1984

[Hairbautt]

George Orwell with an afterward by Erich Fromm.

I just got done reading it.

I think humanity is fucked, how 'bout you? Seriously, tho' this has got to be the most depressing book, ever.

I think I'll stick to my Trek philosophy :smilie4:

[MCHeshPants420]

Cheer yourself up and read In the Country of the Last Things by Paul Auster or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

[Hairbautt]

Ok thanks. :dabs:

[JPaul]

If you want to read Orwell read "Down and Out in Paris and London".

I was all like :cry:

[Hairbautt]

Living Down and Out in Paris and London, repudiating respectable imperialist society, and reinventing himself as George Orwell. His 1933 debut book (ostensibly a novel, but overwhelmingly autobiographical) was rejected by that elitist publisher T.S. Eliot, perhaps because its close-up portrait of lowlife was too pungent for comfort.

"The wackiest tale involves a miser who ate cats, wore newspapers for underwear, invested 6,000 francs in cocaine, and hid it in a face-powder tin when the cops raided."

:ermm: /noted.

[JPaul]

It really is seriously powerful stuff.

Well it was when I read it back in the day. Sometimes things affect you differently at different stages in your life, I suppose.

Also "A Homage to Catalonia". That's another good read.

[Hairbautt]

"George Orwell--novelist, journalist, sometime socialist--actually traded his press pass for a uniform and fought against Franco's Fascists in the Spanish Civil War during 1936 and 1937."

:mellow: I read Orwell's 1984 because I've heard it mentioned several times before and wondered what all the hoopla was 'bout. Brave New World is another, but I havn't read it yet.

1984 wasn't a fun read tho'. Well done, I'm sure, but I just don't like reading something so...negative. It's scary to think about man losing it's humanity, war as peace and totalitarianism.

[Snee]

Read Vonnegut's Player Piano and maybe Richard Morgan's Market Forces while you are at it.

And don't forget Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

[Hairbautt]

Vonnegut's Player Piano:
Editorial Reviews

Book Description
"Vonnegut’s first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a super computer and run completely by machines. Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut–wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality."

Sounds good actually. The world dominating super computer machine isn't symbolic for anything is it?

I already read Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, which I liked.

[JPaul]

Read Vonnegut's Player Piano

Or Harrison Bergeron (a short story). I think it was even made into a TV movie.

Did I tell you I have a signed Eastman Press copy of "Welcome to the Monkey House", Snee. Mrs JP got it me as an anniversary present.

[JPaul]

Sounds good actually. The world dominating super computer machine isn't symbolic for anything is it?


Read it, what do you think.

Do you know what a player piano is.

[Hairbautt]

I looked it up 5 minutes ago 'cause I didn't.

That Harrison Bergeron short story rung a bell. I looked it up on Google->Wiki and I remember reading it as a freshman in H.S. - Never knew that was Vonnegut.

[JPaul]

I think Vonnegut was a total genius.

I've said this here before, reading "God Bless You Mr Rosewater" was what started me reading books for no other reason than because they were there. It quite literally changed my life, in a profound way. Not necessarily because of any message it contained, but because it opened up the whole World of reading to me.

[Snee]

Sounds good actually. The world dominating super computer machine isn't symbolic for anything is it?

:idunno:

The automatisation as a whole is an important theme. Part of what makes the future so bad in Player Piano, Brave New World, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 is that the past is being (willfully) forgotten, and real arts and other expressions of culture or free thought seem to be replaced or suppressed by technology.

Lately, though, in stuff like Market Forces, which is much more recent, as well as in Jennifer Government the focus seems to shift a bit, and things become more about giant corporations replacing governments.

[Snee]

Read Vonnegut's Player Piano

Or Harrison Bergeron (a short story). I think it was even made into a TV movie.

Did I tell you I have a signed Eastman Press copy of "Welcome to the Monkey House", Snee. Mrs JP got it me as an anniversary present.

I have a vague memory of you mentioning something like that. Brilliant gift, that, it beats getting a chromed bin any day of the week, for instance.

[Hairbautt]

Vonnegut is weird. The Bergeron story is weird, Slaughterhouse Five is weird and I'm sure the rest of'em are just as, if not more, weird.

But, hey!, I didn't say it'sa bad thing :smilie4: (weird people are at often times my favorite kind of people - as long as it's not a medical condition :dabs:).

Anyways, I read Slaughterhouse Five in my junior year of H.S. and it was really cool because it was actually different from what we had been reading (A Walk in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau :fear2:).

And yea...when I was younger it was a pain in the ass for my mom to get me to read. I got my first 'C' in 3rd grade for failing to read books outside of class. They had some new damn system call the Accelerated Reader (AR) where we had to read a bookaweek and then test on it using a McIntosh comp. Then I pretended to read Goosebumps...my poor mom bought just about every damn one of'em.

Nowadays I always have a book by me just to keep my eyes busy.

Fuck me wierd/weird spelling :fist:

[JPaul]

Or Harrison Bergeron (a short story). I think it was even made into a TV movie.

Did I tell you I have a signed Eastman Press copy of "Welcome to the Monkey House", Snee. Mrs JP got it me as an anniversary present.

I have a vague memory of you mentioning something like that. Brilliant gift, that, it beats getting a chromed bin any day of the week, for instance.

:glag::earl::genious:

[JPaul]

Vonnegut is weird. The Bergeron story is weird, Slaughterhouse Five is weird and I'm sure the rest of'em are just as, if not more, weird.



http://www.caltechgirlsworld.mu.nu/archives/images/asshole.jpg

[Hairbautt]

Sounds good actually. The world dominating super computer machine isn't symbolic for anything is it?

:idunno:

The automatisation as a whole is an important theme. Part of what makes the future so bad in Player Piano, Brave New World, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 is that the past is being (willfully) forgotten, and real arts and other expressions of culture or free thought seem to be replaced or suppressed by technology.

Lately, though, in stuff like Market Forces, which is much more recent, as well as in Jennifer Government the focus seems to shift a bit, and things become more about giant corporations replacing governments.
I read the first paragraph and was like "don't forget about Big Brother and the corporate world. :dabs: Then I read the second.

The afterward in 1984 by Erich Fromm mentioned Alan Harrington's Life in the Crystal Palace which talks about a big American corporation and the idea of a "mobile truth" where people accept a (any) 'conventional truth' and compares it to Orwell's doublethink. Then there's the truth that's "proven by the consensus of millions." Ugh.

It's all kinda disturbing.

Ew.

[Hairbautt]

Vonnegut is weird. The Bergeron story is weird, Slaughterhouse Five is weird and I'm sure the rest of'em are just as, if not more, weird.



http://www.caltechgirlsworld.mu.nu/archives/images/asshole.jpg
Wierdo.

(That's a wierd image weblink you got there www.caltechgirlsworld.mu.nu (http://www.caltechgirlsworld.mu.nu) I like the filename part)

[Lilmiss]

Lux the Poet, by Martin Millar (http://www.martinmillar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/int/lux.html)

Can't seem to find my worn out copy, but it is definitely worth dedicating an hour of your life to read it. :happy:

[rabidmule]

1984 was slow at the start, but it was better at the end. but yeah humanity is gonna to hell, but when and how is what i dont kno.

[Hairbautt]

I like the optimism.

[disko.balls]

1984 and brave new world were both great reads I love how the focus on the inner thoughts ya know, another great Huxley book is point counterpoint , I love the way the characters contradict their own thoughts ands beliefs.

[Jagarga]

are you the discobloodbath from slsk?

[disko.balls]

are you the discobloodbath from slsk?

slsk?

no ,but hah thats funny cause my yahoo messy name is diskobloodbath
great book