Classics you should read, classics you shouldn't

[Clinton Huxley]

Should: 1984

Shouldn't: Brave New World

another cas of inverted books...

Pah! I challenge you to a duel!

cream pies at ten paces, is it?

That's a haunting image.

[Hermit]

Shouldn't: Brave New World

You're fucking cuckoo, Pappa. Brave New World is the best, most forceful kick in the guts to people who advocate an elite in charge of social engineering/control based on behaviourism. Nobody before or since has come close to making such a trenchant satire of such proposals. Even the title, lifted from Shakespeare, is brilliantly apposite.

Should read: The Communist Manifesto - K.Marx, F.Engels
Thinking of you, Coito, Warren et. al.

Waste of time: The Plumed Serpent - D.H.Lawrence
Unrelentingly turgid rendition of how the protagonists deal (or fail to deal) with primordial, deep, dark sexual forces written by someone who was terminally enamoured by the latest fashion of the time - Freud's psycho-analytical theories.

[JOZeldenrust]

Should: 1984

Shouldn't: Brave New World

another cas of inverted books...

NOOOOO! 1984 is brilliant. Brave New World is a bit silly. The first scene is brilliant, but it goes down after that.

Classic you should read (Dutch/Flemish literature edition):

L. P. Boon - De Kapellekensbaan

Classic you shouldn't read (Dutch/Flemish literature edition):

B. Huydecoper - Arzases

[Trolldor]

Should: Dracula
Shouldn't: Pride and PrejuSNORE.

[Cunt]

Should: Dracula
Shouldn't: Pride and PrejuSNORE.

I think the meter is a bit off in Meeky's poem.

Great scansion, though.

[Pappa]

You're fucking cuckoo, Pappa. Brave New World is the best, most forceful kick in the guts to people who advocate an elite in charge of social engineering/control based on behaviourism. Nobody before or since has come close to making such a trenchant satire of such proposals. Even the title, lifted from Shakespeare, is brilliantly apposite.

Huxley wrote that he struggled with the book and could never decide if he was writing about a utopia or a distopia, and it shows. It flits between a serious attempt at comment and half-done humour. The ideas presented about social engineering/control are very interesting, but they are surrounded with stupid fluff. The thing is a pile of wank. Besides, he claims he had never read and wasn't influenced by We (Yevgeny Zamyatin). The book had been passed US literary circles, and it's unlikely he was unaware of it. Orwell openly called Huxley a liar about (implying he'd plagiarised Zamyatin's book). I'd recommend reading We, it is an outstanding novel.

[Animavore]

I'm not happy with seeing Ulyseuss and War and Peace here

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm readin Tess of the D'Urbevilles at the mo...

Great book - I read it 20 years ago or so.

Quite enjoying it but not as many belly laughs as I was expecting

I have (unsurprisingly) a huge collection of Trollopes if you're interested.

Now there's something I could really bury myself in, a good Trollope. Probably a very satisfying read...

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm not happy with seeing Ulyseuss and War and Peace here

Both are like having one's teeth pulled, one by one....slowly....

[Hermit]

You're fucking cuckoo, Pappa. Brave New World is the best, most forceful kick in the guts to people who advocate an elite in charge of social engineering/control based on behaviourism. Nobody before or since has come close to making such a trenchant satire of such proposals. Even the title, lifted from Shakespeare, is brilliantly apposite.

Huxley wrote that he struggled with the book and could never decide if he was writing about a utopia or a distopia, and it shows. It flits between a serious attempt at comment and half-done humour.

I love the lack of black and white in each case. Now, that is sophistication.

he claims he had never read and wasn't influenced by We (Yevgeny Zamyatin). The book had been passed US literary circles, and it's unlikely he was unaware of it.

Having been accused of plagiarism by a lecturer once after genuinely thinking of something that turned out to be what Samuel Johnson famously said, and expressing that idea in almost the exact same words as he did, I can see that people are sometimes wrongly accused of intellectual theft.

[Animavore]

I'm not happy with seeing Ulyseuss and War and Peace here

Both are like having one's teeth pulled, one by one....slowly....

War and Peace is one of the most well written books I've ever read. The attention to detail on the characters and their idiosyncrasiesis is practically unmatched.

Ulysess has some amazing use of English.

[Pappa]

Huxley wrote that he struggled with the book and could never decide if he was writing about a utopia or a distopia, and it shows. It flits between a serious attempt at comment and half-done humour.

I love the lack of black and white in each case. Now, that is sophistication.

Normally so would I, but Huxley didn't do it on purpose, he did it because he couldn't pin down which direction he wanted the book to go in. It was a failure on his part.

he claims he had never read and wasn't influenced by We (Yevgeny Zamyatin). The book had been passed US literary circles, and it's unlikely he was unaware of it.

Having been accused of plagiarism by a lecturer once after genuinely thinking of something that turned out to be what Samuel Johnson famously said, and expressing that idea in almost the exact same words as he did, I can see that people are sometimes wrongly accused of intellectual theft.

It's very unlikely that Huxley was unaware of Zamyatin's book.

[Animavore]

This guy goes through Ulysses paragraph by paragraph in a 5 minute podcast every week going through the many allusions, allegories, anagrams and codes in this book for anyone interested.
http://rejoyce.libsyn.com/rss
A warning though, some may find his voice annoying. It's a mix between Dublin and posh sop.
After 21 weeks he's still on the first chapter.

[Clinton Huxley]

Classic you should read:-

Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

Classic you shouldn't read:-

Vanity Fair by William Thackeray

[Bella Fortuna]

Classic you shouldn't read:-

Vanity Fair by William Thackeray

I liked that book!

Anyhoo... nowhere else to put this, so PLONK.