Book Sorting: The Explanation

[rachelmanija]

But first, a brief health update. The relevant bit for this entry is that while my most recent experimental treatment (rifaximin) had no effect whatsoever, I am still feeling good enough from the combination of the semi-successful sleep experiment (it didn't permanently fix the problem, but it did improve it) and the previous successful

Comments

[neery]

Good luck with the antibiotics! (Since the Rifaximin isn't working, I'll hold off on calling the pharmacy, but let me know if you do need anything shipped and I'll take another try at figuring it out. I'd underestimated how hard it is to get a service rep on the phone the first week of January, and am out of the country now, but will be back next week.)

Can you recommend any memoirs by combat veterans? I'd especially appreciate any from the Vietnam war (either side), but also any that are generally interesting and not totally abysmally depressing. (I mean, I realize they're going to deal with depressing themes, but I much prefer reading books that deal with difficult topics in a light/somewhat humorous way, the way "All the Fishes Come Home to roost" does.)

[rachelmanija]

I will, thank you! The Rifaximin seems to not be helpful, but I did mention the overseas issue to my doctor. He told me that he was aware of that and would "You didn't hear this from me BUT" inform clients whom it did benefit.

Combat memoirs are kind of inherently depressing if you want Vietnam war. I think it's because it felt so pointless, especially for the drafted soldiers. The closest I can come to one with the dark humor tone you want is by Walter Dean Myers. It's called Fallen Angels and is definitely funny at parts. It's very realistic and is by an Army veteran, BUT it is a novel. Myers went to Vietnam, but was not actually in combat. He came home, and then his brother was killed on his first day in-country. Then he wrote that book.

Generation Kill, by a Rolling Stones reporter embedded with a unit of Recon Marines in the first Iraq war, has exactly the tone you're looking for. It's hilarious and horrifying at the same time, and the guy has an amazing ear for dialogue. It is very much in the "Fishes" vein of "This is what

[juliansinger]

"If anyone cares, when I am done I may do an overview of the short list of books that I did find helpful."

I care! Both for helpful recs, and also because your descriptions are lolariffic.

[thewronghands]

Yes, I would also like to see this!

Incidentally, my current reading is a Jungian therapist on addiction issues. (I'm mostly reading it because her take on it is engaging with a mythology and history that I am pretty familiar with, but hey, it's good to learn things outside of my comfort zone!) And even with her not being Jung himself, yeah, it sort of makes sense and there are scattered insights that seem to me to be very good, but there's also a lot of feeling like you are reading brain spaghetti. Attempting to address the mythic unconscious gets really weird really quickly.

[tibicina]

My impression from talking to people who are fluent in German is that it's very difficult to translate German philosophy, psychology, and even performance theory into English. Basically, German has linguistic constructions for talking about non-concrete things and ways of thinking, but they really don't translate easily. (Also the ability to easily make new words which other people will still understand is useful in some of these fields, but creates almost hopelessly awkward English.)

All of which is to say that your issues with Jung may not be so much with Jung as with the translation. Or it's possible that it just can not really be translated into English in a useful way.

[rachelmanija]

That may well be true. I hope someone who has read Jung in German sees this and can chime in.

[tibicina]

I know translations of both Marx and Brecht end up reading very similarly to the bits of Jung you and others have quoted, and I've had several people swear to me that they are very much less opaque in German, but they'd also tend to flail at trying to give a better translation. (Which I can totally understand. I've tried to have the 'okay, but see, this word in Latin... you'll be tempted to use this English word to translate it. Don't; that's a mistake, but there's not really a single good English word to sum up what that word means or why it's important that they used /that/ word and not this other word, which the English/Latin dictionary will tell you means the same thing.' conversation with people. It usually results in someone's eyes glazing over.)

[lady_ganesh]

Good luck!