(When I saw the international titles I couldn't resist; I'm pretty sure I got German and Italian, which seems fitting.)

     Bannon was convinced that Trump himself was stunned. “He has no earthly idea he's going to win,” Bannon said later, “and he had done no preparation. He never thought he would lose, but he didn’t think he would win. There's a difference. And you got to remember: no preparation. No transition team. 
     Putin called from Russia with congratulations, as did president Xi Jinping from China. Many other world leaders called. “It’s finally dawning on him,” Bannon recalled, “that this is the real deal. This is a guy totally unprepared. Hillary Clinton spent her entire adult life getting ready for this moment. Trump hasn't spent a second getting ready for this moment.”
     After a few hours of sleep, Bannon started flipping through the transition documents. “Garbage supreme,” he thought. “For Secretary of Defense, they listed some big campaign donor from New Hampshire. Unbelievable!”

     “Give me the executive director of this thing,” Bannon ordered, seeking some connection with whatever transition apparatus existed. “Get him in my office immediately.” He didn’t remember his name. Bannon reached the director’s office. “Can he come in?”  he asked. 
     “It’s going to be tough.”
     “Why?”
     “He’s in the Bahamas.”
     “This is the island of misfit toys!” Bannon said. “How the fuck are we going to put together a government?”
...
A week after the election, President Elect Trump invited retired four–star Army Gen. Jack Keane to Trump Tower for an interview to become Secretary of Defense. “You're my number one guy,” Trump said.


.

Last edited by Rampop II (11/28/2022 3:23 am)

Rampop II wrote:

“You're my number one guy,” Trump said.

You skipped the 2nd book of the trilogy, Rage, which mostly covers the 1st impeachment and the fallouts with officials like John Kelly and Jim Mattis.

no. These god damned touch pads. my thumb just grazed it and navigated back a page, deleting a huge post I had just completed. I hate touch–sensitive controls. Hate touchscreens, always have. Hate having to be afraid of touching my belongings. I wouldn't put a razor or a hot plate under my thumbs while I'm typing, so why would I want a self–destruct button? eh, fuck. I'm tired and hungry. Goddamned tech. Rage Trump Tapes A Journey to the Center of the Earth and a tome by some character my mom is all taken with, and whom I am inclined to distrust, some dude named Peter Zeihan. Looks like a typical con artist and/or shill to me. 

I'm still reading Dracula.

I'm still reading Dracula.

I remember reading Don Quixote and getting to the end and only then realizing there was another whole book.


I've still never read the other book.

And I still haven't finished Dracula. The dog piss is a problem. I'm almost ashamed  no longer willing to read such a thing in public anymore.

And, truth be told, the thing loses lots of steam in the last half.

How many blood transfusions does fucking Lucy need??

crumbsroom wrote:

I remember reading Don Quixote and getting to the end and only then realizing there was another whole book.


I've still never read the other book.

And I still haven't finished Dracula. The dog piss is a problem. I'm almost ashamed no longer willing to read such a thing in public anymore.

And, truth be told, the thing loses lots of steam in the last half.

How many blood transfusions does fucking Lucy need??

The second book of Don Quixote is the less essential of the two, in my opinion. Even Cervantes says something to the extent that the second book contains little in terms of significant plot developments, and is really suited for readers simply calling for more of the same. Book 2 is little more than bonus material, albeit plenty enjoyable, in my puny opinion. I don't think anyone is going to the grave unfulfilled for lack of book two. Book one more than covers all the bases for the full Quixote experience. Fookin' hilarious, often brilliant, sometimes deep, not infrequently low–brow, and unfathomably inspiring. One can see how it became the template for so much of what has come after, and the catalyst for so much more. 

Funny, I've never finished Dracula either, although for completely different reasons. I want to finish it. I was impressed with how Stoker varied the syntax, vocab, content and tone of the letters through which the story is told, commensurate with whichever character was doing the writing. 
 

The Sea Peoples
Hitherto unidentified migrant invaders believed to have decimated numerous East Mediterranean kingdoms and cities around the late 13th Century BCE.  
 


"No land could stand before their arms: from Hatti, Qode, Carchemish, Arzawa and Alashiya on, being cut off [i.e. destroyed] at one time. A camp was set up in Amurru. They desolated its people, and its land was like that which has never come into being. They were coming forward toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them. Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen and Weshesh, lands united. They laid their hands upon the land as far as the circuit of the earth"
—Excerpt from "The Great Inscription on the Second Pylon" of the Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu 

The following is a dramatization. Quotes are approximated.

Me: I've never read Great Gatsby.
JJ: That's a great fuckin' book. I love that book. I mean, I love that book. 
Me: I should add it to my reading list.
JJ:  You should start reading right now.
Me: (opening my Libby app) I'm adding it... 
JJ: Start reading. Start reading.
Me: ...placing a hold with my library.
JJ: Hey! Start reading. Start. Start readin'
**click**

So, at my decrepit age, I finally got around to Great Gatsby. 
And, holy shit. This is a great fuckin book.

Rock wrote:

Started reading Island by Richard Laymon after an embarrassingly long hiatus from any books.

I finally learned to abandon the shame of not reading as much as my peers. In the early 2000s I remember a spate of news coverage regarding the results of some study revealing how few Americans had read a novel over the previous year. Oh, the alarm! What spoiled lazy ingrates we were! Contributing to a generation of illiteracy! No wonder we were so dumb! We were the decline and fall of Western civilization incarnate. And I was among the accused. How I would shrivel when my avid bookworm acquaintances would burn through book after book at a breakneck pace I had no desire to match (I prefer to chew my food), asking me if I've read this and if I've read that, sounding like that sketch in Portlandia, "Didja read? Didja read didja read???" And oh, the condescending self–righteous contempt I endured. 

By the way, I'm not talking about you, JJ. You never did that to me. JJ recommended books and talked about books, turned me on to the Illuminatis Trilogy and the Church of the Subgenius, and I learned a lot about Aldous Huxley through our conversations, but I never got the feeling I was being shamed for not keeping pace.

A couple of things changed my mind around the early 2000s and taught me to abandon the guilt of not reading all the time and submitting weekly book reports to the world. First, it dawned on me that I had actually been reading a hell of a lot. I just wasn't reading novels. I had been buried in journalism, nonfiction and current events. I'd read the 9/11 report and the Iraq War Study Group Report. I had guzzled Molly Ivins faster than she could brew it. I was obsessed with the unforgivable and unconscionable tragedy unfolding in Iraq. I was also learning Japanese at the time, and learning about the culture in which I had immersed myself. I read The Vagina Monologues, great book. And I'm no zealot, no friend to dogma, but that didn't stop me from taking a serious stab at The Bible. I read The Teachings of the Buddha, too, plus a couple of books by Karen Armstrong, former nun–turned–atheist with a penchant for deep–dive explorations on religions: A History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (EXcellent book), and another one titled Buddha (made me cry). Most of this reading occurred on long international flights between Japan and the U.S., where there's not much else to do. I can't sleep on planes and one can only watch so many dumb second–tier movies on a tiny seat back screen in a row. It's not like I've ever been the type to habitually "curl up with a good book." But of all those books, not one counts as a novel. So I hadn't read The DaVinci code, big fucking wup. Hadn't read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo or fucking Hunger Games. Oh for shame. Hadn't read Colin Powell's autobiography, what was wrong with me? Nothing at all, I realized. I was reading my ass off, I just wasn't reading disposable pop paperback shit. I'm not judging anyone who does; I like disposable shit, too, I just get more of it in the form of movies. Over quickly. Like a good shit from eating lots of fiber. 

I'd been reading a few novels before the war: well–oiled masterpieces of comparative brevity like Siddhartha and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at some point. They all get my highest recommendation, though they hardly need it. I did read the first Harry Potter around that time and I'm not ashamed to admit it. It is a good book and I'll stand by that statement. Slaughterhouse Five made it in there somewhere though I don't remember when. These are all easy reads, but that doesn't make them any less brilliant. Oh yeah, Under and Alone, an ATF agent's recounting of his time undercover with the Mongols outlaw motorcycle gang. Gripping stuff, btw.

But getting back to the 2000s and the two occurrences that changed my mind during that time and allowed me the freedom from the tyranny of literary guilt. The second had to do with when I broke my hiatus on fiction and read George Orwell's 1984. Another easy read. There is a chapter of the book about the annual event called Hate Week. It's hard for me to describe, to be honest, but the important thing for me was that it helped me understand something about the horrible realities of the post–9/11 era and the Iraq invasion that no amount of nonfiction could. Remember when it became crystal–clear that Bush's two rationales for the invasion, "Saddam did 9/11" and the "imminent threat" of Saddam's WMD (what Molly Ivins called "the Two Great Lies that got us into this mess in the first place") turned out to be bullshit, and Bush just re–wrote the script, suddenly claiming that the rationale for the invasion was and had always been "spreading democracy and freedom" in the Middle East? And remember how the American public and media, rather than excoriating him for the fraud that he was, just went along with it??? I couldn't understand it. It enraged me. How could they? No amount of journalism, op–eds, documentaries, study group reports, what have you, none of it got me any closer to an answer. Orwell answered it for me, with a work of fiction. With Hate Week, I finally got a grasp of the psychology behind this otherwise inexplicable absurdity. I gained a newfound understanding of the value of fiction. I experienced how it can explain things that nonfiction struggles to explain. 

And had those self–congratulating book club bookworms read 1984? They hadn't. They'd read Animal Farm, I'll grant them that. But it was the first stone in a path leading me to my eventual discovery that they hadn't read much in the way of classics at all. Neither had I, mind you. I'll get back to that. But I began to understand that a small shelf of great books was infinitely more valuable than an endless conveyor belt of good ones. Which famous author was it that surprised a visitor with his small bookshelf? Hemmingway?

One more thing I have been remiss in disclosing to you gents all this time, evidence that I've never fully shaken the shame of not being an avid speedreader. All those classics I've posted about in this thread? Audiobooks. Every last one of them. If you scrutinize my posts you'll notice that I have always sidestepped the word "read," instead using phrases like "I finished" this or that book. Because I was being an insecure pussy and didn't want to divulge my dirty secret. I do have excuses, though I don't feel I should need to be excused. I have health conditions that interfere with the traditional way of reading a physical bound book. Neck and back injuries make it very painful and damn near impossible for me to find any physical position conducive to it. And I have a retina condition called central serous retinopathy that makes me "see spots" which blot out portions of whatever I'm looking at. I sometimes put tape over one eye just so I can watch a movie. And I'm one of those intolerable/entertaining individuals designated as having severe ADHD. It doesn't make reading impossible, but it doesn't help. So when I post about Moby Dick and Don Quixote, I didn't read all that stuff, I essentially let someone read it to me. When I was recovering from traumatic brain injury I couldn't do anything but sit still in the dark with my ears covered. So the timing was perfect. In the first year of my recovery I "took in" more classics than I had in all my previous years combined. The Count of Monte Cristo, All Quiet on the Western Front, A Tale of Two Cities, Around the World in Eighty Days, Arabian Nights (the entire 1001 Nights was regrettably not available), Robinson Crusoe, 10,000 Leagues under the Sea, The Epic of Gilgamesh, just to name a few. So, this is the real shit!!! So many of these were either required reading in school (which ruined them because we were covering one book per week in preparation for the test on Friday, a sickeningly stupid way to read any book let alone a classic), or were kept out–of sight altogether (several having some bluntly racist shit in them, soiling what is otherwise staggeringly beautiful literature). I know that's no excuse for not going back to them, but to whom do I owe an explanation, and whose permission do I need, anyway? 

No, it's not exactly the same as reading. JJ is right to make this distinction; reading is a different skill and a different experience from listening, and some writing is meant to have a certain effect on the page. No clearer was this than when I tried listening to Ulysses. I could feel the truth of it. I wasn't getting the full experience, not by a long–shot, especially in the case of that particular book. I concede that. But, oh lowly abased slothful reprobate that I am, I may never in my life have experienced the mind–altering, soul–stirring, rapturous beauty of these classics at all, had I not gone this route. I've listened to Moby Dick twice all the way through and gone back for excerpts, ditto for Don Quixote, and I've heard the Epic of Gilgamesh more times than I can count. I would never have entirely understood why the classics are classics, would never have known that feeling, never understood how amazing literature can be. And I never would have known that their reputation for being boring is complete and utter bullshit.

And have those self–righteous book club bookworm acquaintances read Moby Dick? Or Don Quixote? Nope. That is not to mean I'm switching places and taking my turn at hypocritical condescension. It just further frees me from the guilt they tried to lay on me. The experience has also furthered my condemnation for the way literature is taught in school, crushing all the life out of it by turning every reading experience into a cramming–for–the–test experience. How dare they!

Isn't it reminiscent of the old axiom, "History teachers ruin history?" Speaking of which, what about all the hours I've spent gorging myself with knowledge on Wikipedia and Britannica? Does that not count as reading? I'm educating the fuck out of myself! What about all the reading I've done here on Plato Shrimp? Or on Letterboxd for that matter?

Oh, and speaking of Dracula, Crumbs, the real reason I didn't finish Dracula is that the reader sucked. That's another drawback to audiobooks: they live and die by the reader, and the reader for my audiobook of Dracula wasn't up to the task, trying to switch his voice for all the different characters, something I find wholly unnecessary. Don't act, just read. And for fuck's sake don't cop a male falsetto for the female parts. It's ridiculous and distracting. Women don't talk that way. Just read. I can get used to it, and I've learned how to see past the voices being imposed by the reader and remake the story in my mind independently, even giving different voice and intonation to the speakers. I think it's a little bit like watching a movie with subtitles. It's not as authentic as learning the language, but it's the next best thing and it's better than not seeing the movie at all. But the last straw for Dracula was when the reader's voice–swapping could no longer keep up with the characters. He started reading Mina in his Van Helsing voice (for which he went Romanian despite Van Helsing being Dutch), so when Mina started talking like Dracula at intervals I'd had enough. I didn't get to all the piss–drinking you referred to, so you've made it further along than I did.