Book Thread: VGChartz gotta start readin'!

[sapphi_snake]

Signalstar said:

sapphi_snake said:

Signalstar said:

Finished The Picture of Dorian  Gray. I would be lying if I didn't say I mildly enjoyed it. Oscar Wilde is one of the wittiest writers known to the English language and being his only novel I found it a gem. Sometimes the story lost me as the charcater's dialogue is largely philosophical pandering. But I see the story as a precursor to American Psycho, you have a gorgeous young man who lives in high life and does whatever he wants. I appreciated it as a Cautionary tale against Narcissim. 

Now reading the book Decoded by Jay-Z. Reading it for insight to his life and the true meaning behind some of his rap lyrics. That is pretty much it as far as my summer reading goes. There were some good interesting reads. The only other book I want to read before school starts is 007 Dr. No.

Speaking of school my professor e-mailed me the list of books we will be reading this semester. A whopping ten novels in 15 weeks. I think this class will be hell.

I personally found the book to be mediocre at best. It's extremely short (I've found this to usually be a fault in most books, rather than a strong point), it starts very slowly, and it simply flashforwards past Dorian's decadence. Due to this, towards the ends when he does what he does (won't mention it, as to not spoil it for anyone), it just sems totally out of nowhere. The book should've been at least twice as long, exploring the decadence more gradually (thus the climax feeling more 'natural' and making more sense). Then there's also chapter 11, the longest chapter in the book, and probably the most shameless example of filler content I've ever seen in any book. When a book is less than 200 pages long, it should not have filler content. It's a real shame, considering that the premise was quite interesting.

 

Oh, and 10 novels in 15 weeks seems quite reasonable, provided they're not 1000+ pages long each.

My copy of the book was 219 pages long :p I do not usually take the length of a book into account, I've read great short novels and horrible long novels and vice versa. I think the length was appropriate for the story Wilde was trying to tell. As for the flashfoward, I think it was more effective that the book just hinted at the decadence rather than show it. I really am not interested in reading what was considered wild behavior in the late 19th century. 

10 books in 15 weeks is horrible for 1 class when I have 4 other classes, a job, a possible internship, and other things going on in my life.

It just seems to me like the book was lacking in necessary content. I don't really see the problem with describing what was seen as 'wild behavior'. And I don'tthink that it was much different to what we consider to be 'wild behavior' today. Don't know if you've read Les Liaisons Dangereuses, but it was written in 18th century France, and it's more shocking than books written today.

Haha, the fact that you might have other classes slipped my mind. Still, it's doable. I had to read 365 newspapers in less than 1 month for a project, among everything else I had to do for Uni.