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Social What are you currently reading?

hydroazuanacaine said:
as inconceivable to me that someone is not. i’m ashamed of everything. especially choice in books. grocery store, pharmacy, library. anything that reveals me is cause for sweat under the collar. getting better about it as i get older. bringing one of the ferrante novels or Claudine at School to the checkout desk is still trying.

comes with catholic blood, i’ve heard.
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I used to be a lot like that. At one point I was so shy I couldn't buy anything period because I'd get so anxious just having to speak to the cashier I'd fumble ny word and usually come across as rude and blunt.
I think, honestly, I embarrassed myself so often and so badly during my alcoholic years I pretty much became immune to it.
I discovered this wonderful thing called "not needing other people's approval". And now I honestly don't give a fuck what anyone thinks.

Think of it this way: that person serves hundreds of people a day and you aren't anything unique or memorable to them. They couldn't give a shit. Likewise, while you're out in public everyone is too busy worrying about themselves to care how you look or what you're doing.

You could really benefit from CBT (the therapy CBT, not the fetish CBT, lol) and probably an anti-anxiety med. Sertraline helped me with that problem a lot.
 
hydroazuanacaine said:
damn, 4.2k pages. still into it?
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I'm on volume 4, so im a good ways into it. Also, @ChemicallyEnhanced I'm not so sure if reading classic literature is pretentious though it certainly can be. The copy I have (which is in the form of a couple of bible sized books) came from a great uncle who was a physician that I feel was self-conscious of his humble origins (relative to his fellow physicians), and each first page is embossed with a relief saying "From the library of Francesco Vicario, M.D.". The book had clearly never been read. His possession of the longest novel in classic literature appeared to be a pretense.

Its actually a decent book that reads easily.

As far as F. Scott Fitzgerald is concerned, his short stories are better than his novels. (Talk about a guy with alot of hangups, his inferiority complex and shame of not being of blue blood origin can become tedious.) A rather nice short story of his is Offshore Pirate.

The opening line is a nice one:

"This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream..."

https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/84/flappers-and-philosophers/1405/the-offshore-pirate/

@hydroazuanacaine Are you a Nabokov fan at all? Lolita is both excellent and the most approachable novel of his. The novella The Enchanter is also good and approachable. Some of his writing is flat out tedious and esoteric, like Bend Sinister (which is dark and paranoic, but quite good) or Pale Fire (which I have and tried to read but didn't understand).

His short stories are very good. This is a good one and among the shortest of his short stories:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/05/15/symbols-and-signs
 
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^Lolita is the apotheosis of the novel. have also read ...

Ada, or Ardor
Pnin
Speak, Memory
Despair
Laughter in the Dark
The Enchanter
Lolita: A Screenplay
first half of Pale Fire (on vacation and the setting was not conducive to flipping between a poem and fictitious footnotes)

you as well?


ChemicallyEnhanced said:
everyone is too busy worrying about themselves to care
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oh, they care.
You could really benefit from CBT (the therapy CBT, not the fetish CBT, lol) and probably an anti-anxiety med.
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word.

cduggles said:
Now that’s an ironic title.
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i laughed.
 
hydroazuanacaine said:
^Lolita is the apotheosis of the novel. have also read ...

Ada, or Ardor
Pnin
Speak, Memory
Despair
Laughter in the Dark
The Enchanter
Lolita: A Screenplay
first half of Pale Fire (on vacation and the setting was not conducive to flipping between a poem and fictitious footnotes)

you as well?



oh, they care.

word.


i laughed.
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I do not mean this in a mean or insulting way AT ALL, but what is it you think makes you so special or extreme that you think makes everyone care or pay attention to you in particular?
 
@hydroazuanacaine Mine is similar with some differences:

Lolita
Ada, or Ardor
Pnin
Speak, Memory (part of it)
Laughter in the Dark
The real life of Sebastian Knight (don't recommend)
King, Queen, Knave (slow story, good writing)
Bend Sinister (which i recommend tedious or not)
The Enchanter
Pale Fire (a fraction)
Insomniac Dreams (not a novel, not too interesting)
All of his short stories (which i recommend more than anything else -- it is some of his best writing)
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
Have you read "Perv" yet? Sounds really interesting lol.
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just started it! it is in fact very interesting, though the first chapter is a bit dry. opening is structured more around understanding the history of perversion (spoiler alert - they used to kill these people lol).
there are some very simple but cogent thought experiments right out of the gate that disarm you a bit, suggesting that our notion of "perversion" is (surprise) more about preserving our moralizing culture than preventing harm. who'da thunk it?
 
tocooperate said:
just started it! it is in fact very interesting, though the first chapter is a bit dry. opening is structured more around understanding the history of perversion (spoiler alert - they used to kill these people lol).
there are some very simple but cogent thought experiments right out of the gate that disarm you a bit, suggesting that our notion of "perversion" is (surprise) more about preserving our moralizing culture than preventing harm. who'da thunk it?
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Haha.
Thanks for the mention of it, btw. I've added it to my basket on amazon for my book-buy (I let myself spend around £100 on books around every 4-6 weeks; I have to limit myself or I spend stupid amounts).
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
(I let myself spend around £100 on books around every 4-6 weeks; I have to limit myself or I spend stupid amounts).
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lol sounds like me with headphones and audio nerd stuff. thankfully I'm at the level with my rig where anything less than a $500 investment will change nothing. . . but that doesnt mean I can't upgrade my side rig, work rig, car audio, sport rig (rofl as if I even leave my house ever)
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
I do not mean this in a mean or insulting way AT ALL, but what is it you think makes you so special or extreme that you think makes everyone care or pay attention to you in particular?
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Didnt see this, what's with the animosity

Everyone's special in the eyes of the lord (or is it no one is special?)
 
negrogesic said:
Didnt see this, what's with the animosity

Everyone's special in the eyes of the lord (or is it no one is special?)
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Since he doesn't exist I guess it doesn't matter.

That's not what I meant, though. She said she was always ashamed of people paying attention to her in public. I said they weren't because most people were too focused on themselves. She said everyone definitely was focused on everything she did so I was trying to understand why she thinks that.
I wasn't implying she wasn't special like that, I meant why should she think strangers would all be paying excess attention to her in a negative way. I was trying to reason with/reassure her.
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
Since he doesn't exist I guess it doesn't matter.

That's not what I meant, though. She said she was always ashamed of people paying attention to her in public. I said they weren't because most people were too focused on themselves. She said everyone definitely was focused on everything she did so I was trying to understand why she thinks that.
I wasn't implying she wasn't special like that, I meant why should she think strangers would all be paying excess attention to her in a negative way. I was trying to reason with/reassure her.
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I dont fully get it

Also from what I gather there is no god but allah and mohammed is his errand boy (or is it messenger?)
 
cduggles said:
I love to watch and read things again and again. 🙂
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re-read 'Night, Mother this week.

negrogesic said:
All of his short stories (which i recommend more than anything else -- it is some of his best writing)
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added to my list. i remember seeing a large collection of them in the book store. hopefully available as an ebook. reading nabokov without a built in translator, dictionary, and encyclopedia is even more of a chore.

Zopiclone bandit said:
You finished it?
What you make of it?
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yes, finished. points for not ending with kenji being fed bits of jun in a bowl of soup. figured that's where it was going.

very reminiscent of American Psycho. including the heavy social commentary. there's a split between the the story and big ideas. the majority of the former being in the first half of the book. and latter in the second. i enjoyed reading i. thank you for the recommendation.
 
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