Life's Too Short For Boris Pasternak

[Amaurote]

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die." (Roy Batty, Blade Runner)

Of course, the script of Blade Runner doesn't actually record whether or not Batty read Dr Zhivago, but, if he had, it's almost certain that he wouldn't have included it as one of those beautiful moments like rain, lost in time forever. I would, however, because I'm amongst the many unfortunate people who wasted three or four days of their all-too-brief lifespan ploughing through its interminable plot and self-indulgent, turgid prose.

Life is short. Which allegedly classic books would you - with the benefit of hindsight - utterly eschew, avoid, shun, like the sight of the Devil's flatulent hinderparts?

These are mine:

(1) Every Shakespearean comedy in existence with the sole exception of Twelfth Night. I'm not actually naive enough to expect comedy from a 16th Century Comedy, of course, but I do expect a rudimentary amount of warmth and character delineation.

(2) Dr Zhivago: Read the local obituaries instead - they'll undoubtedly contain more sympathetic characters. Actually, in all sincerity, Pasternak probably deserves some credit for his achievements: after all, he's the only writer in history to ever successfully portray the events of the Russian Revolution as a tedious, vapid and wearisome series of character interactions.

(3) Everything William Burroughs ever wrote.The man was a genius, I hasten to add, and he has his moments; but reading about mouldy jockstraps and the buggering of small boys on gallows is not my idea of spiritual fulfilment. Then again, I haven't read Nova Express or The Ticket That Exploded, so I can only speak for 75% of his work - 8 or 9 of his novels.

(4) Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence. Lawrence evidently wrote this in his sleep at the colliery, because it has absolutely none of the pulsating, hyperadrenalized energy evinced in his short stories.

(5) Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. I have often wondered why God ever bothered with Virginia Woolf.

And that, fortunately, is that: I generally find something admirable in whatever I read, even if I'm disappointed. I regard A Clockwork Orange as an over-rated, theologically inconsistent novel, but I'm the first to concede its visual and stylistic verve; I thought the Dead Sea Scrolls (and now, it seems, the Koran) spiritually vacuous on the whole, but there was always the odd line or two to prove me wrong. The list above is different: I found nothing meritable in there that I can remember.

What about you? Was the literary canon as good for you as it was for me? I wonder...

Amaurote smokes a cigarillo

[berly]

I have to say "Thank You" Am. I have rarely found anyone willing to dis a classic in any way. I can remember reading Waiting for Godot and being so angry at the thing that I threw it on the floor when I finished it. Now, I realize it is a play and probably is better as a play...at least I hope it is...but the thing is this! Sometimes I have felt that there was something wrong with me because I found a particular classic less than desireable. *I realize the jury is still out on this particular accusation, but play along for the sake of the thread, please?*

I believe you have posted that you don't like reading contemporary authors. I am just the opposite. I have felt guilty because I have not read MANY of the classics. I seem to have more fun finding a new author that captures my attention, rather than reading something "guaranteed" to be "good".

The only other classic that I did read and regretted was Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. I found it annoying in many ways. I felt that it worked too hard to say things like "Someone who is lonely can become even more lonely, isn't that ironic?" and "artists, outsiders and middle class struggle against the rigid system of accepted behavior". There were many other messages in it, but none that were (in my opinion) worth that much trouble.

[hollowearth]

There are things that are overrated of course, but very few that I regret having spent time reading. There are, though plenty of things which I rate very highly but have no intention of reading or seeing again...

William Burroughs is on this list, and unfortunately, the books I liked best were the two that amaurote missed: cut and paste conspiracy scifi dream sequences. The cities of red night trilogy though, is pretty much exactly what Amaurote outlines: you really don't need to bother with them.

On the other hand, I can't even begin to count the number of films that I wished I hadn't sat through, but I was inspired not to even sit through the opening credits of "Titanic"

[Amaurote]

Originally posted by berly
I have rarely found anyone willing to dis a classic in any way. I can remember reading Waiting for Godot and being so angry at the thing that I threw it on the floor when I finished it. Now, I realize it is a play and probably is better as a play...at least I hope it is...but the thing is this! Sometimes I have felt that there was something wrong with me because I found a particular classic less than desireable. *I realize the jury is still out on this particular accusation, but play along for the sake of the thread, please?*

I believe you have posted that you don't like reading contemporary authors. I am just the opposite. I have felt guilty because I have not read MANY of the classics. I seem to have more fun finding a new author that captures my attention, rather than reading something "guaranteed" to be "good".


Some very interesting points there, Berly: on that basis, Steppenwolf won't be on any of my future lists. You have saved several days of my life; many thanks for that; would that I could save more...

I take your point about contemporary authors; however, my argument has always been that the literary canon is a loose, heterogenous body of works that have been generally regarded as worthy, original and highly influential prose or verse works over the years; and, as I have only a finite lifespan, I'd rather read works I know will almost certainly be worthy, rather than contemporary works which have been less rigorously examined.

This isn't wholly the case: Watership Down was remarkable; John Fowles' The Magus is undoubtedly one of the best novels I've ever read; William Golding's Pincher Martin, Lord of the Flies and Rites of Passage are wonderful; Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead is extraordinary; and I've bored Hollowearth horizontal over the years with my interminable, raving rants about just how peculiarly systematic and ruthlessly effective the narrative devices in Stephen King's brilliant Salem's Lot are...and I'm not even a great fan of Stephen King's work, as a general rule.

The truth is that the canon is now so gigantic that it takes years to read it all; I started years ago, like everyone else, and I now plan my reading well in advance. Bad works subvert my plans, in much the same way as feeding your cat with washing-machine powder rarely goes down well in his well-drilled world of feline sensory pleasure.

To give you a typical example, I genuinely loathe James Joyce: I liked only two of the stories in Dubliners when I was 19, and yet, only last month, I felt myself drawn by the weight of literary authority to read A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man. I normally read at the rate of 100 to 120 pages a day. Portrait is about 120 pages long. I was still reading it 5 days later. The reason? I kept going out for 20-mile walks around the abandoned mineshafts to escape from the turgid, tedious, parochial and utterly inconsequential plot, characterization and prose inventions the novel kept throwing at my horrified sensibilities. It was unmitigated shite, in other words.

Don't get me wrong: I'm sure that James Joyce was a marvellously gifted person, and I appreciate his fierce, well-honed intellect; I just happen to loathe everything about his stories and aesthetic philosophy, in much the same way as I nod off at Ernest Hemingway's ruthlessly curtailed descriptions. And yet, oddly, Ulysses is still on my list. I have no idea why. I know it will be appalling; but I fear I'm going to have to find out the hard way...

[Diva]

Am:

Koontz. Although I have found a couple books that I enjoyed... for the most part I regard him as a Stephen King copycat. Intensity was one that I simply closed and returned after the second chapter.

Exodus in the Bible was another end of the line. I keep attempting toget through it... But for the most part it's a great seditive.

Hollow: Don't get me start with the movies. I enjoy B- movies... My worst habit is reading/watching something to the end, just to see what happened. Even if it was horrible. So many come to mind... yet the names escape me. The comedian, Tracy Ullman made a serious movie that gave me the same reaction as a heavy narcotic. Slack jaw and catatonic. Pulp Fiction [I know I'll get shit for this] offended almost all of my senses. The movie Seven had the worst ending in my eyes and made my ex miserable for the next few days. I know I'll think of more....

[Amaurote]

Originally posted by Diva
Am:

Koontz. Although I have found a couple books that I enjoyed... for the most part I regard him as a Stephen King copycat. Intensity was one that I simply closed and returned after the second chapter.

Exodus in the Bible was another end of the line. I keep attempting toget through it... But for the most part it's a great seditive.

I've never read any Dean Koontz, although he has dominated the shelves of every single prison library I've ever visited. I'm with you all the way on Pulp Fiction - I actually thought that Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead was a superior genre film; Seven was probably over-rated, but the opening titles (in which the killer manfactures his own sourcebook using blood, montage, needle and thread) are astonishingly powerful.

I take your point about Exodus, with this caveat: for the first 20 chapters it's actually a very interesting read, up there with some of the better books of the Bible like Genesis, Job, Joshua, Daniel, Jonah, Ruth, Judith, Ecclesiastes, the Synoptic Gospels and Revelations. I read the Bible relatively late (I was 20, I think), and I'm a complete agnostic; but, in any event, let me assure you here and now that the Bible - or the Torah, or the NT, or whatever composition of Scripture you care to mention - is a thousand times more readable than the Koran, which has no narrative whatsoever, and consists chiefly of declaratory announcements about "Allah, the Clement, the All-Knowing", without insight or elaboration.

Surah II, for instance, is 20 pages long; it's entitled "The Cow".

It isn't as interesting as it sounds, amazingly. And it sounds pretty dull, let's be completely honest...

[Diva]

Koontz for the most part has been a watered down version of Stephen King... Story line for story line. Take out the descriptions, change the location and charactors' names, It's Koontz. His books are very easy reading, which is probably why they are so abundant in prisons. You could almost flip through and keep up with the plot.

I did find the other sections of the Bible rather enjoyable. Exodus was confusing in its character description. How many Abrahams can one person possibly remember? Not even a Jr. in the bunch.

I read a portion of the Koran at a friends' house. I vaguely remember the story of an Island and man that rubbed me wrong. Unfortunately, I cannot remember specifics. It was quite dry.

[Amaurote]

Originally posted by Diva
I did find the other sections of the Bible rather enjoyable. Exodus was confusing in its character description. How many Abrahams can one person possibly remember? Not even a Jr. in the bunch.

I read a portion of the Koran at a friends' house. I vaguely remember the story of an Island and man that rubbed me wrong. Unfortunately, I cannot remember specifics. It was quite dry.

Ah, yes, Di; but those were the days when no-one needed a surname: if only things were that simple now...

I never found Abraham/Abram (if you worship Jehovah properly, he rewards you with an extra syllable) a problem, it was his legion of wives/concubines that confused me...

I can't say that the Koran is extreme; in many ways its a more moderate book than the OT, in fact - it even has a Surah on women's rights, which is more than you can say for the Bible. It's hardly egalitarian, of course - the concluding part of "Women" refers to the removal of "rebellious" wives to separate beds for scourging, which sounds strangely convenient for the Meccans if you ask me....

I haven't read the dry-island-with-man-rubbing-Diva-wrong Surah you refer to, but I look forward to it immensely: it actually sounds extremely interesting, which is more than I can say for the 20 that I've already worked through...

[usantic]

If sticking to the classics, I must say Milton's "Paradise Lost"
Blah dee dee blah blah blah What a struggle. Don't get me wrong, I like prose but, puhlease. Dante's idea of sin and punishment was much more amenable to my pallet.

alright, i'm way late into an argument that's virtually concluded, but in my best amaurotese i'll try and give my opinion whether it disagrees or coincides and attempt to add a little in my own way:

as it pertains to koontz, diva, i concur with the idea that his most thrilling works are all watered-down versions of stephen king's best sellers. it would serve my argument more appropriately to site examples from the two according libraries, but as i could not complete more than three of koontz' works before i shat myself silly of boredom, eons ago at that, i'm at a loss to bother with this task's commencement.

the koran was a brilliant work of literary and religious function if its main purpose is to wipe your backside. for that it is more than appropriate as its covers serve to protect the individual sheets quite well (no matter the translation mind you) and as the words actually serve no real purpose in enlightening anything other than a room when they are set aflame, they help add a minute bit of surface area to the pages that help to soften the strokes as you wipe your way to a well righteous rump.

and the Bible. egad! the Bible. finely crafted from (alledly) the mind of God himself thru the hands of men, it serves to amaze and bewilder and boggle the mind as it weaves tale after tale after tale consistent to the time-honored theme of man's sin versus God's redemption. my personal favorite is Ecclesiastes as the Teacher describes the vanity of life and its many foolish extreme pursuits only to find wisdom only in the service of his one true God.

other favorites of mine are Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel (Kings and Chronicles as well), Proverbs, Luke, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galations, Ephesians, and Hebrews.

Amaurote, what about abrahams legions of wives and concubines confuses you? although frowned upon by God, He did allow it frequently throughout the old testament. please, inquire as you will, i am more than willing to discuss the Bible at length as it is the only piece of literature that consistently continues to challenge all who read it to no end.

that is the conclusion of my attempt at literate, literary discussion in this tongue. thus forth i will continue in my past fashion, but it has been quite a gas nonetheless. see you all upon the 'morrow.

oh yes, i almost forgot to mention...my cock.

[Amaurote]

Originally posted by rudedawg
alright, i'm way late into an argument that's virtually concluded, but in my best amaurotese i'll try and give my opinion whether it disagrees or coincides and attempt to add a little in my own way:

the koran was a brilliant work of literary and religious function if its main purpose is to wipe your backside. for that it is more than appropriate as its covers serve to protect the individual sheets quite well (no matter the translation mind you) and as the words actually serve no real purpose in enlightening anything other than a room when they are set aflame, they help add a minute bit of surface area to the pages that help to soften the strokes as you wipe your way to a well righteous rump.

and the Bible. egad! the Bible. finely crafted from (alledly) the mind of God himself thru the hands of men, it serves to amaze and bewilder and boggle the mind as it weaves tale after tale after tale consistent to the time-honored theme of man's sin versus God's redemption. my personal favorite is Ecclesiastes as the Teacher describes the vanity of life and its many foolish extreme pursuits only to find wisdom only in the service of his one true God.

Amaurote, what about abrahams legions of wives and concubines confuses you? although frowned upon by God, He did allow it frequently throughout the old testament. please, inquire as you will, i am more than willing to discuss the Bible at length as it is the only piece of literature that consistently continues to challenge all who read it to no end.

that is the conclusion of my attempt at literate, literary discussion in this tongue. thus forth i will continue in my past fashion, but it has been quite a gas nonetheless. see you all upon the 'morrow.

oh yes, i almost forgot to mention...my cock.

It's like looking into a mirror.

Well, Rudedawg, speaking with the full force of my total spiritual ignorance, I really wouldn't know about that last one: I tend to avoid the practice of sausage-jockeying (noun, but also verb - I really must emphasize the verb part, because I live in a working-class district...) on the whole [insert pun here], although I well recall the old Bob Monkhouse gag about disappointingly short little thrillers wrapped in leather. At least, I assume that's what you mean. If not, I'm afraid I'm just going to have to continue deliberately misunderstanding you for the duration of this thread, because Socratic Irony is an endless source of consolation to me.

On the subject of Abraham's wives and concubines, it isn't the spiritual lawfulness which confuses me, it's the sheer number - I can always remember Sarai/Sarah, and Hagar, but as for the rest, I give up. Its like trying to remember one of Michael Dukakis' election speeches: it just can't be done.

I'd agree with you on Ecclesiastes, which I found relevant to my work as a Vanity Publisher's Reader a few years ago: one of my colleagues wanted to lobby to change the firm's motto to "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity", but he wisely remained silent. I do have one question, though; one that has bugged me for many years. It's this: how does Saul die? Is he killed in battle, or does he commit suicide? I've read and re-read the passages in question, and I'm still none the wiser.

I'd have to disagree with you on the Koran - it has its moments. I'm still 200 pages off the end, but there are one or two gems in there amongst the rubble, most notably "The Spider" and "Light", which work well enough. The main problem with it is that has no narrative form; it declares, and then refuses to elaborate. In addition, each surah has multiple subjects, so there's a general lack of focus in the text. It isn't as good as the Bible or the gnostic gospels, but it's a damned sight better than the Dead Sea Scrolls (yawn) or the Book of the Dead (pass the Abercrombie and Finch catalogue, Alice), put it that way.

I know what you mean about a well righteous rump, though -I mean, with holiness like that, who needs an afterlife?

amaurote, that first paragraph...i had no idea what you were talkin' about, but it's all good. i have read a little, STRESS little, socrates in college and it was alright. but i like to think of it more like chewin' bones. if i were a dog there would be a lost more enjoyment and understanding as to what end i was tryin' to meet. but for me, it just gets on my nerves after a while.

as for abrahams wives (dukakis made speeches? fo' real??) solomon FAR outnumbered his. in his day he had 300 wives and 700 concubines (or was it the other way around?). now, although he was an extreme some sultan in the 18 or 19 hundreds had like 3000. he was basically married to his country. literally. now i like the idea of lots of wives, but more than 7 is just ridiculous. now david is more my style. he had 7-9 special concubines that serviced him. now THAT'S cool. have one the licks my balls. two that specialize in my cock and its many preferences. two that love it up the ass. and the rest just fuck REAL enthusiastically. THAT would be cool as hell.

saul's death is a combination of the two. as it goes in 1 samuel, he was critically wounded in battle after his three sons had already been killed. when the enemy was approaching to capture him he thought it better to kill himself as opposed to being tortured by the philistines (?) that were closing in on him. since his kingdom was basically in david's hands and his sons were dead he had no real reason to live in his mind.

that stuff i wrote about the koran was mainly a joke, but i do find it ridiculous. it's packed with contradictions of itself and offers no explanations as to why things don't mesh at all. i'll admit that i only read, like, 50 pages though. and that was a while ago. but i can always remember that if i ask a muslim one question they will trap themselves. that question being: what do you think of Jesus? they will eventually always say he was a great prophet, but not as great as muhammad. then i say somethin' like "how can he be a great prophet if his teachings condradict directly with what you believe?" then i site examples and they almost always near shit themselves tryin' to talk themselves out of the hole.

[Amaurote]

Originally posted by rudedawg

saul's death is a combination of the two. as it goes in 1 samuel, he was critically wounded in battle after his three sons had already been killed. when the enemy was approaching to capture him he thought it better to kill himself as opposed to being tortured by the philistines (?) that were closing in on him. since his kingdom was basically in david's hands and his sons were dead he had no real reason to live in his mind.

that stuff i wrote about the koran was mainly a joke, but i do find it ridiculous. it's packed with contradictions of itself and offers no explanations as to why things don't mesh at all. i'll admit that i only read, like, 50 pages though. and that was a while ago. but i can always remember that if i ask a muslim one question they will trap themselves. that question being: what do you think of Jesus? they will eventually always say he was a great prophet, but not as great as muhammad. then i say somethin' like "how can he be a great prophet if his teachings condradict directly with what you believe?" then i site examples and they almost always near shit themselves tryin' to talk themselves out of the hole.

Rudedawg:

Many thanks for that; your explanation does make psychological sense in the context of the Books of Samuel. My confusion was based around the apparent contradiction between 1 Samuel 31:5, where "Therefore Saul took his own sword, and fell upon it. And when his armour-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword"; and 2 Samuel 1:10, where Saul is slain on his own request by an Amalekite soldier. The confusion is probably caused by the redaction; still, it makes you wonder.

I'm an agnostic, but I take your point about the Koran. My argument would be that Moslems regard the Hebrew prophets and Jesus as their own prophets; they don't deny any of the central Biblical or Torah tenets, like the Virgin Birth, the Dispersal, the twelve tribes of Israel, etc. The text even refers to Jesus as Christ, which means nothing to an idolatrous, sceptical heathen like me, but is worth bearing in mind if you're a Christian: try insulting the name of Jesus or Moses in a crowd of pious Moslems and you'll soon see what I mean. As for Muhammad, his role is simply "Seal of the Prophets" - the last, not the best, as the Koran itself makes clear. Most of the text is taken up with emphasizing his weakness, and the fact that he has no power of portent, but is merely a messenger, like all the other prophets before him.

On the contradiction point, you make a good point; the Koran refers positively to Scripture and the People of the Book - in fact, there are specific injunctions not to dispute with the People of the Book save when it is clearly to their benefit, so that may be one reason your Moslem friends were shy around you. The early Christians had the same problem when, quite understandably, the Pharisees and Sadducees refused to acknowledge the alleged divinity of Jesus of Nazareth; the early Christians then breached with them, while retaining the OT.

The distinction between this and the Moslemin is that Muhammad never read the OT or NT: he was illiterate, after all. He knew the stories, and generally subscribed to them, but spoke as an allegedly inspired prophet: he therefore didn't have to worry about Christian theology, although he does make some disparaging remarks about the trinity turning God into "the third of three". A Moslem may admire Scripture, but it is merely a "Reminder" to him: your NT isn't divine or true as far as the Moslem world is concerned, though the acts of Jesus as prophet are generally accepted; Khomeini even preached on him before he became head of the Iranian State. Muhammad had a number of Jewish and Christian collaborators (most notably the King of Abyssinia), and, from reading the Koran so far, I see nothing extreme here: it isn't beautiful, nor is it my idea of spirituality; but it has moral worth, I have to admit.

alright, my brain's gonna melt, but i'll try and offer somethin' before that happens.

i completely forgot about the passage in second samuel. i knew the answer came too easy. oh well. as long as the conundrum is solved, it's all good and the explanation suffices for me as it were...shit, i'm switchin' tongues again...

i would go ahead and argue this whole what-they-believe-vs.-what-the-others-believe thing, but there's just TOO many blatant open contradictions on the part of the muslim community. the bible lovers ain't that different, but when i take the lesser of two evils, i pic the bible over the koran.

herein lies the nitty-gritty: those who believe in the koran also believe parts of the bible and sections of what jesus said and certain aspects of certain characters' prospects and beliefs. wherein lies the standard? the absolute by which all actions are measured against. if you don't have one, how on earth could you stake your life and your ETERNAL life (should you believe in one) on it?

i wipe my ass with religion as a whole, but from what i understand of the bible, the a lot of cohesion and solidarity as it pertains the the message it's tryin' to convey. the koran is one guy (who can't read, mind you) telling everyone about this wonderful god that told him to get a whole bunch of neat stuff written down so that if people don't understand the bible or don't wanna believe it at all, there's an alternative out there. mormon's do the same thing, but at least their shit is a little bit more cohesive. if they're gonna rip off the bible, they at least do it directly and with fervor as opposed to the "oh yeah, the bible's good too...sometimes" approach of the koran.

ok. i'm done. and my brain hurts. amaurote, later dawg.

[Redallnite]

Thank you guys I have been learning quite a bit from your forums or posts!!! Oh yeah, Amaorute what year was that book Dr. Zhivago? I was walking around our square down town at lunch, well I walked into an antique store looking for old cookbooks, *bam!! kinda plopped down on the wood floor* I saw this book by Boris Pasternak. So, I just wanted to ask...............:cheesy:

Oh yeah, ole dawg I think you missed the point that amaorute wrote on that 1st paragraph after your first post.... *Wondering if Amaorutes mind was in the gutter or was it just me*:shutup: :shutup: :shutup: :shutup:

[Diva]

*Picks up Amaurote's mind out of the gutter and tries to shake off some of the spunk[heh]. Looks down at gutter, see's that it's clean. Flings mind towards Red*

I never read the book, Red. But I sure did see the movie. That's one of the first movies that left me wondering, "What was the point?" You root for these characters only to have them... Oh wait. Were you going to read that?

[Redallnite]

Originally posted by Amaurote


Well, Rudedawg, speaking with the full force of my total spiritual ignorance, I really wouldn't know about that last one: I tend to avoid the practice of sausage-jockeying (noun, but also verb - I really must emphasize the verb part, because I live in a working-class district...) on the whole [insert pun here], although I well recall the old Bob Monkhouse gag about disappointingly short little thrillers wrapped in leather. At least, I assume that's what you mean. If not, I'm afraid I'm just going to have to continue deliberately misunderstanding you for the duration of this thread, because Socratic Irony is an endless source of consolation to me.


This one diva!! *Ole gutter mind here* :cheesy:

sorry red. i don't know what you mean. what point did i miss of amaurote's? open that sexy mouth and show me what you meant.