____twoism

The Familiar Vol. 1 by Mark Z Danielewski

House of Leaves changed my perception on how I view life, so it's natural to continue to follow Danielewski's work. While House of Leaves was difficult to retain & follow if I wasn't giving it my undivided attention, The Familiar's difficulty level is a lot more intense. It focuses on one single day and May and the story jumps in right away...different dialects to follow, no backstory, just jumping right into these characters and what's going on in their day.

Luckily, I have challenges to stick through this. But, there's 27 volumes of this being published...I hope it becomes more coherent as the series rages on.

Anyone else a Danielewski fan?

2020k wrote:The Familiar's difficulty level is a lot more intense. It focuses on one single day and May and the story jumps in right away...different dialects to follow, no backstory, just jumping right into these characters and what's going on in their day.

That sounds a lot like the book I'm reading, except this one takes place in June instead of May.

Various short Ballard stories. Thanks to IanRedpoint I'm now appreciative of two artists that go by "J.G."

Just finished Welcome To Nightvale

I got 'Sapiens' by Yuval Noah for Christmas, only around 100 pages in but it's brilliant, can completely see why it was a big hit. I always had an interest in early human history/pre-history but I clearly had a huge gap in knowledge as every page presents itself with a 'holy shit that's interesting' moment. Great stuff so far, recommend.

Ray Mears' Outdoor Survival Handbook, any questions?

Nice! Ray Mears is awesome.

fujee wrote:I got 'Sapiens' by Yuval Noah for Christmas, only around 100 pages in but it's brilliant, can completely see why it was a big hit. I always had an interest in early human history/pre-history but I clearly had a huge gap in knowledge as every page presents itself with a 'holy shit that's interesting' moment. Great stuff so far, recommend.

You know what, I got that last Christmas and still haven't got around to reading it yet.

The Mountain Shadow by Gregory David Roberts. Long awaited follow up to Shantaram. If it's half as good as the first one, it'll be amazing.

Fully recommend, you'd definitely like it bud. The other half loved Shantaram, interested in reading it myself, got a mountain of others I want to get through first though.

About to start James Rhodes- Instrumental, got the hankies ready, got a bit of dust in my eye..

2020k wrote:The Familiar Vol. 1 by Mark Z Danielewski

House of Leaves changed my perception on how I view life, so it's natural to continue to follow Danielewski's work. While House of Leaves was difficult to retain & follow if I wasn't giving it my undivided attention, The Familiar's difficulty level is a lot more intense. It focuses on one single day and May and the story jumps in right away...different dialects to follow, no backstory, just jumping right into these characters and what's going on in their day.

Luckily, I have challenges to stick through this. But, there's 27 volumes of this being published...I hope it becomes more coherent as the series rages on.

Anyone else a Danielewski fan?

House Of Leaves is one of my all times favourite books. I struggled with Only Revolutions though. It was a good idea, but the idea is much cooler than how it actually turned out. It was just too much of a ballache.

I really want to read House of Leaves but I am waiting to be in the right frame of mind for it..

House of Leaves is a very annoying book to read. It develops a story and then cuts the reader out of it into something entirely unrelated. It's about as disconnected as a book can be. Danielewsky's experimentation is mainly with the design of the page more than the story itself. It's difficult to read mostly because it's difficult to figure out which part of the book you're supposed to be reading. Go for it if you want, but don't expect any experimentation beyond backwards writing and a thousand sideways and upside down footnotes. The story is pretty normal, just horribly dismembered.

Yeah, I feel that. I didn't *dislike* House of Leaves, but I really think it couldn't hold it's own as a narrative or piece of writing in general without all the gimmicky formatting.

At the same time, it's not worth discrediting as maybe the gimmick makes it especially postmodern, or something of that nature. I dunno. It's a decent book overall, maybe a bit overrated.

See I loved how it did that. It really put me into the disjointed mindset of the various characters. I think the layout and structure of the book really enhances the experience.

Isn't the 'artist's joke' pretty quintessentially postmodernist anyway? I've read that the book is a thinly veiled critique of the academic world, maybe the tedious format is entirely intentional.

FortonServices wrote:See I loved how it did that. It really put me into the disjointed mindset of the various characters. I think the layout and structure of the book really enhances the experience.

Hear hear.
I remember the first time reading House of Leaves (and the second and third, but especially the first time) during the parts in which the text mimics the claustrophobia (and/or wide-openness of the room) I could feel it.

Currently reading David Byrne's How Music Works.
Here and there I wish it was more "How Music Works" theory / history and less David Byrne's experience forming and recording with the Talking Heads BUT with that being said his anecdotes inform the theory / social theories of music and it's overall excellent so far.

Gave up on Herbert's Dune because I'm kind of in a weird place in my life and am, for the first time, having issues keeping up with the fiction I've been trying to read.
Sticking to nonfiction for the time being.

b0qurant wrote:Currently reading David Byrne's How Music Works.
Here and there I wish it was more "How Music Works" theory / history and less David Byrne's experience forming and recording with the Talking Heads BUT with that being said his anecdotes inform the theory / social theories of music and it's overall excellent so far.

Well David Byrne isn't a music historian or theorist as far as I know, so that makes sense to me. If you just want music theory, then just read one of the many textbooks on it. The two volumes of Musimathics are often recommended for this purpose, and I think it even goes into generative algorithmic music.

Currently awaiting 'England's Hidden Reverse' by David Keenan, which is now a couple of months later than scheduled.

Drillkicker, I take it you've read it? Worth waiting for?

Currently reading 'How to Stop Worrying and Start Living' by Dale Carnegie, which, despite being written 60-odd years ago, is absolutely superb, and this is coming from someone who generally despises self-help books.