I read The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark last night. It seemed like an exercise more than a story, but it was impressively better than anything else I've read in that vein.
I've just picked up the Screech translation of Gargantua and Pantagruel from the public library and am curious to see how he manages the trick of bringing Rabelais into modern English. How much I read of it will depend on how it measures up.
― oh no! must be the season of the rich (Aimless), Tuesday, 11 November 2014 19:17 (nine years ago) link
One self-correction: apparently La Nuit was translated by Book Works in 2013, but is between printings.
― one way street, Tuesday, 11 November 2014 19:36 (nine years ago) link
YA novel about gender roles among the Situationists YA?! Cool, take that, dystopian teen vampires. P. sick of unreliable narrators tho.
― dow, Tuesday, 11 November 2014 23:47 (nine years ago) link
I'm plagiarizing "YA" as a descriptor from the friend who lent me All the King's Horses, but it seems apt, since Bernstein was self-consciously writing in the mode of Françoise Sagan's Bonjour tristesse (La Nuit apparently has a similar relationship to the narrative methods of the nouveau roman) and both exploiting and implicitly commenting upon the commercial mobilization of youth.
― one way street, Wednesday, 12 November 2014 01:11 (nine years ago) link
Will have to read that and the Sagan, thanks. (Perhaps related: just starting that Colette collection of three short novels mentioned upthread, since it comes with good references from Ornamental Cabbage.)
― dow, Wednesday, 12 November 2014 02:14 (nine years ago) link
Ian McEwan - The Children ActPenelope Fitzgerald - The Bookshop
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 12 November 2014 02:27 (nine years ago) link
I am reading <i>Billiards at Half-Past Nine</i> and <i>The Shock of the New</i>. So far <i>Shock of the New</i> has been very informative
― justfanoe (Greg Fanoe), Wednesday, 12 November 2014 03:10 (nine years ago) link
Really liked ´The Children Act', thankfully without the irony of ´Solar´. Valeria Luiselli´s ´Sidewalks' was a revelation, combining fiction and essays but sometimes reads like a diary (a very well-written diary that is). Now 100 pages into ´The Bone Clocks' by David Mitchell. The first part seemed a mashup between ´Black Swan Green´ and ´Ghostwritten´. Familiar territory.
― EvR, Wednesday, 12 November 2014 11:01 (nine years ago) link
Outsider in Amsterdam by Janwillem Van De Wetering.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janwillem_van_de_Wetering#/image/File:Janwillem_van_de_Wetering.jpg
it's a fucking peculiar book, I tell you. or rather it's not so much the book but the translation... well, Wikipedia:
He usually wrote in Dutch and then in English; the two versions often differ considerably.
"Beg your pardon?" said Grijpstra. "Imagery from the East," said de Gier. "Comes from my reading and it fits the case for this is a Hindist Society."
Grijpstra scratched the stubbles of his beard.
"If the civilians knew how silly their police, are they would commit more crimes"
in basic sentence construction it's a bit like reading john lanchester. mundane things and notions need to be carefully unencrypted. but the effect isn't totally displeasing - it's an oddly effective way of conveying foreignness.
the bald policier racial stereotyping (1975 if it matters) is harder to swallow.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 12 November 2014 17:21 (nine years ago) link
"What makes this series so engaging is that the policemen are as quirky and complicated as the criminals."Washington Post
because they speak as if hastily parsed by Google translate.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 12 November 2014 17:54 (nine years ago) link
Initially, I was put off by The City And The City because of what seemed like an attempt at this kind of garbled gravel, which suggested those old animated PSAs starring MacGruff The Crime Dog, as parodied by sock puppet dog Triumph The Insult Comedian: "It was a dark und stormy nightski---for me to poop on!" But either CM later dropped/downplayed the "East Euro" shtick later, or the book got good enough that I didn't notice anymore (or both).
― dow, Wednesday, 12 November 2014 18:41 (nine years ago) link
Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963
― MaudAddam (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 12 November 2014 19:28 (nine years ago) link
kind of garbled gravel, which suggested those old animated PSAs starring MacGruff The Crime Dog, as parodied by sock puppet dog Triumph The Insult Comedian: "It was a dark und stormy nightski---for me to poop on!
would read
― j., Wednesday, 12 November 2014 21:55 (nine years ago) link
I enjoyed The City & the City but strangely don't remember the "garbled gravel," maybe because the prose seemed breezier than I expect from Mieville. The Outsider in Amsterdam quotes oddly remind me of English as She is Spoke: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/english-as-she-is-spoke-1884/
― one way street, Wednesday, 12 November 2014 22:09 (nine years ago) link
I love English as She is Spoke. "To craunch the marmoset" is a phrase which haunts me still.
― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Wednesday, 12 November 2014 22:30 (nine years ago) link
Some of the lists read like Gertrude Stein portraits decades before the fact (which I don't mean as an insult to Stein):
Put your confidence at my.At what o'clock dine him?Apply you at the study during that you are young.Dress your hairs.Sing an area.These apricots and these peaches make me and to come water in mouth.How do you can it to deny?
― one way street, Thursday, 13 November 2014 00:50 (nine years ago) link
Jane Eyre's backstory is very similar to Agnes Grey's (mother gets disowned for marrying poor clergyman), you'd almost think they are related...
― koogs, Friday, 14 November 2014 11:04 (nine years ago) link
The Outsider in Amsterdam quotes oddly remind me of English as She is Spoke: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/english-as-she-is-spoke-1884/
I'd forgotten about this! I think it was reissued as a copy of the original imprint back when I worked in a bookshop, and it was handy to read in idle moments.
An Outsider in Amsterdam isn't quite as bad as that, but the sentences do feel fairly consistently off. I'm not sure whether that has a charm in itself but you do get used to it for the most part, even if the total effect only contributes to a general lumpiness.
― Fizzles, Friday, 14 November 2014 11:54 (nine years ago) link
like dow I read the whole of DUBLINERS (in my case again). I liked it and I think dow has a point (implicit) re: maturity, reading it with an experience eye, etc.
I also watched the film THE DEAD (1987) again and liked that too.
― the pinefox, Monday, November 10, 2014 5:12 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Thanks, yeah that's what I meant. It was like Dylan used to be my bold young uncle, and when I finally listened to Blonde On Blonde. I was struck by his being so much younger than that now--but still dropping science on me. Re Joyce, I read Portrait and Ulysses so long ago, in school, so was really amazed by his youthful voice here, more vulnerable in a way, for the lack of constantly-risking-absurdity literary acrobatics---if he failed in this kind of deep social commentary, via focus on individuals, especially with less outspoken well-wishers and guardians of the status quo watching so intently---you want an audience, you got it kid---would have been much worse than just going off into stylistic doodledom for the nonce. Not worse than court actions vs. obscenity maybe, but bad enough.
― dow, Saturday, 15 November 2014 05:01 (nine years ago) link
The movie is very worthwhile; Huston always does right by his literary sources.
― dow, Saturday, 15 November 2014 05:03 (nine years ago) link
"finally listened to Blonde On Blonde" *again*, I meant to say.
― dow, Saturday, 15 November 2014 05:04 (nine years ago) link
"Tonio Kroger" was an immense influence on young me, and not just thanks to its straightforward depiction of youthful homosexuality; I loved the shift in time and tone.― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, November 7, 2014 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, November 7, 2014 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I liked Tonio Kroger, still felt like preparation work for Death in Venice. The shift is interesting (when he loses both of the people he loved). Reading both back-to-back is interesting, and it illuminates a (somewhat shallow) reason for liking Death in Venice: there is almost no dialogue. At one point Kroger says his age is 30 but Mann has always seemed v 'old' to me. Life dealt its blows (whatever they were; Mann was dutiful and married, that could be the cost). I'd love to get round to Doctor Faustus. Not sure about Buddenbrooks, he wrote this in 1901, after Death in Venice when he...might NOT have known enough.
Be interested to read the review of this book on the story.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n18/tj-reed/impossible-conception
Interested in the book too: http://www.cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-16264-7/deaths-in-venice/
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 15 November 2014 10:37 (nine years ago) link
started ZN Hurston, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GODit seems quite good!
and Jim Crace, THE GIFT OF STONESa novel about the STONE AGE
― the pinefox, Sunday, 16 November 2014 13:58 (nine years ago) link
how is THE GIFT OF STONES. this is something I am currently interested in.
― Fizzles, Sunday, 16 November 2014 14:35 (nine years ago) link
My reading pace has slacked off the past few weeks, but I can say I am genuinely happy with Screech's handling of Rabelais. I plan to stick with it, but slowly.
― oh no! must be the season of the rich (Aimless), Sunday, 16 November 2014 17:17 (nine years ago) link
Talk about new Penelope Fitzgerald bio tonight: http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2014/11/19/penelope-fitzgerald-hermion-lee-and-wendy-lesser?hspace=279619
― Junior Dadaismus (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 17 November 2014 18:31 (nine years ago) link
Tomorrow night, sorry.
― Junior Dadaismus (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 17 November 2014 18:33 (nine years ago) link
Peter Lorre bio The Lost One
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Monday, 17 November 2014 18:38 (nine years ago) link
Haphazard months, needy periods of waiting. Does all this, then, happen in a woman's life because of certain definite infractions and disobediences, through individual omissions, the breach of a companionship with one man, the choice of another, and then the fact of being chosen by yet a third? The long sequence of household cares, of toil with the needle, of turned skirts---"My dear, I swear it's better than right-side out!"---of ingenuities which one pretends are little triumphs, are not, then, the result of pure hazard, but of a hostile, almost fatalistic power? She thought without gratitude of old Becker's gratuitous alms-giving. She called to mind those little festivities of the flesh, swiftly conducted and swiftly forgotten, exasperated moments from which a broken masculine voice seemed to rise up to Julie's ears. 'It's not their real voice,' thought Julie, 'but the voice of an instant.'..."Julie, you're not feeling ill, are you?" She shook her head and smiled patiently. 'No,' she answered within herself. 'I'm just waiting for the moment when you are no longer there...You read through me into another man, and you treat him as an enemy. One would really think that Herbert has no secrets for you. You hate him and understand him. When I think of Esquivant you ask me if I'm feeling ill. What good advice you give me from the height of your twenty-eight years! An honest little counsellor, one of those plebeian marvels that chance sometimes places at the elbows of queens. But the bitches of queens go to bed with the marvel and turn him into a trumpery duke, an embittered lover and a misunderstood statesman. With you as my advisor I'd never do "anything silly," as you so nicely put it.' She emptied her glass of brandy at a gulp, though it was a very old brandy, and worth serious attention, a smooth and civilized brandy. "Alley-oop!" said Julie, putting her glass down. "Bravo!" said Coco Vatard. 'If he only knew what he was applauding! Nothing silly any more---that's tantamount to saying I'll never be any use to anyone anymore---not even to myself. He'll keep me from ruing myself, or from being taken in. People can always ruin themselves, even when they've got nothing.'
Ornamental Cabbage, thanks so much for encouraging me to read this collection of short novels by Colette! So many scary speed bumps for the simple male mind---I want to trot around Paris with Julie de Carneilhan 4ever, and sometimes feel that I have, with her American frienemies (can't really keep up, of course, but)
― dow, Monday, 17 November 2014 19:33 (nine years ago) link
reading margaret drabble's 'a summer bird-cage' when i'm in a fiction mood and edmund morris's 'dutch' (an odd duck of a book) when i'm not.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 17 November 2014 23:36 (nine years ago) link
I'm dying to know what you think of Dutch! It's still my go-to Reagan bio, despite its, ah, experiments. The insights and Morris' way with a metaphor help.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 17 November 2014 23:37 (nine years ago) link
so i just completed the third oryx and crake book – madd addam. strange, good conclusion (maybe?) but something of a slog.
― a long time ago he used to be rem (soda), Monday, 17 November 2014 23:38 (nine years ago) link
have only reached 1980, but it's definitely a page-turner. the fictional bits verge on the ridiculous, but the writing and the portrait of reagan's personality are exemplary. there's a passage comparing reagan's personality to a glacier that's probably as good a piece of writing as i've ever read in any biography.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 18 November 2014 01:01 (nine years ago) link
now the fun begins! Wait till you get to the descriptions of a typical day, William Clark, David Stockman, and Bitburg.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 18 November 2014 01:12 (nine years ago) link
Ornamental Cabbage, thanks so much for encouraging me to read this collection of short novels by Colette!
Yay, dow! Glad you like her. She wrote a LOT of books, and they're all pleasingly short (I don't think any of them break 200 pages). If you can find some of her short stories, especially the ones based on her time as an actor in Paris, they're also great.
― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 01:04 (nine years ago) link
After finishing MaddAddam (anybody else read it? I need to have a post-op discussion) I'm moving onto Murakami – Colorless. Then, I'm gonna give another go to something traditional I've disliked. Something inspired by the 'authors you hate poll.' I might try Moveable Feast again.
― dr bronner's new and improved peppermint (soda), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 01:32 (nine years ago) link
xpost I'll check those out too, OC. And somebody just sent me Colette's advice columm--it's from a new collection of her previously untranslated stuffhttp://logger.believermag.com/post/102890463209/colettes-advice-column
http://media.tumblr.com/d95cf76eabb70fe75ed91739ec386371/tumblr_inline_neh036ly0T1rglck1.png
― dow, Wednesday, 19 November 2014 01:43 (nine years ago) link
Rick Perlstein The Invisible Bridge
magisterial imo, only quibble is my desire for more on the rise of religious right but perhaps that will surface in the Carter/Reagan era follow-up. perhaps Perlstein is better at summary than synthesis but this is still a treasure trove for anyone interested in the transitional mid-70s. reading was an intensely *personal* experience because it triggered so many formative memories of politics and culture when i was a teenager, now clarified by middle-age perspective.
― Pontius Pilates (m coleman), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 13:03 (nine years ago) link
John Le Carre A Perfect Spy
maybe not the epic/grand finale he intended but a fitting end to the cold war spy saga and probably the last book of his I need to read.
― Pontius Pilates (m coleman), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 13:06 (nine years ago) link
Haruki Murukami Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
My first Murukami and probably not the place to start. 75% fascinating and then my interest flagged, felt like a YA novel w/youthful perspective on adult life.
― Pontius Pilates (m coleman), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 13:08 (nine years ago) link
Dennis Lehane The Drop
short story stretched to novella length for movie tie-in and wouldn't you know, it's the inconsistent Lehane's best work since Mystic River and his scripts for The Wire
― Pontius Pilates (m coleman), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 13:11 (nine years ago) link
Ian McEwan The Children Act
don't know if this novella is a short story stretched but it feels slight somehow and I actually liked Saturday and Solar. Those novels captured arrogant a-holeish main characters but the judge here is just dull despite the thorny dilemma she's faced w/. first time I've thought McEwan was going thru motions.
― Pontius Pilates (m coleman), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 13:15 (nine years ago) link
James Hamilton-Patterson Rancid Pansies
funnier and less self-consciously "well written" than Cooking With Fernet Branca at least on my literary laugh meter.
― Pontius Pilates (m coleman), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 13:17 (nine years ago) link
Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried
Vietnam War live and in after-the-fact flashback and just as horrific/moving as you'd expect. why don't we (amerikans) learn from the past?
― Pontius Pilates (m coleman), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 13:20 (nine years ago) link
Jo Nesbo The Redcoat
author maybe bites off more than he can chew by tying WW2 era Norwegian Nazis into contemporary crime wave but fairly interesting nevertheless. Not sure how much Nesbo's book-to-book variation in quality (he's all over the place in the half-dozen I've read) is due to translation.
― Pontius Pilates (m coleman), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 13:24 (nine years ago) link
Martin Amis The Zone Of Interest
He's such a lightening rod in these quarters I'll just say this is arguably his best novel and surely best since Money and be done w/it. #copout
― Pontius Pilates (m coleman), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 13:25 (nine years ago) link
James Elroy PerfidiaMarlon James A Brief History of Seven Killings
two long crime novels using historical events as departure points for sweeping epic tales and social commentary. Elroy is imitating himself at this point, veering toward self-parody at times. James otoh stakes his claim as a fresh voice of the Jamaican diaspora and a riveting storyteller. Best new author I've read this year.
― Pontius Pilates (m coleman), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 13:31 (nine years ago) link
currently wading through Richard Norton Smith's On His Own Terms: A Life Of Nelson Rockefeller and looking forward to the new Michael Connelly and William Gibson's The Peripheral plus George Clinton's memoir. The librarian gave me a funny look when I checked out Rocky and Dr. Funkenstein at the same time.
― Pontius Pilates (m coleman), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 13:35 (nine years ago) link
I bought this after thinking I'd given up on Amis after Yellow Dog--haven't yet started it, but more because not feeling strong enough for genocide rather than Amis leariness
― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 22:49 (nine years ago) link
Ghost stories week for my Victorian lit class:
Elizabeth Gaskell, "The Old Nurse's Story" (essential)R.L. Stevenson, "The Body Snatcher" (probably essential, but unfairly tainted by my love the Val Lewton film adaptation)Charles Dickens, "To Be Taken With a Grain of Salt" (a trifle)Margaret Oliphant, "Old Lady Mary" (curious...)William Harrison Ainsworth, "The Spectre Bride" (harsh!)George MacDonald, "Uncle Cornelius, His Story" (awful)
― MaudAddam (cryptosicko), Thursday, 20 November 2014 04:21 (nine years ago) link