Treasured possessions

[andrewducker]

I picked up the first Dragonlance book on holiday in Pitlochry. I was twelve. Can I really get rid of a trilogy of books I've been carrying around for nearly two thirds of my life?

Similarly, I have the complete Lensman series - I'm not sure I could ever bear to actually read them again. But get rid of them? After I tracked them down one by one through car boot sales and second-hand bookshops? Are you insane?

Anyone else got books they'll never read again, or films they'll never watch, but they can't bear to let go of? (Oooh - Paperhouse. I'm never watching that again, but I have to own it.)

Comments

[easterbunny.livejournal.com]

books they'll never read again

The Knot Guide to Wedding Planning and The Glass Bead Game.

[andrewducker]

I'm about 30 pages into The Glass Bead Game, which is so far a paen to modernism. Is it worth it?

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

is it about modernism? I can only recall it, shrouded as it is in the mists of adolescence, but I have it filed under "apollonian versus dionysian" along with most of Hesse's work. Maybe that one was different.

why won't you watch paper house again? is it because it is really scary? I have never seen it.

and King Crimson had some stellar moments - Starless from Red is my favourite.

[andrewducker]

So far it's highly dependent on there being One True Ontology, the rise of reason and rationality over all, and a general movement towards Truth.

There's also a certain amount of Apollonianism going on - he's clearly heavily influenced by Eastern thinking, and inward development.

But I'm only 40 pages in so far, and just through the Historical Introduction. I'm hoping it'll show some awareness of the flaws of the system it's setting up.

Paperhouse isn't scary in a traditional "Ack! Monsters are eating my legs!" way - it's just incredibly creepy. It's based on the book Marianne Dreams and the plot (from Wikipedia) is:

Marianne is a young girl who is bedridden with a long-term illness. She draws a picture to fill her time, and finds that she spends her dreams within the picture she has drawn. As time goes by, she becomes sicker, and starts to spend more and more time trapped within her fantasy world, and her attempts to make things better by adding to and crossing out things in the drawing make things progressively worse.

I'll happily lend it to you if you're interested.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

i think Hesse always sets up Rationalism - the apollonian, the solar, so that he can then pit it against the dionysian - the rude life force, chaos, jouissance. Im sure something comes along to shatter the carefully constructed ontology of the glass beads. Keep reading. I remember enjoying Narziss and Goldmund the most of all his books.

I remember the orginal TV series (based om Mariannes dreams) not well but vividly. The little girl in bed drawing creepy, lumpy shapes that then appear on the horizon she can see from her room. Creeporama. I've been deferring watching paperhouse because i wanted to see the original first. Last time I checked it was not buyable.

[andrewducker]

Well, if you decide you do want to see Paperhouse I have it on video.

And I'm keeping up with Glass Bead Game - I'm determined to make it at least two hundred pages in :->