have you ever shouted at a book?

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there's a thread about shouting at the TV, and we probably all do that now and then, but I just found myself shouting, loudly and with the word 'FUCKING' involved, at a book. It's not some political thing by a rightwing lunatic or anything like that, it's an art book - The Art Of Twentieth-Century Zen: Drawings And Calligraphy By Japanese Masters by Audrey Yoshiko Seo with Stephen Addiss. I wasn't annoyed at how long that takes to type or say, but its habit of forgetting the art aspect of the title, and just talking about a bunch of apparently remarkable modern Zen monks, oh who by the way did some art. Vast detail on exactly what temples they studied at when, under what masters, and so on, not much useful commentary on the art, sort of a notion that they are great Zen monks => their art is great Zen art, what is there to explain.

But the infuriating thing is the completely pointless anecdotes that fizzle out. There must be at least ten of these per artist discussed. I read a previous Addiss book about earlier Zen artists, and figured that we probably didn't know much about these people beyond some lame little stories, but this is 20th C, so that's no excuse. The one that just got me shouting at it was this (substantially abridged):

During his last years, novelist Natsume Soseki corresponded with two monks. He asked one if he knew Yuzen [the artist under discussion], because Soseki heard he was a good artist and was wondering if he could get an introduction. They never actually met.

The version in the book is about four times as long, but nothing relevant has been excised, I promise. The next 4+ pages fail to mention anything to do with art, but we get another half dozen anecdotes of similar sharpness and purpose. I think my reaction was a loud "Oh fucking hell, what the FUCK do you think you are doing with that story? STOP IT!"

So, was I justified? Do you ever do this?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 16 July 2005 21:44 (twenty years ago)

b-but isn't this how zen works? these non-stories will draw you towards buddha-nature by shocking you out of your attachment to pointfulness!!

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 21:49 (twenty years ago)

If you shout at a book in a forest, does anybody hear the book shout back?

― Scream! Scrovula, Scream! (noodle vague), Saturday, 16 July 2005 21:52 (twenty years ago)

They have instead cultivated in me a deep contempt for Zen, Mark.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 16 July 2005 21:53 (twenty years ago)

I don't shout but I sometimes rebuke the novels of Muriel Spark by saying things like 'That's enough now,' or 'Stop it,' but I don't mean it, it's said with gleeful affection.

― estela (estela), Saturday, 16 July 2005 21:57 (twenty years ago)

the bodhidharma is crabby again

http://www.zenguide.com/zenmedia/paintings/bodhidharma.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:04 (twenty years ago)

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/bluealbino/SYP/images/mrburns-eh.gif

― 3, Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:06 (twenty years ago)

http://www.sorrentinophotography.com/images/buddhist/images/bodhidharma%20scroll%20I_jpg.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:10 (twenty years ago)

http://www.bodhibody.net/images/Bodhi_full_sm.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:11 (twenty years ago)

http://www.crazyheart.org/graphics/bodhidharma_large.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:11 (twenty years ago)

http://www.teeweg.de/graphik/buddh/darumasengai.gif

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:12 (twenty years ago)

http://www.freehorsierides.com/images/brucevilanch.jpg

― 3, Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:14 (twenty years ago)

http://www.servingtruth.org/images/bodhidharma2.gif

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:16 (twenty years ago)

http://www.zen-leipzig.de/images/bodhidharma1.jpeg.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:17 (twenty years ago)

http://www.wwzc.org/translations/images/clip_image002_004.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:18 (twenty years ago)

http://www.courttv.com/graphics/trials/jay-z/rap_sheet/suge_knight.jpg

― 3, Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:19 (twenty years ago)

I have many more Daruma images, for a Daruma section on my website, to be put together pretty soon. I still love a lot of Zen art.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:19 (twenty years ago)

including some by Nantembo, which clients complained looked like owls or octopi. They were right, too.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:19 (twenty years ago)

http://www.vovinam-via.org/suutam20_files/image004.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

the only book i've shouted at recently was a david sedaris book someone lent me. i shouted at it because it was utter shite.

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

sorry i am derailing the thread but i LOVE ALL THESE CRABBY BODHIDHARMAS

esp.the ayatollah-lookin one and the one who blinks sneakily

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:21 (twenty years ago)

There are hundreds of them, Mark. One story is that to stop himself falling asleep while meditating, he tore his eyelids off => the often fierce expression.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:23 (twenty years ago)

also sometimes he has a piratey earring!!
http://www.dharmaeye.org/images/background/bodhidharma5x3.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:23 (twenty years ago)

also he meditated facing a cave wall for nine years uninterrupted, and his legs atrophied and fell off => you can get little Weeble-style figures of this legendary monk that brought Zen to SE Asia!

(xpost: earring is a canonical standard attribute)

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:25 (twenty years ago)

Da Vinci Code. Does this fall under the rightwing thing, tho?

― kingfish (Kingfish), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:28 (twenty years ago)

canonical standard attribute OF PIRATES

yes i saw the weebles - i hoped they were like russian dolls and inside is bodhi's teachers and etc and etc and then right inside is buddha and then inside buddha is SATORI

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:30 (twenty years ago)

http://www.mizuho-g.com/image/dm_hebikawa02.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:33 (twenty years ago)

(sorry martin i think i spoiled yr thread)

(i bet you can name half these artists though!)

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 July 2005 22:47 (twenty years ago)

I shouted at 'The Codex' because it was a horribly written piece of crap.
It was a quick read, but I had to finish it so I could at least explain in detail WHY I hated it. Terrible plot. Awful, appalling dialogue. Wooden characters. The only bright spot was the subject matter but that kept getting swept aside for awful character arcs & plot turns.

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 17 July 2005 00:01 (twenty years ago)

When I was in grad school, I shouted at books all the time. I still do. I also shout at the TV, mostly at news commentators, mostly saying "Oh yeah, RIGHT!".

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 17 July 2005 00:53 (twenty years ago)

I don't shout at books, yet, but I'm on my way. I shout while I read them sometimes though. What I do is shout things like "That doesn't make any sense!", "Yeah but if______didn't, then who did?", ect. I never say things like "What the fuck is your problem?" I never direct my comments towards the actual book.

― Aja (aja), Sunday, 17 July 2005 01:15 (twenty years ago)

i shouted at a henry kissinger book once. he was being a d*ck.
i wish i had a funny picture.

― jeffrey (johnson), Sunday, 17 July 2005 01:26 (twenty years ago)

When I was in grad school, I shouted at books all the time.

Me too. Usually bad critical theory articles, the moment when it dawns on me that the person is FULL OF SHIT. Also, Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho I yelled at, threw, and couldn't finish. I just can't handle it.

― daria g (daria g), Sunday, 17 July 2005 01:42 (twenty years ago)

i do this all the time, usually an aggrevied "WTF!?" but occasionally when i rilly like the thing too.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Sunday, 17 July 2005 02:03 (twenty years ago)

Daria, exactly. Especially film theory.

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 17 July 2005 02:15 (twenty years ago)

Yes, I have.

― luna (luna.c), Sunday, 17 July 2005 04:52 (twenty years ago)

I kind of like dead-giveaway talking shit moments - like when one other book on Japanese painting I was reading claimed Yoshimoto was a pupil of Utamaro. This may not sound overtly shit, but besides stylistic differences, the fact that Utamaro died a third of a century before Yoshimoto died made the relationship unlikely.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 17 July 2005 07:08 (twenty years ago)

This is a great thread for learning about Japanese art and the swearing habits of one's internet friends.

I shouted "No!" at the end of Oscar and Lucinda because I suddenly realised what was going on, and I shouted "Fuck!" at the end of Boxy an Star. Other than that, if a book doesn't raise its voice to me, I see no reason to start an ugly scene.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Sunday, 17 July 2005 07:20 (twenty years ago)

I very clearly remember the moment that I realised that I Might Know More Than People Who Write Books - I must have been about 10, and I was reading a Jeffrey Archer novel* set in the 1960s. The Moment came when his main character, sitting on a Circle Line train,** passed through Embankment station.***

I don't think I shouted, though.

* yes, I know, easy target

** well, it might have been District, I can't really remember

*** Remember, this is set in the 1960s. The Underground didn't have an Embankment Station until the ~~Fleet~~ Jubilee Line was built.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Sunday, 17 July 2005 07:20 (twenty years ago)

Have you ever shouted at a thread?

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 17 July 2005 07:22 (twenty years ago)

Probably at an Adorno book. Not because I really disagreed with him - I did/do - but also because I know there's something I admire in him and agree with him as well (to some degree, but not completely).

― nathalie's body's designed for two (stevie nixed), Sunday, 17 July 2005 07:47 (twenty years ago)

accentmonkey, you want to know about Japanese art, try my website www.japanese-arts.net - except there isn't all that much of it yet, so you won't learn very much. The reason for all the Zen art reading is that that is the next section, and it's a big one that is very important structurally.

Yeah, I have shouted at threads - similar things, perhaps along the lines of "Oh for fuck's sake Momus..."

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 17 July 2005 08:22 (twenty years ago)

Gormenghast - "JUST TELL THE FUCKING STORY FOR FUCK'S SAKE! I DON'T *CARE* HOW DUSTY EACH AND EVERY ORNAMENT IS!"

Bram Stoker's Dracula - "CLASSIC? MY ARSE! NEVER READ SO MUCH FUCKING PISH!"

The latter was eventually pinged across the room halfway through a particularly tiresome journal entry, and remains unread.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Sunday, 17 July 2005 08:25 (twenty years ago)

At last, somebody who feels the same way about Gormenghast as me!

(well, Titus Groan - I never got as far as Gormenghast itself)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Sunday, 17 July 2005 08:43 (twenty years ago)

"hmmm, i'm feeling unusually impatient at the moment - time to sit down with a victorian novel i believe"

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 17 July 2005 08:48 (twenty years ago)

Patience isn't the issue.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Sunday, 17 July 2005 09:07 (twenty years ago)

i shout at books all the time. it only matters when it's at the library and people stare.

― gem (trisk), Sunday, 17 July 2005 09:11 (twenty years ago)

accentmonkey, you want to know about Japanese art, try my website www.japanese-arts.net - except there isn't all that much of it yet, so you won't learn very much.

That's okay, I am a monkey of very little brain and need to learn slowly.

Have you ever shouted at a thread?

FCUK YOPU!

No, but I have become annoyed, angrily typed out a stinging post and then remembered that that way lies madness and hit the Back button instead.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Sunday, 17 July 2005 12:03 (twenty years ago)

I jumped and screamed whilst reading Misery. Fuck knows how, I just did.

― Hotman Paris Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 17 July 2005 12:06 (twenty years ago)

I have just read the wrongest scene in a fantasy book ever written.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Sunday, 17 July 2005 14:01 (twenty years ago)

I'm in law school and therefore regularly shout at books. When I'm somewhere that shouting is inappropriate, I vent my rage by scribbling angry notes in the margins.

I threw Valley of the Dolls across the room when I got to the end. Don't ask me why I expected something better; I'd already seen the movie and knew how it ended.

Boobies, boobies, boobies. Everywhere it's boobies!

― pullapartgirl (pullapartgirl), Sunday, 17 July 2005 15:09 (twenty years ago)

ooo..i just read valley of the dolls. they didnt take that many dolls.

― sunny successor (he hates my guts, we had a fight) (katharine), Sunday, 17 July 2005 17:08 (twenty years ago)

american psycho was one of those books i was embarrassed to read in public because i was sure my face was giving away what i was reading. glamorama was the one that frustrated the hell out of me but i never shouted at it. i shouted at my fair share of math textbooks in my time though.

― sunny successor (he hates my guts, we had a fight) (katharine), Sunday, 17 July 2005 17:11 (twenty years ago)

LOL! This is wonderful. You should have posted it as well on I *heart* Books. We could use some enlivening there!

― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Monday, 18 July 2005 12:47 (twenty years ago)

I have a friend who I believe shouted at (and possibly threw across the room) one of the Cerebus issues I loaned her. Though she did admit that she was feeling especially womanly, and thus weak of brain, on the day :)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 18 July 2005 13:07 (twenty years ago)

I vaguely recall reading the Dragonlance books when I was, um, some age between 10 and 13, and shouting out "NOOOOOOOOOO!" all dramatical-like when Flint died.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 18 July 2005 13:38 (twenty years ago)

Halfway through DH Lawrence's Sons and Lovers I shouted "not ANOTHER DOOMED RELATIONSHIP!" and threw it across the room and have still never finished it, nor do I want to.

― sgs (sgs), Monday, 18 July 2005 14:06 (twenty years ago)

most recently i can recall was at John Gray's Straw Dogs.

― Britain's Jauntiest Shepherd (Alan), Monday, 18 July 2005 14:08 (twenty years ago)

i shouted at the bloody fucking alchemist (what a horrid patronising pile of tripey shite) and nearly threw it across the train. i very rarely don't finish a book, however unbearable/dull it is, but i will never finish that little fucker. (i may even recycle it.) (wrote "burn" for recycle at first but realised i could not cope with burning a book, even if it was that book.)

i yelled at the chav thread a lot.

― emsk, Monday, 18 July 2005 14:11 (twenty years ago)

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