B
Big Fat Sam
Guest
Nice! I was completely overwhelmed by the flavours on my recent trip to Beijing... would love to be able to reproduce them at my home.
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
The GOT Book Club
- Thread starter chicoazul
- Start date
Fuleco
Player Valuation: £35m
I've read some ball-breakers in my time - quite like taking them on tbh. Struggled with plenty but will always finish them - view it like training, you can have a horror of a session, but you'll probably be better off if you see it through and start again tomorrow.
Ulysses is up there but not the worst - my copy has a forward by Anthony Burgess where he makes the point that it's essentially a simple story, Joyce himself said all he wanted to do was give the Dubliners one good look at themselves. So while Stephen's voice is a challenging read, for example, the book as a whole is digestible. Plus the last chapter (Molly Bloom's soliloquy) is probably the most scintillating prose written in the twentieth century, so it's worth the trouble
Very tough reads for me would be stuff like William Gaddis or Thomas Pynchon - both US postmodern heavyweights. Pynchon has some accessible stuff, but Gravitys Rainbow, Mason and Dixon and Against the Day are absolute monsters. All are very long and you've got dense, difficult prose on the one hand, married to impenetrable, crazy stories about the military industrial complex. Gravitys Rainbow was worth it for me as it is an amazing novel. The other two were probably net negatives - some reward but not enough for a major reading effort.
Must admit to giving up with 'Gravity's Rainbow' too! Will give it another go soon.
Currently reading 'Infinitive Jest' by David Foster Wallace another monster book, determined to get through this one.
Black Belt Jones
Player Valuation: £25m
Great book that mate - not too many like that written in recent years.
I need a clear run at these sort of books - like on holiday or something. Doing 15 mins before bed on something like Gravity's Rainbow is going to be hard going.
Saying that, I've got his latest to read - bleeding edge, and we're going camping for the weekend. So if the kids manage to go to bed at a decent hour I might put a dent in it. Meant to be a pretty smooth read.
malcson
Player Valuation: £10m
Couldn't get to grips with The Satanic Verses, gave up about halfway through
steken1
Player Valuation: £70m
The motorcycle diaries - Che Guevara. Bone crushingly dull. Jibbed it halfway through.
Billy Dean
Player Valuation: £70m
great film though
Fuleco
Player Valuation: £35m
Same here, as with all Rushdie's stuff for me; it's all a little disengaging.
Pat's Van
Player Valuation: £70m
oh sh!t, RIP Gabriel, love his books
One Hundred Years Of Solitude is a stunning piece of work, think Steinbeck's "East of Eden" on acid
will be missed x
Clint Planet
Utter Cad.
I'm struggling a bit with Don Quixote now. It's quite charming and enjoyable at times but hard work at others. I keep temporarily abandoning it but then returning.
Like a couple of the others I've had a crack at Gravity's Rainbow, really struggled and knocked it on the head, as I'm trying to do a dissertation, so need light relief. But I'm determined to crack it one day, mainly as one of my favourite songs is based on it apparently.
I did go toe to toe with Moby Duck (see what I did there!!), and that's a cracker, definitely my desert island read, so rich, the writing is poetic. I started off with the mindset of setting out to conquer a literary mountain, but in the end it was a joy spend time with.
My missus loves LOTR. I gave up a couple of chapters in to Two Towers when I was about 14, just couldn't care less where it was going or what was gonna happen to any of them. But I quite liked the fillums, mainly for the scenery though if I'm honest. So she said read 'em again. I gave up in the same place. Still couldn't care less.
Pat's Van
Player Valuation: £70m
absolutely adore Moby Duck, I even love the stuff where it basically becomes a book about whale biology, it's proper fascinating to me. Melville made many sea journeys and if you ever get the chance read Redburn, it notes his journey across the Atlantic and to hear him describing a 19th century Liverpool is an absolute joy !
plus, if you really like Moby Duck then the real story it actually comes from is told in a great book called In The Heart Of The Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick, an attack on the whaleship Essex by a huge sperm whale and the surviving crew in the lifeboats eventually turn to cannnibalism, it's being made into a movie right now
Cheers for those recommendations mate, I'll definitely give Redburn a go, that sounds top. Is it a biggun? I saw the TV adaptation of Heart of The Sea, great story, adaptation was a bit ropey. Will try and read the book before the film comes out though.
Have you heard about the Sci-Fi Moby Duck film? I know it sounds like a car crash but its a pet project from Lynne Ramsay. Her last film 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' was visually searing and dark as hell. If she gets this off the ground its got the potential to be astonishing.... or the definition of an epic fail!!
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/oct/03/lynne-ramsay-moby-dick-film