Zak M. and dogs, I think that McSweeney is at her best in the critical mode— her book, The Necropastoral, is really astonishingly cogent and well-thought through literary criticism. I have never found much in her poetry— it is, at its heart, "workshopcore," seemingly crafted for the exact environment that McSweeney was educated within and teaches within. It is not very interesting, to my mind, but I know that's a minority opinion.
Re: Toxicon, it functions similarly to Prageeta Sharma's book about the sudden death of her husband, in my mind— both are important books, but I don't find either of them interesting-qua-poetry or convincing as books about loss, but that is probably more a function of the ultimately subjective experience of immense grief than anything else, so I don't say much about either.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 17:26 (two years ago) link
I've been trying for months to read the fairly recent Kipling biography If, by Christopher Benfey, and I think I'm just going to have to give up. It started out ok, with the young Kipling, just arrived in America, tracking down Mark Twain's house and managing to talk his way in. But now I'm at the bit where the author talks about Kipling's friendship with Wolcott Balestier, and it's written in this awful suggestive wink-wink-nudge-nudge way that never actually says Wolcott was gay or argues in so many words that Kipling was involved with him romantically, but instead says stuff like this:
Pale as fine porcelain and impossibly slender, Balestier resembled nothing so much as a graceful Meissen figurine, illuminated by candlelight.
If there had been an understanding between Kipling and Carrie...the couple had kept it a secret even from their closest friends. Was there a long-simmering romance, hidden to all? Or had Wolcott Balestier, dying in Dresden, exacted a deathbed promise from his sister to marry his best friend?
(For the record, I've got no objection to the idea of Kipling being gay or bi, though I think the most compelling evidence for his having romantic (not necessarily sexual) feelings toward men is in his writing rather than his biography, and I don't think there's sufficient evidence to say for sure what those feelings added up to. But I dislike the contortions writers go through to hide a lack of evidence for their assertions, and I really dislike it when those contortions feel like the writer elbowing me in the ribs.)
― Lily Dale, Wednesday, 22 December 2021 18:08 (two years ago) link
I also dislike that particular contortional style of certain biographers, Lily Dale. I've even found myself reading fewer biographies as a result!
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 18:12 (two years ago) link
Those two quotes would make me want to throw the book across the room, shouting imprecations.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 18:25 (two years ago) link
Currently reading the new Gary Shteyngart (fun), and the Brothers Karamozov for the first time. Other than that, here's what I read this year, a lot of escapism but definitely some good & enjoyable stuff in there:
Arkady Martine - A Memory Called EmpireHari Kunzru - Red PillLorrie Moore - Birds of AmericaWells Tower - Everything Ravaged, Everything BurnedBarrett Edward Swanson - Lost in Summerland (Essays)Lorrie Moore - BarkPatricia Lockwood - Nobody Is Talking About ThisNatalie Zina Walschots - HenchJohn le Carre - Little Drummer GirlRachel Cusk - Second PlaceMeghan O’Gieblyn - God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for MeaningPatricia Lockwood - PriestdaddyRobin Kelley - Thelonious Monk: The Life & Times of an American Original*Lauren Groff - MatrixUrsula K. Le Guin - A Wizard of EarthseaJonathan Franzen - CrossroadsClaire Vaye Watkins - I Love You But I’ve Chosen DarknessAyad Akhtar - American Dervish
― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 19:09 (two years ago) link
Do we have a thread for 2021's reading lists yet? I still need to transfer from my planner to a document on the computer. I know it's longer than it's ever been, I think.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 19:11 (two years ago) link
Do we have a thread for 2021's reading lists yet?
We do now. What did you read in 2021?
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 19:22 (two years ago) link
Thank you, Aimless!
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 19:37 (two years ago) link
eg to call 'the black box of AI' (an enclosure, apparently) 'a hyperdimensional space' requires some... definition i think?Aren't the current wave of machine learning AIs typically considered as black boxes because the link between input and output is by its very nature entirely opaque? And maybe hyperdimensionality refers to the fact they process hundreds of billions of parameters? Haven't read the book so feel free to ignore me.
― big online yam retailer (ledge), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 19:41 (two years ago) link
a friend ran a supercomputer in australia of multiple nodes that was wired up not as a grid, or a cube, but as a hypercube. i can imagine a neural net similary connected, or moreso.
― koogs, Wednesday, 22 December 2021 20:11 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxDycRoR9VY
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 20:20 (two years ago) link
_eg to call 'the black box of AI' (an enclosure, apparently) 'a hyperdimensional space' requires some... definition i think?_Aren't the current wave of machine learning AIs typically considered as black boxes because the link between input and output is by its very nature entirely opaque? And maybe hyperdimensionality refers to the fact they process hundreds of billions of parameters? Haven't read the book so feel free to ignore me.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 22 December 2021 20:36 (two years ago) link
lol what i’m trying to say with a v fuzzy head is that i’m not clear the extent to which they’re using “artistic licence” or not. my first impression was “quite a lot” with a caveat about it how much it mattered. but your comments are making me go back and re-evaluate!
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 22 December 2021 21:15 (two years ago) link
Unintepretability/opacity are not givens in machine learning but they’re pretty common problems that take work to overcome and may be in practice insoluble problems.Pretty much every interesting model describes data in a space with more than three dimensions, ie is “hyperdimensional”.Whether those observations of facts support the (metaphorical?) deployment of those terms in criticism I don’t know. Hyperdimensionality is extremely mundane in the technical sense, so I’m very skeptical about that being a load bearing term in critical theoretical discussions.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 22:07 (two years ago) link
<Whooshing sound from previous posts>
I started to read Sylvia Townsend Warner's The Corner That Held Them. It's set in the 14th century, in a remote Norfolkian nunnery; I got about 30 pages in and a derelict, posing as a priest, was hallucinating as he died of the black death and I thought 'do I need this?' and decided no I don't.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 22:42 (two years ago) link
Huh, now I want to read it.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 22:44 (two years ago) link
She's fantastic and I will go back to it, it just felt a bit on the nose as it were.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 22:47 (two years ago) link
Yeah, I think I just have a thing for books set in religious, cloistered communities.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 22:48 (two years ago) link
Have you read Frost in May by Antonia White? That's a stunning little book.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 22:52 (two years ago) link
Nope! Another added to the Abe list.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 23:09 (two years ago) link
The corner that held them is great. Wonderful bunch of women to spend a half century with. Highly recommended.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 23:59 (two years ago) link
At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s quite similar to matrix by Lauren groff, which I’m half way through right now, but the corner that held them’s focus is more prosaic/domestic, eg how will they fix the roof, etc.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 23 December 2021 00:00 (two years ago) link
ooh, and that's what i like best— the stuff about hay and rooftops and long hard winters
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Thursday, 23 December 2021 00:26 (two years ago) link
This tweet is how it ended up on my reading list
I'm reading the book, “The Corner that Held Them,” which is about a bunch of nuns at an abby over decades during the plague in the 14th century, and it's just a lot of little episodes, so I've started to treat it like Twitter and think “time to check in on my nuns.”— Paul Ford (@ftrain) April 19, 2020
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 23 December 2021 00:31 (two years ago) link
Oh I've got to read that!
― Jaq, Thursday, 23 December 2021 01:10 (two years ago) link
― Fizzles, Thursday, 23 December 2021 06:54 (two years ago) link
The one time I abandon a book and now I can *feel* those nuns lining up to be all like 'so you don't care about our roof eh?'.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Thursday, 23 December 2021 10:57 (two years ago) link
Got another 2 added to the about to read list since my Xmas present arrived from my brother.THe iNconvenient Indian by Thomas King& Surviving Genocide by Jeffrey ostler. Both books on the treatment of Native Americans over the 19th & 20th centuries probably a littel more on each end too.
Have had tehm gboth pretty heavily recommended so, great to get them.
― Stevolende, Thursday, 23 December 2021 15:07 (two years ago) link
I'm thinking of a spectrum from "nuns" to "sexy nuns" with The Corner That Held Them on one end, Benedetta on the other, and Lauren Groff's Matrix right in the center.
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 23 December 2021 15:23 (two years ago) link
If I receive some of the books I'm expecting to receive for the holidays, then I'll be quite busy for a while.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Thursday, 23 December 2021 16:21 (two years ago) link
A new comet has been spotted in the skies over ILB, thanks to dow:
Bonfires In The Sky: What Are You Reading, Winter 2021-22?
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Thursday, 23 December 2021 19:15 (two years ago) link
that’s interesting table - i found that ‘toxicon…’ transcended its subject matter. i kind of went into it with some trepidation because of the circumstances of its writing, but i found a lot more than that in it. i liked its intensity and knottiness. weirdly i’m less keen on joyelle mcsweeney’s critical work, i like the necropastoral book but i didn’t get much out of her old blog, the gurlesque etc
― dogs, Thursday, 23 December 2021 21:54 (two years ago) link
Lolly Willowes (O052) - Sylvia Townsend WarnerPattern Recognition - William Gibson (R)The Card - Arnold BennettShift - Hugh HoweyThe Owl Service - Alan GarnerDark Entries - Robert Aickman (+)Seeds Of Time - John WyndhamSlade House - David Mitchell (+)The Last Day of a Condemned Man - Victor HugoThe Man Who Was Thursday - G K ChestertonAutumn - Ali SmithBleak House - Charles Dickens (R)Ramble Book - Adam BuxtonXX - Ryan HughesThe Old Man And The Sea - Earnest Hemingway (+)The Sea, The Sea - Iris MurdochThe Sea Wolf - Jack LondonInverted World - Christopher PriestThe Story Of Your Life and Others - Ted ChiangOne Thousand Ships - Natalie HaynesAmber Fury - Natalie HaynesAlcestis - EuripidesAgamemnon - AeschylusDeath’s End - Cixin LiuChildren Of Ruin - Adrian TchaikovskyElla Minnow Pea - Mark DunnDriftglass - Sam DelanyThe Road - Cormac McCarthyThings Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe24 Jigsaw - Ed McBainThe Monarch Of The Glen - Neil GaimanBlack Dog - Neil GaimanBody In The Library - Agatha ChristieAn Event In Autumn - MankellUnder the Greenwood Tree (1872) - Thomas Hardy (+)The Castle Of Otranto - Horace WalpoleO009 Nightmare Abbey - Thomas Love Peacock1848 Mary Barton - Elizabeth GaskellSmall Island - Andrea LevyAccidental Tourist - Anne Tyler (R) (+)The Honjin Murders - Seishi YokomizoAnna Of The Five Towns - Arnold Bennett (+)Slaughterhouse V - Kurt Vonnegut (R)Sketches By Boz - Charles Dickens
(R) = reread(+) = favourites, probably
― koogs, Thursday, 23 December 2021 22:30 (two years ago) link
(that's 40+, helped by skipping the usual long foreign novel in spring and reading a bunch of sub-200 page things in october)
― koogs, Thursday, 23 December 2021 22:32 (two years ago) link
wrong thread, dipshit
― koogs, Thursday, 23 December 2021 22:34 (two years ago) link
dogs, yeah, I guess that I was unmoved by the knottiness of Toxicon— it felt forced and unsurprising, plodding.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Saturday, 25 December 2021 15:46 (two years ago) link