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Felix asleep at the wheel!
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Fiction raises too many puzzles; one has to stop at each passage and deliberate whether what you just read was fact or invention.
I wouldn't want to be one of those pinheads who insist that, "facts are all there is" ...but on the other hoof, I just can't find time anymore for entertainment which I can't cite or corroborate.
The world's too tense these days. Where's all the ease and relaxation and free time, computers were supposed to give us?
Mod
I'm disconnected from as many 'stressors' as possible. Yet da world still finds ways to rattle me. If I use the www to research one little factoid I still stumble over MSN.com screaming some current-event at me with some blood-red banner headline.
Or, my workplace. In one month at the complex where I work, we had multiple network changeovers, system crashes, a water main burst on the street outside. Carpets were cleaned throughout the building, along with a full test of the building's backup generator, a new rule restricting bicycles, new rules for passwords and authentication, the softdrink vending machine broke, and the custodial staff decided to clean out the fridge in the communal pantry space. All at the same time. There's just no change-management anymore ...different units and groups just schedule whatever they need regardless of whether it might explode if combined with something else planned at the same time by some other unit. And this is happening, even though we're all connected by instantaneous communication.
I don't know how the rest of you manage it. Hopefully I'll de-escalate someday when I finally leave the giant concentric red & white bullseye (I'm trapped in the center of)
Mod
Mod
Over time, I've found it increasingly tough to care about fictional characters. I've gotten as de-sensitized as a Raskolnikov.
Not sure if anyone else feels about this the way I do, but there it is.
It's difficult enough to feel empathy towards living human beings anymore, much less concocted ones.
Mod
If I had any gumption left these days, I would probably tackle something like this:
The Quincunx
But ...there's just something about all reading these days which seems like a desperate wrench. Goodreads was conceived to bring people together over books....but (and this is something I'm much mulling over, lately) it is like all technology. It kills the very thing it is supposed to preserve. It replaces spontaneous enjoyment with rote, perfunctory, automation. We're the first era to really face what Charlie Chaplin mocked in the '20s, which Jacques Tati lampooned in the '50s (among so many others).
If I was member of a book group which met in person, (and if anyone actually got excited anymore when speaking face-to-face), then maybe it might be different.
Currently, I don't even bother to return anyone's attention, if that individual holds their phone in their hand when speaking to me. I return disrespect for disrespect.
Anyway. In exchange for 'Stoner' I will recommend you one more:
Hawksmoor
Mod
Espionage Aficionados
Books mentioned in this topic
The Quincunx (other topics)Hawksmoor (other topics)
They're something we "just don't do". They're "not on". Not our "line of country".
It has nothing to do with any particular book or publishing event, no matter how interesting.
The bottom line is, group reads are a pain-in-the-butt to organize and manage.
Nevertheless, I thank you for the kind compliment prefacing your message.
(btw it's "F-E-L-I-K-S")