EnMasse

The very Irreverand Bill · Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 10:39 pm Post subject: What are you currently reading?

Right now I am reading
"Common sense"/"the crisis"/ and "rights of man"{in one book}-by Thomas Paine.
Paine kicks ass!!! Cool

I'm also reading here and there, in one volume as well, "Liber 777", "Sepher Sepheroth", "Gematria" "-Aleister Crowley
{the only one that currently makes ANY sense to me is "777"}

Also, on the side, I'm perusing essays in some philocophy texts I recently bought.

In Reason:
The very irrev.Bill
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"There is no greater weapon against errors of any kind than REASON, I have never used any other and I trust I never will"-Thomas Paine.

"He who dares not offend cannot be honest"-Thomas Paine

elmateo · Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 11:03 pm Post subject:

The Spire by William Golding. I think its the last book I own that I haven't read. I am not exactly sure why I have it. I have to get a library membership tomorrow. I want to pick up some of Ronald Wright's books (I reread A Short History of Progress, a very short by highly influencial book) - a Time Among the Mayas might be first.

cueball · Fulltime enMasse Member Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 2193

The End of the Peace Process by Edward W. Said.

ShyViolet · Fulltime enMasse Member Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 675

I just finished Johnny Got His Gun (Dalton Trumbo) and am about to start Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer (Sena Jeter Naslund).

goyanamasu · Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 11:38 pm Post subject: Reading Joseph Heller

I'm having a riot reading Joseph Heller's novel of the 1970s (in the US) Good as Gold.

Now I'm just starting Chapter VII, " Invite a Jew to the White House (and You Make Him Your Slave) " about the Nixon years.

You might (mistakenly) think the point of view is some sort of take on Henry A. Kissinger. No, the main character, Bruce Gold is, in fact, writing a sympathetic biography of Kissinger. It is part of his aspiration to move up the ranks as a presidential adviser.

Gold has just become renowned for 'inventing' the Washington politicos' response whenever the press wants a sound bite: 'I don't know.'

I dream consciously that the novel is fictitiously from the perspective of Elliot Abrams.

Thinking in terms of the neocons makes alot of sense. As if Heller saw this horrible combine of ex-Trotskyists and Southern Dems turned Republican coming before any of the rest of us sentient beings in more northern climes.

You won't believe this (I don't want to) but it was Robert Fulford (G&M then Nat'l Post) who turned me back on to Heller. I thought only in terms of Catch 22 and nothing more.
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al-Qa'bong · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 3:05 am Post subject:

I'm about halfway through Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilization.

Before that I was reading Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed's Behind the War on Terror

There have been times while reading these books when I've felt that if an aeroplane were to fly into a US skyscraper every day for a year, it still wouldn't be enough to pay the yanquis back for all the misery they have caused in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Then I remember that I'm not a vengeful person.
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi

We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs

pollyperverse · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 3:41 am Post subject:

I'm plowing through Said's Orientalism very, very slowly. It's pretty good reading so far, but I'm kind of a dunce when it comes to high-brow cultural criticism, so it's taking me awhile.

On the fiction side, I just finished Kincaid's Autobiography of My Mother. Powerful. I enjoyed the frank sexuality of the female lead character combined with her powerful introspection and examination of the effects of colonialism on her life. I found the overall tone disturbingly cold or detached at times, but I like being disturbed.

Next up: de Bernieres' Birds Without Wings.

goyanamasu · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 12:48 pm Post subject:

Jacket blurb on the back of a de Bernières novel: "England's answer to Gabriel Garcia Marquez."

If you review the book here pp, could you tell us about his experience in/of Latin America and if he's popular translated or adapted to films in Spanish?

pollyperverse · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 2:00 pm Post subject:

goyanamasu: I read de Bernieres' three novels dealing with an unnamed and fictionalized Colombia, The War of Don Emmaneul's Nether Parts, Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord, and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. As a young, whitebread international development studies student I absolutely loved them, but I have never been to South America so I can't tell you if they're _good_, or a good interpretation of the Colombian experience. I'm guessing possibly not, as de Bernieres himself only spent a year there, teaching English. They don't seem to be popular in translation?

goyanamasu · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 2:06 pm Post subject:

You can call me Goya, thanks Razz

Very striking. An Englishman, French name South American subjects. Real magic (un)realism that.

I think a Mexican film about a defrocked priest must have spun off a novel of his. I'll check it out.

Thanks whitebread. I'd crack a joke about how I like my coffee, but . . . You can get away with anything with the name pollyperverse. Smart thinking, choosing the name.
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pollyperverse · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 2:13 pm Post subject:

Well, I can give you a brief precis of the plots as I remember them:

The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts: indigenous/mestizo villagers flee the repression of a typically corrupt military unit with the help of rather disorganized guerilleros.

Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord: Brilliant teacher Dionisio Vivo becomes a hero and incurs wrath of and persecution by local coca lord by sending strongly worded letters to the national press re: coca killings.

Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman: Brutal modern inquisition set in motion by corrupt Cardinal, spirals out of control, reined in by the villages from the first book.

goyanamasu · 10 April 2003 (StudioBriefing)

Thanks for the summaries, pollyperverse. It gave me a chance to go back through some note and files.

What I was free-associating with is summarised in the following cut 'n' paste:

Fed · Fulltime enMasse Member Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 194

Reading a fascinating book called Soul Rebels: The Rastafarians. It is a series of interviews with Rastafarians in Jamaica in the 1980s. I forget the name of the author.

Learning a lot about them---they do smoke prodigious quantities of marijuana, but are nonetheless enterprising and self-sufficient. Rastas as a rule refuse to go on welfare or live in social housing, preferring to squat (even if in cardboard and tarpaper shacks) and make their own way selling souvenirs, fresh-caught fish, running concession stands in towns or subsistence farming in rural areas. They try to live as peasants: close to the land, working with their hands, socializing with their neighbours. They reject consumerism and the quest for the "baubles of Babylon" i.e. fancy houses, cars, TV, etc. "Reggae Rastas" (the ones like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, etc.) are viewed by hardcore Rastas as being sell-outs.

Am somewhat surprised to discover the exceedingly low position of women in the Rasta universe. Women generally do not smoke ganja---they are considered "unable to appreciate its benefits"---and are not welcome at "reasonings" (evenings of philosophical/spiritual discussion). Amongst the more pietistic Nyabinghi denomination of Rastafari, women are segregated during menstruation lest they "contaminate" the men.

Quite a mix, Rasta society. Fascinating book.

Tommy Shanks · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 6:32 pm Post subject:

I'm reading Access all Areas: A User's Guide to the Art of Urban Exploration.

So far its a pretty good read, all about going places in buildings around Toronto, Buffalo, and Rochester you probably shouldn't.

LongLiveRevolution1917 · Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 2:46 am Post subject:

the electric kool-aid acid test - by tom wolf
&
A tale of Tub - by jonathan swift
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Nevin · Member Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 74 Location: USA

Lost Christianties by Bart Ehrmann

Prior to the, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time.
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Mundus Vult Decipi

watchsmart · Member Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 10 Location: Korea

Leonard Cohen's new one, "Book of Longing." Really nice stuff.

obscurantist · wonk, snark, pedant Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 739

Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen. Darkly funny, violent, referential, set in a parallel-universe 1985 where the U.S. won the Vietnam War (and Nixon is still president) thanks to the involvement of superheroes and "masked crusaders".

Nice light bedtime reading, as if my dreams aren't disturbing enough already. But give it a try if your local library has a copy (mine did, and it has multiple holds on it, so I have to be finished reading it by Friday).

thwap · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 5:21 pm Post subject:

Okay.

I finished V for Vendetta. It was pretty good for a comic book. Especially 1980s DC!!! [geek alert!!!]

I'm workin' on Volume 10 of the Research in the Sociology of Work series, The Transformation of Work.

There's some pretty good essays in there. About "Post-Fordism" and like that. There was one essay that was a bit of a disappointment though. "Do High Performance Work Systems Pay Off?" ... it brings up a lot of important subjects and says that it is going to show how the participatory aspects of the High Performance Workplace system are what make it a more effective way to organize a workplace. But then, all at once, they just say: Improvements of 60 percent here, 22% there, ... with very little elaboration.

But, but, but, ... I'm also reading Musaddiq and the struggle for power in Iran by Homa Katouzian. I'd heard for a long time about the 1953 CIA coup against Iran's first important representative government. How the CIA overthrew Musaddiq and brought in the 20+ years of the Shah's brutal autocracy. How the Shah's destruction of secular/left opposition and suppression of everyone else forced dissent into the only venue available, the religious establishment.

Essentially, the CIA created the deformed monstrosity that we have today. All because the system cannot incorporate genuine democracy.

But anyway, I knew about this, but hadn't look at it indepth. (As if reading one book is "indepth" but i digress) ... anyway, from Katouzian's book, it seems like Mussadiq was a genuine democrat and a remarkable individual. I have less and less respect for Daniel Yergin's love letter to the oil industry, The Prize, with every page of Katouzian's book.
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I thought she was going to marry that snooty rich guy!

webactivist · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 5:36 pm Post subject:

Just finished reading:

Remembering Women Murdered by Men
Memorials Across Canada
by the Cultural Memory Group
http://dawn.thot.net/remembering_women_murdered_by_men.html

The book documents about 35 of the more than 60 monuments across the country dedicated to women who have been murdered by men... it aims to inspire and galvanize people to continue forging ahead in the work of ending violence against women.

Currently reading:

The Power of Kabbalah by Yehuda Berg

al-Qa'bong · Posted: Thu May 25, 2006 2:46 am Post subject:

Webgear · Member Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 40

I am reading "The Bear Went Over The Mountain". It is about Soviet tactics in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War.

Here is a electronic verison of the book.

http://www.911investigations.net/IMG/pdf/doc-1047.pdf?PHPSESSID=c26...

I am also reading Catch-22, again for about the 5th time.

elmateo · Posted: Thu May 25, 2006 3:22 am Post subject:

I started "A Scientific Romance" by Ronald Wright (2004 Massey Lecturer). Its like his A short history of progress but in fantastic HG Wells science fiction world. I don't know what would be better to read ASHP or SR first - whether the literary experience is enhanced or demystified from the cross sources. Still wonderful.

Hephaestion · Posted: Thu May 25, 2006 3:34 am Post subject:

Re-reading "A Game of Thrones" by George R. R. Martin. A fantabulous book! Very Happy

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"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

al-Qa'bong · Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 2:55 am Post subject:

The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan.

...-
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi

We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs

elmateo · Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 2:04 am Post subject:

goyanamasu · Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 10:07 am Post subject:

elmateo, Ronald Wright sounds interesting. Sounds like you found the most suggestive part of the lecture and opened new questions in your post.

(BTW, I'd like to see posts that enter with the title, then quote the entry like you did, and go on to discuss it in more depth. But thwap did his book in one go, which is cool if you've come to some conclusions)

al-Qa'bong · Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 3:23 am Post subject:

I just finished The Longest Day (you wouldn't believe the logistics and timing involved in trying to wrap this up on D-Day), and have started Hizbu'llah: Politics and Religion, by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb.

I received the latter through interlibrary loan, as the Saskatoon Public Library decided not to agree with my request that they purchase this work for their collection. Furthermore, they declined to add Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation, which I had also requested.

I wonder if whoever makes these decisions would rather that the Saskatoon reading public know as little as possible about Lebanese history and the background of movements such as Hizb'Allah.
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi

We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs

TS. · Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 7:36 am Post subject:

What I am reading: The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 1.
What I should be reading: LSAT prep materials (ugh)
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"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

thwap · Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:35 am Post subject:

Tacitus, The Histories.

Counterpuhch said he was a pompous, elitist ass. He's certainly an elitist. But a darn good yarn spinner.
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I thought she was going to marry that snooty rich guy!

goyanamasu · Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 12:08 pm Post subject:

Why didn't CounterPunch open a page and at least give Tacitus the chance to rebut their nasty review? Razz

Anne Cameron has had stupid reviews too. Maybe Alex Cockburn didn't even read Tacitus. Confused

thwap · Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 12:19 pm Post subject:

Here's a search-results page for mentions of Tacitus on Counterpunch.

Seems mostly positive as he denounced empire. I honestly thought i remembered Cockburn dissing Tacitus. He (Tacitus) does go on about the "dregs of the slave population," and the "riff-raff" that hang out at the circuses, and the stupidity of the common people generally.

But he's got a similar high-quality of voice as Thucydides. (I bought a few second-hand Penguin Classics, so why the fuck not read 'em?) Cool

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I thought she was going to marry that snooty rich guy!

goyanamasu · Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:02 pm Post subject:

To me, the best writing about

thwap · Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:14 pm Post subject:

If you do, i think you'll notice that he says that the common people could not understand things because they were the common people, ... not because we're all prone to human folly.

He's a good student of human nature, but he's was a patrician and apparently prejudiced against any possibility that the "lower orders" could be as sophisticated as their "betters."

That's my read of it anyway.
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I thought she was going to marry that snooty rich guy!

goyanamasu · Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:23 pm Post subject:

thwap:

"He's a good student of human nature, but he's was a patrician and apparently prejudiced against any possibility that the "lower orders" could be as sophisticated as their "betters." "

I'm trying to dig up a book for the title. A physician working in a poor neighbourhood in London analyzes the encounters, over decades, with visitors to a community centre and clinic.

One classic where a socialist turns against the banal masses is "Listen Little Man" by Wilhelm Reich. Years after reading it, I saw how Reich at Orgonon set up his lab in a chateau. Guess he liked aristos better than peasants.
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goyanamasu · Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 2:20 pm Post subject:

thwap: I found the book I mentioned. Okay, the author is at best a crypto-fascist, but it is still worth reading.

Life At the Bottom
The Worldview That Makes the Underclass
(Ivan R. Dee, 2001)

By Theodore Dalrymple

Theodore Dalrymple is a physician and psychiatrist who practices in England. He writes a column for the London Spectator, contributes frequently to the Daily Telegraph, and is a contributing editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. His other books include Mass Listeria and So Little Done. He lives in Birmingham, England.

StrawCat · Fulltime enMasse Member Joined: 13 Apr 2006 Posts: 119

Just taking a shot here to find out if anyone has any recommendations for books to read about ancient Sumerian Literature in translation (besides Gilgamesh) that they could pass on?

PM me if you do.

Thanks,

StrawCat

thwap · Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 12:27 pm Post subject:

The Middle Ages by Morris Bishop.

pointless link

It's an old-fashioned history book. Written in the old classic, male academic from an elite institution kinda way. Well written.

Why am I reading it? Because I noticed to my surprise that I had no book on my shelf about Europe in the Middle Ages. I'd never heard of the Ottonian Empire before so I went to my shelf to bone up on it and lo and behold, nothing to help me out!!

So i'm reading this now.

carry on.
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I thought she was going to marry that snooty rich guy!

Caissa · Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 12:33 pm Post subject:

A is for Anything by Damon Knight (Sci-Fi)
Collection of Essays by John Spong edited by Christine Spong

al-Qa'bong · Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2006 4:51 am Post subject:

Pity the Nation by Robert Fisk.

I find it tough enough to read the stories of victims of the Nakba; I can't imagine how horrible it must be to be a Palestinian who lost everything in 1948.

The same goes for those who survived the Holocaust.

Why must there be a winner and a loser in Palestine? Cannot the people there find a way through which Jew and Arab can exist together in peace, side by side as equals, living in harmony?
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi

We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs

thwap · Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2006 12:51 pm Post subject:

I haven't finished my Middle Ages book. But i've also started ---

The Chastening by Paul Blustein, about the IMF's time of troubles dealing with the currency crises of the 1990s.

I'm only on the first section now, the Thai baht devaluation. It's pretty detailed, but he's left out some important stuff. Supposedly, the IMF had told the East-Asian countries to build their necessary institutions and make sure they were sound before allowing global finance access to their national markets. In Thailand's case, they welcomed becoming an international financial center and allowed the international capital in before making sure that their institutions were being governed properly.

I would have liked to have heard more of the detailed responses to this problem: The creation of an international market without reform of national financial institutions.

Finally, he appears to be avoiding something that's always bugged me: True, many of the East-Asian banks weren't "transparent" and that's why the extent of their bad loans, yadda-yadda-yadda, weren't noticed. But the fact of the matter is that these Asian banks got their money (short term loans lent to long-term real estate projects that were part of an investment bubble in any case) from Western banks. It was the Western investors we bailed out with the IMF loans. What sort of decision making is involved in loaning billions to Asian banks without doing the necessary enquiries about what they'll use the money for?

It's still turning out to be a good book.
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I thought she was going to marry that snooty rich guy!

Triz · Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 7:52 am Post subject:

Janette Turner Hospital: "Due Preparations for the Plague."

So good it makes you feel like you can't sleep, but also can't sit still and read. Its energy just gets into your bones.
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Real feminists do it with class.

voice of the damned · Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:36 pm Post subject:

On and off, over the past few months or so...

The Doukhbors by George Woodcock. Self-explanatory title. Woodcock was likely drawn to them by their interest in anarachism.

Under The Loving Care Of The Fatherly Leader by Bradley Martin. An unflattering portrait(is there any other kind?) of the Kim dynasty in North Korea. Martin made five seemingly extensive visits to North Korea, and seems to have spoken with a fairly wide cross-section of North Koreans. Excerpts from a review by Bruce Cumings, the main left-leaning historian of Korea writing in the west...

thwap · Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 12:00 pm Post subject:

Dimitry Anastakis, The Auto Pact: Creating a Borderless North American Auto Industry 1960-71.

Just started it. Neat fact: Auto parts imports were responsible for 90% of Canada's trade shortfall in the early 1960s.

Also, the pdf document: "Aboriginal Peoples, Policing and the Criminal Justice System" from the Ipperwash Inquiry, ... depressing reading.
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I thought she was going to marry that snooty rich guy!

Caissa · Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 12:49 pm Post subject:

I'm reading Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. A review can be found in the Literary Encyclopedia at this url http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4817

ShyViolet · Fulltime enMasse Member Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 675

I'm about to start Watership Down by Richard Adams. I just finished The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle.

Caissa · Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 12:08 pm Post subject:

I've just started Gail Bowen's, Last Good Day.

al-Qa'bong · Posted: Sat Jul 22, 2006 4:47 pm Post subject:

I'm just finishing Culture of Complaint by Robert Hughes.

It contains a lot of good lessons that, if learned, would make the left sound less woolly-minded and give us more practical appeal to regular folks.
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi

We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs

N.Beltov

Aesthetics: A Textbook, Yuri Borev and Introduction to Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, G.W.F. Hegel.

Borev is one of those authors that knows how to disentangle a complicated subject and make it transparent, and Hegel is one of those authors that knows how to make a transparent subject completely incomprehensible.
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"...without revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary movement in the true sense of the word." Георгий В. Плеханов

transplant · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:40 am Post subject: