w0rd. » Literature

Thou wimpled unwash’d malt-worm!

Dogleash — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:40:50 +0000

If you're looking to insult friends and enemies alike with the pomp and style of "Shakedaddy," here is the place to collect your insults. Back in the day skullets were acceptable? Hmmm. Pickled herring!

Thou art a flesh monger, a fool, and a coward!

Apocalypse Now.

Dogleash — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:06:13 +0000

I'm heading up a lengthy, two class seminar on Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, showcasing how the Movie was adapted from Conrad's Novella. Although inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the film deviates extensively from the source material. The novella, based on Conrad's real experiences as a steam paddleboat captain in Africa, is set in the Congo Free State during the 19th century. This scene sets up Willard's mission into the Cambodian jungle and showcases Coppola's killer talent for great film making.

Kurtz and Marlow (who is named Willard in the movie) both work for a Belgian trading company that brutally exploits its native African workers. When Marlow arrives at Kurtz's outpost, he discovers that Kurtz has gone insane and is lording over a small tribe as a god. The novella ends with Kurtz dying on the trip back and the narrator musing about the darkness of the human psyche: "the heart of an immense darkness."

In the novella, Marlow is the pilot of a river boat sent to collect ivory from Kurtz's outpost, only gradually becoming infatuated with Kurtz. In fact, when he discovers Kurtz in terrible health, Marlow makes an effort to bring him home safely. In the movie, Willard is an assassin dispatched to kill Kurtz. Nevertheless, the depiction of Kurtz as a god-like leader of a tribe of natives and his malarial fever, Kurtz's written exclamation "Exterminate the brutes!" (which appears in the film as "Drop the bomb. Exterminate them All!") and his final lines "The horror! The horror!" are taken from Conrad's novella.

Porno.

Dogleash — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:19:37 +0000

Irvine Welsh. If you enjoyed Trainspotting, read Porno. I highly recommend it..

What to read…

Matt — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:29:59 +0000

Salutations. I've just finished reading __________ by __________ . What should I read next?

Bookseer can help. (Via Metafilter.)

A newer Brave New World.

Matt — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 16:32:30 +0000

Ridley Scott has confirmed that he's on board with a new film adaptation of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. This is tremendous news, not only because Scott is one of my favourite directors (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator), but because Brave New World was such a prescient novel, describing a dystopic future where society is controlled through drugs, casual sex, and vapid mass culture. Sound familiar?

Huxley's novel is often juxtaposed against Orwell's 1984, in which Big Brother uses fear, censorship, and constant surveillance to keep the masses in check. Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death contends that it was Huxley, not Orwell, who was closer to the truth when it came to describing the future and this comic by Stuart McMillen puts the argument in an easy, graphical form for those who think books are icky.