I’m thrilled you find the content useful! You are in for such a treat-I believe that the older you are, the more potential you have to savor great literature. (I’m 36 by the way.) All my best to you!
I really appreciate you saying so-that’s something about which I try to be deliberate. There’s so much great literature out there that I want more people to discover!
I was reminded of this quote by James Baldwin in an interview with Time magazine when you were answering "how has reading impacted your mental health?"... "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people. An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else can tell, what it is like to be alive."
Like somebody said here before: "Just found your channel and haven’t been able to stop watching". Loved your sessions of Q&A, the way you think, offering solid explanations for your choices. It's like we spoke the same language. I can hear you and understand you very well 🙂 I was born in 1985, working in IT, but living in Europe , loving Umberto Eco and Milan Kundera.
I cant wait to hold a book bearing Chris Via on the cover! Also, you make a good point that often humans in general approach reading with a consumer's mindset; asking, "What can this book offer me?" Rather than, "What can I experience in these pages?" Good stuff!
My desert island book would probably have to be a book of poetry. Maybe Leaves of Grass. It's a lot of deep thinking but in digestible morsels. It could sustain for a long time. Otherwise maybe something dense and complicated like Moby Dick or Don Quixote. Dunno. Either one would get old after awhile.
really insightful stuff here, thanks very much. got watching after your gravity's rainbow review and can't stop! Some really beautiful bits in this too, i appreciate your integrity and dedication to praising, loving and promoting reading. Many people I know don't relate to wanting to put effort into big books and want to instagratification that comes with easier to read books. I don't value add to them and love them all the same but finding your channel has been like permission to be more myself and follow the pursuits i wish to follow & I appreciate that so much. If i ever feel alone or not seen in these ambitions, i shall ensure to come here. regardless i will come here to feel belonging and acceptance. thank you!:)
Thanks so much for these heartfelt, kind words. It is perhaps the highest honor to think that these videos have inspired you and given you permission to be yourself. You are most certainly not alone. Stop by here any time. All my best to you!
@@LeafbyLeaf haha awesome, i studied plant science (green biotechnology) at university and we studied half earth in a History of climate change module, which i really liked :)
I lost it when you said it's held in Thomas Pynchon's house. Hahahaha that would be the talk-over-drinks party of the century! I think that scenario would be grant manifest a spontenous miraculous rebuilding of The Library of Alexandria.
My wife really set me up to have a great deal of fun with that one! I also thought about Evan Dara’s house-but perhaps that would end up being Pynchon’s house!
Whoooooaaaa. DELIGHTFUL!!! What a treat to hear your writing. I was mentally cheering you on during that epic list. Holy hell. Great stuff! Can't wait to hold a Chris Via book in my hands. "I have no clue who in the world is going to publish it." I can definitely relate to that, having hit over 182K words with more than double to go. Interesting to hear your thoughts about talking about work, which for me is the opposite and only ever puts more of a fire to my ass and in the lion of my loins lol.
My friend-I cannot thank you enough for those kind words about my work. Coming from a craftsman such as yourself it holds a lot of weight. And also thanks for once again making me squirm with restlessness at your manuscript!
Animals As Leaders is great. That breakdown riff in The Woven Web is one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time. Some other instrumental music to check out (if you haven't already): Tipper, Gogo Penguin, Kaki King, and Night Verses. Tipper is my favorite modern day composer (as an individual). It's best to look at electronic composers as the modern day analogues of classical composers, but now they don't need to hire tens of people to play their works, and they have a wider sonic palette to play with.
Just found your channel and haven’t been able to stop watching. Keep doing what you’re doing man. Now learning you’re an AAL fan? You have my vote sir.
Damn... that passage from your writing you shared... that scratched an itch I didnt even know I had. A marathon of extremely vivid but fleeding images.
The highlight for me was hearing you choose as I do Moby Dick. Anyway, great answers, wrong as several may have been, particularly the last one, that leaves out the Kafka/Vonnegut table which Agnes Smedley would crash. And impressive fictional pause.
sorry to bother you 2 days in a row. I promise not to make it a habit please consider these for ur next Q and A 1) as a reader, what are ur feelings about audiobooks and e-readers vs physical books ? 2) staying comfortable ....how does one sit for hours on end, day in and day out, without ones ass wanting to drop off and run away from home ? (a personal struggle of mine ) 3) thoughts/opinions on the following Gormanghast by Peake Parallel Stories by Nadas The Deptford Trilogy by Davies Take Five by Mano Life as a Users manual by Perec Against the Day (my fav Pynchon)
It's no bother! 1) Personally, I prefer traditional reading: alone, devoid of electronics, with a physical book. And I am not an auditory learner, so I cannot pay attention to audiobooks (I've tried). If ereaders and audiobooks work for people, though, then by all means--"read" that way! 2) Hahaha! One must take exercise seriously with such a sedentary reading life. I exercise rigorously for 30 minutes every day. Also--invest in a great reading chair. I invested in the West Elm Lucas swivel chair. No footrest/ottoman though--that spells instant sleepy time for me! 3) Of these books, I've only read Take Five, Life: A User's Manual, and Against the Day--all of which are brilliant. Nadas and Davies I will be getting to as soon as I can. About Peake I know virtually nothing.
I was never forced to read Frankenstein in school. It shocked me in a profound way when I read it at 28. But Harry Potter shocked me in the same way as a child. I agree with your intuition about works “speaking to” children vs adults.
Re: Frankenstein: same for me! I never had to read this one in school, so I read it later in life (mid twenties). A deep, piercing text on so many topics dear to me--creativity, reading, craftsmanship, art, ignorance, enlightenment. Etc.
Grazie! Some come from contributing to the Help Jeff Bezos Colonize Mars Fund, and some from a handful of used bookstores I visit regularly. Still others from all over the Internet and from almost any trip I have ever taken.
For Desert Island, I would select Ecclesiastes. It’s often misunderstood and holds some of a little Psalms and Proverbs. But it would compete with James for me.
Great pick, indeed! Many do view it as a gloomy, despairing book--and it is--but it also matches the depths of the human experience and the spectrum of our longing for a sense of purpose and fulfillment. I have read the Yale Anchor, Kidner, and Robert Alter commentaries on the Wisdom books. Love, love, love 'em!
I appreciate your kind words. Glad you enjoy the videos and get something out of them. Not sure how old you are but I feel confident that you will greatly surpass whatever level of knowledge I have!
Great Video as always. I support your point of separating the life of author from his work. Once a book comes to the public it is divorced from the author and becomes a public property. The author’s art is separate from his deeds i guess. P.S. I will ‘advance-order’ your book the day it shows on Amazon.
Found the channel yday. Fun. Nice chat re 2666, and love Bolaño, so thanks for those. It’d be interesting to look over his early works (Savage Detectives, By Night in Chile) and talk about his trajectory for kicks. Just a heads-up from a Wittgensteinian, the end is “-stine” Thanks. Good work.
Buckley and Vidal at the same table? I think you'd need some sort of barrier set up between them :) Which is of course not a problem with current covid restrictions, just have to figure out a way to reanimate the people in question. And I enjoyed your ruminations about trying out different lives through literature. Just discovered your channel, it's nice to find a fellow appreciator (sp?) of Vollmann - recently started The Dying Grass and wishing I knew when WTV is finally coming out with the remaining Dreams volumes
I enjoy a lot what your own writing do with my imagination!! These associations are great and unique and like in poetry one can put intuition or feelings in first place as the analytical work can stop being the intelectual boss.This is my personal feeling about it, I am not trying to make asumptions about your work
@@LeafbyLeaf Passionate people speaking about what they love does that. I went to the Dali museum in FLA last year and teared up looking at paintings! I guess there tho the paint spoke...
What does L.S.P. at the end mean please? Google (I'm in France) is not helping. Thank you. Also I am not re-finding where this fits, but isn't the beginning of the maximalist novel better situated with Finnegans Wake than The Recognitions. please? Thank you.
I will have to rewatch this video to get the context for LSP, but it could mean the author L. S. Popovich. As for the start of the postmodern maximalist novel, it truly lies with Tristram Shandy, but The Recognitions is more widely cited as the inception and the break from high modernism--although there are good arguments in favor of TR as a third wave of modernism.
@@LeafbyLeaf I thought of Tristram Shandy but eliminated it on the basis of length. On what supposition is it not thus eliminated, and if it is thus eliminated, does Finnegans Wake not become the prime candidate? I seem, with you, to my knowledge, to be of those who hold Gaddis, Pynchon and Wallace as being pinnacles of modernism, and not the heralds of postmodernism they are frequently and erroneously claimed to be.
That was a "stocking stuffer" from my in-laws (they know me well), but I found it here: www.amazon.com/Adjustable-Hardcover-Journals-Notebooks-Detachable/dp/B07XKJ6Q8X
All my best to the land of Cervantes! I talk about my day job on one of these Q&A videos, but I can’t remember which. I am in my twentieth year in full-time Information Technology (I started when I was 15), mostly in software development.
Wow. You like animals as leaders, I never expected that. There really isn't another drummer like Matt, I love watching him play and I admire him for always pushing himself. Do you lister to any other progressive metal bands? I can suggest a few if you're interested
And obviously, great video, as always. I'm loving this format because you can interact more with us and everyone brings so many interesting questions, thank for doing this!
Animals as Leaders are great, man! I've seen them live twice. Metal music is nearly on a par with reading in the entertainment spectrum for me. I've amassed some 2,000+ metal albums over the years. What other heavy music do you enjoy?
I was huge into metal for about a decade but in the last five years my zeal has faded. I’ve been almost exclusively jazz and progressive jazz lately. But I can name off some bands I was really into. Black Dahlia Murder; The Red Chord; All Shall Perish; August Burns Red; Between the Buried and Me; Gojira; Sepultura; Opeth; Meshuggah; et al. 🤟🏻
@@LeafbyLeaf BDM just released a new one a month ago or so titled Verminous. Just saw Opeth a couple months ago, too. Some of my favorites, in no particular order, are Esoteric, Krallice, Deathspell Omega, Primitive Man, and Ulcerate. Also loved your comments on the Bible. That's certainly my deserted island pick. Excellent from both a literary merit and content standpoint. Great choice, Chris.
Thank you for saying this. I just read the stories for the sake of stories and the who the writers are always come afterwards. I knew nothing about Hemingway or Tolstoy before I read them and loved their stories. A good literature will show who the writer really is in the most realistic way in the story anyway. I learned about the authors way after reading their stories and it didn’t stop me from reading them again and again. I wonder if they were perfect people, would they have written those stories….
Of course, there are no perfect people. And it seems that the best writers tend to be far less perfect people (Hem and Tolstoy, et al.). I, too, came to literature via the stories and writing well before I got interested in the writers' lives at all. I'm very thankful to have evaded the biological fallacy for so long. All the same, I do recommend Claire Dederer's recent book _Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma_ on this top. All best!
@@LeafbyLeaf Put that way, I would rather be on Yorick's side with you, than on what was formerly mine. I like humour so dry one can cook with it. Such was my late father's humour, and so, as often as possible, is mine. People who make jokes so subtle they are not understood to be jokes are to make one emerald with envy. 'Tis a pity there has been such a schism in philosophy, though this is perhaps entirely out of your field of reference, or perhaps not, between the Continental and analytic traditions. “A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes."
I think when it comes down to it, I prefer to read one book at a time-and I almost always do that with big, dense books. But in practice I inevitably end up reading a couple books at once. But they’re always vastly different. A novel and a history book. Or a book of short stories and a book of literary criticism. But, for example, I am just finishing Laura Warholic and it took over my life for weeks.
Harold Bloom apparently hated the fact that Stephen King was given a special (lifetime achievement) award at the National Book Awards in 2003. I know you have a couple of his non-fiction books about the art of writing. Suffice it to say SK is so much more than a horror writer. If you are loath to read him, just try Hearts In Atlantis. Talk about examining the human condition! He has written many coming of age stories, call it his forte, but IMO Low Men in Yellow Coats, is the best. Hearts in Atlantis is made up of a novel; Low Men in Yellow Coats, a couple of novellas Hearts in Atlantis and Blind Willie, and a couple of shorter stories Why We're in Vietnam and Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling. They are all interconnected. And yes the lead story does have a supernatural climax associated with his Dark Tower Series but that's just how Uncle Steve rolls. Check this book out and tell me it's not literature. I've read and listened to this book several times. Perhaps it's King's turn of phrase or perhaps it's his compassion for his subject, the knowing, the understanding, that gets me every time.
Unfortunately I’m not certain what I said in this video that prompted your response (and I hate watching/listening to myself), but I have nothing at all against SK. In fact, he is a major part of my development as a reader. In 2006 I went to Bangor and got pictures of myself holding my favorite SK books in front of his house. Hung out with his friends at Bett’s Books a couple blocks away. Amazing you cited Hearts because that was my very first SK and it gripped me. To this day it lingers in my mind. For me nothing else really came close to that initial experience but that’s often true with first love. I’ve read everything SK wrote up to Mr. Mercedes when I finally had to call it quits. For me, nothing after Lisey’s Story connected with me. Still, I’ve nothing bad to say about him. He was a huge gateway drug of mine to deeper and more compassionate reading. As for Bloom’s comment: well, it’s Bloom! He was wrong about plenty of things. Thanks for your comment and Happy New Year!
Yes, I know. At the time of recording the Joyce-Proust was supposed to be a joke about Continental Europe vs. Britain vs. Ireland-Britain strife--but it didn't work. And I totally committed an anachronism with the Russian. Sigh
@@LeafbyLeaf Don't beat yourself up too much. I was pretty sure you knew that, even though you're an American, and just misread the question. At least now it's funny after all.
As others have mentioned, it is often upsetting to see many readers experience with classics and literature as a whole be so deeply tainted by the experiences in school and by inadequate teaching. I'm so glad no teacher forced ridiculous assignments and stale opinions on me for a text like Moby Dick, which I first read senior year of high school l and through that freedom granted myself a moving experience. How generous of you to share your writing as well! And I can only imagine all of those writers' brains melting at the party from the discussion.
Ask an Irishman of Joyce’s time that question. ;-) Such was my subtle jab. Sometimes these things work, but I’m not sure how many Irish subscribers I have.
@@LeafbyLeaf As far as I'm aware, even vocal Irish nationalists never claimed that they were from a different continent. Country, of course. But not continent. Or maybe I'm just missing a joke - or something else. It'd hardly be the first time.
So if someone wrote a book of the same quality as À la recherche du temps perdu or The Iliad (which I have no appreciation for, but André Weil, and I take his view as superseding mine in reliability until I read it again), or The Odyssey, or The King James English Bible, or Finnegans Wake, or Infinite Jest, or Gravity's Rainbow, or The Recognitions, or J.R., or 2666, or the complete works of Jorge Luis Borges, or Virgils Tod, or Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, or Die Blendung, or Doktor Faustus, or Der Zauberberg, or The Brothers Karamazov, or The Idiot, or The complete works of William Shakespeare, or The Divine Comedy, or Don Quijote de la Mancha, or the complete works of Mallarmé, or Moby Dick, or the quality of all of these combined, you would not read that book by x, if x had also to his name the accomplishments of a Hitler or a King Leopold of Belgium, or both. This seems not only false, but arguably immoral. Since in the long term, quite apart from the fact that the intrinsic of the work is immutably unbreakable, whatever the person has done, is doing or will do, but the evil they have done will be lessened by that work by however much use it is put to in committing the right action of reading it. What is amiss with my reasoning or my understanding of your value system's design here? Supposing someone even destroyed humanity but produced a work of the quality of the above, how and why is the value of the work changed. There are masterpieces of Nazi cinema. Ethics and aesthetics are not coextensive, though they at least share a border, if not substantially overlap. I am aware no less than Susan Sontag and Simone Weil, amongst many others, disagree with me, and make no mistake about it my favourite intellects of humanity are those who were also moral heroes for the most part, however I do not see a counter-argument sufficiently strong to refute what I'm saying. Take the innumerable great writers who were antisemites, religious zealots, state intellectuals, fascists, who owned slaves, who sold arms, who sold slaves, who owned shares in criminal companies, who were apologists, or are, or will be, for statism, neoliberalis, capitalism, militarism, nationalism, racism, colonialism, slavery, serfdom, imperialism, dogmatism, obscurantism, inequality, authoritarianism, monarchy, empire(s), tyrant(s) and/or tyranny, torture, discrimination, hatred, murder, mass murder, prejudice, folly, cruelty, rape, massacres and any manner of intellectual rubbish. Do we pretend they're not good writers? Shall we therefore get rid of the works, of Mill, Shakespeare, Rimbaud, Brasillach, Blanchot, Heidegger, Hegel, Kant, Bardèche, Céline, Proudhon, Bakunin, Marx, Luther, Aristotle, Pound, Guitry, Riefenstahl, Griffith, Plato, Déon, Schopenhauer, as well as the Bible, the Qu'ran and Dianetics (which I do not claim is a masterpiece, but consider it is at least open to rational argument as to whether it might be, or an absolute masterpiece, what do I know)? I doubt it, and the list is thousands of time as long as that one. The same goes the other way round for people like Philip Roth, whose notions of the levels of antisemitism in circulation were totally paranoid. To subscribe to such propositions as the one in the first sentence is to elude this fact. This is my position. I am willing to change it if presented with persuasive arguments for another.
How important is literature? I dunno. How important is our humanity? The one thing that truly sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is storytelling. That's it. Humans are storytelling apes and thus I feel that literature needs even more emphasis at an early age.
You nailed the separation of author from art situation. It boils down to finances. JK Rowling is a trans-bigot, but her books are loved. HP Lovecraft was an everyone bigot, but man I love his works. Lovecraft doesn't make any money any more from the sale of his works. Rowling does. Does one reward her with your purchase? That's the question each of us have to answer for ourselves. When she's dead, that dilemma becomes less of a thing.
just getting back into literature at 39 after a ~ 20 year break, and yours is probably my favourite book channel. thanks for the content.
I’m thrilled you find the content useful! You are in for such a treat-I believe that the older you are, the more potential you have to savor great literature. (I’m 36 by the way.) All my best to you!
Really genuine. I like this guy. Passion for great works without the smarmy, academic jargon
I really appreciate you saying so-that’s something about which I try to be deliberate. There’s so much great literature out there that I want more people to discover!
Awwwww, you guys! 😊
I was reminded of this quote by James Baldwin in an interview with Time magazine when you were answering "how has reading impacted your mental health?"... "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people. An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else can tell, what it is like to be alive."
Oh, that is beautiful! And exactly right. Thanks for sharing this!
Awesome.
My play on the last part of the last sentence: ". . .what it is like to be in hell." ;)
Like somebody said here before: "Just found your channel and haven’t been able to stop watching".
Loved your sessions of Q&A, the way you think, offering solid explanations for your choices.
It's like we spoke the same language. I can hear you and understand you very well 🙂
I was born in 1985, working in IT, but living in Europe , loving Umberto Eco and Milan Kundera.
Thank you so much for these kind, kind words!
Wow--we really do have a lot in common!
Totally addicted to your channel! Thanks for sharing your writing and thoughts!
Thanks so much! It’s a pleasure!
I cant wait to hold a book bearing Chris Via on the cover! Also, you make a good point that often humans in general approach reading with a consumer's mindset; asking, "What can this book offer me?" Rather than, "What can I experience in these pages?" Good stuff!
The feeling is very much mutual, my friend--I want too see JOSH JOHNSON on the glossy (or perhaps matte) cover of a hot-off-the-press epic tome!
Leaf by Leaf Let’s hope that day arrives sooner rather than later!
My desert island book would probably have to be a book of poetry. Maybe Leaves of Grass. It's a lot of deep thinking but in digestible morsels. It could sustain for a long time. Otherwise maybe something dense and complicated like Moby Dick or Don Quixote. Dunno. Either one would get old after awhile.
really insightful stuff here, thanks very much. got watching after your gravity's rainbow review and can't stop! Some really beautiful bits in this too, i appreciate your integrity and dedication to praising, loving and promoting reading. Many people I know don't relate to wanting to put effort into big books and want to instagratification that comes with easier to read books. I don't value add to them and love them all the same but finding your channel has been like permission to be more myself and follow the pursuits i wish to follow & I appreciate that so much. If i ever feel alone or not seen in these ambitions, i shall ensure to come here. regardless i will come here to feel belonging and acceptance. thank you!:)
Thanks so much for these heartfelt, kind words. It is perhaps the highest honor to think that these videos have inspired you and given you permission to be yourself. You are most certainly not alone. Stop by here any time. All my best to you!
@@LeafbyLeaf thank you chris :) all the best brother 🙏
I like your screen name, too, by the way. I’ve read several of Wilson’s books, but it’ll always be Journey to the Ants that’s with my heart.
@@LeafbyLeaf haha awesome, i studied plant science (green biotechnology) at university and we studied half earth in a History of climate change module, which i really liked :)
🙌🙌🙌
I lost it when you said it's held in Thomas Pynchon's house. Hahahaha that would be the talk-over-drinks party of the century! I think that scenario would be grant manifest a spontenous miraculous rebuilding of The Library of Alexandria.
My wife really set me up to have a great deal of fun with that one! I also thought about Evan Dara’s house-but perhaps that would end up being Pynchon’s house!
I love the idea of placing Bloom and Rowling on the same table - hopefully you’d serve slop for dinner?
😂
Whoooooaaaa. DELIGHTFUL!!! What a treat to hear your writing. I was mentally cheering you on during that epic list. Holy hell. Great stuff! Can't wait to hold a Chris Via book in my hands.
"I have no clue who in the world is going to publish it." I can definitely relate to that, having hit over 182K words with more than double to go.
Interesting to hear your thoughts about talking about work, which for me is the opposite and only ever puts more of a fire to my ass and in the lion of my loins lol.
My friend-I cannot thank you enough for those kind words about my work. Coming from a craftsman such as yourself it holds a lot of weight.
And also thanks for once again making me squirm with restlessness at your manuscript!
@@LeafbyLeaf Thanks, brother. You clearly know what you're doing and it sounds wonderful already so just keep up the great work!
thanks for sharing some of your own writing.
My pleasure!
Animals As Leaders is great. That breakdown riff in The Woven Web is one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time. Some other instrumental music to check out (if you haven't already): Tipper, Gogo Penguin, Kaki King, and Night Verses. Tipper is my favorite modern day composer (as an individual). It's best to look at electronic composers as the modern day analogues of classical composers, but now they don't need to hire tens of people to play their works, and they have a wider sonic palette to play with.
Oh, yeah-that “Woven Web” breakdown melted my brain! Thanks for the recommendations. I’ll check them out!
Just found your channel and haven’t been able to stop watching. Keep doing what you’re doing man. Now learning you’re an AAL fan? You have my vote sir.
Much appreciated! 🙏👊🤟
Damn... that passage from your writing you shared... that scratched an itch I didnt even know I had. A marathon of extremely vivid but fleeding images.
That is extremely kind of you to say, especially about my own writing. I really, really appreciate that. 🙏🏼
The highlight for me was hearing you choose as I do Moby Dick. Anyway, great answers, wrong as several may have been, particularly the last one, that leaves out the Kafka/Vonnegut table which Agnes Smedley would crash. And impressive fictional pause.
Great points!
I write longhand first as well. I just need to do what Pat Conroy did and hire a typist to transcribe it all. ;)
I hear ya! I currently have 2 full 160-page journals that need to be transcribed. So little time...
Great answer to my question, by the way. Thank you for that!
You’re welcome! Thanks for posing it. There were a few things I forgot to add, but I’ll let it stand.
sorry to bother you 2 days in a row. I promise not to make it a habit
please consider these for ur next Q and A
1) as a reader, what are ur feelings about audiobooks and e-readers vs physical books ?
2) staying comfortable ....how does one sit for hours on end, day in and day out, without ones ass wanting to drop off and run away from home ? (a personal struggle of mine )
3) thoughts/opinions on the following
Gormanghast by Peake
Parallel Stories by Nadas
The Deptford Trilogy by Davies
Take Five by Mano
Life as a Users manual by Perec
Against the Day (my fav Pynchon)
It's no bother!
1) Personally, I prefer traditional reading: alone, devoid of electronics, with a physical book. And I am not an auditory learner, so I cannot pay attention to audiobooks (I've tried). If ereaders and audiobooks work for people, though, then by all means--"read" that way!
2) Hahaha! One must take exercise seriously with such a sedentary reading life. I exercise rigorously for 30 minutes every day. Also--invest in a great reading chair. I invested in the West Elm Lucas swivel chair. No footrest/ottoman though--that spells instant sleepy time for me!
3) Of these books, I've only read Take Five, Life: A User's Manual, and Against the Day--all of which are brilliant. Nadas and Davies I will be getting to as soon as I can. About Peake I know virtually nothing.
I was never forced to read Frankenstein in school. It shocked me in a profound way when I read it at 28. But Harry Potter shocked me in the same way as a child. I agree with your intuition about works “speaking to” children vs adults.
Re: Frankenstein: same for me! I never had to read this one in school, so I read it later in life (mid twenties). A deep, piercing text on so many topics dear to me--creativity, reading, craftsmanship, art, ignorance, enlightenment. Etc.
Where do you buy your books? You have the most gorgeous collection I've ever seen
Grazie! Some come from contributing to the Help Jeff Bezos Colonize Mars Fund, and some from a handful of used bookstores I visit regularly. Still others from all over the Internet and from almost any trip I have ever taken.
You have exquisite taste in music
Grazie!
I really like you idea for literature in schools. I'd like to listen in on the Buckely V Vidal table
Thanks! Me, too! They were quite a pair.
Loved that ending
Thanks! I was pretty proud of it.
So great ... Really loved the answers to your wife's question 😁🍀😋👻😇
Lol! I was proud of that one myself.
Community of books, yes, reading is like having a conversation …
For Desert Island, I would select Ecclesiastes. It’s often misunderstood and holds some of a little Psalms and Proverbs. But it would compete with James for me.
Great pick, indeed! Many do view it as a gloomy, despairing book--and it is--but it also matches the depths of the human experience and the spectrum of our longing for a sense of purpose and fulfillment. I have read the Yale Anchor, Kidner, and Robert Alter commentaries on the Wisdom books. Love, love, love 'em!
you're brilliant - love the videos. thanks. i hope when i'm your age i have a wealth of knowledge that somewhat approaches your own!
I appreciate your kind words. Glad you enjoy the videos and get something out of them. Not sure how old you are but I feel confident that you will greatly surpass whatever level of knowledge I have!
I didn't know you were a drummer. I want to have a drum battle now. But thank you for the excellent segment on your channel.
Haha! Let’s do it!
Great Video as always. I support your point of separating the life of author from his work. Once a book comes to the public it is divorced from the author and becomes a public property. The author’s art is separate from his deeds i guess. P.S. I will ‘advance-order’ your book the day it shows on Amazon.
A thousand thanks! You are too kind!
Found the channel yday. Fun. Nice chat re 2666, and love Bolaño, so thanks for those. It’d be interesting to look over his early works (Savage Detectives, By Night in Chile) and talk about his trajectory for kicks. Just a heads-up from a Wittgensteinian, the end is “-stine” Thanks. Good work.
What guitars do you like? Strats? Teles? Gibson? etc.
Ibanez and Martin.
@@LeafbyLeaf Where do you find time to play/practice?
Buckley and Vidal at the same table? I think you'd need some sort of barrier set up between them :) Which is of course not a problem with current covid restrictions, just have to figure out a way to reanimate the people in question. And I enjoyed your ruminations about trying out different lives through literature. Just discovered your channel, it's nice to find a fellow appreciator (sp?) of Vollmann - recently started The Dying Grass and wishing I knew when WTV is finally coming out with the remaining Dreams volumes
I enjoy a lot what your own writing do with my imagination!! These associations are great and unique and like in poetry one can put intuition or feelings in first place as the analytical work can stop being the intelectual boss.This is my personal feeling about it, I am not trying to make asumptions about your work
Thank you so much for those kind words about my work. You’ve made an astute observation, I’d say.
Not sure why but I got misty eyed while he was answering the final question by his wife.
Haha!
@@LeafbyLeaf Passionate people speaking about what they love does that. I went to the Dali museum in FLA last year and teared up looking at paintings! I guess there tho the paint spoke...
What does L.S.P. at the end mean please? Google (I'm in France) is not helping. Thank you.
Also I am not re-finding where this fits, but isn't the beginning of the maximalist novel better situated with Finnegans Wake than The Recognitions. please? Thank you.
I will have to rewatch this video to get the context for LSP, but it could mean the author L. S. Popovich. As for the start of the postmodern maximalist novel, it truly lies with Tristram Shandy, but The Recognitions is more widely cited as the inception and the break from high modernism--although there are good arguments in favor of TR as a third wave of modernism.
@@LeafbyLeaf I thought of Tristram Shandy but eliminated it on the basis of length. On what supposition is it not thus eliminated, and if it is thus eliminated, does Finnegans Wake not become the prime candidate? I seem, with you, to my knowledge, to be of those who hold Gaddis, Pynchon and Wallace as being pinnacles of modernism, and not the heralds of postmodernism they are frequently and erroneously claimed to be.
Surely if we replace Joyce by Melville or Proust by Melville, then we have your answer, no, I mean your correct answer in terms of geography?
Yes.
Proust and Joyce shared a cab ride. Didn't speak!! I prefer Proust. I LOVE his sentences, many of which could stand alone.
I, too, am a big Proustian. I've got a 7-video Proust series coming up, beginning on the 25th.
@@LeafbyLeaf Excellent, I'm putting it on my calendar!
Quick question: where did you get that pen holder that attaches to your journal? That thing is awesome.
That was a "stocking stuffer" from my in-laws (they know me well), but I found it here: www.amazon.com/Adjustable-Hardcover-Journals-Notebooks-Detachable/dp/B07XKJ6Q8X
What do u do for a living? I'm super curious haha. Greetings from Valencia, Spain
All my best to the land of Cervantes! I talk about my day job on one of these Q&A videos, but I can’t remember which. I am in my twentieth year in full-time Information Technology (I started when I was 15), mostly in software development.
Wow. You like animals as leaders, I never expected that. There really isn't another drummer like Matt, I love watching him play and I admire him for always pushing himself. Do you lister to any other progressive metal bands? I can suggest a few if you're interested
And obviously, great video, as always. I'm loving this format because you can interact more with us and everyone brings so many interesting questions, thank for doing this!
I listened to Between the Buried and Me for a while but it’s been some time. If you have suggestions, send them on!
Thanks for the good words!
Get into psychology. You’d love it .. forensic psychology, etc.
Once upon a time I wanted to be a forensic psychologist...but I settled for minoring in psychoanalytic literary theory in grad school. :)
Animals as Leaders are great, man! I've seen them live twice. Metal music is nearly on a par with reading in the entertainment spectrum for me. I've amassed some 2,000+ metal albums over the years. What other heavy music do you enjoy?
I was huge into metal for about a decade but in the last five years my zeal has faded. I’ve been almost exclusively jazz and progressive jazz lately. But I can name off some bands I was really into. Black Dahlia Murder; The Red Chord; All Shall Perish; August Burns Red; Between the Buried and Me; Gojira; Sepultura; Opeth; Meshuggah; et al. 🤟🏻
@@LeafbyLeaf BDM just released a new one a month ago or so titled Verminous. Just saw Opeth a couple months ago, too. Some of my favorites, in no particular order, are Esoteric, Krallice, Deathspell Omega, Primitive Man, and Ulcerate.
Also loved your comments on the Bible. That's certainly my deserted island pick. Excellent from both a literary merit and content standpoint. Great choice, Chris.
Thanks, Wesley!
Legend has it that Chris is still thinking about which is the best book he hates and worst book he likes.
I've heard the same.
Thank you for saying this. I just read the stories for the sake of stories and the who the writers are always come afterwards. I knew nothing about Hemingway or Tolstoy before I read them and loved their stories. A good literature will show who the writer really is in the most realistic way in the story anyway. I learned about the authors way after reading their stories and it didn’t stop me from reading them again and again. I wonder if they were perfect people, would they have written those stories….
Of course, there are no perfect people. And it seems that the best writers tend to be far less perfect people (Hem and Tolstoy, et al.). I, too, came to literature via the stories and writing well before I got interested in the writers' lives at all. I'm very thankful to have evaded the biological fallacy for so long. All the same, I do recommend Claire Dederer's recent book _Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma_ on this top. All best!
How's that book coming along?
The last answer was life. Just life
:)
I don't get it. How are Marcel and James Augustine Aloysius from different continents? Please help me out here. Thank you.
It was intended as a subtle jest but clearly did not work. Thanks.
@@LeafbyLeaf Put that way, I would rather be on Yorick's side with you, than on what was formerly mine. I like humour so dry one can cook with it. Such was my late father's humour, and so, as often as possible, is mine. People who make jokes so subtle they are not understood to be jokes are to make one emerald with envy. 'Tis a pity there has been such a schism in philosophy, though this is perhaps entirely out of your field of reference, or perhaps not, between the Continental and analytic traditions. “A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes."
Do you believe in reading multiple books at the same time? Or do you prefer to savor one book and then move on?
I think when it comes down to it, I prefer to read one book at a time-and I almost always do that with big, dense books. But in practice I inevitably end up reading a couple books at once. But they’re always vastly different. A novel and a history book. Or a book of short stories and a book of literary criticism. But, for example, I am just finishing Laura Warholic and it took over my life for weeks.
@@LeafbyLeaf I'll be sure to check out Laura Warholic! Thanks for the reply!
Cheers!
Harold Bloom apparently hated the fact that Stephen King was given a special (lifetime achievement) award at the National Book Awards in 2003. I know you have a couple of his non-fiction books about the art of writing. Suffice it to say SK is so much more than a horror writer. If you are loath to read him, just try Hearts In Atlantis. Talk about examining the human condition! He has written many coming of age stories, call it his forte, but IMO Low Men in Yellow Coats, is the best. Hearts in Atlantis is made up of a novel; Low Men in Yellow Coats, a couple of novellas Hearts in Atlantis and Blind Willie, and a couple of shorter stories Why We're in Vietnam and Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling. They are all interconnected. And yes the lead story does have a supernatural climax associated with his Dark Tower Series but that's just how Uncle Steve rolls. Check this book out and tell me it's not literature. I've read and listened to this book several times. Perhaps it's King's turn of phrase or perhaps it's his compassion for his subject, the knowing, the understanding, that gets me every time.
Unfortunately I’m not certain what I said in this video that prompted your response (and I hate watching/listening to myself), but I have nothing at all against SK. In fact, he is a major part of my development as a reader. In 2006 I went to Bangor and got pictures of myself holding my favorite SK books in front of his house. Hung out with his friends at Bett’s Books a couple blocks away. Amazing you cited Hearts because that was my very first SK and it gripped me. To this day it lingers in my mind. For me nothing else really came close to that initial experience but that’s often true with first love. I’ve read everything SK wrote up to Mr. Mercedes when I finally had to call it quits. For me, nothing after Lisey’s Story connected with me. Still, I’ve nothing bad to say about him. He was a huge gateway drug of mine to deeper and more compassionate reading. As for Bloom’s comment: well, it’s Bloom! He was wrong about plenty of things. Thanks for your comment and Happy New Year!
@@LeafbyLeaf Happy New Year to you sir! Thank you for your wonderful reply. I've been to Bangor too and the house (Fan Boy) but I missed Betts!!!
Dostoevsky, Proust and Joyce were all from the same continent though.
Yes, I know. At the time of recording the Joyce-Proust was supposed to be a joke about Continental Europe vs. Britain vs. Ireland-Britain strife--but it didn't work. And I totally committed an anachronism with the Russian. Sigh
@@LeafbyLeaf Don't beat yourself up too much. I was pretty sure you knew that, even though you're an American, and just misread the question. At least now it's funny after all.
David Foster Wallace had major personality issues … interesting to look at through lense of psychology.
SO kinda all from the same continent.
Yes, pretty much. :) ;-P
As others have mentioned, it is often upsetting to see many readers experience with classics and literature as a whole be so deeply tainted by the experiences in school and by inadequate teaching. I'm so glad no teacher forced ridiculous assignments and stale opinions on me for a text like Moby Dick, which I first read senior year of high school l and through that freedom granted myself a moving experience. How generous of you to share your writing as well! And I can only imagine all of those writers' brains melting at the party from the discussion.
The freedom of granting yourself a moving experience. I think you've hit on something large there.
Dostoevsky lived in European Russia though.
😬
I'm pretty sure that Joyce and Proust are from the same continent...
Ask an Irishman of Joyce’s time that question. ;-) Such was my subtle jab. Sometimes these things work, but I’m not sure how many Irish subscribers I have.
@@LeafbyLeaf As far as I'm aware, even vocal Irish nationalists never claimed that they were from a different continent. Country, of course. But not continent. Or maybe I'm just missing a joke - or something else. It'd hardly be the first time.
Nah, it’s not you. I think my hyperbole failed in this case. Oh, well.
John David Dostoyevsky is as well, at least geographically (as western Russia is quite insular from both Asia and Europe))))))
So if someone wrote a book of the same quality as À la recherche du temps perdu or The Iliad (which I have no appreciation for, but André Weil, and I take his view as superseding mine in reliability until I read it again), or The Odyssey, or The King James English Bible, or Finnegans Wake, or Infinite Jest, or Gravity's Rainbow, or The Recognitions, or J.R., or 2666, or the complete works of Jorge Luis Borges, or Virgils Tod, or Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, or Die Blendung, or Doktor Faustus, or Der Zauberberg, or The Brothers Karamazov, or The Idiot, or The complete works of William Shakespeare, or The Divine Comedy, or Don Quijote de la Mancha, or the complete works of Mallarmé, or Moby Dick, or the quality of all of these combined, you would not read that book by x, if x had also to his name the accomplishments of a Hitler or a King Leopold of Belgium, or both. This seems not only false, but arguably immoral. Since in the long term, quite apart from the fact that the intrinsic of the work is immutably unbreakable, whatever the person has done, is doing or will do, but the evil they have done will be lessened by that work by however much use it is put to in committing the right action of reading it. What is amiss with my reasoning or my understanding of your value system's design here? Supposing someone even destroyed humanity but produced a work of the quality of the above, how and why is the value of the work changed.
There are masterpieces of Nazi cinema.
Ethics and aesthetics are not coextensive, though they at least share a border, if not substantially overlap.
I am aware no less than Susan Sontag and Simone Weil, amongst many others, disagree with me, and make no mistake about it my favourite intellects of humanity are those who were also moral heroes for the most part, however I do not see a counter-argument sufficiently strong to refute what I'm saying.
Take the innumerable great writers who were antisemites, religious zealots, state intellectuals, fascists, who owned slaves, who sold arms, who sold slaves, who owned shares in criminal companies, who were apologists, or are, or will be, for statism, neoliberalis, capitalism, militarism, nationalism, racism, colonialism, slavery, serfdom, imperialism, dogmatism, obscurantism, inequality, authoritarianism, monarchy, empire(s), tyrant(s) and/or tyranny, torture, discrimination, hatred, murder, mass murder, prejudice, folly, cruelty, rape, massacres and any manner of intellectual rubbish. Do we pretend they're not good writers? Shall we therefore get rid of the works, of Mill, Shakespeare, Rimbaud, Brasillach, Blanchot, Heidegger, Hegel, Kant, Bardèche, Céline, Proudhon, Bakunin, Marx, Luther, Aristotle, Pound, Guitry, Riefenstahl, Griffith, Plato, Déon, Schopenhauer, as well as the Bible, the Qu'ran and Dianetics (which I do not claim is a masterpiece, but consider it is at least open to rational argument as to whether it might be, or an absolute masterpiece, what do I know)? I doubt it, and the list is thousands of time as long as that one. The same goes the other way round for people like Philip Roth, whose notions of the levels of antisemitism in circulation were totally paranoid.
To subscribe to such propositions as the one in the first sentence is to elude this fact.
This is my position. I am willing to change it if presented with persuasive arguments for another.
Never, ever, reveal what you currently happen to be working on. Until finished. Then, only then, talk about it. All. You. Want. ;)
😁
But what if there is reincarnation?
Then I hope I come back as a bookworm. Get it? Pretty good one, eh?
Harold Bloom and J.K. Rowling 😂 Would be interesting to see how she will react to his condescending words about her work...
Exactly!
How important is literature? I dunno. How important is our humanity? The one thing that truly sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is storytelling. That's it. Humans are storytelling apes and thus I feel that literature needs even more emphasis at an early age.
Aren’t those guys all from Europe or eurasia
Shhhhhhhh! :)
Do you read People magazine?
No.
Heh. The Bible only presents a message of hope if you are a believer in such magic. Otherwise, the complete opposite, of course. ;)
Can't disagree with you there.
Do you like Justin Bieber?
Personally? Or his music? The former--don't know 'im. The latter--meh. Not really my thing.
Do you believe in God?
Yes.
You nailed the separation of author from art situation. It boils down to finances. JK Rowling is a trans-bigot, but her books are loved. HP Lovecraft was an everyone bigot, but man I love his works.
Lovecraft doesn't make any money any more from the sale of his works. Rowling does. Does one reward her with your purchase? That's the question each of us have to answer for ourselves. When she's dead, that dilemma becomes less of a thing.
Love Animals as Leaders...ugh, how we all long to be Suprised by Joy, yes! Your words are great, brother! This was well worth the time. Dig your style
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it. Hope all is well with you and yours.
@@LeafbyLeaf very well and likewise ❤️