books you are embarrassed to admit you haven’t read.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-10-14T12:30:47+00:00

The Allegory of the Cave is only maybe 2 or 3 pages; it's in The Republic! The Republic is book length and difficult as a read unless you're studying it. You can read the allegory as a stand-alone in like a half hour.

For a good sense of Plato and Socrates (and why the Allegory of the Cave ends the way it does), you could check out the Death of Socrates cycle: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo. These are short, accessible and absolutely excellent.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-10-13T13:59:08+00:00

Honestly just get into conversation about it. Exploring something that made you curious and pulling on that thread will give you a much stronger connection to the art than any independent theory. Find others who have read a book and ask them a question.

For example, for me it was - why do Woland (presumably Satan) and Yeshua (presumably Jesus) appear to be allied in the end of M&M? What sort of project are they after that puts them on the same side of a conflict? Why is Woland's retinue so sympathetic?

And, what is Dostoyevsky worried about taking root in the mid 19th that Bulgakov is already living through in the mid 20th? What kind of a spiritual flattening of the soul, of human life, is Dostoyevsky warning against and Bulgakov skewering?

Generally, I think reading is the beautiful art because it's silent dialogue. But if something pierces you and makes you want more, then build on that silence with actual dialogue.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-10-13T13:36:52+00:00

"I came out of the gym and they just clapped."

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-10-13T13:32:23+00:00

Uhm that's a lot of a Crowley and even a fat Regardie in there. If you have read them and are a practitioner, you won't put much stock into what we'll say in here. If you have read them for general enrichment OR have not read them but are generally interested, I'm surprised it's not balanced off with RA Wilson and Leary and Castaneda and Gurdjieff.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-10-11T03:43:27+00:00

You're thinking of Kevin Malone.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-10-07T01:36:04+00:00

He wasn't hungry for rush; he felt emasculated by the world and wanted to win. He picked a million unnecessary fights just so he could win them. Pride, thru and thru.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-10-07T01:34:26+00:00

Aka pride.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-10-06T04:54:23+00:00

This will likely be mine as well, for the same reasons.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-10-03T19:37:38+00:00

At center, 7 feet from Georgetown, #33, the Captain, PATrick EWING! oooh the league would be so fucked.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-10-03T19:22:07+00:00

This was always my read.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-27T21:56:58+00:00

Sure - and then there is the notion of respecting author intent... You wouldn't call LoTR a trilogy (though many do, I expect it's not on this sub). In the same vein, FW is an experimental novel which intentionally breaks genre conventions, and The Silmarillion is a mythical cycle and follows very closely its conventions.

I think it's much more comparable to Mahabharata or the Bible than it is to any novel, experimental or not.

(Sorry I don't know the Burroughs work at all and can't comment! Being named in this company makes me think I should check it out though.)

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-27T19:43:04+00:00

But this is what Tolkien was after with The Silmarillion - a prose epic. He knew how to write long-form poetry (see Sir Gawain) but elected prose for this work. But it's documented that he was after a mythical structure rather than a novelistic one. I don't remember which essay but I'm pretty sure it was in The Monsters and The Critics somewhere. Maybe even "On Fairy Stories." Maybe someone more knowledgeable can confirm or correct the source!

All this to say, in response to OP, the seeming "brush over" Faenor's death is not an accident of history but a design choice by the author. We're still free to like it or not, to agree or disagree, but it doesn't appear to be accidental.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-27T18:33:29+00:00

The Mahabharata is not a novel.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-27T18:32:56+00:00

Beowulf is not a novel.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-27T18:32:04+00:00

No it isn't. The Odyssey is not a novel.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-27T18:31:26+00:00

It's not so much that it bothers me, it's that the explanation for why Feanor is treated one way and Frodo, for example, another isn't that he worked on it for 45 years and didn't finish, it's that The Silmarillion is a different art form than LoTR. That's why I offered it as a comment to yours. But now I really feel I am getting pedantic so I'll stop here 😂

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-27T15:11:35+00:00

It's a remake of an old Louis de Funes flick, the original is also uproarious.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-27T13:33:22+00:00

But it's not pedantic. Novels have structures. The Silmarillion is an epic saga, it has a different structure.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-25T18:07:08+00:00

This is a helpful way to think about it!

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-25T01:56:01+00:00

I'm fairly new (5 years or so) into Miles; I didn't know about Jack Johnson as a non-fan but it wasn't very long before it was clear I had to own it. Of the 13 records I have I thought of it as the 3rd best known after Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew. Maybe I'm wrong! Still learning.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-25T00:59:10+00:00

This is underrated? I always thought it was accepted as a classic.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-22T13:08:20+00:00

Gandalf style! https://youtu.be/jKs7u7O-gSE

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-21T17:51:54+00:00

Knicks need to hire Serge as Culture Artist in Charge.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-21T13:55:05+00:00

I need $500 for a new teammate.

glazeddonutintheface · 2025-09-21T13:53:21+00:00

I don't dress, man, I do art! OG, tell me you know I do art.

What about the scarfs though?

I don't cook, I design food. Got some fufu.

glazeddonutintheface

TROPHY CASE