The Idiot Board Readers Corner - General Discussion

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Just finished the amazing novel The Nigger of the Narcissus by Joseph Conrad. I swear, if it weren't for the title, this book would take its rightful place as a classic alongside other Conrad masterpieces like Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim.

The book is a psychological profile of a naval ship's crew, their two mates, and the captain as they embark upon a voyage from Bombay to London. In that sense, it is realistic and incredibly balanced; a character that shows stunning heroism one page will act like a crazy fool 15 pages later. The crew as a whole alternates between a kindly, generous, tough, and competent lot to a bunch of lazy, cowardly, selfish, rabble-rousing idiots. Individuals are not who they seem in the early pages, and one's perception of each character will greatly change, even as they alter themselves. However, all of them are interesting in their own ways, and the title character of the work, a large black sailor named James Wait, is of particular interest.

See, as soon as he gets on the ship, he starts violently coughing, and claims he is dying of a lung affliction. He refuses to do any work, and makes it a point of honor to insult every single crew member. The doctor can find absolutely nothing wrong with him, and the crew suspects he is simply malingering. Nevertheless, he gets his own private cabin, and the crew dotes upon him, helps, and even steals the officers' food for him, even as they hate him. At one point, they even save his life.

What is Jim Wait's response? He insults and mocks them, calling them a bunch of crazy idiots. The only exception is the truly venomous, vile Donkin, who does no work either and is constantly preaching mutiny. He accuses Jimmy of making up his malady, and being a good-for-nothing, rotten nigger. In response, Wait is chummy with him, and gives him some of his clothes.

I don't want to spoil any more, but let me say that page 20 of my version, where they describe the old sailor Singleton, is one of the most beautiful and amazing passages I have EVER read in a book. It is right up there with the very best parts from Kundera and Steinbeck, my two favorite authors.

The whole book is absolutely phenomenal. It's only the second book by Conrad I have read, but certainly far from the last. The guy was a true genius.

Oh, and as a bonus, Conrad's preface is the best essay on what the fuck "art" is that I have ever encountered.

Edit-

I just checked Wikipedia, and apparently, Conrad once sailed on board a ship with that very name (he was a sailor for 16 years), which helps describes the often first person narration in the story.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Why Do Beautiful People Have More Daughters?

This book is an excellent introduction to evolutionary psychology and the "study of human nature". This book is easy to read, quick, and is written in fairly simple terms. I wish I had read this before delving into more complex books like Sperm Wars, the Blank Slate, etc. This book is not apologetic in the least, it acknowledges several stereotypes and debunks other theories in less-than-objective scientific terms, but not regarding controversial topics. This book is short and interesting enough to be an good airport read, simple enough to not confuse the layman, and smart enough to present complex, controversial and new scientific concepts in ways that can be summarized well.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Well everybody Assholes Finish First is out, we all know the author. I absolutely loved IHTSBIH, but I don't know if I will have any interest in that type of a book again. That format seems kind of tired and old to me now. However I am definitely going to buy it and read it and I assure you an honest post.

I linked this site because there are a couple reviews of the book on it. I'm pretty sure Thunderfart is a college freshman who is talking about how "stoked" he is to get the book so take the review for what it's worth.

I'm sure it's an easy read and will make my time on the toilet very enjoyable.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Finish-First-Tucker-Max/dp/1416938745" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Finish-F ... 1416938745</a>

*** "Tenderfart" not "Thunder" my mistake********

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Anyone else think the reviews of AFF on amazon are almost suspiciously glowing? None of those people has posted any other reviews...similar themes/styles...

Never want to be the one to call conspiracy but just struck me as odd. Feel free to convince me otherwise.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Feel free to convince yourself. Read the book, write a review. In fact, you probably don't even have to buy it. Go to borders and skim it for 15 minutes. Or ask a friend to borrow it. Or you could even steal it!

Anything would be better than what you are doing now.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Okay, since everyone wants to post about AFF without reading it I'll give the review of someone who has. In some ways it is like IHTSBIH. In other ways it isn't. The ways it is work. The stories are cut into two types. Some of them are real stories (such as the ones that were in IHTSBIH and on the website). Those stories are entertaining and funny. My favorite was Tuckerfest where he meets his early message board fans and gets arrested driving an RV around Harlem. The rest of the stories are much shorter. Tucker combines like three or four stories into one category and lists them in packs. Sure, it's still kind of funny. Tucker is humorous as usual, cracking jokes at every turn. But I got bored with the story sets quickly. You can see the difference right in the Table of Contents. If the whole book was filled with stories like

Tucker goes to camp out own Duke Nerds
The Capitol City Clown Crawl
The DC Halloween Party and the Worst Girl I Ever Fucked
The Tuckerfest Story
Baby Mama Drama

then it would be equal to IHTSBIH. But to me the rest of the book was filled with filler that was uninteresting and not as funny.

Edit: Last time half the stories were spoiled because they were already on the site. This time half the stories just suck. I guess that actually makes it more like the first book than I originally claimed.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

I live under a rock (well, on a farm) and didn't see the movie until after I read the book when I was 20. I think the issue you had is you probably took the image you have of the characters from the movie and pasted how you view their body language and tone onto the characters in the book, something that's nearly impossible not to do.

Had you read the book first, you would have had a completely different perception of how the characters would look and feel. For example, the Don Corleone I perceived was much less nasally and a lot more approachable and friendly than the one Brando played. A key image that comes to mind is the "YOU CAN ACT LIKE A MAN" scene. In the book I viewed Corleone as being much more composed, but still forceful, when he says it, rather than borderline screaming.

Not to say you definitely would have liked the book more, but having read it first, the movie doesn't hold a candle to it in my mind.

Oh and I'll have AFF by the 4th, booyah!

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Yeah, as I posted in a rep comment, I read the book first also, and while I consider both films to be excellent, I thought the novel was ever so slightly better. The written description of the individual characters, their histories, and characteristics, often lacking in the film, just added so much more to that particular story. Truly a great work.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

I just picked it up at Bookstar. I was initially planning on just reading the story re: The Ex-Girlfriend Threesome because I was actually there when it happened* and I was curious to see how accurate TM's recap of the story was. However, since one of the exes ("Alexa") has since become a friend of mine that I talk to regularly, I also had to read the story where he describes meeting her and the time they spent dating to see how that matched up with what I know of her. But since my lunch hour was running up, so I just dropped the $20 and took the book back to work with me.

In short: the two stories I've read are accurate in broad strokes, but there are parts that are entirely wrong. I don't know if he's mistaken about the facts, re-imagining things to suit his story, or simply lying about it for other reasons but I do know that I'll be reading the rest of the book with that in mind.



*The lead-up, not the orgy.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

On the Assholes Finish First side of things, I got back a few hours ago from his DC book signing. The place was PACKED. We took off after about 30 minutes. I've met the guy twice, so I wasn't missing out on much. But I'll get the word out now - dude is attracting crowds. Big ones.

I haven't gotten through the entire book, but it's not bad. It's different in a lot of ways - he gets inside his own head a lot more, tells a different shade of stories from the first book, but most importantly, he talks a lot about his interactions with women post-fame. The entire second half of the book is literally titled "post-fame sex stories." I thought it'd be a lot of "The Tattoo Story" (which I hate), but it's actually pretty good, because 1). he writes about how it fucks with him, and 2). he lets Nils contribute, as an outside source, to what's happening to him and what he's doing to himself.

I recommend it. You can look at it in a lot of different ways. Now I'll actually finish it, but I probably won't post a full review.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

AFF - I haven't read the final version yet. I did read a review draft a few months ago.

The stories are a change of style. There's a number of stories that are the same feel as the previous stories. The Tuckerfest story in particular nearly made me piss my pants laughing. The most notable change from previously released content is the way Tucker writes about himself. Tucker has always reflected on himself to some extent, there's always been an element of 'I'm such a fucking clown, laugh at me being a tool' mixed in with the 'I'm so awesome, laugh at me being an asshole' - but the self reflection stuff in the new book is more mature? grown up? old? I dunno. It's showing that Tucker is a little bit older. Where before his writing felt like 'I was such a dick, hahaha' it's now 'I ws such a dick, learn from me' - which is a huge change for Tucker. He's either developed some kind of empathy and wants to help people learn, or he's actually got some self perspective. I wouldn't have predicted either really.

Honestly I'm not as big a fan of this book as I was of IHTSBIH - but I can't really judge if that's just my preconceptions of his material and proximity to the characters or if it's just not as good a book. It's still worth picking up though I think

I've also just finished reading the first 8 books in Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries - the books that True Blood is based on. The books are enjoyable reading - and I got them at a great price - so well worth the money and the time investment to read them - but the TV Show is a v. solid improvement. It's moved significantly away from the books and the arcs they've delivered were much, much better than the same arcs in the book. I'm interested to see if they go with the Witchwar or if they introduce Quinn as primary movements in the next season. Both stories are pretty interesting arcs that could be incredibly awesome after they go through the hands of the show writers.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

I agree with Scootah on the self reflection. At times, it distracted from what was going on in the story and it seemed contradictory. Overall, I liked AFF, but I think if Tucker had published it earlier, maybe a year or two after IHTSBIH came out, it would have been much better.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

I know that the original book cover was posted back on the RMMB, but I never looked closely at it then.

Anyone else think it's hilarious he had the lineup height grid adjusted (or inserted in such a way in the background) that it measures him at 6 feet?

Heck, that (the adjustment) might be the most incredible insight into the content a book cover has ever given.

Also, I ordered this book on Amazon about two years before it finally shipped. Kinda funny.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

I literally just finished AFF. I believe I got it yesterday morning (I'm a fast reader, and it was good, fuck you). Unlike what I did with the movie, I'm going to wait a bit to post my "official review" of it, as opinions change over time and I want a bit to honestly digest and reflect on the material and implications of reading it.

Initial impressions though:

- You've gotta buy this book. The TuckerFest story and Duke camp out story make it worth the cost alone. I don't see this opinion change.

- The post-fame sex stories were a bit of a let down, strictly from an entertainment standpoint. However, I am biased because I "saw," virtually, Tucker going through/posting about this. I'd compare my experience with this part to already having already read some of the "old" material in IHTSBIH. This opinion may change.

- The last part about the people writing about Tucker was an interesting add-on, but if I wanted to read material by others I would have bought another book. I wanted to read Tucker's style of writing, and I feel like I got gipped a bit with this part. Needless filler. This opinion may change.

- The VERY last part, where two of the women who lost their virginity to Tucker replied to him about what the experience meant was just... sad. It was awkward. Like seeing that kid crying on youtube saying people needed to stop making fun of Britney Spears. I watched maybe the first five seconds of that video before I closed the video window and got in the shower to scrub the weird off; I read all of the two virgins' stories, but I feel no less awkward or dirty. I'm not sure if my opinion on this will change, but I will definitely get into what I believe to be the ramifications (or at least what the ramifications were on me, the reader).

- TuckerFest and the Tucker Owns Duke Nerds story should have been the movie. This is strictly armchair quarterbacking, but this is what I want to see as a consumer of entertainment. Shit scenes have been done before; bachelor parties have been done before; offensive jokes and good writing has been done in cinema before. But never before has a movie shown a bunch of plastered white kids throwing shit out an RV window in the middle of Harlem, then getting chased down and road blocked by Madea, before ultimately almost starting a riot. I would pay JUST to see that. My opinion on this will never change. (I also wanted to read more about the fallout of what happened at the RV rental place.)

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Thanks for the time you put into these reviews, everyone! I can't wait to read AFF!

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Also read Assholes Finish First. Pretty funny -- read it in a little over a day -- although I did find myself laughing out loud less than IHTSBIH. As everyone's already said, the Tuckerfest story is unreal, one of his best. My personal favorite part was SlingBlade's Mr. Peeper's costume -- fucking hilarious.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Can someone tell me where I can find good books? I don't have an aversion to reading, I just have an aversion to reading shitty books. I read maybe six (or even less) a year. Every time I hear about a book I think is going to be good I read it and I'm dead wrong half the time. Half the time the book couldn't suck worse if it came with a vacuum attachment. So my question is this: How do you hear about good books? Word of mouth? NYT bestseller list? I need to know! I've gotten some good recommendations from the Daily Show. But I mean, come on. I'm trying to expand beyond that.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

You could start with this thread, maybe. The NYT bestseller list is a good source, or random blogs. Google is your friend, like always.

Try reading some Malcolm Gladwell, he's one smart cookie.