What are you reading right now?

**Marie Monday** · 01-07-2019, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BassoonPlatoon

I like this because it’s kind of a philosophy mixed in with an actual narrative about what it means to be patriotic.

That's true, and also about what it means to be family, and an analysis of an episode of India's history of course, and so many other things. In terms of themes it's also similar to War and Peace actually

~~[MERIT]~~ · 10-31-2018, 06:13 PM

I read a bunch of "Missouri Conservationist" magazines with my son over the weekend. I think that the pics of the different turtles were his favorite.The weekend before that, we read children's books so that he could earn a free pizza at Pizza Hut.

OccultHawk · 11-01-2018, 05:11 AM

So you’re saying that I lacked the reading comprehension skills to understand the setting?

How do you think Gibson stacks up to writers like Don DeLillo or Saul Bellow or even Faulkner? Because I don’t think Virtual Light is the Unit Structures of fiction. I know you’re a talented writer yourself, something I certainly am not, but I’m a pretty damn good reader.

OccultHawk · 11-01-2018, 05:13 AM

Quote:

I find the acid prose beautiful, and feel like you maybe focused on the honestly pretty basic and accessible descriptions of people (compared to how much time and effort he spends elaborating on locations and circumstances) because they were what you could understand, and thus what you could criticize

ftr - this is what I’m taking issue with

Oriphiel · 11-01-2018, 05:24 AM

Understand, as in making an effort to entertain his word-based spasms as more than just skippable edgery

Has less to do with reading comprehension and experience and more to do with a willingness to just dive in and hallucinate along with him, and find horribly beautiful parallels to current life and society in the haze (which I firmly believe even a first time reader can do, and does, even if just on a basic level, and even if they don't realize it)

Even someone who very rarely reads can get a lot out of Gibson. They don't need to know how to read rul gud, they just need to have been to a city at least once in their life

Can you dig the rebop, pops?

OccultHawk · 11-01-2018, 05:16 AM

I have to wonder if the people who worship On The Road have read Heart of Darkness.

BassoonPlatoon · 12-23-2018, 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

I have to wonder if the people who worship On The Road have read Heart of Darkness.

Well what I like about On the Road is that it casts Moriarty as the antagonist. It makes too much sense for it not to be good.

OccultHawk · 12-23-2018, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BassoonPlatoon

Well what I like about On the Road is that it casts Moriarty as the antagonist. It makes too much sense for it not to be good.

tbf if I read the book now w/out a sense of punk vs hippy counterculture rivalry and the internet to know who the characters really represented and what they did

long story short my lack of appreciation for that book is admittedly on me

I should read it again and read it right this time

OccultHawk · 11-01-2018, 05:58 AM

Good sci-fi doesn’t have to be intuitive but it often helps. So let’s say I’m stacking up science fiction authors and I’m considering this quote

Quote:

hallucinatory Sci-Fi, a psychosomatic autopsy of the inevitable conclusion of Capitalism, crack addicts and captains of industry both reaching for warmth with equal anathema

so what I’m thinking is in Virtual Light Gibson didn’t shine light on a possible conclusion of capitalism beyond a simple amplification of the present (a present that’s becoming more distant everyday)

compared to say Ursula K. Le Guin‘s The Dispossessed

Gibson’s universe is a three page digression by Le Guin. That’s how deep the disparity runs.

Oriphiel · 11-01-2018, 06:06 AM

Maybe

Multiple books can approach the same theme with varying intensity and differing approaches, without one necessarily being made obsolete or a simple digression

Gibson's work is so much more about the raw experience than the themes that comparing him to other "better" Sci-Fi writers kinda comes off as that pretentious guy that mockingly compares the output of snotty punk bands to a bunch of extensive anarcho-socialist treatises

11-01-2018, 05:11 AM	#3 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	So you’re saying that I lacked the reading comprehension skills to understand the setting? How do you think Gibson stacks up to writers like Don DeLillo or Saul Bellow or even Faulkner? Because I don’t think Virtual Light is the Unit Structures of fiction. I know you’re a talented writer yourself, something I certainly am not, but I’m a pretty damn good reader. __________________ 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND: https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html

11-01-2018, 05:24 AM	#5 (permalink)
Oriphiel Ask me how! Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: The States Posts: 5,354	Understand, as in making an effort to entertain his word-based spasms as more than just skippable edgery Has less to do with reading comprehension and experience and more to do with a willingness to just dive in and hallucinate along with him, and find horribly beautiful parallels to current life and society in the haze (which I firmly believe even a first time reader can do, and does, even if just on a basic level, and even if they don't realize it) Even someone who very rarely reads can get a lot out of Gibson. They don't need to know how to read rul gud, they just need to have been to a city at least once in their life Can you dig the rebop, pops? __________________ ---------------------- \|---Mic's Albums---\| ---------------------- ----------------------------- \|---Deafbox Industries---\| -----------------------------

11-01-2018, 05:16 AM	#6 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	I have to wonder if the people who worship On The Road have read Heart of Darkness. __________________ 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND: https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html

11-01-2018, 06:06 AM	#10 (permalink)
Oriphiel Ask me how! Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: The States Posts: 5,354	Maybe Multiple books can approach the same theme with varying intensity and differing approaches, without one necessarily being made obsolete or a simple digression Gibson's work is so much more about the raw experience than the themes that comparing him to other "better" Sci-Fi writers kinda comes off as that pretentious guy that mockingly compares the output of snotty punk bands to a bunch of extensive anarcho-socialist treatises __________________ ---------------------- \|---Mic's Albums---\| ---------------------- ----------------------------- \|---Deafbox Industries---\| -----------------------------

10-31-2018, 06:13 PM	#2 (permalink)
~~[MERIT]~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Missouri, USA Posts: 4,823	I read a bunch of "Missouri Conservationist" magazines with my son over the weekend. I think that the pics of the different turtles were his favorite.The weekend before that, we read children's books so that he could earn a free pizza at Pizza Hut.