Comment by PradeetPatel
12 hours ago
I would like some Russian Literature recommendations related to this. I vaguely recall We by Zamyatin addressing something like this a good few decades ago.
12 hours ago
I would like some Russian Literature recommendations related to this. I vaguely recall We by Zamyatin addressing something like this a good few decades ago.
If you're looking for examples critical of humanity you have lots of options (mostly from the last two centuries). Notes from Underground and The Death of Ivan Ilyich fit the bill.
I reread the former relatively recently (first time since college). It's dark, not for the easily affected.
Isn’t the latter an excerpt of The Brothers Karamazov? When I read it, it felt more like a criticism on certain economic theories, rather than people specifically.
Russian Literature is so tedious. There is no Russian writer better than America's own Adam Sandler.
People dismiss Jack and Jill as Adam Sandler in a dress, which is rather like dismissing The Brothers Karamazov as some men being upset about their father.
Dostoevsky's The Double concerns a man tormented by another version of himself. Sandler advances the inquiry by asking: what if that version came for Thanksgiving and wouldn't fucking leave?
Casting himself as both siblings makes Jack's disgust at Jill an unmistakable act of self-loathing. He longs to exclude her from his comfortable bourgeois existence, yet everywhere he looks, there is his own face. Critics complained that Jill was unbearable, apparently unaware that estrangement from the self is supposed to be uncomfortable.
Al Pacino, appearing as Al Pacino, completes the study of fractured identity. His pursuit of Jill suggests a desperate attempt to encounter something authentic beyond performance. This culminates in the Dunkin' Donuts commercial, where even his name is consumed by capital: Al becomes Dunkaccino.
When Pacino demands that the commercial be destroyed, he finally achieves the moral clarity denied to the other characters. The audience has generally reached this position much earlier.
It's so unfair that Sandler won both Worst Actor and Worst Actress, while Pacino won only one award: Worst Supporting Actor.
I'll post a comment snarkily mentioning how tedious Russian Literature is, then you flag my comment to attract dang's attention, and hopefully he will manifest and reply with some excellent Russian Literature recommendations and links to relevent hn discussions! It's one of his many special interests.
Not only that, dang is also a proud card carrying member of the Klaus Nomi Fan Club. (I shit you not!)
The Nomi Song (Documentary):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44100981
>Page Wood, Nomi's Art Director:
>"I remember Pat Gibbons, who was Bowie's manager at the time. He comes up and he goes, 'Well you're going to have to have something. You're going to have some costumes.'"
>"And he whips out a big wad of cash, and he goes, 'How much do you need?', and he starts peeling off bills. And Joey and Klaus look at him, and their eyes widen, and they look at each other, and they go, 'We're going to need shoes, too.'"