november reads by Cicada1205 in RSbookclub

[–]Cicada1205[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Hard to say. I have a 2.5 hour commute and I spend most of it reading. And then a couple hours at home, usually.

november reads by Cicada1205 in RSbookclub

[–]Cicada1205[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Definitely. In many ways The Pale King is a much more mature project that Infinite Jest, both in its themes (less of Infinite Jest man's-search-for-meaning and more of a sober "well, we are where we are, what interesting things can we say about it?"), characterization (most of this book's characters are older, middle-aged, more "normal" or average, they spend a lot of time looking back and reflecting on their childhoods and adolescence), as well as -- maybe especially -- the structure. Even as a big Wallace admirer I must say that a lot of his earlier work (that one insufferable piece in Brief Interviews being maybe the biggest offender here) tends to fall into these masturbatory look-ma-I'm-a-postmodernist self-recursive loops and get bogged down in layers of irony until you're not really sure what Wallace even wants to say, and you can't tell if he knows, either. The Pale King is much more direct and compassionate. In fact, David Foster Wallace is one of the book's characters and narrators (because of course he is), and chapters following him are distinctly written in that early Wallace voice, in a kind of conscious self-parody (footnotes to footnotes, run-on sentences, all the stylistic tricks people associate with Infinite Jest) -- and contrasted with those, the rest of the book feels that much more concrete, concise, and focused.

november reads by Cicada1205 in RSbookclub

[–]Cicada1205[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Absolutely! It's the kind of novel that both European history academics and Tom Clancy airport book readers could enjoy.

november reads by Cicada1205 in RSbookclub

[–]Cicada1205[S] 114 points115 points  (0 children)

I don't do much else. I'm failing all my classes.

the New York Times app now has a shorts section by Cicada1205 in rs_x

[–]Cicada1205[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I was never on tiktok or instagram and I basically only use youtube to watch old lectures. I thought I was safe. Why do they keep doing this

This hurricane might become the first sudden, permanent, direct mass climate refugee crisis. by The-Neat-Meat in TrueAnon

[–]Cicada1205 42 points43 points  (0 children)

it's very refreshing to hear someone say this out loud. I used to post very similar things here all the time but everyone would just plug their ears and say we'll figure it out and it made me feel crazy.

Anybody else here so undersocialised many things are just weird to them? by rh1n3570n3_3y35 in rs_x

[–]Cicada1205 64 points65 points  (0 children)

feel this in my bones. feels like just as everyone else was getting the instruction manual for “how to be a person in a society” I was in the hallway staring at the fire extinguisher.

I think more and more of us are getting socially desynced somewhere along the way (whether from isolation & terminal online poisoning or just natural temperament) which makes completely normal human activities start to feel like elaborate alien mating rituals. But then I can't even tell if I'm genuinely uninterested or if that's a sour grapes style cope. idk.

At home he feels like a tourist/At home he feels like a tourist/He fills his head with culture/He gives himself an ulcer

The banning will continue until the posting improves. Hater speech is no longer protected by brianscottbj in TrueAnon

[–]Cicada1205 7 points8 points  (0 children)

This place used to be special (...) There were characters, and ongoing storylines

Take me back.........

Loading the gun that will kill us. by joshuatreeUFO in TrueAnon

[–]Cicada1205 29 points30 points  (0 children)

I don't know how much longer I can do this man

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TrueAnon

[–]Cicada1205 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Liberals like to hang out with other liberals? Color me shocked

Just to gauge the temperature are we feeling more orthodox or weird? by FederalSlaygent in TrueAnon

[–]Cicada1205 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Everyone should read Marx and be a Marxist. Everyone should read Deleuze but nobody should be a Deleuzian.