Literature Superthread

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Posted

Finished Hyperion

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Oh fuck, you actually beat me. I just finished my last final a few hours ago, so I'm going to be getting to it sometime this week. Lets talk about it when I finish, I'm really eager to finish it.

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The ending is very interesting. The last two stories especially are very...enlightening

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Just finished L'Étranger (im not using the french name to be pretentious, I read the french version alongside the translation to build my french vocab, and additionally you may know the name  from tf2: one of the spy guns is named after this book) by Albert Camus. Very thought provoking read, although I'm sure that the absurdist and anti-religious sentiments it has were far more shocking 70 years ago than they are today. After all, existential nihilism and atheism are cornerstones of teenage angst in this age. Not that this subtracts from the books message, but it's just interesting how things change. 

I'd recommend checking it out. It's quite a short read, you'd probably be able to get through it in a couple of days.

 

I'm simultaneously reading The Great Gatsby, The Importance of Being Earnest (for the 2nd time), and the Tropic of Cancer. Will report back when done  :tingle:

pheonix561 likes this

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Done Game of Thrones. Committed to read the last 270 pages by yesterday, fell short of the last three chapters, though there are a lot of chapters. The whole story is told from the perspectives of only Bran, Arya, Sansa, Jon, Eddard, Catelyn, Tyrion, and Daenerys, and chapters are simply titled the name of the character it's told through.

 

I had a look around, there are 73 chapters, including the prologue beyond the wall. 780 pages, so that's an average of 10.68 pages per chapter. Which makes it much easier to read, given that you're never long from a good stopping point.

 

Looking at the TV series, they wrote scenes where in the book events were only mentioned. I think I remember scenes where the Queen talked with Joffrey in private, and that can't really happen. You're only made to assume what's going on, but I like that for the most part you're left unsure what's going on, just like the characters. And in some cases you see them acting on what they know, but you know more than them.

 

It was altogether a good book, and only got better towards the end when every plotline began to reach it's climax. Many other books will have a single plotline, but Game of Thrones feels like a few books wrapped together. Daenerys's plotline most of all runs almost independently of the others, as well as Jon's to a degree, but they relate to one another in subtle or not so subtle ways, that bind them together and give them relevance to one another. So while there are many separate stories, they're all spiraling around and weaving through one another.

 

Like a strand of yarn is a single story, a rope is made of yarn woven and braided together.

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Posted

I'd read it

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"Like a strand of yarn is a single story, a rope is made of yarn woven and braided together."

-Teto, in his autobiography's book jacket

As much as I feel I'm being mocked for that pretentiously eloquent closing line, it works so well in my own head okay >:

Rope is stronger than a single thread of yarn, and generally feels like a better thing. Like I imagine holding a strand of yarn and think "I couldn't kill anyone with this. This yarn's only purpose is as an ingredient to be used in the making of better, more substantial things." and a rope is like a finished product, ready to be used for an actual purpose. Yarn is just useless as a single strand. Rope is better than yarn at every turn. Rope is just better okay?? I don't know what I'm saying anymore?? It's like, it's just more substantial than a strand of yarn.

Like having just enough to eat, without overloading you or leaving you unsatisfied. ROPE IS BETTER THAN YARN BECAUSE YARN IS WEAK. And rope is stronger and better.

 

If you want a more crude and rude one, then you can say: "Game of Thrones has lots of plotlines running together and it thickens it up. Thick like a dick. If the dick is too thick with too many plotlines, then it's bad and you can't take it all in; and if it's too thin with few plotlines, then it is also bad because it's not satisfying. But if Game of Thrones was a dick, it would be the ideal thickness."

That will be the opening line of my review.

Anyway whatever here are books I done bought.

 

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Posted

"Game of Thrones has lots of plotlines running together and it thickens it up. Thick like a dick. If the dick is too thick with too many plotlines, then it's bad and you can't take it all in; and if it's too thin with few plotlines, then it is also bad because it's not satisfying. But if Game of Thrones was a dick, it would be the ideal thickness."

 

Oh god my sides hahahaha

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Posted

I'm not mocking you

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Posted (edited)

 

If you want a more crude and rude one, then you can say: "Game of Thrones has lots of plotlines running together and it thickens it up. Thick like a dick. If the dick is too thick with too many plotlines, then it's bad and you can't take it all in; and if it's too thin with few plotlines, then it is also bad because it's not satisfying. But if Game of Thrones was a dick, it would be the ideal thickness."

That will be the opening line of my review.

 

 

Read the next few books and see if you still feel this way. By the Fourth Book, there are so many different disconnected plotlines that he decided to write the fourth and fifth book in parallel to eachother, and they are both about 800 pages. The girth gets hard to handle.

Edited by Brodongo (see edit history)

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Read the next few books and see if you still feel this way. By the Fourth Book, there are so many different disconnected plotlines that he decided to write the fourth and fifth book in parallel to eachother, and they are both about 800 pages. The girth gets hard to handle.

I figured as much >: It already started getting pretty dense toward the end of the first book, and the books only get larger after that. I will probably get overwhelmed.

 

Also by 4th and 5th and you mean A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons? And by in parallel you mean like, both of those books happen in the same time frame?

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Posted (edited)

I figured as much >: It already started getting pretty dense toward the end of the first book, and the books only get larger after that. I will probably get overwhelmed.

 

Also by 4th and 5th and you mean A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons? And by in parallel you mean like, both of those books happen in the same time frame?

 

Yes and Yes.

 

I still enjoyed them, but the sheer number of characters can start to get overwhelming. Although In the appendix, every book has a cheet sheet of all the characters, their family, and their relationship to others, which I found to be very helpful for keeping track of people.

 

Also, George R.R Martin starts branching out on who gets the perspectives. The first book is mainly the Starks, Dany, and Tyrion, but as you read further you start seeing other new characters telling the story.

 

Its always a cool feeling when you have followed an old character from afar for a few books, and then you suddenly get to see the world from their perspective. Without spoiling too much, one of my favorite "new perspective" moments was when I turned the page and the chapter name was "Jaime". The character perspective storytelling was one of my favorite elements of the books that didn't really translate well to the TV show.

Edited by Brodongo (see edit history)

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Yes and Yes.

 

I still enjoyed them, but the sheer number of characters can start to get overwhelming. Although In the appendix, every book has a cheet sheet of all the characters, their family, and their relationship to others, which I found to be very helpful for keeping track of people.

 

Also, George R.R Martin starts branching out on who gets the perspectives. The first book is mainly the Starks, Dany, and Tyrion, but as you read further you start seeing other new characters telling the story.

 

Its always a cool feeling when you have followed an old character from afar for a few books, and then you suddenly get to see the world from their perspective. Without spoiling too much, one of my favorite "new perspective" moments was when I turned the page and the chapter name was "Jaime". The character perspective storytelling was one of my favorite elements of the books that didn't really translate well to the TV show.

Well don't I know who that is. I'll look forward to that. I did wonder if it was going to only stick to the same set of characters. I'm glad to hear it'll give new perspectives down the line. And the Appendix did come in handy, shame though that it didn't outline their role inside the book, since that was what I lost track of the most. And I'm pretty sure I never saw anything on the Dothraki, who I would often lose track of as well. But at least they weren't very central to Daenerys's chapters for the most part.

 

For the sake of recording my expectations and hopes, I'm looking forward mostly for Arya, Sansa, and Bran's plots to continue. All the war stuff is a little on the boring side at times (mostly since I have to spend a lot of mental energy envisioning the scenes in my head and keeping track of the locations, while envisioning how those distant places might look, while holding onto an idea of space in the scene and thinking "the place they're talking about is in that direction from this location, and all these sights are between them" and then kind of playing a scene of sweeping scenery going across the land to take in the scale of the world and everything in it), and I prefer just seeing the younger characters changing. Their situations seem the most personal to them, and so I like them the most. Whereas everyone else is mostly concerned with politics and whatnot, except Daenerys to a degree.

 

Dunno if people put as much effort into mapping out scenes, or maybe you don't have to dwell on it so long for a picture to appear, but it's one of the main reasons why I prefer the simple scenes you get with the younger lot, and their limited number of characters. It doesn't pain me or anything to put in the effort, but it just takes me a moment and a lot of rereading so I can get it all.

 

Like with the first actual battle, in muddy fields with the odd tree here and there, and Tyrion in his mismatched armor with the mountain clains at his back, off to the left of the Kingsroad next to the green fork, with Gregor Clegane shouting at his men up the hill on the right, and the main force of troops further yet over the kingsroad and beyond, in all their armor and actually decent weapons. All the unruly types shifted to the left in the hopes that they would fall to the enemy and try and get around, but then be forced back against the river. All with Tywin Lannister overlooking it all along with the reinforcements, him with his armor with lionesses on either shoulder and a lion roaring from the helm, and a great gold cloak draped over past the arse of his horse, rigid enough that it didn't blow in the wind.

 

Each detail taking a couple seconds to get written to memory, so the whole scene can unfold more smoothly in my head, without me forgetting where I am in it.

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Posted

Game of Thrones posting.

 

About halfway through A Clash of Kings (Page 477). Not sure how far into season 2 of Game of Thrones that is for people still watching it, but just in case you're still watching season 2, don't open this.

 

Still not sure if I should be waiting for Joffrey to get any worse. He's just a spoiled little shit who abuses Sansa by proxy, but he's still not done much that has made him any worse than he was was before. He's been consistently horrible ever since he had Ned killed. Maybe he'll start shitting things up a lot more, but for now he's just a dick, but he's not really been relevant.

 

Also, Renly getting killed. I didn't see it coming, but when it came up to Renly versus Stannis, I did start to wonder how it was going to go. Since there are Davos chapters, Stannis couldn't die, and I don't imagine Davos would switch over to Renly if he did, since he's a man of Stannis, so he says. And no way would Stannis win against Renly in battle. So Renly's death clears that question up.

 

Do want some more Davos chapters though. Right now he's a bit redundant, serving only to give a perspective of Stannis's side. I hope he ends up badass or in any way unique, but he might just be a tool for the narrative or something. Whatever, we'll see.

 

Anyway, I'm on page 477, the start of another Tyrion chapter. Lately I've had the chapter where Joffrey caught wind of Robb's victory and had Sansa beaten, Jon's found some Black Watch clothes at the Fist of the First Men, Catelyn's witnessed Renly's death and run off with Brienne of Tarth, Daenerys is sitting way off in Quarth in some wing of the merchant's palace (and I think she's wasting her time with the seven kingdoms; Quarth sounds lovely. She's just chasing her dead brother's nostaliga-glasses view of King's Landing. You're going to be so disappointed Dany :< )

 

If you're going to reply to this, make sure you're not going to spoil anything. If you're not sure if I've been past it yet, either make sure first or don't risk saying.

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