I was meaning to post my own review of Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose on my own blog. "Too monky".
Sure, they're dead now. But were they dead when it was being filmed? I honestly couldn't tell. Wonderful things with cgi nowadays, wonderful thnigs.
I watched for No Country for Old Men last night and although well done, for some reason it absolutely infuriated me. Now I am thinking that the Coen Brothers, whom I generally like, and Cormac McCarthy should be hunted down and brutalized. I'm simply tired of the penchant in modern day society for over-the-top expressions and intimations of violence.
over-the-top expressions and intimations of violence
Not a big Saw IV fan, either?
They could have saved Morgan Freeman some trouble if they'd just recorded him saying
In the next 24 hours, these penguins must perform an instinctive behavior and/or bodily function.
Or they will die.
and put it on a loop.
"Too monky".
You laugh, but it's true.
I admit I get my penguin movies mixed up, and then it's time to watch this video again.
6: That wasn't a fucking joke. At one point, I literally got out a set of coloured felt pens and started colour-coding the monks to make sure that Eco hadn't played some sort of funny-funny poststructuralist game on us by switching the names and places around.
No need for a video, this animated gif is just as amusing.
re: 8
Really? I can't say I had any such troubles with NoR. The first couple of chapters of Foucault's Pendulum, otoh, drove me mental.
I can now report that it's a mistake to read four different series of dour Swedish police procedurals at once. At least if you want to remember which character is which.
That's funny, I thought Name of the Rose was nicely straightforward -- all the monks were grotesque enough to keep straight easily: the macaronic cook, the evil blind guy, and so on. (Not that I remember the 'and so on', I read it ages ago.)
"and so on" includes seemingly about half a dozen interchangeable homosexual librarians.
Ah. Possibly I just didn't notice there was more than one of him.
half a dozen interchangeable homosexual librarians
It's a bit long for a band name. A concept album, perhaps?
There are really only two homosexual librarians, iirc.
The handsome one who does the comic illustrations, and the fat one who is in love with him.
There's a couple of other random scriptorium monk types. But I don't remember them ever being particularly central to anything.
Sad news: budget contraints are forcing my local interchangeable homosexual library to close its doors.
17: Luckily, there's one exactly like it in the next neighborhood over.
By way of other contrarian opinions... the films of Mike Leigh are largely terrible. Not just bad films, but obnoxiously so.
The first couple of chapters of Foucault's Pendulum, otoh, drove me mental.
I was meeting the new husband of my wife's very good friend. When he asked me what I was reading I told him that I had liked Foucault's Pendulum. He told me that I really couldn't have liked it, but that I was proud of myself for having finished it. I have liked him ever since.
I have liked him ever since.
People who say crazy stuff are fun.
There is a possible world, identical in every respect to ours, except that
1. Folk songs have even more gratuitous exposition
2. "Cold Missouri Waters" begins, "Your name is Bob, but you know that…"
20: I don't get it -- you're proud of finishing the new husband of your wife's very good friend?
I believe I have mentioned a friend's evaluation of March of the Penguins, which was something like "kind of heavy on the penguins".
you're proud of finishing the new husband of your wife's very good friend?
What can I say, I'm a closer.
Sad news: budget contraints are forcing my local interchangeable homosexual library to close its doors.
I'm pleased to inform you that in the upcoming stimulus package homosexual libraries are a major tool for job growth.
25: Though, sadly, not a tag closer.
I'm pleased to inform you that in the upcoming stimulus package homosexual libraries are a major tool for job growth. job for tool growth.
24 - My sister described the movie The Perfect Storm as "two hours of shouting 'Close the door!'."
No more making the "M of receptivity" for John Updike.
re: 20
Heh. I genuinely really liked it. Enough to have read it at least once, since. However, the structure of the book and the obtuseness of the opening did drive me nuts at first.
No more making the "M of receptivity" for John Updike.
Rabbit is dead.
33: Since 1990 and already "Remembered" in 2001. So maybe "Rabbit is Really, Really Fucking Dead This Time until His Heirs Discover His Notebooks".
Was driving at noon today and on one of the local public radio stations heard a live show by what sounded to be an interesting Scottish group called "Frightened Rabbit".
32. I liked it, too. But then again who doesn't like alchemists, new age con men, and Rosicrucians. Why not throw in Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons and the Templars. Add the Cathar heresy for spice. Fun for the whole family.
Apparently, Umberto Eco intentionally made the first couple of chapters of the "Name of the Rose" hard to read and the remainder of the book easy to read. The Internet isn't backing me up on this though.
I also liked Foucalt's Pendulum. My then boyfriend bought it for me as a present and then kept asking me had I finished it yet (so he could borrow it). I used to refer it afterwards as my bowling ball present.
"Frightened Rabbit" is fucking awesome live.
I didn't like FP, but don't remember it well enough to pin down what annoyed me about it -- I was in college as a Medieval Studies major at the time, and I think I found it unnecessarily obfuscatory in a manner that made me offended on behalf of the Templars (admittedly, not a sane reaction). Liked Name of the Rose a lot, though.
I liked FP—lots!
I was in college as a Medieval Studies major at the time
Huh.
Cormac McCarthy should be hunted down and brutalized
I felt like I was the last person left in the world who didn't like McCarthy. I hated, hated All The Pretty Horses when I read it for high school and nothing I've tried of his since has rehabilitated my opinion. There's something about his treatment of violence and the West that left me feeling like all he's doing is the literary version of Toby Keith's "I Should Have Been a Cowboy". Possibly quite unfair, but I can't shake it.
40: It was a mess of a major -- it was supposed to be interdisciplinary between literature, history, and art, but I think whoever was responsible for initially organizing it had retired, and it was pretty disorganized by the time I showed up. "Medieval" meant that I took Byzantine history, English poetry focusing on Chaucer and the Pearl Poet, some art class purporting to be about images of the Last Judgment in medieval art that turned out to be largely concerned with Jackson Pollock.
In a just world, no one would have given me an undergraduate degree for that mess.
No more masturbating to Updike.
I liked Foucault's Pendulum and got my first out-of-college publishing job because of it. I was a newly-minted liberal artiste who had zero clue as to professionalism and swanned into the interview carrying FP with my résumé stuck in it as a bookmark. My future boss had just finished it and so we talked about that the whole time and he offered me the job.
I probably remember less of FP than I any book I ever read. I think I merely slogged on through to the finish as if I were driven by some kind of shadowy plan.
43: Really?
No more masturbating to Updike
Just his picture. Have all the fun you need with the prose.
I haven't heard of Dead Penguins. Did they cover Cold Missouri Waters?
43: Weird feeling. I was writing all over the margins of his two Borges translations just last night.
(This is true).
Did you hear the news? No more masturbating to John Updike.
No more masturbating to the news that one may not masturbate to John Updike.
re: 35
Yeah, that sort of high-brow conspiracy thriller is pretty much my perfect novel.
I really enjoyed `Q' as well [the `Luther Blissett' product]. However, at least once person I lent it to hated it.
No more masturbating to the news that one may not masturbate to John Updike.
I just masturbated to this comment.
I feel like Umberto Eco would approve.
Or is watching through the window.
52: Come now, I'd respond, but I've put aside childish things.
Come now
It's a bit late for that, isn't it.
NO MORE MASTURBATING TO CHILDISH THINGS
NO MORE MASTURBATING TO CHILDISH THINGS
Now you tell me.
55: It's a bit late for that, isn't it.
Or early, depending.
I thought Pee Wee masturbated the old-fashioned way, in a raincoat in an adult theater.
Have all the fun you need with the prose.
The pros are always there to help you masturbate.
Sí, se puede.
Ce-ci est un pédé.
Bumper Sticker Idea: "I'd Rather Be Masturbating". Or even "I Am Masturbating".
The Great Cycle of Life:
1. Gathering Material for Masturbation Fanatasies (includes sex with partners, school, work, church, sleep and *all* activities from age minus 9 months to x years).
2. Active Masturbation
3. Go to 1.
Apparently, Umberto Eco intentionally made the first couple of chapters of the "Name of the Rose" hard to read and the remainder of the book easy to read.
Seriously? I remember flying through Name of the Rose fairly quickly - that and Baudolino were my quickest Eco reads.
The ending of The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana pissed me off.
longer dsquared: "too much monky business"
34, 38 - ooh, C has seen Frightened Rabbit. He ended up buying a T-shirt from the support band, We Were Promised Jetpacks, after making them laugh by showing concern that they weren't making any money. I told him this showed that he is too old to go out any more.
I need to investigate them, if for no other reason than that there can't be many bands coming out of Selkirk, of all places.
Um, citation needed?
Although Selkirk, Manitoba has only 9,500 people, that's still a lot more than its namesake in the old country.
69: "This tee shirt is extremely soft and preshrunk." UR DOING IT RONG.
(Although I see for $3.00 extra you can get it in plus sizes—up to 5XL!)
I rather enjoy Frightened Rabbit, though they can get slightly monotone/whiny if you listen to them a lot. However, their atest album has a number of quite good tracks.
re: 70
Yeah, those 'Ridings' are a big thing in that part of the world. I remember a few years back when there was pressure to admit women to the Hawick riding.
And the Borders are still the heartland of Rugby Union in Scotland.
No more masturbating to the news that one may not masturbate to John Updike.
AWB's going to be pissed.
Yeah, I reckon Baudolino's the best intro to Eco (his fiction, anyway). If I hadn't read that and Illuminatus! before I read Foucault's Pendulum, I doubt I'd have finished it. If you're into non-fiction, his book on translation, Mouse or Rat?, is superb.
If you're into non-fiction
Eco's Travels in Hyperreality was interesting.
The book of Eco's I liked best was Six Walks in the Fictional Woods.
1. It's short.
2. It's understandable.
I'm still trudging me way through Baudolino.
How to Travel with a Salmon and whichever one contains "My Exagmination Round his Factificaton for Incamination &c&c" are good.
I read about fifteen pages of the novel involving a shipwrecked dude that got incredible, incredible praise from M. Kakutani and haven't read anything by Eco since.
74: I know! Now I can't make fun of him! For, like, weeks!
I think that Norman Mailer has cooled off enough to be safe to ridicule.
I heard a really good story on This American Life and at the end ,they said the author had a new novel...and for the first time maybe in my whole life, I was excited to read a new novel by someone I had never read a novel by before.
Then I looked it up. From the various synopses, itcould be the best written novel in the world and I would still hate it. It includes like ten things that I am guaranteed to hate reading about.
A) The main character has a stupid name
B) "Hellish boarding school"
C) "Wildly dysfunctional foster family"
D) ...in which the parents are far more religious than the main character
E) ...and have a "sexually curious teenage daughter"
F) As a multiracial character he is not truly at peace anywhere!
G) Magical typewriters
H) Apparently a "urinal puck" is used as a sort of security blanket
I) A mysterious doctor who functions as a magic-realist-style guardian angel
J) The main character remains brave, honest and lovable despite incredible suffering
F) As a multiracial character he is not truly at peace anywhere!
Just like science says!
M. Kakutani
Agggggggggghhhhh how I hate her.
Agggggggggghhhhh how I hate her.
I'm starting to feel sorry for her.
#24: I believe I have mentioned a friend's evaluation of March of the Penguins, which was something like "kind of heavy on the penguins".
I'm starting to feel sorry for her.
I wish she had stronger arms. She seems to hate anything long, as a long book must justify to her why it is long by containing no details. LONG BOOKS ARE MADE OF DETAILS, MICHIKO. THAT'S WHY THEY'RE LONG.
She seems to hate anything long
Sorry, apo. You're just going to have to give up on this one.
85: Yup! Science!
3) Mixed-race kids do have one advantage over white and black kids: the mixed-race kids are much more attractive on average.
Mmm, yummy science.
Are they long because of the details, or are they full of details because of the length?
M. Kakutani is by far the most difficult boss in Book Fighter 2.
Don't most authors start with a target length, and then keep writing down details until they fill up all the pages?
I first read Foucault's Pendulum at age twelve and was really proud of that fact for a long time, but then I suddenly realized at like age 22 that FP was a satire and a cautionary tale and that I'd done my intellectual development wrong. I've been meaning to reread it since God only knows what I'd make of it now.
I'm rereading Tristram Shandy because I want to find a particular quotation and all I can remember is that it comes up while Tristram is being given birth to, a process that takes up at least two thirds of the book.
It seems like the length of the book and the amount of details aren't linked incredibly strongly. The less plot you have, the more pages you can spend describing the exact appearance of a meadow on a spring morning, for instance, while keeping the same overall length.
I first read the Grapes of Wrath at the age of 12 or so. Given that I'm pretty depressive, I was probably better off not reading it later. (I did read Of Mice and Men in college. Ouch.)
The main thing I remember about The Grapes of Wrath (besides the death and suffering, that is) is that the edition I read used single quotes for the outermost quoting, and double quotes for the next layer, and so on. I think that's the only instance of that I've encountered.
I remember thinking that must have been the case, but not finding out whether it was.
85: Yup! Science!
3) Mixed-race kids do have one advantage over white and black kids: the mixed-race kids are much more attractive on average.
Mmm, yummy science.
Hybrid vigor!
The main thing I remember about Grapes of Wrath is that it's what my teacher handed me as the alternative when I told her I thought maybe Catch 22, which I was doing as "free reading," was too dark for me at that precise moment in my life.
97: I don't mean to discourage re-reading TS, Ben, but if you tell me what you're looking for I know where it is.
98 Before I read "Of Mice and Men", there were a couple of Bug Bunny shorts that I really wasn't able to appreciate on a deep level.
I really enjoyed Name of the Rose while reading it. But in retrospect I thought less of it. I started reading Foucault's Pendulum a little later, stopped mostly because I stop a lot of books after the first few chapters and pick them up later (but the opening chapter didn't help) if I'm still interested, and have since not really planned to read any Eco again.
106: A lot of those old cartoons make a lot more sense when you realize they were created to be shown to a primarily adult audience before the main feature at cinemas , rather than to elementary school-age kids on Saturday mornings. Lots of great jokes, references, allusions, and impressions that I didn't get until much later.
On a related note, I remember being shocked to learn that Gilligan's Island, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, et al. were originally prime-time shows, and were not expressly created as after-school entertainment to latchkey kids. Of course, this was before the Simpsons showed me that animated shows weren't just for children.
97: I don't mean to discourage re-reading TS, Ben, but if you tell me what you're looking for I know where it is.
Actually, I requested help locating it on these very pages a few years ago and no one knew, and this was after your advent.
It's the bit where either Walter or Toby, but I think Walter, is saying something, and then refers to an object, but instead of saying the name of the object—"a poker", for instance—he just ostends the object itself as if that action could be made part of his speech. Tristram comments on his doing this. I believe the mother is in labor.
109: Fairly sure that's Vol III. I'll find it for you.
106: Some of those old cartoons also replicate scenes from silents. I was surprised to discover this while watching a not very good Buster Keaton movie which might have been ok had it been shorter.
I liked The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum when I read them a really really long time ago. Much more recently (c. 2005), I found Baudilino fairly annoying by the end, although it had its moments. And I started The Island of the Day Before and, unlike ben, was intrigued, but was interrupted by divorce and transcontinental relocation, and have never gotten back to it. Re-reading NOTR and FP and reading TIotDB are definitely on my (rather lengthy and neglected) reading list.
112: you could have watched it faster.
114: I watched it on the slowest fast forward setting. I do this with a fair number of silents, but probably shouldn't admit it. So many of them take so long to tell a story.
114: And more cowbell probably would have helped.
BEN!!! You mean when Slop pulls out the ------!
a not very good Buster Keaton movie
Does. Not. Compute.
Do I?
Can you cite part and chapter? That's what would really help, you know.
Does. Not. Compute.
That's one of the routines! But seriously, I like Coney Island, but The Navigator went on forever. I'll probably watch a couple of the more famous ones; I got a copy of The General from the Internet Archive.
Has this been linked to and/or commented on at Unfogged yet?
121: it's important not to look at the other threads. You might get all confused.
Further to 117: It's Volume III, chapters XIII-XV, part of which is a long explanation of the Athenian orators who would hide a baby in their cloak to produce it during a speech for rhetorical effect.
but The Navigator went on forever
But, but . . . why would you want a Buster Keaton movie to stop??!?!?
I prefer to think of myself as adding value.
The pwned shall inherit the earth.
Ben, do I get a pat on my little head?
So, since I'm never going to read Tristram Shandy, does someone want to spoil 117 for me?
It's impossible to understand any references to Tristram Shandy without reading the whole thing. Seriously.
131: That's what it literally says in the text. "------"
...or, sorry (I mispelled it): ******
Yes. For baptizing babies before they are born. Slop is a Papist.
133-134: Maybe it's different in different printings and someone got tenure for writing about why.
129: Because I'm not a um, a . . . whatever the appropriate non-offensive alternative to "Philistine" is, that's why. I mean come on, Buster Keaton!
it's important not to look at the other threads. You might get all confused.
See, that's why I asked whether it had been linked/commented on yet. Punk.
137: Yes, it is "***" in the on I found in Google Books.
It's always ******. I erred. No edition would print ------, because when Tristram does this, he calls it "hanging up lights."
Cormac McCarthy should be hunted down and brutalized>/>
Read Blood Meridian, and you'll discover it's the only way he'd have it. All of my favorite authors are reactionaries for some reason. Crowley isn't yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if he turned.
139: The Philistines get a bad rap.
CRY ME A RIVER!
136: Thanks! I remember wondering back when I read the book.
131: Briefly, the doctor wants to pull the forceps out of his bag with a flourish to demonstrate rather than just saying "forceps", but does so rather awkwardly and un-flourish-like. And at the same time a "squirt" comes out, leading to the punchline "are children brought into the world with a squirt?"
Someone actually wrote an article critiquing Google Books that was based mostly on a comparison of different editions of Tristram Shandy then in digital existence.
145.2 is an explanation of why there is no word, there's only ****** because Slop's rhetorical intention is to show forceps, but Toby understands the meaning as squirt. The ****** is both, neither, a representation of the impossibilities of rhetorical unambiguity in texts, speech, life, etc.
143: Man, I love Blood Meridian. And all McCarthy's other books too. But truth be told, DL's characterization in 41 isn't very far off. Still, great great writing.
There are plenty of artists, particularly in the rap/hip-hop genre, who I have a similar "despite all the . . ." affection for.
146: This one was Metheun and Co., London, 1894. Edited by W. E. Henley. From the University of California library collection (I love the various library markings and marginalia you get sometimes).
Per Wikipedia, Henley and his family have an interesting legacy. He was one-legged and apparently Stevenson used him as the model for Long John Silver and his sickly daughter formed the basis for Wendy in Peter Pan.
148: Actually, I quite like McCarthy's writing (and the Coen brothers). Just something about seeing the movie in the middle of last night (from like 1:00 to 3:30, woke up and could not get back to sleep) left me in a rage. Plus I do get tired of the "super" killers, (I refuse to watch Silence of the Lambs), it is all unrequited power masturbation fantasies for total fucking dickwads like Quentin Tarrantino. (A very talented and creative dickwad but a dickwad nonetheless.)
Ben, do I get a pat on my little head?
Honey, you can have a pat anywhere you like.
I was out, which is why it took so long. Plus, I masturbated a lot as a kid.
151-152: So both of you died a little?
Actually the critical moment occurs in ch. XV (or rather occurs in XIII and is described in XV), and I may have misremembered or misunderstood it—I thought the "*****" was there to represent a sort of placeholder for Slop's action.
You can expect a post on waste about this. Oh yes, you can.
I like the BAMBINO in XIV though.
Plus I do get tired of the "super" killers, (I refuse to watch Silence of the Lambs), it is all unrequited power masturbation fantasies for total fucking dickwads like Quentin Tarrantino. (A very talented and creative dickwad but a dickwad nonetheless.)
Word. Although I don't think either McCarthy or the Coen brothers are actually guilty of this. "Super" killers appear, yes, but not to show just how fuckin' hard the author is, man, a la Tarantino.
You can expect a post on waste about this. Oh yes, you can.
Just please God don't cross-post it here.
Actually, it will probably be little more than a transcription so it's easy to find.
Still, great great writing.
This, I can't (or won't) dispute. I think that if I there was a way I could read his work solely in individual sentences (or even paragraphs) disassociated from plot - like some version of found poetry - I'd really enjoy him.
159: You can, kind of. (Six different artists illustrate lines from Blood Meridian, and the experience of "reading" the site approximated for me the found-poetry McCarthy you want to read).
McCarthy's novels set in the West are my least favorite of his. He really shines when he's set in the South and Appalachia. Suttree is one of my favorite books by any author.
||
Guess what? No more turning Japanese to John Updike and you simply won't believe that the NY Times decided to publish this.
Anything else going on out there?
|>
an interesting Scottish group called "Frightened Rabbit"
Just last night, the friend I'm visiting told me about this band.
