lainoldme, I would only take umbrage with a woman who had a brain in her head. You don't qualify.
Gee, I better return my advanced degrees. Must have been given to me by mistake. Along with the honors.
Now, don't do the thing you have been doing on this thread and take umbrage. I thought these things up in less than the time it took to type them and would have given them in response to anyone who asked the same question.
NB: I said I would have given the same answer to anyone making the same sort of statement. So would a decent, non-Rogerian therapist. So would a close friend. If you never heard anything this analytical, maybe you lack intimacy in your life. Maybe your friends are air heads! LOL!
I DO wish folks would quit playing the provocation-and-response game. Its like a bunch of kids with sticks ... everything is fine and fun 'till somebody gets hurt. Lets try not to hurt each other, please?
thanks
Well, in the interest of getting us back on track, I'll give my opinion. It seems to me that a man over 40 who has never been married is as good a bet as one who has been married. The only tale tale sign I would look for is if he's living with his mother at age 40. :-)
In that case, I would be on the look out for potential problems, but those problems, if they existed, would be obvious anyway, whether he's ever been married or not.
But I think too that it depends on what a woman is looking for. If she's very interested in marrying, and if she's had a bad experience, she's more likely to be cautious about never marrieds. But I think a man in this situation would probably be as likely to be cautious of a never married woman over the age of 40, or 39 for that matter.
Thank you, Lola, for restoring some common sense to this discussion.
Plainoldme, there is no incompatibility between having advanced degrees and being a fruitcake. Timothy Leary and the Unabomber both had degrees from Harvard, no less. Your dumb opinions are not elevated to brilliance just because you have degrees. I have two Masters Degrees myself but I am not so full of myself to use them as a debating point.
Larry, Larry, Larry, please resist the temptations of war. Let's make this a good discussion, not a contentious one. Plainoldme, I hope you won't retort back to Larry. It's really unnecessary, unless, of course you both just like to fight. If this is the case, how about doing it privately?
Lucky for you Larry. Obviously being single and not having a degree yet, I'm not permitted to have an opinion at all!!
I just read the whole schmear from start to finish in one setting. It's a scripted performance, right? Just to see how the occasional outsider reacts? It's a classic!
I should have said being a single man!
Pick one -it would make a nice change
um well i always liked John Dos Passos and the way he incorporated various media from songs to newspaper items in the USA trilogy i thought it provided a lot of insight into the era.
I never heard of such a thing, dys. Sounds like one of those things that could be really interesting, or fall flat on its face.
I agree his debut book Manhattan Transfer was also quite remarkable , a sprawling novel concerned with all aspects of the modern city. The overriding idea was that the inhabitants of New York are 'carried along' by the social and economic machinations of the city. There is no single narrative; indeed, Dos Passos creates a collage in prose by wandering in and out of the lives of a number of New Yorkers. He captures something of the fragmented, difficult nature of living in the city without ever being morose or boring. He somehow manages to place his characters in the context of what he sees as irrepressible forces without damaging their essential human spirit.
So what's so special about Joyce ?
Hiama, what's so special about Joyce--I assume you are asking seriously--is the quality of his language, which in intensely poetic, far beyond anything Dos Passos could achieve, and then the intricate structure of his novel, with all the layers of psychological and mythological meaning woven together. I am not the world's biggest Joyce fan but I certainly recognize his mastery, even if ULYSSES is not a book I would read again for pleasure.
I've been following this whole shooting match for a while and I'm glad to see it's back to being about books. Those who wish to debate relationships and the like are more than welcome to open up topics in Marriage & Relationships. I look forward to seeing you there. :-D
Larry,
I was hoping to get a reaction.
To use your words " the intricate structure of his novel, with all the layers of psychological and mythological meaning woven together", presumably you are referring here to the stream-of-consciousness technique. This so called complexity actually hides quite a simple story and its even debatable whether the book was the finished article.
By comparison Manhattan Transfer when it was published in 1925, was received by some critics as a masterpiece, and deserves to stand alongside the modernist classics by Joyce and Eliot in my opionion. At least you can still now read Dos Passos with some degree of enjoyment. By your own admission Ulysses is not a book you would read again for pleasure and I'll join you in that affirmation.
so sorry, i happen to like Dos Passos
