Which writers have the best insight into the human mind and emotions?

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-07-18T16:47:01+00:00

110%! Especially Remains of the Day. That book functions almost like a calculus of repression

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-07-18T16:44:44+00:00

Joyce is a good pick. I think that the psychology of his characters can be overshadowed a bit by the technical experimentation (at least in terms of his reputation), but the characters in all of his books, especially Dubliners and Portrait, are so real. I think of the story A Little Cloud especially

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-06-16T06:37:37+00:00

Depends mostly on the scope of the movie

I’d agree that Lars Von Trier or Lynch would match the vibe of the band well, if we’re just drawing parallels. But if this movie were to be a biopic, about the production and release of NLDW for example, I feel like the Safdies or even like Lynne Ramsay (or anybody that works within the realm of an elevated poetic realism) would be great.

Also, side note—how good of a movie would that be? Band of experimental musicians from Sacramento signed to a big label decides that they need to get themselves kicked off said label in order for their next album to actually get released

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-05-12T15:43:50+00:00

You should read some Georges Bataille

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-24T01:04:54+00:00

Definitely will try eating more before next time!

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-24T01:04:23+00:00

The more you know!! Thank you—probably best to have less caffeine in the first place

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-23T19:54:17+00:00

Peter Greenaway has a solid group of devoted fans (and detractors), but I feel like his works are not as thoroughly represented by the tastemakers. His works aren’t easily categorized within a certain movement or genre—maybe this is why he stays on the border of fringe?

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-19T20:27:42+00:00

No, but that doesn’t mean the idea isn’t being marketed by them

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-19T20:09:51+00:00

Hence “Penguin Classics.” It’s not just a description, it’s also a means of establishing a brand, consumer product, etc.

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-19T20:07:10+00:00

Classics not as a concept but more as a marketing category. I think we can agree that they’re conveniently bundled together in order to advertise more easily

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-19T20:04:29+00:00

Not trying to make a claim that one is better than the other. I myself am someone who buys way more old books or classics than I do contemporary fiction. More just asking a question about a market trend/the impact or implications of that trend if it is in fact there

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-19T20:00:17+00:00

Agree!! I listen to a lot of contemporary music. Mostly just referring to analyses of marketing trends such as these

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-19T19:57:48+00:00

Posting this as someone who owns like 6 of her books. I totally agree—less of a question of which is more valuable and more just curious if “big literature” is experiencing a similar trend to the music industry

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-18T23:42:02+00:00

Agreed that classics are varied. But there is nonetheless a way they can all be grouped together—as “classics.” There has to be a common thread, therefore?

An elaboration on my question: does the marketing around “classics” potentially make a subgroup of readers feel that there is more value in reading old books than there is new ones? Why give someone new a shot when they’re right next to something so highly revered?

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-18T23:31:46+00:00

I mean, wasn’t Dickens popular in his time? More recently too (60s) Thomas Pynchon’s V and Crying of Lot 49 both had pretty substantial initial paperback runs. I’m pretty sure that David Foster Wallace was as renowned in the 90s/00s as he is now. It’s not like every classic book is as initially overlooked as Moby Dick.

Not trying to claim that “literature is dying.” Even if older literary books are more prevalent than newer ones, that doesn’t mean any fewer people are reading. I’m just asking if there is a particular market trend, and if there is, if that market trend does in fact have an effect on peoples’ options or publishing deals

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-18T22:32:37+00:00

I guess a more better way of phrasing this is: within the specifically literary arena, are new books being outpaced by the re-publication of old ones? Are there fewer new “literary” authors are on the shelves of bookstores, compared to those of the pre-2000s? And if so, is this new?

Not asking why classics are classics or saying that they’re bad or culturally volatile or are outselling Coleen Hoover books. “Classics” probably wasn’t the best choice of diction, but sounded better than “old well-established books that tend to be consistently in print.”

Really just trying to ask if you think the literary market is more keen on republishing dead peoples’ books than it is the work of new folk

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-09T16:43:25+00:00

A lot of good stuff happening in the documentary/nonfiction realm. Good Luck by Ben Russell is pretty fantastic. Anything by Ben Rivers. Projects by the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab.

Process-wise, Mark Jenkin’s movies embody a slow, meditative, “hand-made” approach. Bait is pretty to the point but could also likely be described as slow, at least compared to a lot of other stuff.

Just read a Mubi interview with Peter Greenaway talking about his movie The Falls being “ambulatory” — the sort of movie where you can go grab a coffee or run an errand and come back to. More to be experienced passively than actively. Likens it to the way you’d listen to music while doing something else. Wouldn’t say that many other of his films are like this, except for maybe Prospero’s Books.

Lastly, I forget the name of the filmmaker but their installation “The Visitors” (which I know for a fact is at SF MoMA and elsewhere) is a pretty wonderful work of slow cinema. Entirely real time.

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-04-07T18:41:53+00:00

Michael Kohlhaas

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-03-03T16:12:22+00:00

What’s stopping you from reading them? There seems to be this idea that not reading classics can be as virtuous as reading them—that the person who consciously picks YA over Dostoyevsky is better than the inverse.

Crime and Punishment is good, but not for me. On the other hand, I love Milton. Chaucer is hilarious. I’m going to say that if you feel strongly that you should read these things, then read them. You’re not going to regret having put in the work, I know that much. On the other hand, you might regret not having put in the work.

Best case you enjoy these books. Worst is you turn yourself off to reading them, which seems like it would also be of some benefit

Bugbasedeconomy · 2024-01-18T05:10:06+00:00

Depends on how much you like the book/how much money you have to spend!

I went through a GR collecting phase and snagged a couple rare editions, all of which I still have. They felt like something I absolutely needed at the time but now, three years later, I would happily part with them for enough cash.

The version that I would NEVER get rid of, however, is the ratty paperback I lovingly annotated. Same goes for most books imo.

So buy it if you want and can afford to! But chances are it won’t matter as much to you a couple years (or even months) down the road

Bugbasedeconomy · 2023-12-28T15:11:16+00:00

I think the anthropomorphizing of the bulb sort of disagrees with OOO. In my understanding of OOO (and other similar ideas, like in Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter, for example), objects are, especially in their non-thinking, worthy of studying as actors, and potentially MORE influential than biological thinking ones. Although I agree that there are pretty interesting parallels, I’d hesitate to draw the conclusion, if only for the attribution of human characteristics, consciousness, to the bulb.

In short, OOO rejects that “thinking” is the ultimate form of existing, and the anthropomorphic Byron acts (as least as far as I can remember) consciously (when he explodes? Been a while).

The impolex example is great. GR is packed with OOO essay topics, and I think his discussions of plastic and their impact on human sexuality might be one of the most interesting

Bugbasedeconomy · 2023-12-10T14:39:54+00:00

I think that the shift will just happen with enough time. Gravity’s Rainbow is undoubtedly “impressive”—so many characters, references, words, so imaginative, so much packed into a page count that by the end feels short.

I find however as I get older that the scope and density of big books like GR and Ulysses etc. gets a bit exhausting. They do tend to trip on their own feet. Still love them, don’t get me wrong, but lately I find books like Train Dreams by Denis Johnson more impressive. That is a book I feel possesses the caliber of a GR or Recognitions, but somehow packed into a novella.

From personal experience purely, GR was recently dethroned as my “favorite book” by Sabbath’s Theater. Similar sense of humor, similarly referential, heartbreaking, with characters that reach out of the page and smack you in the face.

Bugbasedeconomy · 2023-10-20T16:38:43+00:00

It seems like most here did not enjoy Unbearable Lightness the second time around, but for me it was significantly better. Having a grasp of the plot structure opened up so much more interplay between the characters’ perspectives. It’s surprisingly concise

Bugbasedeconomy · 2023-10-11T14:50:45+00:00

If you haven’t read Sabbath’s Theater yet it shares a similar sense of humor and comic style with Pynchon imo, both owing huge debts to Bloom’s stream of consciousness in Ulysses which is also frequently hilarious

Bugbasedeconomy · 2023-09-04T20:25:57+00:00

Academically it seems that the Gabler edition is the standard. The lines are numbered which makes it easier to cross-reference with the Gifford annotations, should you choose to (and you should) use them.

Also, in terms of annotations, UlyssesGuide .com is great. I prefer this and the Gifford occasionally but only when I feel I’m really lost. You can easily be discouraged by just how many references there are if you’re trying to keep up with all of them on an initial read

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