Literature vs Engineering

orientalnc

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Just sayin history and lit ain’t electrical engineering and chemical engineering. Not that’s anything wrong with majoring in history.
While I agree with you, have you read 100 Years of Solitude or Absalom, Absalom or Ulysses? Those novels do not prepare you for a specific career, but they enable your thought processes. From the view point of history, have you read the multi-volume books by Shelby Foote or Julius Caesar? If not, I suggest you have some enjoyable reading in your future. They help explain how we reached this point.
 
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7979

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"....I suggest you have some enjoyable reading in your future..." Faulkner, Joyce, and Garcia Marquez are "enjoyable reading"???
Absalom, Absalom ( re-titled, I Hate the South..)
Ulysses (re-titled, A Day in the Lives of Drunk Irish Pedophiles)
100 Years of Solitude (re-titled, 99 years Too Long in 1920's Colombia)
As this is a Georgia Tech football forum, I suggest Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full"... (re-titled, Former GT Football Player Real Estate Developer Multi-millionaire Loses it All, Becomes Evangelist in Florida)
 

orientalnc

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"....I suggest you have some enjoyable reading in your future..." Faulkner, Joyce, and Garcia Marquez are "enjoyable reading"???
Absalom, Absalom ( re-titled, I Hate the South..)
Ulysses (re-titled, A Day in the Lives of Drunk Irish Pedophiles)
100 Years of Solitude (re-titled, 99 years Too Long in 1920's Colombia)
As this is a Georgia Tech football forum, I suggest Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full"... (re-titled, Former GT Football Player Real Estate Developer Multi-millionaire Loses it All, Becomes Evangelist in Florida)
Clearly, you have read the same book list I have endured. As for A Man in Full, I Suggest Bonfire of Vanities instead.
 

orientalnc

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Oriental, NC
"....I suggest you have some enjoyable reading in your future..." Faulkner, Joyce, and Garcia Marquez are "enjoyable reading"???
Absalom, Absalom ( re-titled, I Hate the South..)
Ulysses (re-titled, A Day in the Lives of Drunk Irish Pedophiles)
100 Years of Solitude (re-titled, 99 years Too Long in 1920's Colombia)
As this is a Georgia Tech football forum, I suggest Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full"... (re-titled, Former GT Football Player Real Estate Developer Multi-millionaire Loses it All, Becomes Evangelist in Florida)
I will pose that Faulkner, Joyce and Garcia Marquez are all enjoyable, but not easy. That was my point. Engineering is also not easy.

So, now that you have admitted to having read all three authors, who is your favorite?
 

slugboy

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"....I suggest you have some enjoyable reading in your future..." Faulkner, Joyce, and Garcia Marquez are "enjoyable reading"???
Absalom, Absalom ( re-titled, I Hate the South..)
Ulysses (re-titled, A Day in the Lives of Drunk Irish Pedophiles)
100 Years of Solitude (re-titled, 99 years Too Long in 1920's Colombia)
As this is a Georgia Tech football forum, I suggest Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full"... (re-titled, Former GT Football Player Real Estate Developer Multi-millionaire Loses it All, Becomes Evangelist in Florida)
I understand the dig at “Absalom, Absalom”, but my impression of “A Man in Full” was that Tom Wolfe never actually visited Atlanta, and could have written the book based on comments from NextDoor (if it existed when he wrote it).
Ulysses can be a slog, but it’s like running a marathon—you can look back and fondly recall running through part of it.
{we’re off topic, but I’ll run with it}
If Ulysses is just too long, then Solaris is sci-fi, short, and has the same kind of complexity. It’s a shorter reading workout
Infinite Jest is a long workout
Les Miserables is a thick tome, but it’s a breeze to read. It shares a title with the musical, but it’s not the same at all to me. If you had to pick one big, thick book, pick that one
The Princess Bride made a great movie, but the book is very different
The Left Hand of Darkness is a must-read for sci-fi
Cormac McCarthy is not easy. Either “The Road” or “Blood Meridian” will be a different read from a “cowboy writer”
White Noise from Dom Delillo is a great start on his books. Or, read “End Zone”—it’s about a football player (and it’s a fun book).
Ha Jin published “Waiting” when he was a literature professor at Emory; it was good enough that Emory couldn’t hold him for long after that
Tom Jones is just fun
 
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Heisman's Ghost

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While I agree with you, have you read 100 Years of Solitude or Absalom, Absalom or Ulysses? Those novels do not prepare you for a specific career, but they enable your thought processes. From the view point of history, have you read the multi-volume books by Shelby Foote or Julius Caesar? If not, I suggest you have some enjoyable reading in your future. They help explain how we reached this point.
My wife majored in history. The hardest class she had to take, she said, was one on contemporary Southern authors like Faulkner, Harper Lee, Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote among others. Erskine Caldwell was excruciating to read according to her but for some reason Paradise Lost was a cakewalk? After 38 years of marriage there are things about that woman I still don't understand.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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"....I suggest you have some enjoyable reading in your future..." Faulkner, Joyce, and Garcia Marquez are "enjoyable reading"???
Absalom, Absalom ( re-titled, I Hate the South..)
Ulysses (re-titled, A Day in the Lives of Drunk Irish Pedophiles)
100 Years of Solitude (re-titled, 99 years Too Long in 1920's Colombia)
As this is a Georgia Tech football forum, I suggest Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full"... (re-titled, Former GT Football Player Real Estate Developer Multi-millionaire Loses it All, Becomes Evangelist in Florida)
He became an evangelist in Florida because he could not "go home again".
 

Northeast Stinger

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Is this now a separate thread about literature or are we just feeling loosely-goosey about this thread?

I tend to like the southern writers for what it’s worth. McCullers, Caldwell, O’Conner, Faulkner and others.

I was never able to finish “the million years of solitude.” Have no doubt it was a good book but I could not keep up with the characters and the story did not help me hold attention on who was who or when was when. Not proud of my laziness.
 

slugboy

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Is this now a separate thread about literature or are we just feeling loosely-goosey about this thread?

I tend to like the southern writers for what it’s worth. McCullers, Caldwell, O’Conner, Faulkner and others.

I was never able to finish “the million years of solitude.” Have no doubt it was a good book but I could not keep up with the characters and the story did not help me hold attention on who was who or when was when. Not proud of my laziness.
First game is September 4th, and we’ll probably talk a lot more football as we get closer. We’ll also have a better forecast as practice gets “real”, depending on how much we get to see.
 

forensicbuzz

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Clearly, you have read the same book list I have endured. As for A Man in Full, I Suggest Bonfire of Vanities instead.
But A Man in Full has Freaknik in it! Plus it's a lot about GT. Not a big Wolfe fan, but that was a good read because so much of it was relatable and I knew all the locations (well, not the California stuff). Besides, anyone that can survive Faulkner has my respect. I think he should have taken lessons from Hemmingway on how to use less words to say more.
 

forensicbuzz

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Is this now a separate thread about literature or are we just feeling loosely-goosey about this thread?

I tend to like the southern writers for what it’s worth. McCullers, Caldwell, O’Conner, Faulkner and others.

I was never able to finish “the million years of solitude.” Have no doubt it was a good book but I could not keep up with the characters and the story did not help me hold attention on who was who or when was when. Not proud of my laziness.
Better in spanish.
 
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