Sign in with Facebook
Ted's Reviews > Verbivoracious Festschrift Volume Three: The Syllabus
Verbivoracious Festschrift Volume Three: The Syllabus
by
by
Ted's review
bookshelves: to-read, classics, conflict, history-civilization, horror, humor, lit-crit, magical-realism, medicine, modernism, neuroscience, peak-oil, poststructuralism, read-during-college, religion-mythology-rationalism, socialism-communism, those-were-the-days, troubles-ahead, women-s-works, have
May 08, 2015
bookshelves: to-read, classics, conflict, history-civilization, horror, humor, lit-crit, magical-realism, medicine, modernism, neuroscience, peak-oil, poststructuralism, read-during-college, religion-mythology-rationalism, socialism-communism, those-were-the-days, troubles-ahead, women-s-works, have
Rating: 3 1/4 for old men, 4 ½ for whippersnappers smart/tenacious/misguided enough to try to tackle runaway post-modernism
An old man reviews a book of reviews of books not written for old men.
There are 100 reviews, and a final piece at the end of questionable genre.
For him, it was B.R. reading, onesheet review at a time.
Being limited to 500 words, and he a slow reader, they were about the right size to accompany the activity being engaged in. He did think, more than once, that perhaps a bit of variation in their lengths wouldn’t have hurt. In fact �
At one point he put it aside for several months, having grown tired of a certain sameness that had crept in to some short run of the reviews.
He thought that it was likely a quite useful read for someone more interested in post-modern writing than he � being as almost all the books were of that type. But he discovered some books that he may well wrestle with � which side would win such a match would have bemused and confused him, had he thought about it.
the books reviewed
(view spoiler)
As he sat and read he was armed with a pencil. This he used (usually) to record a few words about his reaction to the review; or to the book (such as he could envision it, from the review); or to both.
At one point (about a third of the way through) someone (not him) may someday read the following, scribbled (seemingly) in ink rather than pencil.
Interesting, but incites in me the pernicious thought that much post-modernism is little more than intellectual masturbation on the part of authors, with an accompanying assumption that the reader, if sufficiently “anointed� to be admitted to the inner sanctum, will enjoy watching him/her engaged in this self-lovemaking.
We must forgive this silly observation on his part, if in fact it is actually written in the book. How would we know?
At any rate, reproduced below are his reactions as described above. They are not in the order of the books shown previously. Rather, the order was determined by another means (entirely rationally, this codger thought) � then, having ordered all 101 pieces in this way, reordered, for all those following number 50, by a different parameter.
This exercise amused him no end, though in dreaming of readers attempting to match the reactions to the book’s reviews, he overlooked that rather obvious fact that who would bother? Let’s let him dream on.
(view spoiler)
Bottom line. Just buy the damn book and do what you want with it. Don’t tell anyone you got that advice from an old man, either. I’m sure he would deny it.
I've been told by a good source that the old man actually did add about a dozen books to his overloaded shelves because of certain reviews. This info has resulted in those reviews in the first spoiler section becoming marked, thus: **
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: But Beautiful Geoff Dyer on jazz
Random review: The Wine-Dark Sea
Next review: The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan Studs Lonigan #2
Previous library review: La Bodega The Fruit of the Vine
Next library review: The Complete Works of Shakespeare
An old man reviews a book of reviews of books not written for old men.
There are 100 reviews, and a final piece at the end of questionable genre.
For him, it was B.R. reading, one
Being limited to 500 words, and he a slow reader, they were about the right size to accompany the activity being engaged in. He did think, more than once, that perhaps a bit of variation in their lengths wouldn’t have hurt. In fact �
At one point he put it aside for several months, having grown tired of a certain sameness that had crept in to some short run of the reviews.
He thought that it was likely a quite useful read for someone more interested in post-modern writing than he � being as almost all the books were of that type. But he discovered some books that he may well wrestle with � which side would win such a match would have bemused and confused him, had he thought about it.
the books reviewed
(view spoiler)
As he sat and read he was armed with a pencil. This he used (usually) to record a few words about his reaction to the review; or to the book (such as he could envision it, from the review); or to both.
At one point (about a third of the way through) someone (not him) may someday read the following, scribbled (seemingly) in ink rather than pencil.
Interesting, but incites in me the pernicious thought that much post-modernism is little more than intellectual masturbation on the part of authors, with an accompanying assumption that the reader, if sufficiently “anointed� to be admitted to the inner sanctum, will enjoy watching him/her engaged in this self-lovemaking.
We must forgive this silly observation on his part, if in fact it is actually written in the book. How would we know?
At any rate, reproduced below are his reactions as described above. They are not in the order of the books shown previously. Rather, the order was determined by another means (entirely rationally, this codger thought) � then, having ordered all 101 pieces in this way, reordered, for all those following number 50, by a different parameter.
This exercise amused him no end, though in dreaming of readers attempting to match the reactions to the book’s reviews, he overlooked that rather obvious fact that who would bother? Let’s let him dream on.
(view spoiler)
Bottom line. Just buy the damn book and do what you want with it. Don’t tell anyone you got that advice from an old man, either. I’m sure he would deny it.
I've been told by a good source that the old man actually did add about a dozen books to his overloaded shelves because of certain reviews. This info has resulted in those reviews in the first spoiler section becoming marked, thus: **
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: But Beautiful Geoff Dyer on jazz
Random review: The Wine-Dark Sea
Next review: The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan Studs Lonigan #2
Previous library review: La Bodega The Fruit of the Vine
Next library review: The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Sign into Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ to see if any of your friends have read
Verbivoracious Festschrift Volume Three.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
May 8, 2015
– Shelved
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
to-read
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
classics
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
conflict
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
history-civilization
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
horror
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
humor
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
lit-crit
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
magical-realism
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
medicine
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
modernism
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
neuroscience
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
peak-oil
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
poststructuralism
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
read-during-college
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
religion-mythology-rationalism
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
socialism-communism
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
those-were-the-days
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
troubles-ahead
May 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
women-s-works
June 1, 2015
–
Started Reading
September 6, 2015
– Shelved as:
have
March 25, 2016
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-17 of 17 (17 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Scribble
(last edited May 09, 2015 01:39AM)
(new)
-
added it
May 09, 2015 01:38AM
Those shelves' tags, Ted, are a review in entirety, even before you've obtained copy(ies).
reply
|
flag
Scribble wrote: "Those shelves' tags, Ted, are a review in entirety, even before you've obtained copy(ies)."I would guess some of them are not very apropos? medicine? peak oil? I was just trying to cover all the bases, I'm sure I missed some. But I won't know until I see it, I do have it on order!
Do you have something in it? I saw many GR friends have writing in it, which is why I want so much to have it. 8)
peak oil sounds great!Scribble Orca has nothing in it - but no lament, those who've contributed are worth reading in spades :)
Scribble wrote: "peak oil sounds great!Scribble Orca has nothing in it - but no lament, those who've contributed are worth reading in spades :)"
Well, I will keep an eye out for something that connects even marginally (or whimsically) to peak oil! ;}
It would be great if Volume Four was a Tedschrift of your bookmarked reviews!
Hah! It would need to be something that would support a lot of links!Unless all the bookmarked reviews were to be reproduced as the Festschrift. That would be cool, but awfully long. Certainly not a Fastschrift to read.
Nor is the The Syllabus a fastschrift to obtain, at least from Amazon. "Temporarily out of stock". Unfortunately I have seen that message on books that they are basically refusing to deal with the publisher on. Perhaps I'll need to order it directly from Verbivoracious Press.
Haha. Cool is entitled to be awfully long. Isn't the whole point to get it from the publisher?
well, it always come from the publisher, if it comes at all.
Directly, without an intermediary.
Why is that the whole point?
Ted wrote: "Why is that the whole point?"Isn't the book printed on demand by/for the publisher? Why would you, an intending consumer, want to interpose an intermediary like amazon? Less of the price you pay would go to the publisher and future projects.
None of that means anything to me.
Well, I'm a third of the way through, and I need a break to reset. Just a bit much post-modernist reviewing of post-modernist works for me to keep plowing ahead unrelentingly. I will be back. Never give up on a book without a damn good reason, and nothing like that exists here.
Ted wrote: "Well, I'm a third of the way through, and I need a break to reset. Just a bit much post-modernist reviewing of post-modernist works for me to keep plowing ahead unrelentingly. I will be back. Never..."But have you opened the covers of any of the works listed therein? It makes for reference even when it makes you tired :)
I've certainly got my eye on several of them, Scribble.
Much to learn from this reviewer of reviews, Ted... I wonder what might happen when a supposedly more or less young reader who has a preference for old books penned by writers who stopped creating more than a century ago picked this one... I bet the by-product would be much more tedious than the humorous essay above...
Well, that could be Dolors. 8 )But I did find some books in it that I definitely want to think about getting. And I did buy one book almost immediately after reading the review of The Stain by Rikki Ducornet - though I got a different book, The Jade Cabinet.
