Unless, that is, you are reading Flann O'Brien's brilliant and surreal work 'The Third Policeman'.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Spoilers What Book Are You Reading?
- Thread starter Huntn
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Unless, that is, you are reading Flann O'Brien's brilliant and surreal work 'The Third Policeman'.
The Martian- An astronaut marooned on Mars. It's keeping me interested. One of the draw backs of first person narrative is that since the guy is writing a first person journal you know he's still alive, which tends to suppress tension. I'm only 8 chapters in and fortunately the narrative is alternating with third person, where you share the the discovery of events with the character(s).
Saw the movie and really enjoyed it. The book is on my to be read list.
Admittedly I have a ways to go in the story, and I'm enjoying it.
I was just making a point that when telling a story, 3rd person allows events to unfold real time, with greater tension IMO, you are watching and don't know the outcome. While a log entry is me telling you how I almost got killed, not nearly as tense because the author of the log is writing a history. It will be interesting to see when the author (of the book) shifts the telling of the astronaut's part of the story to third person.
Admittedly I have a ways to go in the story, and I'm enjoying it.
I was just making a point that when telling a story, 3rd person allows events to unfold real time, with greater tension IMO, you are watching and don't know the outcome. While a log entry is me telling you how I almost got killed, not nearly as tense because the author of the log is writing a history. It will be interesting to see when the author (of the book) shifts the telling of the astronaut's part of the story to third person.
But are first person narrators always completely reliable when telling their own story? For that matter, have you ever read 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' by Agatha Christie?
1st person, it's their perspective, no guarantees of accuracy.
I have not read TMORA.
1st person, it's their perspective, no guarantees of accuracy.
I have not read TMORA.
Hm. I suggest that you take a look at it sometime.
You see, when an author writes in the first person, the reader almost always identifies fairly strongly with this character - it is a literary device.
Started reading 'In Search of the Old Ones' by David Roberts. It is about the Anasazi, ancestors of the Pueblo people, inhabited the Southwest of the USA for a least 5,000 years.
That sounds as though it is an interesting and unusual work.
Please let us know either it is worth looking at.
Back at it again. And one of my children is having this problem (parents at one point of their lives will encounter this with their children, so I don't feel too bad), so hopefully these will make them feel better or give them some perspective.
BL.
BL.
They are pretty big books. Everytime I get to where I think should be coming close to the climax of the story, I realize I am only half way in.
Actually, I now have to have an argument with myself. Just caught this from Gizmodo:
This after putting the first six Star Wars movies into Little Golden Books. We just finished watching Episodes 4 - 6 (original releases, not the re-releases), so they've been crazy about Star Wars. May have to pick these up.
BL.
This after putting the first six Star Wars movies into Little Golden Books. We just finished watching Episodes 4 - 6 (original releases, not the re-releases), so they've been crazy about Star Wars. May have to pick these up.
BL.
Back at it again. And one of my children is having this problem (parents at one point of their lives will encounter this with their children, so I don't feel too bad), so hopefully these will make them feel better or give them some perspective.
BL.
Hah, thanks for sharing those. I wish I could read the second one there to one of my two cats. She has been until recently the more dominant kitty of the pair, but she's also the smaller of the two. Both cats are old now, around 17 or so. The smaller one has begun to assess her relationship to the bigger one somewhat differently. Perhaps she has experienced physical failings I haven't detected yet and has begun to fear the larger kitty. In the past she's always done exactly whatever she wanted, like taking the sunny sleeping spots first as the day wore on, etc., *and* not being particularly careful to cover up her poops in the litter box. It was sort of a "Yeah, I did that, so get over it" message to her cousin, the larger but more timid cat. Suddenly the smaller cat is very careful to cover up any sign she's even been near the box. If only I could reassure her that "everyone poops" and she's still doing it in the right place and not to worry about the other cat, who appears no more interested in the little cat or her poops than she ever was to begin with. They are so comical with each other in their petty disagreements and mutual disdain, but I think the little cat is not amused at all by some weakness she has newly sensed in herself. That book would be perfect for her! All I need is a translation...
====
Me, I’ve begun reading Jon Meacham’s biographical portrait of Bush the elder, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush. It seems well written, and painstakingly documented. The notes and bibliography are mind-boggling archives unto themselves. Just looking at a list of people with whom Meacham conducted interviews has summoned up many of my own memories of the time in office of Bush 41.
Meacham had remarkable access to GHWB himself over the course of nine years, to the Bush family including Bush 43, to the diaries of both George and Barbara Bush, and to the papers and recollections of a number of people in Bush 41's administration including James Baker. That’s very generous access and certainly a testament to Meacham’s ability to gain the family’s trust and that of Bush confidantes.
I confess initial surprise at realizing I even wanted to read this book. Events during the later administration of Bush 43 have doubtless somewhat colored my earlier views of the father and his policies more favorably by now than while I lived through them. I’m enough of a not-fan of some aspects of his administration that I hesitated before buying the book, but I don’t find it a fawning portrait so I’m good with it so far.
It’s not a page turner, exactly, but it’s also hard to put down sometimes. I suppose part of it is the fun of assorted “oh man, I remember that!” reactions, thinking about how my views of events have changed, and trying to assess whether my opinions have changed in a politically consistent way or evolved differently over time.
Anyway the book has already engaged me way past what I expected it to do. Kudos to Meacham for that. I can remember a day I was in despair that I ever heard of GHWBush, although I think it had much more to do with Pat Buchanan, the Republican party and its already rumbling right wing in 1992 than it did with Bush himself as he strove for the re-election that eventually eluded him.
I'm currently reading, Jony Ive - The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney.
An interesting read, I'm enjoying it.
From between the pages, I look around my room and see real examples of iMac G3, G4 'Lampshade', iBook 'Clamshell', and G4 Cube - all of which Jony Ive's had a significant part in designing, making the book even more fascinating.
An interesting read, I'm enjoying it.
From between the pages, I look around my room and see real examples of iMac G3, G4 'Lampshade', iBook 'Clamshell', and G4 Cube - all of which Jony Ive's had a significant part in designing, making the book even more fascinating.
The Long Walk. Bought it on Kindle this morning at work and got through about 170 pages of it by 2 PM. It was being discussed at length in a blog post I came across last week and put it on my "to buy" list. I'm not a fan of King's writing, but this is one of his more interesting novels.
*Not sure if this includes anything to be considered as spoilers.
I finished Go Set a Watchman yesterday and have to agree with many of the negative reviews. To Kill a Mockingbird was a very good read but I wasn't one of the obsessed readers of it who were desperate to read the sequel. Many say it shouldn't have been published because of what it does to TKAM yet I think it was worth reading just like you might watch an alternative ending to a movie. It didn't shatter my moral beliefs because of Atticus Finch, it actually made more sense of his character. He actually seemed more wise but I didn't see the overblown racism that had been reported.
A criticism I have is that part of it felt like an episode of the Brady Bunch. I wasn't seeing the sense in a grown woman reacting the way she was. Especially one that had actually moved to a tougher and more diverse part of the world.
Another criticism is that there were extracts of TKAM pretty much word for word in GSAW. Now, I believe that GSAW was actually written before TKAM and was merely a draft that was not to be published. But, if it was to be published, surely those loose ends could have beeb tidied up. It might be a case to prove that TKAM was actually written by Lee and not Kapote as has been rumoured.
In summary, if your moral beliefs weren't built on TKAM alone, you should be hard enough to read Go Set a Watchman. It's not that long but it really should be much cheaper as it's not really a full story, more like an episode. I give it 3/5.
I finished Go Set a Watchman yesterday and have to agree with many of the negative reviews. To Kill a Mockingbird was a very good read but I wasn't one of the obsessed readers of it who were desperate to read the sequel. Many say it shouldn't have been published because of what it does to TKAM yet I think it was worth reading just like you might watch an alternative ending to a movie. It didn't shatter my moral beliefs because of Atticus Finch, it actually made more sense of his character. He actually seemed more wise but I didn't see the overblown racism that had been reported.
A criticism I have is that part of it felt like an episode of the Brady Bunch. I wasn't seeing the sense in a grown woman reacting the way she was. Especially one that had actually moved to a tougher and more diverse part of the world.
Another criticism is that there were extracts of TKAM pretty much word for word in GSAW. Now, I believe that GSAW was actually written before TKAM and was merely a draft that was not to be published. But, if it was to be published, surely those loose ends could have beeb tidied up. It might be a case to prove that TKAM was actually written by Lee and not Kapote as has been rumoured.
In summary, if your moral beliefs weren't built on TKAM alone, you should be hard enough to read Go Set a Watchman. It's not that long but it really should be much cheaper as it's not really a full story, more like an episode. I give it 3/5.
Is this King writing as Richard Bachman and if so are they a series of books or individual novels? It's not a new book is it?
On spoilers regarding Go Set a Watchman, same here w/ respect to my reply...
... but really one would have to be off all grids not to have a clue about Go Set A Watchman by now.
Thanks for your post. I remain unsure whether I want to read the book. To Kill a Mockingbird was great but I don't have any fictional characters either set on pedestals (or for that matter jailed for existing); after all they are creations of a writer and perceived through my own filters when I discover them.
I have once or twice thought when finishing a book that I'd like to see the character again in another work. So far I've not thought very hard about what I'd do when that opportunity arrived and I ended up thinking something like "What?! No way!". Anyway I can absorb the revelations of the new-to-me GSAW without having a heart attack. My hesitation is more about setting time aside to read it. Someday I'm going to set a book in one of the stacks along the top of the back of my couch and the whole lot will come down and write FINIS to my own story!
===
Meanwhile I'm picking up where I'd left off quite awhile back with @Scepticalscribe's recommendation to read Neal Ascherson's Black Sea. Hopelessly behind with my library books and putting Black Sea in front of them now won't seem brilliant when time to return those rolls around. But I had only just got to chapter two with its striking epigram from Cavafy's Waiting for the Barbarians, and those opening lines sprang to mind again while I was reading some recent PRSI forum threads:
So I must get on with Ascherson's account of how the collision of the Scythians and the Greeks at the edge of the Black Sea came to warrant his pick of those lines from Cavafy. But it's true the idea of barbarians coming in handy has occurred in many cultures over time. Some citations from Black Sea might prove useful in PRSI now and then
On spoilers regarding Go Set a Watchman, same here w/ respect to my reply...
... but really one would have to be off all grids not to have a clue about Go Set A Watchman by now.
Thanks for your post. I remain unsure whether I want to read the book. To Kill a Mockingbird was great but I don't have any fictional characters either set on pedestals (or for that matter jailed for existing); after all they are creations of a writer and perceived through my own filters when I discover them.
I have once or twice thought when finishing a book that I'd like to see the character again in another work. So far I've not thought very hard about what I'd do when that opportunity arrived and I ended up thinking something like "What?! No way!". Anyway I can absorb the revelations of the new-to-me GSAW without having a heart attack. My hesitation is more about setting time aside to read it. Someday I'm going to set a book in one of the stacks along the top of the back of my couch and the whole lot will come down and write FINIS to my own story!
===
Meanwhile I'm picking up where I'd left off quite awhile back with @Scepticalscribe's recommendation to read Neal Ascherson's Black Sea. Hopelessly behind with my library books and putting Black Sea in front of them now won't seem brilliant when time to return those rolls around. But I had only just got to chapter two with its striking epigram from Cavafy's Waiting for the Barbarians, and those opening lines sprang to mind again while I was reading some recent PRSI forum threads:
So I must get on with Ascherson's account of how the collision of the Scythians and the Greeks at the edge of the Black Sea came to warrant his pick of those lines from Cavafy. But it's true the idea of barbarians coming in handy has occurred in many cultures over time. Some citations from Black Sea might prove useful in PRSI now and then
Wait until you get to the chapter which described Alexander Pushkin's (reluctant) exile in Odessa (and discusses in greater - and equally fascinating detail, that of Adam Mickiewicz). I cried - with laughter - reading parts of it. And then read it again. And again. It is brilliant. And the grace notes - the - almost - casual asides are wonderful, the prose exquisite, the understanding of nuance sublime.
To my mind, this is how history should be written, with a simpatico - yet sharp, but not cruel - wit, and a deep, searing, insight and wise and informed and thoughtful understanding of the issues, cultures and forces at stake.
Last edited:
I'm not completely sure myself. I didn't do much research prior to purchasing it. Wiki says it was under Bachman. I'll still refer it to as King. Bachman's early works were rather ill famed, specifically because of Rage. Though the horror making young men march and who were then shot, such as in this book, stirs up public condemnation of the book's plotline. But also for the fact that it's a painful reminder of long and cruel marches of civilians during wartime, who were then almost always executed.
Reading right now "The Ant and the Grasshopper" by William Somerset Mom