Jonfaith’s Comments (group member since Jan 15, 2015)

Jonfaith’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

I grabbed a copy of Carmilla from the library just now. Covering bases as to this spooky-ooky read.

I may adjust my vote if someone suggests something later, as it stands -- I'll go with Carmilla or the Collected Ghost Stories of MRJ.

Sounds great: I'm game for anything creepy. I just read the Walpole. I have some big-ass collections of Poe and Lovecraft here presently but would read anything.

I suck. My crashing disappointment dissuaded me instantly from reflecting further than necessary. The suspense of the book is undermined by it being messianic: that nature grated beyond measure. I was glad to be finished and thus I ran.

All appears well with our defts and damns. I am taking break now from computing our taxes which I truly loathe.

I guess I am going to continue to submit observations here, though I fear only Ted is actively reading at the present. I am going to skim back through what I've digested and hopefully something of interest will materialize -- or not.

Good sir, you made me chuckle. Deft touch, there.

i was thinking about Derek's comment on #62 and I find that intriguing that "It's not that I don't believe religion could morph in the next 40-odd centuries, and that it could morph into those shapes, it's just that there's far too much baggage for it to have those names." One can readily laugh an dponder Peter Ackroy'd Plato Papers and the future misattribution of Origin of Species to Dickens but on a more scholarly level Carlo Ginzburg unearthed the precursors of the Witches Coven (or Mass) in ancient migratory Scythian practices. I don't think we should disavow the possibility of any future traces of our present spiritual clingings.

I suppose the interior aspect of Dune is what captures the Proust/Joyce comparisons. I am still not sold. That said, the first couple hundred pages are immensely captivating, even if there is no suspense about the ultimate fate of the Messiah. Maybe a thread is needed on why I despise the Chosen Ones. (I don't mean Jose Mourinho either).

This idea of world building has always warranted a wry glare from me. IT all feels close at hand.

Let this be a postscript to last night's ramble. Alejandro J brings really interesting ideas to any Dune discussion. He also imports a load of bad taste, so some planned ignoring is in order, are you with me people?

I am speaking in VERY general terms here. Alejandro notes how the first hundred pages lacks clear narrative, how it is a series of unclear developments and insinuations.

Jodorowsky also said it was literature of the highest order, comparable to Proust. I am not presently of that mind.

My wife and I just finished viewing Jodorowsky's Dune. This is Enrique Vila-Matas territory. It also breeds reflection upon our reading possibilities.

I suppose time should be given to a schedule of sorts. There are limited breaks in the narrative other than the epigraphs supplied periodically, those which lend a Eschatological bend to the narrative but blow suspense all to hell.

You know, its been sluggish here. Rain and the President was late for his visit to Louisville. [jon shuffles papers absently] we'll get to it.

We had nearly a foot of snow today and after some medieval Chinese reading I wound up read Lucius Sheppard, kooky that.

No problem. Each their own and flowering in multitudes and whatnot.

Yes Avalon Hill. I just peeked at amazon and folks are selling their dune games for two hundred a pop. oh well. I really liked Squad Leader though the politics and the ethics of such now make me squirm.

My buried neglected nerd self sprang to life after 30 years of neglect when you mentioned a Dune game by avalon hill!

Saw the preview recently. It reminds me of the docs about Terry Gilliam's Quixote and some project by Orson Welles which never materialized because of funding issues. No surprise, that.

What a welcome sabbath treat!

What I'm hoping for is not a geo-political approach to Dune but one larded equally with medieval and philosophical filigree.

And as Traveler noted, I am hoping to ease my despair.

Thanks for the empathy. It isn't an instance of burning urgency to read Dune. I just wanted some sense of structure as to when we would embark.

Any Dune Deliberations being presently percolated? I feel estranged today. A trip to the bookshop was a null gain. I bought the Decemberists for my wife at underground sounds and I picked up F Is For Fake at my dying video store Wild and Woolly. While not exactly moribund, I do feel an anachroism.