Tell me about this one. Anyone read it? Looks tempting, and Musil like.
― Ronan, Thursday, 3 January 2008 00:42 (sixteen years ago) link
divided into 3 parts. the first one is realistic and ironic,like flaubert,but flaubert is much better imo.
the 2nd one is expressionism that resembles Kafka and Doblin.
i havent read yet the third part, but it's supposed to be the most ambitious post-modern part of the three,trying to give the reader the "solution" for the problems modern life arise.
from what i've read - it is great,no doubt, but the originals i've mentioned are more essential, and to my humble opinion - better.
― Zeno, Thursday, 3 January 2008 00:50 (sixteen years ago) link
I've only read Part 1 so far, which I remember enjoying, but also finding surprisingly dense for such a (relatively) short book. That was several years ago, and I think I need to re-read it before going on to the next 2. I think each of the three books is set 30 years after the previous one, (ie the 1880s, 1910s, 1940s), but I may have the numbers/dates wrong.
― James Morrison, Thursday, 3 January 2008 05:15 (sixteen years ago) link
has anyone read "The Death of Virgil"?
I'm about 40 pages in, it's really slow going but also really amazing, so beautifully written. A bit like you'd expect from one of these dudes, there are sentences that are hard to parse/understand, but also loads of stuff that blows you away. The whole setting and plot, Virgil on his deathbed, contemplating his career, is pretty amazing.
― I see what this is (Local Garda), Friday, 4 December 2009 19:12 (fourteen years ago) link
I finally read pt 2, which was really cool. I want to read Virgil, but it seems to be OP and I can't find a copy.
― Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats. (James Morrison), Saturday, 5 December 2009 06:54 (fourteen years ago) link
The point at which this got rough going for me was in the 3rd part (?) where Virgil tries to get his manuscript destroyed and gets into extensive dialogues. Glad I hung on there for the last part.
This is a counterpart of sorts (maybe the only one) to Ulysses and possibly one of the few reasons to revisit the Aenied. Do classics students cover/mention this one at all?
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 December 2009 12:50 (fourteen years ago) link
I did the Aeneid in school but we were prob too young for them to mention Broch. I would say that Broch's book is stylistically v v close to the English translations of the Aeneid.
― I see what this is (Local Garda), Sunday, 6 December 2009 23:45 (fourteen years ago) link
About to start on The Sleepwalkers. Did anyone finish it?
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 21 April 2010 19:20 (thirteen years ago) link
currently reading it
― nakhchivan, Wednesday, 21 April 2010 19:24 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, and it's awesome.getting much better with each part.
― Zeno, Wednesday, 21 April 2010 22:28 (thirteen years ago) link
"for man is held into the everlasting knowledge of the questioninto the everlasting now of man's knowledgeless knowinginto man's divine prescience,knowledgeness in that it asks and must ask,knowingness in that it precedes the question."
from the death of virgil, prob the slowest hardest read of my life but easily one of the best.
― I see what this is (Local Garda), Monday, 26 April 2010 21:32 (thirteen years ago) link
oh man
bought sleepwalkers in about 2005
must... get... round... to it. currently reading s.thing bought in 1997 and still looking "as new".
― Norway, that's where I'm a viking! (history mayne), Monday, 26 April 2010 21:38 (thirteen years ago) link
hmmmn yeah i've read the beginning of each of the three 'books' and a few random bits of this (in the muir translation, did german til 16 and i can kinda read heine and schiller w/ a dictionary but i looked at this in german and....no fkn way)
will have probably read within three years or so anyway
― nakhchivan, Monday, 26 April 2010 21:47 (thirteen years ago) link
― Zeno, Wednesday, April 21, 2010 Bookmark
Think I get where you're coming from. Partly to do with having read a few summaries and an essay by Milan Kundera. The third part is quite 'essayistic' in form and I'm already feeling like skipping, even though the first part is more than fine really: the bit where Bertrand declares his 'love' for Elizabeth is really funny, and he's already setting out any theories of decline (specifically the bit about the soldier's uniform replacing the priest's robe: the world becoming securalized, having its values replaced representing a decline of values from the middle ages...isn't this how Ruskin goes about things in his book on Venice?)
Most of the dialogue is embedded in long stretches of analysis (very reminiscent of Proust), but the above scene is in short lines alternating for Bertrand/Elizabeth. I don't know if he got the former from Proust but if he did then it shows how he reads others then imitates (in Death of Virgil you have a poet's soliloquy which reminds you of Molly) but he has his own concerns and things to add.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 27 April 2010 12:31 (thirteen years ago) link
Gonna give it a go. Can one read any one of the parts as a discrete unit?
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 16 October 2017 17:27 (six years ago) link
Why do you wanna read it that way?
― nostormo, Monday, 16 October 2017 20:24 (six years ago) link
Jaw dropping book imo btw
From memory they can all stand apart, but yeah go for the whole thing!
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Monday, 16 October 2017 23:42 (six years ago) link
These can be read discreetely and I'd only bother with the final part.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 17 October 2017 08:32 (six years ago) link
contentious!
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Wednesday, 18 October 2017 00:35 (six years ago) link
that way he'll miss out on the only novel about Weimar lady wrestlers!
A good piece on Death of Virgil
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 26 October 2017 19:43 (six years ago) link