Books

[NAD]

The Republic is a joke, the idea of Communism is set up to show how absurd it is. Like the section on gymnastics, where the men and women are all the same, and therefore how incest would be fine because everyone is completely equal to one another (including men, women, and their offspring) were all used as examples to show the utter absurdity of it all. This is just one part of the Republic, not really the main issue at all.

Keep in mind that Socrates' (through Plato, as Socrates only spoke, any written record of his teachings is carried out through Plato) most oft used tool was irony. Much of what he said should be taken with a grain of salt. If you want a much less sarcastic perspective on what Socrates and Plato taught, read Aristotle (Plato's disciple). He did not fully agree with what his predecessors said, but many of the main points are quite similar.

However, I do agree that those that missed the joke (Lenin and Stalin mostly though Marx to a certain extent as well) have caused a lot of problems in today's society, but Plato shouldn't be held responsible for his bastardized teachings thousands of years after the fact. Also to defend Marx, he actually had a decent idea that was completely ruined by Lenin and Stalin. Dictatorship of the proletariat!? Marx rolls in his grave every time that gets mentioned.

[speed]

I like your thinking, its a shame that everyone from Plotinus on to early catholic church with Augustine didnt also find Plato absurd.

Marx however, was a pathetic economist, and ripped off the true antichrist of the last 200 years- Hegel.

[speed]

Well this has been a most enlightening thread so far.

[speed]

Well I picked up Salmon Rushdies Satanic Verses today, I hope it is good, I just cant read it on the plane, due to its content, i may jinx myself.

[NAD]

GOOD!!! Personally I wouldn't read it in public because I'd probably do something foolishly illegal, but maybe that's just me.

I still haven't finished The Moor's Last Sigh by Rushdie, it's good but just doesn't captivate me like his other works I've read. The Satanic Verses took me a few weeks and Fury took me about 4 days (utterly amazing book), this one is about 8 months and counting.

[speed]

Yeah I was thinking it would be a bad idea to be on a plane with such a book, god knows what could happen. Is Rushdie as difficult to read as Joyce- who i find at times intolerable?

[NAD]

No, Rushdie flows, and his other stuff doesn't have as much of the weird style like the Satanic Verses.

The only Joyce I've read is Finnegans Wake though, I think I'm on page 3.

[speed]

Jesus you picked the most difficult book in history to read. I do very much enjoy Joyce, especially Portrait of the Artist as a young man.

[speed]

Oh I remember a interview of Nabokov i read; who was friends with Joyce, well anyway he thought and told Joyce that Finnegans Wake was a pile of shit. Ive never read it, but Im sure one day i will pick it up.

[NAD]

It's... different to say the least. It is an amalgamation of over 60 different languages, and the book begins in the middle of the final sentence. I'm sure I'll never finish it, and if I ever do, I will know less about it than I did before first cracking the spine. Look, I found the first page:

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.
The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronn tuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnu k!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes: and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livvy.

[Krilons Resa]

Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus(sp?) is THE best Existentialist text ever written.

[speed]

I actually find Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky to be the most powerful, and relevant- but I agree Camus' Myth of Sisphyus is just as important.

I found this on the book: Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock. If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.

[speed]

Well this post will probably be my last for the entire summer due to the fact I am going to be out of the country for almost three months. Thanks Bloodstained for turning me on to this forum.

[NAD]

Wow, I guess I need to read more Dostoevski, that's brilliant. I've only read... whatever that really short one is. I liked it, but didn't love it.

See ya later, speed.

[houkai]

Camus and Dostoyevsky may be the most accessible in existentialism, but they're more supplementary to the philosophy. The critical texts are always hard to read, though, so most people skip them or put them down after a while (like myself).

Incidently, if you liked Notes from the Underground, read the Brothers Karamzov.

[NAD]

Originally Posted by houkai

Incidently, if you liked Notes from the Underground, read the Brothers Karamzov.

Been recommended this one before, maybe I'll pick it up. Welcome to the forum, by the way.

Hmm, two waves in one night, I'm unquestionably friendly this eve...

[Black Winter Day]

NAD: that was a summary of Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus", not Dostoyevsky. I't actually taken a seminar on that essay alone. Needless to say, it is quite the thought-provoking text.

Read the new Stephen King book yesterday. When I finish "Walden", I'm going to pick up Nabokov's "Pale Fire" and Proust's first volume of his memoir, while reading Emerson essays on the side. Do I rule or what?

[Krilons Resa]

You're the man. I'm the fan.

[En Vind Av Sorg]

Originally Posted by houkai

Camus and Dostoyevsky may be the most accessible in existentialism, but they're more supplementary to the philosophy. The critical texts are always hard to read, though, so most people skip them or put them down after a while (like myself).

Incidently, if you liked Notes from the Underground, read the Brothers Karamzov.

I concur. The Brothers Karamzov is most definetley my favorite Dostoyevsky novel as well. Great read.

[Black Winter Day]

"Finnegan's Wake" has always been a curiosity to me... reading 10 or so pages in B&N, wondering if it ever makes sense the further you get into it... hell, one day I may buy it and give it a shot. I was never a huge fan of "Dubliners", but "Portrait..." is quite the addictive novel. Everyone I know that's read FW has loved it and hailed it as genius... supposedly it DOES start making sense midway through... but most people don't get past page 3.

[NAD]

I haven't, but I didn't give up! I really really doubt that it begins to clear up, especially with the whole looping nature of it.

Interesting story, first time I opened Finnegans Wake (remember, no apostrophe) I was on the crapper, and I damn near died of laughter two paragraphs in. Finished my business, set the book on the comode, then as I was washing my hands still laughing, the fucking book MOVED. Shit creeped the hell out of me. As my one bro commented: "dude shelf it, I'm serious. That book CANNOT be left to its own devices." I believe him yo. I don't know why, but I do.

[NAD]

Chapter 1: cheeseburgers
Chapter 2: blowjobs

The End

[spaffe]

btw i started reading the satanic verses after seen it recomended here, dunno what to make of it yet since i've only read some fifty pages or so. but one thing struck me immediately; the humour in it is very similar to that of douglas adams (hitchhiker's guide) and that's always a good thing

[Krilons Resa]

Originally Posted by NAD

Chapter 1: cheeseburgers
Chapter 2: blowjobs

The End

[J.]

I guess his Presidential pension isn't enough.