subdee

Where did my weekend go??? It's like it disappeared into this fever dream of bad Libertines fanfiction and compulsive wikipedia-ing of eighties post-punk bands...wait, that's not like what happened, that is what happened. ;_;

Suppose the weekend isn't over. Suppose, if I am very good tomorrow, I may finish on time for a late movie at Montgomery Cinemas. I want to see The Wackness (9:35pm) and/or Brideshead, Revisited (9:30pm). emblem, uminohikari, you up for it?

In other news, last weekend I went into the city with emblem and boyfriend (also my college friend Yin and their college friend Grace) to see the Buckminister Fuller exhibit at the Whitney and the Prefabricated Housing and Dali exhibits at the MoMA, and to go clothing/books shopping around SoHo -- so maybe it's just as well that I took this weekend "off" as I can only spend money at this rate for so long before I run out.

Read since last update:
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Vol. 1 by M.T. Anderson (edit: mini-review with spoilers)
Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik (edit: short reaction with minor spoilers, long reaction with MAJOR spoilers)
House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones (edit: mini-review with spoilers)

the Airborne Toxic Event - Gasoline --> LCD Soundsystem - North American Scum

Also this: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2008/07/ben-sollee-disses-dear-kanye-west.html

In other music-related news, I went to a concert last Thursday...with my parents. ^^; So no cool points for me. Lucinda Williams opening for John Mellencamp at Jones Beach -- my mother is a big Lucinda Williams fan, but her set was not very good, for various tiresome reasons I won't go into. But she did play my favorite song, plus two songs from the upcoming album I really liked, so it wasn't a total waste.

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Speaking of two-part harmonies, I uploaded these for petronia and uh, forgot to share:

Jayhawks - Blue Earth
Jayhawks - Hollywood Town Hall
Jayhawks - Tomorrow the Green Grass
Jayhawks - Sound of Lies
Jayhawks - Rainy Day Music

See this entry. I would feel worse about putting the albums up, but CDs by this "Americana" band are out of print in the US. (They are in print in the UK.)

Sorry! List memes are what you guys get when I am too sleep-deprived to think straight.

This time it's The Telegraph's 50 Best Cult Books. As always, bold the titles you've read, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish, and astersk** the ones you always meant to read but somehow never got around to.

( the list )

I think the trick with this list is NOT to have read everything on it, but only, you know, the good stuff. (Or at least the not-crazy stuff.) There are way too many sixties books on here, also.

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Kids should still be forced to read books they don't understand, though! It's good for them.

Blog reactions to books on the list:
The Bell Jar
Dune
Testament of Youth
Justine

Justine is the "autobiographical novel" of a Scottish writer living in Alexandria's émigré community between the two World Wars. (The book's actual author, Lawrence Durrell, lived in Damascus and wrote the novel in 1957.) In main part it is the dissection of a scene: writers, philosophers, artists, prostitutes, loan sharks, and the odd (and eccentric) civil servant or banker. At least, you sense that the "author" of the novel would have liked to have written a novel about this scene, had settled in Alexandria in order to write a novel about this scene, but that what he actually wrote was a novel describing his close circle of friends in literary/poetic/psychological terms, quoting them quoting each other quoting À Rebours. Everyone in this group is "interesting"/dysfunctional and the main subject of their conversation is themselves: their various worldviews and the regrettable circumstances which have caused these to come about.

This may sound boring but due to the high concentration of Very Interesting and Intelligent Characters(tm) it is fascinating. Which brings me to my second point: this is a novel about fascination. The author's circle of friends would be incestuous enough even if they were NOT mostly obsessed with Justine, but this is not the case. Only three characters, Scobie, Pursewarden, and Melissa, are primarily acquaintances of the author, and even these three do not manage to escape her. (Well, maybe Pursewarden. Melissa might have if she'd had more choice. Scobbie is confined to bed.) The author himself is carrying on an affair with Justine, right under the nose of her husband and his best friend, Nessim. This affair does not make him happy but only fatalistic and obsessive, but he can't walk away from it. As for Justine, she is "not intelligent but possessed of an animal cunning" and a knack for appropriating other people's intelligent remarks; she is broken but also magnetically, hypnotically, compellingly, beautiful. ( Read more... )

Any of the characters in this book could honestly have carried an entire novel by themselves, so in a sense it is a shame that so much of the novel's stage time is eaten by Justine. I would have liked to have known more about Nessim or Melissa, especially. But there is a rule of fascination in literature: the more the fascination is described, the more it is replicated in the person of the reader. There is a reason the novel is called Justine, in other words.

The ending is very interesting and worth talking about (it is about Peace destroying Art only the author does not say definitively that this is what has taken place), but I do not want to spoil too much. Spoilers are welcome in comments, but not for the other three books in the Quartet, which I definitely intend to read -- recommended!

Seen with sesame_seed and emblem's boyfriend on Saturday (aka Day 2 of the KILLER HEATWAVE we are currently suffering here on the East Coast).

( in conversation )

Borders has a 40% off sale on CDs today and tomorrow! Borders does not, however, have The Jayhawks. ;_;

Books to blog:
River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma, Thant Myint-U (finished)
The Venus Hunters/The Best Short Stories of J.G. Ballard, J.G. Ballard (duh)
What Katy Did/What Kary Did Next, Susan Coolidge
We Are All Welcome Here, Elizabeth Berg
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner

Not sure what to read next - Going Postal (Terry Pratchett)? Justine (Lawrence Durrell)? More nonfiction? Anyway.