Books Completed in '06
Submitted by Cosgrove on Wed, 04/26/2006 - 04:13
Tags:
- Story of the Eye - Georges Bataille
- A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
- Make Your Own Damn Movie!: Secrets of a Renegade Director - Lloyd Kaufman with Adam Jahnke & Trent Haaga
- Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film - Carol Clover [I've actually owned this book for many years, and I've read the first chapter numerous times. I never got to the rest of the book until now, though. Good stuff, at any rate. The reviews on Amazon are hilarious -- did everyone just read the fourth chapter and ignore the rest, or are these horror fans really as anti-intellectual as they sound?]
- Blood on the Moon - James Ellroy
- The Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor
- Negative Space: Manny Farber on the Movies - Manny Farber [Mr. Farber can be breathtakingly arrogant. It's a good thing, then, that his prose is often ferocious and passionate enough to overcome that. In particular, his review of Bergman's Shame is the review I wish I had written.]
- I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell - Tucker Max
Author Comments:
Maybe keeping a log will motivate me to keep reading. We shall see.
Cloned From:
How is A Confederacy of Dunces? Ever since it was mentioned in Sideways, the title's been methodically popping up in my life. Can't say I'm too eager to read it, but the damn thing's being persistent. Recommended or not recommended?
Very recommended. I've been trying to read it for years and never getting much past the first chapter, but I finally knuckled down and did it. It's one of those books that gathers steam as it goes, getting progressively better until its beautiful, perfect ending. The last fifty pages of "Dunces" couldn't be better if they were written with gossamer and angel tears.
What I want to know is, what does Scott think of it?
I haven't read "Dunces" in a long, long time, but from what I remember it perfectly captured the ebb and flow (not to mention flavor) of life in New Orleans. Post Katrina, that place no longer exists, but it's nice to have books like this and Walker Percy's "The Moviegoer" to remind us of what used to be.
I still think John Belushi would have been the perfect Ignatius J. Reilly and am SO glad that DGG's adaptation with Will Ferrell never got off the ground.
EDIT: New Orleans is no longer The Big Easy but rather The Sliver on the River, as 40% of the area is still uninhabitable. My old neighborhood is completely empty (we're talking miles and miles) except for my crazy neighbor on the corner, who insists on living in a FEMA trailer on his property.
How is the Tucker Max book?
He's a real dickhead. Given that fact, I wish I could explain why I read the whole thing in an afternoon. Maybe it's because, like most true dickheads, Mr. Max can be caustically, rudely funny when he's not being overwhelmingly obnoxious.
I want to buy the book, but i was so dissapointed with Maddox's Alphabet of manliness.
I actually read the Tucker Max book over the Holiday break, mostly because I got tired of all the Derrida, Lacan and Semiotics texts for school. Maybe it was the frame-of-mind I was in, but I thought it was quite funny, a parody of the alpha male. And disgusting. And actually ... I know some people who are 'lesser versions' of Max's motley crew. ;-)
I'm afraid my previous response came off a bit, um, vicious -- I did mention that I read it in an afternoon, right? Spent the whole time thinking, "This is repulsive. I'm above this, I know it. So why am I laughing so much?"
Also, my girlfriend (who gave me the book! she's a keeper!) really, really wants to meet Sling Blade. :-)
Best bit: "Yeah, you've definitely fucked a man."
girlfriend? how things change.
You're telling me. I just realized that, over the next sixteen months, I'm going to be attending at least three weddings. In one of them, I have been informed, I will be playing the role of the best man. Time marches on.
I've been attending lots of weddings, but i'm still the same, sure crazy girl still around, but nothing else.