Fuuuuck, trapped in boring English again!
4. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business - Neil Postman
Some of you might recall my rant about this novel from last year, so I won't bore you with that, instead enjoy this paragraph from the last chapter. It really struck my interest, because Postman suggests this and an unlikely solution to the problem of television:
"The nonsensical answer is to create television programs whose intent would be, not to get people to stop watching television but to demonstrate how television ought to be viewed, to show how television recreates and degrades our conception of news, political debate, religious thought, etc. I imagine such demonstrations would of necessity take the form of parodies, along the lines of "Saturday Night Live" and "Monty Python," the idea being to induce a nationwide horse laugh over television's control of public discourse. But, naturally, television would have the last laugh. In order to command an audience large enough to make a difference, one would have to make the programs vastly amusing, in the television style. Thus, the act of criticism itself would, in the end, be co-opted by television. The parodists would become celebrities, would star in movies, and would end up making television commercials."
Jon Stewart anyone?
5. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Can you believe I never read this before? I couldn't. Especially since I'm awfully familiar with it. Why? How? Because one of my favourite movies is Apocalypse Now, which some of you might know is just a retelling on Conrad's novella. It's such a haunting novel and I actually started reading it a second time after I finished it. There's this whole strange conspiracy going on that it took me a second reading to really understand. I think Apocalypse Now treats Kurtz's character slightly differently, or at least made more of an attempt to say it was the cruelty of men that drove him insane. I think that's why he goes mad in Heart of Darkness as well, but people (or certainly the jackasses in my class) seem to blame Africa for making him go mental... Aw, I'm rambling. It's a great little book, it's written in slightly difficult language (being a hundred and eleventy years old and all), but it's well worth the two or three hours you'll need to set aside to read it.
Some of you might recall my rant about this novel from last year, so I won't bore you with that, instead enjoy this paragraph from the last chapter. It really struck my interest, because Postman suggests this and an unlikely solution to the problem of television:
"The nonsensical answer is to create television programs whose intent would be, not to get people to stop watching television but to demonstrate how television ought to be viewed, to show how television recreates and degrades our conception of news, political debate, religious thought, etc. I imagine such demonstrations would of necessity take the form of parodies, along the lines of "Saturday Night Live" and "Monty Python," the idea being to induce a nationwide horse laugh over television's control of public discourse. But, naturally, television would have the last laugh. In order to command an audience large enough to make a difference, one would have to make the programs vastly amusing, in the television style. Thus, the act of criticism itself would, in the end, be co-opted by television. The parodists would become celebrities, would star in movies, and would end up making television commercials."
Jon Stewart anyone?
5. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Can you believe I never read this before? I couldn't. Especially since I'm awfully familiar with it. Why? How? Because one of my favourite movies is Apocalypse Now, which some of you might know is just a retelling on Conrad's novella. It's such a haunting novel and I actually started reading it a second time after I finished it. There's this whole strange conspiracy going on that it took me a second reading to really understand. I think Apocalypse Now treats Kurtz's character slightly differently, or at least made more of an attempt to say it was the cruelty of men that drove him insane. I think that's why he goes mad in Heart of Darkness as well, but people (or certainly the jackasses in my class) seem to blame Africa for making him go mental... Aw, I'm rambling. It's a great little book, it's written in slightly difficult language (being a hundred and eleventy years old and all), but it's well worth the two or three hours you'll need to set aside to read it.