what are you reading at the moment?
Oct 21 2004
hey would be interesting to hear what everyone is reading at the moment. I've been trying to get more into reading now since we don't have a TV anymore (what a liberating thing to do, honest!), but i still can't read fiction...
Anyways, what book are you reading now?
I guess i need to start, this one is a political one:
Country Of My Scull by Antie Krog
Shit man, this book is hard to read, you get so angry and sad and i can only do few pages at the time. The book is about the Truth and Reconciliation process in south africa where the old regimes bastards got amnesty after coming out in front of the country and admitting to their crimes.
It makes you angry to read what kind of people literally got away with murder - and worse. It also makes you angry to read about how many of the death squat and torture group members were black, and who themselves were subjected to all kinds of abuse by the apartheid system, but still continued to serve in the systems most ugliest tentacles. Makes you see necklacing in a totally different light...
I read quite a bit of south africa related political commentary. All pretty mainstream stuff with a touch of lefty/liberal flavour, but still very informative.
Oct 21 2004
#2
I'm reading a book that I can guarantee no one else on enrager is ..... 'Rajani Palme Dutt - A Study in British Stalinism" by John Callaghan (Lawrence and Wishart, 1993)
Palme Dutt was born in the UK in 1896 to Indian and Swedish parents, and had two claims to fame - firstly he was the CPGBs main intellectual, and secondly his nephew, Olaf Palme went on to become Prime Minister of Sweden (he was assasinated in dodgy circumstances in the mid-80s)
The book gives a few insights into just how bad the domination of the CPGB from Moscow was, and the complete impossibility of running a political party that could change all its views, on order, from Moscow. Palme Dutt became adept at not just doing this himself, but in enforcing it on his party.
Callaghan makes little real attempt to bring out much about Palme Dutt as a person, either because he prefers to concentrate on his political activities, or as is more likely Pale Dutt was simply wedded to the CPGB and so actually did very little outside of Stalinist politics.
Dutt was clearly a clever man, and some of his comments on the ruling class were perceptive, but you are left with the opinion that Leninism was a religion to him, and like all religions, it destroyed the potential of its believer.
Oct 21 2004
#3
lol, I've heard about Dutt -- scarily tall.
I'm reading "England Your England" by G. Orwell, because I heard that 1940 and the home guard was the last chance at an English revolution...nowt about it in this volume, though.
Oct 21 2004
#4
I know about Palme-Dutte also and your post is interesting (memories of Olaf etc as well in terms of S Africa). I think Stalinist poitics takes hold in the working class because there is no other obvious answer - shall we send the bourgoisie and other counter-revolutionaries to the salt mines or will we be nice to them and grant them 'freedom of speech' to let them destroy the people, as they usually do? We are angry, but need to get even. We have had a really shit time creating surplus value.
I am interested in anarchism (was an early proponent many years ago), but find that practical application is wanting sometimes (my opinion) as there is no definitive anti-ruling class organisation that can WIN.
Oct 21 2004
#5
Just a quick point - George Orwell worked for MI5 as a matter of public record.
No further comment required
Oct 21 2004
#6
You don't think Dutt was w/c do you? Typical swivel-eyed middle class intellectual with strange fetish about submitting to the Motherland.
Oct 21 2004
#7
Is the point of your post to shut down discussion? Otherwise, I am confused?
Oct 21 2004
#8
I am sure Special Twig is active in this forum. Or is there debate ?
Oct 21 2004
#9
i'm not reading anything at the moment, but i've asked another board for suggestions from this library. i only want a book that will help me learn survival skills.
Oct 21 2004
#10
Oct 21 2004
#11
Sean & David's Long Drive by Sean Condon.
Two mates decide to explore Australia in a duck-egg blue 1966 Ford Falcon.
"Sean & David's Long Drive mixes sharp insights with deadpan humour and outright lies"
It's one of the funniest things I've ever read 
Oct 21 2004
#12
I'm currently reading "beyond good and evil" by Neitzche, mainly cuz I thought it was time I did.
I'm trudging through happily enough.
However I did just finish an amazing book by Ian Brady called Gates of Janus, Yes that Ian Brady, Moors Murderer, madman, pensioner etc...
Anyway the first half is him ranting about psychology and some sociological things he makes some really really interesting observations on crime and how the current world effects it.
The most interesting thing is reading it from an admited lunaic who is quite intelligent, well read and well written.
Definetly engrossing.
The second half, and mainly what the first half is a build up/background to is his take on various serial killers, which I think sez more about him then some of the killers, but thats also interesting.
Right, I'm goin back to my weird books now...
Oct 21 2004
#13
If you've got something to say Username, I think the whole class should hear it
(Private message I just got):
Username wrote:
redyred wrote:
Username wrote:
i'm not reading anything at the moment, but i've asked another board for suggestions from this library. i only want a book that will help me learn survival skills.How about this?
how about this?
What was that Username? A cheap dig at my sexuality? Or an attempt to shock/offend me? I guess since you're incapable of making a decent comeback or arguing a point, you have to resort to attempting behind-the-scenes intimidation. But it seems you're crap at that too. All that did was make me laugh.
PS apologies to the admin if making PMs public is against enrager policy, not something I'd normally do, but I don't think this one was exactly sensitivie information 
.
Oct 22 2004
#14
I'm reading "Madness & Civilisation" by Michel Foucault. The first 50-60 pages are really great, on how it was the same movement that put mad people in asylums & put the poor into workhouses & prisoners in prisons. I'll probably get flamed to fuck for this, but I reckon Foucault has had more influence on my politics than any other 20th century writer.
As for Nietzsche, my favourite is "Genealogy of morals," especially the second part about "slave morality." That's pretty challenging stuff & has been taken up to great effect by the contemporary feminist writer Wendy Brown in her book, "States of Injury." Basically, her argument is that political movements founded in shared experiences of injury (like a lot of 80s-style identity politics) are pretty much fucked from day 1.
The last fiction I read was "Rashomon," which I read 'cause "Ghost Dog" is such a fantastic film. Before that, it was "Q" by Luther Blisset, which I picked 'cause people were raving about it on enrager. And they were not wrong.
Oct 22 2004
#15
Kalashnikov_Blues wrote:
I'm currently reading "beyond good and evil" by Neitzche, mainly cuz I thought it was time I did.I'm trudging through happily enough.
On the Genealogy of Morals is much better, as I recall (it must be 10 or 12 years since I read any Nietzsche). It's in a more coherent essay form, rather than aphorisms, so his ideas come across a lot clearer.
Oct 22 2004
#16
redyred wrote:
If you've got something to say Username, I think the whole class should hear it(Private message I just got):
Username wrote:
redyred wrote:
Username wrote:
i'm not reading anything at the moment, but i've asked another board for suggestions from this library. i only want a book that will help me learn survival skills.How about this?
how about this?
What was that Username? A cheap dig at my sexuality? Or an attempt to shock/offend me? I guess since you're incapable of making a decent comeback or arguing a point, you have to resort to attempting behind-the-scenes intimidation. But it seems you're crap at that too. All that did was make me laugh.
PS apologies to the admin if making PMs public is against enrager policy, not something I'd normally do, but I don't think this one was exactly sensitivie information
ARRRRRRRRRGH!!! You fuckwit!! I look at enrager in a public library!! Ultimate embaressment!! Please dont do stuff like that. 
Oct 22 2004
#17
Lazlo_Woodbine wrote:
You don't think Dutt was w/c do you? Typical swivel-eyed middle class intellectual with strange fetish about submitting to the Motherland.
I don't really know why I posted this. Sorry JoeH
Oct 22 2004
#18
I'm on the brothers karamazov by dostoevsky. Its amazing how he can describe every aspect of the human race whilst still retaining some semblance of a plot. reccomended.
Oct 22 2004
#19
Quote:
what are you reading at the moment?
Posts on enrager, obviously. Dickhead.
Oct 22 2004
#20
redyred wrote:
If you've got something to say Username, I think the whole class should hear it(Private message I just got):
Username wrote:
redyred wrote:
Username wrote:
i'm not reading anything at the moment, but i've asked another board for suggestions from this library. i only want a book that will help me learn survival skills.How about this?
how about this?
Oh and another thing. Don't slag off primitivism.
Oct 23 2004
#21
I've picked up The Tracker : The Story of Tom Brown, Jr., as told to William Jon Watkins, which is already intense!
Oct 24 2004
#22
Ive just picked up Adorno's 'Culture Industry' and i have just started to get my head around that. I like alot of what the Frankfurt school said, so should be a good read.
Oct 25 2004
#23
i am reading "if not now, when" by primo levi; surely one of the saddest most moving books ever written. its about the partisan resistance fighters in the second world war, what they went through is hard to comprehend. may i also recommend some of his other books, the wrench, if this is a man and the truce. truly marvellous books about human dignity.
Oct 25 2004
#24
I am reading Schnews at Ten A Decade of Party and Protest.
It brings together some of the key stories of the decade from the big roads protest and anti-CJA movements in the nineties through to the Global anti-capitalist movement and opposition to the war in Iraq. From Newbury to Seattle, Liverpool Dockers to the Zapatistas - with allot of the less well known but equally important moments in between.
It's great for me as a "newcomer," the book helps fill in the missing bits, and as well explaining the meanings behind the protest and consequences of such actions.
It's well worth getting hold off D just look for the Schnew website, I promise that you won't be wasting your money.
Nov 3 2004
#25
Username obviously has a problem (hopefully not serious), but needs to think about it. Redyred is a bit upset about it.
To The Button, I read Nietsche many years ago (in german)- he really was a forerunner for the Nazis who co-opted his ideas - careful friend.
Also, why is it that so many people on this forum can't spell, seeing as we're on culture? (Education system???)
Strange lot really...
Nov 4 2004
#26
joehill wrote:
Also, why is it that so many people on this forum can't spell, seeing as we're on culture?
and that matters because???
Im reading "Animal Liberation" by Peter Singer at the moment. 
Nov 4 2004
#27
...Yes, because borderline fascistic utilitarianism is acceptable because Singer likes animals?
Nov 4 2004
#28
3rdseason wrote:
joehill wrote:
Also, why is it that so many people on this forum can't spell, seeing as we're on culture?
because anarchism has a long tradition of encouraging the self-education, self-improvement, and autonomous cultural development of the working class?
Nov 5 2004
#29
Jack wrote:
...Yes, because borderline fascistic utilitarianism is acceptable because Singer likes animals?
Singer never says he would kill everyone who eats meat. Just that he has chosen not to and states his reason why.
Just like you have beliefs and you can state why you hold them. Doesnt mean you hate everyone who doesnt think exactly the same as you.
Interestingly Singer says that he does not consider himself an "animal lover" in that he doesnt hugely enjoy the company of animals but he differentiates between this and simply respecting them and including them in moral frameworks.
Nov 5 2004
#30
Quote:
Doesnt mean you hate everyone who doesnt think exactly the same as you.
jack does. unless they behead americans, then he loves them.
I have just started reading a strange book called 'Secret Weapon' by Bernard Newman. I found it amongst my many books today (didn't even know I had it), but it was first published in 1942. I'll tell you more when I have actually got to reading it, no idea what it is actually about.
I am also rereading the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Universe (read it before, but got it as a present recently in a single book, so feel obliged to re-read. Great book, also, being rerun on Radio 4 at 6.30 on Tuesdays for interested parties)
I am also having a go at reading a bit of the bible (although not a christian), which is quite testing.