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What Gets Kept

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Re: What Gets Kept

#31

Post by keiferski »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #30
keiferski wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't making it about wokism at all. And I don't agree that you should be rooting for protagonist. That's an extremely limited way of looking at literature, much less history. I can think of half a dozen books offhand that have unpleasant or anti-hero type protagonists.

> I can think of half a dozen books offhand that have unpleasant or anti-hero type protagonists. I was not a fan of Thomas Covenant. What a prick.

I just finished American Tabloid and I don’t think there was a single honorable character in the whole novel. Not one, out of dozens.

Re: What Gets Kept

#32

Post by saagarjha »

keiferski wrote: post #14
saagarjha wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but you do realize that he was alive in the 1900s, not 1000 BC.

The moral views of the average person circa 1930 are very different from one today. But I read old books for their interesting stories, viewpoints on life, literary quality, etc. – not to tut-tut someone for having different moral views than me, a hundred years later. So it doesn't bother me. Like I said, I really cannot understand the mindset of someone that reads a book from another era/civilization and focuses on…

Please point to the things being described in that comment and explain what the average person in 1930 would have felt about them.

Re: What Gets Kept

#33

Post by [deleted] »

huhkerrf wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I never had my On the Road phase, but this review on Kerouac I always found really strong: > On the Road is a terrible book about terrible people. Jack Kerouac and his terrible friends drive across the US about seven zillion times for no particular reason, getting in car accidents and stealing stuff and screwing women whom they promise to marry and then don’t. > Jack Kerouac’s relationship with Dea…

[deleted]

Re: What Gets Kept

#34

Post by tclancy »

pjc50 wrote: post #26
huhkerrf wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I never had my On the Road phase, but this review on Kerouac I always found really strong: > On the Road is a terrible book about terrible people. Jack Kerouac and his terrible friends drive across the US about seven zillion times for no particular reason, getting in car accidents and stealing stuff and screwing women whom they promise to marry and then don’t. > Jack Kerouac’s relationship with Dea…

And in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , they don't even manage to do any motorcycle maintenance! (I think people have misunderstood the appeal of the book, probably because the psychological conditions of the mid-20th century are unrecognizable. It is significant that the book is from 1957, a whole decade before Easy Rider and the general transition period centered on 1968)

They most certainly do motorcycle maintenance! I remember asking my dad what the hell points used to be on engines. The first few chapters contain a lot of talk about motorcycle maintenance. You’re not going to learn to change out a carb or anything but it’s there.

Re: What Gets Kept

#35

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

keiferski wrote: post #31
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can think of half a dozen books offhand that have unpleasant or anti-hero type protagonists. I was not a fan of Thomas Covenant. What a prick.

I just finished American Tabloid and I don’t think there was a single honorable character in the whole novel. Not one, out of dozens.

In A Song of Fire and Ice (the series that spawned Game of Thrones, and has yet to be completed), you get to really hating on a character, then, their story gets told from their side (usually, before they are killed), and you find that maybe you don't hate them so much.

Re: What Gets Kept

#36

Post by tclancy »

fergie wrote: post #6

Can't not read stuff like this. Fascinating.

Yeah, this led me to the author’s other pieces in The New Yorker this weekend. I generally dislike short stories but really liked both of those. Both her fiction and non-fiction prose style appeal to me. I think there’s a leanness to it while still conveying what you need to know that I love.

Re: What Gets Kept

#37

Post by jhpankow »

tclancy wrote: post #34
pjc50 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , they don't even manage to do any motorcycle maintenance! (I think people have misunderstood the appeal of the book, probably because the psychological conditions of the mid-20th century are unrecognizable. It is significant that the book is from 1957, a whole decade before Easy Rider and the general transition period centered on 1968)

They most certainly do motorcycle maintenance! I remember asking my dad what the hell points used to be on engines. The first few chapters contain a lot of talk about motorcycle maintenance. You’re not going to learn to change out a carb or anything but it’s there.

"Oh yeah. Tappets."

Re: What Gets Kept

#38

Post by bsenftner »

huhkerrf wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I never had my On the Road phase, but this review on Kerouac I always found really strong: > On the Road is a terrible book about terrible people. Jack Kerouac and his terrible friends drive across the US about seven zillion times for no particular reason, getting in car accidents and stealing stuff and screwing women whom they promise to marry and then don’t. > Jack Kerouac’s relationship with Dea…

Around the same time I first read On The Road, my wiser than should be possible mother said "Oh, you need to read this too" and it was "Off the Road: Twenty Years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg", written by Carolyn Cassady. Rips the band aid right off of those sexist abuser of innocents, those utter assholes. They write great literature, and the fact that they expose their own terrible ethics bare, but surrounded by non-condemning language is the trick. They never hid their nature, but America never realized what they were praising, not really. Which is all so American!

Re: What Gets Kept

#39

Post by breezybottom »

pjc50 wrote: post #26
huhkerrf wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I never had my On the Road phase, but this review on Kerouac I always found really strong: > On the Road is a terrible book about terrible people. Jack Kerouac and his terrible friends drive across the US about seven zillion times for no particular reason, getting in car accidents and stealing stuff and screwing women whom they promise to marry and then don’t. > Jack Kerouac’s relationship with Dea…

And in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , they don't even manage to do any motorcycle maintenance! (I think people have misunderstood the appeal of the book, probably because the psychological conditions of the mid-20th century are unrecognizable. It is significant that the book is from 1957, a whole decade before Easy Rider and the general transition period centered on 1968)

Years don't have psychological conditions, people do.

Re: What Gets Kept

#40

Post by tclancy »

keiferski wrote: post #31
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can think of half a dozen books offhand that have unpleasant or anti-hero type protagonists. I was not a fan of Thomas Covenant. What a prick.

I just finished American Tabloid and I don’t think there was a single honorable character in the whole novel. Not one, out of dozens.

That’s interesting. I was a huge Ellroy fan and I think that’s probably my favorite book. I always got the impression in his books the idea was the protagonists were heroes or, more accurately, could have been if there was any place for them in the Ellroy universe. Instead, they do sordid stuff because there really isn’t another way in the rigged game they live in. To feel like they have agency, they try to find a third way between the options of “good” and “evil” but usually wind up doomed, so who can say if they have agency at all. Except for Dudley, who is definitely not a hero in anyone’s universe. Though even he is a bit of a nod to the trope of heroic Irish cop who gets things done in spite of the system.

I don’t know if it’s him or me, but the last book gave me the feeling Ellroy has fully embraced the man-o-sphere. I can hardly judge him, given the story of his upbringing, but I think I am going to catch the next stop on his bus line.

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