Lost Worlds’ founder Stuart interviewed

[lina]

Blood Meridian: 'They were watching, out there past men’s knowing, where stars are drowning and whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea'. No Country For Old Men was much more fun, though.

More fun than Blood Meridian? C’est impossible!

 

[zebedee]

More fun than Blood Meridian? C’est impossible!

C'est impossible? Is that what you're telling me, friendo?

 

[navetsea]

I hate that shark's attitude.
It triggered me badly
I want them in my soup and in my cat's food.

 

[Seb Lucas]

More fun than Blood Meridian? C’est impossible!

I found Blood Meridian overrated and contrived like some of his others . However Sutree, to my mind, is a masterpiece.

 

[Benny Holiday]

That shark video's freakin' me out, Jerry!

 

[Monitor]

I found Blood Meridian overrated and contrived like some of his others . However Sutree, to my mind, is a masterpiece.

This I gotta read now! Or listen to.

Do you chaps get into audio books? I've recently had War and Peace read to me, it's a fine listen, although I must admit I'd have never got around to actually reading it.

Forgot to say, yea, all the time. Love audio-books.

 

[zebedee]

This I gotta read now! Or listen to.



Forgot to say, yea, all the time. Love audio-books.

Try Melville's 'Benito Cereno'. It's brief and both funny and unnerving.

 

[Edward]

Often times in films people will say well it was boring or kind of sucked but the ending was incredible and makes up for it. Can we do that in reverse?

Everything Steven Moffat has ever written comes to mind.

Oh... except that the set up with him, no matter how intersting the idea, never excuses the weakness ofvthe execution, or the rushed deus ex machina endings.

Do you chaps get into audio books? I've recently had War and Peace read to me, it's a fine listen, although I must admit I'd have never got around to actually reading it.

I've yet to try them, but I've been considering experiementing on my commute, especially as, when comes the time to go back to the office to teach, I plan to do the hour-on-foot commute rather than risk the germ factory that the tube will be until a vaccine for Covid arrives.

How in the world did Stuart's attitude of being a dick somehow transform into a discussion about Moby Dick ?

I believe he likes to quote it regularly (I assume he likes to portray himself as a sort of Captain Ahab, except way more manly, obvs). Good to see you're keepnig us on track ,though.

That said, this'd be a perfect subject for The Reading Room sub-forum which I realized actually exist this very second!

Quite so - and you'd be very welcome in there too. ("Best books to read while breaking in a leather jacket"?)

 

[dubpynchon]

It was the Ph.D tangent that did it. I really like Melville; although Moby Dick is a tome, it's likely that readers serialised their own reading. Without writers like Melville and Faulkner we'd probably not have McCarthy's Blood Meridian: 'They were watching, out there past men’s knowing, where stars are drowning and whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea'. No Country For Old Men was much more fun, though.

'Blood Meridian' was great, I really like Cormac McCarthy's nature images, he describes nature as huge and majestic... and neutral to all the murdering and stabbing going on down below. I thought his characters were a bit lop-sided though, there doesn't seem to be a single decent person around, but that's just me. I must read more Cormac McCarthy.

 

[zebedee]

'Blood Meridian' was great, I really like Cormac McCarthy's nature images, he describes nature as huge and majestic... and neutral to all the murdering and stabbing going on down below. I thought his characters were a bit lop-sided though, there doesn't seem to be a single decent person around, but that's just me. I must read more Cormac McCarthy.

Read 'Suttree' and 'The Orchard Keeper'.

Stu's going to have to start quoting McCarthy. This is how a future interview might go:

'Tear apart a jacket? Some people might, but not us. Makes no sense. Here at Lost Worlds we are deeper yet in our plotting. Deeper than a man may reckon in even his most fervent supplications. Whelmed in dark riot as we are. Blog queens, shallow things. An interior darkness more complete than that other darkness beyond, n'est-ce pas?'

 

[dannyk]

Everything Steven Moffat has ever written comes to mind.

Oh... except that the set up with him, no matter how intersting the idea, never excuses the weakness ofvthe execution, or the rushed deus ex machina endings.



I've yet to try them, but I've been considering experiementing on my commute, especially as, when comes the time to go back to the office to teach, I plan to do the hour-on-foot commute rather than risk the germ factory that the tube will be until a vaccine for Covid arrives.



I believe he likes to quote it regularly (I assume he likes to portray himself as a sort of Captain Ahab, except way more manly, obvs). Good to see you're keepnig us on track ,though.



Quite so - and you'd be very welcome in there too. ("Best books to read while breaking in a leather jacket"?)

I love that you mentioned Moffat. Unlike a lot of people was huge Capaldi era Who fan. Because I think he’s an incredible actor and nailed it. On the other hand Moffat changed, rewrote, and messed with the timeline so many times and the pay-off was useless ha. He could reign you in and give the suspense and then the end was meh.

 

[Edward]

I love that you mentioned Moffat. Unlike a lot of people was huge Capaldi era Who fan. Because I think he’s an incredible actor and nailed it. On the other hand Moffat changed, rewrote, and messed with the timeline so many times and the pay-off was useless ha. He could reign you in and give the suspense and then the end was meh.

Qjuite so. I love Capaldi in the role and I get very annoyed with people who pin the weakness of most of the scritps of his era on him. Moffat *can* write and write very well, but if he doesn't have an editor standing voer him, he goes off on these self-indulgent flights where he spends forty minutes on the set up because he beomes distracted by showing off how clever he thinks he is, then a rushed ending because there's not enough material for a two-parter. I rather wish they'd go back to shorter episodes with storeis running as many thereof as needsbe.

 

[navetsea]

the train has derailed, fell off the bridge, and now turned into a submarine

 

[AeroFan_07]

But at least we are all enjoying reading in the yellow submarine.

I am also a fan of good books, and finding a good old-school used bookstore is a treasure hunt for me.

 

[Carlos840]

'Blood Meridian' was great, I really like Cormac McCarthy's nature images, he describes nature as huge and majestic... and neutral to all the murdering and stabbing going on down below. I thought his characters were a bit lop-sided though, there doesn't seem to be a single decent person around, but that's just me. I must read more Cormac McCarthy.

Child of God is super creepy and intense, highly recommended.

 

[dubpynchon]

Child of God is super creepy and intense, highly recommended.

I'll add it to the list. I'm currently reading 'The Eyes of Rigel' by Roy Jacobsen, it's the last part of a trilogy, the first part, 'The Unseen' is a classic already. Well worth reading, it's set on an island off Denmark during WW2.

 

[Bfd70]

I found Blood Meridian overrated and contrived like some of his others . However Sutree, to my mind, is a masterpiece.

There are some images from Meridian like the snake bit horse and swinging the babies by the ankles and smashing their heads against rocks that will be forever etched in my brain.
I didn’t check how this turned to McCarthy but The Road is the second greatest love story of all time.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Often times in films people will say well it was boring or kind of sucked but the ending was incredible and makes up for it. Can we do that in reverse? Everything up to it was first class but the end failed?

It's WAY more common for the opening to be great and the end to suck. In the opening you can create a range of possibilities and astonishments, but they often, really often, fall flat from about halfway through a narrative. Resolutions are hard.

 

[ton312]

Reading all the above comments and seeing my last contribution of “Stop or my mom will shoot” at the bottom of the page is a beautiful juxtaposition.

 

[El Marro]

Damn it you guys, this is just what Stuart wants us to do! I think maybe he should get that PhD after all...