Sewer socialist in a muck-filled world. Reading, growing food, & music. Sort of retired, but I sell vinyl records to pay for bourbon—errrr, the car repairs and garden seeds.
Mastodon: zirk.us/@JaminBogi# Bandcamp: bandcamp.com/pghjaybee
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"Using a synthesis of ecology, anthropology, philosophy and political theory, this book traces our society's conflicting legacies of freedom and …
"Using a synthesis of ecology, anthropology, philosophy and political theory, this book traces our society's …
Excellent investigation into hierarchies of all kinds and their origins. Some of the writing is thick as mud, but there are gorgeous passages scattered throughout. Seems to misunderstand science/evolution somewhat, in that he imagines a striving toward complexity and differentiation throughout the history of matter. This concept then is the basis for his ideas on societal and natural ecology, that there is wholeness in complementarity among difference. He thus advocates for our actions to increase this diversity, complementarity, lack of hierarchy etc., so that we can participate in this evolutionary process and eventually...well no one knows. Something cool one hopes!
I read the "Twenty Years Later" introduction after reading the book. In it, he addresses a lot of woo that became more popular in that time, and that was maybe even inspired by his writing. His views on this striving or inherent direction/reason in nature make him sound like a …
Excellent investigation into hierarchies of all kinds and their origins. Some of the writing is thick as mud, but there are gorgeous passages scattered throughout. Seems to misunderstand science/evolution somewhat, in that he imagines a striving toward complexity and differentiation throughout the history of matter. This concept then is the basis for his ideas on societal and natural ecology, that there is wholeness in complementarity among difference. He thus advocates for our actions to increase this diversity, complementarity, lack of hierarchy etc., so that we can participate in this evolutionary process and eventually...well no one knows. Something cool one hopes!
I read the "Twenty Years Later" introduction after reading the book. In it, he addresses a lot of woo that became more popular in that time, and that was maybe even inspired by his writing. His views on this striving or inherent direction/reason in nature make him sound like a creationist who doesn't believe in a creator.
So, otherwise, some powerful ideas and a stimulating read.
"Using a synthesis of ecology, anthropology, philosophy and political theory, this book traces our society's conflicting legacies of freedom and …
Content warning Spoilers!
Love, love, love. Only knock is that all 3 pieces feel like the same narrator (a slightly-modified version of the author) but they are not the same person. So it feels like 3 works in which the author repeated himself, instead of a more fleshed-out single novel. But I am happy to have him repeat this endlessly, because it's so dang good. Consistently warm writing that comes from a blend of playfulness, earnestness, and intellectualism.
In this translation of a harrowing and sprawling novel of 1920s Germany, the shifting fortunes …
Content warning Yeah, spoilers
A great example of modernist writing, combining internal monologues, discussions between angels/spirits, overheard conversations, newspaper story summaries, weather reports, etc. It might greatly help you if you do not think of the main character as a hero but just the protagonist—some of my book club members hated this book because they hated Franz from early on and couldn't see past their rage. Some horribly brutal scenes, one that I literally had to turn away from for a bit.
In this translation of a harrowing and sprawling novel of 1920s Germany, the shifting fortunes of a man newly released …
Poetry. Osip Mandelstam was born in 1891. Professor Donald Rayfield, in his notes to Chapter …
Some lovely passages, but the book takes about 10 minutes to read. I didn't know that when I requested it at the library...! Would be prefer a complete works or big collected works.
Nobodaddy's Children is a trilogy of novels that traces life in Germany from the Nazi …
Reread as I build up courage to tackle Bottom's Dream
Can one be nostalgic for the home one never had? Why is it that the age of globalization is accompanied …
Can one be nostalgic for the home one never had? Why is it that the age of globalization is accompanied …
Can one be nostalgic for the home one never had? Why is it that the …
Extremely good already, only 20 pages in...
In this translation of a harrowing and sprawling novel of 1920s Germany, the shifting fortunes …
Next book club selection!
Content warning Minor plot points/events
Some seriously spooky/cool moments, especially in the second half, with a bar that glows blue, bicyclists who disappear in a large city, a train that rides on for years.... Overall, not terribly surreal if you're familiar with some ideas like transmigration, prescience, the dissolution of reality into a dream place and a quick snap back, etc. The characters we get to know the best were the flattest; they seem to exist mostly as distilled flavors of sexual passion, captured in various trances that compel them to interact but leave them little freedom. Interesting use of climate-driven disasters, and how humans try to cope and stupidly carry on much as they did before. At the end, an important choice is made, and some resolution is given, but it all sort of dissolves, like a dream that you can't quite remember....