What are we reading?

[Ghostboy]

I'm finishing up To The White Sea and I'm ecstatic.

I haven't read Deliverance, but I'm always excited to see people reading To The White Sea - it's such an outstanding novel.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Skimming...

And I can't stop picturing Joyce himself utterting the words.

[I Don't Believe in Beatles]

If anyone feels up to it, you can read it here.

[kotte]

I'm finishing up To The White Sea and I'm ecstatic.

I haven't read Deliverance, but I'm always excited to see people reading To The White Sea - it's such an outstanding novel.

Yes, it is.
The book is in 1st person, he's the narrator but on the last few pages Muldrow really begin to talk with the reader. Like we have this relationship and now he feels secure enough to speak. Can't really explain it, I'm reading too much into it but I found that to be great, anyway.

Spoiler.
The passage with the blind samurai had me literally jumping in my seat, I was so excited to have this book, this force in my hands. My best reading experience so far.
Losing 3 teeth, I found that the most disturbing in the book...I have a thing with teeth.

[Pubrick]

If anyone feels up to it, you can read it here.

yeah, don't.

and jb, haha, that's what every copy should look like.

[meatball]

[03]

[Pubrick]

i'm disappointed in u, 03.

i've heard of that.

[Ravi]

Just finished reading this


Burroughs' first memoir, Running with Scissors, is being made into a film.

[Two Lane Blacktop]

I'm finishing up To The White Sea and I'm ecstatic. I'm thinking of reading Deliverance.

I got to meet Dickey once when I was in college...  we had a friend in common, it turned out.  I didn't know I was going to meet him before it happened, and it freaked me out, but I was pretty much in awe.  

I only know Deliverance from the movie, but I'm a big fan of his poetry.  I know this is going to make this a long-ass message, but I have to paste in my favorite one.  It makes me want to cry every time I read it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE HEAVEN OF ANIMALS
Here they are. The soft eyes open.
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.

Having no souls, they have come,
Anyway, beyond their knowing.
Their instincts wholly bloom
And they rise.
The soft eyes open.

To match them, the landscape flowers,
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required:
The richest wood,
The deepest field.

For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done,
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

More deadly than they can believe.
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on the limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey

May take years
In a sovereign floating of joy.
And those that are hunted
Know this as their life,
Their reward: to walk

Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them,
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfilling themselves without pain

At the cycle's center,
They tremble, they walk
Under the tree,
They fall, they are torn,
They rise, they walk again.

-- James Dickey

[kotte]

That was really fantastic...

[grand theft sparrow]

So, that's why the American economy is in the shitter.

[Jeremy Blackman]

I heard Richard Florida interviewed on the Al Franken show. He convinced me.

But apparently what he really means is "The Non-Arrival of the Creative Class." (The publisher didn't like that title.)

[Sigur Rós]

[Ravi]

The Captain Is Out to Lunch & the Sailors Have Taken over the Ship by Charles Bukowski