Autumn 2020: Is Everything Getting Dimmer or Is It Just Me?

I auditioned a few moderately demanding books to see if they met my mood, but it turns out my mood is for something utterly plain, neutral and emotionally undemanding. Therefore I'll be reading Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America, Michael Ruhlman.

xp I think that was my first Zweig as well (it leads the collection of his novellas published a few years ago), and if I'm not mistaken I devoured it in a single sitting -- though I didn't exactly love it, and I have trouble recalling anything at all about it now beyond a vague sense of the setting.

On the other hand, Chess Story -- which I approached somewhat warily, not being a chess player -- haunts me.

Was somewhat lit up last night and got deeply into the first few sections of Jean-Luc Nancy's 'Being Singular Plural.'

Have you read Mieville's _The City and The City_? Some stumbles, but a good-faith urban and urban interzone multi-cultural thriller/procedural (doesn't let the conceptually layered settings or the plot get in each other's way, or not too much).

I met him once. He said he didn't like THE DARK KNIGHT because it endorsed a fascist Batman.

He hadn't actually seen the film.

I didn't really like The City and The City when I read it, but it's grown in my imagination. I love the concept. Perdido Street Station is immense.

I loved the Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic. It was all about the concept for me but the last 80 pages or so were finely written and constructed. I wanted more of the Zone (which is clearly part of the point: it is a motor of pure Desire after all).

I've started a collection of Nina Coltart's essays on psychoanalysis.

If you have the inclination, Fizzles, I'm intrigued by the idea of Miéville not 'listening to anything he says'...

75% through THE LAST SEPTEMBER. Much that's compelling about this novel, even as it dallies so blatantly in frivolity (that is, country-house manners and trivial upper-class talk).

I come back to the fact that the novel seems to hold together (or hold apart) two things: the frivolous or decadent social world (even whirl), and the menace of the War of Independence. It keeps both in mind throughout, even though most of the time it's only the former wondering about the latter. I suppose I'm impressed by a novel that can do the frivolity so naturally, while also being, in a way, politically and historically serious.

If you have the inclination, Fizzles, I'm intrigued by the idea of Miéville not 'listening to anything he says'...

― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Saturday, 31 October 2020 11:05 bookmarkflaglink

i feel i just shouldn't talk about him, because people like his books, and i kind of feel i *should* like them, which makes me feel and act a bit jilted when i don't. hence my incoherence itt and also in the mieville thread (i will not be taking any questions on the statement 'can't creatively imagine for toffee'):

Is English not his first language?

Certain they're dictated. Some sentences in whatever that one I read before were just unbelievable, impossible to write for anyone from primary school level up (not even necessarily bad writing as such, just 'how could you write those words down next to each other? It was some sort of 'had, had had clusterfuck I think). I've read two of his now - The City and the City and that one... hang on, oh god - Embassytown, that was it. He's becoming a real grudge read. The thing is I want him to succeed at what he does - his approach appeals - but I swear he can't write or creatively imagine for toffee.

Feel I must be RONG about some stuff tho, cos plenty of clearly more or less good/sensible people like him. Feel slightly embattled and defensive about my dislike. Makes me touchy and incoherent about him.

― If you live in Thanet and fancy doing some creative knitting (Fizzles), Thursday, 5 July 2012 18:11 bookmarkflaglink

Going to finish The Jakarta Method today. While it has some minor structural issues, I believe that it should be taught in every high school in the US.

Fair enough, Fizzles - sometimes you have to trust your instincts with writers eh.

I loved Perdido Street Station and The Scar but with reservations with the latter (it collapsed under its own weight). The City and The City was conceptually glorious but clumsy at a plot and character level. I think the best thing I've read is a short story about disappearing streets in London, which is pure Borges and again, a lovely concept.

Fizzles: probably neither of us truly knows, but I would it is very, very unlikely that CM dictates his novels to a person who transcribes them (if that's what you meant).

[I would *say]

Fizzles: probably neither of us truly knows, but I would it is very, very unlikely that CM dictates his novels to a person who transcribes them (if that's what you meant).

So we'll put him on the list with R023rT Lxw*l% and my contribution:
Everybody draws the line somewhere---I had my fill of Stanley Crouch's personality and literary persona long ago, can't read any of the tributes either. Bye schmuck.

― dow, Saturday, October 10, 2020
Who else pushes your button ppl? Don't be shy.

Shut up and play your drums, Crouch.

Croz you know they got a hell of a band.

i liked perdido street station but also have no inclination to ever read anything else by him

i didn't like city and the city at all but embassytown and iron council are both excellent. he's pretty good at the idea-and-system part but a dire stylist. also his cornball borges devotion is detrimental to his work and kinda weird for a supposed leftist.

The one Mieville I tried - Kraken - was so pisspoor (like, sub-Pratchett pisspoor) that I haven't ventured further, though I understand that one is something of an outlier among his novels.

I have thoroughly given up on October, btw. Dry dry dry dry dry.

My book about grocery stores is predictably mediocre. The author appears to have sold the idea to his publisher, got a green light, then found out the subject matter was not only vast, but complex in its details, and that narrower segments of the subject had been covered in depth by better-focused books. But, since he had a contract and had fucked around for several years gathering material, he went ahead and wrote a scattershot, thinly researched book and handed it over.

Still, this book is about my speed until the election is clearly decided, which I fervently hope is long before the end of November. In 2000 it dragged on into December.

Yeah, narrower deeper coverage would def work better for that subject. I once saw C-Span testimony to a Congressional (sub?)committee about the personal experiences of those who pay for placement on shelves: one guy was covering a store (or department?) manager's child support and alimony for a while---but products can get shoved behind others anyway, or no longer displayed at all, for whatever reason: none of this was illegal, then or now either, probably; I haven't heard of any changes.
Music biz permutations too much for this thread, but I'm told that Frederick Dannen's Hit Men is a good read.

I have thoroughly given up on October, btw. Dry dry dry dry dry.

You did! And I thought I could plough through. Maybe another time! Will keep it on the unread shelves

I think I actually prefer the less typically Faulknerian, perhaps more commercial, stories from this Faulkner story collection to the Yoknaphatawpa county (sp?) stories that are often cited. They're just more fun. He had good range, and was competing against some very strong talent during the golden age of the commercial short story, at least in this country. The guy wrote a lot of books, I'm curious about all the less famous, post-Nobel novels.

You might like The Reivers. I did, but read it a long long time ago, and lingering impressions may be mixed with those of the movie---wiki article may eventually have spoilers, but here's the basic take:
he Reivers: A Reminiscence, published in 1962, is the last novel by the American author William Faulkner. The bestselling novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1963. Faulkner previously won this award for his book A Fable, making him one of only four authors to be awarded it more than once. Unlike many of his earlier works, it is a straightforward narration and eschews the complicated literary techniques of his more well known works. It is a picaresque novel, and as such may seem uncharacteristically lighthearted given its subject matter. For these reasons, The Reivers is often ignored by Faulkner scholars or dismissed as a lesser work.

~Hi~

JUST FINISHED:
Moscow to the End of the Line - Venedikt Erofeev: A great movie has yet to be made from this book. I straight adaptation with no cuts would be phenomenal cinema. I never drink spirits, but I did buy a bottle of vodka to take me along the journey with Venya.
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy: First McCarthy book. A bloody trip.
The Crucifixion - Fleming Rutledge: An unusual companion piece to Blood Meridian (actually, chronologically it was the other way around). Great book to kick the sunshiny new-agy optimism out of Christianity

Currently Reading:
I Am a Cat - Natsume Sōseki: Started this years ago. Picking up two kittens brothers in a week, seems like the best study prep for a new stage in life.
Being and Time - Martin Heidegger: This book is surprisingly mellowing me out. A very heavy dose of "what will be will be" in the heart of Heidegger's thought. A good dose of sovereignty for a crazy year.

Recently read 2 miserable bastard French novels back-to-back: Journey to the End of the Night and Atomised. I liked them, but their misanthropy rubbed off on me a little too much and put me in a foul mood for the few weeks I was reading them. Now reading Vineland. It feels like a welcome change of tone in comparison. I know it's considered lesser Pynchon, but I'm having fun with it so far. Not looking forward to the day when I have no new (to me) Pynchon to read. Saving the biggest ones for last with Mason & Dixon and Against the Day.

Began Nicole Brossard's 'Picture Theory' this morning, for the second time.. found myself entering it from a different perspective and being able to adjust to its oddness a lot more readily.

I can't imagine reading Céline right now. Or Heidegger for that matter.

I've resumed reading Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams. I can't remember why but I put it down six months ago. I need the escape into the frozen north, even if it is littered with the bodies of muskoxen and Beluga whales.

You might like The Reivers

That one looks interesting. I'm also curious about "A Fable" a late novel set in the trenches of WWI. I liked the war stories by him I've read.

kind of an odd reading time for me -- i'm finding it hard to stick with anything. i did reread mary shelley's frankenstein for the first time since my teens. went right through it in a few nights. it's a very strange book, especially the periodic long stretches where victor f. just goes on vacation and describes the pretty scenery at length and seems to forget all about the terrifying results of his mad experiment, and this seems to happen for months and even years at a time. still pretty good, though! kinda tempted to look at some of shelley's other novels, which i know nothing about.

I really enjoyed The Last Man In Europe which starts as this big bustling future-historical steampunk pageant, romance and intrigue rippling into bloodwaves ov battle---then gradually it becomes like it says in the title and like what you're describing (which I won't spoil) Also liked a collection of shorter fiction, blanking on title, think it's from University of Nebraska Press. There's also this novella about a girl, maybe too smart for her own good, also in fraught relationship w her likewise father--kindle only, last time I checked, bundled with a story by her mother----here tis as stand-alone now (along w a whole lot more Mary now in the Kindle Store, which I hadn't seen all that):
...-unlike her first book, Frankenstein, written a year earlier, Mathilda uses fantasy to study a far more personal reality. It tells the story of a young woman whose mother died in her childbirth--just as Shelly's own mother died after hers--and whose relationship with her bereaved father becomes sexually charged as he conflates her with his lost wife, while she becomes involved with a handsome poet. Yet despite characters clearly based on herself, her father, and her husband, the narrator's emotional and relentlessly self-examining voice lifts the story beyond autobiographical resonance into something more transcendent: a driven tale of a brave woman's search for love, atonement, and redemption. It took more than a century before the manuscript Mary Shelley gave her father was rediscovered.
The stories tend to try to be more normwave Golden Age Victorian ladies' fiction, but still her, still pretty powerful in their way, best I remember.
Haven't read any other novels.

Might get around to this one:
THE FORTUNES OF PERKIN WARBECK is an historical novel concerning the life and exploits of Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the throne of King Henry VII. In the novel, Warbeck claims to be Richard, Duke of York, the second son of King Edward IV who was unjustly imprisoned in the Tower of London.

The sections where he's chasing the monster around the Arctic are permanently embedded in my brain, God I love that book.

J.D., I agree, from (long-ago) memory that FRANKENSTEIN is not very much what one would expect it to be.

I started rereading Nella Larsen's PASSING.

been really enjoying janet malcolm’s the silent woman: sylvia plath and ted hughes. this in some senses is surprising, because i have never really had any interest in either (which is bad and incurious of me, tho i give myself more of a free pass in the case of hughes, whose poetry i’ve never been much taken with).

but this is a great and incisive description of among other things, the psychic challenges of biography, the relationship of the living to the dead, what it meant to be an american woman in the UK, depression, and the horrid escapes and traps of the self-defined romantic artist, and contains a truly malignant anti-creative character/force in the form of Olwyn Hughes, Ted’s sister.

A+ one of the best books i’ve read this year. a keeper.

does also make me want to revisit *some* of hughes’ poetry, and give plath another go.

loved that book despite also having little-to-no interest in its subjects

oh cool!

i was just thinking as well as this:

the relationship of the living to the dead

it’s really good on the relationships of those people whose point of connection is some who’s died, traumatically in this case.

Plath is I suppose a cliché for young women to like but I loved her work a lot when I was much younger and I still like how she wrote, the clarity and frankness of her expression really gets to me. This has also reminded me that I lent a collection of her poems to someone I subsequently fell out catastrophically with, so time to reorder it I think.

Also now remembering that Plath was so beloved by my English class that Ted Hughes was a boo-hiss total hate figure, lol.

t’s really good on the relationships of those people whose point of connection is some who’s died, traumatically in this case. Thanks, Fizzles! Just realize this is what I was trying to pinpoint re Cather's The Professor's House, which I raved about on prev. WAYR? Most of those characters are in the same family, but their relationship to dead guy x his legacy is becoming key, esp. in POV of the Professor.
Have only read a little of The Bell Jar, need to get back to that, and got why it would be such a YA fave of girls, also the poetry can still startle, while going toward xpost romantic traps, and must have inspired many many song lyrics. Also enjoyed & need to get back to emerging diaries and letters over the years.
The only thing like an extended biographical account that I've read is by her colleague and neighbor A. Alvarez, in his book about suicide, The Savage God.

practicing self-care by reading uncle fred in the springtime by pg wodehouse

Started reading Exhalation by Ted Chiang, a collection of short stories of which I'd already read The Lifecycle of Software Objects, which was good. First story, The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate is good, but it's in close enough proximity to Borges to feel a bit 'miss is as good as a mile.'

Also in my pile, Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg, which looks good, but no book has tried harder with its blurb quotes to make me never want to read it: 'A Zingy Romp' Guardian, 'A Mind-Bending Romp' NYT, 'Rollicking' (that from Maggie Nelson, so we'll call that a score-draw). 'A bawdy, dazzling triumph of a book' etc.

Seriously. do not use the word romp plz. It puts me off my tea.

I've always loved THE BELL JAR (and said so at length in an article that was never published) but clarity is what I've rarely found in Plath's poetry (save the most famous and broad-brush pieces). I wonder if, though she was young when she wrote it, I was never old enough to understand it when I read it, and could do better now.

romp is a horrible word

The only thing like an extended biographical account that I've read is by her colleague and neighbor A. Alvarez, in his book about suicide, The Savage God.

― dow,

Janet Malcom's The Silent Woman is terrific.

I used to bullseye romp wats in my T-16 back home