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Guest Vitamin X
Posted

I love that it says "For TSM" on the acknowledgments page.

Posted

I have recently read A Passage to India, which is a wonderful novel, especially during the moments wherein Forster delves into his character's inner thoughts. It's rather dialogue heavy, which I suppose was to be expected.

 

I also dusted off The Communist Manifesto for the second time. It wasn't particularly enjoyable, but I do think that I have improved my understanding of the work, so that's a positive.

 

I purchased No Country for Old Men yesterday, and have read about half of the book so far. If this really is one of his weaker novels as I have heard elsewhere, then I desperately need to sample more of Cormac McCarthy's fiction. The sole complaint that I would raise concerns the lack of apostrophes that're utilised throughout. I realise that the characters themselves are not supposed to have a particularly good grasp of grammar, but did this really have to be extended to the narrative voice?

Posted

So I have finished readin "I drink rats milk". I'm going to start with the bad, so I can end my post on a good note because overall it was an enjoyable read.

 

The Bad:

 

- Typos throughout. You would benefit from having somebody read through it with the purpose of looking for the typos.

 

- Near the beginning, I found it hard to relate to the main character, Anthony, because I had more in common with the "David" character, so what seemed weird to the narrator made the narrator seem weird to me.

 

- At certain points mostly in the first half of the book, I sometimes got lost in the dialogue, and couldn't tell who was saying what. I don't know if that's my fault, or if you need more references in some of the dialouge heavy scenes as to who is speaking.

 

- Near the end of the book, it seemed a little weird to me that the "David" character would come back (I think he did it twice?) to town just to talk to Anthony for all of five minutes before leaving again. Or is it to be assumed he had other business to attend to in the town as well?

 

- One little thing that bothered me... Ant said something like "The woman I fought with was Beth, but in her smile I can see Mary, the woman I've been falling for" ... Or something like that. Anyways, then in the next chapter he keeps on mentioning how she used to be Mary but now the woman he's in love with is Beth. Do you understand what I'm saying?

 

The Good:

 

- Good pace throughout the story, never got bored.

 

- The dialogue was very real, especially during the fights between Anthony and Anna.

 

- Interesting characters.

 

- The story itself was interesting.

 

- Very descriptive writing - sets a good picture in the readers mind of what they're dealing with.

 

All and all a job well done. I'd probably give it ***/*****, probably changing to ***1/2 if just a little problem like the typos were fixed.

 

Oh, and Anthony should have had an affair on Anna with David. Then there'd also be the added drama in the David/Anthony/Mary triangle of all of them having fucked each other, and the possibility of a 3way.

Posted

I thought I went through it fairly well for typos, but 'author's eyes' might have caught me a few times. I had it read through a second time by someone else for various things, but shit can be missed. It's a bane of self-publishing, I guess.

 

My idea that David would just come and go, almost to the point of 'why even bother' had to do with the whole spontaneous traveler thing. He really didn't like staying in any one place for very long, and that first time he did sort of have his past thrown in his face. It just came down to each of them being a part of the other's lives, I guess. That is pretty much what I was going for in the end. The whole 'you never know who you are going to connect with' endgame.

 

The fighting dialogue is quite real, and some of it's verbatim between myself and two of my ex's.

 

 

Also, the narrator is actually supposed to be the harder one to relate to, because he's just so incredibly sheltered and anchored down to his lifestyle. David seems like he is the 'weirder one' and in some respects he is, but in others he is openly what most people want to hide away. Anthony is the only one throughout that calls him "David", only because that is how he was introduced to his name. Somebody, I can't remember who, referred to as 'unsettling formality' (paraphrasing).

Posted

Yes, I know you asked me a few days ago about things I particularly enjoyed, and that's a good point: the boy/girl fighting is excellently done, I noticed that too.

 

Besides the typo issue, the main complaint I've heard is that David isn't in it enough, but this is from people who know me, so that's what they wanted. I don't think that's any fault of yours.

Guest cobainwasmurdered
Posted

I'm waiting for the novelization of "Roommies" Rando!

Posted

I actually don't have a title for my next project, and like all previous things it has jumped around quite a bit the last few days as I decided what I wanted to work on. But I have something now that I think will be doable, so I'm going to stick with it. It definitely will not be as long as IDRM is/was.

Posted

I'll try to give the book a shot sometime Rando.

 

Anyways, I'm reading "The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan" at the moment.

Posted
i'm 30something pages into cormac mcarthy's 'blood meridian'. it's...okayish. it's strange.

 

just finished this. lo and behold, it's really good. i felt cheated by the anticlimatic non-fate of the kid, but the last paragraph of the book (before the epilogue, i mean)...good god, that was lovely and disturbing.

Posted

I don't remember it super-well, but I don't really recall finding the kid's fate to be that anticlimactic. I mean it was, but that was kind of the point. The kid is simply no match for the judge and so instead of there being some kind of final showdown or whatever he just walks into an outhouse and

winds up getting brutally murdered

. Also, yeah, that last paragraph is killer.

  • 5 weeks later...
Guest WhackingCockDick
Posted
Cod

 

by Mark Kurlansky.

 

I love this kind of nonfiction shit about an ancient industry or mundane product with an incredibly interesting backstory.

I bought this today. The woman who helped me find it looked like a poor man's Judy Greer. I'm about a chapter into it so far, and I'm really excited that the Basques are going to factor into this story. The Basques fascinate me. Insular mountain folk who antedate all other Indo-European peoples on the continent, just seafaring and sheepherding over the centuries, speaking a language that isn't related to anything, anywhere. Even Albanian and Greek can be traced back to some form of proto-Sanskrit. The largest Basque exclave in the world is Boise, Idaho. Boise, Idaho! These people know how to keep a low profile.

Posted

At the moment it's Richard Laymon's "The Woods Are Dark" and "The Midnight Tour."

Guest WhackingCockDick
Posted
Cod inspired me to fry up some cod last night. I basically took the recipe from the back of the book, but I added some oregano, garlic, and onions to the seasoning for the breading. It was delicious.
Posted
Cod inspired me to fry up some cod last night. I basically took the recipe from the back of the book, but I added some oregano, garlic, and onions to the seasoning for the breading. It was delicious.

 

 

Should have put some black people on it.

Guest Vitamin X
Posted

Cod is pretty delicious, I should check out the book.

Guest Tzar Lysergic
Posted

His other book is called Salt. Just as good.

 

My favorite bit in Cod is the part about The Cod Wars.

 

Icelanders cutting trawler nets and shit, boats ramming each other, naval military support of the cod trade. Crazy.

Guest WhackingCockDick
Posted

I had no idea that Iceland was rocketed into modernity by the cod trade.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Finished, and gotta say it took a bit of attention to get through the middle of that. The last hundred and fifty pages or so I just breezed through, but all of the stuff with Odetta just seemed a trifle unnecessary. I'm probably going to take a break from the series, though. Probably move on to Magical Mystery Tours (My Life with The Beatles) by Tony Bramwell, because fuck if I don't like The Beatles.

Posted

Slowly reading through Laymon's "The Midnight Tour." It's an ok story, but Laymon just makes his characters do things that would make them seem retarded in the real world. The guy can tell a good story, but you have to know people will make the dumbest decisions over and over again for no logical reason

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