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Old 26-11-2014, 16:26   #8
Eric
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Re: What are your reading habits?

I just love reading ... don't know why ... I could read before I went to school. Somehow, the letters on the page just made sense.

But, now we are on the topic of fiction (in the sense that everything ever written is fiction ... anyone who dreads the sentence "Some assembly required." and has then tried to follow the written instructions may agree) I do believe that there is an upper limit to what the human brain will accept ... In music too. I can handle most stuff from Gregorian Chants to much of the pop stuff that is being written today; but the atonal crap from Schoenberg and Stockhausen is too much experiment ... and music from other cultures too; just doesn''t quite "fit." I think there is maybe something in us, possibly a survival advantage from the Pleistocene, that loves a good story, whether it be Zane Grey or the biography of someone notorious. "Finnegan's Wake" just doesn't do it ... It's more boring than "Sir Charles Grandison", and that's saying something. There's no story, no "tune" our brains can hum along too. I suppose it's impregnable "boringness" is why it is inflicted on students of "English."

The only chaotic novel that actually worked for me ... and I consider it pure genius ... is Sterne's "Tristram Shandy". A true "cock and bull" story.
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