Now: "The Goodbye Kiss" by Massimo Carlotto, which is brutal Italian hard-boiled crime fiction. I'm about halfway through and it's all too macho for me, I think. It looks like I'm the sort of person to enjoy the more bleeding heart liberal Scando version.
― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 09:26 (seventeen years ago) link
That being said, "Portrait of a Lady" was a fairly smashing book, and I feel wonderfully happy being lost in the jungle that is "The Golden Bowl." Strange, too, because I had always heard that Henry James was a tedious read -- I guess I'm just a sucker for florid prose.
Rabelais has been put on hold until I can find a better version.
― mj (robert blake), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 01:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 06:00 (seventeen years ago) link
But, to reward myself for actually finishing them, I've just started Suite Francaise which is achingly beautiful ... at least the first couple of chapters. But it's going to be getting grim really soon, I fear. And, knowing what happened to the author and all, I have this overall feeling of bleakness.
― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 07:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 07:28 (seventeen years ago) link
glad to hear you say this to know that i'm not just mad. it was so wonderfully delightful until the very, very end, and the anticipation makes the lousy payoff seem all the worse. i felt cheated :(
this week, i am cracking into turkey: a modern history and terrorists or freedom fighters: reflections on the liberation of animals.
― derrick (derrick), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 07:54 (seventeen years ago) link
So now I'm reading "Portnoy's Complaint", which is much more up my proverbial alley. NO I DON'T MEAN BY WAY OF IDENTIFICATION WITH THE LEAD CHARACTER, cheeky.
*I have met more first year undergraduates who take this self-congrtulatory and fruitless line than I have any other broad group, please don't take this as some kind of blanket condemnation of undergraduates!
― Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 13:46 (seventeen years ago) link
Have you read anything by him before? The early work is actually written in a fairly straightforward manner -- it just isn't as interesting as the later stuff (to me, anyway). The ornate style only really confuses in the final works.
Could I recommend one of his novellas to you? "Daisy Miller," perhaps? "The Aspern Papers"? Those probably wouldn't require a whole lot of time if they interested you.
― mj (robert blake), Thursday, 26 October 2006 01:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 26 October 2006 02:11 (seventeen years ago) link
I like them, but I definitely wouldn't start with The Bostonians or What Maisie Knew.
― horseshoe (horseshoe), Thursday, 26 October 2006 04:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― horseshoe (horseshoe), Thursday, 26 October 2006 04:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mädchen (Madchen), Thursday, 26 October 2006 08:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ray (Ray), Thursday, 26 October 2006 09:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― the pinefox (the pinefox), Thursday, 26 October 2006 14:37 (seventeen years ago) link
LRB has not yet shown, but a letter arrived, with a little slip on it, a little slip I completed and returned by return.
The next day the same letter arrived (with a date two days later than the first) , with an identical little slip. I thought it best not to return that one, it might have confused them.
I have not yet seen a real actual LRB, but I hope to and I remain very grateful for your kind thoughts.
― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 26 October 2006 16:08 (seventeen years ago) link
DESCRIPTION OF STRATA
Tarmac
Dense Brown Granular FILL - MADE GROUND*
Firm / Stiff Red Brown silty sandy gravelly CLAY*
Soft Mottled Brown clayey sandy SILT some gravel*
Loose Brown silty SAND*
Medium Dense Brown silty gravelly SAND
Medium Dense Grey Brown silty sandy GRAVEL with cobbles*
(Continued...)
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 26 October 2006 17:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 26 October 2006 20:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 27 October 2006 02:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 27 October 2006 02:57 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― horseshoe (horseshoe), Friday, 27 October 2006 04:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Friday, 27 October 2006 09:51 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― franny (frannyglass), Friday, 27 October 2006 11:56 (seventeen years ago) link
That is probably going to take another week though, since "Golden Bowl" doesn't lend itself to fast reading.
― mj (robert blake), Friday, 27 October 2006 12:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 27 October 2006 13:47 (seventeen years ago) link
Cozen: Moy Sand and Gravel?
TH: good news!
― the pinefox (the pinefox), Friday, 27 October 2006 13:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 27 October 2006 13:59 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 27 October 2006 15:56 (seventeen years ago) link
this week's classes: the time machine and the book of daniel.
― tom west (thomp), Friday, 27 October 2006 17:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Friday, 27 October 2006 18:58 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― justine paul (justine), Saturday, 28 October 2006 23:57 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 30 October 2006 08:04 (seventeen years ago) link
Thank you. I wonder if I will become a subscriber, in my own right, eventually.
― Tim (Tim), Monday, 30 October 2006 13:59 (seventeen years ago) link
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!
― ledge (ledge), Monday, 30 October 2006 15:42 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― mj (robert blake), Monday, 30 October 2006 15:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Monday, 30 October 2006 16:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 30 October 2006 20:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― wogan lenin (dog latin), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 00:17 (seventeen years ago) link
― ledge (ledge), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 00:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 01:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 09:32 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― ledge (ledge), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 09:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― frankiemachine (frankiemachine), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 12:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ray (Ray), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 12:57 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 13:17 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link
(I noticed the recurring character, but the narrative structure is still very simple. Not that there's anything wrong with that)
― Ray (Ray), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 13:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mädchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 17:56 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 23:17 (seventeen years ago) link
― Navek Rednam (Navek Rednam), Wednesday, 1 November 2006 22:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 1 November 2006 23:02 (seventeen years ago) link