Sonic Youth Gossip - View Single Post - Gogol Bordello (not the band, the book club)

!@#$%! · 05.26.2006, 07:03 PM

so--- i wrote the following this morning. posted here for all book fiends.

---------

I started reading the novel yesterday, and had a great time, and many laughs, and I wanted to propose that we advance very slowly, at the rate of a chapter a day (there are 12 chapters in the first volume, and 4 in the 2nd one), for the following reasons:

1) 19th century novels were published in installments on the newspapers; they were the soap operas of the day. In that sense they were designed to be consumed in parts, and they were armed with literary devices that created suspense between each episode (like with TV, it was all about the ratings-- the readership). The reason people like qprogeny bitch of tomes with "a bazillion words" is because-- duh!-- they don't get that those words were NOT meant to be read in a single sitting. Just like, ha ha hah, Desperate Housewives, ha ha ha, is not meant to be watched in a day at the movies. Consider the hemorrhoids.

2) I want to read this book as slowly as it is possible, and I recommend others do too. While I am a speed reader and a great devourer of text, some things are meant to be savored, with the greatest possible delight, rather than gulped down in a hurry. I mean there are gems such as these that require close inspection for maximum enjoyment:

The chamber was of a familiar kind, inasmuch as the inn was also of a familiar kind-- that is, precisely like all inns in provincial capitals, where for two rubles a day the transients receive a restful bedroom with cockroaches peeking out of every corner like so many black plums and with a door, always barricaded with a bureaus, leading to an adjoining apartment, which apartment is always taken by a fellow guest who is taciturn and placid yet exceedingly inquisitive, interested in knowing all the details about the latest transient.

Have you guys realized how every description is dripping with irony and sarcasm? This man was a master of the zinger, and I cannot go past any single paragraph without having a good laugh. Really, the slower you go, the more fun--and funny--it becomes.

Then there are the hilarious-yet-startling poetic images that cause the methodical derangement of the senses that Rimbaud was so fond of, just like this one that follows in the same paragraph as the description above. Hallucinate it for a moment:

The corner one of these shops--or, to put it better, its window--was occupied by a vendor of hot mead, with a samovar of ruddy copper and a face as ruddy as his samovar, so that from afar one might think that there were two samovars standing in the window, if only one of them were not sporting a beard as black as pitch.

Didn't that just heat up some unknown cluster of neurons in your brain?

3) People have other things to do, other books to read; and work, friends, family, appointments, relations, and addictions to look after. Keeping it slow (slow and thorough) guarantees that everyone can keep up and that everyone pays attention to the ever-important details that make up this book. So far the descriptions are much more interesting than the plot (and I have other brilliant descriptions I'd like to share-- but later).

4) There were a few words I didn't know that called for a dictionary. "Dimity", "dickey", "brummagem", "pallet" (not what you think), "calcimined". I also wanted to find out about the mechanics of whist. And hurried reading does not allow for such loving excursions.

5) It's summer reading. When reading on a hammock, you can read only one chapter before you fall into a delicious slumber.

05.26.2006, 07:03 PM	#1
!@#$%! invito al cielo Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: mars attacks Posts: 42,457	so--- i wrote the following this morning. posted here for all book fiends. --------- I started reading the novel yesterday, and had a great time, and many laughs, and I wanted to propose that we advance very slowly, at the rate of a chapter a day (there are 12 chapters in the first volume, and 4 in the 2nd one), for the following reasons: 1) 19th century novels were published in installments on the newspapers; they were the soap operas of the day. In that sense they were designed to be consumed in parts, and they were armed with literary devices that created suspense between each episode (like with TV, it was all about the ratings-- the readership). The reason people like qprogeny bitch of tomes with "a bazillion words" is because-- duh!-- they don't get that those words were NOT meant to be read in a single sitting. Just like, ha ha hah, Desperate Housewives, ha ha ha, is not meant to be watched in a day at the movies. Consider the hemorrhoids. 2) I want to read this book as slowly as it is possible, and I recommend others do too. While I am a speed reader and a great devourer of text, some things are meant to be savored, with the greatest possible delight, rather than gulped down in a hurry. I mean there are gems such as these that require close inspection for maximum enjoyment: The chamber was of a familiar kind, inasmuch as the inn was also of a familiar kind-- that is, precisely like all inns in provincial capitals, where for two rubles a day the transients receive a restful bedroom with cockroaches peeking out of every corner like so many black plums and with a door, always barricaded with a bureaus, leading to an adjoining apartment, which apartment is always taken by a fellow guest who is taciturn and placid yet exceedingly inquisitive, interested in knowing all the details about the latest transient. Have you guys realized how every description is dripping with irony and sarcasm? This man was a master of the zinger, and I cannot go past any single paragraph without having a good laugh. Really, the slower you go, the more fun--and funny--it becomes. Then there are the hilarious-yet-startling poetic images that cause the methodical derangement of the senses that Rimbaud was so fond of, just like this one that follows in the same paragraph as the description above. Hallucinate it for a moment: The corner one of these shops--or, to put it better, its window--was occupied by a vendor of hot mead, with a samovar of ruddy copper and a face as ruddy as his samovar, so that from afar one might think that there were two samovars standing in the window, if only one of them were not sporting a beard as black as pitch. Didn't that just heat up some unknown cluster of neurons in your brain? 3) People have other things to do, other books to read; and work, friends, family, appointments, relations, and addictions to look after. Keeping it slow (slow and thorough) guarantees that everyone can keep up and that everyone pays attention to the ever-important details that make up this book. So far the descriptions are much more interesting than the plot (and I have other brilliant descriptions I'd like to share-- but later). 4) There were a few words I didn't know that called for a dictionary. "Dimity", "dickey", "brummagem", "pallet" (not what you think), "calcimined". I also wanted to find out about the mechanics of whist. And hurried reading does not allow for such loving excursions. 5) It's summer reading. When reading on a hammock, you can read only one chapter before you fall into a delicious slumber.
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