- Perfume
- Cigarette smoke
- Unsafe-to-eat blue cheese with sweaty-gritty note to start, with rotten fish-and-egg to finish
- Intense hot chocolate, with an absence of fresh bread
- Smoker
- Tobacco
- Stale cider and smoke
- Aftershave
- Crap coffee
- Bubblegum and smoker
- My own personal farts
- Motor oil mint
- Money
- Red wine
Today I've mostly been smelling despair, and Christmas - which is pretty much the same thing...
ReplyDeleteAww sorry to hear that dude! I hope it's not too stressful for you. It'll all be over soon, for a while...
DeleteNah, it aint that bad. I just have work stress, decorating stress and then I have to spend the day itself with family I don't like. I do sometimes wonder if I was adopted (wonder or wish - not sure what the difference is)...
ReplyDeleteHow are you getting on with Vonnegut? Started any of it yet?
Bad times man :( How'd it go in the end, was it as bad as you thought?
DeleteYeah, rattled through Slaughterhouse 5 and was massively impressed, and you know what that means...
But yeah, started on Cat's Cradle too, already feeling a little emotional. Thanks so much for the recommendation and generosity, I'm so glad you lent me them!
It was ok in the end actually mate. Had a major falling out with some family last Christmas but they were on best behaviour this time around. So all in all a pleasant day.
ReplyDeleteGlad you like the Vonnegut. No worries about lending you them - was only returning the favour :) American lit is the way to go in my opinion. All this Hilary Mantel lark is all well and good, but you can't beat Vonnegut, Bukowski, Brautigan, Carver, Kesey, Heller, Ginsberg, Weiners, McInerney, Nersesian, Hemingway, Grogan, Holmes, blah blah (I'm rambling again)...
Oh nice one, very happy to hear that. For me that is the only thing Christmas should be: communion (non-religiously of course) with family and friends.
DeleteYeah it's brilliant. Think I prefer Slaughterhouse 5 already, but we'll see! I was thinking about whether you'd want to borrow 'Ragtime' by E L Doctorow. It's narrative never seems to settle with one person, but it's pseudo-historicism makes it similar to SH5 and other post modernist writers. I was wondering if it'd seem weird to keep suggesting books, but then Doctorow was mentioned in that 'Beginning Postmodernism' we're gonna be talking about and I felt vindicated. You read that one?
Yikes, and you thought YOU were rambling :P
Year, Salughterhouse is the better book, definitely. I'm still trying to find Mother Night - no luck yet. My house is like some kind of collapsing black hole...
ReplyDeleteNo, haven't read the Doctorow one. Have been working my way through White Noise for the course. God, it's hard work. Have you started it yet? It's like a satire of postmodernism but, for me, quite dull. Not funny (which I would expect as a minimum from a satire). I'm a proper fussy reader I think. I consistently dislike whatever we're given to read :D
Have just finished a great book over Christmas though - HHhH it's called, by a bloke called Laurent Binet. Just published in English for the first time. Absolutely brilliant. It's kind of a part historical, part novel, part study on the act of writing a historical novel. It would be a good book for the course I reckon actually as it has loads of poetics in it.
Ha mine's like a cancerous growth, it's swelling and swelling and the pressure's growing.
ReplyDeleteNah not started it yet, don't think I want to now :P Yeah exactly, I'd expect that too. The only other genuine satire of a movement I've read so far is 'The Monk' (Gregory Lewis I think?) and it was 'funny' in the sense of mild tongue in cheek, nothing particularly thought-provoking. That's the gothic for you!
Just read your post about that actually! I take back what I said then, I'll add it to the wishlist and we'll see what happens. I loved John Dickie's 'Cosa Nostra', it's purely non-fiction (such as any historical account can be) but the narrative style is very compelling. Look forward to reading that though! Maybe tell Rob too, I'm sure he'll be interested and maybe future MA-ers will get the benefit