3 ms·

Also, we are too kind to some classics out of nostalgia perhaps. I've been greatly disappointed by top rated classic spy and sci-fi novels. The kind of storytel

by gizmo 3y ago

Also, we are too kind to some classics out of nostalgia perhaps. I've been greatly disappointed by top rated classic spy and sci-fi novels. The kind of storytelling people got away with 50 years ago really doesn't work anymore today. Think of bad pacing, characters without depth, lazy stereotyping, deus ex machinas. So on the one hand recency bias results in us giving undue attention to new books. On the other hand we are too forgiving to classics. There is no lesson here. Finding the right books to read is hard and you can't trust reviews.

RamblingCTO 3y ago
Absolutely! Book discovery IS hard and it's sad that goodreads is still the best way for me. Recommendations suck on all platforms and visiting book shops has a recency bias and I'm going out with a whole in my pocket
marttt 3y ago
"The kind of storytelling people got away with 50 years ago really doesn't work anymore today." Yeah, I've struggled with this a lot -- e.g. still having trouble reading the works of Dostoevsky because of those endless walking-in-the-park-and-philosophising dialogues. These seem alien in my time and culture. I suppose you have to sense the characteristics of that 50-year-old language -- and see the universal, timeless ideas behind that language. Language is a tool, a form. It does change quite a bit in 50 (or 100) years, whereas the general ideas change much less IMO. To a large degree, this is a "seeing forest for the trees" thing.
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  Ohhh how I can relate. I'm reading Walden as a non-native speaker and 170 years ago things were quite different. Kindle has the nice functionality that tries to explain terms. What it does in practice tho is that it explains things I know and doesn't explain wildly exotic terms ...
DontchaKnowit 3y ago
Yeah I tried reading Solaris and was laughing at how bad it was. Felt the same way about nueromancer. Had a good run of trying out sci fi classics and being dissapointed. Philip k dicks stuff was solid tho. Ubiq is the shit
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  I'm also having a hard time with neuromancer, but I'm afraid that Gibson did this on purpose

by gizmo 3y ago

RamblingCTO 3y ago

Absolutely! Book discovery IS hard and it's sad that goodreads is still the best way for me. Recommendations suck on all platforms and visiting book shops has a recency bias and I'm going out with a whole in my pocket

marttt 3y ago

"The kind of storytelling people got away with 50 years ago really doesn't work anymore today." Yeah, I've struggled with this a lot -- e.g. still having trouble reading the works of Dostoevsky because of those endless walking-in-the-park-and-philosophising dialogues. These seem alien in my time and culture. I suppose you have to sense the characteristics of that 50-year-old language -- and see the universal, timeless ideas behind that language. Language is a tool, a form. It does change quite a bit in 50 (or 100) years, whereas the general ideas change much less IMO. To a large degree, this is a "seeing forest for the trees" thing.

RamblingCTO 3y ago
Ohhh how I can relate. I'm reading Walden as a non-native speaker and 170 years ago things were quite different. Kindle has the nice functionality that tries to explain terms. What it does in practice tho is that it explains things I know and doesn't explain wildly exotic terms ...

DontchaKnowit 3y ago

Yeah I tried reading Solaris and was laughing at how bad it was. Felt the same way about nueromancer. Had a good run of trying out sci fi classics and being dissapointed. Philip k dicks stuff was solid tho. Ubiq is the shit

RamblingCTO 3y ago
I'm also having a hard time with neuromancer, but I'm afraid that Gibson did this on purpose