Sunday, November 23, 2008

Daniel Keyes is fun too, among others (reading blurb, among others)

"Don't misunderstand me. Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knoledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you s a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and neural breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain."

-Charlie Gordon

That said, I believe everyone and their mother should read Flowers for Algernon. Wonderful how Keyes manages to stick in equal parts emo, retardation, mush and smartassery and still makes the whole thing cute enough to be an easy read.

Not so much for the other book I'm reading, though. H. P. Lovecraft, I believe, demands a patience and sophistication not for those who want easy (though not necessarily light, mind you) reads. Still, if you can handle the verbosity of it all, Lovecraft's weird short stories are a cute trip back to the times when there was no TV and it was all right to exoticise niggers. Personal favorites: "Herbert West -- Reanimator"," The Picture in the House", "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" and "The Call of Cthulhu"

Funny, I seem to notice that I keep on switching between to phases: a reading phase where I literally devour books and a writing phase where I just keep making new material and saving all my cares for its quality when I show it to other people, and that I can't seem to do one when I'm in the other. Or maybe I really am a "Mood Writer", as Chantielle was always so quick to point out in the past. Ahh, the rite/s of writing.

Oh well.

*goes back to playing Splinter Cell and DotA, downloading indie folk and electronica and post-rock and trip-hop, reading webcomics and finishing the rest of his Lovecraft anthology*

posted by Ocnarf @ 2:35 PM   0 have spoken

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