Lilacs Out of the Dead Land, What Are You Reading? Spring 2022

I also read it at the beginning of the pandemic, the translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude, revised by Amy Mandelker (the Oxford World Classics edition).

I found it hard-going at times, and took a few breaks, but it's definitely lingered in my imagination in the last two years.

I read the Constance Garnett long ago, and might possibly find fault with it today, but back then, no prob: her non-modernist 1904 English seemed to suit the material. It's online now, public domain, if you want to check it out. This guy briefly comments on four translations (his fave, just for reading pleasure, is Anthony Briggs' version):
https://www.tolstoytherapy.com/best-translation-war-and-peace/

This guy Oops, sorry:

Hi, I’m Lucy! I’m a British writer, adventurer, reader, and author of Mountain Song: A Journey to Finding Quiet in the Swiss Alps.

i've read other P/V (so to speak) translations and found no fault with them, but honestly i probably picked them because the editions have looked nice. but i've seen some things questioning them and the fact that P doesn't actually read russian. might try the briggs version if i can work up the will

anyway ty for your answers

One thing I wasn't expecting out of W&P is how vivid and visual it can be, especially the battles. It somehow finds ways to bring you into these incredibly detailed scenes without any confusion. (Though I also had Wikipedia on standby.)

Finished Monolithic Undertow which seemed to drop in quality a bit. Between getting Flipper's line up pretty confused. & some iffy description of metal related music. It was an ok read. Not sure if it turned me onto much stuff I wasn't previously aware of.
So took that back and got

Hood Feminism by Nikki Kendal
Which I've been waiting for a copy of since the start of the year. But queue for next copy has been getting confused. Library website said I was next in line and then it went to someone else a couple of times.
Well here now.
So will get through it over next few days.

IMO the P&V translations are horribly stilted and full of odd grammatical choices and badly chosen words. P’s solo translation of the Three Musketeers (from French, a language he actually speaks) is a really dreadful piece of work. I don’t know how faithful it is, but the Briggs translation is very readable, and readability is key for me in a book that length.

you WAR AND PEACE folks -- which translation did you read?

Briggs. Very good indeed!

Pausing Thomson to return to Steven Connor, THE MADNESS OF KNOWLEDGE.

Read some smaller things, finished 'Toot Sweet' by Daniel Owen this morning. Nice little book of poems from a poet who is now better known as a translator from various Indonesian languages.

Hood Feminism Nikki Kendal
Glad I've finally got hold of this. Have been wanting to actually read it for a while. BUt seemed to clash with it disappearing from local book shop shelves. So inevitably will turn up on a charity shop bookshelf next week when I've read this library copy.
Articulately written by black ex-army writer who talks about being able to code switch which helps massively in trying to fit in to roles in places. Seems to cover space taht I've read in other writers talking about white feminism. Also have heard some podcasts discussing this work. People have said that this may work better as a primer for people who are white, privileged and needing to become more work than for people who are having to deal with the situations she has faced. Though does always help to hear that one is not the only one facing some things of course.
I'm enjoying it and finding it a quick read. Think I read about half of it last night. So may be looking for more writing by her.l

Angela Davis An Autobiography
Has taken me way way too long to get to read this. It sat ontop of a shelving unit for most o fteh time I have lived in this flat and a bit before that elsewhere. Not sure why I didn't read it when i got it cos now taht I am doing so it is a great read,
Writer talks about her education and imprisonment. She starts already arrested for the case that may have made her famous where her associate George Jackson's brother kidnapped a judge in protest of Jackson's treatment in Soledad prison. She had bought the gun and became public enemy number one or something along those lines. So she was arrested which i think is the start of teh book but again I'm reading this intermittently so read that bit a few months back. Hopefully now going to get this done in one sequence now instead of with major gaps. IT has replaced Soldaten as my bathroom book. Not ideal but about time i got through this. I think she is a pretty great, clear writer.
Glad that she is still around and doing the occasional webinar etc . Am enjoying her. So will probably read a lot more of her and hopefully in much shorter time.
Book was edited by Toni Morrison another writer i need to read a lot more by.

That Steven Connor book Pinefox mentioned sounded interesting from looking it up on goodreads and elsewhere. I can't see it on the Irish library system but can see a few other titles by him including Paraphernalia: The Curious Lives of Magical Things which is about design of everyday objects and values imbued into them by people from what I'm seeing. So may order that. Or slow down on orders to give me some breathing room. Probably have books to last me a few years if I did this more systematically. But am finding so much great stuff from charity shops etc

PARAPHERNALIA is super. Recommended for anyone interested in objects.

Whomst among us

I read the Design of Everyday objects about 20 years ago around the same time i read The Inmates Are Running the Asylum on computer interface which i thought could be extrapolated to a basic interface between man and technology. So this sounds interesting, may go ahead and order it then.

Reminding me of a remarkable book, Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, by pioneering researchers-therapists Gail Steketee and Randy Frost. Thanks to Elvis Telecom and Stekete-student quincie for recommending this on the Ageing Parents thread.There really can be, at times, a visionary quality to the hoarder's drive for self-affirmation, triumph over depression and anybody who says nay, no matter how mundane or literally shitty the Stuff---although some of it, in some hoards,is not bad, can even be fabulous---but always there's too much of it, frequently mashed up together---though when you get to rich people filling up all their properties,omg (William Randolph Hearst got bailed out by Marian Davies, but the swells in this book may not).

(And yes, there's a bit of self-recognition from time to time.)

Both of the Steven Connor books mentioned have Look Inside features up on Amazon which is useful. Haven't looked on there much cos evil like but that is handy.

xpost Mostly it's not swells, more typically traumatized people who happen to have a house to fill and enough income, say from a life insurance policy of a spouse, or it's been going on a long, long time, gradually driving away spouse and children.

Anyway, said visionary takes were not what I was expecting.

Just finished the first section of Trust, the new novel by ILB darling (?I think?) Hernan Diaz. Second section starts off kinda dry so I didn't get far with it; also I'm mildly annoyed because I've been reading paper+audiobook concurrently, and the audiobook switched narrators, but I like the first narrator and wish he would have just done the whole thing.

It's really good, though, and I will definitely be finishing it. I can't wait to see how the various sections line up with one another, or fail to.

Highly recommend my sister in law Eleanor Limprecht's third historical fiction novel "The Coast," about an Australian leper colony. I thought it was excellent.

I saw the Norton Intro to English Lit at a charity shop and considered buying it to fill in some of my literary gaps. Does anyone read these for pleasure of does it just feel like homework?

[xp from way back] Yeah, the Towles book was overall extraordinarily well written. There were maybe a few too convenient plot points, but overall it was a very well-crafted book with, for me anyway, a lot of emotional resonance. I agree with scampering alpaca that the last chapter was unexpected, and in many ways at odds with a good part of the rest of the book; I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

xpost I have read sections of Norton anths just for infotainment, should prob get back into that.

Perhaps "edification" would be the more seemly term.

I just finished reading "Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed Descent Peoples and the Making of the American West" by Anne Hyde. I thought the idea of focusing on a handful of prominent mixed indigenous/European families, who happened to have fairly extensive written records reaching back to the 18th century, was a fruitful one, providing a more personal angle on some familiar historical events and shedding new light on some more obscure ones. An enjoyable and thought-provoking book.

Will make a note of that one.

All The Real Indians Died Out and 20 other myths about Native Americans.
Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker.
This was the only other book on the Irish library system than An Indigenous People's History of The United States by Dunbar Ortiz. I had hoped her more recent work might be somewhere in there. But this is pretty good, refuting widespread misconceptions about the native population.
I had ordered this through the interlibrary loan system and something else appeared. Subsequent searches made it look like this was a misfiring of the other book or something. So it was great to see this was coming. Even better to get it.
Quite a good read. Very informative. I definitely want to read more Dunbar Ortiz will look out for Gilio-Whitaker too.

Harlots, Whores and Hackabouts A History of Sex For Sale Kate
Great book by the presenter of the Betwixt the Sheets podcast. I caught a webinar with her when the book was being released a few months ago. It has been sitting neglected for a while since I was concentrating on other books I have out.
I picked it up a couple of nights back and read a few chapters and it is well written and a quick read. Filled with images of the relevant eras. Coffee table sized book.
Recommended as is the podcast.

Lightning Striking Lenny Kaye
The curator of Nuggets/ PSG guitarist depicts the scenes around 10 major points in 20th century music. So far I've read him talking about Memphis in 1954. Pretty great.
Think I may look into his other books after this. I was aware he had done music journalism but not read much beyond the Nuggets linernotes. I think he had a book on doo wop I'd heard of but he has several others too.

Angela Davis An Autobiography
Finally getting to read this after it sitting on a shelf out of reach for way too long. Really something I should have got into on first purchase. I may have been busy with other things at the time I dunno.
Anyway very good read now I'm getting into it. She also does really good webinars and other talks so worth looking out for those and her other books of which there are a few.

I'm going to see Lear next Saturday, so I'm re-reading the play and James Shapiro's 1606: The Year of Lear.

Also reading Yannis Varoufakis' Talking to my Daughter About the Economy.

xp typed that on my phone and this is missing the author's surname
Harlots, Whores and Hackabouts A History of Sex For Sale Kate LISTER

who seems to be a pretty good writer and definitely an enjoyable presenter. She has another book I think I'll be looking for after this.
A Curious History of Sex which I think is also in the library system

I've been reading the Lenny Kaye book too Stevo - enjoying it much more than I expected. Was inspired to pick up the ROCK 100 book he wrote in 1977 with David Dalton - 100 capsule biogs of notable pop/rock/soul figures from Elvis to Bowie - stands up remarkably well I think! the Al Green entry is particularly fine.

BEAUTIFUL WORLD, WHERE ARE YOU, Sally Rooney. I was a bit underwhelmed by the book of Normal People (tho I loved the tv show), but I thought this was great. Can clearly see how people might find it obnoxious - everyone is very beautiful, very clever, blessed with a beautiful singing voice and/or very rich; the email correspondence between Alice and Eileen is over-ripe with earnestness; Felix felt like a much less substantial character than the other three. But nevertheless I found it very moving!

WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, Shirley Jackson. One of those rare books that I knew I was going to relish from the very first paragraph ("My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had.") The feral fairytale atmosphere put me in mind a little of Night of the Hunter. Are any of her other novels this good?

SUPER-INFINITE: THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF JOHN DONNE, Katherine Rundell. Think I have written on here before about how much I dislike Rundell's kids books, so god know why I picked this up. As with the kids books, Rundell seems weirdly out of time - like she'd be happier writing boys own adventures circa 1912. It's a brisk romp through Donne's life and times which never really gets to grips with the poetry, but is so awestruck by JD's intellectual glamour, it feels like it's been written by Miranda Richardson's Queenie in Blackadder.

O PIONEERS, Willa Cather. Read this for my bookclub. Despite studying American Lit for several years at university, never picked up a book by Willa before and not sure I will again. The bizarrely belated plot felt like an afterthought to what should have just been a memoir/nature journal.

Have also been looking at EMERGENCY by Daisy Hildyard. Got a lot of advance praise but it's not really grabbing me yet - a memoir of a childhood in rural 90s Yorkshire, composed in lockdown.

Incidentally, you can read Lenny's doowop/acapella essay here

https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/1567-lenny-kaye-the-best-of-acapella

It's really lovely. Came across it while researching an essay on Patti Smith I was writing last month - supposedly reading it inspired her to track him down and persuade him to play guitar with her...

xp Sounds like if any Cather novel is for you it might be Death Comes for the Archbishop. Tons of atmosphere in that one.

Or A Lost Lady.

Cather was America's best novelist between 1910 and 1935. Read her instead of damn Hemingway.

I have never read Hemingway either :0

But unless she had a sudden personal/artistic rebirth, find it hard to believe that Cather wrote anything in the ballpark of Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hughes, Barnes, Larsen etc?

How can you if you only read one novel?

Fitzgerald only wrote one great novel anyway.

Are they any close seconds from him? The Last Tycoon? Think that one has its moments iirc. Not a novel but I also like "The Crack-Up," as I probably have said many times on this borad.

Tender is the Night. I love many of his short stories too.

But unless she had a sudden personal/artistic rebirth, find it hard to believe that Cather wrote anything in the ballpark of Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hughes, Barnes, Larsen etc?

― Piedie Gimbel, Tuesday, June 14, 2022 10:06 AM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol

Professor's House and My Antonia would be my recs. She was an odious person and an incredible writer.

also i feel like she's foundational to the school of Midwestern realism that produced writers like William Maxwell

^^ this

She was an odious person

Curious about this. I know next to nothing about her as a person, beyond the fact that she grew up in Nebraska and lived with a woman for a good part of her adult life.

Here's a good read: https://newrepublic.com/article/114897/willa-cathers-correspondence-reveals-something-new

This is fun too https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n24/terry-castle/pipe-down-back-there

Odious seems likes it's putting it mildly. Really didn't detect anything approaching an incredible writer in Pioneers - which I found hackneyed, cliched, stagey, misogynist - but like I say, maybe she suddenly miraculously got good?

It's an early novel.

can someone give me a cliff's notes - was she horribly classist, racist, patriarchal or more just a run of the mill egotistical asshole?

A wishy-washy lesbian and a less wishy-washy anti-Semite.

Here's a typical quote from the Terry Castle LRB I linked above:

"There was only one problem, as Acocella, now gimlet-eyed, points out. Cather herself was a full-bore raving misogynist, at least on the subject of female authorship:

‘Sometimes I wonder why God ever trusts literary talent in the hands of women, they usually make such an infernal mess of it,’ she wrote in 1895. ‘I think He must do it as a sort of ghastly joke.’ Female poets were so gushy – ‘emotional in the extreme, self-centered, self-absorbed’. As for female novelists, all they could write about was love: ‘They have a sort of sex consciousness that is abominable ... If I see the announcement of a new book by a woman, I – well, I take one by a man instead ... I prefer to take no chances when I read.’