Should've been finished much sooner, but attention issues and all. Just finished Locke's Essay for a second time. Majestic and a true classic. I will forever be a fan. — Manuel

:up:

I haven't read this since uni but I remember being struck by the humility of the man who could write such a work, but still refer to himself as a humble "under-labourer". A must-read-again for me too.

Yes, I think the topic of humility is one that should be re-visited again, especially in philosophy. It's really quite remarkable he could draw such arguments so soon after Newton's legendary work.

I think his arguments are, more often than not, persuasive, sober and thoughtful. I'm going to open a discussion group to talk about 3 chapters in the book.

In any case, good idea to re-read him. :up:

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki.

Weird fiction from 1805 by a Polish count who thought he was a werewolf and killed himself with a silver bullet. As one reviewer says on Goodreads, "When there’s lesbian incest demon sex on page 11, you know you’re in for a ride."

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki.

Weird fiction from 1805 by a Polish count who thought he was a werewolf and killed himself with a silver bullet. As one reviewer says on Goodreads, "When there’s lesbian incest demon sex on page 11, you know you’re in for a ride." — Jamal

:gasp:

Feuerbach: The Roots of Socialist Philosophy
by Friedrich Engels

Global Brain: The Evolution of the Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
by Howard Bloom

And I’m forgetting some of the characters or getting them mixed up, — Jamal

This is one of the reasons I love reading on Kindle. When I forget exactly who a character is, I can just search for the first instance in the book where the person's role is usually specified. Kindle has really improved the quality of my reading.

This looks fascinating. Recommended? Based on what you know of my taste.

As I've said before, "The Long Goodbye" is one of my favorite movies. Robert Altman. Elliot Gould. I decided I should read the book by Raymond Chandler. He writes really well, maybe too well. His sentences and paragraphs seem to want to draw attention to themselves, which I find distracting. The movie follows the book fairly closely, although there are changes in plot, scene, and tone that make me like the movie more, especially the ending. Much more powerful than in the book. The book takes place in the early 1950s while the movie takes place in the 1970s. Entirely different worlds.

This looks fascinating. Recommended? Based on what you know of my taste — Noble Dust

It’s 600 pages and I’m 200 pages in. I’m finding it mostly fascinating and enjoyable, but I don’t know if I’d recommend it unreservedly. It’s made up of innumerable nested stories told by different characters one after the other with little in the way of interior reflection from anyone, even the main character, who doesn’t seem to be a normal main character at all, more of an absent centre around which the various stories revolve. Generally it’s not concerned with character so much as diverting and odd events and dramas, like a picaresque novel.

On the other hand it involves zombies, demons and vampires that may or may not be real (I’m not sure yet); bandits and outlaws; encounters and tensions between Christians, Muslims, and Jews (including a couple of Kabbalists); plenty of sex, though never described in detail; and all things Andalusian, Spanish and Southern European.

I’m half expecting it to feel too long in the end. One of the stories I found boring and almost gave up, but I’m glad I didn’t. So far it’s hard to tell if there’s much of an overarching plot and how much the individual stories are contributing to that or whether they’ll just keep on coming and not add up to much. I’ve seen suggestions by critics that it does tie up in the end.

It reminds me a little of Don Quixote, partly because it’s set around the Sierra Morena, and also because of the multiple stories told by different characters, but Don Quixote has a character dynamic at the centre of everything, which is missing from this book.

But it’s too early to tell.

This is one of the reasons I love reading on Kindle. When I forget exactly who a character is, I can just search for the first instance in the book where the person's role is usually specified. Kindle has really improved the quality of my reading. — T Clark

Yes, I do that a lot.

Hmmm, interesting. For some reason your description reminds me of Candide, which I'm not a big fan of.

Maybe a bit like that, but it’s better, and as far as I can tell it isn’t just a philosophical parable like Candide.

The book takes place in the early 1950s while the movie takes place in the 1970s. Entirely different worlds. — T Clark

Indeed.


Director Robert Altman on The Long Goodbye - Note, spoilers.

"Originally I didn’t want to do it. I’ve enjoyed reading Chandler, though I never did finish The Long Goodbye, and I liked those 1940s movies, but I just didn’t want to play around with them. I was sent the script by the producers and at first I said, I don’t want to do Raymond Chandler. If you say ‘Philip Marlowe,’ people just think of Humphrey Bogart. Robert Mitchum was being proposed for it. But I just didn’t want to do another Philip Marlowe film and have it wrap up the same way all the other films did. I think it was David Picker, the production chief at United Artists, who suggested Elliott Gould for Marlowe—and then I was interested. So I read Leigh Brackett’s script—she wrote the script of The Big Sleep for Hawks—and in her version, in the last scene, Marlowe pulled out his gun and killed his best friend, Terry Lennox. It was so out of character for Marlowe, I said, ‘I’ll do the picture, but you cannot change that ending! It must be in the contract.’ They all agreed, which was very surprising. If she hadn’t written that ending, I guarantee I wouldn’t have done it. It said, ‘This is just a movie.’ After that, we had him do his funny little dance down the road and you hear ‘Hooray for Hollywood,’ and that’s what it’s really about—Hooray for Hollywood. It even looked like a road made in a Hollywood studio. And with Eileen Wade driving past, it’s like the final scene in The Third Man! I decided that we were going to call him Rip Van Marlowe, as if he’d been asleep for twenty years, had woken up and was wandering through this landscape of the early 1970s, but trying to invoke the morals of a previous era. I put him in that dark suit, white shirt and tie, while everyone else was smelling incense and smoking pot and going topless; everything was health food and exercise and cool. So we just satirized that whole time. And that’s why that line of Elliott’s—’It’s OK with me’—became his key line throughout the film.” —Robert Altman

Thanks for the info. Do keep us updated if you think of it.

I'm reading Leech by Hiron Ennes. It's their published debut as of 4 months ago, recommended by my writer brother. It's honestly addictive, although not for the squeamish. The author creates a very distant post-apocalyptic world which feels both realistic and fantastic at the same time. It's interesting to read "current" sci-fi/fantasy, something I never would have done if not for my brother's influence. The writing can get a bit wordy, but overall very engrossing.

Looks fun.

Fun in a twisted sense, yes.

Director Robert Altman on The Long Goodbye — Tom Storm

Thanks for that. I really liked the movie. Elliot Gould was great and the rest of the cast was very good. It had a great script. But what really got me, stamped the movie into me, was that last scene. It was different from and wouldn't have made sense in the book.

Denny McClain, who played Terry Lennox, was a former baseball pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. He won 31 games in 1968, an amazing feat. I don't think he ever acted in anything else.

Elliot Gould was great and the rest of the cast was very good — T Clark

Including an uncredited early performance by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I see the book and the film as two entirely different things, both good, but hard to compare. I don’t find the book’s prose to be distracting at all, maybe because I’ve read a lot of Chandler and find it very natural and comfortable. It might be his best, but it’s not my favourite, I think because it’s heavier than his other work, more emotionally revealing, tragic, and dispirited in tone.

I think because it’s heavier than his other work, more emotionally revealing, tragic, and dispirited in tone. — Jamal

Maybe I'll try another. What's your favorite?

It might seem odd but I can’t remember. It was many years ago and I read several in a short span of time, and in my mind they meld into one. The outsider for me is the Long Goodbye. I think Farewell, My Lovely, The High Window, and The Little Sister were great.

I think Farewell, My Lovely, The High Window, and The Little Sister were great. — Jamal

Thanks.

I watched The Long Goodby last night. Man, they sure don’t make movies like they used to. The pacing was so much slower. The first 15 minutes of the film were dedicated to the feeding of a cat. Not that that’s not “okay with me”. Strangely, the acting felt almost like a stage play.

The part with Arnold was just weird and definitely not his best work.

The part with Arnold was just weird and definitely not his best work. — praxis

That's one of my favorite scenes, but you're right, Arnold's role would be a disappointment to his fans.

Not all of them I imagine, he did show a lot of skin. :lol:

Not all of them I imagine, he did show a lot of skin. :lol: — praxis

The first 15 minutes of the film were dedicated to the feeding of a cat. — praxis

If there were more artful cat feeding and less showy gun fights, cinema might redeem itself.

I read most of Chandler back in the 1990's. My favorite line from The Big Sleep is 'She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up'

There's a pretty good 1944 Dick Powell adaptation of Murder My Sweet few will remember. But this is books..

I just read a vintage piece of sociology by J Boorstin called The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America It's from 1962 but on the money regarding how publicity and the pseudo have taken over how we set agendas and tell stories and can be applied to that great library of pseudo, social media. Anyone read this? Interesting to read this kind of early analysis outside of academic social theory or philosophy.

If there were more artful cat feeding and less showy gun fights, cinema might redeem itself. — Tom Storm

I just rewatched that scene with Marlowe trying to fake his cat out about Coury Brand Cat Food. It reminded me why I like the movie so much. About 4 minutes.



Ok, ok. Back to books.

I think Farewell, My Lovely, The High Window, and The Little Sister were great. — Jamal

I read "The Little Sister" and I did like it better. Less wordy and less psychological. Less chess. But still overwritten and over-complex for my taste. I like Elmore Leonard's simplicity more.

Speaking of detective novels, have you read Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad books, e.g. "In the Woods" and "The Secret Place?" She's such a good writer but I can't read her anymore. She's ruthless. She hurts children.