Books, books, books...

[Nevsky]

Currently reading Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind. A smutty account of how all my filmic heroes are actually raving nutcases (at least that's what I've taken from it so far). Dennis Hopper is a raving, insecure, violent lunatic (or at least was) -- not that he is a filmic hero of mine or anything, but the excesses reported in this book are well... unbelievable. Crazy times. Still, I'm getting my head around just accepting these people for who they (were?) and enjoying their work.

I hope I still respect Scorcese by the end of it.

That's an awesome book. I don't think many come out of it well - but no reason to lose respect for any of them, if I remember correctly. I think the way he deals with George Lucas is particlarly potent, and is quite heartbreaking.

[Chris]

After having read Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum last year, I'm reading his The Island of the Day Before. It's definitely the slowest-going of his that I've read so far. He has a tendency to take a while to really settle into the main plot of the story, and since this book jumps back and forth between two time periods, it almost seems to take twice as long. But his command of prose and sense of historical setting remains pretty amazing, so I'm enjoying it nonetheless. It seems like I'm actually getting into the meat of it at this point.

[ThunderPeel2001]

How does In the Name of the Rose compare with the movie? I remember hearing that Eco hated the film, but I remember really enjoying it when I was younger. Are they drastically different, or are they both good, or would you say that the movie pales massively to the book?

[Chris]

How does In the Name of the Rose compare with the movie? I remember hearing that Eco hated the film, but I remember really enjoying it when I was younger. Are they drastically different, or are they both good, or would you say that the movie pales massively to the book?

I've never seen it

[ThunderPeel2001]

I've never seen it

DOH! (I did put that in my original message, but then I thought, "nah, he'll have seen it".) Oh well. Maybe I should just add it to the old "inbox".

[Thyroid]

I watched the movie maybe a day after Chris Tweeted about the book. It was abysmal. Eco apparently agrees, though, according to some quick Googling, this also meant he refused to sell Pendulum's film rights to Stanley Kubrick.

I'm in-between books. I have a dozen or so to choose from, but I don't want to read anything that'll keep me fixated, since I'm knee-deep in final exams. I started Miami Blues (Charles Willeford) and stopped on the first page; that thing is way too good for me to be able to concentrate on my exams. The writing is top-notch. So, I started A Spot of Bother (Mark Haddon), was impressed by the prose and the story (I've never read about cancer patients), and so I stopped. I finally started reading The Dead Zone (Stephen King). I think I'm sticking to it. It's going to be a good story, I think, but slow enough that I can pace myself during exams and then with a payoff that'll make it un-put-downable once they're over in ten days. Just what I want.

First time I stop reading something because it's so good, though.

[vimes]

I watched the movie maybe a day after Chris Tweeted about the book. It was abysmal.

That's pretty weird : I haven 't read the book but I remember the movie being one of the best 'smart' entertainer I've ever watched.

I read Foucault's Pendulum multiple times, and I'm in love with the core idea and how most of the plot is laid out, but I find it a very tedious book to read because of the style (maybe because of the french translation ? in which language does eco write ?) and its unnecessarily length; somewhat a bit too convoluted for its own good (and I know it's the central theme, but it sometimes go a bit overboard).

Also, the AIGame Dev Paris Conference took place in 2009 and will take place in 2010 at the CNAM , which is the setting for the opening chapter. For anyone in Europe, you should attend so that you can go and visit the place freely!

[strangelingo]

Are they drastically different, or are they both good, or would you say that the movie pales massively to the book?

Yes, yes and yes.

Book is a whole different thing. It's a very intricate jewel of writing, where you've got themes ranging from Voltaire, through Conan Doyle to One Thousand and One Nights with religious debate, Aristotle and medieval setting overlayed on top of everything. (Like other Eco's books it's very postmodern in that aspect)

Therefore it isn't surprising that movie didn't have too big ambition of being the book but just focused on the gust of the story and was very competent in that regard. But that's precisely why someone who did love the book might hate the adaptation. I didn't. I did enjoy both, although on entirely different levels.

You should definitely read the book.

@Chris:

Did you read Baudolino? It's Nameoftheroseish in many aspects and I guess you're going to like it. I've read it back in high school and ever since I wanted to pick it up again.

@vimes:

Eco is Italian and from what I recall all his books are too.

[Garple]

Okay, a while back I got some Dean Koontz books because someone recommended them, I don't know who. The books I got were Odd Thomas, Forever Odd (the sequel) and Intensity. I just read Intensity and it was absolutely awful. Have I been had? Is Dean Koontz a horrible author, or did I just happen to get his one horrible book.

Koontz is fucking terrible as a writer. I loved him when I was thirteen, though.

[Garple]

Currently reading Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind. A smutty account of how all my filmic heroes are actually raving nutcases (at least that's what I've taken from it so far). Dennis Hopper is a raving, insecure, violent lunatic (or at least was) -- not that he is a filmic hero of mine or anything, but the excesses reported in this book are well... unbelievable. Crazy times. Still, I'm getting my head around just accepting these people for who they (were?) and enjoying their work.

I hope I still respect Scorcese by the end of it.

Dennis Hopper said he "was" his character in Blue Velvet. Nuff said. also: re: Scorcese: "The Love you Make" ruined John Lennon for me, to a certain degree.

[Thyroid]

I'm not the kind of guy who particularly cares about covers. If a cover's good, yay; I look it over and appreciate it. If it's not, I ignore it. Movie tie-in covers don't bother me at all.

These, however, I'm finding hard to ignore. I don't know which I prefer, the Twilight-style cover Wuthering Heights is sprouting, or the blood-curdling scream of rage your average middle-aged literary snob will proceed with once he finds this shoved in the Classic section.

(PS: I read a bit of Eclipse yesterday. Stephenie Meyer may just be the greatest writer everIt's hilarious. There's this phrase: "Roseanna [or whatever] stood at the doorway, her breathtaking face looking around." Something like that. Plus seven pages of that Jacob guy and Bella making out. Oh, oh, and a kiss that felt wrong - "like it was a prelude of bad things to come". Gotta love it.)

Romeo and Juliet and Pride and Prejudice have also been given the Twilight treatment.

Wuthering Heights.

(From Wired.)

Edited January 12, 2010 by Kroms

[strangelingo]

(From Wired.)

...HALP.

[Korax]

From Penny Arcade:

[Chris]

From Penny Arcade:

That hypothetical, exaggerated cover actually looks materially closer in spirit to Moby Dick than the Dante's Inferno game does to the Divine Comedy.

[DanJW]

True. I would have made the hypothetical game a Japanese RPG. Moby would be a flying winged whale, on a backdrop of floating islands in the sky. Ahab would of course be a beaming androgynous teenager with blue hair.

[elmuerte]

That Moby Dick book cover looks sort of like a similar transposition that Disney made of Treasure Island to Treasure Planet. But more "maturely".

[Milty]

I've been re-reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time lately, but I'm sure any fantasy fans already know that series.

Three random books that managed to hold my attention lately:

• The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch - Neat fantasy book about a group of thieves, in I guess a lower than average fantasy setting.
  
• Postsingular by Rudy Rucker - This book was a little bizarre to me. It's about life after the creation of technology smarter than humans and capable of things that would seem like magic.
  
• The Road to Gandolfo by Robert Ludlum - This book was extremely entertaining because of the sheer ridiculousness of the central plot. It's pretty short and is an easy read too.
  

[Thyroid]

I just read The Dead Zone. I don't like it very much. It had some good parts, but it peaked too early and needed a better editor. Alternatively, I've just outgrown Stephen King. I think my recently re-discovered love of great writing had something to do with it. Sigh. People keep giving me books and I still have another 7 of his in the closet. I am not looking forward to reading them.

(For anyone interested, they are Cujo, It, The Eyes of the Dragon, Different Seasons, and Dark Tower III-V. Yeah, people like giving me sequels. It's an Arabic thing, I guess.)

[toblix]

Cujo, It, The Eyes of the Dragon, Different Seasons, and Dark Tower III-V

Although I feel the Dark Tower series was ruined a bit by the last books, I still consider my King-a-thon worth it just because I got to read It and The Stand.

[Garple]

Carrie is good too. He was a janitor when he wrote it, and back then he was really trying.

[Thyroid]

Carrie's alright. I think 'Salem's Lot and The Shining were better. The Stand's story is one of the most gripping and terrifying, for 800 pages or so, but then falters and essentially cheats on the ending. Excellent setup, lazy payoff.

In all fairness, part of my displeasure with The Dead Zone stemmed from me wanting to read something different. Something like The Wire, Sam and Max, or Monkey Island, since apparently that's all my brain can churn at any given time.

I feel like kicking me too.

I'm starting either Cold Mountain (Charles Frazier) or Dark of the Moon (John Sandford) tonight. I hope those are better.

[Garple]

I hated Salem's lot because it was a soap opera for 300 pages before any vampire action really happened. I should mention I did all my Stephen King reading when I was about 13.

[DanJW]

I enjoy Kings recent moves towards more Lovecraftian cosmic horror. There seems to be a few books and short stories that follow a similar premise, but they are all different in the way they are constructed. They are: The Mist, From a Buick 8, Room 1408, Lisey's Story and Duma Key. They are quite refreshing in their vividness and make a nice break from the suspense thrillers and modernised gothic horrors.

[Sodon]

The first King book I picked up was The Shining, which actually made me appreciate the Kubrick film even more. The surprise was that both versions were sort of their own entities, and each stood up on their own premises.

Meh, the movie was better.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I remember reading The Running Man as a teenager and enjoying it...