Dan’s Comments (group member since Mar 02, 2009)

Dan’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

that's pretty cool.

I have read some of Auster's books, I also saw him read at Powell's last year. I like him alright, but I couldn't tell you the plot of any of the books I have read and if I could I wouldn't be able to tell you which book it was from.

I guess his works are entertaining (and formulaic), yet forgettable.

Yeah, I agree with Patti. I was able to read it during my shift at the reference desk. Though the bits about magic and the parents had me chuckling.

Ry, the last part of your sentence is key: I can read a lot of books while still taking time to appreciate their beauty, more power to me!

I think I have been too "numbers driven" to take the time to appreciate them as much as I should. It was more about making sure I eclipse the 52 book mark.

Next year I want to slow down and read more closely.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe that books will eventually die out in their traditional form. I just don't think the current technology is where it needs to be in terms of versatility and price. Once that happens we will see how quickly widespread adoption takes place.

It will be interesting to see kids growing up who don't know books. I often see kids at work who can't remember life without the internet.

I want to echo Ben's comment here about getting off this "number of books read" thing. My tracking what I have read started off out of curiosity and has morphed into something else entirely.

There are also a number of big books I want to tackle so maybe I will read some of them with short stories interspersed. I also plan to finish Ulysses next year.

Yeah shel, thanks for posting the link. Mo knows all sorts of comic book guys.

I read the entire Sin Titulo web comic and am know anxiously awaiting the next installment. Good stuff.

I have always said that if i travelled a lot I would buy an e-reader but I don't so I don't see myself getting one anytime soon. I recently read an article bringing up the possibility of these readers being a fad because of their inability to do other things. The argument was that a netbook was much more versatile than an e-book reader and both are currently similarly priced.

I don't know how much I buy into that argument because reading from a normal computer screen sucks, I don't see books going away for a long time. There would need to be much lower price point for the readers and widespread acceptance neither of which has happened yet.

Regardless, I will be clinging to my books for as long as possible.

Adrian! You're back! This is good to see.

Here goes...

1) What author do you own the most books by?
It is a tie between Hemingway and Murakami

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Either the Iliad or the Odyssey

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
What's a preposition?

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
I just don't know

5) Who is your favorite fictional character?
Maybe Hal Incandenza

6) What book have you read the most times in your life?
The Iliad

7) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Call of the Wild

8) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
Wittgenstein's Mistress

9) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Infinite Jest

10) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Infinite Jest

11) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
Not sure that it matters.

12) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
No preference.

13) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Any book is fine by me, just don't make any more of those awful movie tie-in covers.

14) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Can't think of one I've had.

15) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

16) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Ulysses

17) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Couldn't tell you

18) Austen or Eliot?
Couldn't tell you

19) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
The authors appearing in questions 17 and 18.

20) What is your favorite novel?
Sometimes a Great Notion or Revolutionary Road or Ubik. There are just too many.

21) Play?
Frogs by Aristophanes or Alcestis by Euripides

22) Short story?
The Dead by Joyce

23) Work of non-fiction?
Devil in the White City

24) Who is your favorite writer?
Currently David Foster Wallace

Hy Jimmy, welcome to the group!

How has nobody yet mentioned Austerlitz by Sebald?

Happy birthday dude!

Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar made an album Kerouac's novel Big Sur. It comes out on the 20th but you can listen to it on NPR now.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...

I meant to say:

Disagreeing is one thing, being a dick and sucking dick is another.

:-o

I never suggested harmony. I said don't be a dick.

Disagreeing is one thing being a dick is another.

YOu are right Greg, you didn't call him a prick but you said the more you write you more you seem like an angry prick or something to that end but you did say, "Yeah. I was just trying to piss Jesse off even further." which really isn't the best way to get new members involved.

Either way, that isn't the case. The point being is we need not to be dicks, make the files welcoming once again and break free of being so insular. That is what's important.

So correct me if I am wrong but I don't believe that I have seen any posts by either Jesse before. That being said it is unlikely that we will be seeing posts from him again. Sure some of his posts may have come across a little combative but they weren't by any means unintelligent.

I don't believe that the manner in which some chose to deride Jesse was appropriate to fostering new members. Personal attacks only portray us as dickwads and not as a group who love to talk about books. If you ever wonder why the Fiction Files have remained static and boring it's because of shit like this.

Obviously we are lacking a strong leader these days (that isn't necessarily JE's fault since his life has gotten really busy in the last year-ish) so it is ever more important to be welcoming of new people. Challenging things you disagree with is fine but being a dick about it isn't. It is just the further death of a once hyperactive group of book dorks.

So I would like to apologize to Jesse on the groups behalf for the petty name-calling. Maybe he will post again one day, but if iI were in his shoes I wouldn't. I am sure there are other book groups out there that could fill his need for literary discourse.

How I met Your Anatomy?

*cough*eastcoastdork2010*cough*

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers