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| # | cover | title | author | isbn | isbn13 | asin | num pages | avg rating | num ratings | date pub | date pub (ed.) | rating | my rating | review | notes | recommender | comments | votes | read count | date started | date read |
date
|
date purchased | owned | purchase location | condition | format | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.74
| 776
| Jan 03, 2012
| Jan 03, 2012
|
DBR. I've done a lot of thinking about the afterlife. I've read Doubt and numberless Dawkins, Hitchens, Gould, Hawking, Darwin, Adams, and God books. I...more DBR. I've done a lot of thinking about the afterlife. I've read Doubt and numberless Dawkins, Hitchens, Gould, Hawking, Darwin, Adams, and God books. I read Introduction to Christianity by the current Pope (then Cardinal Ratzinger, a name which suggests clever rodents, of which one I think he looks) and the Catechism right from the venerable website of the Vatican itself, having hoisted itself into a Brave New World into the twentieth century where Popes play on iPads and Maria Divine Mercy drops her modern-day prophecies like bombs on an unsuspecting populace unready for her revelations of double cross-forming comets that will bring about the Warning (her caps, not mine) which will cause some people to die of shock when Jesus Himself comes to show us our sins. Pope Benedict the somethingth said in his book that heaven and hell were not so much places in or out of time, but a state of either being with or without God. As a Catholic atheist (Ceridwen has assured me that atheist though I am, I am a Catholic atheist, and I have become convinced that she's right), this gave me immense relief. What this means is that I am currently in hell, and I think things are pretty swell. The problem is, I can't quite figure out where purgatory looks like now, since there's no real afterlife. There's no time in the afterlife, so how do you measure how long you're supposed to spend there anyway? It's all bullshit. With a captal B. Bullshit. I recently read a totally fascinating article that postulated infinite universe plus mathematical randomness would equal exact copies of me somewhere in reality. Think about that. You go far enough in space, and eventually you will reach a copy of yourself. Maybe that one bought the bullshit and decided that somewhere out there, God really did exist, despite the total lack of evidence. Theoretically, there's a world out there that looks almost exactly like this one, except in giant letters spelled out by giant mountains on the moon are the words, "Hey, this is Yahweh. I'm real, and if you believe in me there's nothing to worry about. It's all good." And maybe in that world, there appears to be actual proof that God exists and actually moves mountains for the faithful, because mountains move around all the time. Seriously, this theory allows for that to happen, however improbable. The thing is, does that mean that God really exists? What then, of an afterlife? Dante's Inferno is populated by turgid souls languishing in their infinite struggle, unaware of the bigger picture where they only have to stop and think about their situation to understand that it's ridiculous and the only one keeping them in hell is themselves. A lot of weird things happen in hell, some of which look kind of fun, but I suppose an eternity of anything wouldn't really be that interesting, long term. But think about it: infinity is a concept that humans are completely unable to grasp except as a concept, the reality of which holds far more surprises like dopplegängers and floating whales. Infinity is forever in a way that we can't really imagine, even if we can put a word to it. We've got, what, ninety years on this ball? That's mathematically zero in comparison with infinity. The idea that an eternal 'good' afterlife can only be earned within and up to the last few seconds of that ninety years is laughable. It's stupid. It's not believable. Still, what might an afterlife look like? Would it be wings and harps, or something else? Lots of religious people are fine with not being able to articulate it. That's fine. Most of them are using religion to escape the inescapable fact that everyone dies eventually and they just want to believe that they'll see their loved ones again. Who am I to take that from them? They find meaning in it, and can't seem to understand that I find meaning equal to theirs in NOT believing. I find perhaps more meaning in knowing that my existence is limited to an insignificant span on an insignificant rock. Anyway, if anything is possible, then there is a world where this book is a reality. This book seems to suggest an answer to, or at least a way of looking at the question of, reality. What if reality was malleable? What if life looked like a video game or was populated by hundreds of clones of yourself, all seeking the same thing you are? What if the reality is that human life on Earth is unsustainable and we are faced with a choice to either accept our ephemerality or ignore it? How would we even react to the certain knowledge of our own future? This book seems to suggest that we'd just ignore it, and I'm inclined to agree. Maybe some of us wouldn't, and if they were smart enough they'd set a plan in motion that would both reduce the population and at the same time increase the meaning for the ones left. Still, I don't buy it. This book is dreamlike, taking place in the afterlife of humanity where we've fucked up our shit and now we have to live with the absurdist consequences. Lots of weird things happen and it all comes together in a non-choice, to destroy the world as we know it, or not. There's a secondary choice, which is to believe that it is possible to destroy the world as we know it, or not. I don't know. The book was fun to read, but it didn't seem to answer any of those questions. It's not that I'm looking for answers, but if I'm reading a book then I want the author to give me what they think the answer is, and I didn't find that here. Only weirdness and more questions. Is the exact copy of New York really a giant bug zapper designed to lure humans in to their eventual and recurring doom? Or is it really a last hurrah, designed to recapture the struggle for life and meaning that we as humans seem destined to embrace? No answer. Maybe. Maybe not. Who cares? There are a lot of really creative tangents in this book. It felt well-crafted, if ultimately useless. As a metaphor for writing and life, i think it might have been more successful if it had been a short story. HERESY! I know. But there ARE NO ANSWERS because our questions are NOT IMPORTANT yet I really enjoy when others give me their take on them anyway. It's fun. By that standard, this book was not fun. I don't think I'll be rehashing the plot or digging into the questions it raised, because, while very engaging, it did not attempt to actually answer any of them. Well fuck. I'm a cranky drunk, aren't I? (less) | Notes are private!
| none
|
1
| not set
| not set
|
Jan 18, 2013
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||||
| 1891830740
| 9781891830747
| 3.57
| 2,768
| 2006
| Sep 12, 2006
|
I came to this (view spoiler)[book without many preconceptions except that it would be a (hide spoiler)] porno (view spoiler)[graphic novel. I've (hid...more
I came to this (view spoiler)[book without many preconceptions except that it would be a (hide spoiler)] porno (view spoiler)[graphic novel. I've (hide spoiler)]twice(view spoiler)[ read and liked Moore's work previously and found him to be a thoughtful and deft writer. This book was not an exception (hide spoiler)]. It took an afternoon (view spoiler)[to read, weaving the familiar stories (hide spoiler)] of (view spoiler)[Dorothy, Alice, and Wendy together as an exploration of the many facets of sexuality, sexual fantasies and fetishes, seemingly in order of perversion. From (hide spoiler)]masturbation(view spoiler)[ and missionary to incest, orgies, rape, bestiality and more. When described that way, it sounds like it would be an uncomfortable or difficult read, and for many it will be. This is one of those books that you think maybe you can tell something about a person by their reaction to it. There's something for everyone to be offended by, though, which is exactly the point of this book. Some people say ' (hide spoiler)]Fuck(view spoiler)[' and some people say 'Fudge': everyone draws a moral line past which all is taboo, but that line shifts along a bell curve making obscenity a majority opinion. (hide spoiler)]Me(view spoiler)[ personally, I enjoyed the book—even the parts that crossed my moral line. At no point did I feel like Moore was making any judgments, which I think is really important. He's just holding up a mirror to the bell curve not marking any lines, leaving the (hide spoiler)]hard(view spoiler)[ choices to the reader. (hide spoiler)]Oh(view spoiler)[, sure, it's all titillating, but when the story crossed my personal line I'd feel ashamed, hoping to (hide spoiler)]God(view spoiler)[ nobody was watching my face turn red. Then I'd realize exactly where my line was, and I'd think, " (hide spoiler)]Oh, right(view spoiler)[, that's exactly what Moore wanted me to see." Like Alice's looking glass, he's holding up a mirror to our own sexuality so we can see where we really stand. Several times he delineates the difference between sexual fantasies and reality, making a point that, for example, just because you get off from rape fantasies doesn't necessarily mean you actually want to be raped. Or that a story about bestiality isn't necessarily bestiality. Throughout the book (hide spoiler)]there(view spoiler)[ are references to Rogeur's White Book (Roger? Get it? There's a lot of that), a pornographic collection of stories that are pretty dry and stilted compared to Moore's story but create a brilliant foil, a metatextual Droste effect that points directly at the reader herself. Is that Dorothy fondling herself while reading the White Book? And you, dear reader, where is your hand right now? Alice, Dorothy and Wendy each tell their childhood fairy tales, which turn out to be their first sexual encounters. The familiar characters and stories suddenly become allegorical tales that Moore twists back into sometimes uncomfortable reality, but always treated with care and respect. It's like a group therapy session: over the course of the narrative the women overcome their checkered pasts, reintegrate their sexuality consciously and find their own lines on the bell curve. This is a graphic novel, though, and by now you've noticed that (hide spoiler)]I'm coming(view spoiler)[ at it only from the story side and ignoring the art. (hide spoiler)]I'm(view spoiler)[ not (hide spoiler)]coming(view spoiler)[ at it from an artist's perspective (and (hide spoiler)]yes(view spoiler)[, I'm an artist myself, thanks for asking) deliberately. (hide spoiler)]Yes(view spoiler)[, I think the quality of the art could have been better. That said, each character's story is drawn in a slightly different style, which kept them consistent and apart. It did carry an Art Nouveau theme throughout, which was a nice touch. Though (hide spoiler)] ... I'm(view spoiler)[ sure Gebbie (hide spoiler)]spent(view spoiler)[ a fortune on pink and red pencils, but I think a more professional ink and color treatment might have been better. The black and white ink sections were fabulous and felt more real than the rest of it. Anyway, I'm just getting over this damn cold and my nose is running like a faucet. (hide spoiler)] I think I need a tissue. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
|
1
| Mar 04, 2011
| Mar 04, 2011
|
Mar 05, 2011
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 0316102865
| 9780316102865
| 3.80
| 2,708
| Sep 01, 2010
| Sep 01, 2010
|
Zombedy. Sarah and David's marriage is on the rocks. They're at the bitter end of it when the zombie apocalypse comes. A story of triumph through adver...more Zombedy. Sarah and David's marriage is on the rocks. They're at the bitter end of it when the zombie apocalypse comes. A story of triumph through adversity, their struggles against the zombie horde mirror the difficulties they must overcome to save their marriage. This actually sounds like a boring synopsis. The book was really entertaining, bringing in funny modern-day references to zombie movies, popular songs, and other cultural relics. Each chapter is headed by a therapy-sounding aphorism which is immediately applied to life post-zombie apocalypse. This juxtaposition of the trite and worn with the zombie cliche is very clever and in most chapters you can actually see how the zombie apocalypse could easily substitute for marriage counseling in a pinch. Well, the world is destroyed, but at least they're not sniping at each other anymore. All it took was their marriage therapist eating her former clients to goad them into getting serious about working on their relationship. This is not a romance novel. It's a very funny zombie novel, combined with a tiny bit of social satire. If you like movies like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland (both of which are referenced in the book), you'll enjoy this read. The snarky narrator and her layabout husband are great characters who make a great zombie busting team, and you really start caring about them and rooting for them by the end. This is an enjoyable book. It's quick, entertaining, and not too thinky. Yes, that's a word. Look it up. Thinky. I'll wait right here. Just ignore the links about the Lego Mars rover. EDIT: I don't normally edit my reviews after they've been posted, but I wrote this over vacation right after reading it. Ceridwen has already read my review, so I'm probably safe in disparaging her on the internet now. These very words are down below the 'MORE...' line, so chances are she'll never see them. Don't go and spoil it for me by telling her, though. Since I wrote the original review, it occurs to me that Sarah and David are very much like me and my wife. We are snarky, we sometimes do things that makes the other one crazy, and we watch each other's back while fighting the undead hordes. Our marriage isn't in any danger, though. I've never been afraid of zombies, but she was, to the point of losing sleep after seeing a trailer for an upcoming movie on the television. So we got Tivo and started skipping the commercials. But then I'd want to see a zombie movie in the theater and couldn't, because I have a thing about seeing movies by myself. That's something only perverts and socially bankrupt losers do. By the way, it's not funny to stumble through the house moaning about brains. What to do? We started her immersion therapy by watching movies that were billed as zombie flicks but were really just virus movies. 28 Days Later and stuff like that. The zombies moved too fast to fit into the traditional zombie category (slow-moving, arms out straight, muttering, "BRAAAAAAAAAAINS") so they weren't as scary. Then we'd move to the funnier zombie movies, which offset the fear with laughter. Finally, she read this book, and without any side effects whatsoever. I'd say she actually enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to finally getting caught up with the Resident Evil franchise now. This book saved my marriage. And it will save yours, too.(less) | Notes are private!
| Ceridwen
|
1
| not set
| Oct 23, 2010
|
Oct 25, 2010
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0578035219
| 9780578035215
| 3.82
| 45
| Nov 19, 2009
| Nov 19, 2009
|
This book contains a massive conceptual spoiler that you may or may not figure out. Ceridwen was telling a funny story of hanging out with K.I. and as...more
This book contains a massive conceptual spoiler that you may or may not figure out. Ceridwen was telling a funny story of hanging out with K.I. and as she was telling me the story I asked her to tell me what the spoiler was. I'm still deciding if knowing beforehand helped or hindered my reading. The story is about imprisonment and torture. It's about loss, cruelty, and the banality of evil. References to the war on drugs, war on terror, and activism are abundant. It reads much like 1984 in that the world is our world but at the same time a terrible funhouse mirror reflection. Men imprison women, forcibly impregnate them and steal their children. They're made to live in tiny dirty cells and fed substandard food. It's said that this is all in the service of their country, and it reminded me strongly of Man, it's hard to talk about this book without conceptually spoiling it. Read the afterword first if you like having your concepts spoiled. It was good. It was worth reading. It was quick. I can't quite figure out why it's called 'hector' though. Unless it's the verb and not the historical figure. There sure is a lot of hectoring in the book. The book is filled with an activist's passion, the fire of anger at injustice. I don't know if the book succeeds at fulfilling its stated purpose, but it was nice to get the chance to read it while on vacation. More books need to be this bite-sized. Oh, wait: was that a conceptual spoiler?(less) | Notes are private!
| 1
| Oct 20, 2010
| Oct 23, 2010
|
Oct 20, 2010
| Paperback
| ||||||||||||||||
| 1936383268
| 9781936383269
| 3.89
| 161
| Oct 13, 2010
| Oct 13, 2010
|
The day I read The Egg Said Nothing was a blur. I woke up that morning with my pants around my ankles and Caris's book between my legs. I don't rememb...more
The day I read The Egg Said Nothing was a blur. I woke up that morning with my pants around my ankles and Caris's book between my legs. I don't remember reading it, but I felt like giving it stars and talking about what it meant to me so I must have. Normally when I read a book by an author I know, I have to think for a while about the star rating I'll give. Will it be a soft five, when it should be a three? Should I give it a fake two, taking stars away so I don't appear like a fawning cog in their marketing machine? I didn't feel a reader's fondness for The Egg Said Nothing, exactly, more like a reviewer's responsibility toward it, like I had to evaluate it truthfully. Three stars of truth. But then I found this PM from 'Ninja Sock Puppet', dated one hour and fifteen minutes from now: Dear Richard, Well, I wasn't going to do that. I love my laptop. I don't care if it's instrumental in destroying anything, my relationship to my laptop is special. Besides, Caris's book was fairly well written and after my initial hesitation of the first few chapters, I started really enjoying the action, the pacing, and the revelation of the mystery. It was difficult to believe that he'd written this in a month during last year's NaNoWriMo challenge. I couldn't help but think of our recent experience together during this last November, writing madly together until our stories were long enough. It gave me hope that I could get published too. Hell, I'll give it four stars. I hadn't written any fiction since college, and the experience of writing a novel in a month has been pivotal for me. I really enjoyed it and I'm already working on my next story. It brought back the joy of pure writing for me, a joy which is obvious in Caris's book. Every page feels exciting and fun, pregnant with uncertainty that slowly builds into a tightly-woven plot and an unexpected ending that makes you reflect on what it all means to create, what it's like to change the world, and what it's like to fail without even trying. It explores identity, the sense of self, and what it means to be an individual and make individual decisions. But most of all, it explores [puppy dog] people's faces until [puppy dog] with a shovel, and throwing them out a window until they [puppy dog]. Sounds good to me. I'll just rate this book five stars and start [puppy dog] my laptop. Right after I send myself a PM.(less) | Notes are private!
| 1
| Dec 03, 2010
| Dec 04, 2010
|
Oct 15, 2010
| Paperback
| ||||||||||||||||
| 0439023491
| 9780439023498
| 4.30
| 927,834
| Jan 01, 2009
| Sep 01, 2009
|
Once upon a time I wanted to be a writer. I built castles in the air and peopled them with monsters and heroes. I thought I was pretty good. I guess I...more
Once upon a time I wanted to be a writer. I built castles in the air and peopled them with monsters and heroes. I thought I was pretty good. I guess I was, when compared to the crap I was reading at the time. When I started to read better books, my writing suffered. And now, thanks to Suzanne Collins, I barely want to try anymore. There's just no point. Writing is better left to writers like Collins. I gave the first book of this series four stars. I liked it a lot, but it wouldn't make it into my all-star hall of fame. Collins does a great job of telling a story and creating incredibly lifelike characters, but in the end it was just another book. This one showed me how I was wrong. I didn't realize it until page 348. There's this minor character, Finnick, who was a previous victor in the Hunger Games. He's a pretty boy, an Adonis who knows it and uses his good looks to sleep with pretty much everyone he wants to. He hits on our heroine, Katniss, and she dismisses him offhandedly. Like I did. Then they're in the jungle, with the screams of the people they love most surrounding them, begging them to delve further into the jungle to their deaths or the depths of madness. Katniss hears Prim screaming, Gale, everyone she loves and holds dear. Finnick hears the screams of someone he calls 'Annie' and later Katniss asks about her. Annie was a previous winner who went crazy during the games but won anyway, and stayed crazy.
Finnick is just a minor character, and in one line Collins has created a beautiful portrait of a real person. Finnick is pretty, and sleeps around. But in that one line, Collins explains that his whole life is filled with emptiness because he can't be with the woman he loves. Her insanity keeps them apart, and he's driven to fill the void with meaningless lovers that he always compares to his sad, broken true love. She didn't beat me over the head with it. She let me figure it out. She let me feel sad for him because he loves a poor, mad girl back home. But then she let me realize that he's not just a pretty boy who sleeps around. He's driven to his promiscuity by the madness of Annie. And this is just a minor character, a walk-on part. Her first-person narrator Katniss is flawed. She's barbarous, rebellious, and shouldering more than her fair share of problems. Her first thought is always for herself and what she wants, yet she's also driven by her love of others. She brings food to the needy as an extension of her role as provider in her family, but doesn't understand the real gratitude her gifts bring. She does it because that's what she's always done. She decides that she's going to keep Peeta alive out of a sense of guilt and indebtedness. This, more than anything is why she decides to kill or not in the Arena, out of a sense of obligation. She can't stand it when Finnick saves Peeta, because that will make him harder to kill. Collins also has a great sense of politics. She's got Katniss running for her life from page one, this time from political enemies and with no clue how to fight them. She always feels like nothing she does is good enough, yet she always manages to do the right thing and then some. The stories are really gripping. It's not possible to read these books in little chunks. You will spend hours at a time in one spot, the work piling up and the dishes undone while you get to the end. They're that good. Anyway, read these books. They're the best things I've read in a long time, and that's really saying something. I'll be over here in the corner, not writing anymore. (less) | Notes are private!
| 1
| not set
| Sep 29, 2010
|
Sep 29, 2010
| Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||||
| 0439023483
| 9780439023481
| 4.44
| 1,588,601
| 2008
| Sep 14, 2008
|
I've always been curious when one 'comes of age' in American culture. The whole concept of 'coming of age' is a strange one, a throwback to the days w...more
I've always been curious when one 'comes of age' in American culture. The whole concept of 'coming of age' is a strange one, a throwback to the days when it was time to start plowing the fields and carrying your weight around the village. Or when it was time to get married off to a near-stranger twice your age and start knitting booties or something. You could tie it to sexual activity, and the state-mandated ages of consent. The problem is, they range from 14 (hello Hawaii and Idaho!) to 16 (younger, if you're in Mississippi and not a virgin -- welcome to the 21st century!) to 17 or 18 in most other states. I suspect that we've got a cultural break with childhood at eighteen. That's when you can be tried as an adult, you can vote, you can join the military, and you can marry without your parents consent. Except for Mississippi, where the age of majority is 21. Holy crap, Mississippi, can you get any creepier? Please don't answer that. From around 14 to 18 is the prime 'Young Adult' demographic for whom Young Adult books are written. When I was 18 I was in college and for a brief moment I pondered following in my father's footsteps and joining the military where I would get the rigorous discipline and physical training that I must have thought was lacking in my life at the time. I decided it would mark my 'coming of age' as it was the first time I'd made a decision about my future where I was not conscripted or coerced. Spoiler alert: I didn't join the military. I passed all the physicals, got recommendations from my state senators, filled out all the paperwork and peed in a cup. Then they asked too many questions about what it felt like to smoke marijuana (since I was honest on my application and told them I'd tried it a few times). Apparently that was enough to decide that the military was too weird for me and I got bored and wandered off to an art and creative writing major instead. I'd figured the end of my education would mark my coming of age. I didn't have to fight anybody to the death, but that's about when I started seeing my education as a tool for my future. As it happened, I never really came of age. I stopped living in my parent's basement when I was 23 and moved to Minneapolis to start a new life. That seems as good a place as any to mark my age-coming, but I've never really stopped learning, just sort of turned it into a hobby. I see people in my life who stopped learning, stopped growing, and got stunted at whatever age they came of. Age. Seriously, I got good grades in Creative Writing. Since I've come of middle age it's been all downhill, though. In The Hunger Games we've got a society that has the same 'of age' range. Katniss came of age when her father died and she had to keep her family together. But she got stuck along the way and stopped growing as a person. When she's chosen as one of her district's representatives to fight to the death in the Hunger Games, she has to reevaluate her life and her place in the world. Her horizons expand. It's not just that people are trying to kill her, or that she's trying to kill them back. The actual killing part is more Lord of the Flies than anything. Yes it's survival, yes it's overcoming your fears, yes it's discovering an inner strength--but the whole 'coming of age' story is almost secondary to the real story to come, the one where she tries to remake her world into the place she knows it should be. I'm not sure I really liked the whole Survivor meets Project Runway part. I think I accepted it, mostly because the writing and the characters were so touching. The story was gripping, causing me to finish it in the middle of an Avatar: The Last Airbender marathon, which says something. Collins has a deft touch and perfect timing, which can excuse a lot of age-coming. I can't wait to read the next two books of the trilogy. I'm still wondering, though: is there really any such thing as a 'coming of age' story, or are they really all stories that just happen to show the growth of a younger person? If an older person showed the same growth, we'd just call it a story. We like to think that there's some bright line between childhood and adulthood, and that any growth that crosses that line is some sort of marker; but doesn't it really make more sense that we're all growing all the time, learning new things, discovering new facets of ourselves? I don't want to believe that there's some bright line between 'middle-aged' and 'old' (especially since the Boomers have been pushing that line far into their retirement), just more discovery. The only reason we focus on the line of childhood is that growth happens at a much higher rate near the beginning and is easier to track. We like our marking points, though. The events that shape us, the things we remember most. It's tempting to say I started a new chapter when I moved out of my parents basement, but really, wasn't I the same person when I moved to Minneapolis, just in a different place? Like most things, it's all a continuum. But if we don't stick push pins anywhere then it's a lot harder to make those generalizations or stereotypes of which we're all so fond.(less) | Notes are private!
| 1
| not set
| Sep 10, 2010
|
Sep 21, 2010
| Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||||
| 0739384252
| 9780739384251
| 3.89
| 15,036
| 2009
| May 26, 2009
|
My wife and I have an open marriage. We're both free to see other people with remarkably few restrictions or repercussions. Occasionally it causes pro...more My wife and I have an open marriage. We're both free to see other people with remarkably few restrictions or repercussions. Occasionally it causes problems, but we work through them like any other committed married couple and we've been happily married for nearly thirteen years now. Another man might get jealous of his wife's lovers, but not me. Most of the problems arise when she cheats on them with yet other lovers, poor romantic sods who have no idea they're not the only one, and they're not nearly as understanding. One of my wife's boyfriends is named China. Normally this would cause a husband some consternation; he is, after all, wicked smart, ruggedly handsome, has a fascinating name and a hot foreign accent to boot. He's got that dangerous broken nose that says, "My rugged good looks are only enhanced by the suggestion that I've participated in a lower-class British pub fight." The man knows an awful lot of words and uses them well to his advantage, sweet-talking impressionable nubile adolescents out of their underthings in just a few short paragraphs. I'm not jealous, though. So don't think that I'd let their relationship affect my judgment of his character. I know he's really just a shallow pretty-boy. I know this because he and I had a recent dalliance and I got to see his ingrown toenails and hairy back myself. He tells a good story, but at the end of the day he's a fraud. I can see the appeal of The City & the City. There's a solid mystery, a believable main character, and a charming world. It could have been at least a hundred pages shorter, but I stuck with it because I believe it's not the length of the book that matters, but the strength of your story. The cities are vaguely Eastern European, different in character, language and architecture. This in itself is not remarkable, until you realize that these two cities are superimposed on one another, a palimpsest of culture defined by its willful ignorance of its entwined neighbor. There are 'crosshatched' areas where the cities share geographical space, both cities at once yet neither at the same time, but if you stray into the other city shadowy figures called Breach descend and whisk you away to a terrifying unknown justice. Instead, you 'unsee' the other people and vehicles of the other city, you avoid them without paying attention to them to the point that they could be throwing buckets of piss in the air and you'd just stare across your city's block, carefully avoiding them and wishing you'd brought an umbrella for the freak urine storm. (view spoiler)[Oh, come on. Read the goddamn jacket flap. I'm not saying anything here that's not in the first few pages. (hide spoiler)] Toward the end of our relationship, I cornered China at a party. "Hey, lover," I said. "The past few days have been really fun, haven't they?" He shrugged, as if he didn't know who I was. he turned to get another shandy from the bar. "I'm just curious: what does it mean? You don't really come down on one side or the other. So was it allegorical?" I start again, more timidly this time. "You know how I feel about allegory," he said laughing scornfully. "I'm like Tolkien. Rather than write a direct correlation of something, if you have something to say, why not just say it?" I can't believe he's just compared himself to Tolkien. I can see why he got his nose broken for him. "Hang on," I said, grabbing his arm. "Hey, I know this is all just a big joke to you, but I have to know: is it science fiction? Is it fantasy? Or has it all just been a weird dream? It's OK if it was just a weird dream, I just have to know. If it's a metaphor, what is it a metaphor for?" I winced. He stared down at my hand barely gripping his muscular bicep, then back up at me as if seeing me for the first time. He violently shrugged my hand from his arm, straightening his four-hundred-dollar t-shirt over his rippling abs. He smiled, revealing perfectly manicured gleaming canines. "I'm just teasing you," he said. "The whole thing is a prank. I know what I think, but I wrote it on purpose so that it could really go either way. It's like the superposition of quantum states. It both is and isn't at the same time. I can't say anything or the waveform will collapse." I stared at him, gaping in shock and eyes wide with surprise. "Are you for real? What you're suggesting is that you wrote an entire book that is a metaphor for itself? Of all the conceited asshole…look, it doesn't matter to me either way, but it's your goddamn book so if you have something to say, why not just say it?" His face contracted into a menacing squint. His chiseled face now appeared in the wan light as a Neanderthal's, his brow protruding with ancestral anger for being out-evoluted by a bunch of chinless weaklings. "Have you won a bloody Hugo?" he demanded. "How many sodding fans do you have? You're just jealous that I'm better than you." "Maybe," I shrugged. "It's not over between us. I'll still be with you for at least as long as it takes to read UnLondon." "I don't need your pity read," he said bitterly. "Are you…not that I care, but, how many stars are you going to give it? I'm just curious is all." "I'm going to give it a quantum superposition of all the possible ratings," I said. "That way you can decide how good I think it is, you pompous bastard." (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Mar 2011
| Mar 07, 2011
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Sep 01, 2010
| Audio
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| 0425206548
| 9780425206546
| 3.33
| 7,073
| 1978
| Sep 06, 2005
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I started reading this book expecting a lot of sex, but was disappointed to discover that the only sex in the first half of the book is of the sex off...more I started reading this book expecting a lot of sex, but was disappointed to discover that the only sex in the first half of the book is of the sex offender on the lawn variety. It took me a few days to get into it, and luckily I had a weekend to kill. Wifey vs Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome Sandy feels like she's not in control. She needs to get rid of Norman, who runs Bartertown in that he provides all of the energy for the lights and fans by tracking each and every shit provided by the pigs. Sandy bristles under his methane embargoes, for no other reason than she wants to make her own choices. She enlists the help of Shep, an outsider, to help her overthrow Norman's stranglehold but quickly realizes that she has bitten off more than she can chew when Shep not only kills Norman but runs off with his wallet and country club membership. What? Oh, sorry. Thunderdome is more interesting than Wifey. Maybe I'll take the book upstairs and read for awhile before I take a nap. Wifey vs this weird dream I had I'm Sandy. I'm in the basement playing ping-pong against the wall, but I kind of suck and the ball keeps bouncing past me out the window. I agonize about climbing out the window, because it's all dark and scary outside, and Norman wouldn't like me leaving the house. Eventually I run out of balls and dither for a bit before I climb outside and start fucking my first lover in a motel room. Then I realize that I'm not Sandy, and moreover I'm happily married now and how did I get in this motel room anyway? What have I done? Holy crap. Maybe I'll read in front of the TV again. Wifey vs Avatar the Last Airbender Sandy is like a child with a lot of potential. Her destiny is a pleasant marriage with a controlling husband, but needs to learn some self-determination. She embarks on a journey to realize her destiny of 'bending' the four elements: doggy-style, oral sex, lying about where she's been all weekend, and golf. She does well bending doggy-style (ooh, so unnatural! What a whore!), but her initial forays into oral sex bending leave Norman gargling in the bathroom. Eventually she unites the four elements and brings the world into harmony. Last Airbender wins! Wifey vs Man vs Wild Sandy explores her environment searching for ways to keep herself alive until she can find civilization again. She keeps setting snares but can't seem to catch any dinner, and the whole time she's got this ten-year-old packet of beef jerky that she nibbles on and tries desperately to like since everybody else likes beef jerky so why shouldn't she? She eats her own fingers which she decides tastes better than beef jerky. Then some rabbits wander into her lean-to and she feasts for awhile before realizing that when she finally gets back to civilization, all she'll be able to eat is more beef jerky. But hey, at least it will be her choice then. Procrastination: 4, Wifey 0. Hey, Ceridwen wants to do some staining today. Best get on that. Wifey vs staining the IKEA Lego storage units Sandy Pressman has been raised to believe that she wanted to marry a successful man and raise his kids in a good house, in a good suburb. The trouble is, she's unhappy with this life, mostly because she doesn't have any control or freedom. While I was disappointed that there wasn't more lurid sex, I was happy to discover what alien creatures lived in 1970s upper-class Jewish suburbs. Wow, are they racist. And completely vapid. I very much believe Blume's description of them. Hey, staining totally loses! Let's do some more staining. This book is about control. Blume emphasizes this at every turn, down to the way Norman Pressman requires each crap and piss the dog takes be marked on a chart for no other reason than he needs to know. Norman is quickly cast as a caricature, a two-dimensional cutout of a selfish bastard. She's sick? Well, can't she take some multivitamins to avoid this sort of thing? Doesn't she know how hard on him this is? There's even several references to Sandy's fear of flying. Sandy wakes up and starts feeling like shaking things up, but Norman won't even let her be on top, because he's not a fag. No, seriously. I said they were aliens. So Norman is 2D. I think he has to be, so we don't judge Sandy harshly when she starts sleeping with other men. No, that's not a spoiler. Come on, what kind of boring-ass book is about some woman who only sleeps with her husband? (As an aside, go type 'wifey' into Google and hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button. I could be wrong about the boring-ass thing.) But everyone except Sandy is also two-dimensional. I'd like to believe that this is intentional to prove the point that their lives are all veneers covering the moldy chipboard cupboards. But I don't think Blume is that good, so I'll just have to pretend because it's a good metaphor. This book is about Sandy's inner life, after all, and not those vapid aliens. There are a lot of relationships described. One involves an arrangement with Thursday nights off from the marriage, where they go their separate ways and sleep with other people. Aren't they worried about such risky behavior? Well, this is the 1970s. The worst they could get was Herpes, and Sandy's already got that in the form of cold sores that keep erupting because she's all stressed out. All they knew was the American Dream, which didn't include divorce but did include live-in maids. From that point of view, sexual exploration is pretty radical, even if all they were exploring was reverse missionaries and oral sex. So quaint, so naive. We'd been married for five years when Ceridwen was pregnant with our first kid and they gave her a battery of tests which included one for STDs. It came back positive. First of all, whew, it wasn't one of the permanent or deadly ones. Second, she was adamant that there was a mistake because it just wasn't possible, and got retested while we started our pills to get rid of what she was sure didn't exist anyway. The second test came back negative, and they explained that sometimes the tests were wrong, and sorry for the confusion but keep taking those pills you don't need anyway so you don't breed some super virus in your gut. As it turned out, those kids looked so much like me anyway that we started wondering who the mother was. It wasn't until years later that it dawned on me that our first reaction was pure disbelief and not mistrust. Trust is like happiness: you don't really realize you have it in the moment, only retrospectively. I hadn't really thought about whether I trusted her or not, I just did. It was the best feeling, realizing that she trusted me so much. That I hadn't doubted her either. It makes me happy to know that I'll never make for a good story because my life is too boring, too happy, too normal. I don't want to give any spoilers, since Ceridwen is currently on the back porch reading this book, but by the end of the book Blume touches on the question of trust, and then it's like she gives up because she doesn't explore consequences or provide realistic reactions. The end of this book could have been really interesting, but it completely falls flat and leaves me looking longingly at the streaming Netflix queue. I mean, she brought up all this juicy plot and then just ties it up in the loosest of slipknots without taking the hard or risky path. Well, hell. If there had been more actual sex in the book it might have been fine, but the book was clearly about making hard choices, and then she utterly fails to make any. In then end I'm left feeling ambivalent. I'm glad I read it, but I wish it weren't so loose. She brings up a lot of good issues but you get the sense that she's just describing something rather than analyzing it. The story itself isn't compelling enough on its own. It's a great slice-of-life piece, but she never really takes the parlor racism or chauvinism to task, doesn't really come down on one side or the other in the whole sexual revolution. Haven't we come a long way, baby? At least it didn't take long to read. Verdict? Not a romance novel, and proves that just because a book is primarily about sex and/or relationships doesn't mean it's a romance or chick lit. I'm going to go watch some TV. (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Jul 24, 2010
| Jul 24, 2010
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Jul 24, 2010
| Paperback
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| 144470026X
| 9781444700268
| 3.55
| 1,738
| Oct 15, 2009
| Oct 15, 2009
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The main purpose of this delightful book is to answer the ages-old question, "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?"
| Notes are private!
| Morwenna
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1
| not set
| Jan 09, 2010
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Jan 09, 2010
| Paperback
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| 0553562738
| 9780553562736
| 4.08
| 14,822
| Jan 01, 1992
| Jul 1992
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My wife is fond of diseases. She's got a little circular scar on her upper arm that she proudly wears from when her grandfather gave her a smallpox va...more
My wife is fond of diseases. She's got a little circular scar on her upper arm that she proudly wears from when her grandfather gave her a smallpox vaccination. He was a doctor, so it's not as weird as it sounds. This was a few years after kids stopped getting vaccinations for smallpox in America because the disease was considered conquered. I don't know if this was a seminal moment in her history, but she certainly loves her some plague. Bubonic Plague, SARS, H1N1, Ebola, smallpox, hell, even influenza. She tells an enlightening and heartbreaking story of her grandfather as a child during an influenza pandemic watching people being buried daily and yet surviving. If a plague breaks out, chances are some people will survive--but survival is often a mixed blessing. Take zombie plagues, for instance. A recent scholarly paper has suggested that a zombie outbreak should be dealt with swiftly and severely, else the plague will sweep through our population with such ferocity that human civilization will cease within days. My wife also has a healthy fear of zombies. I used to think this was irrational, but now I'm not so sure. One could argue using a version of Pascal's famous Wager that if there's even an infinitesimal chance that zombies could exist, their very existence threatens a total collapse of civilization and therefore it is only reasonable to remain vigilant and prepared. The Doomsday Book is about such a devastating plague. Set in 2054, a severe influenza epidemic breaks out just as young Kivrin is sent to the past to visit Medieval England in the 14th century. Unfortunately, due to the vagaries of time travel Kivrin is instead sent to 1348, twenty years earlier than her intended destination. See, future historians don't just dig up artifacts--they visit the time itself to gather their data. The 14th century is not well-known, mostly due to the lack of records and, well, civilization after the Black Death swept Europe. This is why it's called the Dark Ages. Kivrin persuades her professor to send her back to just after the plague sweeps through England. It's totally safe, right? As an aside, time travel often creates problems for writers. Here, Willis postulates that time itself prevents paradoxes by sending you to a place and time where you cannot change the timeline and introduce paradox. Sometimes researchers are left standing in the time machine because their intended visit would create a paradox and thus it simply doesn't work. Others are sent to a slightly different time and place to push them just outside an area where their travel would botch things up. Usually it's just a few minutes or days, but Kivrin's itinerary is moved years, smack dab into the middle of the Black Death. She's been given plenty of inoculations against that plague, but there's no vaccine for the 2054 influenza she's carrying and she arrives as a very sick girl. Willis vividly describes the England of 1348. This is one of the best reasons to read this book. The story line switches back and forth from 2054 to 1348 as her professor tries desperately to get her back in the middle of his own severe public health crisis. Meanwhile, Kivrin spends enough time in the village to become fond of its people, and to her dawning horror she realizes why she won't cause a paradox: she's in the wrong time and like a horde of zombies the Black Death is slowly, inevitably, and unstoppably approaching. I can't help but compare this book to Michael Flynn's Eifelheim, in which aliens appear in Germany's Dark Ages. The same fascination with the past as an alien culture is apparent, but I think Willis does a better job of describing the past as a realistic place. Sometimes it's hard to believe that she didn't travel back in time herself, so believable and vivid are her descriptions. The story itself is a real page-turner as well. Sometimes books from the Hugo or Nebula winners lists leave you scratching your head as to why they were nominated at all, but there is no doubt in my mind why this book won so many awards--it's just that good. I could also compare this book to Robert Sawyer's End of an Era, where changing the timeline via time travel is the reason we exist at all. I think this is nice, but too clever. It's also not nearly as well thought out as Willis has here. Sawyer's conceit is that timelines are fluid and self-healing, using paradox as a way to repair the timeline and are in fact why humans exist at all. I prefer my timelines Strong Anthropic Principle-free, and Willis does a great job of using the avoidance of paradox as a plot point. If you like sci-fi or history and you haven't yet read this book, go get it now. Better yet, go back in time and read it so you can talk about how awesome it is now. (less) | Notes are private!
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| Aug 31, 2008
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Aug 31, 2009
| Paperback
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| 0312387652
| 9780312387655
| 4.04
| 524
| Jan 01, 2008
| Oct 28, 2008
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I've been a big fan of Gaiman's since Good Omens, at least. I've followed his career through graphic novels, children's books, YA fiction, and novels....more
I've been a big fan of Gaiman's since Good Omens, at least. I've followed his career through graphic novels, children's books, YA fiction, and novels. His partnership with Dave McKean has been really wonderful, and I've developed a crush on McKean's work that borders on stalkerish. I have gotten to the point that (like Stephan Martiniere's work) I can recognize his art at a glance, so distinctive and evocative is his style. My love for McKean knows no bounds, to the point that I'd gladly skin him, don his rind as if he were the cover and I was the Gaiman book and then prance around, singing, "I'm Dave McKean! I'm Dave McKean! Gaiman, let's make some goddamn creepy art!" until the Feds showed up and forcibly removed the McRemains in the hopes of a proper burial. Is that weird? I bet Gaiman wouldn't think so. He'd chuckle and write his next children's story about it, The Day I Swapped My Skin for Dave McKean's, a delightfully spooky tale about the dangers of obsession and its surreal consequences. Perhaps he'd even let me illustrate it. At this point I'm willing to take a look at anything that has McKean's art on the cover, though, and if it's got Neil Gaiman's name on the cover too then there's a good chance I already own it. Not so with Prince of Stories which I paged through as a copy from the library happened to be sitting on my kitchen table. I stared at the cover, wondering where McKean was at this moment, and if he uses moisturizer. It turns out that this is not a book I'd own. Given my penchant for McKeanhide vests, that says a lot. It's a reference book, detailing every project on which Gaiman has ever worked and includes background, synopsis, art and director credits, main character sketches, Gaiman quotes on the work, and trivia. As such, it would be difficult to say that it is poorly written; however, like the dictionary it is unreadable. The Gaiman quotes should have been a highlight of this book, but glancing through some of my favorite works the authors were obviously straining to fill this spot by using quotes only tangentially related to the work and not very interesting ones at that. It's almost as if they had a database of every word Gaiman has ever uttered in public and ran keyword searches. Seriously, if you don't have the material, don't have a 'quotes' section for that piece. Ditto for the 'trivia' section. Trivia should be interesting and not merely factual. This information in this book will not make you the life of the party, regardless of your attire. But this is a reference book, and using that criterion alone it is competent. Everything I knew was in there, and so much more that you could fill three or four McKean-skins with the vast piles of facts if you sewed them up suitably fact-tight so none spilled out the seams. I'm sure if you were a Gaiman stalker it would fit you well, but it was a bit too meta for me. I mean, how many times are you going to look up some obscure fact in a dead tree when you've got the internets? Between Wikipedia and Google you've got everything that's in this book only set in 12-point Times instead of 18-point 3 grammes 5. Putting Mckean art on the cover only makes it look like it's an exciting new tome by Gaiman and sets us Gaiman fans up for the inevitable fall where they realize that dull, dry facts are never going to be the same as a good gothic romp in a McKean smoking jacket. Don't judge this book by it's skin and you might not be disappointed. That reminds me, does anyone have any suggestions for a nice, sharp filleting knife?(less) | Notes are private!
| .02
| not set
| Aug 20, 2009
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Aug 20, 2009
| Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||||
| 0142001805
| 9780142001806
| 3.92
| 55,183
| Jul 19, 2001
| Feb 25, 2003
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Something odd has happened. I've known Compelling ever since I moved to Midwestern City. I'd never met anybody with a name like hers before. Compellin...more Something odd has happened. I've known Compelling ever since I moved to Midwestern City. I'd never met anybody with a name like hers before. Compelling Introduction. Whose parents would do that to a kid? She left the city for places like New York and Key West, but she again lives here now with her husband and daughter. I was at a barbecue at her house this weekend and spoke with an old friend of hers I hadn't seen since I first moved to Midwestern City, a tall, dark, mysterious and charming man, Acheron Hades, whom I hated deeply. Mexican-prison-time-hated. "You follow the Open Source movement, right? Wikipedia?" he asked me. "Sure, the power of crowds to consolidate knowledge in their free time and just give it away has always fascinated me," I answered. "I believe that certain intelligent readers such as myself should have the power to alter fictional stories," he said. "Sort of an open-source editing process." "That's silly. Even if it were possible, what would that mean for copyright law?" "Certainly, only a truly evil person would alter a book for personal gain or glory. What I'm suggesting is entering the world of the book and making slight changes that like a butterfly's flapping wings would reverberate through the rest of the story, altering the entire imagined world in the process. Kidnap a character, pull them out of the book, set a house on fire, that sort of thing. The sort of thing that would change the story forever." "The author might not want to re-write their whole book," I said. "The author wouldn't have anything to do with it. The changes would just happen as events in the story unfurl naturally." "Without somebody writing? How is that possible?" "You'd have to get the original manuscript," he said. "Nothing later than the last draft before publishing, to be sure." "How would that help? The book's already been printed." "So it has," he replied, arching an eyebrow. "Clearly, I'm only speaking metaphorically. Tell me, Why did you never marry and have a family, Main? No Mrs. Character and little baby Mains running around?" "I don't know," I replied, confused at the sudden turn in the conversation. "I guess I never met the right person." "How do you know that you haven't met her already, but weren't aware of it at the time and the moment slipped by, changing your life forever?" "Timing is everything, huh? Why, did you have somebody in mind?" "Now that you mention it, what do you think about Ms. Other over there?" He pointed to a shortish blonde woman named Significant talking to Compelling. She was attractive, certainly my type, but I'd only met her once before at an outdoor concert over a dozen years ago, before Mexico. Oh, that dress! Those legs! That smile! "Wait a minute," I said, "I remember her. I saw her the same day I met you, at PlotPoint Music Fest in 1995, right after I first met you and you gave me all that money to move to Cancun to judge topless beauty pageants but instead left me naked in a Mexican jail for thirteen years. Say, you told me at the time that she was a kitten-raping lesbian with a serious drug addiction and the IQ of a rock. How could she be my right woman?" His sharp and too-white teeth appeared behind a crooked smile. "I may have misinformed you," he said. "Well, I shan't be seeing you again. Make my apologies to Compelling, I must go." With that, he turned and headed into Compelling's basement. It was such an odd goodbye that I had to follow. I saw him round the corner down the stairs and hastened after him. What I saw was nothing short of astounding: he had disappeared into a laptop sitting on the bare concrete floor, its glowing screen showing the GoodReads website. On the screen was my review of a book called The Eyre Affair, a book that I'd never heard of, let alone read or reviewed. I felt a breeze from behind me, and as the screen faded I fell into it. I fell into PlotPoint Music Fest, in 1995. I could see myself sitting under a tree with my other oddly-named friend, Minor Character, as a tall shadowy figure approached. I recognized that shadowy figure. I remembered that conversation well, after I'd just met him then. Soon to be met, for the first time. Given the odd nature of our most recent conversation, I went up to my(1995) astonished self as I(1995) left to get a beer. I(2009) explained to him that this wasn't reality, that it was in fact a review of The Eyre Affair, a book that wouldn't be published for another six years; and that in it certain events were about to unfold, and that I(1995) was to watch me(2009) from behind this car, and that I(2009) would take my(1995) place under the tree instead, and my(1995) life would change for the better if I(1995) never spoke to that shadowy man. I(2009) knew I(1995)'d do it. I(1995/2009)'m cool that way. I sat down with Minor and waited for Hades to reach us, hoping he wouldn't notice that I was wearing the same clothes he had just seen me in. I agreed to go with him right then and there to judge beauty contests in Cancun for a ridiculously large sum of money. Just as I'd remembered it. I obtained a copy of The Eyre Affair while in prison, wrote a really good review of it on GoodReads that eventually won a Pulitzer Prize as it took the form a short but stunning, insightful and inspirational first-person narrative on how I met my wife at PlotPoint Music Fest. I was disappointed that Acheron Hades would ruin my review with his evil 'open-source editing' machine, but at least I(1995) lived happily ever after.(less) | Notes are private!
| Ceridwen
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1
| not set
| Aug 03, 2009
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Aug 03, 2009
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0156027607
| 9780156027601
| 3.91
| 18,606
| 1961
| Nov 20, 2002
|
What if, like, there were this planet that seemed intelligent, right? And like, we go visit it and after a few decades still can't talk to it? But one...more
What if, like, there were this planet that seemed intelligent, right? And like, we go visit it and after a few decades still can't talk to it? But one day, all of a sudden, it creates perfect humans out of our subconscious minds, indistinguishable from real humans down to the subatomic level except for the fact that that particular human died years ago? Like, how would we react to that, man? Duuude. This book is about aliens and what an alien encounter would truly be like. Solaris is a planet covered in an ocean that forms solid objects, and after humans show up those objects are sometimes human in nature. Is this the planet trying to communicate with us? What is it trying to say? Stanislaw Lem's premise is that aliens are, well, alien. Let's face it, all of our science fiction tends to be about humans who look like lizards, or humans who look like insects, or humans who look like little pig people. Most of our science fiction aliens are approachable and ultimately we can understand them, because most science fiction is really just holding up a mirror to the human race in an effort to understand ourselves. Duuuuuude. It's like, we're the aliens. In 'Speaker for the Dead' Orson Scott Card set up three categories, Framling, Ramen, and Varelse, to try to put some boundaries on this problem. Framling are us, humans. Ramen are utterly alien, but capable of communication and peaceful coexistence. Varelse are inhuman and incapable of communication and peaceful existence. It's OK to squash Varelse like bugs, Card says. Especially if they look like bugs. But be sure they're not Ramen first. Really, really sure. Solaris is Varelse, but that's not even Lem's point. He's saying that any aliens would be so fundamentally different from ourselves that not only would meaningful communication be impossible, but the very recognition of conscious thought would be difficult across species. Does the elephant care what the ant on its back thinks? Are they even really aware of each other? Is consciousness a uniquely human trait, unecessary to alien intelligence? Don't bogart that, man. Pass it around. He goes a step further. If we did encounter an alien intelligence, our reaction would be to try to place human boundaries on it, and understand it in a human fashion. This would lead to nothing but an examination of who we are, like looking in a mirror. We'd see what we wanted to see, or what our subconscious brains wanted us to see, and because we're flawed and sometimes monstrous, our mirror image would reflect that. Unlike the recent movie starring George Clooney, this is not primarily a love story. Sure, there's some man on alien planetary extrusion hot hot action in the book, but it's really just Kris Kelvin fucking himself. Or an inkblot. Duuuuuuude. Like, the universe is so vast and like, unknowable, man. If I'd read this book in college when my mind was still fairly pliable, it could have gotten five stars for changing my life. Stanislaw Lem could have been my Carlos Casteneda or Kahlil Gibran, only smarter and less insufferable. As it is, I've encountered these concepts before and incorporated them into my weltanschauung. Lem just synthesized them neatly and took them a little further. It makes for a hearty discussion afterwards, as Ceridwen and I read the book nearly simultaneously and spent several wine-drenched nights talking about the nature of aliens, gods and ourselves. Then we saw the movie, and spent half a wine-drenched night discussing whether or not Steven Soderbergh had really read the book or not. Maybe the movie is like, the mirror reflection of Steven Soderbergh, like, watching himself read the book. Duuuuude.(less) | Notes are private!
| Ceridwen
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1
| not set
| May 03, 2009
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Aug 03, 2009
| Paperback
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