What book are you currently reading?

**Lord of the Drunk Penguin** · October 15, 2019, 04:01 PM

Originally Posted by G. Ward

Is there any romance in Nightflyers?

Yes, but being George R.R. Martin things get... complicated.
You lose even when you win, you know?

The best Batman comic to date.
For me, at least.

And there's hardly any Batman in it.

**G. Ward** · October 15, 2019, 07:15 PM

Originally Posted by Kyriakos

I read Arthur Machen's "The Red Hand". Only because someone in some webpage claimed it is among the best works of Machen.
No, it is not. I found it to be quite problematic structure-wise. It does have some of the signature Machen atmosphere, but isn't as refined as his best stories.

Ah, interesting. I confess. I'd never heard of Machen until now. Having Googled him, apparently he was a good horror writer. Are you a real fan of horror?

Originally Posted by Lord of the Drunk Penguin

Yes, but being George R.R. Martin things get... complicated.
You lose even when you win, you know?

The best Batman comic to date.
For me, at least.

And there's hardly any Batman in it.

Ah.
Well it's good there's romance. I'll add it to my list.

**Kyriakos** · October 17, 2019, 11:19 PM

Well, I like some "horror", including a few of Machen's works. But most "horror" literature is of low value and hardly literary. Some stories by (eg) Lovecraft were decent, but most are very problematic, although Lovecraft (perhaps less than Machen) wasn't a hack, he still had various writing issues...

**Cyclops** · October 23, 2019, 08:03 PM

I just finished "Devil's Grip" about a multiple murder in the Australian countryside in the early 1990's. I find I have two separate links to the crime (it wasn't me, I just know someone who knew someone...). Its a sad story about gay men having to hide their sexual identities. The survivors are happy now and I feel like I understand a few of my gay friends and relatives a bit better. Didn't need the gritty details about the prostate, but it was good to have a moderately notorious story told maturely after the lurid (and wrong) headlines like "farmer shot after giving his employee AIDS".

Originally Posted by Kyriakos

Well, I like some "horror", including a few of Machen's works. But most "horror" literature is of low value and hardly literary. Some stories by (eg) Lovecraft were decent, but most are very problematic, although Lovecraft (perhaps less than Machen) wasn't a hack, he still had various writing issues...

I'm a big Lovecraft fan, but I'd never claim he was a talented writer: he was imaginative, racist, sexist and three parts crazy. I have an annotated edition of his collected works, people are actually trying to promote his stories as literature but Lovecraft himself bemoaned the fact he wasn't a very good writer and aped the styles of Machen (a reasonable writer) and Dunsany (an imaginative if slightly flippant amateur).

"Horror" writing is about making the reader feel unpleasant. At best its middle brow, its mostly lowbrow crap. Dracula is shoddy (I mean 50 Shades of Grey shoddy, the idea of vampires fascinates us more than the writing), Frankenstein is gothic science fiction more than horror and the rest isn't that good.

Like Tolkien (and I'm noting rating them together, Lovecraft's ouevre and imaginary worlds are only a fraction of Tolkien's) he has the strength of a his own strongly imagined internal world. Unlike Tolkien his command of language is not strong.

**Kyriakos** · October 28, 2019, 02:58 PM

Tolkien isn't a good writer either, though (imo). Though, granted, I have only read the Hobbit, which afaik was intended for a child to read.
Lovecraft had no style to speak of - Machen certainly is more literary. Dunsany has some very nice short stories

My favorite of those would be "The Workman".

Lovecraft did try to ape Poe and Dunsany, and aped Dunsany worse than he aped Poe, but Lovecraft's imagination indeed was potent and different, and to his added defense he wasn't an utter hack (like, say, S. King*).

*who also has some talent, but let's be honest: not that much, and he isn't literary at all (though aspires to be at times).

**Kyriakos** · October 29, 2019, 06:15 PM

Ajax, by Sophocles.

It was pretty good

Odysseus had some great lines. For example: "You (still) win, when defeated by your friends".

Also a nice foreshadowing for the disastrous defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian war, when it is noted that while a city may enjoy an extended period of friendly currents to rise upon, it shall fall if it becomes arrogant.

**Kyriakos** · November 19, 2019, 09:15 AM

Faust (by Goethe).

I didn't like it at all.

**Lord Oda Nobunaga** · November 19, 2019, 07:07 PM

Faust is pretty good. Maybe I liked the poetry more than the story itself.

**Kyriakos** · November 20, 2019, 11:53 AM

Maybe it is good in the original german, but in english it seemed pretty forgettable :/

**Lord of the Drunk Penguin** · November 22, 2019, 05:09 AM

I found the protagonist really annoying.
Then again, he's just an entitled rich white teenager.
Pretty good backstory (about mythical creatures & heroes fighting for survival)
Shame we're stuck with the side characters...

**Morifea** · November 28, 2019, 01:22 AM

Originally Posted by Kyriakos

Maybe it is good in the original german, but in english it seemed pretty forgettable :/

Never bothered to read it in English....
The Faust Part I is very dear to us Germans, there are alot sayings in our Lanquage that originate from the Faust.
Furthermore, the rhymescheme makes it really easy to memorize whole passages of the text.

Seems like I`m gonna read it again... at least part I, Part II is hard work

**Kyriakos** · November 28, 2019, 05:31 AM

Comparing it to other books from notable german romanticists, eg ETA Hoffmann, the story is just pretty lame, in my view. I only found some interest in the descriptions in the Walpurgian night festival. I think that Nietzsche commented on that too (not sure if he mentioned it specifically, but he referred to a lot of german books of that period and later) when he said that in Germany the devil in literature is presented in a way which would make french readers laugh and think that the author was "from some village"

I haven't read many works by Goethe, but Faust (part I) was certainly the more forgettable one, though I also had issues with Werther. Maybe Goethe was just better as a poet (eg the Erlkoenig is pretty interesting).

Anyway, I also read Aristophanes' The Frogs. It was quite funny. Dionysos (the god) goes to Hades to resurrect a tragic poet, cause there is no good one left. A contest takes place between Aescylos and Euripides.
A memorable line (about Dionysos) : "how can he not be a gentleman? All he knows is how to drink and have sex"