FOT Forum
FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: DoodleJump! on September 16, 2009, 12:34:10 AM
-
We students have the choice of what to present on, the possibilities are listed by the professor, of course. I narrowed the list down. I have to decide unofficially by tomorrow afternoon, but I am allowed to change my mind. I can't decide, and since you guys are, on the whole, literate-minded and well-read, I would appreciate what you think!
thanks thanks thanks!
-
Notes from the Underground. It's been called the world's first existentialist novel. Although, it's pretty bleak.
-
Dostoevsky
-
Faust. No one else will want to present on it, and it's amazing.
-
For the first time since I was 14 years old, I agree with a Pastor.
Faust is awesome and no one will touch it. A great story and well-told.
Play Charles Gounod's amazing opera of Faust in the background while you're presenting. It's so beautiful. It will add that extra "moxie" needed in any "presentation" of anything.
-
Emily Dickinson. At least one of the ladies in your class might be impressed (Maybe. I don't know).
-
If you chose Dickinson, you could explain to those not already in the know how they can sing her poetry to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas."
-
everyone is going to pick notes from underground because it's the shortest. faust is easily the most important in that list. DO IT.
-
I pick the Tangerine Dream LP.
-
Faust, you get to reference Christopher Marlowe and Krautrock. In fact, the band Faust would make awesome bed music for a talk. Grote used some Faust music on his radio show as his theme song, so it ties back to WFMU and the message board, too.
(http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~colin/images/xmas/burke-connections1.jpg)
ps: In college you learn to say, more or less, "ger-ta," and then you meet a German and they make fun of you for it. Stick with it anyway unless you want to accidentally swallow your tongue.
-
Donald Barthelme's "Conversations with Goethe." You can get through it in five minutes, and it tells you all you need to know.
-
Faust is incredible, especially considering that the translator had to make it rhyme too!
-
Thanks for the advice...so far so great!
I still haven't entirely made up my mind. Everyone's opinion is very helpful, but at the same time makes it harder to choose.
So far, the poll says Notes from the Underground, but it seems that the prevalent choice on the board (by a narrow margin) is Faust.
-
Emily Dickinson would be the easiest I bet. Her poetry is great, and there's a tremendous amount of criticism to draw from.
-
Notes is brilliant, but because of its cultural significance, a lot of people will want to do it. I'm just thinking back on my time as an English major, dere. But you know your class better than we do. Will you share your presentation here?
-
I was poised to tell my professor I wanted to present on Faust, but then he announced that whoever did Faust would have to present on Friday. This friday. I have way too much stuff to do to be able to do that, so I went with Notes from the Underground. It also turns out that all the authors have an equal number of students assigned to them, so it's all good.
yesno: I loved the Faust references you pulled, are there any quirky ones for Notes? Granted, I haven't read it and am not obligated to do so for another 1 1/2 week.
-
yesno: I loved the Faust references you pulled, are there any quirky ones for Notes? Granted, I haven't read it and am not obligated to do so for another 1 1/2 week.
That's kind of dumb for him on Faust. I'd frontload the easy book.
I haven't read any Dostoevsky for years, though as with Faust I have a pronunciation story. I was yelled at for "mispronouncing" Goethe by a German art student. I was yelled at for mispronouncing Dostoevsky by a former Russian Air Force officer who lived in Arizona and worked repairing APUs, which are a kind of airplane engine that is just used to generate power when the plane is on the ground. This is not a very good story. I guess it would be a better story if I could remember whether the dude has been a Soviet defector or something. We always said he was but I think we were just making stuff up to make life more interesting.
Notes from Thee Underground is a Pigface album. This gives you a launching off point to any number of 1980s and 90s industrial rock superstars. Shonen Knife is on it, too. They shout "Fuck it up, Pigface." Unfortunately it's a terrible album. (You have to image how cool Pigface was to a 12-year-old industrial music fan in suburban New Jersey. Gub is good, and Washingmachinemouth is very good (and overlooked) by that band, by the way.) I suppose you also could reference the entire genre of "Notes from" and "Notes of" literature. I'd check to see if Notes from Underground was first, though.
-
I know that Notes from Underground heavily influenced Paul Schrader's screenplay for "Taxi Driver." If you have read the Dostoyevsky book and have seen the film, you will see some similarities between Travis Bickle and the protagonist from Notes from Underground.
-
I just read NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND for the first time for a class last week.
Riveting, I know.
Good luck with your presentation, though!
-
I know that Notes from Underground heavily influenced Paul Schrader's screenplay for "Taxi Driver." If you have read the Dostoyevsky book and have seen the film, you will see some similarities between Travis Bickle and the protagonist from Notes from Underground.
More than The Searchers? I'm asking honestly since I've never read Notes from Underground.