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Post by donavan on May 2, 2016 21:26:30 GMT
Have you found that the older you get the less you wish to be voluntarily exposed to the extreme cruelties of the human experience, whether real or imagined?
No, quite the opposite.
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Post by donavan on May 3, 2016 5:50:22 GMT
Have you found that the older you get the less you wish to be voluntarily exposed to the extreme cruelties of the human experience, whether real or imagined? No, quite the opposite. I'll not go out of my way to find it. But you've got to face it up even if you find what man is capable of doing incomprehensible. This is why I never watch drama or read fiction about murders and other atrocities. Why would we create such things for entertainment?
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Post by miles on May 3, 2016 19:06:38 GMT
Jeff, I understand your reasoning should you not finish such a tragic tale. This is for both Suzi and Jeff - and anyone else that cares to respond: Have you found that the older you get the less you wish to be voluntarily exposed to the extreme cruelties of the human experience, whether real or imagined? I guess this is what art is about. Can you take these ugly realities and make sense of them through the distance of the creative process. I am more open to darkness in literature, I read noir and crime fiction mostly after reading James Ellroy. And sometimes the material repulses me, but it is an exploration of human behavior. What separates art from exploitation? A fine line to be sure. On the other hand I find explicit violence in movies very off-putting. I am intrigued by "The Revenant" but don't want to see all the gore. When it comes to violence against women in media, and the repulsive brutality of genres like slasher films, torture porn ("Saw" movies for example) ABSOLUTELY count me out.
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Post by cicadashell on May 3, 2016 19:21:10 GMT
i read a fair bit of technical literature (peer-reviewed journals) and so for me fiction is a great pleasure. as miles says it is a way to make sense of reality, to put things into a sort of order that they don't seem to fall into on their own.
the revenant was really a remarkable movie. it is certainly gruesome at times but i think mr. iñárritu kept solidly on the art side of that line you mention.
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Post by Jeff Truzzi on May 3, 2016 19:26:03 GMT
The older I get, I am certainly less and less surprised by the cruelties humans can and do to each other.
I suspect I'll finish the book.
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Post by peggs on May 4, 2016 2:34:05 GMT
I agree with miles’ statement about art being a filter for the ugliness of reality. I too don’t mind violence (to a degree) in literature; spy novels and action adventure stories are favored genres. But non-fiction depictions of violence and cruelty I cannot tolerate. I know that terrible things happened; I don’t need to have them projected onto my minds’ eye.
As for violence in films, what miles said.
As a slightly humorous aside, I walked out of Jurassic Park (in the theater) when the accountant/lawyer got eaten by the dinosaur while sitting in the outhouse; yet I absolutely love the book and all it’s carnage (I have watched the movie on television when it’s been edited for violence).
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Post by donavan on May 4, 2016 4:41:49 GMT
I don't mind dinosaurs eating people. It's beyond reality. Doyouthinkhesaurus?
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Post by anothersatellite on May 10, 2016 19:56:47 GMT
I'm reading "Auschwitz" A New History" (2005) by Lawrence Rees. Just a little light reading. I borrowed it from a friend, mainly wanting to confirm something I'd read elsewhere: that The Final Solution was actually a reaction to the SS making regular German soldiers commit atrocities in the USSR. So many cases of 'battle fatigue' among professions soldiers forced to act sadistically and unprofessionally. But there were plenty who weren't bothered by it at all. As in all things, the truth is much messier. That was but one of the many reasons the Final Solution evolved. One of the more minor ones, actually. And it did evolve: far less a 'top down' order than a policy that was influenced by many forces from many different directions. The book varies from clinical examination of policy to firsthand personal interviews with both guards and prisoners. It is enlightening and edifying, but very gruesome. I may not finish it. I haven't read fiction in years - other than a couple of books an old friend of mine had published. "Crystal Falls" by Brad Walseth. It's really good. For a different take on the top-down-Wannseekonferenz view of the Holocaust, read Hitler's Willing executioners by Daniel Goldhagen. It focuses not on the elite SS but on the rank-and-file. Rather than, "we were fooled by a single madman," it's really difficult to overstate their enthusiasm for the project.
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Post by Introvertigroo on Jun 7, 2016 1:39:24 GMT
I am currently my favorite Stephen King novel, It. I might follow this up with Cycle of the Werewolf if I can figure out where the hell I put it. I desperately need a housekeeper, or at least basic organizational skills.
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Post by Introvertigroo on Jun 25, 2016 0:18:08 GMT
As I have not yet found my copy of Cycle of the Werewolf, I have decided for the time being to reread James Ellroy's novel "The Black Dahlia." Although the killer in the novel is referred to as a werewolf, so maybe there is a connection between the two books.
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Post by Introvertigroo on Jul 1, 2016 1:14:35 GMT
Having finished The Black Dahlia, I have moved on the next volume of James Ellroy's L.A. Quarter, The Big Nowhere.
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Post by anothersatellite on Jul 18, 2016 16:12:46 GMT
Read The Monster of Florence, a fascinating (and blessedly restrained, non-gory, non-titillating) tale of the insane Italian police politics surrounding the Monster of Florence murder investigation(s) with direct ties to the Amanda Knox nightmare.
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Post by miles on Jul 18, 2016 21:51:43 GMT
Having finished The Black Dahlia, I have moved on the next volume of James Ellroy's L.A. Quarter, The Big Nowhere. Reading Ellroy reminds me of when I first discovered EC comics (at age 10.) I felt I shouldn't reading be them and could not stop. There is something feverish in Ellroy's writing that gets a hold on you.
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Post by donavan on Jul 19, 2016 8:59:24 GMT
I've been reading the same 500 page book now for exactly 12 months. And I've still got 100 pages to go.
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Post by peggs on Jul 20, 2016 6:52:49 GMT
It must not be a page turner.
I'm not much better. I did get through Simon Winchester's, Pacific - great read, highly recommended - but am now reading two pages a day of an old SF novel I pulled from my bookshelf. It's Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. A good story about what happens when a comet hits the earth. The technology and politics are dated (the book was written in 1977) but once the 'hammer' falls it doesn't matter anyway.
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