What are you reading?

Originally Posted by Connemara

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Are you a 14 year old girl?
are you two going to cyber?

besides american psycho ellis gets a giant 'MEH' from me. I've read rules of attraction, some other book set in LA (not less than zero) and glamorama, all were readable but nothing special

reading all the king's men atm, enjoying it. probably reread a farewell to arms after this.

Originally Posted by Teger

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besides american psycho ellis gets a giant 'MEH' from me. I've read rules of attraction, some other book set in LA (not less than zero) and glamorama, all were readable but nothing special

reading all the king's men atm, enjoying it. probably reread a farewell to arms after this.

Couldn't get through Glamorama, but I also loved American Psycho. I read the first three pages of Farewell to Arms a few months ago and fell asleep. I should give it another shot.

i read All the King's Men just out of high school and i remember liking it.
only ever read Less Than Zero and it was kinda good, i think. no real desire to read anything else by dude.

i liked A Farewell To Arms but again, it has been a dozen years and i suspect i would like it less now.

Originally Posted by Connemara

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I've only read the foreward and introduction (the rest will have to wait 'till finals are done) but I am excited to delve into this.

Will also try to read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, but I think the Yeats tome will require all of my attention.

Never Let Me Go was hauntingly good. That said, I doubt I'll hang on to my copy. PM me if you're interested in mine.

Im reading Being And Nothingness by Sartre and Kierkegaards The Sickness Unto Death Life is though..

Originally Posted by MetroStyles

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Couldn't get through Glamorama, but I also loved American Psycho. I read the first three pages of Farewell to Arms a few months ago and fell asleep. I should give it another shot.

what stopped you with glamorama? i found the device of the film crew really ******* annoying about 10 pages and it almost did me in. I did like the juxtaposition between sex/violence, but once again, it gets old after the fifth description of a terrorist bomb melting people's skin off followed by the tenth gay sex romp.

Originally Posted by Teger

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what stopped you with glamorama? i found the device of the film crew really ******* annoying about 10 pages and it almost did me in. I did like the juxtaposition between sex/violence, but once again, it gets old after the fifth description of a terrorist bomb melting people's skin off followed by the tenth gay sex romp.
Well I'd read American Psycho three times before picking up Glamorama, so the shock value was gone, and his clever, ironic portraits of modern Western society were less novel. That being said, some of the lines were very witty. But I just never found myself drawn in (I read about 60 pages), and I'd rather re-read American Psycho again than read Glamorama for the first time. I hope I wrong, but I think that Ellis is much like Murakami in that once you've read one, you've read them all. I wonder if someone else can pipe in about that. The difference, to me, is that Murakami's repetitiveness actually strikes a chord inside (a bittersweet, melancholy chord that I don't mind repeatedly visiting), while Ellis's insistence on bleak, unlikable characters and mockery of consumerism/society's shallowness - while insightful and often funny - is to me ultimately cold and empty. That said, I still love AP to death.

Originally Posted by MetroStyles

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Well I'd read American Psycho three times before picking up Glamorama, so the shock value was gone, and his clever, ironic portraits of modern Western society were less novel. That being said, some of the lines were very witty. But I just never found myself drawn in (I read about 60 pages), and I'd rather re-read American Psycho again than read Glamorama for the first time. I hope I wrong, but I think that Ellis is much like Murakami in that once you've read one, you've read them all. I wonder if someone else can pipe in about that. The difference, to me, is that Murakami's repetitiveness actually strikes a chord inside (a bittersweet, melancholy chord that I don't mind repeatedly visiting), while Ellis's insistence on bleak, unlikable characters and mockery of consumerism/society's shallowness - while insightful and often funny - is to me ultimately cold and empty.

That said, I still love AP to death.

I dunno, I think that he's not a one trick pony, it's just that the concept of glamorama isn't as good as AP's was. what makes AP so good though is the dichotomy between the public imagine of bateman/his private persona - I mean look how many people on this board emulate his style (without even realizing that he's SUPPOSED to be a parody???) and the characters in glamorama were just unlikable through and through... very shallow

I do like his writing style though. very sparse, very cynical and he has some amazing images. the description of patrick's growing insanity are amazing...

There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there.

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or

There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing.

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I won't argue with the brilliance of AP - it is one of my favorite books. I love that last passage you quoted - I think it's from the last page of the book. There are so many incredible chapters in there that it's really hard to pick one - but some highlights include the U2 concert scene, the dinner reservation four-way phone call, and the dinner with his ex Bethany, during which he reads her his brilliant haiku.

Maybe I'm not giving Ellis a fair shot by just having read the beginning of Glamorama from his other work. Perhaps I should pick up Less than Zero or Rules of Attraction. But I'm just in the mood for some warmer writing right now - started up Oscar Wao and it's really good so far.

hahahahahah the poem. they should've included that scene in the movie. the one issue I had with the movie is that it settles in to a straight up boring criticism of corporate america, and removes all the funny parts and the important psychological themes.

how about when he feeds the girl the urinal cake covered in chocolate? or when they go on vacation at the beach house?

Originally Posted by Teger

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hahahahahah the poem. they should've included that scene in the movie. the one issue I had with the movie is that it settles in to a straight up boring criticism of corporate america, and removes all the funny parts and the important psychological themes.

how about when he feeds the girl the urinal cake covered in chocolate? or when they go on vacation at the beach house?

Alright, I'm going to re-read a few chapters after work, pumpkin.

Just finished The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney. Depressing to see what the Bush Administration, Republicans, Industry Groups and the Religious Right have done in their attempts to discredit scientific inquiry and studies that don't agree with their agenda.

Originally Posted by Bradford

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Depressing to see what everybody does to discredit inquiry and studies that don't agree with their agenda.

FTFY.

Anyway, for me, these two:



For a research paper.

" Conversations With Hunter S. Thompson".

Strange but entertaining.