Inside this book, you will find a book.

[jackshoegazer]

I've tallied up the books I've read this year and with a month to go, I've only read... TWENTY! Considering I used to beat the Fifty Book Challenge to death, I'm a little disappointed. I did read some really, really good books, and one could go for that whole quality versus quantity argument, but I won't. I'll still get a few more in there. After I finish Stranger in a Strange Land, I'm going to burn through Dan Brown's latest farce.

Yeah, I read Dan Brown, and even kind of enjoy it. Being a student of the occult and conspiracy theories, I am always amused by what he does. He's a poor man's Umberto Eco or an idiot's Robert Anton Wilson. I even had the idea for The DaVinci Code years before he wrote that book (because he basically cribbed the whole things from Holy Blood, Holy Grail) and never got around to writing it up. This new one is supposed to be all about Freemasonry, so I'll enjoy that and see what kind of horror he dribbles all over it.

Stranger in a Strange Land is an odd, odd book, and had I read it ten years ago, I think it would have completely flipped my lid. It is really amazing on a lot of levels, particularly in the theological messages of the book (Thou Art God!) However, it has a Libertarian streak a thousand miles wide, which is actually tolerable since it is balanced out and not quite the brand of annoying Libertarianism that is rampant today. There's also some hints of Randian Objectivism, but just hints (altruism is bad!) which is also balanced out. All in all, the book does manage to portray a wide variety of views. The one part that I'm having trouble with is the sexism. I realize that it was the early 60's and yes, it was definitely a more sexist culture when it was written (no excuse, just being aware of context.) It just heavily jars against the more progressive ideas that are presented in the book. Granted, in 1961, when this book came out, it was extremely progressive (so much so that 67,000 words were cut from the original for being "shocking" and "against social mores" and I think the progress we've made int he last fifty years erases some of the better points the novel makes, and by contrast makes the backward parts all the more stark.

P.S. Don't spoil the end for me - I'm still not finished! (Only at the part when Ben is telling Jubal about Mike's newest, uh, venture.)

Comments

[the-wondering-1.livejournal.com]

I've only read about 25 =/ I used to read 50+ every year.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Sad, I know. I can at least tell myself I've read a lot of textbook chapters :P

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I absolutely love the religious structure. He really hit the nail on the head with that one.

[super-lovers00.livejournal.com]

Umberto Eco! I'm using his "History of Beauty" textbook for my Philosophy of Art class! A fine text indeed.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Nice. I've only read Foucault's Pendulum, which was fantastic.

[protodisco.livejournal.com]

While I love, love, love Heinlein, I actually don't think he's a great writer. All the characters sound sort of the same and it follows the really rigid structure of one character asks a question and another character offers a really lengthy and knowledgeable answer.

The thing that saves it for me is how darn knowledgeable he seems to be about just about everything.

One thing maybe that would be a mistake would be to confuse the books politics, etc, with the author's own. I'm not 100% sure about what RH's politics actually are, and don't really care; but I know that over his books he spreads a lot of opinions around and I can't imagine that all of them are his.

Just read his later books which offer really convincing arguments for incest to see what I mean.

On another note; I totally owned the 50 book challenge this year.

[anima.livejournal.com]

Twenty books is more than I've read this year and I used to do the 50 book challenge as well. I've never read Stranger in a Strange Land. I might have to check it out.