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LukeInFlames
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28 Feb 2010, 6:26 pm

heckeler06 wrote:
I adore books. I collect some, got a few hard-to-find copies. I wish I could read 100 or so a year, usually depression slows my progress, I get distracted, or headaches overwhelm me.

Favorite styles of books: Russian lit, specifically soviet literature (but I'm still finding more and more books to learn), French existential lit (also branching into OuLiPo), and drug literature, like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Opium: The Diary of his cure, and such.

I can't make up my mind about the "classics"; I either love them or hate them.

--David


That's fantastic... this is the first time i've ever heard anyone name-drop OuLiPo in casual conversation. Who are your favourite authors in this area? Mine are Georges Perec, and Raymond Queneau. I really need to pick up the anthologies-in-translation that exist, and find some more.

ta,

Luke.



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28 Feb 2010, 7:00 pm

Hey LukeInFlames:

I adore OuLiPo, but to be honest, I need to read more of 'em. I've read Queneau's "The Last Days" and "Exercises in Style"; I actually just ordered a copy of "Zazie in the Metro". [I've sorta read "Cent Mille Millards de Poemes"]

I've read a tongue-in-cheek article by Georges Perec titled "Experimental demonstration of the tomatotopic organization in the Soprano". Basically, it's written as a scientific study about throwing tomatoes at opera singers--it made me laugh. Again, I just ordered some of his short stories.

I enjoyed Calvino's "If on a winter's night a traveler", but as a whole I found it lacking. Worth a read. [I need to read more Calvino].

While not strictly OuLiPo, Alfred Jarry's "Ubu Roi" and Amos Tutuola's "The Palm-Wine Drinkard" have similarities to OuLiPo, and both are quick-fun reads.

As far as my favorite, It'd be Queneau. There's just something about the language that he uses that is, for lack of a better word, seductive! I'm really looking forward to reading more Perec.

What have you read by Queneau and Perec? What would you recommend? Do you read them in the original or translated? Also, how did you first get into OuLiPo?

Wow, I'm pleasantly amazed that you've read them!

--David



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28 Feb 2010, 7:19 pm

heckeler06 wrote:
Hey LukeInFlames:

I adore OuLiPo, but to be honest, I need to read more of 'em. I've read Queneau's "The Last Days" and "Exercises in Style"; I actually just ordered a copy of "Zazie in the Metro". [I've sorta read "Cent Mille Millards de Poemes"]

I've read a tongue-in-cheek article by Georges Perec titled "Experimental demonstration of the tomatotopic organization in the Soprano". Basically, it's written as a scientific study about throwing tomatoes at opera singers--it made me laugh. Again, I just ordered some of his short stories.

I enjoyed Calvino's "If on a winter's night a traveler", but as a whole I found it lacking. Worth a read. [I need to read more Calvino].

While not strictly OuLiPo, Alfred Jarry's "Ubu Roi" and Amos Tutuola's "The Palm-Wine Drinkard" have similarities to OuLiPo, and both are quick-fun reads.

As far as my favorite, It'd be Queneau. There's just something about the language that he uses that is, for lack of a better word, seductive! I'm really looking forward to reading more Perec.

What have you read by Queneau and Perec? What would you recommend? Do you read them in the original or translated? Also, how did you first get into OuLiPo?

Wow, I'm pleasantly amazed that you've read them!

--David


Yeah, I get around.

I've only read some short works of Queneau in anthologies, and his Exercises in Style.

As for Perec... A Void, and some of his short work. Big plans to read his Life: A User's Manual soon. Big fan of A Void - PoMo tricksy, but a good yarn at the same time, sort of a self-aware mystery novel. It sounds like i'd enjoy his essays but haven't come across them yet.

I luurve Calvino as well. Sad you didn't like If on a Winter's Night a Traveller... it's one of my fave books, ever. And the introduction is so hilarious... Somehow i managed so sell my copy buy accident (whoops) the last time i moved. I'm planning on getting his Complete Short Stories soon.... they've finally ALL been translated and anthologised. Late last year the New Yorker published one of the 'new' ones, fab.

I stumbled upon OuLiPo originally because I'm interested in formalism and language games - so approached from the angle of Calvino, Borges, Bioy Casares, and their like.

Got a list of things to read of that ilk, too...Alvaro Mutis being at the top, as well as the Bioy Casares/Borges collaborations (if they've been translated).

Unfortunately, all of the above is in translation. My french is bad, and I have no spanish.

ta,

-Luke



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09 Mar 2010, 1:24 am

I taught myself to read when I was 4 if I remember correctly... I got to kindergarten already knowing how to read, yet i had never heard of nor could I sing the alphabet. THAT was embarrassing! I read everything I could find... My house had a lot of books in it. I even read the encyclopedias, dictionary, and medical encyclopedias. I was reading my mom's old college books when I was in 1st or 2nd grade. The only ones I couldn't read were the ones in french, and the ones I couldn't reach even when standing on a chair. Funny my parents rarely would buy me a toy, but they never said no to buying me a book.

I love reading the classics... My favorite book of all time is Atlas Shrugged. I re-read it every 2 years or so.
I also enjoy Hemmingway, Sinclair Lewis, Amy Tan (I know she's not a classic author) and lots of others. I'll have to enumerate on that when I'm not tired...



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09 Mar 2010, 4:23 am

heckeler06 wrote:
I actually just ordered a copy of "Zazie in the Metro".


I read that when I was quite young, and for a long time I thought the French for "gay" was "hormosessuel" or however she spells it. :D

sunshine wrote:
My favorite book of all time is Atlas Shrugged. I re-read it every 2 years or so.


...which is approximately the time it takes to read through (a character)'s 70 page monologue. :lol:


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10 Mar 2010, 12:56 am

sunshine wrote:
My favorite book of all time is Atlas Shrugged. I re-read it every 2 years or so.


Ambivalence wrote:
...which is approximately the time it takes to read through (a character)'s 70 page monologue. :lol:


:idea: I don't doubt that Ayn Rand was an aspie.



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10 Mar 2010, 1:20 pm

I love to read! I can read since I was 2. When I was in kindergarten, teachers bought more books with more text to make me busy. They organised a meeting with children books writer and I was delighted. Other children wanted to read, so they learned from me, I think it was great profit for them.

When I was 4, my aunt was pregnant and I read her book (thick) Pregnancy and Baby many times. But my favourite books were: encyclopedia, Anatomy-atlas, World maps (especially politicial), phone-numbers-book, How machines work, Alice in Wonderland (I have pretty edition with psychedelic pictures) and Bullerbyn Children. When I went to school, I said Hello, my name is Katarina, I like books, cats and Soviet Union!. And I heard first time Are you ok? :lol:

Now I read everything I can. My favourite book is 1984 and other books in this style (political). I love also King's and Cook's books (horrors & thrillers), Tolkien's Trilogy, Mythology, biographies etc. And ofc dictionaries, I can spend all day with them :D


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LukeInFlames
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11 Mar 2010, 11:54 pm

Valoyossa wrote:
I love to read! I can read since I was 2. When I was in kindergarten, teachers bought more books with more text to make me busy. They organised a meeting with children books writer and I was delighted. Other children wanted to read, so they learned from me, I think it was great profit for them.

When I was 4, my aunt was pregnant and I read her book (thick) Pregnancy and Baby many times. But my favourite books were: encyclopedia, Anatomy-atlas, World maps (especially politicial), phone-numbers-book, How machines work, Alice in Wonderland (I have pretty edition with psychedelic pictures) and Bullerbyn Children. When I went to school, I said Hello, my name is Katarina, I like books, cats and Soviet Union!. And I heard first time Are you ok? :lol:

Now I read everything I can. My favourite book is 1984 and other books in this style (political). I love also King's and Cook's books (horrors & thrillers), Tolkien's Trilogy, Mythology, biographies etc. And ofc dictionaries, I can spend all day with them :D


I also like dystopian novels - Valyossa, have you read Yvgeny Zamyatin's 'We'? I'd be interested to know what you think. I really like dictionaries, too. Especially now that they're being designed using multiple colours in the text. so handy!

-Luke



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12 Mar 2010, 4:14 am

Essential reading! 1984 is very like this book, I think Orwell was inspired. Glass houses reminded me Żeromski's The Spring To Come. And sometimes I write myself as V-88 :lol:


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pixxie69
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12 Mar 2010, 5:02 pm

Valoyossa wrote:
I love to read! I can read since I was 2. When I was in kindergarten, teachers bought more books with more text to make me busy. They organised a meeting with children books writer and I was delighted.


Dito!

Lucky you! My Kindergarten-folks always urged me to mingle with the other kids 8O, who only played unintelligible noisy games; :roll:

Yeah, I love all kinds of books, smell of old, rare ones included. Always calm me down immediately. Dictionaries are just fantastic. I read other stuff as well though, facts, fiction, travel- and museumguides, children books, etc., - normaly more than one book at the same time, too. (one in each room, kinda)


Books - languages - libraries ==> pleasure, heaven :D



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17 Mar 2010, 11:04 am

Does anyone here like Aldous Huxley and bernard shaw?



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17 Mar 2010, 11:49 am

Wow, people have actually heard of 'We' :o That's a first.

I love books! My room is stuffed with them :D


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17 Mar 2010, 12:02 pm

Villette wrote:
Does anyone here like Aldous Huxley and bernard shaw?

Huxley is fascinating, albeit a bit dated these days ...


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17 Mar 2010, 1:31 pm

Villette wrote:
Does anyone here like Aldous Huxley and bernard shaw?

I have read two stories by Aldous Huxley, both somewhat fading from memory.
The Huxleys are rather interesting people.

Books rock, btw.


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17 Mar 2010, 3:00 pm

Villette wrote:
Does anyone here like Aldous Huxley and bernard shaw?


I like both, especially Huxley.


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17 Mar 2010, 9:38 pm

Chesterton, Emerson, pretty much anything that isn't fiction, technical manuals, scientific/medical papers, anything at all that has something to do with human memory.


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