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Good Novels (pg. 3)
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| wotyzoid |
You would definitely love anything by Aldous Huxley. One of the best books I've ever read:
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| woscar |
| Thanks Kenny...what is that one about? |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by wotyzoid
You would definitely love anything by Aldous Huxley. One of the best books I've ever read:
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Hated that book. One of the few I've absolutely despised.
That said, I'm a huge fan of the Harper P.S. series of re-issues. |
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| Meat187 |
| quote: | Originally posted by woscar
Thanks for tip, Meat ;)
From the ones I bought: The Shining, Four Past Midnight, The Stand, The Gunslinger...which one would you recommend reading first? |
As I said, I'm not a fan of the Dark Tower books. I'd say go for The Stand, even if it's the longest of them, for I think it's also the best. You did buy the extended version, didn't you? The one with a two-part foreword. If not, return it immediately. If you want something shorter go for The Shining, but knowing the movie might spoil the fun with that one. |
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| wotyzoid |
| quote: | Originally posted by woscar
Thanks Kenny...what is that one about? |
From Huxley's web page, you can actually read the online version of the entire book there also.
http://www.huxley.net/
| quote: | | Aldous Huxley's writings express the disillusionment of the 1920s, the cynicism of the 1930s, and the questioning of the 1940s. Huxley was the product of the times, and his novels and essays are the expressions of his beliefs and concerns. Huxley's first two important novels, Antic Hay (1923) and Point Counter Point (1928), like T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, express the despair and disillusionment of the period following World War I. By the time he wrote Brave New World (1932), he despaired of man's ability to save himself from himself. But thinking that he had found a possible solution to the dilemma of man, Huxley became interested in the teachings of Eastern mystics. His novel After Many a Summer Dies the Swan (1939) is a vehicle for many of his ideas; his collection of essays The Perennial Philosophy (1946) is a kind of anthology and commentary drawn from the writings of the mystics. Alexander Henderson (Aldous Huxley, London, 1935) was probably right when he said, "Huxley is primarily a light philosophical essayist using the novel form to present the more superficial modes of contemporary thought and feeling." |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Hated that book. One of the few I've absolutely despised.
That said, I'm a huge fan of the Harper P.S. series of re-issues. |
Hell yeah, most of those classics are epic.
Why did you dislike it so much? |
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| woscar |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
As I said, I'm not a fan of the Dark Tower books. I'd say go for The Stand, even if it's the longest of them, for I think it's also the best. You did buy the extended version, didn't you? The one with a two-part foreword. If not, return it immediately. If you want something shorter go for The Shining, but knowing the movie might spoil the fun with that one. |
Yep, that's the version of "The Stand" I got. It says "The Complete and Uncut Edition" on the cover ;) |
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| SkyHigh |
Dragon tears by Dean Koontz.
Most of his books are good. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by wotyzoid
Hell yeah, most of those classics are epic.
Why did you dislike it so much? |
Mainly I didn't buy into the premise - art will never be completely eradicated by science. I think history has borne this out fairly well - art may have evolved in technologically abstract ways, but the human spirit can't simply be subdued by technology. I understand that Huxley intended this to be a criticism of technological autocracy. But it didn't ring true for me - technology and art can exist side by side and need not subsume individualism.
Then he gets caught in a Hegelian dialectic where he argues that pleasure isn't happiness without pain. While this rings true on some level, who is Huxley to say that you need to get cancer late in life just to appreciate the good times? Even the savage (the normal human) is comedicly shallow. So he's read the Bible and knows what pain is - this makes him the penultimate human? We should all take a page out of Huxley's book and not do anything about evil and suffering in the world - because it helps us enjoy the privileges we do have!
What's more, I thought Huxley was unnecessarily obsessed with sex. So programmed breeding has taken the place of loving human relationships? I get it. Now stop writing about sex and get back to the (remarkably thin) plotline.
1984 > Brave New World. |
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| wotyzoid |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Mainly I didn't buy into the premise - art will never be completely eradicated by science. I think history has borne this out fairly well - art may have evolved in technologically abstract ways, but the human spirit can't simply be subdued by technology. I understand that Huxley intended this to be a criticism of technological autocracy. But it didn't ring true for me - technology and art can exist side by side and need not subsume individualism.
Then he gets caught in a Hegelian dialectic where he argues that pleasure isn't happiness without pain. While this rings true on some level, who is Huxley to say that you need to get cancer late in life just to appreciate the good times? Even the savage (the normal human) is comedicly shallow. So he's read the Bible and knows what pain is - this makes him the penultimate human? We should all take a page out of Huxley's book and not do anything about evil and suffering in the world - because it helps us enjoy the privileges we do have!
What's more, I thought Huxley was unnecessarily obsessed with sex. So programmed breeding has taken the place of loving human relationships? I get it. Now stop writing about sex and get back to the (remarkably thin) plotline.
1984 > Brave New World. |
Very well written criticism, you should be a book critic. :)
I do like and agree with what you pointed out about John being shallow. All those Shakespeare quotes and the his ideals felt a bit unsubstantial to me as well. Nevertheless I enjoyed very much the read and it definitely ed with my brain. I haven't read 1984 yet so I can't comment on your comparison. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by wotyzoid
Very well written criticism, you should be a book critic. :)
I do like and agree with what you pointed out about John being shallow. All those Shakespeare quotes and the his ideals felt a bit unsubstantial to me as well. Nevertheless I enjoyed very much the read and it definitely ed with my brain. I haven't read 1984 yet so I can't comment on your comparison. |
1984 set the bar pretty high for dystopian literature, in my opinion. It's an excellent book, though does suffer from some of the same radical assumptions.
The Shakespeare references were actually one of the few things I liked about Brave New World. Huxley meant it as a companion piece to The Tempest (which is where he pulls the title) - I just really prefered The Tempest. :p |
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| woscar |
| OK, so I started with "The Shining". Please keep the suggestions coming! :) |
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