What are you reading?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Erewhon by Samuel Butler.

Have you read it before? I've got it "in the pile".

Never cover to cover.

I'm STILL hunting for a good copy of Erewhon, I'd really like a good vintage copy to read.

[Freakzilla]

http://www.online-literature.com/samuel-butler/erewhon/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[A Thing of Eternity]

I know, but I want a fancy vintage copy. I bought my girl a copy of some Tolstoy from 1899 for xmas one year, and I've been jealous ever since. I think Erewhon would be the perfect super old book for my collection of Dune related schtuff.

[Freakzilla]

Print is dead.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Bah.

[othaderak]

Print is dead.

It's not dead, it just has a nasty limp.

[SadisticCynic]

I know, but I want a fancy vintage copy. I bought my girl a copy of some Tolstoy from 1899 for xmas one year, and I've been jealous ever since. I think Erewhon would be the perfect super old book for my collection of Dune related schtuff.

On Wikipedia:

[edit] Influence and legacy
Today scientists and philosophers seriously debate whether computers and robots could develop a kind of consciousness (artificial intelligence, AI), and organic interaction (artificial life) similar to or exceeding that of human beings. This is also a popular theme in science-fiction novels and movies; some raise the same question (Dune's Butlerian Jihad, for example), while others explore what the relationship between human beings and machines with artificial intelligence would be, and even whether AI is desirable. It is important to note, however, that Butler wrote of machines developing consciousness by natural selection, not artificially...

[Eyes High]

Dune Messiah by...y'all know who.

[GamePlayer]

Began reading Dune again. This will be read number three or four, the most number of times I think I've read any book. A milestone

[SandRider]

trying to wade thru this huge thing the company sent me about these
solar-tubes ... I don't understand any of this bullshit.

and, goddamnit, I don't have to. Just get me to part
where we hook these motherfuckers up.

[DuneFishUK]

Almost finished the Dune Messiah audiobook... got COD converted on my USB and good to go for when I finish

[Omphalos]

I'm so deep into Hawaiian insurance coverage law guides that I have not read any SF for over a week. I think that's a record.

[Redstar]

I've begun reading Orwell's 1984 for the first time, and am about to start the fifth chapter. I'm reasonably surprised. I was aware it would be "good", but it's good in a way I didn't expect. It basically started the whole phenomenon of "evil dystopian government" in fiction (especially amateur fiction, ugh), but what I find special about it is it's skin-and-bones. There's nothing that really sets it apart. It's a basic satire of Stalinist Russia and doesn't make an effort to describe soldier uniforms or Party insignia or anything. It's just as it is. All the imitators these days are idiots for copying a book they know only through cultural references.

But what amuses me the most is that it's a satire of Stalinist Russia. I know of Orwell's distaste for Communism, but that he was a socialist. Considering I once was a communist, I know all about the Soviet Union. So it comes as no surprise to me when reading about midnight disappearances of citizens and a huge campaign of rewriting history. That actually happened. How many college students, or high school kids, think it's a fanciful dream that could never occur? It happened, and it sucked. It still happens.

I also notice similarities with his earlier work, Animal Farm, in terms of atmosphere, but the character of the "traitor" Goldstein reminds me of Snowball. (I realize that the two characters are expys of Trotsky, but the way the book is constructed is heavily reminiscent of Animal Farm as well as their shared inspiration) This book seems in every way to be the truest sequel.

Finally, people are idiots. No, we are not in a "1984 world". No, we are not under the watch of "Big Brother". Comparisons can be drawn, surely, that's what literature is for: comparing our world to a world that could be and asking ourselves how close/far we are; but with mass communication, development of "good" socialism, and the fact we're a fucking global village, I cannot see the US being an Oceania unless they did it over a very long time. But their opportunity to start such a governmental-shift probably occurred in the forties and they missed it. So no Oceania. People are idiots and need to compare the world with the real world more than a dated, 60-year-old book that didn't even predict the Internet.

[SandRider]

if you haven't already, read "Brave New World" as soon as you finish 1984.

you'll appreciate the way the same type of material was handled in a comparable time period.


and 8 out 10 people who make some kind of 1984 reference have never actually read the book. (Hi, Glen Beck !)

8 out of 10 people on the street think "Big Brother" is that TV show with all the cameras in that house ...

[Freakzilla]

Both were required reading for me in government school. Been meaning to read them again one day for fun.

[TheDukester]

I first read 1984 in ...

wait for it ...

wait ...

1984.

True story, yo.

[SandRider]

altho, let me say this -

the "rewriting" of history has occurred in my lifetime, right under my fucking nose.

somewhere in here, I started a thread about the truth of what happened to
returning Vets. they were not "spit on at the San Francisco airport"
(that was firmly entrenched in the American mind by that fucking bullshit Rambo movie)

the only people who treated Vets bad was their own fucking government.

and in 1972, all this was common knowledge.
take a look at Life magazine from then - they covered the Vets against the War movement well.

Americans knew damn well what was going on back then - the government & corporate interests began
rewriting the history around 79, after the horror of the mass killings in Cambodia came to light,
giving the hawks a "look at what happened after we left" argument (cf Iraq today, anyone ?)

went full bore during the Reagan years & the flag-waving that started with Grenada.
By Sandbox I, Poppy Bush could stand in front of the people and talk about how we "weren't
going to treat Desert Storm vets the way VietNam vets were treated."

at which point, I was throwing beer bottles at the TV, screaming :
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ??!?"

[Redstar]

America is the most censored "free" nation in the world, and we don't even realize it. The job is done so well you'd think the government really does have a team of sociologists (almost typed Scientologists) orchestrating how news circulates and how it affects public perception.

This site is pretty good in figuring out what's generally left out of the media, or under-reported, but then again who's to say they're any better?

[Hunchback Jack]

I think Orwell was talking about totalitarianism in Nineteen Eighty Four, not Communism or the Soviet Union specifically. Of course, the Soviet Union reflects the kind of society he was talking about, but it was as much a comment on elements of his own society (i.e. post-war England) than an anti-Soviet work. If you read Homage to Catalonia, you'll see that Orwell was very sympathetic towards the Communists fighting against the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Franco represented totalitarianism; the Communists of Spain did not, they represented a communal ownership and mutual reliance that Orwell respected.

Animal Farm is much more a direct retelling of the Bolshevik Revolution, but even so, it can be roughly translated as "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

HBJ

[Redstar]

I think Orwell was talking about totalitarianism in Nineteen Eighty Four, not Communism or the Soviet Union specifically. Of course, the Soviet Union reflects the kind of society he was talking about, but it was as much a comment on elements of his own society (i.e. post-war England) than an anti-Soviet work. If you read Homage to Catalonia, you'll see that Orwell was very sympathetic towards the Communists fighting against the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Franco represented totalitarianism; the Communists of Spain did not, they represented a communal ownership and mutual reliance that Orwell respected.

Animal Farm is much more a direct retelling of the Bolshevik Revolution, but even so, it can be roughly translated as "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

HBJ

I realize that, but understand I still haven't read past the fifth chapter. I'm sure the book was targeted at totalitarianism in general, but Soviet Russia was probably the biggest influence. That's all I was making a point at, that comparisons can be drawn, and at the time the Soviets were doing it the most and the best. Now it's just the US and pasting LHO into photos as a vast conspiracy against JFK orchestrated by the Mafia.

[Omphalos]

I think Orwell was talking about totalitarianism in Nineteen Eighty Four, not Communism or the Soviet Union specifically. Of course, the Soviet Union reflects the kind of society he was talking about, but it was as much a comment on elements of his own society (i.e. post-war England) than an anti-Soviet work. If you read Homage to Catalonia, you'll see that Orwell was very sympathetic towards the Communists fighting against the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Franco represented totalitarianism; the Communists of Spain did not, they represented a communal ownership and mutual reliance that Orwell respected.

Animal Farm is much more a direct retelling of the Bolshevik Revolution, but even so, it can be roughly translated as "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

HBJ

I agree. He was really writing about Stalinism, which of course includes totalitarianism and communism, but he was also concerned about trends that he saw in post-war England, and there of course were still bits from his time in the Spanish Civil War too. I have always thought the critical wounds he received in Spain influenced the way he wrote Winston; weak, powerless and unable to fight. The sexuality and reproduction elements I think were extrapolated from the Soviet modesty programs, which were a reaction to the openness of Western society. Those programs would only become more visible when things like Playboy premiered in the U.S., but they were actively enforced in the post war years. They were reactions to things like this in our culture:

[cmsahe]

Hyperspace by Michio Kaku,
Contact by Carl Sagan
Other Worlds by Paul Davies

[SandRider]

contact is a great book, not so much story or writing, of course,
but the idea that there are "messages" or "communication"
deeply embedded in the structure of the universe, decipherable
only thru high-level mathematics.

if there is an "intelligence" in the universe, that's how it'd work.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Reading The Left Hand of Darkness, just started yesterday.

[Omphalos]

contact is a great book, not so much story or writing, of course,
but the idea that there are "messages" or "communication"
deeply embedded in the structure of the universe, decipherable
only thru high-level mathematics.

if there is an "intelligence" in the universe, that's how it'd work.

If you liked Contact there is another book out there called the Listeners, by James Gunn that I think is superior. Give that one a try.