'I FALL upon the spines of books! I read!' -- Autumn 2014: What Are You Reading?

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...

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.

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.

The movie is very worthwhile; Huston always does right by his literary sources.

"finally listened to Blonde On Blonde" *again*, I meant to say.

"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

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/

started ZN Hurston, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
it seems quite good!

and Jim Crace, THE GIFT OF STONES
a novel about the STONE AGE

how is THE GIFT OF STONES. this is something I am currently interested in.

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.

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

Tomorrow night, sorry.

Peter Lorre bio The Lost One

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)

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.

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.

so i just completed the third oryx and crake book – madd addam. strange, good conclusion (maybe?) but something of a slog.

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.

now the fun begins! Wait till you get to the descriptions of a typical day, William Clark, David Stockman, and Bitburg.

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.

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.

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 stuff
http://logger.believermag.com/post/102890463209/colettes-advice-column

http://media.tumblr.com/d95cf76eabb70fe75ed91739ec386371/tumblr_inline_neh036ly0T1rglck1.png

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

James Hamilton-Patterson Rancid Pansies

funnier and less self-consciously "well written" than Cooking With Fernet Branca at least on my literary laugh meter.

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?

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.

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

James Elroy Perfidia
Marlon 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.

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.

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

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

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)

Got confused for a second and thought this last was by the author of the Flashman series.

that Gaskell story is part of this: "Curious, if True" - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24879

On an ILB recommendation, I started Richard Brautigan's 'Hawkline Monster'. Interestingly and frugally written, I can imagine finishing this very quickly.

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.

I'm trying to figure out how to write about it. For a while its slightness felt like a relief.

yeah I didn't nail it in that post, something fuzzy about the judge makes her hard to process. didn't know what to think about her failing marriage. guess the husband's somewhat legalistic declaration about having an affair was meant to be uh ironic.

Alfred you might be interested in the Rockefeller bio. Kind of a companion piece to The Invisible Bridge, less riveting/well-written but the good bits are copious. I didn't know that Kissinger began as advisor to Nelson in the 50s, some of Henry's sycophantic arias could have been lifted verbatim from Nixonland.

speaking of Invisible Bridge, I also didn't remember, or know, just what a diehard Tricky Dick defender Reagan was right up until the bitter end of Watergate. Was he cynical, delusional, oblivious or all three? The latter is my choice.

I read the Rockefeller: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/if-you-dont-like-the-effect-dont-produce-the-cause-nelson-rockefeller/

Just finished reading Robert B. Ray's "A Certian Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema 1930-1980". One of the best books on Hollywood ideology I've ever read.

Geertz's "Notes on the Balinese Cockfight"... so good.

Was he cynical, delusional, oblivious or all three? The latter is my choice.

Also, stupid.

Well there's that too

hey evr i just read the luiselli book too. she's really neat. i am gonna try the novel.

Last couple of weeks reading - all of which I loved apart from Meadowland perhaps, which was a bit of a chore:

F Tennyson Jesse - A Pin To See The Peepshow
Anonymous - A Woman in Berlin
Ivan Turgenev - On The Eve
Ian MacDonald - Revolution in the Head (why did it take me two decades to get around to reading this?)
Derek Marlowe - A Single Summer With L.B. (loveable Byron and his doctor in Switzerland)
Ivan Turgenev - Spring Torrents
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa - The Leopard (started this a few years ago and gave up. This time I devoured it.)
John Lewis-Stempel - Meadowland
William Shakespeare - Macbeth

finished THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
I was impressed

now reading a book about the author and annoyingly it makes her out to be less likeable than the novel did
maybe best to 'trust the tale'?

finished morris's 'dutch' a couple nights ago. it won me over completely once it got to reagan's presidency; i think it's one of the best biographies i've read in years. he managed to humanize reagan and make sense of his personality in a way that rang true for me. the eyewitness account of the first meeting with gorbachev was a highlight. thinking of going back and plowing through all of morris's roosevelt books now (read the first one about 10 years ago but never got around to the others).