Comments on: Under the Net http://krizzna.web.id/2010/03/under-the-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=under-the-net my personal weblogs, tips and trick, network fundamental, information technology, web programming, desktop programming and many more can found here Mon, 14 May 2012 21:27:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Anonymous http://krizzna.web.id/2010/03/under-the-net/#comment-1032 Anonymous Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:46:53 +0000 http://krizzna.web.id/programming/under-the-net/#comment-1032 jake the main character of the novel faced many difficulty in his lif as a writer . but he can goes throug this difficulty by usin his thinking that happen when he meet huge a philosopher whomake many changing in jake himself as a young writer. he is a victom of this complex world . the author discribed this situation in a very beutiful way. Rating: 5 / 5 jake the main character of the novel faced many difficulty in his lif as a writer . but he can goes throug this difficulty by usin his thinking that happen when he meet huge a philosopher whomake many changing in jake himself as a young writer. he is a victom of this complex world . the author discribed this situation in a very beutiful way.
Rating: 5 / 5

]]> By: Schmerguls http://krizzna.web.id/2010/03/under-the-net/#comment-1031 Schmerguls Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:23:59 +0000 http://krizzna.web.id/programming/under-the-net/#comment-1031 The only reason I read this book was because it was no. 95 on the Modern Library panel's list of the 100 greatest novels in English in the 20th century. I had read Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea years ago (well, I finished it Dec 4, 1983, if you really want to know that) and had been underimpressed by it. I should have read the reviews on Under the Net on this site before I read it. That would have given me some clue to what I was supposed to expect and derive from the book. I am no student of Ludwig Wittgenstein, but if I had known that Hugo was supposed to be based on him, it might have made me more alert to what he did,e.g. But I read the book as I do any other, and I found it very unimpressive--and I know that is my fault, I suppose. So I guess what I am saying is that if existentialism, Wittgenstein, Sarte, Bellow, etc., don't get you very interested you might not enjoy this book. I found I was glad when I was nearing the end--tho I admit that the last ten pages I rather enjoyed! Rating: 3 / 5 The only reason I read this book was because it was no. 95 on the Modern Library panel’s list of the 100 greatest novels in English in the 20th century. I had read Murdoch’s The Sea, the Sea years ago (well, I finished it Dec 4, 1983, if you really want to know that) and had been underimpressed by it. I should have read the reviews on Under the Net on this site before I read it. That would have given me some clue to what I was supposed to expect and derive from the book. I am no student of Ludwig Wittgenstein, but if I had known that Hugo was supposed to be based on him, it might have made me more alert to what he did,e.g. But I read the book as I do any other, and I found it very unimpressive–and I know that is my fault, I suppose. So I guess what I am saying is that if existentialism, Wittgenstein, Sarte, Bellow, etc., don’t get you very interested you might not enjoy this book. I found I was glad when I was nearing the end–tho I admit that the last ten pages I rather enjoyed!
Rating: 3 / 5

]]> By: Orrin C. Judd http://krizzna.web.id/2010/03/under-the-net/#comment-1030 Orrin C. Judd Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:09:24 +0000 http://krizzna.web.id/programming/under-the-net/#comment-1030 In this uncomfortable blend of existentialism and the picaresque novel, James "Jake" Donaghue is an aspiring, though incorrigibly lazy, writer. He makes a living, barely, by translating French works into English and he stays in the flats of friends. As the novel opens Jake is informed that he, and his man Friday, Peter "Finn" O'Finney, must move out of their current address, because Madge, who has been letting them stay there, has found herself a fiancé. Over the course of the rest of the book, the flat-broke Jake desperately seeks for ways to avoid having to do any work and for places to stay courtesy of his friends. Much of the story is taken up with his broken friendship with Hugo Belfounder, a philosopher turned moviemaker (apparently based on Ludwig Wittgenstein), whose theories Jake presented in somewhat bastardized form in one of the few books he actually wrote himself. Another subplot involves a dognapping of an animal which is an unlikely film-star. The book ends, as it began, with Jake broke, not writing, and looking for a place to stay.<p>I suppose some of the scenarios in the book are amusing if you are British and are immersed in the works of philosophers like Wittgenstein. For the rest of us, it's all rather tedious. A picaresque where neither the central character nor any of the people he comes in contact with show any signs of personal growth and development seems an exercise in futility. Personally, I agree with the friend of Jake's who suggests :<p> Society should take you by the neck and shake you and make you do a sensible job. Then in your evenings you would have the possibility to write a great book. <p>To the extent that Jake in this sense embodies all of England between the Wars and the rise of Margaret Thatcher, I suppose you could interpret the book as depicting the adverse effects of the dole mentality on British culture.<p>But Iris Murdoch apparently intends the book to convey a somewhat more existentialist message. As she says :<p> All work and all love, the search for wealth and fame, the search for truth, like itself, are made up of moments which pass and become nothing. Yet through this shaft of nothings we drive onward with that miraculous vitality that creates our precarious habitations in the past and future. So we live; a spirit that broods and hovers over the continual death of time, the lost meaning, the unrecaptured moment, the unremembered face, until the final chop that ends all our moments and plunges that spirit back into the void from which it came.<p>Here I come back to my eternal quarrel with existentialism : if it's all pointless anyway, then why in the name of God do you spend your time writing about it, and for what earthly reason should I waste my time reading what you write ? <p>I must admit myself to be at a complete loss to explain the presence of this novel on the Modern Library Top 100 list. Luckily, we'll all be disappearing into the void soon, so we need not trouble ourselves over the matter.<p>GRADE : D+ Rating: 2 / 5 In this uncomfortable blend of existentialism and the picaresque novel, James “Jake” Donaghue is an aspiring, though incorrigibly lazy, writer. He makes a living, barely, by translating French works into English and he stays in the flats of friends. As the novel opens Jake is informed that he, and his man Friday, Peter “Finn” O’Finney, must move out of their current address, because Madge, who has been letting them stay there, has found herself a fiancé. Over the course of the rest of the book, the flat-broke Jake desperately seeks for ways to avoid having to do any work and for places to stay courtesy of his friends. Much of the story is taken up with his broken friendship with Hugo Belfounder, a philosopher turned moviemaker (apparently based on Ludwig Wittgenstein), whose theories Jake presented in somewhat bastardized form in one of the few books he actually wrote himself. Another subplot involves a dognapping of an animal which is an unlikely film-star. The book ends, as it began, with Jake broke, not writing, and looking for a place to stay.

I suppose some of the scenarios in the book are amusing if you are British and are immersed in the works of philosophers like Wittgenstein. For the rest of us, it’s all rather tedious. A picaresque where neither the central character nor any of the people he comes in contact with show any signs of personal growth and development seems an exercise in futility. Personally, I agree with the friend of Jake’s who suggests :

Society should take you by the neck and shake you and make you do a sensible job. Then in your evenings you would have the possibility to write a great book.

To the extent that Jake in this sense embodies all of England between the Wars and the rise of Margaret Thatcher, I suppose you could interpret the book as depicting the adverse effects of the dole mentality on British culture.

But Iris Murdoch apparently intends the book to convey a somewhat more existentialist message. As she says :

All work and all love, the search for wealth and fame, the search for truth, like itself, are made up of moments which pass and become nothing. Yet through this shaft of nothings we drive onward with that miraculous vitality that creates our precarious habitations in the past and future. So we live; a spirit that broods and hovers over the continual death of time, the lost meaning, the unrecaptured moment, the unremembered face, until the final chop that ends all our moments and plunges that spirit back into the void from which it came.

Here I come back to my eternal quarrel with existentialism : if it’s all pointless anyway, then why in the name of God do you spend your time writing about it, and for what earthly reason should I waste my time reading what you write ?

I must admit myself to be at a complete loss to explain the presence of this novel on the Modern Library Top 100 list. Luckily, we’ll all be disappearing into the void soon, so we need not trouble ourselves over the matter.

GRADE : D+
Rating: 2 / 5

]]> By: Anonymous http://krizzna.web.id/2010/03/under-the-net/#comment-1029 Anonymous Sat, 20 Mar 2010 13:58:10 +0000 http://krizzna.web.id/programming/under-the-net/#comment-1029 i don't understand what is so great about this book. i didn't learn anything new from it, and it was only mildly entertaining. i suppose it's good casual reading, if you're on a plane or something. it's more or less well written, but not spectacular by any means. of course, i don't find wittgenstein that great, either. the book is funny at times, though.<p>honestly, after reading all the great reviews, i expected much more of this book. i was very dissapointed. i felt like i was watching some quirky hour-long t.v. show about the wacky adventures of aspiring authors - something fantastic, something that would never happen in real life; but if you don't take it seriously, then it's fine. this is the only book by iris murdoch that i've read, and i really hope it isn't her best.<p>so buy it if you want to read something mildly amusing, but if you feel like reading something that is truly worth the effort, look elsewhere. Rating: 3 / 5 i don’t understand what is so great about this book. i didn’t learn anything new from it, and it was only mildly entertaining. i suppose it’s good casual reading, if you’re on a plane or something. it’s more or less well written, but not spectacular by any means. of course, i don’t find wittgenstein that great, either. the book is funny at times, though.

honestly, after reading all the great reviews, i expected much more of this book. i was very dissapointed. i felt like i was watching some quirky hour-long t.v. show about the wacky adventures of aspiring authors – something fantastic, something that would never happen in real life; but if you don’t take it seriously, then it’s fine. this is the only book by iris murdoch that i’ve read, and i really hope it isn’t her best.

so buy it if you want to read something mildly amusing, but if you feel like reading something that is truly worth the effort, look elsewhere.
Rating: 3 / 5

]]> By: Barbara Barnum http://krizzna.web.id/2010/03/under-the-net/#comment-1028 Barbara Barnum Sat, 20 Mar 2010 12:23:02 +0000 http://krizzna.web.id/programming/under-the-net/#comment-1028 This book is so pretentious, so show-offy, so geared to highly educated Oxbridge people, it clearly excludes the well-educated non academic reader. <p>If you find drunkenness funny and the long descriptions of how drunkenness affects the body, I guess you will like this.<br>I had to read it for my book club but hated every page -- no favorite characters or episodes.<p>I hate to think the entire British public lives to get drunk but this and other literature and movies forces me to believe that no event in Britain, celebratory or shocking, takes place without a glass in hand. Rating: 1 / 5 This book is so pretentious, so show-offy, so geared to highly educated Oxbridge people, it clearly excludes the well-educated non academic reader.

If you find drunkenness funny and the long descriptions of how drunkenness affects the body, I guess you will like this.
I had to read it for my book club but hated every page — no favorite characters or episodes.

I hate to think the entire British public lives to get drunk but this and other literature and movies forces me to believe that no event in Britain, celebratory or shocking, takes place without a glass in hand.
Rating: 1 / 5

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