A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces - overrated

. too much of eye dialect (Burma Jones, Angelo Mancuso having cold, etc)
. preposterous: Manusco in the toilet booth, endless story about selling hot dogs etc, Ignatius character in general
. too long and not funny notes by Ignatius (letters by Myrna Minkoff are somewhat better)
. too much and not funny Negro complaints by Burma Jones
. senseless and boring story about riot at Levy Pants

well, reading this book is giving me even more masochistic pleasure than reading Aurora. but i'll finish it, i promise. no matter fucking what.

see also The Joy of Hate Reading

so far the best line is How Myrna would gnaw at her espresso cup rim in envy. - pg 292

letters from Minkoff minx are pretty good i have to admit

amazon

Young Adam again

the book, amazingly, is worse than the movie. it's not bad, but much less persuasive, especially the central scene (accident or murder or whatever you call it), Part Two, Chapter One. Trocchi puts there anything and everything:

. It had been forced upon me without logic, like Mexico on Maximilian;
. Till a’ the seas gang dry
. St Mungo and the fish
. quien sabe [why Spanish? - vs]
. Thou sure and firm-set earth

it's all - in the space of just two pages, without warning. yes, Adam is reading books, yes, but ain't this a bit too much.

also all this fingerprints removal from the lighters etc - not exactly Raskolnikov, but not without FMD influence entirely.

one way or another - the whole thing is rather weak and not natural enough, so - while I can understand why Camus was mentioned, but i think it's a far cry from Stranger.

but after this Part Two, Chapter One the books becomes much much better.

I felt a devastating sense of loss for something which I had never had, and it didn't occur to me that that something was a thing which no one ever possesses for the simple reason that it is something which is created in being seen and which exists only for the spectator without whom it could never become an object to tantalize. - here

‘vast gravitational forces which went beyond any ‘I’ I was conscious of, of a consciously woven matrix within which my own conscious decisions were mere threads’ - More Than a Metaphor: Fictive Privilege in Trocchi’s Young Adam

Meursault and Houellebecq

несколько ссылок:

. Hate and Hedonism - New Yorker
. Soumission by Michel Houellebecq review – France in 2022 - The Guardian
. The really shocking thing about Michel Houllebecq’s Soumission — he rather likes Islam - Spectator

nothing of substance really, just fleetingly mentioned.

see also Knausgaard

wow ain't i smart, In his own afterword to a 1955 edition of the book, Camus wrote:

"...the hero of the book is condemned because he doesn't play the game... He refuses to lie. Lying is not only saying what isn't true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler. But Meursault, contrary to appearances, doesn't want to make life simpler. He says what he is, he refuses to hide his feelings and society immediately feels threatened. For example, he is asked to say that he regrets his crime, in time-honoured fashion. He replies that he feels more annoyance about it than true regret. And it is this nuance that condemns him."

see The Big Plus of the Outsider Society: truth challenges lies!

Nightmare Alley

carnival of gloom and despair

из предисловия:

Had only Gresham known of the paper Freud delivered at the Conference of the Central Committee of the International Psychoanalytical Association in September 1921. In it, Freud declared: "It no longer seems possible to brush aside the study of so-called occult facts; of things which seem to vouchsafe the real existence of psychic forces other than the known forces of the human and animal psyche, or which reveal mental faculties in which, until now, we did not believe."

how very funny

see also Nightmare Alley (Film, 1947)

It's Complicated

Charm and affability had their dangers. It was cattily said that Berlin had been knighted for "services to conversation".

- It's Complicated, review of Isaiah Berlin: The Journey of a Jewish Liberal

Ignatieff, Dubnov charges, "made very limited and selective use of archival sources," instead relying "heavily and not critically enough" on his own interviews with "the aged, celebrated" Berlin. This, combined with Ignatieff's "highly apologetic interpretation of Berlin's actions," led him to produce a book that "avoid[s] uncomfortable reports of touchy or painful events."

...sometimes went against his own government in working for the Zionist cause,

asymmetric information

In 2001, Stiglitz, a former chief economist at the World Bank, and arch critic of the IMF, won the Nobel prize for economics for his theory of "asymmetric information". When some individuals have access to privileged knowledge that others don't, free markets yield bad outcomes for wider society. - The Price of Inequality by Joseph Stiglitz – review

эвфемизм... это называется insider trading. за это срок дают. но не всем.

жж

The way things really are

Miss Lonelyhearts is a book about what's really happening out there. Most of the people inhabiting this planet are blessed by the evolution with a cognitive bias which allows then not to concentrate on the "negative". Nathanael West, as well as his protagonist known in the book by his "pen name" Miss Lonelyhearts are both denied this blessing. They see things the way things really are. Which is, according to the "depressive realism" concept is the correct way to see the reality.

The protagonist, Miss Lonelyhearts, works for a newspaper. His work is to read letters by the newspaper subscribers, and based on them to write a newspaper column giving advice and providing support and counseling to the readers in their difficult situations. The problem with Miss Lonelyhearts is that he's so much depressed by unspeakable human suffering he encounters in the letters and life around him that he can't in earnest give any advice or consolation his readership expects from him.

In fact, the only advice he can give to his readers is suicide, but his editor says that his job is to increase the subscriber base, not to decrease it. This is an example of dark humor characteristic of Nathanael West. The book abounds with this type opf humor. It's also very poetic, and philosophical. The central chapter, "Miss Lonelyhearts in the Dismal Swamp", explains the terrible bind Miss Lonelyhearts finds himself in, both with his newspaper job - and with his life itself. West's power as a poetic prose writer and philosopher is especially clear in this chapter.

The events in this small book steadily take turn from bad to worse, and the protagonist, trying to emphasize with his readers' suffering, is murdered in the end by the crippled husband of one of the readers, who forces herself on Miss Lonelyhearts as a lover while he can't spare himself neither from her advances nor from her husband's friendship which eventually turns to violent hatred.

"Miss Lonelyhearts" should be compared with "The Loved One" by Evelyn Waugh, they have many similar characters and parallel plot developments, even though they're very different and compliment each other in many ways. "The Loved One" actually has certain common themes with another West's novel, "The Day of the Locust", too.

West was a very powerful writer, this can be clearly seen in "Miss Lonelyhearts", as well as in "The Day of the Locust". Both deserve to be much better known, but, probably, they're to dark and unsympathetic towards American public (and humanity in general) to enjoy wider recognition. Amazon

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

I think the title of my review says it all. I am not a huge fan of Woody's movies, but this one is really outrageous. Surely there can be «easy viewing» in movies like «easy listening» in music, but here we're knee deep in glamour, it's overflowing in this «Manhattan in Barselona» exercise.


And look at «Catalan identity» student and her friend. All politically correct sexual tricks allowed by the for (PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexuality, and smoking) are employed. Nothing wrong with it, except for so shamelessly catering to the middlebrow mass market…


His «Match Point» is a very simplistic movie, but at least there's no attempt to deceive the viewer. The joke is a joke is a joke, and «Match Point» is even a sufficiently funny one. There's nothing funny about «Vicky Cristina Barcelona». It would have been plain boring if not for huge doze of glamour and hints at deep psychological/existential meaning.