Books: high-brow, low-brow, and in between

The local library here is awesome. Of course, it has the usual stench from the body odor of the indigent, the loud talking of people who annoy you, but it also has a great selection. Checked out four books last night - two Peter Watts' sci-fi, the latest Jack Reacher (I know, I know), and a book on the history of stuttering.

I'm a big user of my library - and others too - you can search and reserve books online and they put them on a shelf so you can just walk in and pick them up.

But I never spend time there.
Libraries here these days are full of bloody people talking very loud into mobiles and fucking small kids - in the "kids corner" yelling, crying screaming and generally being obnoxious. Why have libraries turned into noisy bars with no atmosphere, with badly behaved kids and no alcohol. What the fuck is wrong with being quiet for a minute or two and just reading or talking briefly in low whispers. Or is it just Australian libraries?
 
I just got done reading the perfect kill while hiking, it was fucking awesome! imad mughniyeh was a fucking beast, a scumbag, but a beast nevertheless. Highly recommended!
 
I spent 2/3 of yesterday reading my Everyman's hardcover copy of Great Expectations. I haven't read fiction in five years. It was a choice between this, Pride and Prejudice and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I first studied this text in third year English - Victorian fiction. That was more than a decade ago and it's astonishing I still remember some passages intimately. I hope it hasn't distorted me in anyway because these words may have been composed two centuries ago, but if you rearrange the words they are the same things that I moan about to Rambo and occasionally in the "pissed off" thread.

Consequently, knowing one of my old work mates from Essex for eight years made the dialogue of the lower class characters in this novel so much more understandable for me.

On Romantic Love – capitol R and L

The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.

On Rejection

"You must know," said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and beautiful woman might, "that I have no heart,—if that has anything to do with my memory."

"Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt," said Estella, "and of course if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense."

More On Rejection

"It seems," said Estella, very calmly, "that there are sentiments, fancies,—I don't know how to call them,—which I am not able to comprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there. I don't care for what you say at all. I have tried to warn you of this; now, have I not?"

I said in a miserable manner, "Yes."

"Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought I did not mean it. Now, did you not think so?"

"I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so young, untried, and beautiful, Estella! Surely it is not in Nature."

"It is in my nature," she returned. And then she added, with a stress upon the words, "It is in the nature formed within me. I make a great difference between you and all other people when I say so much. I can do no more."

On Jealousy

"Recounting to-night's triumph?" said I. "Surely a very poor one, Estella."
"What do you mean? I didn't know there had been any."
"Estella," said I, "do look at that fellow in the corner yonder, who is looking over here at us."
"Why should I look at him?" returned Estella, with her eyes on me instead. "What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder,—to use your words,—that I need look at?"
"Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you," said I. "For he has been hovering about you all night."
"Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures," replied Estella, with a glance towards him, "hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?"
"No," I returned; "but cannot the Estella help it?"
"Well!" said she, laughing, after a moment, "perhaps. Yes. Anything you like."
"But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched that you should encourage a man so generally despised as Drummle. You know he is despised."
"Well?" said she.
"You know he is as ungainly within as without. A deficient, ill-tempered, lowering, stupid fellow."
"Well?" said she.
"You know he has nothing to recommend him but money and a ridiculous roll of addle-headed predecessors; now, don't you?"

"Well?" said she again; and each time she said it, she opened her lovely eyes the wider.
To overcome the difficulty of getting past that monosyllable, I took it from her, and said, repeating it with emphasis, "Well! Then, that is why it makes me wretched."

"Pip," said Estella, casting her glance over the room, "don't be foolish about its effect on you. It may have its effect on others, and may be meant to have. It's not worth discussing."

"….for I have seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never give to me."
"Do you want me then," said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed and serious, if not angry, look, "to deceive and entrap you?"
"Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?"
"Yes, and many others,—all of them but you…"

On Control

"It is not easy for even you." said Estella, "to know what satisfaction it gives me to see those people thwarted, or what an enjoyable sense of the ridiculous I have when they are made ridiculous. For you were not brought up in that strange house from a mere baby. I was. You had not your little wits sharpened by their intriguing against you, suppressed and defenceless, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that is soft and soothing. I had. You did not gradually open your round childish eyes wider and wider to the discovery of that impostor of a woman who calculates her stores of peace of mind for when she wakes up in the night. I did."

"Two things I can tell you," said Estella. "First, notwithstanding the proverb that constant dropping will wear away a stone, you may set your mind at rest that these people never will—never would, in hundred years—impair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular, great or small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of their being so busy and so mean in vain, and there is my hand upon it."

As she gave it to me playfully,—for her darker mood had been but Momentary,—I held it and put it to my lips. "You ridiculous boy," said Estella, "will you never take warning? Or do you kiss my hand in the same spirit in which I once let you kiss my cheek?"

"What spirit was that?" said I.
"I must think a moment. A spirit of contempt for the fawners and plotters."
"If I say yes, may I kiss the cheek again?"
"You should have asked before you touched the hand. But, yes, if you like."

I leaned down, and her calm face was like a statue's. "Now," said Estella, gliding away the instant I touched her cheek, "you are to take care that I have some tea, and you are to take me to Richmond."

On Breakup

"Nonsense," she returned,—"nonsense. This will pass in no time."
"Never, Estella!"
"You will get me out of your thoughts in a week."

"Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since,—on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!"
 
Why not? You're really missing out.

Because one of the women remarked it was distorting my view of real life (see the choice quotations above). Of course then my interests went on to Mad Men, Downton Abbey, Mr. Selfridge, Upstairs/Downstairs and other television shows which equally have no bearing on reality.
 
Finally started a new book. First one in about 6 months, as sad as that is to admit.

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Loved that book. Really really cool.
 
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Police are searching for a man who exposed himself and masturbated in front of two women at a public library in Melbourne's north.

The man walked into the Lalor library on May Road about 1.30pm on December 1.

He was in the library for about an hour before he sat down in front of two women and exposed himself.

It is understood he began masturbating in front of the women with his genitals exposed.

He left the library once the women alerted staff.

The man was wearing a fluoro green T-shirt with pink and black writing on it, jeans and thongs at the time. He is described as being about 180 centimetres tall with a slim build and short, dark hair.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
 
Thruth? Sarto? - you blokes been visiting Melbourne ? Why didn't you call me for a drink?
 
Thruth? Sarto? - you blokes been visiting Melbourne ? Why didn't you call me for a drink?
That guy is in full bogan gear. Probably from Queensland, or as I like to call it, "Australian Florida"
 
Thruth? Sarto? - you blokes been visiting Melbourne ? Why didn't you call me for a drink?

No, I don't frequent libraries anymore. The clientele out-freak me these days. Sad. At least here, libraries have become daycares for the poors; public assess Internet surfing for the poors; housing for the poors; safe injection sites for the poors; everything and anything for the poors except a place to read and unpoor oneself. The newest libaries - in poor lingo - are being built closer to the poors to make it easier for them to avoid books.

"I had to take a bus 30 minutes downtown if I wanted not to read. Now there is a libary 2 minutes from by government-subsidized flophouse where I can avoid books far more easily"

Oh yes, there are bedbug infestations in the public libaries here too
 
Why not read some classics like the jungle? Yeah it develops into a socialist shill at the end but it is a pretty good read.

Some of the classics are really underrated. It's hard to articulate, but I often think of Joseph Conrad as one of the first emo authors. His books are phenomenal though.

There's a 15 minute independent short made of that novel. The trailer -

I saw the full short a few years ago at some festival. I think it could be good if they get the money to do a full version of it.


I have no idea why it's been hard to get funding for a movie that centers around
a baby that is the product of incest, has one of that baby's eyes burned out, and then ends with the baby having its throat slit and being eaten by a wall-eyed semi-supernatural hillbilly.
 
Why do people take part in markets that are well known to be filled with cruelty and cause suffering across the glove - eating meat, sex tourism, prostitution, drugs. Its as though the past 100 years in history are meaningless, as though they did not read any non fantasy literature.

Why are you so intolerant of other cultures?
 
Quite nice for the people with money and power, who are not being killed for their flesh, used for their bodies, or victimized in the war between drug manufacturers/distributors/users and the government. Intolerance is different then pointing out when someone does something that I would consider wrong. If you cannot take being called out for your actions then you should not do them. I am not perfect either, but that doesn't mean I should ignore things that are wrong regardless of who does them.

and glove obviously is a misspelling of globe. The two letters are right next to each other and spellcheck doesn't catch it.

You're holding out Western White Liberal culture as the most humane and morally right and all others as wicked. Tell me, when do the pogroms begin?
 
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Good but I found it a little tedious, mostly since I find Clara's storyline to be the most boring. Hopefully there will be some more payoff in the next book.

Think I'm going to read this one next:

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Legion was a fun read. Not as interesting as the first book that introduced the whole concept but good all the same. Think I'm moving on to this next:

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Anyone read North American Lake Monsters? Pretty interesting horror/fantasy, but more Peter Straub/Neil Gaiman than actual horror. The author was a childhood friend (one of only two, so I'm pretty fond of the man)
 

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