“The best part of a writer is on paper. The other part is usually nonsense.”
–Hollywood.
Archive for the Reading Category
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
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
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The Day Borges Blew Up My Head
Posted in Reading, Real Men with tags Ahaseurus, Borges: A Life, Both Flesh and Not, David Foster Wallace, Edwin Williamson, Glenferrie Road, Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths, mobius strip, New York Times, Princess Diana, The God's Script, The Immortal, Theseus on April 27, 2013 by Jarrod Boyle
This week, at the urging of David Foster Wallace, I read two stories by Jorge Luis Borges: ‘The God’s Script’ and ‘The Immortal’. In the same way I will always remember where I was and what I was doing when Princess Diana was killed, I will always remember sitting at that Glenferrie Road café, killing time in between clients on a grey mid-morning when I read those two stories. Continue reading
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Venus in Furs
Posted in Reading with tags Goethe, homosexuality, Jane Austen, Justine, Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch, Marquis de Sade, Pride and Prejudice, Story of O, Venus in Furs on April 21, 2013 by Jarrod Boyle
“In life, one must be the hammer or the anvil.”
– Goethe, as quoted in Venus in Furs.
I am convinced that Pride and Prejudice should be on the reading list of every teen-aged boy. I loved the book when I read it; I thought to myself, ‘I should have read this twenty years ago! This explains exactly what’s wrong with them!’
I have recently read Venus in Furs and this book should also be added to the adolescent male list of required reading. Continue reading
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Drag-Racing in the Desert of the Real
Posted in Film, Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Reading with tags Baudrillard, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cambodia, concentration camp, Dawn of the Dead, Dexter, George A Romero, Germaine Greer, Irreversible, Killer Joe, Matthew McConaughey, Naomi Wolf, Raders of the Lost Ark, Salo, Sam Peckinpah, Sergei Eisenstein, Straw Dogs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The American Nightmare, The Exorcist, The Wild Bunch, Tobe Hooper, Tom Savini, Walking Dead, Wes Craven, Wliiam Freidkin on March 17, 2013 by Jarrod Boyle
I had an argument with some friends of mine recently about Dexter. Personally, I think that is a show for which the script is a poorly-written pretext for the violence. Continue reading
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Manifesto
Posted in Reading, Real Men, Statement of intention with tags Raymond Chandler on January 9, 2013 by Jarrod Boyle
The Master and Magarita
Posted in Reading with tags Master and Magarita, Mikhail Bulgakov on November 23, 2012 by Jarrod Boyle
“Disgraceful,” the guest scolded and added, “And besides, why do you say things like ‘smash some guy in the puss’? After all, no one knows exactly what a man has, a face or a puss. Most likely, it’s still a face. So, when it comes to fists… No, you should stop doing that sort of thing once and for all.”
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Theme Park at its Darkest 