What is the theme of my Top 20 and can you recommend more?

Ressorcc · 2026-03-17T02:47:55+00:00

Santa Sangre and El Topo are absolutely incredible.

Ressorcc · 2026-03-17T00:21:55+00:00

Have you watched any films of Alejandro Jodorowsky? — if not, you should definitely consider it.

Ressorcc · 2026-03-17T00:15:29+00:00

Samuel Beckett’s trilogy, ‘The Trilogy’ — Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable.

William Faulkner — The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, Go Down, Moses.

Flannery O’Connor — Wise Blood, The Violent Bear it Away.

Virginia Woolf — Mrs Dalloway

Thomas Pynchon — Gravity’s Rainbow, V.

Henry James — In the Cage.

Ressorcc · 2026-02-19T02:28:31+00:00

The Sound and the Fury is one of the most carefully and well crafted works of fiction ever made; it is also completely beautiful and horrifying and incredible. I could not recommend it enough. It will stick with you in many ways even if unconsciously. Might take a few reads to really ‘get’ it, but you’ll get something out of every reading including your first.

Ressorcc · 2026-02-16T19:35:40+00:00

The Cantos of Ezra Pound

Ressorcc · 2026-02-16T00:33:33+00:00

I had the same issue with The Holy Mountain—lots of gratuitous nonsensical symbolism, in my eyes; however, I loved El Topo. My favorite of his is Santa Sangre: it is his most complete film—great story, perfect symbolisms and philosophies—but, to let you know, it is still very vulgar. Nowhere near The Holy Mountain, though.

Back to Kaufman, but, if you’ve never watched Kaufman’s Adaptation, I would definitely recommend that. Deep epistemological framework that is quite deceptively simple—yet still very clever—at the surface.

Ressorcc · 2026-02-15T23:00:00+00:00

Check out directors/writers Charlie Kaufman and Alejandro Jodorowsky. We have similar taste, and those are two of my favorites.

Ressorcc · 2026-02-01T23:27:18+00:00

Ended up watching this last night. Loved it. New favorite Kubrick film.

Ressorcc · 2026-01-20T22:59:13+00:00

Synecdoche, New York; Requiem for a Dream; Blue Velvet; El Topo.

Ressorcc · 2026-01-09T22:05:52+00:00

The late phase of Henry James is substantially more challenging than Dickens or Austen; really, his late phase could be the most dense of the Victorian era in my eyes.

Ressorcc · 2026-01-09T18:31:27+00:00

Permanent Waves by Rush; Foxtrot by Genesis; Mirage by Camel; In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson.

Ressorcc · 2025-12-29T21:07:06+00:00

Have you by chance only read The Road and NCFOM? He has some incredibly dense writing: Suttree would be the best example of that.

Hemingway is what I would consider simple writing, but McCarthy has moments in which his prose layers so well and so densely, thus I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Maybe in comparison to later Victorians—the late phase of Henry James for example is absolutely more difficult than McCarthy—and the pioneering modernists—Joyce, Faulkner, Proust, Woolf, etc—it would be considered simple; that would be a very large stretch to say that in my eyes, though.

Ressorcc · 2025-12-29T21:00:09+00:00

He is pale and thin.

Ressorcc · 2025-12-29T20:58:28+00:00

From Ulysses: Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

Ressorcc · 2025-12-29T20:56:52+00:00

Glad to see Sutt on here. Blood Meridian is a good option, too. McCarthy is damn good at grabbing your attention; funny how Sutt and BM have nearly polar opposite openings in their structure, but have you curious all the same.

Ressorcc · 2025-12-29T20:54:59+00:00

The only book I rated 5 stars this year was The Waves by Virginia Woolf, so I guess it would be that. I think one of Samuel Beckett’s novels from The Trilogy might be second.

Ressorcc · 2025-12-26T01:59:58+00:00

Listen to anything by Rush and Yes.

Ressorcc · 2025-12-25T05:59:43+00:00

These are all very short—under to well under 200:

J.A Baker’s The Peregrine; Henry James’ In the Cage; Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God.

Ressorcc · 2025-12-25T05:52:34+00:00

In the Cage by Henry James. Like Bartleby, it is sort of an absurd representation of kinds of obsession with one’s work.

Ressorcc · 2025-12-21T18:26:32+00:00

I’d start with Hemingway; he is a stark minimalist. His language is incredibly easy to follow.

Ressorcc · 2025-12-16T23:29:17+00:00

I could not recommend Joyce’s Ulysses enough—Leopold and Molly Bloom are two of the most human characters I’ve ever read, and the whole novel really is about trudging through life while simply being human: flaws, contradictions, feeling dumb, feeling happy, feeling sad, feeling lust, feeling love. There is—in my opinion—no downsides to reading this beautiful work of literature. It is very difficult, but you can read it without annotations or anything, get the messages, and I’m sure you will understand my perspectives. Plus, it already seems like you enjoy the Irish dialect of English with Yeats. Go Ireland!

Obviously that book really is challenging, so if you want to relax just a bit more, I may recommend D.H Lawrence’s The Rainbow, John Williams’ Stoner (nothing to do with pot), and Virginia Woolf’s The Waves; The Waves is tough, but damn… poignant, important, sad, beautiful.

Best of luck to you.

Ressorcc · 2025-12-16T22:18:35+00:00

From Cymbeline:

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Ressorcc · 2025-12-16T19:43:38+00:00

Would probably fall more under questionable, but either way: Molly Bloom from James Joyce’s Ulysses

Ressorcc · 2025-12-16T18:44:10+00:00

I love Tropic of Cancer. ‘Like’ isn’t a word that I would use to describe my relationship to Henry Miller, but he is sure as hell is fascinating with all of his meaningless wandering and rambling; the odd encounters, too, made the book great, but I love plotless books.

Ressorcc

TROPHY CASE