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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 11, 2022 1:00:38 GMT
Incomprehensible, baffling, obscure, experimental, if it's like Finnegans Wake then it must be a work of genius.
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Post by weirdmonger on Jan 11, 2022 7:48:10 GMT
Incomprehensible, baffling, obscure, experimental, if it's like Finnegans Wake then it must be a work of genius. My review of Finnegans Wake here: dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/finnegans-wake-james-joyce/
ā A bone, a pebble, a ramskin; chip them, chap them, cut them up allways; leave them to terracook in the muttheringpot: and Gutenmorg with his cromagnom charter, tintingfast and great primer must once for omniboss step rub-rickredd out of the wordpress else is there no virtue more in alcohoran.ā
WordPress being where this is at! I think this was one of Professors Stanley Unwinās aliases!  |
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Post by Dr Strange on Jan 11, 2022 11:01:55 GMT
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Post by ramseycampbell on Jan 11, 2022 13:38:31 GMT
Incomprehensible, baffling, obscure, experimental, if it's like Finnegans Wake then it must be a work of genius. I've never read it, but his Ulysses certainly is one. |
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 11, 2022 14:40:13 GMT
William S. Burroughs is another.
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Post by bluetomb on Jan 12, 2022 10:56:28 GMT
William S. Burroughs is another. I like Burroughs a lot when he's not too stuck into the cut ups or repetitive sex, but he can be a difficult one to explain/justify to the sceptical. Think getting into his work ideally comes in the mid teens, or with a prior interest in his various strands of culture/theory, otherwise that old line "it's not writing, it's plumbing" can ring pretty true. |
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 12, 2022 13:06:51 GMT
William S. Burroughs is another. I like Burroughs a lot when he's not too stuck into the cut ups or repetitive sex, but he can be a difficult one to explain/justify to the sceptical. Think getting into his work ideally comes in the mid teens, or with a prior interest in his various strands of culture/theory, otherwise that old line "it's not writing, it's plumbing" can ring pretty true. I'm not anti-Burroughs at all. The title of this thread probably sounds too negative. I do like experimentation in literature. I enjoy the poetry of Dylan Thomas a lot, and sometimes he set out to be purposefully obscure. I like the sound of the words themselves. |
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 12, 2022 13:12:47 GMT
Incomprehensible, baffling, obscure, experimental, if it's like Finnegans Wake then it must be a work of genius. I've never read it, but his Ulysses certainly is one. I haven't read it all either. I've read bits. And enjoyed Molly Bloom's Soliloquy. But you have to read more than 700 pages to get to it. |
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 12, 2022 15:02:06 GMT
Some think to be counted rare politicians and statesmen by being solitary, as who
would say, I am a wise man, a brave man, Secreta mea mihi; Frustra sapit, qui sibi
non sapit, and there is no man worthy of my company or friendship, when, although
he goes ungartered like a malcontent cutpurse, & wears his hat over his eyes like one
of the cursed crew, yet cannot his stabbing dagger, or his nitty lovelock, keep him out
of the legend of fantastical coxcombs. I pray ye, good Monsieur Devil, take some
order that the streets be not pestered with them so as they are. Is it not a pitiful thing
that a fellow that eats not a good meal's meat in a week, but beggareth his belly quite
and clean to make his back a certain kind of brokerly gentleman, and now and then
(once or twice in a term) comes to the eighteen-pence ordinary because he would be
seen amongst cavaliers and brave courtiers, living otherwise all the year long with salt
butter and Holland cheese in his chamber, should take up a scornful melancholy in
his gait and countenance, and talk as though our commonwealth were but a mockery
of government, and our magistrates fools, who wronged him in not looking into his
deserts, not employing him in state matters, and that, if more regard were not had of
him very shortly, the whole realm should have a miss of him, & he would go (aye,
marry, would he) where he should be more accounted of?
Is it not wonderful ill provided, I say, that this disdainful companion is not made one
of the fraternity of fools, to talk before great states with some old moth-eaten
politician of mending highways and leading armies into France?
A young heir or cockney, that is his mother's darling, if he have played the waste-
good at the Inns of Court or about London, and that neither his student's pension, nor
his unthrift's credit, will serve to maintain his college of whores any longer, falls in a
quarrelling humour with his fortune because she made him not King of the Indies,
and swears and stares after ten in the hundred that ne'er a such peasant as his father or
brother shall keep him under; he will to the sea, and tear the gold out of the Spaniards'
throats, but he will have it, byrlady. And when he comes there, poor soul, he lies in
brine in ballast, and is lamentable sick of the scurvies; his dainty fare is turned to a
hungry feast of dogs & cats, or haberdine and poor-john at the most, and, which is
lamentablest of all, that without mustard.
As a mad ruffian on a time being in danger of shipwreck by a tempest, and seeing all
other at their vows and prayers, that, if it would please God of his infinite goodness to
deliver them out of that imminent danger, one would abjure this sin whereunto he was
addicted, another make satisfaction for that violence he had committed, he, in a
desperate jest, began thus to reconcile his soul to heaven.
O Lord, if it may seem good to thee to deliver me from this fear of untimely death, I
vow, before thy throne and all thy starry host, never to eat haberdine more whilst I
live.
Well, so it fell out that the sky cleared and the tempest ceased, and this careless
wretch, that made such a mockery of prayer, ready to set foot a-land, cried out, Not
without mustard, good Lord, not without mustard, as though it had been the greatest
torment in the world to have eaten haberdine without mustard. But this by the way,
what penance can be greater for pride than to let it swing in his own halter? Dulce
bellum inexpertis, There's no man loves the smoke of his own country that hath not
been singed in the flame of another soil. It is a pleasant thing, over a full pot, to read
the fable of thirsty Tantalus, but a harder matter to digest salt meats at sea, with
stinking water.
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