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Post by mickthecactus on Jan 24, 2012 17:08:49 GMT
Tolkien has never appealed to me for one second.
Mind you, he probably feels the same about me.
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Post by bjd on Jan 24, 2012 19:35:55 GMT
I read the Trilogy but could never get past a couple of pages of the Hobbit.
I also like(d) Dostoevsky much better than Tolstoy.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2012 6:10:04 GMT
I doubt if I ever got more than 20 pages into the Silmarillion.
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Post by ninchursanga on Feb 10, 2012 6:02:47 GMT
Once I'm done with my U.S. Lit course I'll have a long list of 'difficult' writers. Most likely that's more of a language skill problem, I'm just not good with any English that is pre mid 20th century. Does anyone know "The Tar Baby Story"? I actually had to google for a english-english translation, I kid you not.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 10, 2012 6:48:59 GMT
;D Ninchursanga, many native speakers of English have the same problem w/those stories.
There's some ambient noise on this clip, but at :54, you can hear the speaker change her way of speaking. That part is close to how Uncle Remus would have sounded.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2012 11:27:25 GMT
I hit upon another author in this category most recently. Virginia Woolf. I have tried reading her numerous times and always end up putting her down. Goodness knows she has written enough books,I ought to be able to find one that I can enjoy reading. Thus far,I have tried To The Lighthouse, The Waves, A Room of One's Own and the latest effort, Between The Acts. (A biography of her on the other hand,was a most enjoyable read).
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Post by bjd on Feb 10, 2012 12:38:31 GMT
That African-American story-telling video is interesting for one thing: I know a woman here from Ivory Coast. She tells stories to kids as well as selling African "souvenirs". I have heard her tell stories and she never switches into a dialectical way of speaking, just speaks her usual standard French. Similarly, at my son's wedding, a Senegalese friend told a wedding story and he too stayed in standard French.
So, I wonder why this American woman would feel the need to switch like that.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 10, 2012 16:29:22 GMT
Bjd, here's the text underneath the video on the youtube page:
This children's story (spoken in the Gullah language) was told to a group of Ecotourism & Sustainable Tourism (ESTC) particpants on Tuesday, September 20, 2011 on the site of the Gullah Museum.
Founder and Director Louise Miller Cohen is a native of Hilton Head Island and therefore has been able to experience the Gullah Culture first hand. Her latest role in preserving this unique culture is that of Gullah storyteller.
Ms. Cohen will proudly speak the Gullah language by telling tales, singing gospel songs, sharing knowlege of plants used for medicine, preparing Gullah cuisine, performing the ring shouts and making wine from mulberries and other seasonal fruits. She believes that as these rituals are performed in the presence of children, they will be passed down from generation to generation and the Gullah/Geechee culture will be preserved forever.
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Post by bjd on Feb 11, 2012 9:00:46 GMT
Thanks, Bixa. I thought she was just speaking English with a strange accent. Hadn't looked on the Youtube page.
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Post by nycgirl on Feb 15, 2012 18:02:09 GMT
I'm going to be reading Moby Dick soon for college. Not looking forward to it.
It's one of those books that sound like it's going to be a rip-roaring adventure- crazed man obsessed with killing a giant whale- but is actually a dreadful bore.
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Post by bjd on Feb 15, 2012 19:30:27 GMT
Another one of those "classics" where I couldn't get past the first chapter. Along with Don Quixote and others that don't immediately come to mind.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2012 19:54:04 GMT
I liked the first 400 or 500 pages of Moby Dick before getting bored.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 16, 2012 1:30:09 GMT
I tried reading Moby Dick sometime in the past ten years, so I was an adult & not forced to read it. The writing is absolutely wonderful, so it's easy to understand why it's considered a cornerstone of American literature. It also has one brilliant phrase in that has been quoted in many contexts. This phrase occurs near the beginning of the book, which suggests to me that many other people haven't gotten any further in than I did. A side (literary) note -- Kinsey Milhone, the heroine of Sue Grafton's detective novels, keeps a copy of Moby Dick in the trunk of her car for stake-outs, unscheduled overnight trips, etc. She keeps it there for years and years.
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Post by cristina on Feb 16, 2012 5:38:35 GMT
I never finished Moby Dick either. Note to NYCGirl - Spark Notes.
I am, however, trying to revisit a book from my 15 yo summer reading list. That was the list I hated the most, as all of the required reading fell into the the "boy book" category. At least according to me at that time. So I am now attempting to read the most reviled by my 15 yo self, All Quiet on the Western Front.
The reason being is that through a family genealogy project, I've been learning about family members serving on the Western front in both world wars. The project has been pretty emotional for the older members of the family and so I think its time I face Herr Remarque head on.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 16, 2012 5:42:04 GMT
I didn't know anyone else said "boy book"! Do you also designate certain films as "boy movies"?
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Post by cristina on Feb 16, 2012 5:51:46 GMT
Ha ha, Bixa! I do say "boy" movies, books etc... Although for different reasons sometimes. Since my children were born in the order of boy, girl, girl, I have spent more time discussing "boy" things in recent years than in past.
However that summer of boy reading has burnt such a hole in my brain that decades later I can't shake it off. I am pretty sure that I used "boy reading" to complain to anyone who would listen that year.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 16, 2012 6:26:15 GMT
The classic boy lit we're all forced to read in @8th grade: Big Two-Hearted River.
Sheesh!
To Build a Fire is right up there with Big 2-hearted etc.
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Post by bjd on Feb 16, 2012 8:38:26 GMT
I have never heard of either of those two, Bixa. All Quiet on the Western Front is a great book.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 16, 2012 15:36:41 GMT
They're not books -- they're short stories by Hemingway & Jack London, respectively.
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Post by bjd on Feb 16, 2012 16:04:52 GMT
My introduction to Hemingway in grade 10 was The Old Man and the Sea. I didn't read anything else by him for years, and in fact, I find his early journalism much better than his novels and those hunting/fishing stories. A few years ago I read an autobiography by Martha Gellhorn (one of Hemingway's ex-wives) and was confirmed in my suspicion that he was rather a schmuck.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 16, 2012 19:09:08 GMT
The Old Man & the Sea is a prime example of a book that treats "native people" as idiot-savants -- so wise, yet so simple-minded, speaking in an annoyingly formal yet overly basic way. In many ways I think Hemingway was a great writer, but he should be kicked for foisting that much-mimicked way of presenting supposedly primitive and quaint cultures upon the public.
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Post by patricklondon on Feb 27, 2012 14:12:54 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2012 14:45:39 GMT
Aw, I was hoping for an excerpt of Moveable Feast with a presentation of primitive and quaint Parisian culture!
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 27, 2012 18:19:52 GMT
That's hilarious! "Beware when we begin again with Proust." ;D
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Post by bjd on Feb 27, 2012 19:24:35 GMT
Click around a bit on the link for 5th and 6th and you can see how very badly this woman writes when she is not trying to imitate Hemingway. And she spelled La Rotonde wrong, even though there is a picture of it.
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Post by Kimby on Apr 5, 2012 14:19:00 GMT
Does anyone know "The Tar Baby Story"? I actually had to google for a english-english translation, I kid you not. The dialect is most of the story's charm. However, in this politically-correct era, it will likely not be heard again. Disney has "opened its vaults" and reissued every one of its animated films except "Song of the South". A shame. (Though perhaps if I saw it again now, I would feel that the film itself is shameful. A lot has changed in 65 years! Here's the tarbaby segment (FF to 3:10 or even 5:35): Brer Rabbit's predicament and impending demise at the hands of Brer Fox and Brer Bear is cleverly avoided beginning at 9:15... I'm going to be reading Moby Dick soon for college. Not looking forward to it. It's one of those books that sound like it's going to be a rip-roaring adventure- crazed man obsessed with killing a giant whale- but is actually a dreadful bore. I bought a bunch of classic books that I was supposed to have read in High School (but didn't and faked my way through class discussions) and this was one of them. Still haven't read much more of it than "Call me Ishmael." I read the Trilogy but could never get past a couple of pages of the Hobbit. I did the same in reverse. Devoured the Hobbit, but could not get into the trilogy. Frodo was just not as interesting to me as Bilbo. And at 3 volumes, it was a big time commitment. Fortunately, they made a movie of it, so I don't have to read it.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 14, 2012 6:19:17 GMT
Cynthia Ozick defeated me, although I feel I'll be giving her another try. The book was Heir to the Glimmering World, 2004 (published in the United Kingdom as The Bear Boy, 2005)
Maybe it's because it was the book I was reading at night in bed. It probably demanded & deserved a more alert mind. I could appreciate the richness of her writing, but felt it suffered from the flaw of too much exposition, to the point I was mentally snarling, "Get on with it!" I abandoned it almost half way through.
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Post by bjd on May 14, 2012 9:09:57 GMT
Not a "difficult" writer and perhaps belonging more in the Scandinavian fiction, but I took Jo Nesbo's latest book (The Leopard) from the library and have finally given up on Scandinavian crime writers. I just ended up reading bits and pieces -- why are these books so gruesome? Serial killers, torture, alcoholics...
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2012 11:58:20 GMT
Richard Ford. I have given this guy a go 2 or 3 times. Now with a new highly praised novel recently out, Canada, I may try once more. I think he may be one of those writers who appeal to males only, and I don't say that disparagingly. It does happen and vice versa.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 6, 2012 15:34:02 GMT
Early Richard Ford: jejune imitation of Hemingway
Later Richard Ford: boring
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