What are you reading?

[foreign contaminant]

Anyone read Jonathan Livingston Seagull?

i loved it. it was a great book. i think i'd like it more now than i did when i read it two years ago.

 

[Munchkin]

I finished A Dangerous Path of the Warriors series recently, and I started rereading The Darkest Hour last night~

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

I read Grim Tuesday and The Spook's Nightmare while I was in Paris and now I'm reading Drowned Wednesday.

 

[nyuu]

A Game of Thrones

Also I bought Cosmos, and The Greatest Show on Earth, cause I wanted them in paper form more than I wanted Changes

 

[goldenquagsire]

so after A Clockwork Orange I moved onto Ursula le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, which definitely lives up to le Guin's impressive high standards. it's about a race of hermaphrodite humans living on a planet in an ice age and their first contact with wider mankind. it's also got incest and homosexual undertones and somewhat implied futa. it's also a fascinating exploration of a society which lacks the very concept of gender or ever-present sexual desire.

having finished that this morning, I then moved onto Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 and I finished it later this evening </eng lit penis waving> it was kinda freaky and I feel it focused more on ideas rather than characters. but that's okay because it did that really well. I liked it a bit more than the similar 1984 because I'm a sucker for somewhat happy endings and some of the justifications for aspects of the plot in 1984 just felt a little too shaky (although it's still a terrifying and great book).

and now I'm reading Larry Niven's Ringworld which is about a giant ring of rock in space and stuff. sounds fun...

 

[surskitty]

so after A Clockwork Orange I moved onto Ursula le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, which definitely lives up to le Guin's impressive high standards. it's about a race of hermaphrodite humans living on a planet in an ice age and their first contact with wider mankind. it's also got incest and homosexual undertones and somewhat implied futa. it's also a fascinating exploration of a society which lacks the very concept of gender or ever-present sexual desire.

[this is opal, the forums are broken and I can't log in]

There was incest? I don't seem to remember that. And it strikes me you are somewhat missing the point in talking about futa. Also, it might interest you to know that Le Guin said one of the things she most regretted about that book was the lack of actual homosexuality. What else have you read by her? (she is my entire family's favourite author. I wrote a 4000 word paper on her last year. :D)

 

[Anomaly 54]

Eragon (For the 18th or 19 time) when I'm at school (The teacher's always late, what else amI gunna do?)

At home I'm reading Brisingr... huh, I guess I just love the Eragon series

 

[goldenquagsire]

[this is opal, the forums are broken and I can't log in]

There was incest? I don't seem to remember that. And it strikes me you are somewhat missing the point in talking about futa. Also, it might interest you to know that Le Guin said one of the things she most regretted about that book was the lack of actual homosexuality. What else have you read by her? (she is my entire family's favourite author. I wrote a 4000 word paper on her last year. :D)

@opal: incest, aye. Estraven has sex with his brother and they have a child called Sorve who gets a few lines in the last chapter. the futa was just me being silly. :P

and admittedly it's not proper homosexuality but with most people being referred to by masculine pronouns and being described in, what I think, was a pretty masculine way... well, it just seems quite gay really. especially when Estraven goes into kemmer and he's stuck alone in a tent with Genly.

I've also read The Dispossessed which is honestly to god one of my favourite books ever. and the first two novels of the Earthsea series. so I probably don't have anywhere near the same credentials as your family, but I still think she's a great author. what was your paper about, generally?

 

[surskitty]

@opal: incest, aye. Estraven has sex with his brother and they have a child called Sorve who gets a few lines in the last chapter.

Oh, I thought you meant as a major plot point.

I've also read The Dispossessed which is honestly to god one of my favourite books ever. and the first two novels of the Earthsea series. so I probably don't have anywhere near the same credentials as your family, but I still think she's a great author. what was your paper about, generally?

The Dispossessed is amazing, yes. I think my favourite books are The Left Hand of Darkness and The Farthest Shore, which is Earthsea book three. So get on that. I would recommend also her short stories, particularly the anthology The Birthday of the World.

It was titled "The treatment of gender in Ursula K Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness", which is terribly general, I know, but I don't have the academic knowledge for a more in-depth paper, and hey, this was high school.

edit: still opal, obviously, though it is worth noting that surskitty is also a fan

 

[goldenquagsire]

The Dispossessed is amazing, yes. I think my favourite books are The Left Hand of Darkness and The Farthest Shore, which is Earthsea book three.

I'll definitely get round to it. I just found the change in style between the first and second books a little jarring. The first was wild adventures across the whole of Earthsea and the second felt more like a segment of a whole story.

It was titled "The treatment of gender in Ursula K Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness", which is terribly general, I know, but I don't have the academic knowledge for a more in-depth paper, and hey, this was high school.

That sounds pretty cool. :o

I'm amazed that your teacher allowed it though.

 

[opaltiger]

That sounds pretty cool. :o

I'm amazed that your teacher allowed it though.

Why? o.o

 

[Tailsy]

That sounds pretty cool. :o

I'm amazed that your teacher allowed it though.

Really?

I did my English dissertation on the treatment of same-sex relationships in Carol-Ann Duffy's poetry. I go to a Catholic school, and my teacher thought my dissertation was awesome.

 

[Diz]

Well, most highschools =/= non-heterosexual anythings

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

I've read all of the Keys to the Kingdom and Old Kingdom books except Superior Saturday (which it looks like I'll have to buy myself), Lord Sunday (which my friend had but I can't read until I get Superior Saturday) and Abhorsen (which I'll also probably have to buy). I also read Darren Shan's Koyasan and The Wizard of Oz, the latter of which I found hilarious because of the language. Also how it was made blatantly obvious that the Scarecrow had brains, the Tin Woodsman had a heart and the Cowardly Lion wasn't cowardly at all.

Meanwhile, I'm just finishing off 1984, then I have the Riftwar Saga, Mein Kampf, The Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol, The Secret Garden, Brent Weeks' Night Angel Trilogy and Interesting Times. Which ought to get me to early July hopefully.

 

[goldenquagsire]

Why? o.o

because in my experience, even if English teachers let you do something creative, they still expect you to do 'literary' stuff. le Guin is brilliant but I dunno if what she writes qualifies for lit fic.

see also ditto's post.

 

[Vladimir Putin's LJ]

I finally finished Os Maias a couple of days ago and it was boring as hell. 700 pages of 'whine whine whine whine wahey good life woo suicide whine whine INCEST apoplexy'. Portuguese literature classics have kind of let me down so-far. The story itself isn't bad or anything but christ the way it's written just makes you want to go outside for a bike ride or something.

Now I'll continue Middlesex, a book which is also fairly long and also contains incest but is a lot more enjoyable.

 

[opaltiger]

because in my experience, even if English teachers let you do something creative, they still expect you to do 'literary' stuff. le Guin is brilliant but I dunno if what she writes qualifies for lit fic.

see also ditto's post.

Notwithstanding the absurdity of the term 'lit fic', of course Le Guin qualifies. Clearly your English teachers have been sub-par.

Well, most highschools =/= non-heterosexual anythings

That's not true and you know it.

 

[goldenquagsire]

Notwithstanding the absurdity of the term 'lit fic', of course Le Guin qualifies. Clearly your English teachers have been sub-par.

well she's still not regarded as canon. like, dickens, joyce, fitzgerald, all those types are agreed upon as lit fic, but sf is kinda excluded unless the author actively discourages the label. it's dumb, but that's just the way things roll.

also, with all due respect, I find that comment quite insulting. my English teachers over the past few years have been some of the most intelligent, committed individuals that I've ever met. :/

That's not true and you know it.

I think you might be misinterpreting Ditto's (admittedly poorly-worded) post. he probably meant that high school communities do not generally approve of non-hetero sexuality, especially within the context of academic study. which seems to be a fair assessment.

 

[opaltiger]

also, with all due respect, I find that comment quite insulting. my English teachers over the past few years have been some of the most intelligent, committed individuals that I've ever met. :/

My apologies. I'm just vastly annoyed by the "science fiction isn't real literature" mentality.

 

[goldenquagsire]

My apologies. I'm just vastly annoyed by the "science fiction isn't real literature" mentality.

I agree that the attitude is stupid. but the problem is that it's held by the majority. even the teachers who included Frankenstein on the syllabus probably didn't think of it as science fiction, even though it arguably follows many sf tropes.