Disco Elysium Reading List?

[CommanderWaffle]

I've enjoyed Disco Elysium's critical eye toward political and economic systems, and I'm looking for some more reading in that vein. Does anyone have some recommendations for similarly critical modern reading?

[Holografix]

If you're going to read Marx & Engels, best thing to do is take a course. A course will give some necessary context to these quite difficult books.

[astarr]

Originally posted by Holografix:

If you're going to read Marx & Engels, best thing to do is take a course. A course will give some necessary context to these quite difficult books.

This. David Harvey has highly recommended lectures on Capital either through podcasts or I think video (YT or Vimeo).

[El Cop]

You need to read Gulag archipelago, you will enjoy it

[Holografix]

Originally posted by El Cop:

You need to read Gulag archipelago, you will enjoy it

ha. don't really know about this. According to wiki, Russian president Vladimir Putin called the book "much-needed." If Putin recommends it, you probably need to take it 'with a grain of salt.'

[Свет во Тьме]

Originally posted by Holografix:

According to wiki, Russian president Vladimir Putin called the book "much-needed." If Putin recommends it, you probably need to take it 'with a grain of salt.'

Putin just parroted all those "intelligencia" people he interrogated during his KGB career. (He 99.9% has never read the thing). Then again, "intelligencia" are just a special breed of soviet slaves, capable of working in tech/culture/science sectors, but slaves nonetheless. Brought up in propaganda-saturated environment, they adopted the behavior patterns and thinking models - while they rejected the most obvious lies they replaced it with russian traditional philosophy/literature material and contemporary concepts (The Great Fartherland War, Gulag fatalism, obsession with western products and lifestyle).
So no, don't read Mr. Solzhenitsyn. He was telling the truth, as he saw it, but he was still a soviet slave. He was a cult figure, and whatever a cult figure writes had to be convenient, comfortable. It was the kind of truth "intelligencia" was ready to accept. Not the hardcore truth
You need a free man's perspective, smth like
David M. Glantz Zhukov's Greatest Defeat: The Red Army's Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, 1942 (1999)
Note that it still makes *all* kinds of russian people butthurt: it has 1/5 rating on russian's biggest store (while 4/5 on amazon). That's the type of history slaves dont wanna and cannot see

[Holografix]

Originally posted by Tvar:

Originally posted by Holografix:

According to wiki, Russian president Vladimir Putin called the book "much-needed." If Putin recommends it, you probably need to take it 'with a grain of salt.'

Putin just parroted all those "intelligencia" people he interrogated during his KGB career. (He 99.9% has never read the thing). Than again, "intelligencia" are just a special breed of soviet slaves, capable of working in tech/culture/science sectors, but slaves nonetheless. Brought up in propaganda-saturated environment, they adopted the behavior patterns and thinking models - while they rejected the most obvious lies they replaced it with russian traditional philosophy/literature material and contemporary concepts (The Great Fartherland War, Gulag fatalism, obsession with western products and lifestyle).
So no, don't read Mr. Solzhenitsyn. He was telling the truth, as he saw it, but he was still a soviet slave. He was a cult figure, and whatever a cult figure writes had to be convenient, comfortable. It was the kind of truth "intelligencia" was ready to accept. Not the hardcore truth
You need a free man's perspective, smth like
David M. Glantz Zhukov's Greatest Defeat: The Red Army's Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, 1942 (1999)
Note that it still makes *all* kinds of russian people butthurt: it has 1/5 rating on russian's biggest store (while 4/5 on amazon). That's the type of history slaves dont wanna and cannot see

ha. i don't know about that one either. I don't know if Putin 'parroted' or whether soviet intelligencia are 'slaves,' etc... Seems like a lot of hyperbole. Either way, Disco Elysium isn't really about military history (although some characters are soldiers). DE is a more literature, political theory type of game.

A more apt book recommendation would be "The Master and Margarita" by Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov. It was written during the Stain regime and it's supposedly a satire. Kinda like how DE satirizes certain elements of contemporary politics and philosophy.

[Свет во Тьме]

Originally posted by Holografix:

A more apt book recommendation would be "The Master and Margarita" by Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov. It was written during the Stain regime and it's supposedly a satire. Kinda like how DE satirizes certain elements of contemporary politics and philosophy.

sry for previous off-topic, I though it was about politics in the game and shared my thoughts and books about the marxist part of it. Than after the guy came up with "Gulag", supposed criticism of soviet system, I corrected him with a book more suited for criticising that regime

As for "The Master and Margarita", I feel like "The Twelve Chairs" is more Disco Elysium-like. It's a satire, a detective, with an eccentric and intelligent man exploring the society (he doesn't explore himself though, that's a huge difference)

[Holografix]

Originally posted by Tvar:

Originally posted by Holografix:

A more apt book recommendation would be "The Master and Margarita" by Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov. It was written during the Stain regime and it's supposedly a satire. Kinda like how DE satirizes certain elements of contemporary politics and philosophy.

sry about previous off-topic, I though it was about politics in the game and shared my thoughts and books about the marxist part of it. Than after the guy came with "Gulag", supposed criticism of soviet system, I corrected him with the book more suited for criticising that regime

As for "The Master and Margarita", I feel like "The Twelve Chairs" is more Disco Elysium-like. It's a satire, a detective, with an eccentric and intelligent man exploring the society

interesting choice. my recommendation of Bulgakov was meant to exemplify the tone of DE more than anything. but i have to say that "Master and Margarita" is very old (over 90+ years) and probably not comparable to DE. I think that your "The Twelve Chairs" suggestion suffers from the same problem; it's old.

Let's get really accurate about suggestions. The devs of DE have claimed that their intended audience was largely English-speaking people, England in particular. So best to recommend a contemporary russian writer largely translated for the English speaking world: Victor Pelevin.

Pretty much any book written by Victor Pelevin would be thematically closer to DE than Bulgakov or "Twelve Chairs."

[El Cop]

Originally posted by Holografix:

Originally posted by El Cop:

You need to read Gulag archipelago, you will enjoy it

ha. don't really know about this. According to wiki, Russian president Vladimir Putin called the book "much-needed." If Putin recommends it, you probably need to take it 'with a grain of salt.'

Putin like it because the book bash communism, it tells the story of a man who lived under communism regime. It explains all the tortures in detail and the hipocrisy of the ruler class.

[RyanTang]

Commenting in an attempt to up this thread again. This thread introduced me to The City & The City and I've read through it twice now. Great discussions. Hoping to see more of this kind of thread again

[CommanderWaffle]

Originally posted by RyanTang:

Commenting in an attempt to up this thread again. This thread introduced me to The City & The City and I've read through it twice now. Great discussions. Hoping to see more of this kind of thread again

There's a decent miniseries of The City & The City from the BBC on Amazon Instant Video. I wasn't crazy about the novel, but it scores major points for actually changing my world view. I initially thought that it's concept of two cities coexisting separate but in the same place was crazy, but I realized that's how plenty of cities exist in the real world. Whether segregated by race, class, or religion, there are plenty of places where people exist in a part of a city and rarely cross over. "That's a bad neighborhood," "the other side of the tracks," "where the rich people live" are our common expressions of this idea. But there are also plenty of stores and restaurants in neighborhoods that I almost don't notice, because they're not aiming for customers like me. Just walking through my city it's hard not to revisit Mieville's story.

However, the ending, at least in the BBC show, left me kind of sour on the whole thing. The premise of the story, for most of it, seemed to be that such segregation between the cities was the absurd legacy of old prejudices that no one could remember. Ul Qoma seems to be the spoiled, wealthy city that justifies the status quo because it benefits them and the rules don't really apply to them, while the people of Beszel live in squalor and are forced to obey the rules. But in the end, Borlu joins Breach: the totalitarian all-powerful organization that enforces the segregation between the cities. Kind of a weird ending in my opinion.