A lot of people think Charles Bukowski’s Ham on Rye is his best novel. Continue reading
Archive for the Reading Category
Autobiography of a Loser
Posted in Observation, Reading, Real Men with tags acne, alcoholism, Angela's Ashes, Charles Bukowski, Elephant Man, Frank McCourt, Ham on Rye, Henry Chinaski, Hermann Hesse, Los Angeles, Post Office, Steppenwolf, Women on June 26, 2014 by Jarrod Boyle
A Bad Case of the Holden Caulfields
Posted in Reading, Real Men with tags Allie, Bastille, Catcher in the Rye, David Copperfield, Dawn of the Dead, I Am Legend, OCD, Pompeii, Robert Neville, Robinson Crusoe on May 15, 2014 by Jarrod Boyle
Anyone who likes to read must have read Catcher in the Rye – and loved it. Continue reading
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A Jerry-Rig of Presumption and Dumb Will
Posted in Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Reading, Real Men on April 22, 2014 by Jarrod Boyle
“But who is that on the other side of you?”
-T.S. Eliot,
The Waste Land.
For seven of its eight episodes, the first season of True Detective was some of the best television I have seen to date. I prefer to forget the final episode because it was so shithouse, but that’s another story. The series really hits its straps at the end of episode 3 with Rustin Cohle’s monologue, visible here.
The show has the three features present in all ‘great’ films and t.v. shows; Continue reading
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Things I Don’t Want to Know
Posted in Fiction, Reading, Real Men with tags ANC, angel, apartheid, Catcher in the Rye, Charlie Bukowski, Deborah Levy, feminist, George Orwell, Holden Caulfield, J.D. Salinger, Jacob, political, South Africa, Theme Park At Its Darkest, Why I write on April 13, 2014 by Jarrod Boyle
Things I Don’t Want To Know by Deborah Levy does not, judging from the blurb on the back, sound like the sort of book I’d like to read.
‘…it is feminist and political while being an inspiring act of writing.’
Whenever a book is ‘feminist and political’, it’s like being hit over the head with a length of dowel; irritating and painful, but not hard enough to knock you out – or into unconsciousness so you don’t have to listen anymore. Continue reading
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Patron Saint
Posted in Observation, Reading, Real Men, Statement of intention on March 23, 2014 by Jarrod Boyle
“When I came home: on the abyss of the five senses, where a flat sided steep frowns over the present world, I saw a mighty Devil folded in black clouds, hovering on the sides of the rock, with corroding fires he wrote the following sentence now perceived by the minds of men, & read by them on earth.
How do you know but ev’ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, clos’d by your senses five?”
– William Blake,
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
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S.E. Hinton: Rumble Fish versus The Outsiders
Posted in Observation, Reading with tags Dashiell Hammet, Francis Ford Coppola, James Ellroy, Mickey Rourke, Paul Newman, Pony Boy Curtis, Raymond Chandler, Rumble Fish, S.E. Hinton, Tex, That was Then This is Now, The Outsiders on February 27, 2014 by Jarrod Boyle
Hinton in 1968, the year ‘The Outsiders’ was published. Smart, hot and pigtails.
“Raymond Chandler wrote about the man he wanted to be. Dashiell Hammet wrote about the man he was frightened he’d become.”
-James Ellroy. Continue reading
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Charlie Bukowski’s Thought for the Day
Posted in Fiction, Observation, Reading, Real Men, Statement of intention with tags Bukowski, writing on December 27, 2013 by Jarrod Boyle
“The best part of a writer is on paper. The other part is usually nonsense.”
–Hollywood.
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James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ – the Warm-Up with Coach Rodney Hall.
Posted in Fiction, Reading, Real Men with tags Anna Karenina, Cubism, David Foster Wallace, James Joyce, Kant, Picasso, Schopenhauer, The Bloomsday Book, Ulysses, Venus in Furs, War and Peace on November 23, 2013 by Jarrod Boyle
Gotta love a man with an eye-patch.
J: I guess that’s what War and Peace is about. It’s about what happens when people are forced to cope with the force of history as it’s bearing down on them, which I guess is the way Tolstoy would have looked at it.
R: I’m so glad you liked War and Peace. I knew you would. When you were reading Anna Karenina, you were telling me ‘There couldn’t possibly be a better novel’. And then, there was. Continue reading
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Last Exit to Brooklyn
Posted in Reading with tags Black Flag, Dubliners, Ecclesiastes, Elie Weisel, Hermann Hesse, Hubert Selby Junior, James Joyce, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Night, Sex Pistols on September 14, 2013 by Jarrod Boyle
To my considerable delight, Last Exit to Brooklyn has been reissued as a cheapo Penguin classic. To my considerable surprise, it has been classified amongst the ‘Classic Crime’ series. To my considerable dismay, Anthony Burgess’ original introduction has been supplanted. The new one has been written by Irvine Welsh. Continue reading
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Wuthering Heights
Posted in Observation, Reading, Real Men with tags Aaron the Moor, Catherine, Duncan, Edgar, Emily Bronte, Gnasher, Goneril, Hindley, Iago, King Lear, Liverpool, MacBeth, Mr Earnshaw, necrophilia, Nelly Dean, nosferatu, Othello, Thrushcross Grange, Titus Andronicus on June 3, 2013 by Jarrod Boyle
Fan-art from some obscure Russian website – you get the idea.
I have a love/hate relationship with Shakespeare’s tragic heroes. Continue reading
Theme Park at its Darkest 