This is part of a 5-video series on 2666. • 2666 Group Read I am happy to be reading this in tandem with The Recognitions Book Club. Check them out: / therecognitionsbookclub / trbcmag / the-recognitions-book-...
Thank you for these videos. This is my second time reading this novel and you are greatly elucidating my reading. Fun fact: Allan Bloom was my great uncle. I only saw him in person once as a child at a family reunion in Chicago. I still see his sister (my grandma) several times a week. Never read any of his books, but I’ve been recommended his Closing of the American Mind. He had very different politics than me though.
Wow, cool! I’ve only read that book of his. It is very potent, and I have to breath deeply when I read it because it make me bitter/frustrated as when I read Hughes’s Culture of Complaint. Nice to hear from you.
Man, it is really wonderful to watch these videos after finishing a part of the book. It's enhancing my experience with it and as always your observations help me to look at it from points of view I didn't consider before. Have you thought about doing a video talking about writing? What you read in the Q&A was amazing and It would be nice to hear what lead you to write, talk more in-depth about your creative process...etc
So glad to hear the videos are useful! And I try to bring out points that aren’t often talked about in all my videos-this is one reason I typically omit giving synopses or plot regurgitations. I actually haven’t thought about doing a video on my writing. At least not yet. But you’ve planted the seed!
One of the 4 writers I think had the greatest influence on the world literature in last 2 decades along with Sebald, Pamuk and Knausgaard - Both videos in this series were excellent. I have also enjoyed the one about Murakami (Wind-up bird). Many Thanks!
mate I love the books you read . I saw from your video on books you got defeated by, thaat you had "the road to reality" and i instantly subscribed !! i admire that you attempted to read that beast of a book.
That ring on your finger broke my heart. You have a brother who's into lit? haha. jk. (although I do like a man with a [good] book) Great video once again!
First of all let me say that I love your channel and I binge watch it regularly. Keep up the great work!!! However, I just want to note here that Candide by Voltaire is a cutting treaty on how this is NOT the best of all possible worlds. Candide is a novelized statement on the philosophical "Problem of Evil" and a condemnation of the philosopher Leibniz who believed that this was truly the best of all possible worlds. Pangloss, a character in the novel who gets hilariously brutalized throughout is a clear effigy of Leibniz himself and his philosophical beliefs. Therefore, Candide is not the opposite of the message in 2666 but rather a suiting bookend or at worst a distant cousin with a similar bloodline.
Thank you so much for noting this blunder! You are of course, quite correct. It’s funny how books we read can morph in our memory over time. I really appreciate you pointing this out. Happy reading!
I agree, of course, but this would be much more of a masterpiece, as I said elsewhere, had the prose been less Steinbeck or Hemingway and more DeLillo or even DFW, and had he not restrained or muzzled the magic that exists within realism. Halfway through the book I can say so far that the construction is quite wonderful, a sort of snowball effect.
It stems from his journalism and penchant for crime and detective stories, no doubt. Glad you’re enjoying it even though-alas-they can’t all be prose stylists.
do you have any reccomendations (either authors or books) if i enjoy bolaño’s work? not necessarily in terms of topics but more so in writing style - I love everything that I’ve read from him so far (i’m currently struggling with 2666 lol) and i would love to find something reminiscent of his work. love your videos!
@@LeafbyLeaf , I'm reading the stranger by camus, nausea by sartre and the first novel "whatever" by houellebecq(who is a pc programmer like you). No a mind-blowing reading. Definitely. I was expecting something better than this dry language.
Re the geometry book, he says he wants to see how it does pitted against the ¨elements¨ of nature. ¨Elements¨ is the name Euclid´s book on geometry, I found this ingenious and hilarious.
Arrrrrrrrrgh! It’s “see-yoo-dad” not “key-yoo-dad”! Anyway can’t wait for you to cover my favorite part of this odyssey-the last book. - James ps why have you not safeguarded a professor position yet? Tell me the real reasons why.
Ah, drats! I’m hopeless with pronunciations. Should have looked that one up and got it down first. Thanks, as always, for the edification, my friend. That last part was incredible, for sure. I already did a video on it but I’m not terribly happy with it. There are some many depths to it! The answer to your question is a bit lengthy, but we can leave it at this: I don’t have a PhD (yet) and I can’t afford the pay cut (for now). Perhaps I will offer a longer answer in an upcoming video where I just answer people’s questions. Hope you are well!
