(Untitled)

[mollymawk]

books what i have read this year:

the sorrows of satan, marie corelli
billy budd, sailor, herman meville
jacob's room, virginia woolf
heart of darkness, joseph conrad
the general, c.s. forester
shampoo planet, douglas coupland
doctor faustus, christopher marlowe
being there, jerzy kosinksi
parade's end, ford madox ford
hamlet, william shakespeare

Comments

[corpse_in_snow]

How was "Vile Bodies?" And what did you think of "Being There?" I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.

[mollymawk]

vile bodies is really good! really funny and sharp and waugh loves his characters so much even though they are all doomed and vapid. have you seen bright young things? i've only seen the last five minutes but stephen fry completely changes the ending! still david tennant is in it and the guy who plays irwin in the history boys plays the "main" guy and james mcavoy is in it - so what i'm saying is it's populated by pretty boys!

i really liked being there but i hadn't heard anything about it so i went in with any expectations. however i think a lot of my enjoyment of the book is that a) i had been reading novels that, while good, took a long time to slog through and this one i read in two afternoons and b) i read it for my "philosophy in literature" course and we talked about whether chance was a "participatory person" or not and what makes one a person and such so i had about six hours of really great and stimulating conversation surrounding my reading of it. how come you were disappointed?

[corpse_in_snow]

I haven't seen Bright Young Things yet, but I will try to check it out when I'm less busy!

I think I was disappointed by Being There because I don't think the prof. who taught the class I read it in taught it well enough. I read it for an american fiction class. I'd rather have read it in a philosophy of lit. course, as I was more interested in the philosophical aspect of it to begin with.

[mollymawk]

that's too bad, what did your prof teach if not the philosophy elements of it? hah, like with the other books i read for that class, i think i'll just always see it as a vehicle for philosophical discussion or something!

[corpse_in_snow]

I'd have to go back and look at my old notes from the class...The class in general was really unenthused by everything and the prof sort of annoyed me, so I think these were two other reasons why I didn't enjoy reading the book.