Catch 22

[SpontaneousOrder]

https://youtu.be/8LazrN57iZg


I didn't like the book. It's supposed to be a bit absurd and nonsensical because war is (according to the author) absurd and nonsensical. But I just found it dull.

Not much happens - you are supposed to just absorb the individual moments, a bit like the movie 'Lost in translation' - although I liked that movie.

[pjclarke]

That reminds me, shall I give Atlas Shrugged another try?

Speaking of dull and turgid, I mean.

[Pip in a Poke]

That reminds me, shall I give Atlas Shrugged another try?

Speaking of dull and turgid, I mean.

Isn't that another one of the "greatest novels of the 20th century"?

Why is it that any book with that epithet is such hard work?

I read 100 Years of Solitude & it was like having me teeth pulled. Anyone read any Kafka? Apparently he was the inspiration. Magical realism, or something....

Edit: It appears that Magical Realism is an almost exclusively Latin American movement (Garcia Marquez, Allende etc) that drew from Kafka. Kafka himself predated that movement.

[SpontaneousOrder]

That reminds me, shall I give Atlas Shrugged another try?

Speaking of dull and turgid, I mean.

Just pretend you read it like you did the first time.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Isn't that another one of the "greatest novels of the 20th century"?

Why is it that any book with that epithet is such hard work?

I read 100 Years of Solitude & it was like having me teeth pulled. Anyone read any Kafka? Apparently he was the inspiration. Magical realism, or something....

Edit: It appears that Magical Realism is an almost exclusively Latin American movement (Garcia Marquez, Allende etc) that drew from Kafka. Kafka himself predated that movement.

Atlas Shrugged is an easy read - it's just long. But I liked it, so it being long was good.

[TheFaQQer]

Anyone read any Kafka?

Yes

[NigelJK]

Must get around to Catcher in the Rye at some point. Most American classics are dull (read John Irvine tho' as both 'World according to Garp' and 'Hotel New Hampshire' are OK). Try reading some Sci-Fi classics (Time Machine is excellent, War of the worlds likewise). PKD short stories were collected a few years back and are also excellent).

[Hobosapien]

PKD short stories were collected a few years back and are also excellent).

Despite being a fan of sci-fi (TV and movies rather than books) I'm finding the Electric Dreams TV series interpretations rather dull and coming across as incomplete. Not a patch on the Broken Mirror series.

[Big Blue Plymouth]

Must get around to Catcher in the Rye at some point. Most American classics are dull (read John Irvine tho' as both 'World according to Garp' and 'Hotel New Hampshire' are OK). Try reading some Sci-Fi classics (Time Machine is excellent, War of the worlds likewise). PKD short stories were collected a few years back and are also excellent).

Loved Huckleberry Finn. Definitely not dull. Also the Updike Rabbit books are a great read.

Recently read The Great Gatsby & found that incredibly dull. Dull in the sense you know exactly how the story's going to pan out when you're only a few pages in...

[pjclarke]

Just pretend you read it like you did the first time.

Your memory is playing tricks. Hey, since then I made it through the 60 leaden pages of muddled metaphysics that is 'Galt's Speech' - which I understand is meant to be a pithy encapsulation of Rand's pseudophilosophy,

The only proper purpose of a government is to protect a man's rights which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contract from breach or fraud, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law

Bad luck on the disabled, poor, uneducated or sick. And indeed bad luck on Ms Rand herself, who fell back on the despised state for five figures worth of Medicaid when her lifetime of smoking took its toll.

Meh.