Books

[ploumid]

QUOTE (Nahrallah @ Mar 11 2007, 11:00 PM) ploumid: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead!, written by Tom Stoppard, is a play which was first performed in 1966. In 1990 a film version (starring Gary Oldman, Tim Roth and Richard Dreyfuss) was released. If you want to have a look at the play I posted a link. It's well worth a read. Of course the movie was gloriously executed!
Thanks Nahrallah I`m going to give it a look and hopefully a reading!

You`re right , that`s the movie I`ve watched. I remember the actors...Why are you saying that the movie was executed? you mean it wasn`t well played or that it had a bad reception from the people?

 

[noob]

QUOTE (ploumid @ Mar 11 2007, 11:22 PM) Thanks Nahrallah I`m going to give it a look and hopefully a reading!

You`re right , that`s the movie I`ve watched. I remember the actors...Why are you saying that the movie was executed? you mean it wasn`t well played or that it had a bad reception from the people?

gloriously executed = very well executed = very well performed = was awesome = three hairly thumbs up. for further informations, please visit us at dictionary.com or wikipedia.org

 

[ploumid]

QUOTE (noob @ Mar 11 2007, 11:50 PM)gloriously executed = very well executed = very well performed = was awesome = three hairly thumbs up. for further informations, please visit us at dictionary.com or wikipedia.org
He,he, noob I really made a major guff! I translated the word in my language and as such I thought it to be a bad thing... Thanks for the correction

 

[Nahrallah]

ploumid: Oh! English isn't your native language ... I had no idea. *views profile* Ah! You're from Greece. Sorry about my lack of response to your question ... I lost myself in the far-flung reaches of the Fansub TV Network. *drops backpack, removes hiking boots and guzzles water*

noob: Thanks for answering ploumid on my behalf. That's exactly what I meant.

 

[ploumid]

QUOTE (Nahrallah @ Mar 12 2007, 02:53 PM) ploumid: Oh! English isn't your native language ... I had no idea. *views profile* Ah! You're from Greece. Sorry about my lack of response to your question ... I lost myself in the far-flung reaches of the Fansub TV Network. *drops backpack, removes hiking boots and guzzles water*

noob: Thanks for answering ploumid on my behalf. That's exactly what I meant.

It` s alright! It was 6 in the morning so my brain wasn`t totaly awake. That was a really stupid mistake and I`m ashamed of it

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed your hiking through the jungle of Fansub...

 

[Darkvein]

I'm very much so into fantasy books. @_@

My favorites are the Dragonstar Trilogy (I forget the author though. I have the books back at home but not here on campus, and I won't be home till May.)
I also really enjoyed the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

 

[orofena-chan]

QUOTE (ploumid @ Mar 11 2007, 11:42 PM) He,he Orofena,not only I`m familiar with his work but I know some of his poems by heart..

You`re right about his sensual work, it`s exellent but to tell you the truth I love more his historic poems because they were mirroring the political facts of his own time...
Analyzing them at class was the best for me.
Waiting for the barbarians and Alexandria are his most famous work...
And now I need to find his book and read it again...

Actually I came by Cavafy through W.H.Auden (I like his stuff very much as well!) You're lucky to have been able to read such good stuff at school. My tastes are in spite of the stuff they feed you at school since they usually have the most inane poems in the curriculum (all nicely packaged in a huge anthology that weighs a ton in your backpack) for my own personal tastes as I care nothing for the so called "canon".

Can you recommend other Greek poets? like contemporary ones... (I'll try to see if I can find them in transl...) For me the most memorable poem from Cavafy is The City since it rings very true for me. If you like Cavafy, check out Fernando Pessoa (if you can read it in the original Portuguese, great! ...If not try the French or Spanish version...English as the last resort...

)

Other very interesting poets are Vicente Aleixandre (Spain), Federico García Lorca (widely available in trans, but if you read the Spanish...), and different but the same an American, Langston Hughes. I know tons of other more obscure poets with very wonderful stuff, but I'm not sure if there's any work of theirs in transl.

As to Shakespeare, I was forcefed that stuff from age 12... so not too enthusiastic, but I do love The Tempest, one of his later plays, and some of his sonnets. Check out Calderon de la Barca and his "Life is a Dream" play (La vida es un sueño)

...Yeah, he was 16 when Shakespeare died...

 

[ploumid]

QUOTE (orofena-chan @ Mar 13 2007, 08:01 AM)Actually I came by Cavafy through W.H.Auden (I like his stuff very much as well!) You're lucky to have been able to read such good stuff at school. My tastes are in spite of the stuff they feed you at school since they usually have the most inane poems in the curriculum (all nicely packaged in a huge anthology that weighs a ton in your backpack) for my own personal tastes as I care nothing for the so called "canon".

Can you recommend other Greek poets? like contemporary ones... (I'll try to see if I can find them in transl...) For me the most memorable poem from Cavafy is The City since it rings very true for me. If you like Cavafy, check out Fernando Pessoa (if you can read it in the original Portuguese, great! ...If not try the French or Spanish version...English as the last resort...

)

Other very interesting poets are Vicente Aleixandre (Spain), Federico García Lorca (widely available in trans, but if you read the Spanish...), and different but the same an American, Langston Hughes. I know tons of other more obscure poets with very wonderful stuff, but I'm not sure if there's any work of theirs in transl.

As to Shakespeare, I was forcefed that stuff from age 12... so not too enthusiastic, but I do love The Tempest, one of his later plays, and some of his sonnets. Check out Calderon de la Barca and his "Life is a Dream" play (La vida es un sueño)

...Yeah, he was 16 when Shakespeare died...
Oro, I`ll check them out, thanks. But I`ll probably read them in Greek. My French and Spanish are very weak

. Greek translations are quite good...
Here are some of my most favorite contemporary Greeks.

Kostas Karyotakis (very dark....)
Nikos Kavvadias(He wrote poems of the sea, check one called Federico García Lorca )
Odysseas Elytis (beautifull words, hidden meanings, maybe the greatest contemporary poet... )
Giorgos Seferis (Excellent poet and writer. very caustic...)
Kostas Varnalis (A little hentai in his personal life but wrote some very intelligent poems)

I think you`ll enjoy their works...

 

[Nahrallah]

I'm not very well versed in contemporary Greek poetry ... ah, please pardon the pun. I did, however, stumble upon some poetry by Dimitris P. Kraniotis which really appealed to me. I'm very fond of One-word garments:

Waves of circumflexes
storms of adverbs,
windmills of verbs,
shells of signs of ellipsis,
on the island of poems
of soul,
of mind,
of thought,
one-word garments
you wear
to endure!

ploumid: I plan to educate myself starting with the list of poets you recommended.

 

[ploumid]

Beautifull poem, Nahrallah I`m not familiar with Kranioti`s work and that was a nice surprise!

Before, I`ve mentioned some of kafavis poems but left out the most beautifull, Ithaka
In this, Kavafis resembles(Odyseas) Ullysse`s journey with life`s strangle and purpose... It`s in English but you`ll get easily to the point...

http://transrealart.com/selection03/images/ithakaenglish.pdf

 

[orofena-chan]

Thanks for the list, Ploumid. I found an online poetry ezine that has some of the poets you mentioned in translation. What's really nice about this site is that it features the poetry both in translation and in the original.

QUOTE (Nahrallah @ Mar 13 2007, 05:18 PM)I'm not very well versed in contemporary Greek poetry ... ah, please pardon the pun. I did, however, stumble upon some poetry by Dimitris P. Kraniotis which really appealed to me.
Very nice, I'll look up this person too! XD

If you are unfamiliar with Lorca's work, try some of his plays. Perhaps his most known one is Blood Wedding (Bodas de sangre). It was made into a movie by Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura as part of his flamenco trilogy (Carmen, and Amor Brujo). Or if you want a small appetizer try this translation by Leonard Cohen which he converted into lyrics to a song called Take This Waltz (mp3) (Lorca's poem is Little Viennese Waltz)

Just a little sampler:

Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women.
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows.
There's a tree where the doves go to die.
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost --
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.

 

[ploumid]

QUOTE (orofena-chan @ Mar 13 2007, 05:38 PM) Thanks for the list, Ploumid. I found an online poetry ezine that has some of the poets you mentioned in translation. What's really nice about this site is that it features the poetry both in translation and in the original.

Very nice, I'll look up this person too! XD

If you are unfamiliar with Lorca's work, try some of his plays. Perhaps his most known one is Blood Wedding (Bodas de sangre). It was made into a movie by Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura as part of his flamenco trilogy (Carmen, and Amor Brujo). Or if you want a small appetizer try this translation by Leonard Cohen which he converted into lyrics to a song called Take This Waltz (mp3) (Lorca's poem is Little Viennese Waltz)

Just a little sampler:

Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women.
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows.
There's a tree where the doves go to die.
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost --
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.
I have watched Blood Wedding and The House of Bernarda Alba at the theater, Oro. Actually Lorka is quite popular here in Greece. And I think we did some of his work at school but I`ll have to check on this to tell which one it was.

Very morbid poem and it makes a greater impact because he uses a very enjoyable picture (walzing women) as a first impresion and then comes the darkness... Of course to analyze it, I`d need more facts as the time and the circumstances when he wrote it...

 

[Nahrallah]

I recently finished re-reading Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. As this book is so rich in detail, you can find something new with each reading. Tigana is in the fantasy genre. This multi-faceted text is set during the aftermath of a war which has left a people under the tyrannical rule of a foreign power. The former rulers have been all but obliterated to the point where even the name of their country cannot be spoken. They are a forgotten people who surreptitiously work to regain their freedom. The beauty of this novel is that, unlike most fantasy novels, it acknowledges that the terms good and evil are simplistic concepts which do not always function to easily divide a world of grey.

I am currently reading two novels, Mao’s Last Dancer by Li Cunxin and The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age by Pekka Himanen.

Mao’s Last Dancer is the autobiography of Li Cunxin who was born into a poor rural family in north-east China and grew up during The Cultural Revolution. His life took a completely different path when, at the age of eleven, he was chosen to study at the Beijing Dance Academy. Ultimately, his heart was divided between the wish to stay with the family he loved and the opportunity to lead a better life. His family actively encouraged him to escape the life of poverty that they were forced to endure and to make a new place for himself through the world of dance. Li eventually came to perceive the way in which his life had “been manipulated Chairman Mao’s communist propaganda” and ultimately defected to the United States. Mao’s Last Dancer is a personal story enmeshed with history, politics and social conflict.

The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age is essentially about the ideologies and work ethic of hackers. Before I go any further, let’s get one thing straight … this is about hackers, NOT crackers. The term was originally used in a positive sense, think MIT programmers from the 60s who were all about promoting the idealistic philosophy of free access to information. Sadly, the term, hacker, was hijacked by the mass media. Those people who use malicious code and generally try to compromise the security of systems for the hell of it are actually crackers not hackers. Hackers build and crackers destroy. For further information please refer to The Jargon File or How To Become A Hacker. Anyway, enough of my ranting and back to the book ... The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age is about the underlying values and principals which lead a community of people to creations which changed the world (the Internet, the personal computer). Essentially, as stated by Linus Torvalds in the prologue, this text considers the ideological foundation of a society which is not predicated upon money but, rather, is more concerned with social ties (online community) and entertainment (inclusive of such things as “mental gymnastics” think Einstein). This is an ethic that encompasses hard work, passion, innovation, artistic vision and the ecstasy of creation.

 

[Hiasubi]

Well i dont read many books, I havnt really been interested in them to be honest, but around 6 months ago i picked up the first 3 of a Series by Brian Lumley called Necroscope i cant put them down, ive read stuff like Harry Potter and LotRs, but i really am enjoying the books. Ive always had an interest into the Vampires but these books are amaznig

You have the Original 5 books in the series then around 10 moe books which cover different asspects of the series. And he has just released another book which i think continues the Original 5.

And he has written other books most in the Horrofc genre,

 

[NobleEagle]

I enjoy Reading book very much in fact a third of my monthly allowance is for buying book

I also like sci-fi (my favorite author is Dan Abnett ! He's writing a lot of warhammer 40k book, very good), fantasy (neverwinter night series) and also some fiction from Tom Clancy (full of detail ! but don't you think the book is a little too thick

)

now I'm reading the Night watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. quite an interesting book i say

 

[OffC3nter]

I'm a Sifi/fantasy kind of guy. Some of the first books i ever got into were the Battletech universe (mechwarrior) even now one of my all time fav series of books is the Blood of Krensky Trilogy by Michael Stackpole (he wrote some starwars books too that i never read)

at the moment i'm trying my best to read my way through Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand not really by choice my grandma gave it to me saying it was one of the best things she ever read i feel obliged to read it.

 

[Nightdragon]

I read alot of books, mainly fantasy and mystery. Some horror. Its fun reading horror books.

The current books I am reading are...

Test of Twins (Dragonlance Legends)
Magyk
Feast of Souls
Everything's Eventual (Stephen King Short Story Compliation)

 

[PadUnregistere]

Well for anyone who likes fantasy, I recommend "A song of Ice and Fire" by George RR Martin. Its not the normal good vs evil series its got a lot of grey in it.

However if I was to give this series a rating it would be AO (adults only), the rating that the game "manhunt 2" currently has. So some people may find the material in this series offensive. Do not confuse my mention of "manhunt 2" with the content of this series. I rate it AO for a completely different reason than "manhunt 2s" non stop graphic depictions of violence.

Actually its probably not good to read it now since the series is not complete it may take 2+ years before its finished, the longer you wait before starting the better. It's just a series to keep at the back of your mind, e.g. for when you want to read a fantasy book but don't know what.

Don't Pick up the series if you are offended by "manhunt 2" because of the graphic depictions of violence it has. Even though I rate the content in this series AO for another reason. I figure anyone who is offended by "manhunt 2" will also be offended by this series.

 

[electric_foetus]

QUOTE (NobleEagle @ Jul 27 2007, 05:19 AM)now I'm reading the Night watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. quite an interesting book i say

Hmm is that based or...was the film based on that book, do you know? If so, 'twould be interesting to read, i loved the film!

Yep, like many people i'm into the ol' sci-fi/fantasy! I love Dean Koontz and then Stephen King, James Herbert and Anne Rice are good too! I've been meaning to start reading Dante's Divine Comedy but I haven't gotten round to it...I'm not sure i'm much of a poem's gal but it's always seemed something interesting to read..also, I need to read Plato's Republic!

Hmm that sounds an interesting series, PadUnregistere...but ugh 2+ years...thats a loooong time :/

 

[samthebear]

i'm currently reading a book called 'Eclipse' by Stepheine Myer. its the 3rd part to her on going series under the Twilight series - called Twilight becuase it is the name of the first book >.< its a very god book that you can easily lose yourself in ^^ i highly recomend it