Books

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

As soon as we finished up watching Lost, I got on the interwebz to read up on the myriad book references (actual books featured, glimpsed, directly referenced, hommaged, merely winked at). The first book physically seen in the series is Watership Down, so when I saw a copy on the shelves at home in Ireland I nabbed it and now, having never read it, have just gotten stuck in. Extremely easy reading for the moment, yet definitely got lots of elements I wasn't expecting, such as references to ancient and classical literature at the start of every (very short) chapter. Seems like the perfect turn-pager I was looking for to follow up Paradise Lost anyway!

I'm sure we've all seen the movie, at some point in our lives (though it may be a repressed memory for some), but anyone else read it? Thoughts?

[Thorn]

Picked up a couple of Hemingway in a charity shop recently,  I like most of the classic authors but this  is torturous reading, bunch of American dandies ,  quaffing wine and brandies, frittering around the cafes of Europe in the middle of the last century and not a whiff of an interesting story line. Is it the prose that has him so revered ( in literary circles)?  I've tried now with  alcohol to the mix, which worked wonders with Dostoevsky , but no, it's turgid  beyond belief

[Pedrito]

I'vs had similar experiences with Hemingway. The whole idea with him was that his style was a kind of new way of writing. Concise and without floweriness, at least that's what I understand. I loved the Fisherman and the Snows of Kilimanjaro, but I've tried a couple others and found them awful hard going. For Whom the Bell Tolls being one.

[Thorn]

Glad to hear its not just me.  I'm finding the titles of his
novels more interesting than the actual content to be honest. Yeah it's definitely  a departure in prose style , the dialogue is ...'believable ' ( for want of a better word) and  concise as you put it . It just doesn't go anywhere as a tale. More of an observation of characters, which is fine too,   I just have no  affinity with any of 'em. Any  fans ( apologists?) on here at all?

[Eoin McLove]

Did he write The Old Man and the Sea? I think I read that years ago and thought it was brilliant, but I might be getting confused.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

He did. But sure that's only about 10 pages long

[blessed1]

Read an extremely creepy ghost story called Naomis Room by a guy called Jonathon Aycliffe.
It's only 200 pages long and well worth a read. Really creepy in parts and I normally wouldn't get too scared by a book but this was great.
Turns out he's from Belfast as well.

[Eoin McLove]

He did. But sure that's only about 10 pages long

My mind tends to wander after eleven or twelve pages so that sounds ideal.

[Pedrito]

Did he write The Old Man and the Sea? I think I read that years ago and thought it was brilliant, but I might be getting confused.

Sorry, I called it The Fisherman..fukin hell  It's a great great book.

[Pedrito]

Glad to hear its not just me.  I'm finding the titles of his
novels more interesting than the actual content to be honest. Yeah it's definitely  a departure in prose style , the dialogue is ...'believable ' ( for want of a better word) and  concise as you put it . It just doesn't go anywhere as a tale. More of an observation of characters, which is fine too,   I just have no  affinity with any of 'em. Any  fans ( apologists?) on here at all?

The Old Man and the Sea as Mr McLovin says is really excellent. It's short too. I'd start there. I tried A Farewell to Arms recently and had to put it down. I wouldn't dismiss him, but yes he's caused me conflict 

[Eoin McLove]

I finished The Count of Monty Cristo just now. Pure daycent but one hell of a monstrous tome to plough through. I deserve a sweetie.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Nice. I must give it a go sometime. The Three Muskateers was a right page turner too, but yeah, a fuck load of pages to turn all the same!

[Eoin McLove]

I'm wading through Middlemarch in work, another tome and even more verbose and slow going,  but I think possibly even better for that reason.  I have a hillock of reading material beside the bed here to plough through,  nothing too brick-ish in terms of pages,  but some hefty material in there none the less.  I have a fancy (an utterly deluded one,  but still) that even if I don't quite get everything that I'm reading, maybe it'll all accumulate in the back of my brain and I'll subconsciously be a genius.

[Thorn]

Read my first George Eliot  recently, Silas Marner and really enjoyed it. Up til then I thought Eliot was a man and that Silas Marner was probably a sea faring tale (Mariner  ) .  Middlemarch is very much on the radar now.

[Ollkiller]

I finished The Count of Monty Cristo just now. Pure daycent but one hell of a monstrous tome to plough through. I deserve a sweetie.

Great book. Found it really immersive.