26 August 2006

The books meme conspiracy

ModernityBlog hit me right between the eyes with this meme. Normally, I would run like a rabbit on amphetamines from any meme, but since my vacation came to a premature end, it is back to the yoke. At least I do not have to invent stuff.

It seems only fitting to preface the meme with the following personal information I have received a few days ago, after filling out (truthfully, I must say) a few strange questions:




You Were An Owl



You are stealthy and secretive - no one knows the true you.

You are a seeker of freedom, and you are comfortable with your dark side.



So, at least now you got a hint that you cannot expect a lot from my answers to the books meme. By the way, that "no one knows the true you" applies to your humble servant as well.

Anyhow, being an omnivorous reader, since age of 4 being absolutely resistant to any attempt to get my reading into any sane frame, I have retained the eclectic tastes that no serious person (aside of a psychiatrist) will ever consider.


1. Name one book that changed your life: none. The closest it ever came to was The Great Terror by Robert Conquest.

2. One book you've read more than once: Quite a few. One will be Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: Joyce's Ulysses. Maybe I will grok it eventually...

4. One book that made you laugh: The Meaning of Liff By Douglas Adams and John Lloyd


5. One book that made you cry: Montauk by Max Frisch - the ending. Both true emotion and envy.

6. One book you wish you'd written: Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann.

7. One book you wish had never been written:
Joyce's Ulysses. Then I wouldn't have to worry about never being able to grok it.

8. One book you're currently reading: In between cheap thrillers by the dozen: The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis (with its dreamlike quality it could surely give heebie-jeebies to Dr Freud!), with Seeing by Saramago waiting around the corner. Don't I wish sometimes I hated Saramago's writing? But no, I just have to be smitten by the old coot!

9. One book you've been meaning to read: Always the next book by Pratchett.

10. Tag 5 people: He he. Now let's see:

AbbaGav ("I think a meme is just what the doctor ordered").
Roland of But I am a Liberal (no answers to no meme so far).
Deborah of The Thought Mill (same as above).
Attila of Pillage Idiot ("This meme seemed a good way to introduce myself...")
Miriam of Miriam's Ideas ("I'm only meme-ing guys, we women have been doing this for years.")

Cheers all.

0 comments: