What are you reading - on or about October 2006

right? sometimes I'll think I'm actually understanding one of his ridiculous labyrinthine metaphors in those intros and all of a sudden, it'll turn a previously-unimaginable corner of insanity. Like in the preface to Portrait, when he's describing the "house of fiction" and it gets all out of control.

it's funny, because in academic novel studies, a lot of critical weight is given to those prefaces; they get cited a lot as seminal in the formation of the field. but it's not clear to me that anyone who cites them has actually read them, because the idea that you could actually easily lay out, like, a blueprint for a novel from one of them is totally absurd.

anyway, I'm glad you like What Maisie Knew. I had a weirdly emotional reaction to that book. I think it's generally regarded as cold.

This thread is making me want to read Henry James, a writer I've never remotely considered before and about whom I know basically nothing. I am totally a sucker for florid prose. I didn't know James was florid.

Just finished The Man With the Golden Arm (finally). It reminds me of that line of Rilke's about lying down with a leper and warming him with your warmth, and I think Algren has come closest to achieving that (in a metaphorical sense) than any other writer I know. It was pretty wonderful and haunting, and I had bizarre dreams about morphine and snow and elevated trains last night.

And now I feel like kind of a twat for quoting Rilke, and I started Anthony Powell's A Question of Upbringing this morning.

That is probably going to take another week though, since "Golden Bowl" doesn't lend itself to fast reading.

Cozen: Moy Sand and Gravel?

TH: good news!

Livy is transparently rooting for the Romans to win. Hannibal is this shrewd, faithless, evil genius who keeps beating the tar out of the true-blue Roman consulary legions, who mean well, but for some reason just can't win for losing, the poor fellas.

this week's classes: the time machine and the book of daniel.

Half-way through July, July by Tim O'Brien. he has a really lovely, dry, comic style which is incredibly "readable". Fits nicely into my interest in post-war US fiction.

Ya think?

I won't spoil the ending for you, though.

The battle of Cannae took place on my birthday, a few thousand years before my birth, according to the Wikipedia. I'm not sure how I should feel about that.

I am reading Nokter the Stammerer's Life of Charlemagne, which is awkwardly translated in the Penguin version (all the Latinisms are plain as day) but which, so far, is kind of hysterical.

Thank you. I wonder if I will become a subscriber, in my own right, eventually.

First 80-odd paragraphs are maybe the best philosophy ever committed to paper. I think he tends to lose me shortly after that though.

a cyberpunk detective thriller called a philosophical investigation.

Arf. I bought that, years ago, on the strength of the title. Disappointingly straightforward I thought, but dick lit ain't really my thing.

frank kogan's real punks don't wear black.

Been meaning to get that - mainly on the strength of his Wittgenstein tours de force over on ILX!

Currently, I am reading a book on African-Portuguese slave culture for a class, and probably will start Dangerous Liaisons within the next couple of days once all of the chaos has subsided a bit.

PL argument - I think it's just 'cause my sympathies lie in the opposite direction. While in general I buy his whole project of putting philosophy at the service of language instead of vice versa, in that particular instance I find the sceptical argument more compelling - irrefutable indeed; and the idea of being unable to follow a rule without a community just doesn't convince me.

it had a point! no tricks were necessary (although it does have an interlocking narrative from a previous book actually). i thought it was extremely moving which not something i could say about his other books, much as i liked them.

hey there's a link! apparently traci guest appeared on a manics track?

the bio's lame. the whole fucking book she says she hates talking about her porn daaazzze! i mean ffs 90 percent of the readers all buy the damn book to find out more about that period in her life, not so much about her experiences in the rave scene. she must know this.

(I noticed the recurring character, but the narrative structure is still very simple. Not that there's anything wrong with that)

Anyway, after finsihing that, everything else kinda pales in comparison (to coin a cliche) - I've picked-up and put down five books, at last count, and finally settled on The Coroner's Lunch, 'cause I figured that it was different enough I wouldn't keep comparing it to Suite. It's pretty entertaining, I must say.