more book stuff
so i remembered the other book i'd read recently, which i forgot to post about.
the outsider/the stranger - albert camus
it was cool. it was a bit transparent in parts, as a existentialist essay turned into novel form, but for the most part it was good and i enjoyed it. it covered some of the feelings, or lack of feelings i had when my mate died a few years ago. it also covered the almost emotional numbness i felt after giving up drugs, and while i had depression. but wider than that, it was about (or at least it was born from) a general alienation and paranoid introspection; both of which are things i'm familiar with. it included assumptions i'd made on other people's behalf about how one should behave and how one is percieved. here the ideas are borne out into a reality within the book, and then taken to their conclusion. (so the way you'd think people behave, they actually do behave. and then some.) the protagonist is someone who doesn't really show emotion in the same way as 'other people', is seen as alien, and is then persecuted for it. (where in reality i'd say that most of the persecution that one would get, would be self imposed.)
i also just finished (this lunch time!) ubik - philip k. dick
ultra weird dick book. but while reading i could see ideas that had been lifted from it to make films like 'the matrix' and 'videodrome' and stuff. i'm not entirely sure what happened! quite existential and paranoic i guess, about alternaitve realities and perception and all that business. i have a few more of his books lying around the house waiting to be read. eventually, i want to work up to re-attempting 'valis'. (when i tried it before, it fucked with my head so badly i had to put it down). but i think i'm going to shelve them for a little while, and read something a little more... i dunno. less weird. not sure what though. i've got a stack of stuff watiing to be read.
the outsider/the stranger - albert camus
it was cool. it was a bit transparent in parts, as a existentialist essay turned into novel form, but for the most part it was good and i enjoyed it. it covered some of the feelings, or lack of feelings i had when my mate died a few years ago. it also covered the almost emotional numbness i felt after giving up drugs, and while i had depression. but wider than that, it was about (or at least it was born from) a general alienation and paranoid introspection; both of which are things i'm familiar with. it included assumptions i'd made on other people's behalf about how one should behave and how one is percieved. here the ideas are borne out into a reality within the book, and then taken to their conclusion. (so the way you'd think people behave, they actually do behave. and then some.) the protagonist is someone who doesn't really show emotion in the same way as 'other people', is seen as alien, and is then persecuted for it. (where in reality i'd say that most of the persecution that one would get, would be self imposed.)
i also just finished (this lunch time!) ubik - philip k. dick
ultra weird dick book. but while reading i could see ideas that had been lifted from it to make films like 'the matrix' and 'videodrome' and stuff. i'm not entirely sure what happened! quite existential and paranoic i guess, about alternaitve realities and perception and all that business. i have a few more of his books lying around the house waiting to be read. eventually, i want to work up to re-attempting 'valis'. (when i tried it before, it fucked with my head so badly i had to put it down). but i think i'm going to shelve them for a little while, and read something a little more... i dunno. less weird. not sure what though. i've got a stack of stuff watiing to be read.