Which book are you reading right now?

[Dave's Bitch]

I haven't read that, but I did read about gen years ago another of his books, titled 'Blindness'. It was really good - about an epidemic of blindness overtaking a city and all that happens as a result.

Yea I have read Blindness too.I really enjoyed it.The first half in the asylum i thought was kind of like an adult lord of the flies.This one is a kind of sequel in that it is the same city and they mention the white blindness a few times.I am only about a third into this one but so far I am enjoying it

[envy_me]

The war is only part of the novel, it's actually far more fantasy and science fiction...

I really have hard time finishing this book. I like the fantasy part very much, but the war part is killing me. He might as well have just written "We suffered, then we suffered some more, then it got worst, we were really suffering, we are still suffering, etc, etc". Really pointless. And I am annoyed by "so it goes"-thing.
But the way philosophy behind the aliens way of thinking is really interesting.

[envy_me]

Look up the words "voracious reader" (or compulsive dipshit) in an online dictionary, and more than likely you'll find an image of my avatar. Translated, this means that for every decent book you folks have read, I've managed to go through about 10-11 gag-inducers. Seriously, the literary world is full of rotting tripe these days, or so it would seem. Hell, I have a running joke at work that the worthless hack James Patterson awakes each day, goes into a Starbucks, then asks aloud "OK, who wants to write a book for me?"

That is one of the reasons I generally avoid Swedish and American authors. In sweden there are many writers who are only published in swedish for sweden, which doesn't really convince me. It's easy being a big fish in a small bowl. Same with USA, the market is too big, and many pass by just cause there's room. I like older classics, russians, some french. I mean, who'd read a russian book in the west if it wasn't freaking fantastic.
(I am not saying that russian authors aren't good, on the contrary, I am talking about the attitude in west).

[BigBadBrian]

Gentlemen Bastards: On the Ground in Afghanistan with America's Elite Special Forces

51tJYo694HL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008EXK1U4/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0425252698&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0A4N9K8E5G1VB4NKNR3M

[Nickdfresh]

I really have hard time finishing this book. I like the fantasy part very much, but the war part is killing me.

The book deals heavily with the psychological damage of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Much of it is autobiographical as Kurt Vonnegut was captured during the last major battle of the war fought in the West--the battle of the Bulge...

He might as well have just written "We suffered, then we suffered some more, then it got worst, we were really suffering, we are still suffering, etc, etc". Really pointless. And I am annoyed by "so it goes"-thing.
But the way philosophy behind the aliens way of thinking is really interesting.

How would you have him picture war? Vonnegut is a slightly absurdest, postmodernist and very much antiwar understandably. He witnessed the horrific aftereffects of the infamous Dresden raid in which a great German city was bombed and burned in a firestorm, and is very controversial to this day as some say it was an Allied war-crime. Without getting into that, I think Vonnegut fell into the trap laid by David Irving, who widely exaggerated the numbers of Germans killed in the raid. He stated, using Nazi sources, that over 100,000 people were killed and burned alive. Real historians put the number more at about less than 30,000. Either way, it wasn't a pleasant stay he had cleaning up, I'm sure.

One of the incidents in the book that sticks in my mind was the absurdity of the German authorities executing an American POW for looting because he took a teapot from a burnedout building or something, yet they protected the American POW's whose Air Force had done the killing. Personally, my favorite book about WWII is the absurdest comic novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

The UFO stuff is somewhat derived from an overnight radio show in NYC that often featured discussions of UFO's and the paranormal...

[Nitro Express]

I thought post-tramatic distress was overcoming the illness from seeing Sammy Hagar live.

[chefcraig]

I thought post-tramatic distress was overcoming the illness from seeing Sammy Hagar live.

It's Post-traumatic stress disorder, you imbecile. And it isn't a subject of humor.


My brother served two tours of duty in Vietnam, and came home a shell of himself and pretty much as a basket case. His enduring alcoholism and general paranoia devastated our family, along with anyone else he happened to encounter. He continued to wreck lives until he managed to drop dead from a seizure during Thanksgiving at our dinner table a few years ago (Yeah, the holidays are fairly unenthusiastically embraced around my house, as a result).

There is no joke to be found in the subject, at least from my point of view. Next time you wanna make a Hagar joke, think along the lines of puke inducing diarrhea. Unquestionably unpleasant, but merely something that will eventually go away given time.

PSTD endures, to the waking, living nightmare of those that suffer from it, and to all that have to cope with it's existence. It is a devastating, crippling trauma that one does not even have to go to war in order to experience. Yup, you can get a lethal dose by merely wandering or driving to a shopping mall.

So fuck you.

[Nickdfresh]

Not too mention the numbers of vets returning from the current wars having difficulty finding employment, and even housing in some cases...

[envy_me]

How would you have him picture war?

He did picture war amazingly. I might have forgotten to mention that I don't like war books. I would never have read this one if I wasn't in a book club, and it was chosen.
I have hard time reading about people suffering. It affects me too much, that is why I don't read books about war.
I also had to struggle through Karamazovs, it is just too depressing. Fantastic book, but makes me sad.

[BigBadBrian]

[DavidLeeNatra]

[envy_me]

I really wanna recommend a fantastic book to you guys. You won't regret reading it.

The Twelve Chairs by Ilf & Pertov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Chairs

[envy_me]

Next book is Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco.

Has anyone read it?

[PETE'S BROTHER]

hey kwame k! :tongue0011:

[Zing!]

Just picked up Keef's "Life" today. Looking forward to digging in starting tonight!