Gerald Murnane - The Plains - Book Review

Taking a look at The Plains by Gerald Murnane
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#GeraldMurnane #The Plains #bookreview

[@uniquechannelnames]

Wow, beautiful video. That last sentence, a beautiful way to look at reading. Inspiring me to get back into my books-in-progress. I wish more could see this, but I'm honored to be among those that have. Much love man.

[@vulfkang]

PB, if you keep making these reviews, you´re gonna hurt someone. Thanks for introducing us unworthy plebs to these works, I envy your voice and charismatic presence.

[@PaperBird]

thanks, vulf!

[@davidolsen9129]

I’m always amazed at how comprehensive these videos are. When I first found the channel I had no idea what you were talking about, but as I’ve continued watching the videos seem clearer. A nice little onion that I’ve only just managed to get the pepperskin off of. Another great video. Always a joy.

[@PaperBird]

thanks for watching, David

[@redfordgrange3507]

Well this is about the best thing on the internet.

[@novelsandcrumbs3558]

Amazing!!!! I love the atmosphere and quality of visual stimuli in the fusion of edits in your scene transitions and music excerpts. Almost made me get emotional like something your going through or been through is seeping into and out of your self into these videos.

[@PaperBird]

kinda like... personal dumpster fires :)

[@estebanmejia3473]

Masterpiece. Your videos just keep getting better

[@troydaum4728]

If you wrote a book PaperBird, I would read it

[@PaperBird]

i can send it to you

[@troydaum4728]

@@PaperBird please do!!

[@novelsandcrumbs3558]

And I would buy it!!! Hit me up

[@_aworldthatspoke950]

@@novelsandcrumbs3558 PDF that shit I don’t think you’d want to cover the shipping to the hill I dwell on

[@ledsnipe]

Yoooo could you please send it to me as well? Dying to read it. And great vid by the way, Murnane is increasing taking over my life by small degrees

[@vincentparr3136]

This was beautiful

[@leafyconcern]

This video is truly something of value. I read The Plains in 2019. I don't really remember events/images from it now (as you said, I'm invited to reread), but this video seems like a pretty painstakingly accurate depiction of what it felt like to read that book, or of what it feels like for a writer to think broadly about Gerald Murnane at all. It's a free, searching, boundless, earthly and doomed literary aspiration.

[@PaperBird]

thank for the comment, Leafy, after reading Murnane I kinda got lost in his world / headspace ... I think you'd enjoy some of his other books too, like Inland and A History of Books

[@julianstoeckli]

Your videos hit different, love them. I would really like to read something you wrote, in hopes it brings me to the same world your videos do

[@jameshumphries7272]

Always look forward to your videos..well done good sir😎

[@GoreVidalComicbooks]

Although the dancing girls were enchanting, seeing Patrick White's Voss and a scene from Days of Heaven made me want to return to the world of Sam Shepard, including, Paris, Texas.

[@_aworldthatspoke950]

Dead

[@ruan9773]

Fantastic, brother man. Looking forward to plank 3 ;-)

[@sjuvanet]

cool new paperbird bookshelf video. very cool. DG-B 2:22PM

[@simonandersen526]

this made me cry

[@nothanksbro4525]

PB, I love your videos, thank you for introducing such great gems to the audience. I wish more channels in general were like yours, and I always enjoy watching these. I wanted to make a comment when you uploaded this video but it was so enjoyable I forgot to comment something, so 2 days later here I am. I also wanted to ask what the intro song is. (0:16)

[@PaperBird]

thanks for dropping back in, the song is called K.O.G. by ID

[@user-fw8wt4qo3o]

My boy is back! Love your videos so much!!

[@DarkFunk1337]

Thanks for everything you do, I love this channel I feel like every video is a brain dump of information and I can learn so much about literature so far removed from my pleb tastes. I have a weird request, can you do a video about how you actually read? i.e how many hours per day? how do you avoid distractions? do you have a massive backlog of books you own but haven't read yet?

[@PaperBird]

hmm maybe in a future vid? (quick answer, i read first thing in the morning, less than an hour a day, hardly any backlog of books owned)

[@TheDndemon]

You’re amazing!

[@richardsonreads573]

Just perfect

[@PaperBird]

thanks !

[@jD-P8g3s]

Great Vollmann cover! A cover by a fan.

[@stantonsullivan-readdelillo]

Damn man. Fantastic. This isn't your last video is it?

[@BartoMace]

I love Murnane, what a great video.

[@amateursemiotics291]

I wish you were posting more often, but at the same time your videos are so re-watchable(?) as if they were living organisms in a state of constant permutation

[@PaperBird]

thanks for the great comment !

[@gpr1030]

Thanks bird man

[@steinwellsmitters9291]

I didn’t pay attention when it said Dream Library Book Haul and I went on this really long search for all these books and I just thought PB was fucking with us.

[@michaelcrofford8657]

Great Video! - You remind me of this guy I worked with on the Pequod. He kept screaming that nobody is going to get that coin, but nobody would listen or even understand what he was talking about. Anyways, I did see Murnane once. He was arguing with Paul Valery...Valery kept talking about how his notebooks were superior to file folders and then Murnane not saying a word dropped a folder on the table that read "3-4,000 words about naked females." Valery then accused him of being a pervert and the next thing you know Murnane said Valery would be dead and forgotten if it wasn't for Cormac giving him a few lines.

[@PaperBird]

After they snort a few lines of Cormac's blow, Harold Bloom busts through the window, dislodging a brick which opens a secret chamber where Marguerite Duras, animated by Burrough's Bug Powder, pops and locks with Murnane on keytar, Valery on spoon, Bloom on accordian made from the flesh of Philip Roth…

[@bighardbooks770]

"My Brain Hurtz!"

[@minnthant7782]

Lmao I was googling that Vollmann’s book before realizing you pulled a Pierre Ménard/Herbert Quain kind of thing

[@PaperBird]

i actually had a dream of finding Volume 5.5 in a library

[@petermorgan2753]

I agree

[@kennyalli1266]

I am hoping your channel blows up

[@splissken76]

PaperBird what is the scene from at 6:14 Also love your videos!!

[@PaperBird]

it's the final scene from Walkabout

[@vaporreads5095]

"Published posthumously by Don Delillo "Post-interception Quarterback Face"..." I'm dying. You absolute madman.

[@PaperBird]

Brady didn't look too happy :)

[@Gabrielcezar94]

You crazy man ❤️

[@christianstojanovski2468]

Nice vid! Was wondering just yesterday whether you'd ever review some Murnane. I'm both pleasantly surprised and a little creeped out at how quick my wish for a Murnane review was realised. What did you think of Inland? I think it's his best work. It's emotionally deeper, has better writing, does more interesting things metafictionally, and hits his themes better than The Plains imo.

[@PaperBird]

The Plains is like delicious icing that cracks under your feet and then you're submerged in his world... i agree with you, Inland might be his best.. it's my favorite of his so far

[@christianstojanovski2468]

@@PaperBird Love that analogy for The Plains (plus the appetiser one you used in the vid).

[@siljeblomst1]

This is perfection 💖

[@thegrimmreader3649]

He’s a creative genius!!!

[@siljeblomst1]

@@thegrimmreader3649 Making pure art 💖

[@PaperBird]

Thanks, Silje :) and Cathie :)

[@iswhat1]

Any chance you will do a video on Voss by Patrick White?

[@PaperBird]

I'd love to make a vid on Patrick White, he's a favorite

[@iswhat1]

@@PaperBird Same here, I feel like he's one of the forgotten 20th century greats

[@lizarda87]

Yes

[@prodomango712]

[@PaperBird]

:D i made them hoping they'll maybe one day be real (at least Agony)

[@prodomango712]

@@PaperBird I was most upset about the Ben Marcus not being real :((( Can you recommend any other authors/works that scratch that same itch? even if the association you draw between them isn’t sensical. Thanks dood

[@PaperBird]

early Marcus, maybe Barthelme, Borges, Berssenbrugge, Harry Mathews, Roussel, Jason Schwartz. later Marcus, maybe Lipsyte, Saunders

[@dreamingeel8391]

aw

[@mikeu5380]

3:50 How could you not mention Borges' "The Library of Babel"?!

[@PaperBird]

hehe i tried to depict that in the Michon vid

[@kintrap5376]

Thoughts on William Gass? Maybe a video???? ?

[@PaperBird]

hmm maybe? i'm not a fan, except his early work

[@nicky1204]

hello mr paperbird excellent video. are you a witch house fan?

[@PaperBird]

that what it's called? yes i like

[@achtfaden7723]

So when do we see the third plank?

[@MarcNash]

I've got this to read on my shelves, so forgive me I'll have to return to this once I've read it

[@PaperBird]

hey Marc, you're missing out on some naked girls in here... but they'll still be here when you get back

[@Johanyo2]

I think a lot about this book even though I've read nothing from this author. Does that happen to other people? Thinking about books that they've never read, but read about? (Also side note I'm reading The Centaur by John Updike do you have any thoughts on it?)

[@PaperBird]

i enjoyed that book for how strange it is

[@TrueBardMC]

thanks for making me famous

[@PaperBird]

Any time

[@chuckles222]

Damn, I'm Australian and I'd never even heard of Gerald Murnane before now, I'm a little ashamed tbh

[@MegaElpunto]

"....maybe it's not the words themselves that are read but the shapes of the white space surrounding the words that contain the actual meaning." PaperBird 2021. If it was any other day I would simply laugh but my hazy paranoid-schizoid state of mind just keeps nodding along to this message.

[@_aworldthatspoke950]

Is this the season finale?

[@aaronosrs]

Check out Xavier Herbert, I feel he really gets down to dirt with the nature and identity of the outback. Even more so than Mr Gerald

[@PaperBird]

Nice, thanks for the recommendation

[@markusjurgenson3176]

You're right

[@mattjmjmjm4731]

Wow the entire human condition is displayed right here in this video...

[@jD-P8g3s]

A house burning down. Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice?

[@philsheppard5212]

lmao

[@thomaskruszewski6052]

Your videos are my anti-depressant

[@waylonwraith5266]

Lol, post-interception quarterback face!!!

[@ABooktubeChannel]

hunh