Dan’s Comments (group member since Mar 02, 2009)

Dan’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

Ben wrote: "how did i miss the used bookstore last year? i don't understand. was i sleeping?"

You didn't go? I thought you went when martyn and co. went.

It is a pretty awesome bookstore, I bought a lot of good stuff.

I can be one, I suppose. Put me down for low on the level of involvement. I don't want to set the bar high and then disappoint.

Charlaralotte wrote: "I recently read "The Brief, Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao." Several people told me that they'd been stymied by the long footnotes and never finished it. It took me awhile to remember that stuff was in footnotes, and then I realized that the footnotes were what I loved the best. They explained the history of the Dominican Republic under Trujillo, information that I had no idea about, information that I found more interesting than the actual story because I preferred the "voice" they were written in. "


I recently read this too and loved the footnotes. I didn't find them to be overbearing at all. I had a harder time getting into the voice of the main story than that of the footnotes. In the end I enjoyed the book greatly as both a work of fiction and history. Sadly I was/am quite ignorant of the history of the DR (and many other places in that area).

Audi Audi Oxen Freeeee! wrote: "I'd also like to read more SciFi. I read an Isaac Asimov once a long time ago and enjoyed it. I just want to avoid the cheesy weird sexy robot stuff. :)"

I would highly, highly recommend Philip K Dick. He totally wiped away all preconceived (and often negative) notions I had of SciFi. He also gets inside your head and kicks your brain around until you don't know what to believe anymore. I can't wait to read more from him.

Audi Audi Oxen Freeeee! wrote:"When you say 50 a year, is that purely enjoyment reading? Is it mixed with easy read stuff? That sounds like a lot to me! "

50 books is actually not too hard to do, unless you have reading block for a month or two which seemed to happen to me in the middle of last year. I typically only count pleasure reading but make no distinctions between easy read and normal read.

I read some the The Idiot and Sometimes a Great Notion which were more challenging than say The Catcher in the Rye but I just group them all together.

In the end though if I don't read 50+ books this year it won't be a big deal. I have already read Anna Karenina and am working on Infinite Jest which are much longer than my typical reads.

Shel wrote: "What I've found is that when you click on the little red word "new", you go to directly to the new posts.

Definitely a usability issue, though I have seen it on other sites... at least the real es..."

Well this new thing does alleviate these problems. I also noticed at the top of a thread a link word that says "newest" clicking that will take you to the newest part of the thread. I guess my complaint has been thoroughly nullified.

Pavel wrote: "Well this looks like a good place to put this. Anyone else think 50 posts per page a bit rough? Any way to change it? 25, 20, or 15 like old Jon's basement?"

You know Pavel, I was kind of thinking about that. I don't know if it can be changed but It would be nice to limit it to 25 or so.

I thought it would be interesting to start a thread on your personal reading goals whether it be for the year or for a longer/shorter time.

I have some general goals I try to set for myself such as reading at least 52 novels a year, for example. I am also trying to expand the types of books I am reading. So far I have succeeded in reading some science fiction which is not something I have done much of in the past.

I have also noted that I read a disproportionately large number of male authors so I have decided I need to read more female authors this year. So far I have failed.

With the exception of Richard Ford all of the books I have read this year have been by dead people.

So what goals or plans do you have for reading? Or maybe more important what has compelled you to set these goals or plans?

This may be a good spot for Ben to continue on with his cycle of ten books experiment he is trying this year.

The Decemberists album The Crane Wife poped to mind as it is fashioned not after a book but after a Japanese folk tale.

Here is the story via Wikipedia:

The Crane Wife is an old Japanese tale. While there are many variations of the tale, a common version is that a poor man finds an injured crane on his doorstep (or outside with an arrow in it), takes it in and nurses it back to health. After he releases the crane, a woman appears at his doorstep with whom he falls in love and marries. Because they need money, his wife offers to weave wondrous clothes out of silk that they can sell at the market, but only if he agrees never to watch her making them. They begin to sell them and live a comfortable life, but he soon makes her weave them more and more. Oblivious to his wife's diminishing health, his greed increases. He eventually peeks in to see what she is doing to make the silk she weaves so desirable. He is shocked to discover that at the loom is a crane plucking feathers from her own body and weaving them into the loom. The crane, seeing him, flies away and never returns. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cran...)

They also have a new album coming out this month which by description seems very literary oriented though I don't know of any corresponding tale. Here is the description also from wikipedia:

azards of Love tells the tale of a woman named Margaret who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her lover, William; a forest queen; and a cold-blooded, lascivious rake, who recounts with spine-tingling ease how he came "to be living so easy and free" in the aforementioned "The Rake's Song". [Becky Stark and Shara Worden:] deliver the lead vocals for the female characters, while [Jim James, Robyn Hitchcock, and Rebecca Gates:] appear in supporting roles. The range of sounds reflects the characters' arcs, from the accordion's singsong lilt in "Isn't It a Lovely Night?" to the heavy metal thunder of "The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haza...)

Michael you constructed the hilarious comment i wanted to but could not. kudos!

Mo if your ramblings about cheese weren't so excusable I would surely shout Inexcusable! Inexcusable!

Brian wrote: "amazon sent me an email this morning telling me to buy this book. i think i'll just wait for eddie vedder to give me a copy."

Ha!

Great post and welcome Abi. I have often been tempted to read this. In fact I have gotten through the first page of Swann's Way a number of times.

You say it took 6 months to read, did you read anything else during that time or was it straight Proust? Also I imagine during an undertaking of this size you took notes. Is that true? how many pages of notes?

This book scares me but one day I hope to get through it (or at least past the first few pages).

Sorry about all the questions.

What the hell is soccer? We call it football here in the states!

is the delete just there for mods or for anyone?

Alan wrote:

No, that's really you, my friend. I did mean Ballard's Crash. Oops. Needless to..."

Damn, I am deformed.

hi, I am dan. I have been around the block with some of these other group members for a long time, probably over three years at this point. i like this group and the people in it because they are all very nice and smarter than i am. I get to learn something interesting here everyday. I studied history as an undergrad with a focus on the greeks and romans but my knowledge of the classical languages fades with each passing day. As a grad student I studied library sciences which makes me a librarian, in theory.

i admire the big books like Proust's and Tolstoy's W&P safely from behind my much shorter books like The Master and Margarita and Austerlitz.

I have a massive "to read" list thanks to the other folks in this group and have been experimenting with Philip K Dick this year. I am not sure if this is a good thing because he is addicting and I am pretty sure you can O.D. from this guy.

Ok, this is ridiculous. I said that I didn't have time to read it and I guess that is still true with Infinite Jest on deck along with the short story thing but now I think I really wanna read it thanks to all these comments.

A whole village with insomnia?! Post-it notes!?!

I don't even have a job right now and there is getting to be too much reading to be done! Arrgh!

From the sounds of it Mo's birthday celebration last the better part of a week. I don't think I could handle that myself but I can think of no one more willing and deserving. Happy Birthday Mo.

yeah, i read the entry about his time in seattle. pretty funny/interesting but as Mo says, what about his works?

Shel said this over in the myspace group:

I have this vision of a Web 2.5 or 3.0, where we can all build modular, mutable profiles based on our interests; ask our friends to join branches of the larger network based on shared interests... profiles in which users could choose what information is shown to which friends, and which branches... where everyone is searchable but only if they wish to be... a network that respects privacy and allows for different levels of social interaction... like videoconferencing... or even SMS... that connects all of these crazy devices we’re attached to... a network with a mutable, maybe even user defined taxonomy... a network that presents potential new users as friends that make sense based on interest, not the high schools we attend...

... where I can send people Muppets or talk about great literature, or force people to listen to the music I like...

But sadly we are stuck in Web 1.0 and 2.0. Each time you join a new network you have to re-fill out different information and re-find friends, a world of "web sites" and "domains"... and search sucks ass.

I am really interested in these ideas and I feel that we are moving in that direction. The need for the fiction files to evolve as well is essential. If I knew anything about programming I would get to work immediately on a project like this.