lewdygaga wroteI really want to read Lovecraft's books... Meanwhile I'm reading the "Introduction to the programming with Python - Nilo Coutinho Menezes"
I have read some of Lovecraft's stories and I have enjoyed them especially coming from Stephen King. What kind of horror do you like?
A lot papers of commercial and civil law.
light novels and The Idiot by Dostoievsky. Second time reading Dostoievsky and still the best work of the russian
in the middle of dante's inferno, putting off finishing it indefinitely
Saikou wrotein the middle of dante's inferno, putting off finishing it indefinitely
What translation, out of curiosity? If you enjoy it at all I can't recommend reading Purgatorio and Paradiso enough. The Inferno seems very random and hard to understand without the complete context of those other two.
As for me, I'm reading a Penguin volume of Lovecraft's short stories. I first tried to read it a number of years ago when I was in high school and thought its prose style seemed artificial and over-labored, but now I'm liking it a lot more. Maybe just because I understand his literary and artistic references a lot more now. Once you divorce the themes of the stories from the flattening they've received through pop culture they still have power.
GlassMoon wroteSaikou wrotein the middle of dante's inferno, putting off finishing it indefinitely
What translation, out of curiosity? If you enjoy it at all I can't recommend reading Purgatorio and Paradiso enough. The Inferno seems very random and hard to understand without the complete context of those other two.
john ciardi's translation
the book is impossible for me to follow without the detailed explanations before and after each canto
Saikou wroteGlassMoon wroteSaikou wrotein the middle of dante's inferno, putting off finishing it indefinitely
What translation, out of curiosity? If you enjoy it at all I can't recommend reading Purgatorio and Paradiso enough. The Inferno seems very random and hard to understand without the complete context of those other two.
john ciardi's translation
the book is impossible for me to follow without the detailed explanations before and after each canto
I admit that I haven't read Ciardi's all the way through, but from what I've read it definitely seemed a bit tortured and hard to follow. I guess that's what you get when trying to retain the rhymes.
Mark Musa's translation doesn't rhyme like the original, but I can definitely recommend it because I think it is very lovely and in some ways flows more smoothly. Naturally you'll still need to scour the explanations and footnotes though.
I think the next two books are even harder to follow in ways (lots of diatribes on Thomist theology), but I think it also makes the themes of the whole work a lot more cogent and beautiful.
As you can tell I really love Dante!!! I've always wished I spoke Italian just so I could read his work in the original...
Currently reading the Confucian classic that the excerpt on the left is from 
GlassMoon wroteCurrently reading the Confucian classic that the excerpt on the left is from
I'm hardly a scholar of philosophy, but I get the hunch I'd be at odds with Confucius on pretty much everything he wrote. On the other hand, could you imagine a fantastic meeting between Laozi, Epicurus, and Diogenes the Cynic? Toss in Marx as their designated driver, and one might get something resembling my personal philosophy.
Backlash wroteI'm hardly a scholar of philosophy, but I get the hunch I'd be at odds with Confucius on pretty much everything he wrote. On the other hand, could you imagine a fantastic meeting between Laozi, Epicurus, and Diogenes the Cynic? Toss in Marx as their designated driver, and one might get something resembling my personal philosophy.
Something tells me that Karl wouldn't be too thrilled by that designation.
All in One wroteBacklash wroteI'm hardly a scholar of philosophy, but I get the hunch I'd be at odds with Confucius on pretty much everything he wrote. On the other hand, could you imagine a fantastic meeting between Laozi, Epicurus, and Diogenes the Cynic? Toss in Marx as their designated driver, and one might get something resembling my personal philosophy.
Something tells me that Karl wouldn't be too thrilled by that designation.
You might be right.
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I was reading The Shining but due lack of time I couldn't finish it.
Backlash wroteGlassMoon wroteCurrently reading the Confucian classic that the excerpt on the left is from
I'm hardly a scholar of philosophy, but I get the hunch I'd be at odds with Confucius on pretty much everything he wrote. On the other hand, could you imagine a fantastic meeting between Laozi, Epicurus, and Diogenes the Cynic? Toss in Marx as their designated driver, and one might get something resembling my personal philosophy.
You've found a yin for the yang of my meme!
Those three you've drawn up are indeed interesting in that they came up with very similar practical solutions for how to live, but arrived at them through almost opposite means (a realist materialism for Epicurus vs. an obscurant mysticism for Laozi).
I can't really imagine being vigorously against Confucius myself, unless you just really, really hate the idea of hierarchy and social roles. Even then though, everything Confucius says is so lawful neutral that if anything his philosophy would be more troublesome from its plainness and seeming self-evidence than anything radical. I have a soft spot for his thought. It's interesting to me that Confucianism and Buddhism, the two most influential philosophies in east Asia, are on the one hand a grand embrace of selfhood* and on the other hand a grand denigration of it.**
*Although Confucius would have no patience for selfishness, he believes that finding our ground for excellence comes out of a deep analysis of our selves, or at least most of his interpreters do.
**Good luck finding any patience for the concept of a self, much less an exaltation of it, in Buddhism.
