The Books They Carry: Volume 2
Published: February 17, 2012
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akarim anniversaries artwork australia avant-garde metal black metal canada cboland cespanola clee crowella death metal dmoore doom features finland fpessaro france germany guests guitar hardcore punk industry interviews jblumensheid jmnorton jschafer kkettering live metallica: the first four albums mixtapes netherlands norway poland post-metal reviews rock rstreetjammer scasserole self-released sludge stoner sweden uk usa
- Glenn on Blind Guardian at 25
- vikingr36 on Stream: Iron Tongue – “Moon Unit”
- Girtus Kiltasov on Stream: Iron Tongue – “Moon Unit”
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- Glenn on Blind Guardian at 25
- Steven Chapman on Stream: Deafheaven – “Sunbather”
- patnesheksballs on Stream: Iron Tongue – “Moon Unit”
- Daniel on Integrity streaming new LP ‘Suicide Black Snake’
- Stream: Iron Tongue – “Moon Unit”
22 May 2013 3:12 PM | 3 Comments - Integrity streaming new LP ‘Suicide Black Snake’
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21 May 2013 3:45 PM | No Comments - Album Stream: Sivyj Yar – ‘The dawns were drifting as before’
21 May 2013 3:12 PM | 3 Comments
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The first and the last ones sound pretty bleak. I think I’d like them.
Pretty much everything Camus wrote was bleak (and thus metal) as fuck. It’s surprising that black metal bands don’t quote him more (though admittedly he lacks the aggressive edge of Nietzche).
I actually just finished reading The Plague this morning. The story is an interesting one, but more than that I love the language and the turn of phrase.
You realize you didn’t read Camus’ language, though? Unless you read it in French. Chances are you read Justin O’ Brien’s language and his turns of phrase.
I nabbed the title of his unfinished book “The First Man” for the opening song on our last album.
Camus’s The Fall is probably my favorite thing he ever wrote, but the The Plague is his best long-form book, probably.
For the sake of adding more recommendations to yesterday’s epic thread, I’ll mention JG Ballard’s loose trilogy of Crash, Concrete Island, and High-Rise. All wholly fucked examinations of technology and in some cases the complete breakdown of civilization. Good stuff.
Some other fun stuff: Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun, Lautreamont’s Maldoror (pure evil!), Dan Simmons’ Hyperion, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast novels, and Roberto Bolano’s 2666. All badass in different ways.
Nice recommendations; I dug Crash a lot when I read it about 10(?) years ago, pretty formative stuff at 19 or so. I’ve been meaning to read more Ballard, but never got around to it. Wolfe is really good, as well. As is Simmons’ Hyperion, which I just finished a week ago (although it’s got a frustrating pseudo-ending so I’m gonna pick up Fall of Hyperion soon). Bolano is also righteous, although I only read the Savage Detectives.
Right now: The Book Of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. And Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds.
I’ve got Hyperion (and possibly sequels? I don’t know, they’re boxed up in storage right now) and some Gene Wolfe that are on my to-read list, picked up from a local used book store. But as I mentioned, I don’t get that much time to read these days, so it may be many years.
@FMA–Many years ago I read “Education Of A Wandering Man,” by Louis L’Amour. He left school at 15. His trick to reading and learning was to always bring a book with him. He read in deserts, on breaks at shitty jobs, in line at the bank, etc. Whenever he could steal a moment to read he would. He claims he got much of his education that way. With the advent of small digital readers now I have to think this might be easier.
Yeah, that’s what I do. I always keep a book in my car, and I’ve gone a step further now that e-readers are all the rage. I got a kindle a year ago for xmas… but the real revolution is the kindle app which can be loaded onto your iphone, android, or even desktop computer. There are millions of free classic books, or you can buy an awful lot of books that way. Nowadays whenever I get stuck waiting somewhere, I pull up my kindle app and chip away at one of my ‘backup’ books.
Yep. I bring one to baseball games, on bike rides etc. etc.
I guess I’m a little particular about the conditions in which I want to read a book. A magazine I have no problem reading while I’m waiting around (which I don’t do a lot of, but just about enough to get through one Decibel per month), but for a book, I want to be isolated and uninterrupted. I used to do all my reading just before bed, as a good time to unwind, but that’s gone by the wayside since I started regularly exercising, which is now what I do before bed.
It’s like anything. Train yourself. For me, it’s an essential part of living in an urban environment. It’s a way to create isolation/peace in the middle of chaos or just noise. I work out in the morning, which took an awful long time before it became a routine. I fucking hate mornings
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I think your urban life is quite different from mine.
Ballard is the shit. One of the best exponents of what I consider to be good science fiction: almost everyone of his stories is about ‘what would happen to us if X was different’. That’s why I think he is good science fiction; he uses a basic premise of science (what happens when variable X is changed?) in a fictional setting to try and better understand who/what we are.
He was an unrelenting genius.
Hey Wash. I’ve read a Spanish translation of “Concrete Island” and yes, it’s very, very good stuff. Another great book by JG Ballard is “The Atrocity Exhibition”: as fucked up as it can be. By the way, have you read “The Elementary Particles” by Michel Houellebecq?
I got the Re-Search Illustrated version of Atrocity Exhibition as a gift a few years ago — awesome book.
I have not read the Elementary Particles, but I’ll look into it. Thanks for the suggestion!
Love Vagabonds and agree that it is the best one in the Lizzy catalog. So many good songs, and the CD re-iss added Black Boys on the Corner, which is a great b-side.
But I like gin and machismo…
“Ferdinand the Bull” is spot on. I’ve been reading it with my 3-year-old and we both love it a lot.
Wow, weird how I mentioned The Plague is the last thread and here it shows up. I certainly recommend it to everyone.
Absolutely going to track down Hunt’s recommendation for Powderhouse.
I am going to read the shit out of Powderhouse that’s for sure! Makes total sense coming from the ‘Thrakh.
Powderhouse is actually the third part of a trilogy. The AN album “In The Constellation Of The Black Widow,” was heavily influenced by the first book of the series — “Moment of Freedom.”
Bjorneboe later killed himself.
Wow. Thanks for the, uh, perspective (to reference Dave’s statement)! “Too much fucking perspective” actually makes sense for the first time!
Anyway, I love this feature. I already have some serious catching up to do. And, regarding yesterday’s post…(and perspective…again), it sounds like “A People’s History…” would be a great complement to one of the books I recommended. “1491″ that is…both offering different perspectives on the history of the Americas/America than the ones we’re taught as kids.
Thanks again Justin.
Thank you, for reading and enjoying it. Here’s a bit more from Dave that was in an interview on IO about a year ago. Cheers.
You said elsewhere that In the Constellation of the Black Widow was inspired by Moment of Freedom (a novel by by Norwegian writer Jens Bjørneboe). Was there any literary inspiration for this album?
There’s one song in particular on this album, “Who Thinks of the Executioner”. It deals with the second part of Bjørneboe’s trilogy. “Paragon Pariah” is about a book poorly translated into The Ego and His Own by a German nihilist. “Drug-Fucking Abomination” is about a journal article I found about how horror has to do with identifying as a victim. There are books and papers and bits of literature scattered through the whole thing.
After I heard your last album, I went back and read Moment of Freedom and later learned the author took his own life.
You did go and read it? I suppose that’s a victory for making a reference in extreme metal (laughs). You might remember the main protagonist says that within 10 years, he will have seen so much of the horror in the world that life won’t be tenable any more. It was about 10 years after the book was published that he died. I don’t know if it was some sort of weird autobiographical prophecy, or it if was a coincidence. But it makes it have that much more impact.
Well, if you look at the title Moment of Freedom, it has a bleak tone considering what happened.
Well, triumphant, also, in a bleak way. There’s the idea of suicide setting you free from the world that contains so many horrible things. That’s not what I think, but it is an established thought. Look at the Camus book The Stranger. So many people read it to deal with their teenage angst. It’s an act of empowerment when the guy dies. It’s stepping away from what’s imposed by the outside world. It’s a powerful idea.
Suicide as triumph certainly comes across in Judas Priest’s “Beyond the Realms of Death”.
Mark Putterford’s “The Rocker” is, hands down, the best “rock ‘n’ roll” book I’ve ever read. Highly informative, written very much for the serious music fan/musician, not for someone looking for a cursory “Behind the Music”-styled pop culture drama.
The original edition with Phil playing bass on front is my preferred edition. Later editions had different photographs, the most serious omission being that later editions don’t have the pic of Phil and Brian Downey from when they were about ten or twelve, all dressed up in their Sunday best together. Heartbreaking and priceless.
waiting for part 3!
How I wish I could as much as I did in my teen years: 3-4 books per week, compared to the restriction to academic books of the present days and business articles in newspapers.
Maybe this explains my lack of vocabulary…
This is an awesome series (and beautifully laid out). Can’t wait for the 3rd installment.
“The Rocker” is a great book. The story of Brian Robertson beating Sid Vicious with a clog makes my laugh aloud everytime it enters my mind.
These articles are very cool! Are there more to come?