How Many Times Can You Blow Your Mind?

[onyxhawke]

I was having conversation with a good friend on their blog, that isn't all that unique, but is one I find myself drawn into everytime it comes up (unless there's someone I just can't stand in the conversation) its nearly a death and taxes level certainty. I've probably been involved in some variation of the conversation a dozen or two times in my

Comments

[shadowkindrd]

I ran into this issue with Snow Crash. A lot of people evidently had their mind blown by the book, and tbh, if I'd read it in my early 20's. I probably would have been right there with them. Unfortunately, I read it in my late 30's, and all I could do is shake my head. Even with allowing for the publication date, I just couldn't take the book seriously enough to get that deep meaning. *shrug* It happens.

[darkspires]

I had to do a comparative on Brave New World and Animal Farm at college. We also took in 1984 and I subsequently read Farenheight 451. I didn't like 1984 and Brave New World. In retrospect, my dislike didn't come from the worlds with disfunctional distopias, it came from the lack of a charasmatic MC. Mostly, they were whiney. Stuff happened through them and around them but not because of them. The other two I really enjoyed.

Of course, part of this might have been that I was privately devouring Michael Moorcock's books, J.R.R Tolkein and Frank Herbert.

[jryson]

I read BNW and 1984 because they were set in the future and thus were "science fiction," and I didn't have access to much science fiction back in 1959. I also read Alice in Wonderland about the same time and was more influenced, if that be the right word, by that.

[arhyalon]

>To me, anyone being blown away by new-to-them observations on humanity past oh twenty eight or thirty is either incredibly shallow, has lived an entirely to sheltered life or is just not very observant.

I do think that occasionally one finds something really new at an older age, not do to shallowness but just due to having somehow missed something earlier.

But in general I completely agree.

[april_art]

I am definitely well beyond the age to really be blown away by books. If one is young and inexperienced enough, it astonishes me what actually manages to blast open those mind... It doesn't take something very novel or very well-written most of the time. It's more a question of timing.

But now and then some few special books still manage to capture my old jaded heart and mind. It can be an exquisitely written book with evocative language that transcends word and page... or characters and adventure that manages to thoroughly transport me to another world. So... yes, definitely entertainment is key, but it has to be superbly done. Otherwise I will Read And Enjoy--and Easily Forget.