What are you reading right now?

OccultHawk · 10-31-2018, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janszoon

I just started reading his books last year after meaning to check him out since sometime in the early 90s. I like him. So far I've read Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, and Virtual Light. I'm about to start Burning Chrome.

Virtual Light will be my first and last. I never read anything that tried so hard and failed so badly.

Oriphiel · 11-01-2018, 05:06 AM

I never thought the day would come when I would like a Free Jazz masterpiece while Hawk hates it

But that's basically what's happening here

OccultHawk · 11-01-2018, 05:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oriphiel

I never thought the day would come when I would like a Free Jazz masterpiece while Hawk hates it

But that's basically what's happening here

Maybe if there had been just one paragraph that didn’t mention punk hair cuts, tattoos, or piercings. It’s not free jazz but more like the musical equivalent to the Residents. Cute costumes but the music sucks. And tries way too hard.

Oriphiel · 11-01-2018, 05:38 AM

It's literary Free Jazz, 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

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

Which is the same way that I usually approach actual Free Jazz, which almost invariably comes off as try-hard and boring to me. I quickly find something in it that I can comprehend so I can use that as a basis for comparative criticism

Life is funny

Oriphiel · 11-01-2018, 05:51 AM

But at the same time, I can totally get why his writing would come off as try-hard edgy, since it's so heavily rooted in that beat Keruoac style, which I thank Crom every day never really influenced me personally as a writer (despite the fact that I loved On The Road when I was a kid)

That **** gets very old very fast

I'm not even sure why Gibson specifically hit me so hard as an author, since even back then I didn't have much of a tolerance for that style beyond just a few books, but something about the way he basically takes crackhouses and titty bars, rent-a-cops and trillionaires, drugged out hackers and elite soldiers, and manages to find and bring out warmth and life and insane beauty in them, even at their worst moments, and yet coldness and despair and disillusionment even at their best moments, just sucker punched me

OccultHawk · 11-01-2018, 06:11 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, 06:13 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

OccultHawk · 11-01-2018, 06:16 AM

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

Oriphiel · 11-01-2018, 06:24 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, 06:58 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.

11-01-2018, 05:06 AM	#6282 (permalink)
Oriphiel Ask me how! Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: The States Posts: 5,354	I never thought the day would come when I would like a Free Jazz masterpiece while Hawk hates it But that's basically what's happening here __________________ ---------------------- \|---Mic's Albums---\| ---------------------- ----------------------------- \|---Deafbox Industries---\| -----------------------------

11-01-2018, 05:38 AM	#6284 (permalink)
Oriphiel Ask me how! Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: The States Posts: 5,354	It's literary Free Jazz, 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 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 Which is the same way that I usually approach actual Free Jazz, which almost invariably comes off as try-hard and boring to me. I quickly find something in it that I can comprehend so I can use that as a basis for comparative criticism Life is funny __________________ ---------------------- \|---Mic's Albums---\| ---------------------- ----------------------------- \|---Deafbox Industries---\| -----------------------------

11-01-2018, 05:51 AM	#6285 (permalink)
Oriphiel Ask me how! Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: The States Posts: 5,354	But at the same time, I can totally get why his writing would come off as try-hard edgy, since it's so heavily rooted in that beat Keruoac style, which I thank Crom every day never really influenced me personally as a writer (despite the fact that I loved On The Road when I was a kid) That **** gets very old very fast I'm not even sure why Gibson specifically hit me so hard as an author, since even back then I didn't have much of a tolerance for that style beyond just a few books, but something about the way he basically takes crackhouses and titty bars, rent-a-cops and trillionaires, drugged out hackers and elite soldiers, and manages to find and bring out warmth and life and insane beauty in them, even at their worst moments, and yet coldness and despair and disillusionment even at their best moments, just sucker punched me __________________ ---------------------- \|---Mic's Albums---\| ---------------------- ----------------------------- \|---Deafbox Industries---\| -----------------------------

11-01-2018, 06:11 AM	#6286 (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, 06:16 AM	#6288 (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, 06:24 AM	#6289 (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---\| -----------------------------