Like a great many books of that ilk, it's utter bilge. If this was a thread of 'books you've read and wish you hadn't' I'd have that in there, along with THREE fucking Milan Kundera books, all guffer than oceans of guff.

I'd throw any and all Dickens I had to suffer through to that pile of shit books.

ha ha ha really? i like kundera. it's not that he blows my mind or anything, but he's always amused me, and i figure i'd enjoy having a couple of beers with the old bastard.

haha, i'll take your word.

i fucking love unbearable lightness of being, but it's for a battery of personal reasons.

why, it's a delicious book, not in a glorious but in guilty sort of way-- romance novels for smart people, ha ha ha-- i love sabina, what a hot slut.

i've had a number of conversations with certain people over sabina's qualities. gotta love young literary men.

also, i've never read "all tomorrow's parties" by william gibson, but i'm lazy and his stuff gets tiring.

It's pretty much a personal thing, but I associate him with that category of 'books for young-ish people' whereby the young-ish people get old enough to read better things and still insist upon Easton-Ellis'/ beats' 'literary qualities'.

ellis is an unfuckingreadable twat, and what does he have to do with cranky old kundera and his european mannerisms? i don't see the parallel, if you were making one.

No parallel, except insofar as I view them as inferior writers. Personal thing, as I say.

aw, i love ellis. but american psycho is one movie that possibly is better than the book.

well, one more inferior than the other from where i stand.

and yes, kundera is not a revolutionary of any sort-- and yes, pleasure is a matter of personal preference-- but he's pleasant and entertaining to read-- for me anyway.

sure i read him with greater enthusiasm when i was, oh, 20 maybe, but i learned a thing of two from him that was just beyond the entertainments of mere literature.

beats most comic books anyway.

i really can't think of anything i've always intended to read...

possibly gravity's rainbow. but really i've always intended to have read it. i've never intended to do the actual reading.

gravity's rainbow is AWESOME.

i'm not arguing that with you... though i haven't yet read it, it's physical size does inspire awe.

i started it, read a few pages, eh.

i read the whole of the crying of lot 49 and it was a chore-- i made myself finish it-- a fucking chore.

you need to read it. read infinite jest by david foster wallace right afterwards, not because there's any literary connection, but because it's a killer mindfuck.

i never liked lot of 49. blegh.

schizo, you remind me of st. francis of asisi, who loved all creatures and preached to the birds. in truth i'm stealing this metaphor from roland barthes who used it to describe severo sarduy's love for words-- all words. but what i mean is that you love allbooks indiscriminately-- and that's great.

once you get older however, like me or grandpa glice, you're going to start to notice a lot of repetition, a lot of irrelevance, a lot of fluff, and you'll become picky.

this is a great time for you however so enjoy it while it lasts.

btw there's this tears eliot article about literature and the formation of character (or some such pap) that you might find interesting.

right now i'm enjoying the fact that i get to meet my husband again on saturday. but i'll stop there.

ha ha ha. ok. well i edited a bit so please notice the changes.

i should get to work now.

are you on yahoo? send me the link.