Sumer Is Icumen In 2015, What Are You Reading Now?

- Jack Spicer - My Vocabulary did this to me (also Peter Riley's essay on The Holy Grail)
- Ovid's Erotic Poems trans Peter Green
- Kierkegaard - Either/Or
- Langland - Piers plowman

I found the Narayan book very engaging. He does not subject his characters to painstaking psychological dissection, but tells a brief but solid story with simplicity and assurance. In the end, you know the characters at least as well as you know most of the real people who surround you, and you have seen them undergo a complex and perplexing life-altering experience -- which is how many life-altering experiences seem to happen. I think I would have appreciated it even more if I were familiar with the Ramayana and the traditional stories of Hinduism, and so could better understand the passing allusions to them. Would recommend.

The Cather was also a fine book. It is one of her earlier novels, written about 1914. She is especially strong in her descriptions of the prairie and succeeds in making it a leading character in her story, since its presence and the need to respond to it drives many of the actions of the people and inescapably shapes them. The plot builds up to what her contemporary readers would have comfortably accepted as a melodrama, but she deftly raises the bar and converts her story into something with more depth and dignity, more on the order of tragedy. The payoff in the final few pages is both subdued and powerful. Would also recommend.

I'm only a quarter of the way into King Leopold's Ghost, and while it is not really necessary to write an expose of colonialism, this book does a great job of digging under the surface of the nineteenth century's pretensions to morality and progress and showing the dirty details of greed, self-preening, and ambition of the powerful, and the hugely ugly consequences for the powerless they took as their targets. The history of the Congo makes an excellent exemplar of colonialism as it really worked.

Cather is wondrous. She should get the kudos and writing lab recs that Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner do.

I think I would have appreciated it even more if I were familiar with the Ramayana and the traditional stories of Hinduism

Narayan actually did a version of the Ramayana in prose--very readable

My own recent reading:

Hafez: Faces of Love -- Medieval Muslim/Persian bisexual love/sex/booze poetry -- delightful, really
Malthus: An Essay on the Principle of Population -- so far so OTM; surprisingly and pleasingly clear prose style, too

Checked, and Penguin publishes the Narayan Ranayana

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0143039679.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

He's def my favorite indian novelist. Understated, subtle and v evocative of and sympathetic towards his subjects.

Best entry point imo is malgudi days.

Malthus' math didn't bear out iirc

that's my impression, but he still makes a persuasive argument

Although not about everything, having read some more. And people were itching for the Singularity even 200 years ago.
"The great and unlooked for discoveries that have taken place of late years in natural philosophy, the increasing diffusion of general knowledge from the extension of the art of printing, the ardent and unshackled spirit of inquiry that prevails throughout the lettered and even unlettered world, the new and extraordinary lights that have been thrown on political subjects which dazzle and astonish the understanding, and particularly that tremendous phenomenon in the political horizon, the French Revolution, which, like a blazing comet, seems destined either to inspire with fresh life and vigour, or to scorch up and destroy the shrinking inhabitants of the earth, have all concurred to lead many able men into the opinion that we were touching on a period big with the most important changes, changes that would in some measure be decisive of the future fate of mankind. It has been said that the great question is now at issue, whether man shall henceforth start forwards with accelerated velocity towards illimitable, and hitherto unconceived improvement..."

I thought King Leopold's Ghost fascinating and need to reread it. Since Joseph Conrad had dealings with the regime as a sea captain it does seem to be a source for Kurtz. The Leopold Congo that is.
&all in the supposed name of eradicating slavery?

I just picked up a book called Season to Taste an autobiographical work by Molly Birnbaum. It's about her dream of being a chef being effected by her losing her sense of smell in brain injury caused by a jogging/car accident.
I've only got as far as her physical recovery from the damage to her legs and torso so don't know what the rest of the story is.
She can't taste and has defered the start date on a culinary college place so could be permanent.
I have a feeling I read an excerpt from this in either Guardian or Observer magazine when the book came out. I just found this ina charity shop so didn't make the connection immediately but do recognise the story.

Also got Simon Reynolds' Energy Flash for 25c. It's the only one by him I'm aware of and haven't read. Story of Rave and Dance Culture.

I also started Alan Clayton's bio of Serge Gainsbourg which I've had for a while without reading.

Nice score on the Reynolds. Reading Maurice Shadbolt's Danger Zone (abt the crew of a boat protesting French nuclear testing on Mururoa atoll),it's good and interesting but so riddled w printing errors I'm having real problems enjoying it

That Reynolds book is probably my favourite music crit book of all time

Currently mired in a crew of books that will take months more to finish:

Capital in the 21st Century - Thomas Piketty
Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening - Joseph Goldstein
The Recognitions - William Gaddis
Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion
The Egoist - George Meredith
Hark! A Vagrant - Kate Beaton

All are great!

Elizabeth Gaskell has been a hugely fun first read.

Ellen Willis, Out of the Vinyl Deeps : the opening essay is the most profound reflection on Dylan I've read.

I think her contribution to Stranded is still my favorite text on the VU.

Mine too.

I read her essay on the VU's third album today in Vinyl Deeps and it was terrific, emphasizing the sadness of Reed's singing/lyrics. I mean, you're thinking, duh, but it's not something I'd focused on before.I don't think I know the Stranded piece.

It's in Vinyl Deeps, I think: it's just titled "The Velvet Underground."

Or, actually, I think that is the essay you read today.

xp Which Gaskell?

Silvana Ocampo: Thus Were Their Faces -- story collection: her stuff from the POV of children is esp good, but this is all wonderful so far

argh, SilvIna

Finishing Grapes of Wrath today, thinking of "Situations arise/because of the weather/And no kinds of love/Are better than others." Of course, in that song and this book, it's also what you bring to the weather: no matter what it takes from you (and sometimes making a crazy swap meet), there's all this stuff inside you can't get rid of, though it may get all shook up, and spill out in new combinations, from unforeseen openings---wounds, sometimes, but lots of others too, as all of the preceding has to do with various kinds of humor, but mainly sardonic.
One example: thought hangdawg Pa Joad, continually showed up by the much more adaptable Ma, was finally rousing hiself to rally a collective effort in which all saved all from being lost in the flood---but a collapsing cottonwood tree spoiled that, and pretty soon a man wanted to see him and complain, But the rain, the rain, the rain beat that fire out too, down into the gray--until it got its second wind, o shit. Expected arcs of melodrama usually end up getting in line, hitching up with the segments of practical considerations, which can be minutely detailed or huge, but either way, just keep banging along, seizing on pleasures when possible, more often than I expected).
There are rhetorical interludes I could live with out, but fewer than expected, and he's got me reading other things about the Dust Bowl now, also just got Burns doc from the library.
Don't yet feel the need to read more Steinbeck, but glad I finally got to this one.

Not that there isn't some deadly nastiness in GoW as well---part of the impression that even the biggest baddies are basically just trying to hang on the course of unforeseen events, which their greed and fear make that much worse. And one of the main goodies gets killed in a business-like sentence, all in a night's work.

Was really struck by how you got the feeling that when people were separated in Grapes of Wrath they may as well have been gone forever--the impossibility of finding someone again in that sort of environment, even though it was 20th-Century America and the people weren't actually in hiding, was a bit gob-smacking

Elizabeth Gaskell - Wives and Daughters.

Boy, she's good.

Her Gothic tales/ghost stories/Salem witch stories are pretty amazing, too

http://www.friedmanmichael.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/martiandawn.jpg

is that Roman wearing saddle shoes

Believe so

still ticking along with to the lighthouse, but also been reading incognito lounge by denis johnson. was on holidays this week and listened to a good few new yorker podcasts. donald barthelme's "the bodyguard" was so amazing that i now have to read more of him. that new robert musil arrived also.

you can't go wrong with Forty Stories/Sixty Stories

and talk about value!

What Robert Musil should I read first, and why?

Young Torless b/c it's short, pungent, and violent.

Cool! Which translation?

reading

daron acemoglu & james robinson - why nations fail

xpost man without qualities imo

if you want a v light taste of him i'd recommend flypaper. if you like that then go man without qualities.

i like torless but if i'd read it first it's a bit more indulgent than mwq i think.

sorry, garbled but you get the idea

Cool! Which translation?

always been tempted to pick it up when i see it in second hand bookshops but never have. only ever seen it as a two volume picador paperback from the seventies, no idea who did that translation.

been reading a bunch of michael innes crime/mystery novels.

YT is short. You'll figure out right quick whether you want to give The Man a try.

Reading Seven Men by Max Beerbohm, recommended on an earlier version of this thread. Good fun so far, I need fun. I gave up on the first St Aubyn book, just couldn't stomach it. Since having a baby and losing a family member to cancer I find I cannot read anything that involves innocent people suffering. It means I barely read anything. I need recommendations for books that are meaty and beautiful and wonderful BUT don't involve anyone getting hurt ever. These obviously don't exist so I am stuck with PG Wodehouse and, like...Dr Seuss. Beerbohm is good value so far though.

always been tempted to pick it up when i see it in second hand bookshops but never have. only ever seen it as a two volume picador paperback from the seventies, no idea who did that translation.

been reading a bunch of michael innes crime/mystery novels.

that's the wilkins & kaiser translation. i think the more recent wilkins (not the same wilkins) and pike translation is generally better respected and also contains extra material but I haven't read it. also haven't read all of the picador ed. find i read it, enjoy it while I'm reading it and then just don't want to be reading it any more. posts itt have prompted me to pick it up again tho.

what's the michael innes like, nlt? I'd've sworn blind I'd read some - there were always plenty on the shelves at home when i was growing up - but I've just looked at his wikipedia bibliography and i dont think i have.

Glad you like the Beerbohm, Franny!

i was wrong about the picador being two volumes...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VhEZY3C67xQ/Ut5Ud24wFpI/AAAAAAAAG4A/gA69Noa3nH4/s1600/manwithoutqualities.jpg

...thanks for the info about the different translations

finding innes entertaining, if not quite living up to symons' criticism: "...rather in the manner of Peacock strained through or distorted by Aldous Huxley" (if only!). the appleby ones i've read so far are very much in the cosy tradition where everything is put to rights at the end. appleby himself is a bit of a cipher figure, somewhat wimsey-ish. currently reading the first in a series about his other (amateur) detective, the irascible society painter honeybath who's seeking to bring to justice a gang of bank robbers who have duped him into acting as an accessory.

man, those schiele covers are yoga flame all time. they went through a couple of uglier iterations.

i have 'finished' musil, sort of. it took two years, i think.

nice review of musil translation here. useful book!