards!

Three cheers!

Hip-hip...oh, whatever. Good going.

>>Do all gaming mag editors in charge have a fixation with Canada?

Actually, I love Canda. We're right on the border up here in Northern Vermont, and due to the ghastly exchange rate, everything is wicked cheap up in Montreal.

And Canadians are so nice. Well, except for the French ones in Quebec. They're like French people.

Hey now--don't get on the French, Bauman. Some gaming magazine editors are MARRIED to French people. Let's just stick with the Canadians here.

Hey Thierry--how's Musashi? I've been thinking about reading it but can't ever find a copy.

Has anyone read a historical novel about the Alamo, called something like, "Gates of the Alamo" (I think). This friend of mine recommended it to me, but sometimes her taste can be a little suspect. (Like when she recommended Clive Barker's Galilee---worst novel EVER!)

"I remember being caught reading some collection of pulp short stories (some alternate history/sci-fi called "Hitler Victorious") when I was in high school. "Have you read all of Flannery O'Connor?" I was asked. No, of course I hadn't. "Then what the Hell are you doing?""

Way to go, Bruce. Thanks for depressing me at the start of my Labor Day Weekend. :)

Jeff
(now throwing out his long boxes of comics and mystery novels and going to buy some Tolstoy.)

One thing about Montreal that I noticed (don't tell the wife) is how many good-looking women there are--in that European chic way of good-looking.

Jeff--you want the whole Musashi series? Drop me an email with addy and I'll ship 'em out to you. Free. Hell, you want the Musashi trilogy on VHS? Got that too.

I've read the Illustrated Flannery O'Connor, does that count?

Oh man, Bill--yeah, sure! Jeez. That's way too generous!! But hang onto the Musashi tapes--I'mo eventually buy 'em on DVD. (but thank you!)

I'll send ya an email...

Jeff

no problem Jeff. It's not as if I can't spare any books. Space at my household is at a premium. I bet my wife wishes I'd give more books away. Say a couple of thousand?

"If you really want to get down to it, the backbone of literature is poetry. "

Thats all i read if i read "serious" stuff. I usually read these days the french symbolists or some Wallace Stevens ... i remember you saying you were studying a particular movement in English Lit, was it Rennsaisance? Yah, English Rennaisance Literature...the best (Shakespeare alone was his own movement!). And Marlowe still sounds good to a "non-trained" poetic ear. Good stuff.

I was also reading reviews of that new movie "O" bsaed on Othello. Funny how people still get all hubub over his tragedies, and its what... 600 years since...

"Have you read all of Flannery O'Connor?"

O'Connor... she was damn good. She's the closest to "contemporary" literature i read alot of. Even if she is set in the South, theres a retribution feel to her writing, a genuine Se7en feel to it all. After that most "contemporary" lit seems to bitch and moan about modern life too much... either too social or too self centered. all imo of course (i do like Dellilo's 80's stuff). Im a hypocrite though, since i haven't kept up much with current stuff as much, so damn lazu. And whoever said Updike sucked... yeah i agree! well he aint bad... but he rips off too much, or his style meanders from book to book, too "show offy". his rabbit stuff... borrrring. Now Cheever, he was a good New England regional writer that meant something, even if it was set in upper class New Hapshire or whatnut i could relate alot to some of his short stories.

ramblin on.....sorry!

etc

Actually, I know more about contemporary poetry than any other period. I haven't kept up, though.

Wallace Stevens is one of the great ones. "Sunday Morning" is one of my favorite poems.

Well, now that I'm a "regular" here (second post!), I'll give some of my opinions on a couple books I've read recently. Lately I seem to be on a book-buying spree, which I can only blame on Amazon.com and their damn one-button ordering system. It's just too frickin easy...

Anywho, I recently got into a Chuck Palahniuk kinda mood at random (never read anything of his) and picked up Choke. It's a super fast read, but interesting in a way that only Palahniuk can apparently be. I'm a big, big fan of Fight Club and he's definitely got a style to him. After Choke I bought Survivor and Fight Club, both of which are equally great. I was surprised to find myself interested in reading Fight Club even though I own the DVD. Anyway, they're all easy to pick up and they make you think. Chuck Palahniuk is about as weird as his name.

I also picked up and tore through Black Hawk Down. Man, what a rush that book is! It's being made into a movie (if it's not already in the can by now) and I can't wait. Those soldiers were serious bad asses. I think about that book while I play Operation Flashpoint and realize what a freakin panzy I truly am. Pick it up - it's great.

I'm about 100 pages into Clancy's latest paperback. Damn, does this guy get paid by the page or something? Seriously, it's a long book, which is good because I tend to read quite fast and end up spending my hard-earned drug money on literature. I'm not really into it, but you know how Clancy is - he spends half the book setting up all the disperate situations and then the other half bringing them all together in a big bang.

But I'm not sure I'll get to that latter half anytime soon. I just got Kitchen Confidential delivered. I don't even remember where I heard about this book, but it's by some snazzy writer and was highly rated at Amazon, so click and here it is.

And, to top it all off, I've got Breaking Windows on the way, because I seem to have some sort of fixation with Microsoft. Seriously, after doing PR for the games group there and seeing what it's like inside MS, I love reading about the little squabbles and such that nobody ever hears about.

Anyway, in summation, go pick up any Chuck P. book that you can find, run, don't walk to your nearest bookstore and get Black Hawk Down, and for the love of Pete, tell Amazon to get rid of that damn one-button order system!

Yeah, I'd like to read the Fight Club novel and maybe his other stuff. I've never read the guy.

Clancy I haven't read in a long time. I read Red October and maybe one other book, but I didn't like whatever second book by him I read and have since skipped the next 500 books by him.

I've yet to use Amazon to buy any books yet, which is probably a good thing. They make it too easy to spend money. I live in an urban area and I have several new and used bookstores within a few miles of my house, so I tend to shop at those.

Hi Adam, great to see you here. Yep, Black Hawk Down seems to have done very well in gamer circles.

I agree Amazon is a dangerous place. I just ordered two items from Amazon, though they're not really literature: The XML Bible and The Robotech DVD collection #1.

But yeah, I could spend hours there reading all the user reviews. There are the usual monkeys posting, but some of readers have darn good things to say.

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I just ordered two items from Amazon, though they're not really literature: The XML Bible...

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"Have you had a chance to look at the XML Bible? "

It probably won't be here for a few more days. But the earlier edition got decent reviews, and I noticed the author has done a number of XML books, so he appears to know his stuff. I didn't want just an intro book, or just an advanced book, I wanted a single book that could take me through from start to advanced. This appeared to be one of the ones that does that.

I bought another 'bible' tech book from IDG, for Javascript by Dan Goodman. It was full of typos and errors, but the bulk of what it did was not bad. I found it worked OK as a reference but was better as a giant hands-on tutorial that added more with each chapter. Ray and Ray's Mastering HTML took a similar approach. I don't know if the XML Bible will do the same, but it's not a bad approach if the reader has the time and patience for it. The great thing about HTML and XML is that if you have a text editor and a qualified browser, then you have all you need to tinker and follow the lessons.

What I really need is a book that QUICKLY teaches Java. I have Horton's Beginning Java 1.3, and it's great material, but just a beast to get through.