What Are You Reading V

[x359594]

I'm re-reading B.Traven's "Jungle Novels." his series of books that trace the origins of peasant revolution set in Chiapas, Mexico.

From Government (first in the series):

"The government was represented in the eastern district by don Casimiro Azcona. Like every other jefe politico, don Casimiro thought first of his own interests. He served his country not for his country's good, but in order to profit at its expense. He worked better on those terms and, above all, he lived better. If a man can earn no more as a servant of the State than he can by running a snack bar, there is no reason whatever why he should aspire to devote his energies to his country's service. "After he had taken care of himself, he thought of his family. Then came his intimate friends. These friends had helped him obtain his post and now he had to humor them so that they would let him keep it, at least until one of them decided the moment had come to take it for himself.

"Every member of his family to its remotest branches--nephews, cousins, brothers-in-law, uncles, brothers and their nephews, cousins, brothers-in-law, and sons -- all were taken care of. They were given jobs as tax collectors, postmasters, chiefs of police, justices of the peace for as long as he himself could hold his. For this reason they were all on his side, whatever he might do. He might steal to his heart's content -- provided always that when they in turn stole he did not order an inquiry into their conduct. Whatever they might do, lawfully or unlawfully, had to be right in his eyes."

[Proukunin]

I've just got done reading The Coming Insurrection by the Invisible Committee and now I am about to start reading Armed Joy by Alfred M. Bonanno.

Introduction

"This book was written in 1977 in the momentum of the revolutionary struggles taking place in Italy at the time, and that situation, now profoundly different, should be borne in mind when reading it today.

The revolutionary movement including the anarchist one was in a developing phase and anything seemed possible, even a generalisation of the armed clash.

But it was necessary to protect oneself from the danger of specialisation and militarisation that a restricted minority of militants intended to impose on the tens of thousands of comrades who were struggling with every possible means against repression and against the State’s attempt — rather weak to tell the truth — to reorganise the management of capital.

That was the situation in Italy, but something similar was taking place in Germany, France, Great Britain and elsewhere.

It seemed essential to prevent the many actions carried out against the men and structures of power by comrades each day from being drawn into the planned logic of an armed party such as the Red Brigades in Italy.

That is the spirit of the book. To show how a practice of liberation and destruction can come forth from a joyful logic of struggle, not a mortal, schematic rigidity within the pre-established canons of a directing group.

Some of these problems no longer exist. They have been solved by the hard lessons of history. The collapse of real socialism suddenly redimensioned the directing ambitions of Marxists of every tendency for good. On the other hand it has not extinguished, but possibly inflamed, the desire for freedom and anarchist communism that is spreading everywhere especially among the young generations, in many cases without having recourse to the traditional symbols of anarchism, its slogans and theories also considered with an understandable but not sharable gut refusal to be affected with ideology.

This book has become topical again, but in a different way. Not as a critique of a heavy monopolising structure that no longer exists, but because it can point out the potent capabilities of the individual on his or her road, with joy, to the destruction of all that which oppresses and regulates them.

Before ending I should mention that the book was ordered to be destroyed in Italy. The Italian Supreme Court ordered it to be burned. All the libraries who had a copy received a circular from the Home Ministry ordering its incineration. More than one librarian refused to burn the book, considering such a practice to be worthy of the Nazis or the Inquisition, but by law the volume cannot be consulted. For the same reason the book cannot be distributed legally in Italy and many comrades had copies confiscated during a vast wave of raids carried out for that purpose.

I was sentenced to eighteen months’ prison for writing this book."

Alfredo M. Bonanno Catania, 14 July 1993

[#FF0000]

I just finished Dune Messiah and have since been drifting from book to book until something catches my interest. Foundation and Empire hasn't done it yet, nor has Tales of a Dying Earth (i might skip to the second in the series, Eyes of the Overworld). I have Romance of the Three Kingdoms coming in the mail, though.

I want to read some good non-fiction though, I think. I have To Conquer Hell which is about the battle at the Meuse-Argonne, but it's a little light imo. I want a dry-as-fuck tome on the French Revolution or the Byzantines or Mughal India.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Crash by J.G. Ballard. It's wonderful.

[thriller]

Just finished The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. Really... interesting. I was glad that the version I had had many footnotes on Jesus and biblical themes, since I am quite unaware of them being an atheist. The satire of Russian life (especially the literary and theatrical circle) was awesome. Although I am still confused who the narrator is, I have a suspicion it is either the Master or Woland, but even then I don't know. I like how it portrayed Jesus as an enlightened thinker, rather than a divine spirit (but then again, due to the satire, maybe it's not). The thing I like about Bulgakov is right when you think you've figured out his argument or viewpoint he throws in a gigantic monkey wrench to fuck up your train of thought. Now I am starting Dr. Zhivago by Pasternak; never seen the movie, so I have no idea how it will be.

Sidenote: "Chapter 13: The Hero Appears" by The Lawrence Arms just started to play when I was typing this

[Hermes]

Picked up Blankets at the library, due to the suggestion of my English teacher. Also got Medieval Drama: An Anthology, which looks interesting.

[ed miliband]

ugggh medieval literature

i don't mind some of marie de france's lais tho

[Caj]

Finished Paul Mattick's Anti-Bolshevik Communism last night. I might start reading David Harvey's The Enigma of Capial today.

EDIT: Read the introductions to David Harvey's The Enigma of Capital and Chris Harman's Zombie Capitalism last night. I've also been periodically reading a selection or two from The Marx-Engels Reader. So I guess that's what I'm reading.

[La Comédie Noire]

Reading the Songs of Fire and Ice series right now. I'm on A Clash Of Kings.

I'm also reading the Wealth Of Nations, a somewhat less enthralling read, yet it allows me to see some of the thinking that influenced Marx.

[Franz Fanonipants]

rereading Blood Meridian still owns

"If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now? Wolves cull themselves, man. What other creature could? And is the race of man not more predacious yet? The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day. He loves games? Let him play for stakes. This you see here, these ruins wondered at by tribes of savages, do you not think that this will be again? Aye. And again. With other people, with other sons."

- the devil literally

[Franz Fanonipants]

ugggh medieval literature

i don't mind some of marie de france's lais tho

wot troth

[lombas]

Adrian Murdoch, The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World



Roger Crowley, Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the Center of the World

[Hermes]

ugggh medieval literature

i don't mind some of marie de france's lais tho

I definitely prefer Renaissance literature, but the Medieval period isn't that bad. Some of the chronicles of the First Crusade are really good.

[NewLeft]

The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir

[Ostrinski]

About to start a novel by DL Rose called Shepherds of Terror which my grandfather recently got for me. It follows the lives and actions of various ETA (basque terrorist group) members.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The battle of Lepanto was one of my favorite levels on "Age of Empires" as a kid.

[Zukunftsmusik]

The Trial by Kafka

[godlessfilthycommiedog]

Terrorism and Communism by Trotsky and The Hunger Games...

[NewLeft]

The Trial by Kafka

I love this book and castle.

[Zukunftsmusik]

I love this book and castle.

well. I think I like it so far. But it's really strange. I mean, I can relate the paranoid feeling and the labyrinth-ish feeling to other books from modernism. But what stroke me as I started this book, was that it was written from a third person view. When other modernists use the first person view to illustrate how we think irrationally etc., this is something I can really relate to. But when it's written in third person, it's more difficult to say what's an analogy and what is meant literally. But that's the point though, I guess.