The Gaffer Posted August 19, 2016 Share Posted August 19, 2016 Its not the end of the world, just a bit of a pain in the arse hah. i was planning on finishing Trainspotting, then goin straight into the sequel, but I'll put it off for a bit hah. I really, really hope they don't bung up the movie next year. It should be cracking but there is something off about Begbie, Sick Boy and the lads looking like dads at a Stone Roses concert. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.E Posted August 19, 2016 Share Posted August 19, 2016 I found out about that movie not long ago, so I'm excited for it. Is it based on Porno, or is it an original story? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gaffer Posted August 19, 2016 Share Posted August 19, 2016 Loosely based on it is the word. The book is set ten years after the film whereas this is twenty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Gus Mears Posted August 25, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted August 25, 2016 (edited) I recently read Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs and it is the worst book I have ever laid eyes on. I actually chugged all the way through to see if it improves (it doesn't) and have the ability to call it without equivocation what it is, diabolical.  I can deal with the gratuitous violence and sex, it's the fact that it's so poorly written it hurts my eyes to read. The same half-dozen words and phrases crop up again and again relentlessly. I never want to read the word 'ejaculate' again as long as I live.  It's meant to be shocking, I get that, but, to use a Burrowsesque phrase, it's all cum and no foreplay. Every disgusting paragraph of autoerotic asphyxiation, impaling, drug use, is lost behind a meaningless wall of sleaze. You are so desensitised to it all by about page 50 that nothing has any shock value any more. Good writing is supposed to be about suspense and this book has none after the third chapter. Consequently, you are left with not only a book that is poorly written, but also dull as ditch water.  I'm left with the same emotion I generally find after attempting to read one of the supposedly great works by the Beat Generation. Complete disappointment. I thought On The Road was overrated, Howl is overrated. This reaches a whole new plateau of overrated. Edited August 25, 2016 by Gus Mears Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted August 25, 2016 Moderators Share Posted August 25, 2016 On the road is straight garbage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Sergio Mendacious Posted August 25, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted August 25, 2016 Tried reading on the road years ago, seems appropriate that it was typed on a long continuous roll. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ElCece Posted August 25, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted August 25, 2016 (edited) Yeah it was utter shite. Would put it up there with The Catcher in the Rye with regards to most overrated Edited August 25, 2016 by ElCece Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Gus Mears Posted August 25, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted August 25, 2016 (edited) I'm glad it isn't just me then. To talk to some people, reading it is some kind of seminal, life altering experience. I appreciate that it was ten years later, but Hunter Thompson's early gonzo stuff (The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved- Fear and Loathing) is equally rife with debauchery, but so much better written and with an appropriate level of tongue in cheek whereas On The Road takes itself so seriously for a book about getting wasted. I imagine it's the kind of thing I would have found really clever when I was about 15. Edited August 25, 2016 by Gus Mears Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.E Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 Yeah it was utter shite. Would put it up there with The Catcher in the Rye with regards to most overrated  with Catcher, it was one of the books I read when getting back into reading a few years back, and I'd had been on my list for years thanks to some BBC thing i saw when I was a teenager.  Read it cover to cover in a few days, and it was highly disappointing to be honest. I can see what people take out of it, but I thought it was a lot of nothing and people reading way to much into what it all means. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted August 25, 2016 Moderators Share Posted August 25, 2016 I enjoyed catcher in the rye. It didn't blow my mind or anything, but it was a decent read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ElCece Posted August 25, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted August 25, 2016 I think what Mr E said to be honest. It wasnt horrendously written it was just meh. There wasn't any substance, I didnt read anything till I was 20 so took alot off my reading from recommendations and this one had been talked up to the extent I was genuienly looking forward to reading it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gaffer Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 On The Road and Catcher are muck. The Beat Generation does nothing for me either. The best thing I probably read was Dharma Lion, that Bible sized biography of Ginsberg that also functions as a sort of history of that whole movement. Gave me a great knowledge and overview of it without having to read too much of the annoying works it produced. Ginsberg came across as such a pithy, self involved hanger on. No real great invention to any of his stuff. Just pretended to be more mental than he was, smoked some dope, leeched off Eastern mysticism and funnelled it all through his egocentric lens into some of the most overrated works of the 20th century. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Gus Mears Posted August 25, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted August 25, 2016 (edited) Ginsburg's career was largely based on keeping other members of the Beat Generation vaguely legible and stopping them from accidentally killing themselves before they could release stuff. His best poetry was largely successful because of the time he happened to release it, not because of its brilliance. "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness" etc. etc. is a wonderful opening, but the rest of Howl in no way reaches the same level. Nothing else he wrote did either.  In the pantheon of 20th century poetry that connects to an ostensibly non-poetry audience, give me John Cooper Clarke or something where you get serious subjects interposed with poems about getting the clap. Like most of the Beats, Ginsburg takes everything way too seriously. Edited August 25, 2016 by Gus Mears Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_3165 Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 Just finished 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde. Bloody brilliant! Fascinating in its portrayal and subtle nod to Wilde's homosexuality and the themes of self-indulgence and passionate sin are well worked into the story. I had never really read much Wilde before this but really want to read more of it since. The novel got criticised following its publication but turned out to be one of the great stories of the last few hundred years. Definitely worth a look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Gus Mears Posted August 30, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted August 30, 2016 (edited) I didn't mind Dorian Gray, but I much prefer Wilde's play writing to his short stories. It's easier to shoehorn in brilliant witticisms and aphorisms when it's in the context of a comedy play like The Importance of Being Earnest than in something like Dorian Gray. Â I'm reading the collected works of Dylan Thomas because I'm a saddo who likes lyric poetry and Herodotus' Histories. I'm also starting an interesting looking history of Kosovo this evening. I've had a pointless and debauched few weeks and I want to read again before my brain turns to pulp. Edited August 30, 2016 by Gus Mears Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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