What kinds of books do you read?

[Malthus]

That's very interesting. I am always anxious about people like that - I mean, there is a difference between a debilitating, raving mad lunacy and people who experience such strange visions and are convinced of knowing some hidden truths - who says they aren't right in some way.

Personally, I treat them in a same way I treat religious people (of the non-tedious type, at least) - with fascination, amusement and a tinge of envy for having experienced stuff I have never had.

Some of his delusions sound sort of cool, but I suspect it was mostly a terrible burden.

I remember as a teen talking with a schitzophrenic I used to see around in the donut shop; she talked about when she didn't take her meds, and everything around her was like some magic fairyland of wonders - only one that could, at any moment, turn into a hell of unreleved horrors, and then she's find herself in the loony bin again after doing stuff that seemed to make sense at the time, living inside a Heronimus Bosch painting.

[AnchorClanker]

I like Lem's quote about not realizing how dumb people were before the internet.   

[Martinus]

That's very interesting. I am always anxious about people like that - I mean, there is a difference between a debilitating, raving mad lunacy and people who experience such strange visions and are convinced of knowing some hidden truths - who says they aren't right in some way.

Personally, I treat them in a same way I treat religious people (of the non-tedious type, at least) - with fascination, amusement and a tinge of envy for having experienced stuff I have never had.

Some of his delusions sound sort of cool, but I suspect it was mostly a terrible burden.

I remember as a teen talking with a schitzophrenic I used to see around in the donut shop; she talked about when she didn't take her meds, and everything around her was like some magic fairyland of wonders - only one that could, at any moment, turn into a hell of unreleved horrors, and then she's find herself in the loony bin again after doing stuff that seemed to make sense at the time, living inside a Heronimus Bosch painting.

Yeah, I know what you mean. That being said, I remember talking to at least a couple of schizophrenics in my life, and they have always proven rather interesting conversationalists, I believe. I have a rather amused fascination for conspiracy theories, quabbalah-like (or Pi-like, in the meaning of the movie thus titled) connections between objects, symbols and ideas, and similar harmless but intriguing gibberish.

What's funny (and in a sense, disturbing, at the same time) that in each such case they seemed to regard me as one of their own - to the awed fascination of my friends who participated in such conversations - as we pranced with a Protean incongruence through diverse mythologies and mysticisms, occultisms and philosophies, semantics and ontologies, from Mary Magdalene to Mithras, from Latin to Arameic etymologies, and from Akhenaton to Apollonius of Tyana.

It was like some elaborate, egotistical and exhibitionist contest in a sense, a debate where meaning and logic took a back seat to extravagance. Some of the most entertaining moments of my life, I admit.

I wish we had more of things like this on Languish, alas, the majority of people who populate this forum seem to have the minds of steel and cogs, so any such attempts would dwindle in minutiae of grumbleresque arguments.

Edit: Of course, such conversations are best conducted when drunk or stoned.

[Martinus]

I like Lem's quote about not realizing how dumb people were before the internet.   

Yeah, I believe it's lovely.

[Ed Anger]

I wish we had more of things like this on Languish, alas, the majority of people who populate this forum seem to have the minds of steel and cogs, so any such attempts would dwindle in minutiae of grumbleresque arguments.

My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.

or

My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

Pick one.

[Martinus]

I wish we had more of things like this on Languish, alas, the majority of people who populate this forum seem to have the minds of steel and cogs, so any such attempts would dwindle in minutiae of grumbleresque arguments.

My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.

or

My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

Pick one.

The latter, definitely.

[Sheilbh]

What do people mean by the classics?  I'm always curious about this whenever I see a 'Penguin's Modern Classics' book.  What are the classics for people here?  The Great Victorian novels?  Modernist stuff like Woolf, Joyce and Waugh?  'Penguin Moderns' like 'The Go-Between' (which I still haven't read)?  And do perspectives change if you open out the field.  So, to take Ank's line about what you should have read (and I get what he means, I'm overwhelmed every time I go to the classics section of my local bookshop) are ther modern novels that, for whatever reason, are books that you should read (the two that spring into my mind are Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' and Beckett's trilogy)?

[viper37]

Books: fiction mostly nowadays.  My students years aren't that far behind me and I've got some catching up to do with fiction tales
But I still read specialty magazine about finance, economics and construction.  Especially the "recommended wine" sections of the construction magazine.

[Syt]

What do people mean by the classics?

That's as much unanswerable objectively as the question what literature is. The edges will always remain fuzzy. My personal definition is books that were originally published before WW2 but are still in print and circulation today. Of course that ignores a large number of great books that have fallen out of memory sometimes rightfully, sometimes regrettably.

[Octavian]

My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.

Ditto!

My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

Gal-darnit, Mr. Anger, you use your tongue prettier than a 20-dollar whore.

[Alatriste]

What do people mean by the classics?  I'm always curious about this whenever I see a 'Penguin's Modern Classics' book.  What are the classics for people here?  The Great Victorian novels?  Modernist stuff like Woolf, Joyce and Waugh?  'Penguin Moderns' like 'The Go-Between' (which I still haven't read)?  And do perspectives change if you open out the field.  So, to take Ank's line about what you should have read (and I get what he means, I'm overwhelmed every time I go to the classics section of my local bookshop) are ther modern novels that, for whatever reason, are books that you should read (the two that spring into my mind are Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' and Beckett's trilogy)?

A classic is a work that has resisted the trial of time. In other words, a book is a classic if people keep buying it after the author is dead and can't promote its sales. 

[Sheilbh]

That's as much unanswerable objectively as the question what literature is. The edges will always remain fuzzy. My personal definition is books that were originally published before WW2 but are still in print and circulation today. Of course that ignores a large number of great books that have fallen out of memory sometimes rightfully, sometimes regrettably.

Oh I'm not asking for an objective answer but just what RH and Ank consider the classics.  Pre-WW2 makes sense.

[Ed Anger]

My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.

Ditto!

My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

Gal-darnit, Mr. Anger, you use your tongue prettier than a 20-dollar whore.

[AnchorClanker]

Books: fiction mostly nowadays.  My students years aren't that far behind me and I've got some catching up to do with fiction tales
But I still read specialty magazine about finance, economics and construction.  Especially the "recommended wine" sections of the construction magazine.

That's pretty much my definition as well... WWII seems to be the cutoff, although I *do* read some post-WWII
fiction, perhaps it seems too recent to call them classics, but the best of them will be when I am old.  (or something).

A *very* conservative explanation of the classics might be restricted to Greco-Roman works, but I find that too narrow.
Surely Beowulf and the Kalevala would be *classics* to most people.

[Martinus]

I think ultimately, "classics" is just a filter, just like my "gay themed" books one.

The fact is, in this day and age, we are simply bombarded with countless books that no normal person would be able to read because there are just too many. So we devise filters to narrow down the number of books we should be reading. This may be based on theme, or a genre, or "what other people considered good" (aka classics) or a combination of the above.