Your favourite authors, and why?

[Walker]

"Tell me about the rabbits, George."

- Of Mice and Men

[Maia]

A few months ago I read A Place of Secrets by Rachel Hore, a writer I hadn't heard of before, but is certainly worth a mention. The story involves strange dreams, always a favourite topic of mine, ancient family secrets, a mysterious tower in the woods, and, of course, an apparently ill-fated romance between the main character and some brooding loner she meets who lives on his own out in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps a few too many unlikely coincidences, in terms of plot, but I suppose the idea was that all those things were meant to happen, and weren't coincidences at all. I quite liked it though, and it was certainly good at building atmosphere.

[promethean75]

Kenneth Martin Follett

Of all the novels i really got into, i remember one of his i read in solitary that literally had me pacing with both hands on the paperback, holding it inches from my face. I think i even cried a little. Can't remember which one, but it was a six hundred pager, so a long story that pulls u in... a long developing plot u get invested in. This one had a very sad ending, and it was paralyzing. I almost refused to stop reading it. Like i was going to read it again becuz i couldn't accept that the story was over. Remember, I'm in a sense deprivation tank with a tray slot, so my attention was paid to the imaginary world created by some author. Those characters were my company.

I do remember feeling absolutely terrible for days after reading the Hunch Back Of Notre Dame.

Of Mice And Men up there is one of those that has a special kind of goodness if u read it at a young age in school. If i had never read it, and read it now, I'm almost certain i wouldn't like it as much as i would have liked it if i had read it at ten.

[accelafine]

Only fuckwit Americans would avoid reading an author, a story-teller, because of their personal politics. Wankers.

Steinbeck also drank a lot. Oooh. And visited Israel. OMG. No wonder the wokies hate him.

Although my reaction to Of Mice and Men would be completely different now from what it was as a teen. Life experience changes your perspective.

There are so many great writers I don't see how anyone could have a 'favourite'. Writing styles change too. Sometimes I look back over 'old classics' and think, 'This writing is bloody terrible' lol.

[Immanuel Can]

From what I’ve gathered, old-fashioned Marxists like Steinbeck saw the goodness of the communal ideal that requires the benevolence of good people to work for the benefit of all, however did he ever take into account that human nature changes the communal ideal into something else, into a system of society that doesn’t require goodness or benevolence?

Would this new slogan for the neo-Marxists be fitting?: From each according to his need to give as determined by the state, and to each according to his ability to take as determined by the state.

Rather: " To our elites, according to their greed, and to none of the proles, according to their foolishness in following us." That's what has always come from Marxism. It's the short road to dictatorship, economic collapse, and piles of corpses.

[accelafine]

Of Mice And Men up there is one of those that has a special kind of goodness if u read it at a young age in school. If i had never read it, and read it now, I'm almost certain i wouldn't like it as much as i would have liked it if i had read it at ten.

How weird. I was typing just about exactly the same thing at the same time. You pipped me to the post

[accelafine]

Kenneth Martin Follett

Of all the novels i really got into, i remember one of his i read in solitary that literally had me pacing with both hands on the paperback, holding it inches from my face. I think i even cried a little. Can't remember which one, but it was a six hundred pager, so a long story that pulls u in... a long developing plot u get invested in. This one had a very sad ending, and it was paralyzing. I almost refused to stop reading it. Like i was going to read it again becuz i couldn't accept that the story was over. Remember, I'm in a sense deprivation tank with a tray slot, so my attention was paid to the imaginary world created by some author. Those characters were my company.

That would be Pillars of the Earth. One of my all time favourite novels. I was really upset when I finished it. It felt like all those people I had got to know had died.

[promethean75]

I'm looking at his novels now and frankly I can't remember. May be that Pillars one. I remember very wealthy families competing and banks were involved, i think. Hard to remember. I recall someone drowning in the end.

[accelafine]

I'm looking at his novels now and frankly I can't remember. May be that Pillars one. I remember very wealthy families competing and banks were involved, i think. Hard to remember. I recall someone drowning in the end.

Not that book then. I don't know which one you are talking about.

[Walker]

Of Mice And Men up there is one of those that has a special kind of goodness if u read it at a young age in school. If i had never read it, and read it now, I'm almost certain i wouldn't like it as much as i would have liked it if i had read it at ten.

Banned!

[promethean75]

"Would this new slogan for the neo-Marxists be fitting?: From each according to his need to give as determined by the state, and to each according to his ability to take as determined by the state."

There is a conversation to be had here. That famous statement can mean any number of things, so it's vague and leaves open the possibility of conspiratorial sentiments toward government, like what u show here.

I hear the only real tangible problem for a global marxist economy is that infamous planned-economy problem that those Soviet computer guys were trying to solve.

Otherwise... and this is ironic... in both a capitalist and marxist society, wages are determined by some kind of demand, and the working class participates in government activities and decisions through voting.

In plainest terms, what does it matter if your wage is decided by a single business owner or a whole soviet counsel? Both systems are going to be driven by consumer demand, and the value of one's labor will have been worked out through some self-regulating mechanism of that supply and demand interaction.

The only real difference is that in a capitalism, work can create much more wealth... if u call owning a business 'work'. However, that doesn't mean it's impossible to inagine a world where the relative wealth of everyone is way up but nobody is a billionaire and everybody, including would-be billionaires, is okay with that.

Your comrade Rosa the Red claims that human incentive will be aimed at trying to 'come up with the next best thing' in one's field of expertise or practice. And the shit jobs won't be permanent for those who are less talented because of worker mobility. U can go do some other stupid person's job for a while if u want.

But really, look at that fact alone. The only actual experienced difference in the working class's lives is that in a marxism, they wouldn't be job hopping between employers depending on who pays more per hour. They would be working in the same conditions with the same ultimate outcome. A steady income.

What we don't like is the thought that we'd never be able to make a million dollars in a marxist society. And that, friends, is a legitimate concern. The world would have to be made so exciting that everybody had a great time without having made more than two hundred thousand a year to do so. Giant metroplex 4d integrated embodied AI modulated geo-cities suspended over the erf with shopping mall dance club mini golf laser tag virtual sex skating rinks on fake ice would have to be built everywhere. Scuba hangliding with one of those things in Avatar that could fly and then dive into the ocean and swim like a fish. New York to Paris in thirty minutes in an underwater subway. Designer drugs, whole books of diseases that no longer exist, average life spans reaching upwards of 110. Guys that became girls that are so hot it's uncomfortable to be around them if you're a straight guy because the guy girl whatever actually is hot and your brain is fuckin with u hard. And vice versa. Lesbians that make hetero women get a little tingly and feel uncomfortable.

Everything is so fantastic that it looks like downtown Tokyo as far as the eye can see in every direction. Neon everywhere and rich green strategically placed flora by the ecoconscious soviet developers who designed the metroplex. Huge waterfalls built right in the middle of a city with four acre beaches, the tides artificially generated by magneTek gravitron engines.

[Walker]

Many favourite authors didn’t have such distractions, because the variety of distractions from what they were trying to achieve didn’t exist when they were scribbling. The bright lights in the big city were not as bright.

If everyone was a billionaire, everything would cost millions, but what’s more likely to happen is everything will cost a lot and hypocrites corrupting The Party’s ostensible ideals will be the only billionaires.

Putin or Musk, who will be the first trillionaire? One of the trillions from advancing civilization, the other trillion from corruption.

[Maia]

I'm looking at his novels now and frankly I can't remember. May be that Pillars one. I remember very wealthy families competing and banks were involved, i think. Hard to remember. I recall someone drowning in the end.

Pillars of the Earth is set in a medieval village and its monastery. It's like a family saga, with no specific main character through the whole story, but rather, following the lives of a group of different people, all interconnected in some way. I thought it was pretty good. I also started on its sequel, World Without End, but couldn't get into it for some reason.

[Walker]

I'm looking at his novels now and frankly I can't remember. May be that Pillars one. I remember very wealthy families competing and banks were involved, i think. Hard to remember. I recall someone drowning in the end.

Pillars of the Earth is set in a medieval village and its monastery. It's like a family saga, with no specific main character through the whole story, but rather, following the lives of a group of different people, all interconnected in some way. I thought it was pretty good. I also started on its sequel, World Without End, but couldn't get into it for some reason.

I may have read that. Was there a story in the saga about family generations of stone masons working on the same project?

[Maia]

I'm looking at his novels now and frankly I can't remember. May be that Pillars one. I remember very wealthy families competing and banks were involved, i think. Hard to remember. I recall someone drowning in the end.

Pillars of the Earth is set in a medieval village and its monastery. It's like a family saga, with no specific main character through the whole story, but rather, following the lives of a group of different people, all interconnected in some way. I thought it was pretty good. I also started on its sequel, World Without End, but couldn't get into it for some reason.

I may have read that. Was there a story in the saga about family generations of stone masons working on the same project?

Yes, that's the one. They were building a church, taking decades.