March 2006: So, what are you reading?

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Hahaha! I wanted to check out the new categories. Good work, Tom!

I just started Elizabeth Bowen's The Death of the Heart, thanks to Tim's final structured title reading assignment. It's absorbing.

Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 15:41 (nineteen years ago)

I'm still on Russell Banks' The Darling, which is a weird segue from TC Boyle's Water Music. Both set in West Africa, but Boyle's book was a picaresque hoot, and Banks's is serious business. Bad things are gonna happen to all these characters, I just KNOW IT.

Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 16:10 (nineteen years ago)

I'm in reading limbo - putting off starting on my last remaining library book (The Icarus Girl) because someone said it was scary. And I'm very susceptible to scariness when reading in bed at night.

Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 17:06 (nineteen years ago)

Is TC Boyle good? They are half price at Books etc down the road.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 17:15 (nineteen years ago)

He's great! Read Water Music, please! Just read the first few pages in the bookstore, you'll see. And World's End and East is East. Read them all. There are lots I haven't read, but at this point I trust they're all worth it.

Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

PKD Valis
Boswell LoJ

remy (x Jeremy), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 17:21 (nineteen years ago)

Still in the middle of Branwell and Bouvard & Pecuchet.

At home, but not yet started:

Arthur & George
The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards and the Circulation of Cultural Value

Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

haikunym how was myself when i am real? with reference to priestley's bio & beneath the underdog, if poss.

tom west (thomp), Thursday, 2 March 2006 00:10 (nineteen years ago)

A quarter of the way through John Peel's life. God, I'm glad I didn't go to public school.

99 days to the World Cup!

Mikey G (Mikey G), Thursday, 2 March 2006 12:34 (nineteen years ago)

A History of the Arab Peoples, take 436.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:21 (nineteen years ago)

The Albert Hourani book? I bought that years ago, and it's taken up permanent residence on the to-be-read pile. Grr. Thanks a lot! Now I feel GUILTY again.

Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:46 (nineteen years ago)

nietzsche, aristotle, alfred nordmann's book on the tractatus, that new bouvard and pecuchet, philip kerr.

Josh (Josh), Thursday, 2 March 2006 15:35 (nineteen years ago)

I'm still reading To the Finland Station, but I've also started on Joanna Scott's Tourmaline as my fiction alternative, depending on which kind of reading mood I'm in.

o. nate (onate), Thursday, 2 March 2006 16:05 (nineteen years ago)

Yes, that's where Hourani usually lives, I just dust him off every sso often, until I get bored (usually five pages).

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Thursday, 2 March 2006 17:06 (nineteen years ago)

Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square. I really couldn't resist a book with a title like that! Set right before WWII - so far it's the somewhat typical story of a man obsessed with a woman who couldn't care less if he lived or died - although she's perfectly willing to hang out with him as long as he's buying the drinks. I can relate.

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Thursday, 2 March 2006 17:07 (nineteen years ago)

Salt: A World History, Kurlansky(sp?) from the public library. It starts ok, but I have a feeling it will consist mainly of sidebars and historical trivia.

Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 2 March 2006 17:50 (nineteen years ago)

I keep meaning to start a thread about that book and books of its ilk. I should get around to reading it someday.

Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 2 March 2006 18:32 (nineteen years ago)

Kurlansky's less breathless and a bit more pertinent than Simon Winchester with his trivia. I enjoyed The Basque History of the World, which led straight to Cod. I suppose Cod led straight to Salt. What will Salt lead to? The earth, perhaps.

Jaq (Jaq), Thursday, 2 March 2006 20:30 (nineteen years ago)

I have had Neil Strauss' The Game out fromt he library for a few weeks, maybe I should read it now, ha ha.

tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Thursday, 2 March 2006 20:33 (nineteen years ago)

there's a new bouvard and pecuchet? i never finished the old one

tom west (thomp), Friday, 3 March 2006 02:18 (nineteen years ago)

"What will Salt lead to?"

Oysters, naturally!:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345476387/002-3821789-3074440?v=glance&n=283155

scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 3 March 2006 03:26 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, published by dalkey. mary mentioned it on another thread.

Josh (Josh), Friday, 3 March 2006 03:35 (nineteen years ago)

I am looking forward to *Caviar - The Egg Of Kings* and the follow-up *Anchovies - Hey, Paupers like Salty Stuff Too, You Know!*.

scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 3 March 2006 04:03 (nineteen years ago)

Scott Turow's "One L" (memoir of first year at Harvard Law School)

As far as an inside look at law school (from a practical standpoint) it can't be beat, but as literature it's pretty sub-par, and pretty dull.

Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 3 March 2006 05:37 (nineteen years ago)

Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945.

It's OK so far. Illuminating, I suppose.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Friday, 3 March 2006 09:35 (nineteen years ago)

ouch

Josh (Josh), Friday, 3 March 2006 18:18 (nineteen years ago)

there's a new bouvard and pecuchet? i never finished the old one

neither did flaubert.

i think he must be one of my least favorite of the classic or canonical authors.

Mary (Mary), Friday, 3 March 2006 23:34 (nineteen years ago)

David Lodge, "Conciousness And The Novel"
Ho hum, this is really fucking with my human interactions lately.

I also bought, yesterday, William Gaddis "Carpenter's Gothic" but I haven't started it. It was bought at hstencil's suggestions, when we were in da junk shop.

Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Sunday, 5 March 2006 17:58 (nineteen years ago)

Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford. Oh - complicated French history - so many names, titles, etc - but still a pretty easy, entertaining read. I love the quote from the back cover that claims, "she could not travel publicily without risking a pelting of mud and stones."

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Sunday, 5 March 2006 19:30 (nineteen years ago)

That book does an admirable job of portraying the extreme insularity of outlook and manners, and the pathetic huddling of everyone as closely as possible to the king in Washington DC Versailles.

Aimless (Aimless), Sunday, 5 March 2006 20:06 (nineteen years ago)

Stephanie Coontz-- Marriage: A History.
also still picking away at the Vollmann -- gotten 2/3 or so of the way thru and it rilly picked up (i may have mentioned this already).

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 6 March 2006 06:32 (nineteen years ago)

Cooking With Fernet Branca. I was totally put off at first by the naff 'addressing the reader' wink nudge chumminess. But once I realised there was another narrator coming along soon it lessened the agony.

Archel (Archel), Monday, 6 March 2006 10:38 (nineteen years ago)

Finished Paul Griffiths biog on Bartok -- a very dry analysis of his works w/lightly inserted biog details. I felt that the fact that he didn't seem to dislike anything he wrote, or spend much time on an analysis of what he disliked weakened the narrative although it works as an ok, one-day guide into the music and 20th century music paths.

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 6 March 2006 11:04 (nineteen years ago)

Jim Dodge - Fup. Fup is, of course, a duck.

I bought it from the book stall at Spitalfields market. First time I've been in about three months and was expecting an architectural disaster after reading about the redevelopment. It was far from that. I like the walkway with the glass roof framing Christchurch.

Acoid the tapas bar at Spitalfields. Very poor.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Monday, 6 March 2006 11:17 (nineteen years ago)

fup duck!

i enjoy that book.

tom west (thomp), Monday, 6 March 2006 12:19 (nineteen years ago)

Me too.

I have just started 'The System Of The World'.

Mog, Monday, 6 March 2006 13:26 (nineteen years ago)

I finished the book of novellas I was reading. I'm gonna read Tillie Olsen's short-story collection *Tell Me A Riddle*. Very short though. I will need something else soon. I was thinking of tackling some Henry James, but I don't know if I have it in me. I might make a play for Elizabeth Bowen instead.

scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:00 (nineteen years ago)

J G Ballard's High-rise. He's one of those who seems to have often written the same book over and over again - yet they're often very good.

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Monday, 6 March 2006 17:55 (nineteen years ago)

I liked "Fup" also.

I am now reading "London Psychogeography Rachman Riots and Rillington Place" by Tom Vague.

He has a very singular style, not far from note-taking and I'm not sure everyone would think this worthwhile but I like this book and I like Tom Vague and I'm finding out how much I didn't know about the 10 Rillington Place murders, and the Notting Hill race riots of the late 50s, and the fabled slum landlord Rachman, and tons more stuff.

I finished "The Foundation Pit" and it's as dispiriting a book as I know, so I'm glad it made me laugh several times along the way.

Tim (Tim), Monday, 6 March 2006 18:20 (nineteen years ago)

It starts ok, but I have a feeling it will consist mainly of sidebars and historical trivia.

What's wrong with sidebars and historical trivia? This is my favourite kind of reading! Sadly Salt actually degenerates into a list of recipes and doesn't really tell you anything that Cod didn't.

Currently reading Ludmila's Broken English by DBC Pierre and I can't decide if I like it or not. His ear for bizarre dialogue is excellent, and I like the story, but his actual prose is terrible, and his descriptions are disastrous. Even something as simple as the layout of a room becomes a syrupy mess of dagger looks and shaky similes. Amateurish.

Seriously though. When it comes to books about historical trivia, I am expert (as they say in The Big Lebowski).

accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Monday, 6 March 2006 23:12 (nineteen years ago)

I'm reading Marco Polo's Travels, at least for now. But I have bought a bunch of books on this trip, so I hope I am as voluminous a reader on the train ride back home as I was coming out!

Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 01:24 (nineteen years ago)

Fup! I love Fup!

Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 02:29 (nineteen years ago)

Cees Nooteboom - Roads to Santiago. Just started it, having left it on the shelf for a year thinking it was just about the camino.

The book jacket ranks it up there with Ford and Brennan. We shall see. "Spain conquered the world then didn't know what to do with it." That's a bit of a crass statement for the opening chapter. You only need to look at the tin and silver mines throughout the Americas to work out what they wanted.

I liked Fup too.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 10:15 (nineteen years ago)

"Lithium for Medea" by Kate Braverman.

It may be a bit emo.

Mikey I hope you like reading about little Romanesque churches.

Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 11:42 (nineteen years ago)

I like going round little Romanesque churches.

I didn't read anything this morning. I rested my eyes.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 11:47 (nineteen years ago)

I also read the Little Prince by Antionde de Saint-Exupery last night before the Wigan vs Man Utd game.

I don't mean I then played in the game. No, just watched it. Christ, Man Utd got lucky. I had rosti and steamed brocoli for tea and a rather heavy new world shiraz.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 12:18 (nineteen years ago)

I'm actually planning a trip to the Asturias to look at some pre-Romanesque churches around Oviedo. That's pre-Romanesque as an architectural definition, rather than 2,000 year old shrines.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 12:23 (nineteen years ago)

Are you going with Porkpie?

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 13:17 (nineteen years ago)

what?

Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 16:07 (nineteen years ago)

Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. Such a perfect title for a book. Did he steal it from somewhere?

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:24 (nineteen years ago)

Yes, Keats's Nightingale Ode.

frankiemachine, Tuesday, 7 March 2006 18:17 (nineteen years ago)

By the end of tomorrow I have to read all of Burgess' The Malayan Trilogy. The tutor for this module is Andrew Biswell, biographer of Burgess. He'll be hurt if I don't read it. The idea of reading it makes me want to go stick my head under the pillow. Can anyone say anything nice about Burgess' work, to motivate me? -- Zora (zora_d...), February 20th, 2006. Zora, you must Report Back on your class. -- the bellefox (pinefo...), February 21st, 2006. I had forgotten that I promised to do this. I was reminded of my post about Burgess by the eminent Biswell himself, who apparantly stumbled across (ahem) this thread. I'm not sure if he was amused or mortified. He said he thought it was funny. He looked like he didn't think it was funny. Ah, well. The seminar was very good, actually, and although I only managed Time for a Tiger, I enjoyed it a great deal. The film that AB had shown us in the lecture rather gave me to expect Burgess's writing would be curmudgeonly and a touch patronising (as he seemed in person) but I found the book sympathetic and amusing. His use of language was very funny, and I (as expected) liked the cursing. There were some linguistic jokes in it that AB had pointed out to us that went entirely over my head, but it was still a lot of fun. I would like to finish the trilogy at some point [eyes towering 'to read' pile], but from what you've said upthread I'll probably try some of his later work before returning to this.

Zora (Zora), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 21:54 (nineteen years ago)

Sounds like the Anthony Burgess I know. I think some think of him as a minor novelist because he doesn't write Novels Of Manners. Maybe they think his linguistic games are juvenile distractions from teh Big Questions. Me I don't care. I remember Malcolm Bradbury saying something like "We really must find a place for [or maybe it was "we really must figure out how to deal with"] Anthony Burgess." I also remember that Harold Bloom loved loved loved his Shakespeare novel. I'm not saying those guys are the final word on anything, I'm just saying.

Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 22:22 (nineteen years ago)

I have no idea what happened to the formatting in my post above. Sorry guys.

Zora (Zora), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 00:06 (nineteen years ago)

The return key was broken in ILX, but now it is fixed supposedly.

Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 00:10 (nineteen years ago)

The Nature of the Universe
Gravity's Rainbow

Oh, and, Chris, thanks for my accepting my amazon invitation!

mj (robert blake), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 03:34 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, and I will jump on the pro-GR bandwagon, as I love all of the bizarre digressions and wide range of subjects contained within. It is really not so different from a Vonnegut or Heller, in tone or substance.

mj (robert blake), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 03:38 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, of course. We do have a the same birthday, it is just... a few years apart. And I feel very old now. So very old.

Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 04:51 (nineteen years ago)

So very old.

At least you stopped at one "very".

Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 06:20 (nineteen years ago)

Well, I still look young.

Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 06:42 (nineteen years ago)

Into The Silent Land has finally got me putting down the GBA - pop-neurology but just written ever so evocatively, quite similar stylisticly to The Diving Bell And The Butterfly? I'm also reading Dorothy Parker's Stories, which is pretty much what you'd expect only
with rare moments when it isn't.

I gave up on Oldest Confederate. I don't know why, really.

Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 12:40 (nineteen years ago)

Still in Spain with Nooteboom. A good chapter on Velasquez and another on Zuberan. He needs to cut down on his church visiting. He's been in Spain a few days now and hasn't been to a football game yet. Inexplicable.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 12:48 (nineteen years ago)

I've just finished Martin Amis' The Rachel Papers, and really enjoyed it. It reminded me of a boy I was at school with, and it made me laugh. I do like mundane, unpleasant viscara (the spots, the STDs...)

Just started Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, not far enough in to give a response to it yet.

Zora (Zora), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 14:24 (nineteen years ago)

It's strange how formulaic travel / history books on Spain are. Early chapters generally highlight the duality of the Spanish character. The concept is taken forward by using sol y sombra, Quixote and Sancho Panza and the polaristion confirmed in its extremity in the civil war. Can a nation have only two sides to its character?

I'm enjoying it (Nooteboom) more as I go along, although his obsession with Zubaran (who I've only really considered a decent painter of monks rather than a great painter) is wearing.

Travelling around Spain, staying in paradors, is how I want to spend my life.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Thursday, 9 March 2006 09:14 (nineteen years ago)

A lingering wish to do the parador thing was the main effect on me of "Roads To Santiago". Oh, and thinking that learning to drive might be a good idea if I want to visit interesting paradors. (Mike have you tried any of CN's fiction?)

Tim (Tim), Thursday, 9 March 2006 10:16 (nineteen years ago)

I haven't read any or his other books.

You haven't lived until you'd stayed a night at the Parador in Santiago!

I think half the joy of travelling in Spain lies in using the local railways and bus networks. Public transport compares quite favourably to Portugal, France, Italy etc. Much cheaper than the UK too.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Thursday, 9 March 2006 10:48 (nineteen years ago)

Try "Rituals" for Amsterdammer misery, it's great. Or "In The Dutch Mountains" if you feel like something which might be thought of as a kind of early doors magic realism, by someone less generous than me.

How does one go about booking a room in a parador?

Tim (Tim), Thursday, 9 March 2006 11:19 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.parador.es/castellano/paradores/ficha.jsp?selparador=33

Used to live round the corner from this one. I am surprised to find myself vaguely nostalgic.

There is a booking bit "reservas" on that website, but you need to register "introduce your datos".

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Thursday, 9 March 2006 12:16 (nineteen years ago)

You can switch the language to English. I've used this site before.

Just booked a weekend in Spain! Flying to Vitoria, There is a Parador in Argomaniz just outside Vitoria. Know this one, PJM?

Napoleon stayed there!

Ryanair return flights for two people, all taxes included = £50!

Mikey G (Mikey G), Thursday, 9 March 2006 13:05 (nineteen years ago)

I have never been there, but it looks/sounds very nice.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Thursday, 9 March 2006 14:57 (nineteen years ago)

Alas, it is also full.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:20 (nineteen years ago)

On the train back I read:

Neither Here Nor There [Bill Bryson]
Separate Parts [Martha King] [my old boss! a memoir of her raging artsy life in the 60s!]
The Uses Of Literature [Italo Calvino]
and the first few pages of THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON [BOSFUCKINWELL]

which is pretty great, so far, and it hasn't even gotten into its stride.

Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 11 March 2006 06:34 (nineteen years ago)

ulysses, still: 'circe', currently
redemolished, a collection of bits of alfred bester. the first story was kind of one of the "worst" things i've recently read. it was kind of enjoyable, really.

tom west (thomp), Saturday, 11 March 2006 17:08 (nineteen years ago)

One Hand Clapping by Anthony Burgess. After the brief Burgess discussion on here I though I should read some myself. Written in the voice of a young, working class married woman, sometimes the style can get a bit tiresome - for instance the endless pages spent detailing the bets her husband places on horses & the quiz show sections - when in both cases one already knows the results before one has even started reading the book (if they've read the back cover). The plot itself though has been interesting and somewhat amusing, outside those few brief sections.

The cover of the edition I bought strangely says right at the top, "Film Rights Acquired by Francis Ford Coppola." I'm having a really hard time imagining who would consider that a selling point for a book. "Ah - a burnt-out has been movie director has purchased the rights to possibly make a movie out of this book - oh my god, I must read this immediately!"

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Saturday, 11 March 2006 17:29 (nineteen years ago)

Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys. So far it's incredible. It's the first of her books I've read and it's surprisingly intense and very anguished. Very drunken. Almost a sort of proto-Bukowski!

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Sunday, 12 March 2006 17:35 (nineteen years ago)

"the book of j" by harold bloom and david rosenberg, a new translation of the oldest texts in the bible (most of genesis and exodus and a bit of numbers) along with bloom's commentary. the translation itself is brilliant, but bloom's sections are a bit windy and repetitive - i lost count of how many times he mentions yahweh buying moses "with his own hands."

J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 13 March 2006 05:24 (nineteen years ago)

um, "buying" should be "burying."

J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 13 March 2006 05:24 (nineteen years ago)

The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom. I think I could do better. No, honestly.

I really enjoyed A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Monday, 13 March 2006 09:07 (nineteen years ago)

Wodehouse's Heavy Weather. My first non-Jeeves Peegee, actually. Picked this one because of Archel's positive comments in the NR:Feb'06 thread.

Prior to that I read Phil Dick's "The man in the high castle". Good book, and a lot more interesting than I expected. I'd steered clear of it before, since I'm usually not interested in alternative history. Still, it dawned on me halfway through that alt.hist. is just about the perfect medium for the kind of reality-confusion Dick so often wrote about. And his prose is fantastic: "I wonder if it will sell, he wondered."
Poetry, innit?

Øystein (Øystein), Monday, 13 March 2006 09:29 (nineteen years ago)

Paul Auster's New York Trilogy.

Joe Dunthorne (JoseMaria), Monday, 13 March 2006 09:36 (nineteen years ago)

I was quite excited about reading the Case of the Missing Books :(

Archel (Archel), Monday, 13 March 2006 09:50 (nineteen years ago)

Well, I have only just started it, and I didn't mean to suggest it was bad. A bad book is The Oxford Murders, which is like a GCSE student wrote it.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Monday, 13 March 2006 10:25 (nineteen years ago)

working through 'purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo' by little Mary Douglas. quite fun in a 'oh so thats why i'm such a slob' kinda way.

[apal fret, Monday, 13 March 2006 15:15 (nineteen years ago)

Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt. It seems to very realistically capture the world of a young woman's confusion and innocence in New York, early-1950's. Surprisingly closely observed. For instance, "The hands were chapped, there was dirt in the parallel creases of the knuckles, but the right hand bore a conspicuous silver filigree ring set with a clear green stone, the left a gold wedding ring, and there were traces of red polish in the corners of the nails."

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Monday, 13 March 2006 17:23 (nineteen years ago)

"Recurrent Melody (Passacaille)" by Robert Pinget. I don't know what to say about this, yet. I'm finding it demandiong, but enjoying it. Not enjoying it so much that I'm unhappy it comes in at under 100 pages, mind.

Tim (Tim), Monday, 13 March 2006 17:51 (nineteen years ago)

Behind the Curtain - Travels in Eastern European Football (Jonathan Wilson).

If you could define me as a target market, this would be the book most tailored to my reading requirements. It was published at the weekend and I've only read the first chapter (on the Ukraine), but it is very promising. (I'm hoping it's up there with Morbo or and Tor). The author was the FT's Eastern European football correspondent.

Also, Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin. A 1964 collection of poems, with scant concern for Eastern European football.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 10:04 (nineteen years ago)

Missing Books - possibly improving. Hard to say.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 10:56 (nineteen years ago)

Gun, With Occasional Music. I like.

Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 11:58 (nineteen years ago)

Why did he write all these good books and then spew out The Fortress of Solitude???

Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 11:58 (nineteen years ago)

I think the rot began with Motherless Brooklyn, really.

Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 12:10 (nineteen years ago)

I liked MB very much but boy he fell off a cliff after that; there was a music/autobiography thing in The New Yorker last year that I wouldn't have thought publishable w/o a reputation to back it up.

are the earlier novels worth investigating?

m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 12:18 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know if The Fortress book is so bad. I am quite divided about it! I said all this at the time, a year ago. It has some good writing, maybe. I just was put off by the hipness, I think.

I am rereadng IN THE LINE OF BEAUTY in homage to PJM.

the firefox, Tuesday, 14 March 2006 12:34 (nineteen years ago)

I think, possibly, he started to get a bit embarrassed about being perceived as a sci-fi writer. The early stuff is good if you like Dick, or Erickson or Murakami, I think. I am fond of 'Girl in Landscape' which is essentially 'The Searchers' in space (I think JL admits as much).

I just finished 'Money' in homage to Da PF! Gosh, I had forgotten how poor the ending is. "You want motivation? Call Fielding Goodney's mother."

Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 12:37 (nineteen years ago)

Would that be the *real* Jonathan Lethem, sir?

Dah!

Yes, that is an apt homage.

I agree, about the ending.

He has never explained it well - I think he wanted it to be like Othello: motiveless malignancy? The way he gives the tel # is quite neat, quite Nabokovian perhaps? - but still it's poor, very poor. I think I said this, when I finished rereading it, in fact!

the bellefox, Tuesday, 14 March 2006 13:17 (nineteen years ago)

Endings are nearly always a letdown.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

I think it is best to avoid them.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

fortress is 'hip'? how?

tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 15:21 (nineteen years ago)

I loved Motherless Brooklyn, but I couldn't read Fortress. It reeks of "This is my SERIOUS novel." I kept rereading the blurbs, thinking, well, THESE people love it so much, maybe there's something WRONG with me. I'll push on. Then the Box o' Pratchett arrived, and the oddly heavy (full-metal jacket? WTF?) Fortress hit the floor with a resounding thud.

Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 16:44 (nineteen years ago)

It reeks of "This is my SERIOUS novel."

Exactly! What I liked about Motherless Brooklyn and am liking about Gun, With... is the playfulness, which is totally absent in TFOS as far I can see. Girl in Landscape was a bit too sci-fi tropey for me, and As She Climbed Across The Table just odd, but I still enjoyed them because they weren't - literally - weighed down with their own Great American Novel pretensions.

Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

I've still yet to read Lethem's Fortress, but have a hard time imagining it being all that "hip." Isn't it about two kids obsessed with superhero comics? Anyhow, I am reading another book about kids growing up in the 70s though - Jonathan Coe's The Rotters' Club. I'm slightly confused by how many characters there are so far - it feels sort of diffused.

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 19:27 (nineteen years ago)

bouvard and pecuchet (it's nice to have read to me), j.p. stern's book on g.c. lichtenberg, barry stroud's book on skepticism, a paper on nietzsche's 'twilight of the idols' to supplement, uh, nietzsche's twilight of the idols, 'the lore and language of schoolchildren' by iona and peter opie which is NEAT.

some descartes on the table next, some hume next week, and eyeing queneau's 'we always treat women too well', which i had to look up on the web to check to make sure was by the oulipo queneau since on scanning the promotional materials in the book i could find no mention of that group (so much the better, i suppose).

Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

I read B&P, a decade ago!

It is funny to compare The Rotters' Club with The Fortress of Solitude.

I tried to explain my reaction to the latter on the what are you reading? thread, or maybe a Lethem thread, or both, in probably February 2005. Probably I tried to explain there why I thought it was excessively hip. Perhaps not. Part of my reaction may be from not being American, I suppose.

the bellefox, Tuesday, 14 March 2006 22:16 (nineteen years ago)

I'd like to read what you wrote, if It's still findable in the Fortress of I Love Books, even if your opinions are un-American, or even worse, un-Brooklynese.

Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 22:59 (nineteen years ago)

A History of Celibacy

I saw this one in a used bookstore the other day, and I decided to buy it out of curiosity.

Given the topic, I think that it would be impossible to write a four-hundred page book that even remotely touches on said subject in any kind of depth. That aside, much of the material in this book was previously unknown to me; I also like her style of writing.

Too, the more I read from it, the more it seems less of a history of celibacy, per se, than a document of one woman's research into her own sexuality. Which is just as alluring, if the person, herself, is an interesting human being -- which she seems to be.

Melmoth the Wanderer

So far, I absolutely love this one -- but then, I love anything containing a Faustian soul-exchange element; the framed storytelling within is also a lot of fun.

mj (robert blake), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 00:59 (nineteen years ago)

Beth, we didn't have a dedicated Fotress of Solitude thread, but it's easy to search for everyone's thoughts on it using the search function. (I just did it, so I know). My thoughts: I really, really liked it. It was like the evil that lurked at the heart of Sesame Street, or something.

accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 07:34 (nineteen years ago)

I'm about to move cross-country (back to NYC) and have been, counterintiutively, buying books lately. Not an insane amount, but a few. I think it's a weird kind of therapeutic thing, a way of staving off the inevitable (physical and psychic, packing and being somewhere else, both). That said, I tonight picked up Richard Ben Cramer's What It Takes and Bruce J. Schulman's The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics. The former was inspired by reading Cramer's Q&A in The New New Journalism, which I've been dipping into a lot recently. I also got (last week) Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919, a giant book I cracked today, began reading about Eubie Blake & Noble Sissle--it's an academic book and the tone could be juicier but it's very insta-absorbing anyway, and I suspect I'll enjoy as well as learn a lot from it.

Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 07:50 (nineteen years ago)

huh, eubie blake was a clue (and answer) today in the crossword puzzle. i had never heard his name before.

Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 08:45 (nineteen years ago)

Finally finished The Man Without Qualities, just started Never Let Me Go.

(Musil was interesting, very ironic. Ulrich, the protagonist, is trying to find a meaningful or 'good' way of livingand engages in lots of dense discussions about what this could mean/be. All these discussions are taken seriously and sincerely but (it seems to me) most of the other characters are living variants on these ways of living, and all are unsatisfactory. The big irony in the plot is that most of the central characters are involved in a committee to come up with some way of commemorating the 70th anniversary of their (Austrian) emperor's reign. Which means that they are, starting in 1913, planning a great celebration to take place in 1918)

Ray (Ray), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 08:48 (nineteen years ago)

"Recurrent Melody" is a complex and difficult book. It might please PJM by not having any kind of ending to speak of (it does without a beginning or a middle for that matter). This much I know: there was a dungheap, and a clock was broken. The rest, as far as graspable plot goes, is like trying to eat fog with a fork and knife.

I'm now reading "Doting", Henry Green's final novel.

Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 10:10 (nineteen years ago)

i read "the old man and the sea" today for the first time in 13 years after stumbling across it while cleaning my room - i'm pretty sure it's the same copy i got from the library when i was 10. it's not a bad book, i like all the stuff about dimaggio, but hemingway's not really my thing.

J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 10:21 (nineteen years ago)

One of the things I love about Henry Green is his unashamed coma (ab)use: "But it was the dampness, the cleanliness, the fresh-as-wet-paint must have made the man shut his lips tight, as, in his turn, he leant over hers and it was then, or so he, even, told his wife after, that he got, direct from her throat, a great whiff of flowers."

IPA, I'm assuming.

Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 10:24 (nineteen years ago)

That is the most fantastic description of a burp I have ever read.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 11:05 (nineteen years ago)

Flowers bitter, presumably.

Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 11:08 (nineteen years ago)

Whoops I see Tim already made that joke :/

Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 11:09 (nineteen years ago)

last trip to library:

Shoedog George Pellecanos. An early novel from my favorite nuevo noir crime writer. Not as richly detailed as later work, but fast-moving and violently "cinematic" in a Q Tarrantino style.

The Aztec Treasure House Evan S Connell. New and selected essays on uh, I guess you'd call it anthropology. Just started.

also sprang for a copy of Rip It Up And Start Again by Simon Reynolds. So far it's smart but v. accessible, well-written and thoruoughly researched, though somewhat less-than-earth-shattering so far. This has more to do w/my advanced age and firsthand exp of postpunk than it does w/Reynolds efforts. And in an unconscious Kogan/Eddy tribute I just re-posted something I said on ILM :-)

m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 11:34 (nineteen years ago)

haha I was thinking, "hey, I just saw that I thought" M.

Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 12:04 (nineteen years ago)

The book I'm reading on Eastern European football should be on the school syllabus. Kids get taught Shakespeare and all that toss, but know nothing about the great Hungarian side of the 1950's.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 12:51 (nineteen years ago)

I'm working with an Hungarian named Ferenc later. I'll ask him if the great Hungarian side of the 1950s is on the syllabus over there, and maybe whether Shakespeare is.

Apols for the coma / comma typo above, btw.

Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 13:33 (nineteen years ago)

I've read A History Of Celibacy! I wasn't convinced at the time, but looking back I can see it'd be loads better as something read for pleasure.

Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 15:04 (nineteen years ago)

I finished The Death of the Heart over the weekend, as well as George Saunders' Civilwarland in Bad Decline. A common bond of romaticism and cynicism between them. And yesterday, Bohumil Hrabel's Too Loud a Solitude, which involved massive quantities of discarded books, rot, decay, and sewage. I've started William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience, but have been reading it too late at night for it to make much sense or impression. And The Scarlet Cockerel, which I bought for the illustrations - it's a disjointed boy's tale of derring-do so far. Lots of French exclamations and sword fights and a quick trip across the Atlantic to the wilds of Florida.

Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 15:41 (nineteen years ago)

Also, romanticism

Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 15:57 (nineteen years ago)

Pynchon's "V."

I am planning to reading (or re-reading) all of his work chronologically. "V." has been mostly fun so far. It gets off to a great start but then you sort of hit a wall with Stencil's South Africa Chapter and again with Paola's Dad's Journal/Letter, which I found particularly hard to get through.

Has anyone ever been to Malta? It sounds like a cool place to visit with an extremely rich history?

Also, has anyone read "Mason & Dixon"?

Mikhail, Wednesday, 15 March 2006 16:58 (nineteen years ago)

The news is that our Hungarian chums don't obsess nearly as much about the magical Magyars as we* do about 1966.

*"We" in this case being the British, who all seem to obsess variously about the whole business.

Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 16:59 (nineteen years ago)

I've read some of M&D, but others have read more. I got annoyed and bored with it around the time the actual surveying started. But there were some fun moments, and the hardcover is beautifully designed.

Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

I read the first chapter of Arthur Philips' The Egyptologist, didn't like it, and just read comics for awhile. Now I have read the second chapter and I think it will probably be readable, although I would rather be reading that Kelly Link book or some Dick or a friend's girlfriend's book that just came out.

Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 20:22 (nineteen years ago)

Also, has anyone read "Mason & Dixon"?

Yes.

I'm reading Huston Smith's 'The World's Religions' and PKD's 'Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich.'

remy (x Jeremy), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 20:39 (nineteen years ago)

Also, romanticism

I was briefly hoping for a common bond of chromaticism and cynicism.

frankiemachine, Wednesday, 15 March 2006 21:46 (nineteen years ago)

i am 'still working' on mason & dixon. i got sidetracked a couple of times, a few years apart.

the other week at the store i was seriously eyeing a smaller copy of it to replace my large paperback copy. just thinking about carrying around some of my books on the bus makes me disinclined to finish them. (see also: tale of genji. how cool would it be if they published it in ten little volumes or so?)

Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 22:31 (nineteen years ago)

just finished vonnegut, player piano
just started s. reynolds, rip it up and start again

andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 22:42 (nineteen years ago)

chromaticism

Neither was particularly color-laden, alas. However, the Hrabel novel had lots of turquoise-blue and velvet-violet, associated with gypsy girls.

Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 22:48 (nineteen years ago)

how cool would it be if they published it in ten little volumes or so?

Really, all books should be published in little hardback Loeb Classic edition style books. And translated into Latin or Greek. Except not as expensive.

Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 22:53 (nineteen years ago)

It's totally ridiculous that I don't own any Loeb Classic books yet.

Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 22:54 (nineteen years ago)

I've read A History Of Celibacy! I wasn't convinced at the time, but looking back I can see it'd be loads better as something read for pleasure.

Yeah, the book is very entertaining. For instance, I had heard about vestal virgins many times previously, but had no idea behind the history or origins of the phrase.

As a history, of course, it is extremely spotty -- she should have given it a different title.

mj (robert blake), Thursday, 16 March 2006 00:35 (nineteen years ago)

'Mason and Dixon' has some things in its favour:
* Pynchon's maturing sense of character / male friendship;
* beautiful cod-17th-century prosody;

It has many things against it:
* inability to maintain much narrative momentum over 1,000 pages;
* dopily wacky sense of humour ("President Washington was a drug fiend!"); and
* fatal attraction to banal allegory.

Nevertheless, I have high hopes for the next book.


Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 16 March 2006 01:12 (nineteen years ago)

Tim, did something important happen in 1966? Some sort of sporting event? It's funny, this is the first I've heard of it.

accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 16 March 2006 09:31 (nineteen years ago)

The Norman Conquest!

Mikey G (Mikey G), Thursday, 16 March 2006 12:34 (nineteen years ago)

I love Mason & Dixon, it is my fave Pynchon by Far (V is actually my least fave). But I'm a sucker for his wacky humour, and perhaps I'm not so bothered about narrative momentum.

mog, Thursday, 16 March 2006 13:18 (nineteen years ago)

Missing Books gets better!

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Thursday, 16 March 2006 15:12 (nineteen years ago)

now can we dismiss the fatal attraction to banal allegory?

xpost

tom west (thomp), Thursday, 16 March 2006 15:22 (nineteen years ago)

I once prank-called Arthur Phillips.

recently arrived: Murakami's Kafka on the Shore, Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop, Baseball Prospectus 2006

also working on Leigh Brackett's The Book of Skaith

Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 16 March 2006 15:45 (nineteen years ago)

I managed about halfway through Mason&Dixon a few years ago, and now it's in a different country, so even if I wanted to try to finish it, I couldn't. V. is actually one of my more liked Pynchon books, although I'd have to read it again to make sure.

I'm not reading anything right now, although I'm technically in the middle of about 3 different books. None of which are really holding my interest. I'm in a phase of book apathy.

qwpoi (maga), Friday, 17 March 2006 05:07 (nineteen years ago)

It is odd that JtN could not (I think) finish In The Line of Beauty, which seems to me a masterpiece.

the bellefox, Friday, 17 March 2006 16:39 (nineteen years ago)

Just finished: The Ballad Of Peckham Rye, by Muriel Spark. This is the first Spark novel that I've ever read, and I loved it--so funny and lightly done, for all that it should come across as being really obvious.

Just started: The Bridge, by Iain Banks, which I'm re-reading and finding amusing and well structured (arf!) though less "OMG how good is this?!" than it seemed when I was a teenage boy.

I've also been working my way through Men & Cartoons, by Jonathan Lethem and David Foster Wallace's Consider The Lobster this month, both of which are very good indeed.

Almost all of the stories in that Lethem book are very immediate and fun, but that last story, The National Anthem... that one doesn't quite work for me. Beside the whole "A motorcycle that’s gone off a cliff can't be fixed by another motorcycle" line (CLUNK!), it just seems a bit too… up-front, maybe?

I think Lethem's best stuff pushes that po-mo genre play thing he does to the point where it becomes very affecting rather than just kinda clever, or else gives his pop-culture inflected ramblings a bit more room to breath. The National Anthem is very straight-forward and compressed, and the style doesn’t suite Lethem at all.

Consider The Lobster is more or less business as usual for Wallace. Like most of his non-fiction (I can’t vouch for the maths stuff) it’s all humour, self-consciousness and footnotes, and it’s often pretty damned insightful to boot. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I thought that the Republican candidacy campaign as covered in Up Simba was pretty much the perfect jump-off point for one of Wallace’s recurring themes: the potentially harmful effects of a cynical, seen-it-all-so-who-cares postmodernist world view. The layout for Host is making my head bleed right now, but I’m going to give it another go over the weekend all the same…

David A (David A), Friday, 17 March 2006 17:39 (nineteen years ago)

Len Jenkin's N Judah. Basically I couldn't resist a book named after the line I used to ride to get to and from my first apartment in San Francisco. A third of the way through the book, I beginning to wish I had.

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Friday, 17 March 2006 17:40 (nineteen years ago)

Is the book really called IN the Line of Beauty, I always thought it was just The Line of Beauty. But the former makes more sense, as a play on 'In the line of fire'. If that's what it is?

I'm still reading Gun With Occasional Music, and Teh Fr0gmore P4pers no. 67 which returned from the printers several apostrophes short, alas :(

Archel (Archel), Friday, 17 March 2006 18:18 (nineteen years ago)

Stomp, stomp, stomp through the last half of Walden, trudge trudge through the beginning of Why Most Things Fail by Paul Ormerod, and flipping through bits of Why Buildings Stand Up by Mario Salvadori when opportunity presents itself.

TOMBOT, Friday, 17 March 2006 18:30 (nineteen years ago)

I'm having a minipause where I'm wondering what to read next.

Just started: The Bridge, by Iain Banks, which I'm re-reading and finding amusing and well structured (arf!) though less "OMG how good is this?!" than it seemed when I was a teenage boy.
Huh, I'm wondering how that will work for me on re-read too. I have that and "Use of Weapons" mentally marked as the best Banks books, and it could definitely be time to revisit.
Incidentally, a fellow named Rich Puchalsky made a lot of posts about The Bridge a few years ago, where he went chapter by chapter, commenting on the plot, connections etc. I recall it being quite interesting, though I didn't read the whole thing.
A quick search turns up a page where he's backed up all the posts: http://home.att.net/~rpuchalsky/bridge/index.html

I've also been working my way through Men & Cartoons, by Jonathan Lethem
I sort of blasted through this a year or two ago - still the only Lethem I've read, though I've picked up a copy of "Gun..." - but I found it to be a lot of fun. I did occasionally think that I was running through it a bit too quickly, so I didn't really stop to consider the stories very much, mostly taking it as a collection of pure fun. I had a similar reaction to yours with the final story. I'd enjoyed everything in the book, and was really let down by having it end with a story that didn't feel at all up to the rest. Maybe it was a difference in tone that didn't fit the mood I was in; truth be told, I can't at -all- recall what it was about anymore.
Anyhoo, the super goat man and past-spray stories were my favorites, I believe.

Øystein (Øystein), Friday, 17 March 2006 19:14 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, Men & Cartoons is pretty light and is all the better for it.

Stories like Access Fantasy and The Spray are good pop fun, but there are little touches there that stay with me. Like the patches that make you compelled to advertise and the one way permeable barrier in Access Fantasy, or the whole concept of The Spray.

Thanks for the Bridge link, by the way. I'm feeling a bit of Banks re-read coming on at the moment, but I tend to have a pretty short attention span so we'll see how it goes.

David A (David A), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

archel, if it's the former then it's worse because it's a play on 'in the line of DUTY'.


bouvard and pecuchet have given up on agriculture and commenced their investigation of chemistry.

Josh (Josh), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:25 (nineteen years ago)

The Mystery of Edwin Drood, finally

Mary (Mary), Friday, 17 March 2006 22:36 (nineteen years ago)

did you finish the flaubert, mary?

Josh (Josh), Friday, 17 March 2006 22:56 (nineteen years ago)

I've just finished A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, which is like one of those very chirpy Beatles songs you find yourself humming along to because they're so catchy, and then you realise they're lyrically very dark.

I quite liked it, but I can see how it would get passed over in the prize race.

accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Friday, 17 March 2006 23:21 (nineteen years ago)

'in ukrainian'?

Josh (Josh), Saturday, 18 March 2006 04:25 (nineteen years ago)

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Another one of those seemingly numberless books I feel like I should have read a long time ago.

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Sunday, 19 March 2006 01:48 (nineteen years ago)

Josh,

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0141020520.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Sunday, 19 March 2006 12:06 (nineteen years ago)

author discovers the frequency of kenneth in harpers, circa 2001:

http://www.harpers.org/TheFrequency.html

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Sunday, 19 March 2006 16:25 (nineteen years ago)

"Discovers".

Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 19 March 2006 19:51 (nineteen years ago)

that article pleases.

tom west (thomp), Sunday, 19 March 2006 22:24 (nineteen years ago)

xpost
what, you already knew?

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 20 March 2006 02:22 (nineteen years ago)

"Doting" suited me very well. Henry Green re-sets (something like) "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" in the trivial world of mid 20th Century middle class London, and plays it for sharp and dry laughs.

Now I'm reading "Home Is The Sailor" by Jorge Amado.

Tim (Tim), Monday, 20 March 2006 10:21 (nineteen years ago)

IN THE LINE OF DUTY??? Yikes, I hadn't even considered this horrific punning possibility (why not? I am an idiot). I cannot read this book ever now :(

Tim, I've just started Loving. As it were.

Archel (Archel), Monday, 20 March 2006 10:25 (nineteen years ago)

sorry about that!

Josh (Josh), Monday, 20 March 2006 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen. I want to read everything she wrote, now.

I finished The Scarlet Cockerel, which was very rough-n-tumble with swordfights and petards and "caneu"ing in the wilds of Florida. Also, every native American stereotype known to man. And the only female character was a cossetted, not-bright, dainty mademoiselle.

Jaq (Jaq), Monday, 20 March 2006 17:34 (nineteen years ago)

my favorite Bowen's are her short stories, which I think are more beautiful and chilling than just about anyone else's

also I am now reading Kenzaburo Oe's "Somersault"

Haikunym (Haikunym), Monday, 20 March 2006 18:09 (nineteen years ago)

Just finished Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (loved it), most of the way through The Name of the Rose, just started The Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst. This is all course-related, I'm a sci-fi reader in real life.

Zora (Zora), Monday, 20 March 2006 18:18 (nineteen years ago)

Hi Josh, I did finish. How about you? What do you think? I thought about going on to Salambo but I picked it up and put it back down.

I finished Drood (amazing, of course, though unfinished), so next I start Diderot's the Nun. I really wanted to reread Rameau's Nephew but my library doesn't have a copy. (I read Enlightening the World about Diderot's role in the Encyclopedia which made me want to revisit him.)

I really want to be reading John Fante's "Ask the Dust" but I am eighth in line and it is still on order:(

Mary (Mary), Monday, 20 March 2006 19:40 (nineteen years ago)

Uh, I admit I was skimming, but that Harper's article was suggesting there was some connection between Barthleme and Rather there, right? That's not the generally accepted story behind the phrase. And the way it's written screams "clever short story", too, so.

Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 20 March 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

I like that Bowen story that gets anthologized a lot, "Mysterious Kor."

I always thought the antenna guy was looking for me.

The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Monday, 20 March 2006 20:49 (nineteen years ago)

To be precise, I think it has a circumflex: "Mysterious Kôr."

The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Monday, 20 March 2006 20:50 (nineteen years ago)

I just finished reading "Melmoth the Wanderer"! That was probably one of the most verbose books that I have ever read! The framed storytelling pulled me through, however.

Now, onto "The Satyricon" and perhaps "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

mj (robert blake), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 06:42 (nineteen years ago)

The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford. Last read about ten years ago after I found a copy on a hedge in Cornwall.

It sparkles still.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 10:06 (nineteen years ago)

"Moby Dick". It's great! Why on earth haven't I read this before? Sheesh.
Only downside is that I got that supercheap "Penguin Popular Classics" edition, which has a fair share of typos etc. Most notably in this bit I just read, where Captain Bildad suddenly became Captain Peleg (googling about and looking at an old Norwegian translation I have, I found that I was indeed not misreading the book, it was a transcription error. Argh!)
I've seen so many discussions in the past where people go "omg, it's not dry and boring at all! It's funny!" yet somehow I still got surprised at how witty the book is.

Øystein (Øystein), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 16:18 (nineteen years ago)

i'm not very far in, mary, but i've been having fun so far! this may indicate a greater cruel streak than i would like to admit, but i find bouvard and pecuchet kind of lovable at the same time.

Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 17:07 (nineteen years ago)

"Home Is The Sailor" has a minor character called Geir Matos. With a name like that he'd surely be an ILM favourite.

I keep meaning to read "Salammbo" but my copy is too big, and it's a hardback, but you should see the pretty illustrations.

Tim (Tim), Thursday, 23 March 2006 16:09 (nineteen years ago)

Janet Flanner's Paris was Yesterday, 1925-1939. Collects her generally brief dispatches for the New Yorker, as an American in Paris. It seems like the events she's describing had to have taken place much longer than just 80 years ago. A perfect example of how fast time can go, unfortunately. The introduction was particularly interesting. Some of the now more obscure notices, not so interesting.

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Thursday, 23 March 2006 17:36 (nineteen years ago)

Tim, I would love to see the illustrations. I sort of just want to get that dreamy imperial eastern feel, without doing any of the work. (You got my e-mail sent r.e. your upcoming visit, right?)

Now I am reading Thomas Hardy's first novel, Desperate Remedies, which, if the introduction is to be believed, firmly inserts Hardy into the realm of the sensation novelists, a genre that will continue to impact upon him throughout his novelistic career.

Mary (Mary), Friday, 24 March 2006 20:53 (nineteen years ago)

those pesky sensation novelists and their sensational ways.

tom west (thomp), Saturday, 25 March 2006 10:21 (nineteen years ago)

I started Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad yesterday. I'm finding Penelope's voice too modernized; I like my myths a bit more chronistic or something.

Jaq (Jaq), Saturday, 25 March 2006 15:28 (nineteen years ago)

Ian McEwan's Saturday. It's never a good idea to for an author to start off a book with ten pages of boring, overly technical descriptions of a middle aged brain surgeon's work week. Fortunately things have gotten slightly more interesting since those early pages, but how couldn't they have?

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Sunday, 26 March 2006 02:59 (nineteen years ago)

I... suspect I disagree.

Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:10 (nineteen years ago)

as Saturday progresses, a compelling (IMO) portrait of the phsyician's mindset emerges: split between hyper-sensitivity to the human condition and a numbing, above-it-all scientific distance.

see what you think, US reviews were mixed. I actually like it better than Atonement but not more than Enduring Love.

m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 26 March 2006 12:27 (nineteen years ago)

A translation of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.

Navek Rednam (Navek Rednam), Sunday, 26 March 2006 18:52 (nineteen years ago)

It's in detailed descriptions that McEwan excels. The opening scene in Enduring Love for example (although the book then goes downhill). Or the end of The Comfort of Strangers. Or the car prang in Saturday.

Anyway, I'm reading Stuart - A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters. I'm two thirds of the way through and not sure how I feel about it.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Monday, 27 March 2006 10:52 (nineteen years ago)

I felt similarly about the Penelopiad, Jaq. Still reading Loving, making very slow progress which as a normally fast reader is frustrating, but oddly enjoyable.

Archel (Archel), Monday, 27 March 2006 11:07 (nineteen years ago)

"Home Is The Sailor" turned out to be the lastest in a succession novels whose primary concern seems to be the reliability, or otherwise, of the narrator or the storytelling process. It got to the point, three quarters of the way through, where I was thinking "oh well all novels are about that anyway". That's not true, though, is it?

Mary, I didn't. But if it went to the address on here then I wouldn't have, yet. But I will, soon. If it went to my work address then we need to think, again.

Archel I found "Loving" slower than the other HG books I've read, too, and none the worse for it.

Tim (Tim), Monday, 27 March 2006 13:19 (nineteen years ago)

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco.

Not very good really. Seems to go on for ever.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Monday, 27 March 2006 13:35 (nineteen years ago)

Still going with Moby Dick, but also reading "The Complete Peanuts - 1955 to 1956."
I didn't really grow up with Peanuts cartoons, though I certainly was aware of them. I figured it was time I checked it out properly, and got this through interlibrary loan. I had no idea! I mean, when I've seen Peanuts in newspapers here, it's mostly been 90s and 00s strips, which I never really saw the big deal about. But this old stuff! Mmmm! Now I'm starting to see why Schulz is/was so revered. Better late than never.

"I don't see any sense in owning something you can't kick..."

Øystein (Øystein), Monday, 27 March 2006 13:37 (nineteen years ago)

I grew up with Peanuts and never "got" it. Still don't. I also hate the Muppets. But before you accuse me of insufficient joie-de-vivre, let me say that I'm tearing up those Terry Pratchett books! I'm in Florida right now—I took the paperbacks that you gave me, Jaq, and I've bought about ten more, starting at the beginning. I'm on my sixth. It kind of dismays me to think of how soon it will all be over! Once I get back home, though, my landscaping work will start in earnest and there won't be as much time to read (or post, but I'm sure I'll manage).

Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, 27 March 2006 14:55 (nineteen years ago)

Oy, those aren't why Schulz is beloved. Just wait until the, oh, 1963-1975 books are out...

Also, joie de vivre is sort of the opposite of what you need to enjoy Schulz (and arguably the Muppets as well).

Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 27 March 2006 18:40 (nineteen years ago)

"classic peanuts" is reprinting some 50s-era stuff and it's almost shocking how much funnier it is than anything else on the page.

J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 27 March 2006 19:04 (nineteen years ago)

Oy, Tim, I sent you the e-mail the day I received yours, a month ago or so. To condense: Mount Pleasant great, looking forward to your visit.

Mary (Mary), Monday, 27 March 2006 21:56 (nineteen years ago)

I'm reading Christie's The Moving Finger having started it due to extreme tiredness and inability to concentrate on anything else last night. I got almost a full set of Marple books for Xmas, which should keep me going through future brain dead moments...

Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 12:02 (nineteen years ago)

While I'm trying to decide on the next Monumental Tome: Don't Try This At Home : Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs. Unchallenging, funny, and made me feel better about the nasty gray sauce I whipped up for the meatballs on Sunday.

Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love. So far I'm surprised by how negative and dark the tone is. Not what I was expecting with a title like that! It's interesting though...

Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 15:57 (nineteen years ago)

ivan turgenev "first love"

after this, "swann's way" or milan kundera's "art of the novel."

Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 16:22 (nineteen years ago)

Thanks, Ian, that reminds me that I've got to get back to Proust.

I just finished Banville's 'The Sea'.

M. White (Miguelito), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 22:07 (nineteen years ago)

descartes. i do not want to read descartes. i think i am never going to be able to never read him again.

also a little wittgenstein to pick me up (lots of zingers in 'zettel'), a bit about epictetus, some hume and some charles taylor.

and amelie rorty's great essay on descartes, 'the structure of the meditations'.

Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 01:17 (nineteen years ago)

I'm reading Wittg.'s "On Certainty" (getting ready for the Wittg. class that starts in less than a week) and "Red Lights On The Prairie" (about early 20th C. prostitution on the Canadian prairies -- written in 1971, the author actually uses the term "broads" sometimes) and "Life Of Johnson" of course, still.

Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 01:37 (nineteen years ago)

a class, huh? let me know what you do! i'm teaching the investigations in a few weeks.

Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 03:12 (nineteen years ago)

The class is mostly on the Investigations (which seems to be the only book on the syllabus). I am excited.

Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 06:50 (nineteen years ago)

I have finished Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. What a load of crap.

I have very nearly finished At Swim Two-Birds, for which I congratulate myself. I shall be neeeding a thorough explanation though.

Hmm, what next? Bollocks to Alton Towers?

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 07:25 (nineteen years ago)

Dave Eggers - Now We Are Hungry - Short stories. Some belting sentences.

Next, it's either the Ukrainian tractor thing or that David Winner book on British football which I've flicked through and it looks bollocks. I hope not, his Dutch one was tip top.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 09:08 (nineteen years ago)

The Dutch one's much better, but I read the English one first, and didn't much like it. The not much liking it washed over into "Brilliant Orange" for me, because I ended up assuming he was as off-the-mark with regard to Dutch culture as he was with regard to the English. There are some good stories in both.

I am buried in Frank Kogan, taking it slowly, trying to think about it as I go, liking it very much.

Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 09:18 (nineteen years ago)

finished Rip It Up And Start Again by Simon Reynolds. Hmm. Lots to say about it. Maybe I'll post my revue at some point.

from the library yesterday: more cold-war thrillerz

Judgement on Deltchev Eric Ambler
Epitaph for a Spy Eric Ambler

also borrowed a friend's copy of Deus Lo Volt! by Evan S Connell, non-ficiton on teh Crusades. I returned that big book of Connell essays after reading only a couple, it was v. good but I guess pop anthropology isn't really my thing. But he's still the best "unknown" author I've come across in years.

m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 10:15 (nineteen years ago)

I counted the CD's I bought throughout reading Rip It Up and Start Again. Over twenty!

And I'm still at it. Yesterday I bought one of the Wire CD reissues. Incidentally, the CD liner notes are great, "Wire were a big influence on the Dusseldorf art punk scene in the late seventies." Ha.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 10:43 (nineteen years ago)

I got some Cabaret Voltaire yesterday.

PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 11:39 (nineteen years ago)

Was this the first place you heard of Evan S Connell, lovebug?

The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 11:44 (nineteen years ago)

I went to the Cabaret Voltaire recently. I sat in the cafe drinking coffee while two CD players blasted out different songs. Dada confuses me.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 11:55 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

no I'd heard of him but your post there encouraged me to read him! thanks big redd!

m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

For the sake of being slightly less ignorant of an entire form, I got the "Watchmen" comic omnibus through interlibrary loan. The only non-comedic comic I can recall having enjoyed in the past was "Domu" by the Katsuhiro Otomo. I'm not sure if it's a format I really like much, and I definitely have problems with the artwork, but I'm going to read this whole thing to see if it'll grow on me. This book seems to be the token comic on all recent "omg best books!!" lists, so hopefully it's not too bad a place to start on the genre/form/format/whathaveyou.
I'm rather glad that I didn't take the chance on buying it though!

Øystein (Øystein), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 12:43 (nineteen years ago)

March always seems to be one of my bigger reading months. It must be the fickle weather. So far in March:

Mati Unt - Things in the Night
Curtis Sittenfeld - Prep
Neil Gaiman - The Sandman vol.1: Preludes and Nocturnes
Joan Didion - Democracy
Dubravka Ugresic - The Ministry of Pain
bits of James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds

I'm now halfway through Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker on my mom's recommendation. She makes good recommendations.

zan, Wednesday, 29 March 2006 16:24 (nineteen years ago)

(Oh, I just wanted to add that my Wittg. class is PHL 420, d00d!)

Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 30 March 2006 05:03 (nineteen years ago)

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

Navek Rednam (Navek Rednam), Thursday, 30 March 2006 10:27 (nineteen years ago)

Just finished Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity by J. E. Lendon. It attempts to explain the very peculiar lack of progress in both military technology and techniques in ancient Greece and Rome.

It does a pretty good job of building its theses and is interestingly written enough. But like a lot of scholarly history, it tends to take a couple of modest ideas and then treat them as if they were so novel and controversial as to merit the 150 pp. of back matter (!!) appended to the 300 pp. of exposition.

Next, I read The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist by Richard Feynman. It isn't really fair to father this book onto Feynman. He didn't seek to publish these transcripts of three lectures he gave in 1963. That was someone else's bright idea, as part of the continuing mini-industry of fobbing off whatever Feynman's fans will buy.

I can see why he got so popular. He won a Nobel Prize in Physics and he talks like an ordinary Joe. He's folksy. He talks around all the hard stuff and uses words like "stuff" a lot, and phrases like "a lot" a lot, too. And these lectures are something of an embarrassment, except he never pretended they were profound or worthy of preserving for posterity, so he's off the hook. I blame greed and idolatry.

Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 30 March 2006 19:42 (nineteen years ago)

Have you read other Feynman stuff?

Also, perhaps more urgently, have you heard his voice?

Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 30 March 2006 20:16 (nineteen years ago)

I read his two autobiographical books, Surely You Must Be Joking & the sequel that had the Challenger disaster investigation at the back of it. They were perfectly fine and entertaining memoirs, and I did appreciate his personality, as revealed there.

This one, though, was not worthy of publication, IMHO. It rambles all over and has very few interesting things to say - and these few things are fairly perfunctory and disconnected. It would work OK as a lecture - you'd listen to him and walk out of and remember one or tidbits and be satisfied with your evening.

I've never heard a recording of his speaking voice. I'd expect he had good timing and delivery for his jokey bits.

Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 30 March 2006 20:24 (nineteen years ago)

He also had a thick New York accent, which is pretty delightful.

I haven't read that book (I saw it recently but didn't look closely, thinking it was a collection of other pieces I had already read).

Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 30 March 2006 20:50 (nineteen years ago)

i hope to hear the phrase 'back matter' reappropriated on ghostface's next album.

Josh (Josh), Friday, 31 March 2006 01:18 (nineteen years ago)

The Year of Magical Thinking I thought I'd leave this for after this period of intense work and beginning new pregnancy, but then I was in a bookshop, saw it, read a few pages standing. and decided i could not not reading it immediately, i owed it to it.

misshajim (strand), Friday, 31 March 2006 10:35 (nineteen years ago)

Those Feet - David Winner. Title lifted from Blake's Jerusalem. Only just started it. First chapter all about masterbation. Uncommon for a football book.

Mikey G (Mikey G), Friday, 31 March 2006 10:57 (nineteen years ago)

Now, if I were a nasty spinster, sour and cynic against the whole male race, I would say: "Uncommon, you say? I thought that was all football is about!"
but of course I don't think like that.
of course

misshajim (strand), Friday, 31 March 2006 15:07 (nineteen years ago)


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