I also heard it will ruin you. Curious. — Noble Dust

Just finished it and the answer is yes.

A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East by László Krasznahorkai

Heard this one is great. Been on my To-Read for a while. — fdrake

It's fantastic, the prose is breathtaking at times.

Finished Don Quixote a few weeks back.

Over halfway through Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Any guesses how much bail the judge will set for Seditionist-Traitor-Rapist1 in Fulton County, Georgia? — 180 Proof

Just got back from vacation, looks like 200K, I would have guessed 100K

Conspiracy Against the Human Race - Thomas Ligotti
The Trouble With Being Born - Emil Cioran
Nihil Unbound - Ray Brassier — fdrake

Hell yes

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Very cool! I'd heard that the quite long film version of Satantango was actually very well made and well received, but I've yet to see it.

I didn't know Werckmeister Harmonies existed, nor that it was an adaptation of the novel. I'd think that Melancholy of Resistance would make a better movie than Satantango, so I might check it out. Thanks for the heads up. — Manuel

After being mostly unavailable Werckmeister Harmonies has a new 4K restoration with a limited theatrical release around the United States. Not sure where you live, but I would recommend seeing it in theaters if possible. Otherwise, it should be out in blu ray sometime this year I imagine. However, unlike Satantango, Werkmeister does not cover the entire book from which it's based.

Satantango has an excellent 4K restoration that was released on blu ray a few years back. The runtime is daunting but I highly recommend you attempt to view it in one sitting (obviously with pee breaks as nature demands). It's how Tarr wishes it was viewed, and the runtime itself is part of the film's overall atmosphere and mood. It's one of my favorite films, would love to see it in theaters one day.

Just finished The Melancholy of Resistance - it took longer than I would have liked, I lost a bit of focus towards the last 3rd of the book, with the exception of the concluding chapter. — Manuel

You might be interested to know I just saw Bela Tarr, Laszlo Krasznahorkai's cinematic collaborator, in-person in NYC on Monday in a very rare US appearance (his last visit to the states was 12 years ago). He introduced 4 of his movies, followed by a Q&A, which included Werckmeister Harmonies, which is based on Krasznahorkai's The Melancholy of Resistance, and he helped write the screenplay. He signed my DVD of Satantango! Very friendly (and pretty funny!) man.

My fairly incautious guess, at this point, is thatDeSantis beats Trump in the primary, the latter forms his own independent party sabotaging the Republican vote in the general and Biden cruises into another four terms. — Maw

lol what a dumbass

Don Quixote might be up next

The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times by Giovanni Arrighi

Mariners, Renegades and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In by C. L. R. James

Caravaggio: The Complete Works by Sebastian Schutze

Very cool

The Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War by Arno J. Mayer

Just finished The Melancholy of Resistance - it took longer than I would have liked, I lost a bit of focus towards the last 3rd of the book, with the exception of the concluding chapter.

I can only compare it to Satantango, his only other novel I've read. It's hard to pick one, without spoilers, it seems to me that Melancholy is richer in general content than Satantango, and yet, and yet, the way the ending of Satantango went, tuned it from a decent book to a complete masterpiece, essentially focusing on a simple, yet very powerful philosophical idea/literary trick.

I struggled less with Satantango, and I felt it was somewhat more coherent, but again, Melancholy was richer in plurality of ideas... I suppose that Satantango's execution was just too good, so I'd give it the edge.

How does Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming compare with these two works?

I'll probably read one or two easy novels, then go back to a challenging one, then on to Baron - it requires some effort.

Any general thoughts? — Manuel

Melancholy of Resistance and Satantango are my two favorite books of Krasznahorkai, I'm not sure if I could pick my preference between the two. The concluding chapters for both are sublime. Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming was his only work I didn't fully enjoy. I think it was overly long. I do also recommend Seiobo There Below, which is composed of a number of shorter stories, and War & War. I also loved Chasing Homer which incorporated a music element via QR code. Very interesting. If you enjoy film, and how can anyone not, I recommend his collaborative work with director Bela Tarr.

1848: Year of Revolution by Michael Rapport

Let's see in 2024 if you are a fortuneteller, Maw. — ssu

we'll see, my DeSantis 2024 stock is decreasing week by week although it's also not clear what Trump's future holds.

The New Spirit of Capitalism by Eve Chiapello and Luc Boltanski

Best cast overall….. — Mww

Might be Oliver Stone's JFK

Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai — Manuel

Great book

My fairly incautious guess, at this point, is that DeSantis beats Trump in the primary, the latter forms his own independent party sabotaging the Republican vote in the general and Biden cruises into another four terms.

How likely do you think it is that Nikki Haley will be the first female president of the US — frank

0%

Of Angelopoulos I've seen only Eternity and a Day - loved it. The music is still stuck in my head. — SophistiCat

Angelopoulos is one of my favorite directors. Sham his movies are so difficult to come by. Music is an important element in The Weeping Meadow.

Would love to attend in NYC but I have a conflicting schedule unfortunately. I did read the Grundrisse along with his video series several years back.

Never heard of it. Sounds interesting. — T Clark

Can't go wrong with Klaus Kinski

What did you think of Brewster McCloud? — Joshs

Haven't seen it, but I did enjoy Altman's Nashville and The Long Goodbye

Also check out McCabe and Mrs. Miller and The Great Silence

Some of you need to watch more non-American films

Another film I recommend of him is Good Morning (お早よう, Ohayō). — javi2541997

Love Good Morning. His silent film,I Was Born, But... which is loose remake, is also excellent.

Anything by Bergman is good, and Seventh Seal is certainly up there — but for me, Persona may be his greatest. — Mikie

(I'll check out Persona which I've never seen.) — 180 Proof

Persona is my favorite Bergman :up:

No order (and subject to change)

Seven Samurai (1954) - Kurosawa
Harakiri (1962) - Kobayashi
Alice in the Cities (1974) - Wenders
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) - Dreyer
Satantango (1994) - Tarr
Apur Sansar (1959) - Ray
The Weeping Meadow (2004) - Angelopoulos
L'Eclisse (1962) - Antonioni
Late Spring (1949) - Ozu
Dersu Uzala - (1985) - Kurosawa

Some of the above could rotate with (but not limited to) the below:

Ran (1985) - Kurosawa
Spirit of the Beehive (1973) - Erice
Cleo from 5-7 (1962) - Varda
Landscape in the Mist (1988) - Angelopoulos
The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) - Olmi

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama

Liberty and Property: A Social History of Western Political Thought from the Renaissance to Enlightenment by Ellen Wood (rereading)

The above will most likely be my last book of the year so time again for my annual reading list. Sadly will be missing @Streetlight's list and recommended readings this year. In 2022 I read:

• Critique of Commodity Aesthetics: Appearance, Sexuality, and Advertising in Capitalist Society by W.F Haug
• Time, Capitalism and Alienation. A Socio-Historical Inquiry into the Making of Modern Time by Jonathan Martineau
• The Ego and The Id by Freud (reread)
• Beyond the Pleasure Principle by Freud (reread)
• Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud
• Écrits by Jacques Lacan
• On the Reproduction of Capitalism by Louis Althusser
• Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin
• Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory by Enzo Traverso
• The Sublime Object of Ideology by Slavoj Žižek
• Distinction by Pierre Bourdieu
• Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis by John Smith
• Value Chains: The New Economic Imperialism by Intan Suwandi
• Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primative Accumulation by Silvia Federici
• Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson
• The Making of Bourgeois Europe: Absolutism, Revolution and the Rise of Capitalism in England, France and Germany by Colin Mooers
• Empire of Capital by Ellen Wood
• The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 by Christopher Wickham
• Medieval Europe by Chris Wickham
• Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism: Essays in Medieval Social History by Rodney Hilton
• Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory
• Landscapes: John Berger on Art by John Berger
• Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development: From International Relations to World Literature edited by James Christie and Nesrin Degirmencioglu
• Art History as Social Praxis: The Collected Writings of David Craven edited by Brian Winkenweder
• Nietzche, The Aristocratic Rebel by Domenico Losurdo
• Marx's Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism by Peter Hudis
• The Civil War in the Unites States, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels edited by Andrew Zimmerman
• Old Gods, New Engimas: Marx's Lost Theory by Mike Davis
• Christendom Destroyed: Europe 1517-1648 by Mark Greengrass
• The Glorious Revolution by Edward Vallance

The Glorious Revolution by Edward Vallance

Hey @busycuttingcrap is back!

GOP fucked up so bad Georgia will have two democratic senators until at least 2027

Depends what playing but yes

I've seen 98 of them now, some odd admissions but an interesting list nonetheless

Speaking of which, the highly anticipated Sight and Sound Top Movies of All Time is out

https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time

I've watched all but four

I just watch 'Mulholland Drive' for the first (not sure why it took so long to get around to), and wow. One of the best movies I've ever seen. A film about film. — Changeling

One of the best films of the 21st century, although it's more about Hollywood than "film"