Everything is Whirling and Twirling! What Are You Reading this Summer 2023?

I've meant to read Roots since seeing both tv adaptations. I think also seeing it turn up in a few bibliographies.

I also want to read Paaul Crooks who has managed to trace his family history back from London, through teh West Indies and back through the middle passage to find out where his ancestors came from in Africa. & has written books on how other people can do it too.
I've been to a few webinars he's put on which have been interesting.

Had just been trying to remember something about Haley that was on the tip of my tongue. Thought it was something to do with the publication of Roots but I think it was probably more that it was him that edited the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

I think the original tv version was being released around the time i was in NYC for the first time visiting my dad for the summer.

I know I've had copies of the book for years but don't think I've read it still unless I did way way back at the turn of my teens in the wake of the tv show. I think the 2nd tv version is a lot more reflective of Africa having had civilisation including a visit to the University in Timbuktu. The original version has a far more minimalist take on life in Africa.

he was more than the editor of rhe autobiography of malcolm x - Wikipedia calls him the co-author and goes into more detail on his contribution.

I'd be interested to see one of the TV versions. I learned today that in the original, young kunta kinte was played by levar burton in his first TV role.

I read an excellent recent bio of the James family a couple months ago.

Sounds intriguing. The one I read sticks pretty closely to William, but since he and Henry were fairly close, despite living in separate countries for much of the time, there ended up being a fair bit about Henry in it, and the other James siblings as well. The book did inspire me to pick up a slim paperback of Henry James stories, as a gentle introduction to his work. I'm finding them enjoyable enough, especially "The Real Thing" which was fantastic, but there is something about his style (verbosity, perhaps?) that tempers my enthusiasm a bit.

> I learned today that in the original, young kunta kinte was played by levar burton

hence my hilarious joke:

> it's an amazing story of how a slave ended up as chief engineer on the Enterprise D.
> koogs, Wednesday, 28 June 2023 16:52

Americans know him from a thing called Reading Rainbow, like our Playschool i think, or Jackanory maybe, features heavily in an episode of Community

i get it now!

probably the biggest rags to riches story apart from that indian squaw ending up as president of the entire human race...

Dances with Wolves, Battlestar Galactica

Burton reappears in the 2016 version too.
I was thinking he was only in the original tv version for a short time and it was more John Amos who got to play the character as an older man. But haven't seen the series since around the time the later adaptation came out when I rewatched it.

Robert Browning - Men and Women, Vol II
Hilda Hilst - Fluxo-Floema

The Hilst is really good. She was a Brazilian writer (read a couple by her before), and fully into the modernist project (Woolf, but also De Sade, the whole shebang). This was a set of short stories written in an almost incantory way.

So! A hundred pages from the end of The Vivisector and White's losing me with his gender politics. This awful painter-egoist is fussing over his relationship with...a 13-year-old child savant.

The Horse's Mouth did this sort of thing in fewer pages.

That was a good one. But I never read the others or saw the movie for that matter.

The movie's fun!

Guinness should've played more hellions.

i read the Vivisector (muffled) years ago when i was in uni

the gender stuff i remember being very uncomfortable/ offputting but also i think i passed it off as being in context. oof. i think the parallels of my having read a lot of true crime & serial killer novels that that outlook was just acceptable or went unchallenged by me?
like his sociopathy is ok because there’s an end to it (art?)

i dunno if i could read it now

Hilda Hilst - Fluxo-Floema

The Hilst is really good. She was a Brazilian writer (read a couple by her before), and fully into the modernist project (Woolf, but also De Sade, the whole shebang). This was a set of short stories written in an almost incantory way.

Ohh, I read With My Dog Eyes and it was wild. Amazing writing, so full of bitter rage. I got The Obscene Madame D recently, it's in my to-read pile and I'm hoping to get to it reasonably soon but I've got so many unread things I don't know when that will be.

I recently finished The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Super intense! Love his writing. Level of detail is amazing, so much research & foreknowledge obviously went into it — it becomes a whole other thing when you then layer his specific perspective. In some ways it feels like it’s own category of historical fiction .. so much more immediate. it’s pretty incredible. And I really liked how angry his tone is, it feels quite, revolutionary. or something. maybe that’s the wrong word.

Last few chapters are wild, very disorienting (with good reason) it definitely stayed with me for a long time afterwards

Am also now halfway through The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers
Another one that has really grabbed me right away. Beautifully written, captures the immediacy of a historical time & place. It’s very tactile/sensory, you can see & feel everything so clearly, it’s like you’re astral projecting into the wild 18th century Yorkshire moors. Loving it.

I loved, loved, loved The Sympathizer. He hit just the right combination of humor, cynicism and horror.

I haven't read The Committed yet, but it's on the list.

Ohh, I read With My Dog Eyes and it was wild. Amazing writing, so full of bitter rage. I got The Obscene Madame D recently, it's in my to-read pile and I'm hoping to get to it reasonably soon but I've got so many unread things I don't know when that will be.

― emil.y, Thursday, 13 July 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Yeah those are the two others from her I've read. She was a poet too. Would really like a translation of it.

Still moving through two longer books, but just finished Ed Steck’s A Place Beyond Shame, which is a meditation on horror movies, childhood sexual and physical trauma, addiction, horror movies, and the rust belt. It is harrowing and brilliant, best new book I’ve read this year.

I've skipped some of Sean O'Casey's chapters on WWII, but will finish with his AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 4-6 for now. 600+ pages of O'Casey on O'Casey are enough for a while.

I commence his play PURPLE DUST, which is engaging. It depicts an old house in Ireland being refurbished on the orders of new English owners. To a degree the scenario, so far, is "wily Irish locals outfox the naive English incomers". I'm slightly reminded of CASTLE RACKRENT and of the first chapter of Ulysses. The language is much closer to Synge than any other O'Casey I've read. Which may emphasise how relatively unlike Synge O'Casey usually is.

A friend who used to be in the Irish army just passed on to me an introductory illustrated book on IRISH HISTORY. I feel like I should read it as it's a gift. On the earlier periods I have much to learn. So far Newgrange has been built.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

this has been on my list for ages and this post was the nudge i needed. thanks!

yay :)

It's good!

I finally finished Leena Krohn's Collected Fiction, Vol. 1: The Novels. I say "finally" because it was a long and challenging read, which I picked up originally on Jeff VanDerMeer's recommendation. The collection started with the weakest of the lot, Doña Quixote, but got considerably better as it went on. The last three in particular were quite strong. Her style isn't really like anyone else's, although Borges may be an obvious comparison; Lovecraft too, in some of the more dreamlike aspects. Very much worth the read.

I've been reading early novels and stories of Forster and Henry Green. What Firbank should I try, if any? Library loan has Five Novels, Valmouth and Other Stories, Complete Plays, but I might could track down some others.

Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg. I know it's not a novel but loads of the reviews call it a novel - so far it doesn't read at all like one, her dad sounds like a real piece of work and i'm not tickled by any of her hilarious family anecdotes. But I'll stick with it.

Is this your first experience? She was my big 2021 discovery (thanks, NYRB!).

Yeah - I was torn between this one and an actual novel.

re Firbank, there aren't many novels - I think that FIVE NOVELS will have the lot. THE FLOWER BENEATH THE FOOT is one to try I'd say.

I finished reading Sean O'Casey's PURPLE DUST. It becomes rather a farce as the old house crashes down around the ignorant English interlopers. The Anglo / Irish clash of the plot is probably too crude, ie: the English are too readily sterotyped as fools; oddly, as O'Casey in his non-fiction makes plain his admiration for lots of aspects of England, where he lived for many years. The Syngean language actually increases near the end, followed by a great storm that reminded me of MOONRISE KINGDOM.

I then read O'Casey's play HALL OF HEALING, a one-act play in a Dublin doctor's waiting room. Mostly farce again, but with classic O'Casey tragedy at the end as well. A lot going on, many characters, and somewhat interesting on medicine and our ideas of what it can do. But not a major or deeply impressive work.

I've now read about 1400 pages of O'Casey in 2 or 3 months so will take a break from him.

I commence reading Beverly Cleary's FIFTEEN, a teen romance / angst novel from 1956. It's very mild; I don't think that the worst that can happen here is going to be very bad. I'd thought it might be 1970s or 1960s; the 1956 date intrigues me and makes me feel that this novel was written amid the 'birth of the teenager', was an early literary witness to this now storied era.

xposts: think it was the five novels collection that i read which included all his "bigger" works.

recently been reading a number of late fifties/early sixties era green penguin thrillers by people i'd never heard of. last one was john welcome's run for cover: sort of buchan meets bond with a bit of ambler. one scene with the hero held prisoner in an enemy lair features a dialogue comparing pre-war fiction (proust, waugh, the above mentioned green) to the contemporary angry young man brigade of amis & wain, the latter of whom i'd coincidentally been planning on reading next in the form of hurry on down.

reading THE HEAT WILL KILL YOU FIRST, re: climate change, and while it’s interesting and scary, the author is just not a good writer of sentences. i can’t remember the last non-fiction book in which i found the writing so off-putting (and the guy is a journalist, not a scientist)

"one scene with the hero held prisoner in an enemy lair features a dialogue comparing pre-war fiction (proust, waugh, the above mentioned green) to the contemporary angry young man brigade"

Love this kind of thing!

Isn't there a discussion of T.S. Eliot and Hemingway in FAREWELL, MY LOVELY?

HURRY ON DOWN is very rewarding, hope you enjoy.

I commence reading Beverly Cleary's FIFTEEN, a teen romance / angst novel from 1956.

I'm most glad to know that anyone would have an opinion on the top ten writers I wouldn't read.

(I've read one King story but not more - I don't like horror in general, unfortunately. But I can see his ingenuity and productivity, from a respectful distance.)

I share your experience with the Ramona books - read them at around the same time in my life. And I think I shared your sense of an American world disclosed by those books.

Pinefox, I say this in utmost sincerity: I would like nothing better in my life than to hear your opinions of the Ramona books

I mentioned King btw cos my other half and his brother are both incredibly well read, and both of them constantly gang up on me for liking King.

At a distance of decades, I can only say that I loved them, and they were possibly my favourite books at that time - say, the age of 7?

I recall RAMONA THE BRAVE, BEEZUS AND RAMONA, RAMONA AND HER FATHER, at least. I probably read each one more than once.

I would think that the things I liked most about them were a) their American quality, speaking of a particular culture; b) the peculiar truth to life that I found in many of the situations and phrases, which were also c) very memorable and repeatable.

I believe I still own them, hidden on a shelf. Maybe this should be encouragement to reread them. It's been a very long time.

Please!!!

I had Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and Ramona Forever. I read a couple of the others from the library but I knew those two best cos I owned them and reread a lot. I’m actually going home today, seriously tempted to do a bit of digging and see if I can’t find them.

The detail that sticks with me most from the books is her learning to write her name in cursive - wtf is cursive, we did not learn that shit in Ireland - and her describing the starting Q of her surname as resembling a big loopy number 2.

Oh and I should say - her family had a lot of money problems and her parents were often stressed and overworked and she spent a lot of time at the neighbours and with her aunt. That definitely struck a chord with me, both because some of it resembled my own life (it felt like you’d never read many kids books where the characters would spend time with extended family) and just because it was unusual to see full stop. There’s a scene on one of the books where they go out for burgers and Ramona is looking at her parents anxiously, like, “Can we afford this?” And the parents are like, “yes come on let’s enjoy this,” and it just felt very real in terms of how kids pick up and worry about their parents problems.

This Perfect Day - Ira Levin

What a load of shit? Honestly. The only reason I finished this was because I was on a flight that was delayed an hour.

I really like the Ira Levin I’ve read previously. I’ve read The Stepford Wives with its creeping horror and subtle but inescapable darkness about fifty times. I read Rosemary’s Baby and loved the similar themes and how visceral Rosemary’s horror feels. All good stuff.

Saw this on Kindle store for £1 and thought, incredible, let’s go. How wrong I was.

In This Perfect Day everyone lives in a utopia where there’s no war, no hate, everyone looks basically the same. Children are planned via licenses. Everyone is subjected to “treatments” which keep them medically healthy and emotionally calm and satisfied. All people have names with numbers after the four founding fathers of the system that rules the world, Uni: Marx, Christ, Wood and Wei. The latter two are fictional, I think Wood was meant to be a rough Kant analogy, but honestly? I didn’t give a fuck about looking this up.

Our hero is named Li Abigstringofnumbers (this is not an exaggeration). However, his eccentric grandfather calls him “Chip” in defiance of the naming order where everyone has one of the four approved names. Chip is special because unlike everyone else who has light brown skin, dark brown eyes and dark hair, one of his eyes is green. Yeah, this is how careful the system is about uniformity. Also? Secondary sexual characteristics don’t exist. Yeah.

Anyway at this point I started thinking of Chip as my favourite heterochromiac, Max Scherzer, so I’m going to refer to him as Max from here in out, because I cannot take an adult man named Chip seriously.
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zdiPb7q92DPCpCA6SmHMAYvGl3A=/0x117:2615x1860/1400x1400/filters:focal(0x117:2615x1860):format(jpeg)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/14768285/20130219_jla_sv7_240.0.jpg

Anyway our boy Max has to say goodbye to his granddad soon after granddad shows him the true path to Uni on the tour of the building, because granddad happens to have reached 62 years old which is the prescribed age for life to end.

Anyway he’s not really that bothered by it considering. He goes off to adult life, I don’t remember much about this part except they get allotted partners for sex which is ten minutes of prescribed pleasure every Saturday.

At some point he gets recruited into a group who see his potential for difference (he does have heterochromia after all) and he gets inducted into a secret group of like minded souls. The most important of these is his girlfriend Lilac, who is repeatedly described as very attractive to him, like so:

He could smell her – it wasn’t his imagination; she actually smelled of flowers – and he could look at her dark cheek and neck and the chest of her coveralls pushed taut by two mobile round protrusions. They were breasts. They were definitely breasts.

Epic review.

wow

I started writing this on a bus leaving Dublin airport. At time of posting this message I am still in Dublin, I bet they don’t have traffic in Yankee Stadium but I still wouldn’t want to live there. 😎

This Cleary novel is charming in that the stakes are so low and so little goes wrong.

Almost the worst thing so far was when the new bf came to drive the protagonist to their date in a truck from work, rather than a car.

It's refreshing to read a story where problems are tiny.

The prose is clear, ingenuous. It all seems less cunning and cheeky than the Cleary I remember in the Ramona books.

Started A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White yesterday. Primarily reading it for dissertation background, but I'm surprised I'd never gotten to this one before.

It's um stiff in places.

I finish Cleary's TEENAGER. It's quite conservative at the end, literally concluding 'She was Stan's girl. That was all that mattered'. I had an idea that Cleary was more liberal and sceptical than that (from my reading of RAMONA et al? - very long ago). Stan gives Jane his 'identification bracelet' as a major token of 'going steady', a new concept to me. I had never heard of such bracelets.

In terms of life lessons the book is not bad, though. It implicitly tells you to be patient, not to wait for the telephone to ring but to get on with your life, not to overreact to incidents, and above all to be yourself - then people will like and respect you.

The novel reads like a pastiche of 1950s or early 1960s teen life - 'Mom, can I go to the dance with Stan on Friday?' 'I don't know, Jane, I'd rather you just went to the malt shop' - etc - which is all familiar, from GREASE, BACK TO THE FUTURE and beyond. The crazy thing is, this book is from 1956 so all that stuff is ... real. It's not a pastiche, it's actually how someone wrote about teenagers in the 1950s. Unless Cleary was already, in some way, pasticheing an emergent understanding of such life?