The B&B Book Review - The Bear and Badger

[Deleted User]

Stopharage wrote:

Tempy wrote:

Consider this my blessing to you all.

That made me want to cut out my brain.

What the fuck...? Jesus.

dynamiteReady

Read The Three Christs of Ypsilanti recently.

Great book, and very educational.

Can almost be taken as a layman's (or more likely, a badger's) primer to modern mental health issues.

Though the study it chronicles is an extreme one (a clinical study of three schizophrenic patients who believe they are Jesus), the author, amazingly, manages to use the research to explain how we come to form our existential systems of beliefs, how they might be broken, and what help, if any, can be offered to address those (percieved...) breaks.

I'm sure that the science has advanced since that time, but much like what reading Freud does, you get the impression that many of the ideas sketched out in the book won't change too drastically in our lifetime.

Apparently, a film based on the book is on it's way to the big screen (I had no idea when I first picked it up), but I seriously doubt it will, or even can, cover the same ground as the book.

I think it's a very unique piece of writing for it's scope and accessibility.

Anyone else read it?

Lord_Griff

No, but I will do.

cockbeard

My ears have pricked up at that as well

A friend is suffering and trying to help her is holding a mirrror up to my own behaviour

Lord_Griff

Hell is other people.

cockbeard

Two Sartre mentions in as many months

Lord_Griff

Fo sho

Aaroncupboard

Finished The Gunslinger last night. It was my second attempt at reading it and I made it through to the end this time. It was...okay. The characters are certainly great but the storyline was incredibly basic - just one long walking scene really. Yet the universe being built around it is very intriguing and certainly one I would like to read more of.

regmcfly

Everyone's boy Mobute was paid to review Ready Player One. It's a fun read.

If nothing else, the narcissism of making your personal library the key to the universe cries out for a pantsing.

good eating

Brooks

I did enjoy that.

Tempy

Congrats to Mobute for reading a book

MattyJ

Aaroncupboard wrote:

Finished The Gunslinger last night. It was my second attempt at reading it and I made it through to the end this time. It was...okay. The characters are certainly great but the storyline was incredibly basic - just one long walking scene really. Yet the universe being built around it is very intriguing and certainly one I would like to read more of.

I think that was it's point, in a way. That first book is what, 200 pages? The rest get pretty long and flesh the world out considerably. Glad you enjoyed and I'd defo recommend picking up the next couple to see how you find it.

davyK

Yeah - move onto the next book. If the second one doesn't intrigue you then maybe the series isn't for you. That's when I was hooked.

Skondo

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma. The tale of four brothers growing up in Nigeria dealing with the fallout of the rantings of a local madman. Really enjoyed it. Great characters, compelling story and nicely written. Prose wasn't anything exceptional, but I really felt the main protagonist's grief, pain and joy. As ever, an unsatisfying ending, but the ending worked. Recommended.

Grief Is The Thing With Feathers by Max Porter. Well, as many reviews have already said, I've never read anything quite like it. How to cope with everyday life following the death of a close loved one is portrayed through poetry, fiction and memoir. It's a challenging read, which I enjoyed, but I don't think I've got the most out of it yet. Demands to be read again. The visiting crow is brilliantly written.

Thank you to Stopharage for sending me the Max Porter book. Now moving onto Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Another gift from the lovely Stopharage.

Tempy

Currently reading Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. Halfway through and really enjoying it.

People it is for: those who like weird, unique, provactive SciFi
People it is not for: those who got upset when the man sniffed the spores in Alien Covenant

tigersgogrrr

Tempy wrote:

Currently reading Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. Halfway through and really enjoying it. People it is for: those who like weird, unique, provactive SciFi People it is not for: those who got upset when the man sniffed the spores in Alien Covenant

I think it was Stopharage who recommended this to me. I loved it in so many ways.

Tempy

I wish I had a kindle cos it's £1.50 on that ATM and I bought it for £9 which is more than I earn an hour lol.

It's very good so far. A bit Meiville, a bit Strugatsky.

Paul the sparky

Tempy wrote:

Currently reading Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. Halfway through and really enjoying it.

People it is for: those who like weird, unique, provactive SciFi
People it is not for: those who got upset when the man sniffed the spores in Alien Covenant

Can't we have weird, unique, provocative sci-fi without characters prone to doing incredibly dumb things? Doesn't seem like a big ask to be honest.

Tempy

It's not dumb in the context of the novel.

EvilRedEye

people are dumb, scientific-fact xoxox

Paul the sparky

I wouldn't know, I've not read it, but I have seen Covenant and yeah, I can do without that kind of dumb.

regmcfly

tigerswiftly wrote:

Tempy wrote:

Currently reading Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. Halfway through and really enjoying it. People it is for: those who like weird, unique, provactive SciFi People it is not for: those who got upset when the man sniffed the spores in Alien Covenant

I think it was Stopharage who recommended this to me. I loved it in so many ways.

Tempy wrote:

I wish I had a kindle cos it's £1.50 on that ATM and I bought it for £9 which is more than I earn an hour lol.

It's very good so far. A bit Meiville, a bit Strugatsky.

Yeah, it's a book of questions and at first I got a bit grumpy looking for answers, but it grew like a Mieville book more and more. I need to get involved in the last two.

Tempy

EvilRedEye wrote:

people are dumb, scientific-fact xoxox

state your soure

regmcfly

Tempy wrote:

EvilRedEye wrote:

people are dumb, scientific-fact xoxox

state your soure

Hello

Tempy

Paul the sparky wrote:

I wouldn't know, I've not read it, but I have seen Covenant and yeah, I can do without that kind of dumb.

I mean my original post was just a wee joke, because there is a scene with spores in it which instantly reminded me of Covenant, and I found it funny given how much flak Covenant gets.

I don't personally think most of the stuff in Covenant is dumb. They're in a very unique and strange situation which none of them have trained for, and even if they had trained for it that doesn't preclude people from being dumb, doing dumb things, being inconsistent because they're human, doing stupid things because they are stressed, under pressure, anxious, off guard, etc. I know people have very different mileage for that kind of stuff, I am not calling anyone out for having a differing opinion or approach to things like that.

In Annihilation, the narrator even says that they instantly know what they do is totally against all their training, protocol, and extensive knowledge of biology, yet they still do it. I found that an interesting foil to the idea that people must act how we expect them to, or what they are doing is wrong or stupid, especially when they're in the presence of interesting or unexpected things. I think that sometimes letting characters be stupid or irresponsible makes them human.

There is obviously the caveat here that in VanderMeer's novel, the narrator gets to explain stuff to us. In Film, the leeway is on the inference of the viewer. My short hand take on people doing dumb stuff in Covenant is that everyone is under some kind of intense pressure from the moment the film starts, and many of the decisions due to that. Crudup following Fassbender still felt dumb though, even with that benefit.

EvilRedEye

Tempy wrote:

people are dumb, scientific-fact xoxox

state your soure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupidity

davyK

Atonement by Ian McEwen.

I can only describe this as a novel about a meta-novel.

The narrative at its core starts like downtown Abbey but phases into scenes that make that first 30mins of Saving Private Ryan feel pedestrian . Start to end this is a technical tour de force of wordmanship....the author must be at the peak of his powers.

That would be enough but the structure into which this has been folded is quite superb. I will from time to time dabble with creative writing but anyone who has serious ambitions that way might best stay away as realising you probably won't be this good could be demoralising.

Best thing I have read in a long time. Maybe ever. And one i suspect that will reward a revisit.

Highly recommended.

tigersgogrrr

regmcfly wrote:

tigerswiftly wrote:

Tempy wrote:

Currently reading Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. Halfway through and really enjoying it. People it is for: those who like weird, unique, provactive SciFi People it is not for: those who got upset when the man sniffed the spores in Alien Covenant

I think it was Stopharage who recommended this to me. I loved it in so many ways.

Tempy wrote:

I wish I had a kindle cos it's £1.50 on that ATM and I bought it for £9 which is more than I earn an hour lol. It's very good so far. A bit Meiville, a bit Strugatsky.

Yeah, it's a book of questions and at first I got a bit grumpy looking for answers, but it grew like a Mieville book more and more. I need to get involved in the last two.

They will give you answers to many things.

I don't think they're a patch on the first book and they're very different in style. I didn't like them much at the time but they have stayed with me... so that's saying something.

EvilRedEye

EvilRedEye wrote:

people are dumb, scientific-fact xoxox

state your soure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupidity

This is a joke about using Wikipedia as a source. I just wanted to be clear.

Tempy

I thought it was a joke that had many layers

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories