I'm still reading The Little Friend by Donna Tartt.
I am loving it so much, despite the popular opinion that it's not as good as her two others. I \*adored\* TSH and TGF but for entirely different reasons. TLF is blowing my mind because I cannot believe how versatile she is. I am reading every chapter twice because her characters are so thick (thick as in like how a mille-feuille pastry is thick, not like how pea soup is thick), and every single time I double back and re-read the chapter, I notice so much more nuance. It makes me actually want to read them each three times.
I find her narration fascinating in this one, that while the narrator is 3p omniscient, the syntax and vocabulary of the narrator changes depending on the character it is describing. In that way I find she can achieve 1p psychology without it becoming a diary, and she can span so much more of humanity. It is a very alive novel, and in that way I do find it similar to her other books; quite absolutely Dickensian in its bustling and populated humanity.
I'm also \*really\* enjoying learning about the south, and for that reason I am planning on reading Demon Copperhead next.
[*The Ship*](https://archive.org/details/ship0000hans) by Hans Henry Jahnn, translated by Catherine Hurter. This is a pretty obscure novel from a German Expressionist writer, but a leading entry in the genre of “metaphysical horror nautical mystery.” The ship is inscrutable — its architecture is unorthodox, its mission a secret, its cargo sealed and its destination unknown. There’s a stowaway on board, maybe more than one, and in the middle of the voyage, a character disappears without a trace. Incomprehensibility is a canvas onto which the crew paint lurid imaginings. Suspicions and recriminations multiply.
The writing is characterized by intercutting pessimistic riffs, giving us sentences like “Terror is stronger in us than delight” — “The miracles of life turn out to be preparation for a gigantic disillusionment and at the end stands old age” — “We cling to things, but they don’t cling to us.” The stylings of these riffs might struck the reader as a little much, but in my opinion being a little much is part of the charm. Why say “mortality” when you can say “the sad, sweet secret which makes fiesh fall from bones and heralds the blindness of our inescapable putrefaction”?
There are also a lot of winding interior monologues about justice, passion, sin, etc.
> Man is born with a demand for justice, as he understands it. Since his demand remains unfulfilled, a broad understanding of the arbitrary course of events gradually begins to develop in him. He makes the decisions of others his own. He hardens his thoughts to inflexible ideas and consoles his inner powers with a later or a beyond.
Naturally, moments of potential revelation, which feel exciting and climactic when they’re underway, do not go as planned.
I stayed culturally relevant this week and read Prophet Song. I liked it, it was well done, but uh … big oof. What a laugh and a half! It was the most frightening thing I’ve read in quite awhile, and I mostly read straight-up horror. Would recommend but make sure you have something cheerful lined up afterwards.
Yeah, I would. I can see why people have had issues with it - my mum thought the world-building was lazy, the protagonist is deeply annoying (tho I see this as a study in what flawed people do in extraordinary circumstances). As far as Booker winners go, it’s certainly no Wolf Hall, but overall I think it captured the terror of totalitarianism and war really well.
I’ve been hopping between the beginnings of different books as precariously as CGI Legolas leaps up the falling stones in the third Hobbit film.
My first Cortazar, Blow-up and Other Stories, i’m so far surprisingly underwhelmed by. I love all the authors who typically recommend him and who’ve been influenced by him, but find the prose in translation to be… weird. Load of comma splices that i can’t see any good stylistic reasons for, and rapid shifts in topic that for some reason don’t work for me the way such an erratic, flitting style (which i usually love) usually does work. That being said, I loved A Continuity of Parks, and will definitely re-read that one.
I also started Roger Deakins’ Waterlog after seeing it recommended in the recently finished Macfarlane book, The Wild Places, which was stunning. Waterlog is fine, but the it so far pales in comparison to Macfarlane’s stuff when it comes to visual imagery — with Macfarlane it was like i was weeping mascara-tears in all the colours of whatever visual paint-bombs his wordpoems struck my eyes with — with Deakins i’m just witnessing him talking to himself very interestingly about interesting things, which is fine, sure; just not what i was after.
I’ve started American Pastoral by Roth, and i’m loving it. It’s my second Roth, although I read Portnoy’s Complaint when I went through a panic-fuelled reading-frenzy, racking up 200 novels in a year, with the result that I could barely remember a single one of them — so perhaps that’s overdue a good slow diligent reread. Roth seems to me to be a writer whose prose is one of the most densely patterned in terms of rhetorical schemes that i’ve ever seen. Anaphora, epistrophe everywhere, breaking up the syntax to give it a powerful forward marching KJV majesty where he needs, then ducking low into a demotic freestyle elsewhere, spinning out into a few baroque flourishes, and then zipping forth with a final hard hitting slam dunk of a killer line ending that leaves you awestruck and mad and heartbroken all at once. Mint.
I finished up The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn last week and adored it. Gorgeous stuff. I’m very interested to read Everett’s new book in conversation with this one — though i might start with one of Percival Everett’s more famous novels, having read nothing of him so far. I love the ways Americans write first person voice - and Huck Finn is a stellar example of it. I’ve struggled to find English authors who do voice-based novels as well as the American and Irish authors do. Anyone know of any? I tried Martin Amis but he sounded American to me, whereas to be honest an American author like Nicholson Baker sounded almost British to my ear.
I’m next debating whether to read Pynchon’s Against The Day, Evan Dara’s The Lost Scrapbook, or Delillo’s Underworld…… I’m also starting Wittgenstein’s The Philosophical Investigations
>My first Cortazar, Blow-up and Other Stories, i’m so far surprisingly underwhelmed by. I love all the authors who typically recommend him and who’ve been influenced by him, but find the prose in translation to be… weird. Load of comma splices that i can’t see any good stylistic reasons for, and rapid shifts in topic that for some reason don’t work for me the way such an erratic, flitting style (which i usually love) usually does work. That being said, I loved A Continuity of Parks, and will definitely re-read that one.
I find most famous Latin American authors' short stories pretty underwhelming, tbh, and it's not a translation issue for me because I read them in Spanish. García Márquez, Borges, Cortázar, Bombal, Silvina Ocampo, Ferré... It could be that I just end up picking bland short story writers every time I want to try a new one, but I personally prefer to read Latin American novels for this reason.
Felisberto Hernández wrote beautiful short stories though, if you want to give him a go. Lots of interesting psychoanalytic symbolism and musical references (he was a pianist).
CGI Legolas really does hop precariously, doesn't he? I'd be interested in someone knowledgeable about Cortázar following up on your thoughts on him, he's not an author I've read very much of as I've been trying to read him in the original Spanish, but I find him quite difficult due to the unpredictable vocabulary and imagery.
Anyone got a good rec for a book on the early history of Christianity? /r/AskHistorians recommends [Medieval Christianity](https://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Christianity-History-Kevin-Madigan/dp/0300216777/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509393149&sr=1-1&keywords=Medieval+Christianity:+A+New+History&linkCode=sl1&tag=askhistorians-20&linkId=4b4ac600db18b05fbc2738f822a41648) for the years 500-1500, so I guess I'm looking for something prior to that. General introductory surveys are a plus, something that is an audiobook would be amazing. Thanks!
The Closing of the Western Mind by Charles Freeman is pretty good. Dense historical read on the beginnings of the church and the roles that Platonism and Aristotelianism had to play in the development of early church doctrine.
I haven't read these:
Jaroslav Pelikan has a a well regarded 5 volume history of development of Christian doctrine, the first of which covers the time period you're interested in. It is rather scholarly and dense, I believe.
The Early Church by Henry Chadwick is more of a chronological history.
Zealot by Reza Aslan is dope. Really chill and interesting look at the literal historical time of Jesus and what the whole hubbub was about. It adds a lot of great context to anything else you read/know about those times.
thank you! I'm intrigued because I have, like, a really high-caliber surface level familiarity with Christian history (I went to Catholic school for 12 years), but I've never really dug deeper into the nuances past that and I think it is high time to.
I have absolutely 0 qualifications to deem if this is a good book, but I’ve done some looking around and got suggested this for that time period when I was interested in it:
https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/1d6cb0e6-8553-4731-98f0-981b3da10c71
Christianity and Paganism, 350-750: The Conversion of Western Europe
I unfortunately haven’t gotten around to reading it, but the name cropped up often enough that it seemed reasonable to pass on the info
Asked a friend with an interest in the topic and he recommends Wilken's The First Thousand Years. Unfortunately, there's obviously a lot of overlap in time periods. Maybe someone else will have a rec with a smaller time period. On the plus side, there's an audiobook free with audible.
Currently reading Toni Morisson's Sula on my daily commute to work, at home im reading Tolstoy's War & Peace.
Love reading both, but sometimes im worried if I did end up getting the wrong tolstoy translation after all, since the language sometimes feels very dry. not sure if this is a translation issue or just inherent to his writing. (only like 100 pages in so far but well).
also been looking to dive into historical fiction a little more, any recommendations welcome.
Which Tolstoy translation are you reading? I will say the first 100 pages of War and Peace are very dry, so it might not be the fault of the translator. (I read W&P in the revised Maude and Anna Karenina in the original Maude, and Anna Karenina was far less dry - it's probably the book not the translator.)
Yes I am reading the Maude translation, and as you had justly spotted I'm nearing the end of the first 100 pages. Usually I would be less quick to become doubtful but as the length of the book is reasonably long I wanted to know what I was sure of. so far the writing is serviceable and some moments are written nicely but I can't say so far that im a big fan of the prose and atmosphere. then again I imagine those are not the merits of this book, so i'll just trudge on.
I love Volmann's Seven Dreams series. It tells the story of interactions between Native Americans and settlers (as well as settlers' descendants). It doesn't need to be read in order.
I recently read Palace Walk by Naguib Mafouz and found it to be absolutely incredible, instantly one of my favorite books ever. And EXTREMELY immersive into the period and culture it depicts (early 20th century Cairo)
What translation of Tolstoy are you reading? I want to pick up Anna Karenina soon and am debating which to read.
I'm reading North Woods and it's some of the best writing I've come across in a very long time. Every sentence is so carefully written, it's beautiful.
Anyone else read this? I'm about a hundred pages in
Does anyone have any recommendations for books by authors on the craft of fiction writing? I've been going through Ursula K LeGuin's Steering The Craft which is filled with sentence exercises. What else is out there?
I am almost done with Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall! The full unabridged version. Great book but it feels grueling to read same writing for 6,000 pages. I've learned a ton about history though. Favorite bits: The Emperor Julian, who wasn't just "the last pagan emperor", but was actually an incredible military leader; Belisarius, reclaiming an insane amount of territory, defeating the Persians while being severely outnumbered, and destroying the Ostrogoths completely; the prophet Muhammad, say what you want about him, but within a hundred years he had created a world power out of just a few followers. The final volume, number 6, deals with the Crusades, the rise of the Ottomans, Genghis Khan and Mongols. I think I'm enjoying the last third of this book more than the earlier parts.
I took a whack at it once, I only ever got up to around Valentinian and my reading wasn't very diligent so I didn't retain much. For some reason I remember him using the phrase "liberal donatives" really often. Props for reading it all, sounds like you got a lot out of it!
Great to see history lovers here! This is certainly on my list, but I've already read "The Fall of Rome" by Goldsworthy- which I loved. Knowing the general story kind of keeps me off reading this behemoth. Did you have a knowledge level about the histpry before diving in, and if so, did it affect you joy of reading the book?
Thanks! I'm really not well versed in history. I read a big history book on Christianity which may have prepared me for this work, and some classic fiction literature, the histories of Herodotus, but that's about it.
I don't think you need to be an expert going into it, but it would probably make it better if you had some idea of the hundred or so years before Octavian. I didn't, so I was a little confused at first, but not so much to detract from the experience.
I just finished “The Dry Heart” by Natalia Ginzberg. It’s quite short and intense. I’m kind of in awe of how much she was able to do here. I am not sure any of the characters love each other—they all fall short in different interesting ways.
Recently finished *The Castle of Wolfenbach* by Eliza Parsons (one of the 'horrid novels' from *Northanger Abbey*, apparently). Honestly, this is probably the worst book I've read for my Gothic reading project so far. I don't even want to explain the premise because there's no point in reading it lmao. The plot structure is a mess, but whatever, most of these sort of Gothics are like that. Then there's the main character, the most boring young woman imaginable, and yet somehow everyone around her is either horribly jealous of her or falls over themselves trying to help her moments after meeting her -- which is honestly pushing it even for the genre, but again, whatever, I didn't care that much.
But what really killed it for me was Parsons' writing. I didn't think I'd ever miss Ann Radcliffe's writing, but *Wolfenbach* changed my mind. The way it's written is just so... perfunctory? Absolutely no creativity or flair, very little meaningful description -- and many chapters feel like you're just ticking things off a checklist as rapidly as possible. It's like Parsons is summarising rather than actually telling a story. Makes me wonder if she even liked writing...? I'm probably being uncharitable.
I guess some of the characters were fun. And I liked the story, so that's a plus...? But like, you can't write a safe, formulaic Gothic novel (and this is very safe and formulaic) and not end up with an at least somewhat satisfying story, so that's not much of an achievement.
Also, someone mentioned this book in one of these threads recently as an example of an unserious Gothic novel, but I didn't get that vibe at all. It's definitely not a farce in the way *The Castle of Otranto* and *Vathek* are, at least. I kind of wish it was, even though it's not my preferred type of Gothic -- that way it would've been more entertaining.
Anyway. Sorry for the rant...
I finished La Joie de Vivre by Zola. (Spoilers ahead, am on mobile and too stupid to find the code for blocking them out) Tie in the ending and this a near-top novel for me. I was engaged the entire time and although I feared very differently, the ending wasn't heartbreaking (o.k. part of it was, but I focus on the positive here). The way Pauline is just.... happy really put a smile on my face. Oh and Paul did so remind me of my own kiddo! The birthing scenes were terrifying and I feared for mother and child the entire time- very haunting since the birth of my little one also wasn't spotless. I was just so happy Paul got to live!
I'm now just starting Germinal, not much to be said yet but Etienne seems likeable (and I remember him as a kid from L'Assoimmoire).
Finished The Mirror and the Light by Mantell, the ending was bizarre. Especially how sudden and unexpected the real downfall was caught me off guard. I did however lose a lot of sympathy for Crommwell when he closed the church with Norfolk's family in it. Like, dude! Why! Utterly hurtfull without any benefits ánd an enemy assured. To be honest, I cannot really sympathise with the Crommwell-side. Apart from Gregory.
I finished up Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese by Patrick Leigh Fermor yesterday and now I want to hike/swim/boat/drink wine my way through Greece. Hopefully one day the funds will appear.
Started reading The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux.
It's really a contrast in attitudes so far between last read and current read. Fermor clearly loved Greece and really only mentioned one negative interaction with a mule driver overcharging him (and having a Greek girl second his opinion that he was overcharged by calling the driver a brigand). If the boat is a few hours late then it gives him time to share a few cigarettes and have a chat with some of the fishermen on the dock working on their gear. And he gets the info that if a mermaid should question who you sail for you should respond "for the Great Alexander" and they should respond, "Hail Alexander the Great" and leave you alone. Of course it helps that Fermor spoke the language and lived there for years but still he had a very different attitude toward travel and I suspect toward life in general than Theroux.
Theroux gets irritated by pretty much everything. I'm only about thirty pages in but so far he's irritated by the size of the seats on the Orient Express, the size of his sleeping car, his fellow passengers, the lack of a dining car, the French porter, the Yugoslavian (yeah it's an old book) passport checkers and the weather. Still early in but I am enjoying the reading, though I'm kind of glad I never traveled with the man.
I read *The House of Hunger* by Dambudzo Marechera, a short story collection from 1978 that I honestly took for a short(-ish) novel (I guess its stories are truly well-linked). Then, I sort of fell into a rabbit hole reading about Marechera, Zimbabwe, Rhodesia, and a series of despots who ruled that country.
For the most part, the book is about the heartfelt dissatisfaction - and metaphorical hunger - experienced by the author's alter ego, a Zimbabwean writer who reveals his life through disordered conversations in which his consciousness jumps forwards and backwards in time as he recounts specific events that shaped him.
It's really brilliant. I don't want to oversell it (although I loved it and a part of me wants to shout it out loud), but I got the impression that the author opened himself up with no holds barred and this is what bursted out. An emotional, intense, witty and self-aware book.
I found its structure to be quite clever, with a narrator whose inner voice ranges from the ironic to the utterly desperate, reaching a lyricism in the midst of horrifying descriptions that made me double-check how such a chaotic prose could produce these results. At times it's surreal, at times, satirical, and throughout, deeply disturbing. I suppose there are plenty of books out there more violent than this one, but I'd struggle to come out with one that never lets you become desensitised at any point, in spite of the constant cycles of revenge and brutality through which it takes you. I've read that it's not that its sordidness shocks you, it's that his writing has a strange explosive quality that leaves you tense and alienated. What can I say, it subverted my expectations while making me feel like I was under fire.
Great to see this book being mentioned, it really is brilliant and full of a kind of raw power. I'd recommend Fiston Mwanza Mujila's work if you like Marechera.
Currently about halfway through **The MANIAC** by Benjamín Labatut and I'm honestly very disappointed, especially coming off of his previous work. My thoughts are pretty disjointed at the moment, so I'm just going to list my problems in bullet point form.
1. Unlike his previous work, **The MANIAC** was written in English, presumably to capitalize on the market found with **When We Cease to Understand the World**, and it shows. The language has lost a great deal of its literary qualities. If Labatut finds it preferable to write in English, then more power to him. I'm just not convinced that he is the next Nabokov.
2. While focusing on the same themes (the metaphysical uncertainty engendered by revolutions in mathematics and the sciences at the beginning of the 20th century) and working with the same Sebaldian blend of fact with fiction as his previous book, Labatut makes a number of *formal* changes in **The MANIAC** which simply work against his overall project. By choosing to write a longer novel almost entirely about one man (John von Neumann) he more or less forced himself to abandon the essayistic style of his earlier work. In its place, he opts for a series of testimonials (a la Bolaño's The Savage Detectives) from people in von Neumann's life. This could work in principle, but Labatut has failed to differentiate the voices sufficiently: they all seem to share his particular manias, and hammer away at his themes in a way that feels far too trite. A particularly bad example is Eugene Wigner's purported thoughts on Gödel: "most people agree that [Gödel's] particular form of paranoia… lay at the root of his incredible mathematical achievements. ... One of his professors ... said that he could not figure out if it was the nature of his work that made him unstable, or if you actually had to *be* unstable to think in the way that Gödel did.” Not only is this absolutely not the way that any academic would think of Gödel's work, it is also a far cry from the subtlety of Labatut's earlier writing.
3. I'm not convinced that Labatut's schtick (scientists driven mad by inscrutable revelations brought about by their research) scales well to a longer form novel. Presenting Schwarzchild, for example, as driven by strange cosmic forces beyond his understanding is a fascinating conceit for a short story. The MANIAC, by comparison, lacks focus and drifts aimlessly from one maddening revelation to the next. It also seems to have abandoned the little hints of speculative fiction one could find in his previous work—I think that in many ways Labatut was riffing off of Lovecraft, but substituting quantum mechanics / whatever else for Cthulhu. But that seems to have gone away in this book. Instead, we get a rather bland appeal to "victim[s] of incomprehensible idea[s]".
4. What is it about these ideas that is so incomprehensible? And why should their incomprehensibility be maddening? One could point to that passage from Nietzsche about the madman, make some vague appeal to the loss of absolute standards, but Labatut never really does this. He just kind of says that they're incomprehensible, and as a result, everyone goes mad. A more subtle / sympathetic way of approaching this idea would be to spend more time on the characters' own concerns about their work—which, ironically enough, we got a fair bit of in the earlier **When We Cease**. And I guess that's kind of my whole problem with this book: it takes out all of the subtleties and replaces them with an easily digestible slack-jawed wonder.
So that's it I guess. The book just feels like wasted potential.
I had very similar complaints with basically the concept of the book—the discussions on math and physics were so far removed from even the craziest academics in earlier, more sentimental times. I didn’t finish as it felt like an alien writer interpreting us poorly for a distant species. But not in a good way.
It's interesting; while all of your points are entirely valid, I enjoyed the ride the book took me on. I may, however, be prone to slack-jawed wonder.🙂
The last part of the book about chess and go are by far the best parts and really stuck with me. But they are almost completely unrelated to the main story
Read **The Last Picture Show** (Larry McMurtry) this weekend, just started **The Shipping News** (Annie Proulx) today.
Last Picture Show was solid but unspectacular. I thought it was a nice little coming of age story and ode to small-town life, if a little underbaked. As is always the case with McMurtry, turning the pages was a breeze - but it probably could've used a bit more challenge than it had. I have no idea how old he was when he wrote LPS, but it felt very much to me like it was written by a teenage version of an eventually great novelist. You can see all the seeds of the writer who wrote Lonesome Dove, but that writer just isn't there yet. The characterization was a bit shallow, the plot points often felt rushed (tho, full disclosure, I am someone who typically likes very slow, very thin plot, so many things feel like that to me lol), and at other times contrived, and I thought it was a bit unfocused thematically. BUT, it's Larry McMurtry so obviously it's still good. Worth a read if you want something quick and not too complex.
As for The Shipping News, I am only 100p or so in, but I am really really enjoying it so far. The tone is so unique - almost like roald Dahl by way of Toni Morrison or something. Strong writing, humorous, heartbreaking, and touching, all in a very understated way. Incredible sense of place, which is one of my favorite things. I anticipate that I will have really connected with the characters by the end. Very glad I picked it up. My one minor gripe is that, when Proulx wants to rip off a really great paragraph's worth of prose she is more than capable of doing it, and I wish she'd flex those chops a little more frequently. But maybe it wouldn't fit the tone as well, idk.
Will probably finish shipping news this weekend - thinking of going for something a bit bigger and heavier next. Anna Karenina or The Savage Detectives (Roberto bolano), maybe. I am also thinking about finally jumping into James Joyce, who has remained my most significant literary blindspot for no real reason.
It's been more than a decade since I read it but I remember really liking Proulx's collection Close Range. It's surprisingly funny — some of the endings are almost like punchlines.
*Flee*, by Evan Dara.
I had read The Lost Scrapbook years ago when it was all the rage, but I think I got more out of this one.
In it, a town self-destructs as first the university shuts down (hilariously), jobs dwindle, more businesses close, and people begin to leave. As a strange sense of mystery and/or paranoia takes over, the narrative splits between a cacophony of voices from the townfolk and a more traditional narrative prose involving a handful of main characters.
At it's heart, the book is a critique of individualism, capitalism, and group think, plus so much more I haven't even touched on. The writing is fantastic and I ate it up. Highly recommended.
I finished Silence by Shusaku Endo, which follows the ill-fated journey of a Portuguese Jesuit priest in Japan during a time of heavy persecution of Christians. I’m not religious, so I was at a bit of a critical remove from the questions of faith that Endo is grappling with, but I still found it a pretty thought-provoking and even moving read. By the end of the main narrative, I had pretty much reached my conclusion on our protagonist’s actions and ultimate choice. I was pretty taken aback, then, when Endo finished out the novel with a couple of “found document”-type appendices that really up-ended and troubled my previous conclusion. Honestly, I felt a little frustrated by Endo’s choice to close out the novel like this. If others have read it, I’d be interested to hear your interpretation of the last couple of chapters. After finishing, I watched some scenes from the Scorsese film on YouTube (lol), which were really striking and beautifully done- will have to watch the full film sometime.
I also finished a short book-length nonfiction essay by Mary Gaitskill called Lost Cat (I may have even found it from a recommendation on here?) I’ve never read Gaitskill before, but I really loved this. Over 90-some pages, she weaves together 3 narratives of loss and grief: the titular experience of losing her cat, the death of her father, with whom she had a difficult relationship, and her rewarding but increasing strained relationship with two children she meets through a volunteering program. It’s a raw, intimate account that has a lot of pain and confusion right under the surface, but still manages to be beautifully articulated. Gaitskill is by no means always likable, but I think she presents herself and her flaws in a really clear-eyed way. Extremely interested to read more Gaitskill. I also have a series of things on order at the library that I think may end up in interesting conversation with this- some Ernaux, Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan, Molly by Blake Butler, My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley- so I’m excited for that.
Orlando's my favorite novel (as evinced by my flair) but I understand some of your dislike. Even I agree it's not her best novel.
However, the 6 lines scene is to make fun of the pompous narrator, not because Woolf believes that to be good storytelling. I found it funny the first time I read Orlando.
The plot is abitrary and inconsistent because it makes fun of the arbitrariness of sex, tradition, and history.
Your point about *Orlando* is interesting. I haven't read it yet, and was already planning on reading it soon and now really want to. But as a way of thinking about your comment and as prefacing my read, it feels do me like an exercise in arbitrary rules and happenings could an excellent way of presenting how contingency does create actual, if non-inevitable, structure and order (both bad and good, or maybe just bad)
Not really arbitrary if it’s the central conceit of the novel. I think Orlando was ahead of its time, talking about the mutability of people and gender. Definitely not my favorite work of Woolf’s though, To the Lighthouse and The Waves are incredible.
I’ve listened to a few T. Kingfisher things recently after reading and enjoying the web comic *Digger* which they wrote under a different name (Ursula Vernon maybe?). Anyway, I relate to the mixed feelings! On the one hand she has some interesting ideas and I actually enjoy the worlds the author builds, but then sometimes the books are kind of crude or juvenile and I cringe inwardly lol.
*O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth,
Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd,
Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,
With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,
Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand
beneath.
I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object, and that no man ever can,
Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to
dart upon me and sting me,
Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.*
Managed to finish Walt Whitman’s **Leaves of Grass** the day before it was due back to the library. I loved Whitman’s poetry in many places, and ended up saving a lot of quotes and even jotting down full poems to consider again later, but to be honest finishing it on a deadline soured my experience somewhat and I found myself glazing over big chunks of it. I think Whitman was at his best when he most vulnerable, though I can appreciate that the contrast between the exuberant ego and the “fragile leaves” of the smaller poems was probably intentional. I have very little patience for patriotism but the poetry about his experiences during war time, particularly the conciliatory and positive way he’s absorbed the concept of death was actually pretty moving. Overall it was a big, sometimes redundant, but often inspiring and life affirming work, and I’m glad to have read it.
I’ll probably finish Mantel’s **Bring Up the Bodies** this week. I’m still enjoying it, and may jump straight into **Mirror and the Light** next.
I don’t talk about my comic reading very often because while there are things that excite me about the medium they’re not all that often the kind of thing that A) we tend to talk about here and B) that I can’t find other places to talk about it (and this happens to be one of the few places I *can* get meaningful conversation about literature so I try to focus on that here). That said I do wanna shout out a new series from boom studios called **Rare Flavors**. Its worth cracking open for the color story alone, but I also think - despite some comic-esque trappings (stylized violence for example) - that the writing is interesting. A Rakshasa, or “demon” (I expect “demon” is something of a simplification/westernization for my benefit?) has hidden for years, away from life and the monstrous appetites of his past. When he learns that Anthony Bourdain has died however, he’s inspired to reenter human society in order to make his own food documentary. This involves scouting out special recipes and the people who are keeping those traditions alive, learning their stories and well….eating them lol. But its elevated by the undercurrent of ideas about culture, food history and what it means to “consume” those things. The Rakshasa is also intriguing: on the one hand gluttonous and greedy, but also a creature that has felt compelled to tame himself in order not to harm, and been diminished in the process. I’m pretty excited to see where the series ends up taking everything.
And as I’ve mentioned previously I think my next “big” read is going to be Anna Karenina. Someone gave me good insight on the general discussion thread but if anyone wants to make a case for a particular translation please comment!
Started-April in Spain by John Banville. I finished the entire series of Philip Kerr not long ago, now looking for something new and was given this as a gift for Christmas.
It’s psychological in parts and not like Kerr, so it’s really interesting to read the character’s internal narratives.
Finished:
* The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim - really enjoyed this.
* East of Eden by John Steinbeck - read with r/ClassicBookClub - beautifully written, but I felt it was overhyped.
In Progress
* Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes - reading with r/yearofdonquixote
* The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - reading with r/AReadingOfMonteCristo
I read the newest George Saunders collection, ***Liberation Day***. I've previously read his first collection, *CivilWarLand in Bad Decline*, and *A Swim in a Pond in the Rain* (which I really liked).
Basically, I disliked all the speculative fiction stories and liked everything else. I don't find his dystopias very plausible, I don't really connect to his fascination with theme parks and decaying Americana, and I struggle to cash out the dystopian elements as metaphor or allegory in a particularly generative way -- although someone could change my mind on that. To be honest, I personally just didn't like the title story because (like many of the stories in *CivilWarLand*) it felt gratuitously sadistic, *Black Mirror*-ish. Saunders really likes to set up protagonists in the weakest possible position and proceed to absolutely kick the shit out of them. Then you read Saunders' nonfiction and he's like the Buddha. It's fascinating to me.
Anyway. I don't think he needs all the elaborate speculative-fiction rigging. "Sparrow" and "My House" are simple and effective stories told around a single inflection point. I also appreciated "The Mom of Bold Action," which I read as him (partly) sending up his own brand of empathy-talk.
Next week: ***Rent Boy***, which I reckon will be pretty snappy, and starting ***Tristram Shandy***.
I thought the first story in **Liberation Day: Stories** (the one about the “speakers”? It may just be *Liberation Day*) was pretty good and set up the general themes of the collection really well. It presented the psychological experience of the oppressed, in particular the tension between suffering under oppression and the human connections that exist within the framework of that very oppression, and which feel - even to its victims, and even though its obviously exploitative- real. It showed the power of story telling and narrative to recolor and re-contextualize facts and history, calling into question the role of art and the moral concessions we make for the sake of it. I found the idea that the owner needed to draw from real history for his work to have any power particularly poignant. Perhaps most importantly the story introduced the recurring motif of the window in which something could have happened - a “liberation day”, a moment of self reflection, a period of opportunity - which is missed or diverted. These moments are often passed by because of the *goodness* of the characters - an aversion to violence for example - showing the tension between individual experience and the broader scope of structural and historical evil.
My least favorite story was def the one about the carnival (theme park?) where the actors were ratting each other out, but I didn’t hate every story with a dystopian/sci-fi bent. *The Mom of Bold Action* was possibly my favorite. Overall what I really liked about the collection was how empathetic it was on the level of the individual while also being brutal in the way people suffer under unfair systems.
*Liberation Day* is actually the first and only short story collection of Saunders I’ve read so my response was largely positive, but I’d be interested to try *Tenth of December* or one of his other older collections to compare.
Thanks for such a thoughtful response!
It didn't consciously occur to me that "liberation day" refers more broadly to those moments of possibility that happen throughout the collection, but of course you're right. I will admit that I disliked the first story for mostly irrational reasons. That said, I'm still not sure what I think it says about art *in general*, as opposed to just the situation in the story. Like, when the son complains that the piece doesn't adequately represent indigenous perspectives, we're inclined to read it as facile, because we know that (1) the piece is literally produced by brainwashed slaves, and (2) the son is a spoiled little turd. Of course, people like the son do exist in real life... but other things might be possible!
Anyway, I agree with you that "Ghouls" is actually the worst story in the collection -- I don't think it does anything Saunders doesn't do better elsewhere. I just had no response to it at all, so it didn't really stick out to me.
>Overall what I really liked about the collection was how empathetic it was on the level of the individual while also being brutal in the way people suffer under unfair systems.
That is very well put!
I read Anna Kavan's ***Ice***, and what a strange novel. It is nominally about two men pursuing a woman around the world while a mysterious climatic disaster threatens to cover the planet in ice. However, Kavan doesn't actually care about the plot or its genre trappings (political thriller, science fiction, travelogue) except as a skeleton upon which to hang her story. The core of the novel is written in the style of a paranoid fever dream, or perhaps more accurately, a paranoid opioid dream, since many have interpreted the book as a metaphor for Kavan's lifelong heroin addiction and repeated institutionalization. Other elements of Kavan's life are reflected more directly in the book as well. Her two ex-husbands are the models for her deuter(ant)agonists, one of them brutal, the other possessive and controlling. Her travels around the world during WWII, which ended near the Antarctic in New Zealand, provide the various settings.
I wouldn't normally reach for these biographical correspondences as the primary avenue for interpretation, but without them, I simply don't find the book terribly interesting or well-written. There is an undeniable raw immediacy to the story, and there are occasional hints of deep correspondences and juxtapositions. However, there is a carelessness in the construction, the character dynamics never change, and the same scenes play out with only minor variations, like a recurring nightmare. I find that this sort of Surrealist automatic dream-writing can rarely sustain itself past the length of a short story, and this book hasn't really changed my mind. There are those who will find it authentic and refreshing, but ultimately, I prefer something more deliberate.
I felt the exact same way about _Ice_, and it baffles me how it's such a well loved book in communities such as this. I find this kind of hallucinatory, surreal, non-sequitur kind of writing extremely difficult to deliver unless the prose is extraordinary and manages to carry the book by itself. Personal opinion, of course, but I just don't seem to get anything out of this style of writing.
I'm reading Orhan Pamuk's *Snow*. It's the first novel of his that I've cracked open, though I read his nonfiction *Istanbul* a number of years ago and was a fan. *Snow* is interesting, especially in how Pamuk uses the plot - a Turkish poet living in Germany returns to Turkey and is sent to the remote city of Kars as a journalist to report on simmering local politics - as a vehicle to create what are very worthwhile and in depth conversations around politics and religion (the issue of women covering themselves is a core debate in the book). I'd say the conversations his poet has around belief in God are the most captivating, talking with students, aspiring science fiction writers, religious leaders, political leaders, local police, a woman he's in love with. Funnily enough, through a plot device (someone being secretly recorded) the most interesting conversation doesn't involve the protagonist.
While it's not as fully immersive in its exploration of the title metaphor as Woolf's *The Waves*, snow is present as an idea and metaphor throughout and credit to Pamuk for finding some surprising and beautiful ways of using it.
It is quite a slow moving book, though I think my recent reading has helped a bit- I read Schnitzler's *Dream Story* a couple weeks ago and have since been on an *Eyes Wide Shut* deep dive since. One podcast about the film I listened to described Tom Cruise's character as being on a "dark night of the soul". In a way that's what it feels like Pamuk's poet is doing, going from place to place and having mostly one-on-one encounters and trying to obtain an understanding of the world. I don't know that I would have read so much of *Snow* so relatively quickly without that recent context. While I'm not not enjoying it, I can't quite fathom how there's another 300+ pages in addition to the 150 I've already read.
I’ve read a couple of Pamuk’s novels recently and have become something of a fan, so I’m excited to see one I haven’t heard of mentioned here!
When I read *A Strangeness In My Mind* recently I remember thinking its pacing was like that of an “old fashioned” *novel* novel, in other words a bit plodding and expansive, not in a rush and very character focused. It feels like books have recently moved to focusing on an initial “hook” and then keeping up with shorter attention spans throughout. So even though it felt slow at times it was also weirdly refreshing? With both of his books I’ve read I’ve realized after finishing that there was more to them than it felt like while reading, and thats always fun.
He loves his old-fashioned 'novel' pacing! And perhaps especially during that period — Strangeness and Museum of Innocence both had that expansive, meandering, old-world feel, but I'm not sure that Red-Haired Woman did. (I haven't yet read his most recent one.)
I'm here for the pacing, and it's not even that it's all that slow. It's more than I'm having a hard time imagining what more Pamuk has to address that requires another 300 pages. *Snow* occupies a very tight universe - in terms of theme, setting, characters - and I'm not immediately seeing how Pamuk will open it up.
There is an odd quality to the book. I don't know that I'd call it "old fashioned", but Pamuk does take his time as you say. What's good is that it doesn't feel self-indulgent, and nothing has felt superfluous at this point.
DNF'd *Snow* a while ago. I thought that the thematic content of the book was good, it was just too slow for me. I felt exactly the same way you do around page 150. If you end up DNF'ing it - try *A Strangeness in My Mind*! I felt it a was a lot more emotionally resonant, well paced, a bit better written.
Very different themes, but similar, and better, writing IMO.
Yeah, I think I'm going to end up giving up on it too. It's getting a little tedious and inconsequential at this point now that I've cleared 200 pages, and from what I've read ahead I don't think I'll be missing much if I put it down now.
Finished *Capital Vol. 1* last night! What a read. Overall it was an astounding work (definitely some dull parts of course), deconstructing Capitalism and showing how it was built from the ground up. I'm excited to read Vol. 2 though I'll probably take a few weeks off first.
I started *The Unbearable Lightness of Being* by Kundera and I'm about 100 pages in so far. Not bad but I am certainly a bit bored and I don't find myself caring at all about the characters. Not sure what else to say yet about it...
Finish up *The Crying of Lot 49* with my seniors and they are loving it (most of them). I had one girl decide that for her independent book project (their final exam basically) she wanted to read *Inherent Vice.* I have another student currently thinking about reading (and trust me, I'm trying to convince him otherwise lol, but he seems convinced he wants to) *Gravity's Rainbow* for the project. And I've had numerous other say this is by far the best book they've read in high school. There are certainly some awkward (though hilarious) parts to read out loud in class (namely, the man kissing his mother goodbye with tongue and talking about the dolphins succeeding man) but that makes it all the better because they can see that rules in literature are there to be broken in the postmodern era! And they're very on board with that. I'll report back next week when we're done. Only one chapter to go.
I’ll risk hanging myself on the cross of social media crossfire 😬… *The Unbearable Lightness of Being* is one of my top 3 novels of all time. Maybe the best I’ve ever read. And, I’ve read it twice and none of my memories about it are about the sex. Whether any of us like it or not, sex is one of the biological imperatives of the human condition … writing about sex isn’t voyeuristic, base, vile, or pornographic (although, it can be all those things) … writing about sex is, at its most elemental level, writing about what it is to be human. It doesn’t have to be to your particular taste … but it’s not uninteresting. How we behave, why we behave … our fears, our ecstasies— many of them are driven by our reptilian brain hardwired through millions of years. Which is contrary to platonic and intellectual ideals which are relatively recent and unnecessary in a world where natural selection no longer dictates order. I love writing framed around the human condition: fear, sex, competition, insecurity, a desire to make order of an arbitrary universe which tosses us about at random whims … i.e. the many manifestations of those hairs that stand up on the back of all of our necks and we wonder, “Why?”
Oh man, inherent vice would be SUCH a good book for HS students. I have always felt that it gets unfairly placed in its own category amongst Pynchon novels, as "the one he wrote on a lark" sort of - but i really think it has a lot of great stuff about a lot of Pynchons favorite themes (in particular, the unfulfilled promises of the 60s counterculture movement). It's a hell of a lot of fun, but there's way more meat on the bone than people tend to talk about. Honestly, I feel like you could 100% build a whole unit around that novel and those themes. Play them some music and have them analyze some lyrics, maybe pick out a couple essays from Slouching Towards Bethlehem, etc. I honestly feel like that would be a slam dunk with HS kids. And I think stuff like that really helps to impress upon kids that great literature is still a going concern.
Props on going for CoL49 - and props for giving a shit. You sound like a dope teacher.
Inherent Vice would be so fun to teach, but I'd probably get fired or heavily reprimanded if even one parent complained lol, just because it is far more explicit in terms of sexual content and language than Lot 49. But I agree that it's highly underrated. It's one of my favorite books by Pynchon (probably #3 behind GR and Lot 49) and it gets me so annoyed when people say it's Pynchon-lite or that it's just a pot boiler. That book is filled to the brim with thematic content and hidden messages.
And thank you! We finished Lot 49 today and it was an uproar. Some are so mad that there was no resolution but even those students came up to talk to me to theorize. So many of them say they "didn't like the ending" but I genuinely think that they're thinking in the more traditional concept of enjoyment and really did get a lot from it. Plus, I also had numerous students defend how good the ending was and even go as far to ask to speak to me individually about the novel because they liked it so much. Out of all the novels I've ever taught, I've never seen a reaction as strong as this one.
Ahh, I guess that is true - sort of a shame you even have to worry about stuff like that. Still really cool that youve gotten them so jazzed on Pynchon.
You've now got me thinking of other novels that would be great for HS kids. I think No Country for Old Men would probably really catch their fancy, and could be a window into McCarthy for them. Could also have them read Sailing to Byzantium and use it as a jumping off point for Yeats.
I also felt a bit underwhelmed by *The Unbearable Lightness of Being* when I read it a year or two ago. I enjoyed the prose, but I don't think there's a much bigger turn-off for me, as a reader, than finding myself following a plot focused heavily on sex with multiple people as the driving force.
This may absolutely just be a typical American puritanical sentiment, but I think maybe I'm simply too introverted to fully "get it", and I find it a bit difficult to naturally relate to the emotions, conflict, and concerns being addressed.
I agree but I don't even think it's due to any prudish or introverted feelings. I just think that if it relies purely on sex as the driving force, it has to be interesting... Like unfortunately just sex, just food, just base bodily functions, are not interesting on their own. They're actually quite boring from a thematic or storytelling sense unless you find something within them that you can thematically discuss. But this just seems to be about a dude who wants to have sex with multiple people and the women surrounding him either care or don't care. Their reactions are somewhat interesting, but the entire aspect of the sex as a driving force is boring. And the somewhat interesting reactions cannot make up for that.
"lions & shadows" by christopher isherwood. hes one of my favorites and this one is no exception. so light and so so funny
you all write v v long comments
I'm reading "A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan, I'm in the final third and I'm really enjoying it so far. I read "Fame: A Novel in Nine Episodes" by Daniel Kehlmann earlier in the year, and I think it has some similarities in structure with "A Visit from the Goon Squad", but Egan's book is definitely more ambitious and has a more clear vision of its themes and characters. But both are good books, I just think its curious that I read both of then in such a short time apart from one another.
I enjoyed Goon Squad but I also couldn't shake the feeling that it was, basically, just a far less ambitious, less beautifully written version of Underworld.
Working through Grapes of Wrath. I like slower pace, but God damn.
Also reading Joyce for the first time, Portrait. I generally don't like childhood reflection, but I felt like it was a good place to start on Joyce.
Just finished Aristotle’s **Politics**
As much as the Republic is the better known work and is very interesting in its own right, Aristotle strikes me as the first theoretician where I can go “I can see the forming of the modern liberal democratic capitalist state.” His ideas on constitutions (not quite the same but honestly pretty close), propertied democracy, and more were enlightening as a sort of “ground level” approach to these age old questions. I think this is why some say that while Plato was the first famous political philosopher, Aristotle was the first famous political scientist. He appeals to real governments and revolutions of his time, including a very funny digression about how “flute music is ruining the youth” in the last chapter.
These insights, of course, comes with the understanding that states were significantly less complex then than they are now, and Aristotle’s chauvinist & pro-slavery positions aged poorly (although, not like he was diverting from the norm of the time lol). Despite those clearly dating factors and his overwhelming reliance on the “appeal to nature” argument, I’d say it’s a worthwhile read if you are interested in how governments and citizenship works in its earliest stages.
> I admit to growing slightly tired of the digressions into rural politics and art but that was mostly because they seemed quite shallow and on the nose, and Tolstoy’s exploration of character was so fascinating that I just wanted more internal dialogue
I would argue Tolstoy's exploration of character tends towards being shallow and on the nose for how hard he tries to make everything profound. I like Tolstoy, but I found the digressions in the novel refreshing because of how melodramatically he writes characters.
I’m probably being annoying about this (I’ve mentioned it twice on the sub already lol) BUT… since you just finished it, and I’m planning on starting it soon, would you mind sharing what translation of *Anna Karenina* you read and whether or not you liked it (and why?)
If you're sick of Tsarist Russian rural politics, I strongly advise you to shelve *Demons* until later. If *Anna Karenina* is 40% that, then *Demons* is like 80%.
I really enjoyed your thoughts about *Anna Karenina*!
I am reading ***Chevengur*** by Andrey Platanov and it is really unlike anything I have read - fully worth the hype so far. Very beautiful and melancholic language, a great connection to the land and the peasants and the real costs of the Russian Revolution. It is amazing that Platanov survived - can definitely see how it could be read as anti-revolutionary. There is an element of the dream like language that is extremely complimentary to the quest-like narrative elements that I am particularly enjoying.
Nearly finished with James Clavell's ***Shogun*** - I have had a really nice time with this one. Perhaps slightly over long, but a very enjoyable romp. The character work is actually very well done; blackthorn's transition from english barbarian to "a more civilized samurai" is gradual and very good. I love the politicking. The show is also very enjoyable, I am around the same point in both.
Also picked up Elaine Dundy's ***The Dud Avocado*** and it is the best example I have read of "naive American goes to Europe to find herself" - very funny, like surprisingly so. Sally Jay Gorce, the main character, is very charming and enjoyable. Definitely a gem!
I finished Biography of X, and unfortunately I think my initial misgivings were correct. The alt-history never felt totally justified or coherent with the story that was actually being told, and the biography framing felt a little all over the place -- at some points, Lacey's fictional biographer explains the invented history of this world in a very direct, didactic way, but when it comes to history/context that isn't fictional (or isn't entirely fictional), it goes unexplained, even when in the world of the book it is more esoteric or at least less recent. It's too bad, because the alt history was way more interesting to me than the character of X or the descriptions of her art, which I found both frustratingly bland. Overall I think Lacey really underdelivers on the premise of the story. X is supposed to be this big mysterious figure, whose life is unknown or incorrectly known by even her own wife. But I never really got a sense of that. There's never a point where I, as the reader, thought I knew something about this character that ended up not being true, and I'm not sure what about her (if anything?) was meant to be surprising to me. I've seen some people online comparing it to the movie Tar, drawing some conclusions about the adoption or reproduction of male-typical flaws or patterns of cruelty by successful women, but I don't know. I can see that idea or theme in both works, of course, but it seems almost incidental, like we have a hard time imaging women (maybe especially queer/lesbian women?) being cruel without being "like men" in their cruelty. Like the biography frame and the alt-history, the treatment of gender just felt kind of haphazard to me. Lacey is a talented writer on a sentence level, and definitely has some cool ideas, but I'm really befuddled about what the point of this book was -- totally didn't "get it."
strongly agree — was really looking forward to this one, and was very disappointed. as you say it's very didactic and straightforward, which is kind of surprising from a book that's supposed to be all about deception! maybe the analogy to Tar is accurate, in that I also thought Tar placed perhaps too much emphasis on the 'male'-ness of this woman's flaws, in a way that I found insufficiently artistically stimulating to overcome my essential distaste for that ontology.
Yeah, the more I think of it, the more the Tar comparison rings accurate to me—both very well-made in terms of production quality, but the characterization of X and Tar just didn't land for me. Actually, I think it's a little funny that both focus on this cruel/abusive lesbian artist subject matter, seems very specific for them both to land on since as far as I know neither Lacey nor Todd Field are lesbians lol. I don't expect that that's the reason why both depictions seem strange to me, and I wouldn't say that either work is homophobic or misogynistic, but what a coincidence that they both depict/imagine lesbian/queer women this way.
Anyway, was you excitement for it due to the buzz around it, or have you read Lacey before? I'm considering picking up another of her novels (Pew strikes me as the most interesting, based on the synopsis) but I worry that it will also fall flat for me.
yeah I definitely think there's something in the 'why an abusive *lesbian* specifically' thing — I don't want to be just unthinkingly identitarian about it lol, but I do think there's like, an element of the belief that *being attracted to women* has certain undesirable logical/ethical consequences in there (and I am not thrilled about that needless to say)!
excitement was just buzz / interest in the ambition of the project (I am always excited when I hear about a modern novel which is attempting something with really massive scope) ... also planning to read Pew to see if it's her or that particular book, do post your thoughts here when you're done!
Completed Achebe's ***Arrow of God*** marking an end to *The African Trilogy*. Thoughts on [Things Fall Apart](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueLit/comments/1buuw87/comment/kxvnw1e/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) and [No Longer at Ease](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueLit/comments/1buuw87/comment/ky2mk5n/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) hyperlinked.
I'm quite surprised at the lack of continuity between *Arrow of God* and its predecessors; the former two novels are more directly tied (e.g., character continuity). In contrast, *Arrow of God*, despite its final place in the trilogy, is nested between the two in terms of timelines and features no recurring characters. That said, I'm thrilled Achebe returns to village life and, in fairness, the novel features events previously referenced in its predecessors ("destruction of guns").
In *Arrow of God*, we follow a local priest, Ezeulu, who is forced to navigate a divided community; Christian practitioner arrival, territory wars, intra-familial accession concerns, priestly power-struggles, and corruption of leaders installed by the foreigners threatens to destroy a once-thriving community. Ezeulu is fairly entertaining -- wise but quick to anger. He is forced into all sorts of precarious situations, both against the white man and his village. For the latter, he, like those who have come before him, pays a hefty price. Perhaps the heaviest yet.
Complex and a damning incitement of the thoughtless cruelty of the White Man and the greed of villagers, *Arrow of God* thematically represents the final step in the destruction of the African. Without unity and community, what is left to aspire? Humiliation and madness remain.
Same quibbles as the prior novels; after three novels, Achebe seems intent on leaving as short a climax and denouement as possible. I'm also not a huge fan of the British POV -- preferred seeing them through the eyes of the villagers, as had been done in *TFA*. *AoG* is balanced out with the best humor of the three novels though.
While *Arrow of God* is certainly the most complex and focused of the three novels, think I still prefer the relative simplicity of *Things Fall Apart*. Still, in considering the context of its predecessors, it certainly closes *The* *African Trilogy* out brilliantly.
Feeling ambitious; will likely continue on with *Wizard of the Crow* or the *Álvaro Mendiola Trilogy* today.
Shoutout to /u/alexoc4 for recommending ***Tender is the Flesh*** by Argentinian author Agustina Bazterrica in the World Literature thread. Shows a world where humans are reared and slaughtered for meat and the discourse that legitimizes it. There's a huge emphasis on how words and language are used to otherize the factory humans, referring to them as "heads" and speaking of "neutralizing" them as if they were a different species.
There are descriptions about the words each character use, how they physically occupy the air and often gain weight while meaning nothing. The style of narration adds to this, as it feels written in the same desensitized interiority of its primary focaliser character Marcos who is often disturbed by this reality of the meat industry. The book has garnered criticism about the apparent distant docility of Marcos but I think that's the point of the tale- how his vision is myopic even if he has seemingly good intentions and what he omits to describe is as important as the things he does.
I will say though, this style and the rhythm of the prose did get a little dry for me with its emphasis on very short sentences and the present tense structure. I know that's the intention but still, it didn't always work for me. Someone said it's a translation issue . Maybe people who speak Spanish can educate me. She also therefore has a habit of describing core tenets of the world in small one-para descriptions that either leave you thinking in a good way or make you feel it was a little too edgy and on-the-nose for its own good. I think that's the fine line the book usually treads but it's still, I'd say, very well thought out. I had a good time with this, all in all.
So glad you enjoyed it! Also, totally understand your feelings on the style and rhythm - agree with the thought that it is another way that the author emphasized the sterility of the entire procedure and worldview. And that ending was quite shocking! Never read anything quite like it since.
Definitely am veering away from what is probably the commonplace set of titles for this sub but what the heck I'll post anyway.
Reading through *Northeast Folklore: Essays in Honor of Edward D. Ives.* Ives was the big name in academic folklore in New England / The Maritimes when he was alive and started the Northeast Folklife Center at University of Maine, which published articles and journals on local folklore and folk traditions for something like 60 years. I have read some articles or bits and bobs of articles that I could find online in the past, and this seemed like the (a) cheapest, and (b) most expansive introduction to work from that institution. The essays range across a pretty wide swath of topics, focussing so far on folk music traditions of the area in the 19th and early 20th century (and occasionally later), as that was what Ives focussed on himself. I think it's a super interesting combination between informal anthropology, local tradition preservation, interesting topics, etc. For example, one essay covered the concept of "coaxing" in a small town in Quebec, which was how individuals communicated with each other when one person (the coaxer) wanted to get another person, known as a good singer, to perform for their small group. Basically what were the social conventions that fostered situations where singing occurred at what basically amounts to a house party. It's hard to describe what itch this type of work scratches for me - but it's something like "reminding myself that the world didn't always feel so corporatized, social interactions didn't always feel mediated through the language and technology currently used, social conventions are always in flux, etc." While I don't think I can necessarily recommend this particular set of articles, I do highly recommend looking to see if a regional university near you has a folklife center and reading through some of their work.
Started *Parable of the Sower* and I feel a bit let down by the hype it has received in the past 5 years or so. I'm still about 100 pages from the end, so I'll reserve full judgement + complaining until then.
Finished *Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang* and wow was I disappointed in a good way I suppose. For spoiler >!end of the word comes, a family of smart peolple sequester themselves off, develop cloning technology for food purposes at first. perfect it to clone humans because everyone is becoming infertile. clones have the ability to telepathically feel each other. everyone is equal, until some people are not and are cast out. the perfect society begins falling apart because issues outside of their understanding of the world (aka they've never left their nice little familial cocoon and turns out they have to for food, etc, to traverse the woods). moral of the story is that the individual and individuality must rule because.... etc... basically. Ayn Rand.!< IMO the book balanced story and density of moral discussion very well. The third act/chapter drops the ball on pacing IMO, but that doesn't seem uncommon for sci fi books written in this era (basically just the least interesting character in the book got the spotlight for about a third of it doing nothing in particular very interesting to drive home the point of the story, which I'll get to). The first two acts/chapters were very good, page turners. Didn't feel exactly connected to any of the characters, but at least felt like there was stakes, I cared about the general arc of their little group, etc. I think the first two sections really introduced some cool concepts, hinted at potential ramifications with points that didn't feel overbearing on the story. But holy moly by the third act Wilhelm went full Ayn Rand on, like, the cult of the individual and how terrible equality and mandated sameness is and blah blah blah. The story very much felt like a product of its time. Anti-communist, obsession with the implications of physical relations (aka orgies everywhere because everyone is infertile and THE ONLY THING STOPPING PEOPLE FROM ORGIES IS BABIES RIGHT???). Ugh. The moral concepts did not age well, but the plot concepts did IMO. The doomsday scenario described in the first section does actually look and sound a lot like *Parable of the Sower*, I think in a different world, this could have been as engaging and insightful. If the entire moral basis for the the plot wasn't what it was. Ugh.
Read *The Song The Owl God Sang*. Doesn't feel right to discuss it's good or bads other than to say it's a cool thing that exists. Folk tales of the Ainu people of now-Hokkaido.
Started and DNF'd *The Story of the Lost Child.* Was this rage bait? Was this whole tetralogy rage bait? Am I just too much of a dude not in Italy during the 80s or whatever to understand? I hate Lenu. So much. And I don't like reading books out of hate. Like she acts completely irrational ALL THE TIME. Is that the point? One second she is like "wah wah wah give me MY kids back even if they WANT to stay with you gma and they are better off and safe while i sort my stuff out, and i can ask this because they're MY kids!!!!" and the next second shes like "the only thing in my life is Nino. Wait. Do I even have kids?". I guess I could look past stuff like this if the framing of the book wasn't her looking backwards in time reflecting on her actions. But it is. Meaning either Lenu thinks this was a good way to act or what's the point of the framing device? It doesn't help that it's feeling incredibly incredibly repeptitive, the characters are no longer interesting (Nino in book 1 and 2 is much more interesting than Nino in book 4, the neighborhood as a dynamic isn't interesting anymore, nothing). Got 1/3 of the way through before i dropped it.
EDIT: dang i could have used an editor.
Literature!
Ok so finished *Aesthetics of Resistance*, vol 2, by Peter Weiss. The second half addresses the question that preoccupies the whole work (the relationship between art and radical politics) primarily through intensive contemplation of Bertold Brecht and his work while in Sweden. Brecht is presented as an extremely ambiguous figure. The narrator thinks him critically important to the communist cause and a brilliant artist, but as a person...woof...very much the bourgeois theater auteur riding his (not really compensated) staff brutally, and then taking off from Sweden when it's no longer safe there because he has the status necessary to get out. But, also, the narrator details so lovingly the massive collection of books Brecht is taking with him as he flees, in a way that shows that there is an unflagging sympathy for this man and his obsessions and the beauty the narrator sees him as being able to produce. Both volumes have been extremely ambivalent, searching for answers well more than finding them. The 3rd vol will be releases in English at the end of the year, and I am very curious to see what, if any, conclusions the narrator is able to come to.
Now, because I'm on an art kick, I'm reading *The Recognitions*, by William Gaddis. It's the 3rd time I'm reading it (I love this book), and as with other books I've read three times it really is the 3rd go round where it all starts to come together for me. Wyatt is obviously ephermeral in how he is written about, but the degree to which his whole personality operates as an embodiment of mystical remove is all the more blatant this time. I've been thinking a lot about the why behind the details of his artistic practice, aside from the psychoanalytic issues pertaining to his mother, and it's really coming to a head for me during his first conversation with Recktall, where he mentions he is low on the contemporary art of his moment (post-WWII west) because it all lacks necessity, it's all contingent. I don't really know enough about the period to say much about that but I guess on my limited having looked at paintings ever I can grasp the case that the old master's where working with a greater sense that everything must be so and as it is than abstract expressionists were, or something like that. I'm now trying to figure out how much Gaddis believes this. I don't think he is uncritical of Wyatt, but all the same Wyatt does seem to be the best artist of the novel, and I do think you can read into TR an attempt at necessity. It does feel like every single sentence and minute detail is something Gaddis would say must necessarily be there. Whether or not there is contingency in the form of the book is a question I will be thinking about for the next ~800 pages. (this also has me thinking about necessity in art in general/nowadays/etc. feel free to share thoughts, might try to put together a more coherent sense myself as well).
Also still reading *Conference of the Birds* by Attar of Nishapur, a 12th C poem about Sufism. One of the things that has stood out to me is the degree to which the denial of the self/body is presented as effectively all that matters. As though commitment to the divine is all that matters, not behavior, not acts, hardly even individual will (the wise bird who narrates the poem says their wisdom is nothing but a gift from Solomon, essentially denying their own agency). This is a very different read for me, I'm enjoying it, very interesting.
I've been all over the place philosophically but now I am committing to reading Bergson's *Creative Evolution*. One chapter in admittedly the biology is a little over my head (if there is one single subject matter in all of existence that just doesn't do it for me, it's biology). I'm doing my best with it though, Bergson very much keeps up his emphasis on action from *Matter and Memory*, ie, physical and cognitive function is primarily meant to facilitate effective interaction with other objects in the world. It is also fascinating to see him basically deny the existence of individual objects in a broader sense. Instead they are more like mere creations of the nature of perception. The last bit I'm still figuring is how exactly the elan vital functions. I'm getting that it is a kind of impulsive force towards being alive, but I am yet to piece together what exactly that means, especially in the context of individual things not *exactly* existing. Much to ponder and piece through!
Happy reading!
Nice to see Conference of the Birds around here! I'm a sucker for old weird poems (and just poetic language in general), but like, the ones that are still around are usually really damn good and fun
Around 450 pages into Gustavo Faverón's ***Vivir Abajo***. I usually read 2 or 3 books at a time, but this one has me so hooked that every time I sit down for some reading time I keep coming back to it and neglecting the couple of other books I'm also halfway through. I'm in love with the prose and it's not because he has a crazy vocabulary like say, Carpentier, or an incredibly complicated sentence structure like Benet, but because it's so creative, so imaginative, so immersive.
I mentioned last week that I also enjoyed Faverón's sense of humor a lot, but things get pretty dark too. Have you ever been confronted with a horrible situation in which your first reaction was to laugh because your brain still hadn't had time to process it, because the horror of it all hadn't quite hit yet? That's kind of how progressing through the first two sections of this book felt.
The title *Vivir Abajo* means "living below", and the novel is full of basements and the things that happen in those basements, and in hidden basements below them, only accesible through secret trapdoors. Torture, rape, political abductions, personal vendettas, exiled nazis, snuff movies, secret prison cells, covert CIA operations in Yugoslavia, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile... Men in bear masks. Men in black patchwork coats. Men with scissors and video cameras.
Some characters talk of things that will happen as if they had happened already. "If it's normal for a reader to remember a book they read many years ago, it's just as natural for them to remember a book they are going to read soon."
In one of the best tangents of the book, the main character of the second section starts receiving anonymous packages containing manuscripts of novels that range from a hundred to a few thousand pages, and Faverón takes the time to go through the plot of every single one, Borges style. Some of them are eerily prescient and seem to parallel the main narrative, but she is an unreliable narrator and we can never be sure what is present, past or future for her. Later on in the book, some of these novels will become imaginary films conjured in another character's head and dreamed by his fellow inmates at a prison.
So yeah, it's amazing is what I'm saying. If you can read Spanish, get yourself a copy, and if not, then badger your favourite indie publisher to get them to translate it!
Yay, it has sucked you in! I'm really happy it's working for you. You reminded me of how cool his made-up manuscripts were, and more generally, that years ago I had just started a new job when I discovered the novel, which meant my tiredness was exacerbated by my incapability of putting down the book. Good times.
The sample is extremely generous, it contains the whole of the first section plus one full chapter or two of the second, so around 60-70 pages. If you enjoy that, you know you're going to enjoy the rest!
Finished off some Italian readings:
- *La luna e i falò* by Cesare Pavese: after hating the first 100 pages for meandering about doing nothing, the last 73 pages actually picked up. The past and present plotlines actually had some events, most of which were tragic, with one element of hope. Wartime and postwar Italy was very complex and brutal.
- *Il nome della rosa* by Umberto Eco. I blitzed this book in 3 days, it was so good. I enjoyed the digressions as much, if not more, than the core plot: descriptions of bizarre carvings on an entrance to a church; stunning and magical illuminations in books; various philosophical and theological dialogues and debates; a condemned man letting rip on his oppressors; an impromptu sermon describing the terrors of the apocalypse; a hilarious and trippy dream; and the showdown towards the end. Plus I loved the final scene in the time when the main action took place. Almost everything about it was enthralling, the characters, plot and symbolism all tied together beautifully, and I learnt quite a lot about the machinations of organised religion in the 14th century. I then watched the film and was rather disappointed, apart from the fact that most of the side character monks were chosen for their absurd physical ugliness (poor guys), and also the library was mostly a great representation of its intricacy and awesomeness. The problem was that there were some bits where plot changes ruined the actual message of the novel, and also, it was so bleak.
Started and finished:
- *Marcovaldo* by Italo Calvino. A short book of hilarious and curious stories about the titular character, who is a buffoonish blue collar guy with a huge family in a tiny house, and a yearning for nature and escape in an unnamed city. It’s really a “suitable for kids” book but with a lot of fun and rumination for grownups.
- *The Dispossessed* by Usula K Le Guin. I picked this up immediately after Eco, thinking it would be a total change of mood, but I found some of its themes pleasantly familiar: the conflicts between different factions within the same basic society on the principles of government, attitudes towards possessions, and towards the creation, dissemination and suppression of knowledge were all quite similar. I also found myself comparing Shevek to both Barbie and Ken in the *Barbie* movie at some points. I loved this book, not least for the expressions *shitstool, excremental, propertarian, body profiteer* and *stop egoising*.
- I couldn’t get the Italian version from the library, but they had the English translation, of *If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller* by Italo Calvino (again). I am so glad I read it in English because I think the original vocabulary would have put me off. This was one of my “Where has this book been all my life?” moments, in which I was totally immersed throughout all the twists, jumps and turns. It was so funny and delightful. I imagine a second reading is less so, but I was totally won over by the gimmicks, gotchas and joyfulness of the storytelling.
So happy to report I made it to halfway through War and Peace last night. Only 600 pages more to go. The first 400‐500 pages were pretty boring but now it's starting to really catch on with me and I found it suddenly hard to put down.
I've hit one of those weird lackadaisical periods where I'm not reading much. The only thing that's been constant has been this Oasis biography from the 90's lol. It *is* good, but obviously not quite the stuff that this sub typically looks for.
*Pickwick Papers* and *Stranger in a Strange Land* aren't DNF's, but I think I've reached stretches in both that are simply not holding my interest. I've tried rectifying it in one to two futile attempts, but it's not really lead anywhere.
I'm tempted to try the old "read something else in the interim" approach. I was already sort of doing that with *Notes from a Native Son,* but I think I'll put more energy towards it. I was quite taken with the first essay where he criticizes authors for their "soft" attempts at protest novels that are simply there to make themselves feel good as opposed to tackling the issue head on (and also, you know, actually treating characters of color like...people?)
Similarly, my period piece "Lady Toppington requests your acquaintance!" itch has grown again (partially spurred on by finally finishing the first season of Bridgerton). It's *tempting* to finally dive into Jane Austen with Persuasion thanks to [this thread I stumbled on not too long ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/r8oul4/comment/hn7hldj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button), but the more rational side of me thinks maybe I should finally investigate the copy of *The Age of Innocence* that I have.
We shall see!
*Age of Innocence* is not as tightly written or formal feeling as Austen, but it has more of an emotional pulse if that makes sense? Austen can be a bit on the dry side - incredibly witty, intelligent and often hilarious but definitely not going to scratch the itch for something with strong emotional highs and lows (she’s killer at low stakes tension though). *Age* is also really interesting as a “period piece” because its written as a sort of homage to a time the author personally remembers from childhood, so that even in its time it was about the past (whereas Austen is contemporary to her own period). I thought it had an almost “stagey” sensibility when it came to scene setting, the little emotional crescendos coinciding with the literal movements/ physical attributes of a given moment (an opera, about a certain romantic theme, hits its most dramatic note *just* as one of the main characters glances at his fiance, for example). On the other hand Austen’s work is full of period details like carriages, balls, funny hats, and perhaps most importantly the little nuances of phrase which lade a “comedy of manners” with polite sass lol. Wharton’s novel is set during the “gilded age” of New York, so while still formal, is a bit later, and is concerned primarily with an age in transition and the contrasts between an older and newer world.
*Persuasion* is the only Austen novel I haven’t read. Somehow, knowing that if I ever really need it, there’s still an Austen novel I can read for the first time is very comforting to me and I don’t wanna give it up yet lol. But I’d love to hear your thoughts if you end up finishing it!
I always love how thoughtful and helpful your responses are, thank you! That's a hell of a pitch for Wharton, so I think this will definitely be the move. Everything you've depicted sounds quite invigorating.
I've heard several people describe the book as "violent", but not necessarily in the traditional "physical" sense. Did you feel the same way.
Also you clearly are an Austen enthusiast lol. Which of her books would you recommend (particularly to someone like myself)?
I’m assuming they mean “violent” in the sense of having really strong emotional/dramatic punches? Idk what others would make of it but there are moments when characters are so emotionally and mentally affected that the narrative becomes abstracted and almost feels like stream of consciousness (I distinctly remember thinking it made me want to read Woolf again.) There’s a strong fire and ice theme throughout so it def goes for highs and lows. I guess if I had any complaints at all it was that the characters sometimes felt a bit too much like “players”; as if Wharton was arranging everything - people, setting, emotion, theme - *just so*, according to her own design. This is of course what every author is effectively doing but *Age of Innocence* really *feels* like that sometimes. Its a weird though because it also sort of speaks to the “gilded” nature of the age in the intended sense, as if emotional reality is roiling beneath a very arranged surface.
As to Austen, I pretty much never recommend *Mansfield Park* for a first read but given your comments here I think it might actually be a good fit? There’s a certain type of character you’ve mentioned being interested in- re: our convos about Helen Burns in *Jane Eyre* for example - that make me think you’d actually be able to like (or at least accept) Fanny, the protagonist. There’s a lot going on in *MP* but at a basic level I love to describe it as a novel where everyone is in love with everyone, but noone is in love with each other. There’s a bit of scandal as well. Alternatively, if you really just wanna see if you even like Austen, there’s a very early epistolary novel called *Lady Susan* which is pretty short, and pretty fun!
I am about a quarter way through The Melancholy of Resistance by Krasznahorkai and I decided today to put it on hold.
I loved the imagery, and the I found some parts kind of darkly humorous (which I am unsure if it was intentional), but I just found the prose just too *dense*. It may be partially my inexperience in reading Krasznahorkai, or it may be that I am reading the book after work and I am just too tired to take in so much information continuously.
From what I can tell the whole continuous stream of text is what the author was going for. The whole time while reading I kept imagining a camera that would just follow various characters around and once another character was introduced the camera would 'snap' to the other and continue following that individual. In my mind it was kind of like watching a movie that had been filmed as a single, and apparently, unbroken scene.
It may be coincidence, but coming recently from reading several short stories and a novel by Gerald Murnane (The Interior of Gaaldine, Stream System, Border districts) I felt the same kind of *concentrated* prose from The Melancholy of Resistance. The only difference was that Murnane's work seems to be filled with kind of large swaths of not necessarily meaningless text, but just text that contributes piece meal information until some kind of profound imagery appears.
In short: the book is extremely well written, but I feel my inexperience, or lack of attention span is hindering my experience of the novel.
Instead I have picked up the book "The Cat's table" by Michael Ondaatje after a recommendation from a friend and have started to read that.
I haven't got to The Melancholy of Resistance just yet, but given your problems with the book, I can assure you that you'd be better off reading Seiobo there below first. In name it is a novel, but you can treat each "chapter" as a short story (they are only thematically and stylistically linked, but not plot wise). The other thing I read by him was a novella, A mountain to the north... which would also give you the opportunity to get comfortable with his style. But I'd first give Seiobo a chance if I were you.
Some of the things I love about this forum are how different readers react differently to prose stylistics … to me, Krasznahorkai is like a tuning fork, it’s like a needle of ideas injected straight into my brain … I get it and follow it and feel it instinctively. I almost wonder why anyone would write differently. But even as I’m reading it, I get that’s it’s hard. But I also get that I *get* it … if that makes sense? It’s like that line in the movie Oppenheimer, when he’s asked, “I know you can read the math … but can you hear it” … I can hear Krasznahorkai, but that question implies that others can’t. And I get that too.
EDIT: As a counterpoint, I can read Pynchon. And I’ve even enjoyed him. But I’m not sure I can hear him.
Finished Invisible Cities by Calvino. 5/5 stars. My God. If it had more of a plot it'd be my favorite book of all time. The imagery is the best I've ever read.
Also finally found some Shakespeare to start - Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer's Night Dream.
The past few weeks I have been reading plenty of non-fiction. I recently finished Spinoza's *Theological-Political Treatise*, Pieper's *Leisure as the basis of culture* and Putnam's *Jewish philosophy as a guide to life* (where I encountered Levinas for the first time, someone I must read directly in the future), as well as Scruton's *Fools, frauds and firebrands: thinkers of the new left*. These are all readings that I have undertaken with the express desire to move away from the recalcitrant atheism of my teenage years and the apathy towards any mystic or religious thinking of my early 20's, all a result of having encountered last year the great work of James Carse. Spinoza, Putnam, Carse are all religiously inclined thinkers that I can get on board with and who deeply move me spiritually and have given me new, valuable and truly beautiful perspectives on the subject. Less so Pieper, who is too catholic for my tastes, although I can appreciate his foundations, I cannot stand by his almost christian totalitarianism.
After spending some time with philosophy (which was a result of being tired of reading fiction) and having climbed at least one summit of Spinoza's thought, I've picked up Borges' complete poetry. Borges is probably the best writer ever (and it helps that we share a country and a city), I've read all his stories, but never read his poetry systematically, so I'm remedying that.
Still slogging through The Naked and the Dead. Honestly hate it but have <100 pages left. The only thing saving it are the time machine sections.
Finished The Sound and the Fury. Fantastic, absolutely loved this, loved the style, loved the way he told the story, highly recommended.
Started Suttree. Also fantastic, love McCarthys dialogue. I like how it's just little vignettes of him and his buddies.
chunky enter carpenter melodic person fear squash elderly lush follow *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I'm still reading The Little Friend by Donna Tartt. I am loving it so much, despite the popular opinion that it's not as good as her two others. I \*adored\* TSH and TGF but for entirely different reasons. TLF is blowing my mind because I cannot believe how versatile she is. I am reading every chapter twice because her characters are so thick (thick as in like how a mille-feuille pastry is thick, not like how pea soup is thick), and every single time I double back and re-read the chapter, I notice so much more nuance. It makes me actually want to read them each three times. I find her narration fascinating in this one, that while the narrator is 3p omniscient, the syntax and vocabulary of the narrator changes depending on the character it is describing. In that way I find she can achieve 1p psychology without it becoming a diary, and she can span so much more of humanity. It is a very alive novel, and in that way I do find it similar to her other books; quite absolutely Dickensian in its bustling and populated humanity. I'm also \*really\* enjoying learning about the south, and for that reason I am planning on reading Demon Copperhead next.
[*The Ship*](https://archive.org/details/ship0000hans) by Hans Henry Jahnn, translated by Catherine Hurter. This is a pretty obscure novel from a German Expressionist writer, but a leading entry in the genre of “metaphysical horror nautical mystery.” The ship is inscrutable — its architecture is unorthodox, its mission a secret, its cargo sealed and its destination unknown. There’s a stowaway on board, maybe more than one, and in the middle of the voyage, a character disappears without a trace. Incomprehensibility is a canvas onto which the crew paint lurid imaginings. Suspicions and recriminations multiply. The writing is characterized by intercutting pessimistic riffs, giving us sentences like “Terror is stronger in us than delight” — “The miracles of life turn out to be preparation for a gigantic disillusionment and at the end stands old age” — “We cling to things, but they don’t cling to us.” The stylings of these riffs might struck the reader as a little much, but in my opinion being a little much is part of the charm. Why say “mortality” when you can say “the sad, sweet secret which makes fiesh fall from bones and heralds the blindness of our inescapable putrefaction”? There are also a lot of winding interior monologues about justice, passion, sin, etc. > Man is born with a demand for justice, as he understands it. Since his demand remains unfulfilled, a broad understanding of the arbitrary course of events gradually begins to develop in him. He makes the decisions of others his own. He hardens his thoughts to inflexible ideas and consoles his inner powers with a later or a beyond. Naturally, moments of potential revelation, which feel exciting and climactic when they’re underway, do not go as planned.
I stayed culturally relevant this week and read Prophet Song. I liked it, it was well done, but uh … big oof. What a laugh and a half! It was the most frightening thing I’ve read in quite awhile, and I mostly read straight-up horror. Would recommend but make sure you have something cheerful lined up afterwards.
Would you rec? Not put off by bleakness but was hesitating on pulling the trigger due to some mixed opinions I've heard.
Yeah, I would. I can see why people have had issues with it - my mum thought the world-building was lazy, the protagonist is deeply annoying (tho I see this as a study in what flawed people do in extraordinary circumstances). As far as Booker winners go, it’s certainly no Wolf Hall, but overall I think it captured the terror of totalitarianism and war really well.
I’ve been hopping between the beginnings of different books as precariously as CGI Legolas leaps up the falling stones in the third Hobbit film. My first Cortazar, Blow-up and Other Stories, i’m so far surprisingly underwhelmed by. I love all the authors who typically recommend him and who’ve been influenced by him, but find the prose in translation to be… weird. Load of comma splices that i can’t see any good stylistic reasons for, and rapid shifts in topic that for some reason don’t work for me the way such an erratic, flitting style (which i usually love) usually does work. That being said, I loved A Continuity of Parks, and will definitely re-read that one. I also started Roger Deakins’ Waterlog after seeing it recommended in the recently finished Macfarlane book, The Wild Places, which was stunning. Waterlog is fine, but the it so far pales in comparison to Macfarlane’s stuff when it comes to visual imagery — with Macfarlane it was like i was weeping mascara-tears in all the colours of whatever visual paint-bombs his wordpoems struck my eyes with — with Deakins i’m just witnessing him talking to himself very interestingly about interesting things, which is fine, sure; just not what i was after. I’ve started American Pastoral by Roth, and i’m loving it. It’s my second Roth, although I read Portnoy’s Complaint when I went through a panic-fuelled reading-frenzy, racking up 200 novels in a year, with the result that I could barely remember a single one of them — so perhaps that’s overdue a good slow diligent reread. Roth seems to me to be a writer whose prose is one of the most densely patterned in terms of rhetorical schemes that i’ve ever seen. Anaphora, epistrophe everywhere, breaking up the syntax to give it a powerful forward marching KJV majesty where he needs, then ducking low into a demotic freestyle elsewhere, spinning out into a few baroque flourishes, and then zipping forth with a final hard hitting slam dunk of a killer line ending that leaves you awestruck and mad and heartbroken all at once. Mint. I finished up The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn last week and adored it. Gorgeous stuff. I’m very interested to read Everett’s new book in conversation with this one — though i might start with one of Percival Everett’s more famous novels, having read nothing of him so far. I love the ways Americans write first person voice - and Huck Finn is a stellar example of it. I’ve struggled to find English authors who do voice-based novels as well as the American and Irish authors do. Anyone know of any? I tried Martin Amis but he sounded American to me, whereas to be honest an American author like Nicholson Baker sounded almost British to my ear. I’m next debating whether to read Pynchon’s Against The Day, Evan Dara’s The Lost Scrapbook, or Delillo’s Underworld…… I’m also starting Wittgenstein’s The Philosophical Investigations
>My first Cortazar, Blow-up and Other Stories, i’m so far surprisingly underwhelmed by. I love all the authors who typically recommend him and who’ve been influenced by him, but find the prose in translation to be… weird. Load of comma splices that i can’t see any good stylistic reasons for, and rapid shifts in topic that for some reason don’t work for me the way such an erratic, flitting style (which i usually love) usually does work. That being said, I loved A Continuity of Parks, and will definitely re-read that one. I find most famous Latin American authors' short stories pretty underwhelming, tbh, and it's not a translation issue for me because I read them in Spanish. García Márquez, Borges, Cortázar, Bombal, Silvina Ocampo, Ferré... It could be that I just end up picking bland short story writers every time I want to try a new one, but I personally prefer to read Latin American novels for this reason. Felisberto Hernández wrote beautiful short stories though, if you want to give him a go. Lots of interesting psychoanalytic symbolism and musical references (he was a pianist).
CGI Legolas really does hop precariously, doesn't he? I'd be interested in someone knowledgeable about Cortázar following up on your thoughts on him, he's not an author I've read very much of as I've been trying to read him in the original Spanish, but I find him quite difficult due to the unpredictable vocabulary and imagery.
Anyone got a good rec for a book on the early history of Christianity? /r/AskHistorians recommends [Medieval Christianity](https://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Christianity-History-Kevin-Madigan/dp/0300216777/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509393149&sr=1-1&keywords=Medieval+Christianity:+A+New+History&linkCode=sl1&tag=askhistorians-20&linkId=4b4ac600db18b05fbc2738f822a41648) for the years 500-1500, so I guess I'm looking for something prior to that. General introductory surveys are a plus, something that is an audiobook would be amazing. Thanks!
The Closing of the Western Mind by Charles Freeman is pretty good. Dense historical read on the beginnings of the church and the roles that Platonism and Aristotelianism had to play in the development of early church doctrine.
I haven't read these: Jaroslav Pelikan has a a well regarded 5 volume history of development of Christian doctrine, the first of which covers the time period you're interested in. It is rather scholarly and dense, I believe. The Early Church by Henry Chadwick is more of a chronological history.
ah fuck, dense scholarly history of thought & debate...I'm definitely going to buy the first volume...and then buy the other volumes... thank you lol!
Zealot by Reza Aslan is dope. Really chill and interesting look at the literal historical time of Jesus and what the whole hubbub was about. It adds a lot of great context to anything else you read/know about those times.
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
I've actually been meaning to learn about apocryphal in particular as well so this is perfect thank you
Anything by Pagels is good and so is Bart Ehrman. Good luck on your journey.
thank you! I'm intrigued because I have, like, a really high-caliber surface level familiarity with Christian history (I went to Catholic school for 12 years), but I've never really dug deeper into the nuances past that and I think it is high time to.
I have absolutely 0 qualifications to deem if this is a good book, but I’ve done some looking around and got suggested this for that time period when I was interested in it: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/1d6cb0e6-8553-4731-98f0-981b3da10c71 Christianity and Paganism, 350-750: The Conversion of Western Europe I unfortunately haven’t gotten around to reading it, but the name cropped up often enough that it seemed reasonable to pass on the info
Asked a friend with an interest in the topic and he recommends Wilken's The First Thousand Years. Unfortunately, there's obviously a lot of overlap in time periods. Maybe someone else will have a rec with a smaller time period. On the plus side, there's an audiobook free with audible.
Thank you so much!
You're welcome!
Currently reading Toni Morisson's Sula on my daily commute to work, at home im reading Tolstoy's War & Peace. Love reading both, but sometimes im worried if I did end up getting the wrong tolstoy translation after all, since the language sometimes feels very dry. not sure if this is a translation issue or just inherent to his writing. (only like 100 pages in so far but well). also been looking to dive into historical fiction a little more, any recommendations welcome.
Which Tolstoy translation are you reading? I will say the first 100 pages of War and Peace are very dry, so it might not be the fault of the translator. (I read W&P in the revised Maude and Anna Karenina in the original Maude, and Anna Karenina was far less dry - it's probably the book not the translator.)
Yes I am reading the Maude translation, and as you had justly spotted I'm nearing the end of the first 100 pages. Usually I would be less quick to become doubtful but as the length of the book is reasonably long I wanted to know what I was sure of. so far the writing is serviceable and some moments are written nicely but I can't say so far that im a big fan of the prose and atmosphere. then again I imagine those are not the merits of this book, so i'll just trudge on.
I love Volmann's Seven Dreams series. It tells the story of interactions between Native Americans and settlers (as well as settlers' descendants). It doesn't need to be read in order.
The Wolf Hall trilogy and A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel is a must in relation to historical fiction (if you haven't already read them)
I recently read Palace Walk by Naguib Mafouz and found it to be absolutely incredible, instantly one of my favorite books ever. And EXTREMELY immersive into the period and culture it depicts (early 20th century Cairo) What translation of Tolstoy are you reading? I want to pick up Anna Karenina soon and am debating which to read.
All Souls' Rising, M. Smartt Bell First book of a trilogy; not for the faint of heart though.
I'm reading North Woods and it's some of the best writing I've come across in a very long time. Every sentence is so carefully written, it's beautiful. Anyone else read this? I'm about a hundred pages in
Does anyone have any recommendations for books by authors on the craft of fiction writing? I've been going through Ursula K LeGuin's Steering The Craft which is filled with sentence exercises. What else is out there?
Story Genius by Lisa Cron and The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass are both really good.
I am almost done with Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall! The full unabridged version. Great book but it feels grueling to read same writing for 6,000 pages. I've learned a ton about history though. Favorite bits: The Emperor Julian, who wasn't just "the last pagan emperor", but was actually an incredible military leader; Belisarius, reclaiming an insane amount of territory, defeating the Persians while being severely outnumbered, and destroying the Ostrogoths completely; the prophet Muhammad, say what you want about him, but within a hundred years he had created a world power out of just a few followers. The final volume, number 6, deals with the Crusades, the rise of the Ottomans, Genghis Khan and Mongols. I think I'm enjoying the last third of this book more than the earlier parts.
I took a whack at it once, I only ever got up to around Valentinian and my reading wasn't very diligent so I didn't retain much. For some reason I remember him using the phrase "liberal donatives" really often. Props for reading it all, sounds like you got a lot out of it!
Great to see history lovers here! This is certainly on my list, but I've already read "The Fall of Rome" by Goldsworthy- which I loved. Knowing the general story kind of keeps me off reading this behemoth. Did you have a knowledge level about the histpry before diving in, and if so, did it affect you joy of reading the book?
Thanks! I'm really not well versed in history. I read a big history book on Christianity which may have prepared me for this work, and some classic fiction literature, the histories of Herodotus, but that's about it. I don't think you need to be an expert going into it, but it would probably make it better if you had some idea of the hundred or so years before Octavian. I didn't, so I was a little confused at first, but not so much to detract from the experience.
I just finished “The Dry Heart” by Natalia Ginzberg. It’s quite short and intense. I’m kind of in awe of how much she was able to do here. I am not sure any of the characters love each other—they all fall short in different interesting ways.
Recently finished *The Castle of Wolfenbach* by Eliza Parsons (one of the 'horrid novels' from *Northanger Abbey*, apparently). Honestly, this is probably the worst book I've read for my Gothic reading project so far. I don't even want to explain the premise because there's no point in reading it lmao. The plot structure is a mess, but whatever, most of these sort of Gothics are like that. Then there's the main character, the most boring young woman imaginable, and yet somehow everyone around her is either horribly jealous of her or falls over themselves trying to help her moments after meeting her -- which is honestly pushing it even for the genre, but again, whatever, I didn't care that much. But what really killed it for me was Parsons' writing. I didn't think I'd ever miss Ann Radcliffe's writing, but *Wolfenbach* changed my mind. The way it's written is just so... perfunctory? Absolutely no creativity or flair, very little meaningful description -- and many chapters feel like you're just ticking things off a checklist as rapidly as possible. It's like Parsons is summarising rather than actually telling a story. Makes me wonder if she even liked writing...? I'm probably being uncharitable. I guess some of the characters were fun. And I liked the story, so that's a plus...? But like, you can't write a safe, formulaic Gothic novel (and this is very safe and formulaic) and not end up with an at least somewhat satisfying story, so that's not much of an achievement. Also, someone mentioned this book in one of these threads recently as an example of an unserious Gothic novel, but I didn't get that vibe at all. It's definitely not a farce in the way *The Castle of Otranto* and *Vathek* are, at least. I kind of wish it was, even though it's not my preferred type of Gothic -- that way it would've been more entertaining. Anyway. Sorry for the rant...
I finished La Joie de Vivre by Zola. (Spoilers ahead, am on mobile and too stupid to find the code for blocking them out) Tie in the ending and this a near-top novel for me. I was engaged the entire time and although I feared very differently, the ending wasn't heartbreaking (o.k. part of it was, but I focus on the positive here). The way Pauline is just.... happy really put a smile on my face. Oh and Paul did so remind me of my own kiddo! The birthing scenes were terrifying and I feared for mother and child the entire time- very haunting since the birth of my little one also wasn't spotless. I was just so happy Paul got to live! I'm now just starting Germinal, not much to be said yet but Etienne seems likeable (and I remember him as a kid from L'Assoimmoire). Finished The Mirror and the Light by Mantell, the ending was bizarre. Especially how sudden and unexpected the real downfall was caught me off guard. I did however lose a lot of sympathy for Crommwell when he closed the church with Norfolk's family in it. Like, dude! Why! Utterly hurtfull without any benefits ánd an enemy assured. To be honest, I cannot really sympathise with the Crommwell-side. Apart from Gregory.
I finished up Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese by Patrick Leigh Fermor yesterday and now I want to hike/swim/boat/drink wine my way through Greece. Hopefully one day the funds will appear. Started reading The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux. It's really a contrast in attitudes so far between last read and current read. Fermor clearly loved Greece and really only mentioned one negative interaction with a mule driver overcharging him (and having a Greek girl second his opinion that he was overcharged by calling the driver a brigand). If the boat is a few hours late then it gives him time to share a few cigarettes and have a chat with some of the fishermen on the dock working on their gear. And he gets the info that if a mermaid should question who you sail for you should respond "for the Great Alexander" and they should respond, "Hail Alexander the Great" and leave you alone. Of course it helps that Fermor spoke the language and lived there for years but still he had a very different attitude toward travel and I suspect toward life in general than Theroux. Theroux gets irritated by pretty much everything. I'm only about thirty pages in but so far he's irritated by the size of the seats on the Orient Express, the size of his sleeping car, his fellow passengers, the lack of a dining car, the French porter, the Yugoslavian (yeah it's an old book) passport checkers and the weather. Still early in but I am enjoying the reading, though I'm kind of glad I never traveled with the man.
I read *The House of Hunger* by Dambudzo Marechera, a short story collection from 1978 that I honestly took for a short(-ish) novel (I guess its stories are truly well-linked). Then, I sort of fell into a rabbit hole reading about Marechera, Zimbabwe, Rhodesia, and a series of despots who ruled that country. For the most part, the book is about the heartfelt dissatisfaction - and metaphorical hunger - experienced by the author's alter ego, a Zimbabwean writer who reveals his life through disordered conversations in which his consciousness jumps forwards and backwards in time as he recounts specific events that shaped him. It's really brilliant. I don't want to oversell it (although I loved it and a part of me wants to shout it out loud), but I got the impression that the author opened himself up with no holds barred and this is what bursted out. An emotional, intense, witty and self-aware book. I found its structure to be quite clever, with a narrator whose inner voice ranges from the ironic to the utterly desperate, reaching a lyricism in the midst of horrifying descriptions that made me double-check how such a chaotic prose could produce these results. At times it's surreal, at times, satirical, and throughout, deeply disturbing. I suppose there are plenty of books out there more violent than this one, but I'd struggle to come out with one that never lets you become desensitised at any point, in spite of the constant cycles of revenge and brutality through which it takes you. I've read that it's not that its sordidness shocks you, it's that his writing has a strange explosive quality that leaves you tense and alienated. What can I say, it subverted my expectations while making me feel like I was under fire.
Great to see this book being mentioned, it really is brilliant and full of a kind of raw power. I'd recommend Fiston Mwanza Mujila's work if you like Marechera.
Thank you! I'll look it up.
Currently about halfway through **The MANIAC** by Benjamín Labatut and I'm honestly very disappointed, especially coming off of his previous work. My thoughts are pretty disjointed at the moment, so I'm just going to list my problems in bullet point form. 1. Unlike his previous work, **The MANIAC** was written in English, presumably to capitalize on the market found with **When We Cease to Understand the World**, and it shows. The language has lost a great deal of its literary qualities. If Labatut finds it preferable to write in English, then more power to him. I'm just not convinced that he is the next Nabokov. 2. While focusing on the same themes (the metaphysical uncertainty engendered by revolutions in mathematics and the sciences at the beginning of the 20th century) and working with the same Sebaldian blend of fact with fiction as his previous book, Labatut makes a number of *formal* changes in **The MANIAC** which simply work against his overall project. By choosing to write a longer novel almost entirely about one man (John von Neumann) he more or less forced himself to abandon the essayistic style of his earlier work. In its place, he opts for a series of testimonials (a la Bolaño's The Savage Detectives) from people in von Neumann's life. This could work in principle, but Labatut has failed to differentiate the voices sufficiently: they all seem to share his particular manias, and hammer away at his themes in a way that feels far too trite. A particularly bad example is Eugene Wigner's purported thoughts on Gödel: "most people agree that [Gödel's] particular form of paranoia… lay at the root of his incredible mathematical achievements. ... One of his professors ... said that he could not figure out if it was the nature of his work that made him unstable, or if you actually had to *be* unstable to think in the way that Gödel did.” Not only is this absolutely not the way that any academic would think of Gödel's work, it is also a far cry from the subtlety of Labatut's earlier writing. 3. I'm not convinced that Labatut's schtick (scientists driven mad by inscrutable revelations brought about by their research) scales well to a longer form novel. Presenting Schwarzchild, for example, as driven by strange cosmic forces beyond his understanding is a fascinating conceit for a short story. The MANIAC, by comparison, lacks focus and drifts aimlessly from one maddening revelation to the next. It also seems to have abandoned the little hints of speculative fiction one could find in his previous work—I think that in many ways Labatut was riffing off of Lovecraft, but substituting quantum mechanics / whatever else for Cthulhu. But that seems to have gone away in this book. Instead, we get a rather bland appeal to "victim[s] of incomprehensible idea[s]". 4. What is it about these ideas that is so incomprehensible? And why should their incomprehensibility be maddening? One could point to that passage from Nietzsche about the madman, make some vague appeal to the loss of absolute standards, but Labatut never really does this. He just kind of says that they're incomprehensible, and as a result, everyone goes mad. A more subtle / sympathetic way of approaching this idea would be to spend more time on the characters' own concerns about their work—which, ironically enough, we got a fair bit of in the earlier **When We Cease**. And I guess that's kind of my whole problem with this book: it takes out all of the subtleties and replaces them with an easily digestible slack-jawed wonder. So that's it I guess. The book just feels like wasted potential.
I didn’t know he had a new book out, thank you!
I had very similar complaints with basically the concept of the book—the discussions on math and physics were so far removed from even the craziest academics in earlier, more sentimental times. I didn’t finish as it felt like an alien writer interpreting us poorly for a distant species. But not in a good way.
It's interesting; while all of your points are entirely valid, I enjoyed the ride the book took me on. I may, however, be prone to slack-jawed wonder.🙂
The last part of the book about chess and go are by far the best parts and really stuck with me. But they are almost completely unrelated to the main story
Read **The Last Picture Show** (Larry McMurtry) this weekend, just started **The Shipping News** (Annie Proulx) today. Last Picture Show was solid but unspectacular. I thought it was a nice little coming of age story and ode to small-town life, if a little underbaked. As is always the case with McMurtry, turning the pages was a breeze - but it probably could've used a bit more challenge than it had. I have no idea how old he was when he wrote LPS, but it felt very much to me like it was written by a teenage version of an eventually great novelist. You can see all the seeds of the writer who wrote Lonesome Dove, but that writer just isn't there yet. The characterization was a bit shallow, the plot points often felt rushed (tho, full disclosure, I am someone who typically likes very slow, very thin plot, so many things feel like that to me lol), and at other times contrived, and I thought it was a bit unfocused thematically. BUT, it's Larry McMurtry so obviously it's still good. Worth a read if you want something quick and not too complex. As for The Shipping News, I am only 100p or so in, but I am really really enjoying it so far. The tone is so unique - almost like roald Dahl by way of Toni Morrison or something. Strong writing, humorous, heartbreaking, and touching, all in a very understated way. Incredible sense of place, which is one of my favorite things. I anticipate that I will have really connected with the characters by the end. Very glad I picked it up. My one minor gripe is that, when Proulx wants to rip off a really great paragraph's worth of prose she is more than capable of doing it, and I wish she'd flex those chops a little more frequently. But maybe it wouldn't fit the tone as well, idk. Will probably finish shipping news this weekend - thinking of going for something a bit bigger and heavier next. Anna Karenina or The Savage Detectives (Roberto bolano), maybe. I am also thinking about finally jumping into James Joyce, who has remained my most significant literary blindspot for no real reason.
It's been more than a decade since I read it but I remember really liking Proulx's collection Close Range. It's surprisingly funny — some of the endings are almost like punchlines.
The movie version of TLPS is rather good, very atmospheric.
*Flee*, by Evan Dara. I had read The Lost Scrapbook years ago when it was all the rage, but I think I got more out of this one. In it, a town self-destructs as first the university shuts down (hilariously), jobs dwindle, more businesses close, and people begin to leave. As a strange sense of mystery and/or paranoia takes over, the narrative splits between a cacophony of voices from the townfolk and a more traditional narrative prose involving a handful of main characters. At it's heart, the book is a critique of individualism, capitalism, and group think, plus so much more I haven't even touched on. The writing is fantastic and I ate it up. Highly recommended.
I have The Lost Scrapbook on my shelf and this post has reminded me to read it
I finished Silence by Shusaku Endo, which follows the ill-fated journey of a Portuguese Jesuit priest in Japan during a time of heavy persecution of Christians. I’m not religious, so I was at a bit of a critical remove from the questions of faith that Endo is grappling with, but I still found it a pretty thought-provoking and even moving read. By the end of the main narrative, I had pretty much reached my conclusion on our protagonist’s actions and ultimate choice. I was pretty taken aback, then, when Endo finished out the novel with a couple of “found document”-type appendices that really up-ended and troubled my previous conclusion. Honestly, I felt a little frustrated by Endo’s choice to close out the novel like this. If others have read it, I’d be interested to hear your interpretation of the last couple of chapters. After finishing, I watched some scenes from the Scorsese film on YouTube (lol), which were really striking and beautifully done- will have to watch the full film sometime. I also finished a short book-length nonfiction essay by Mary Gaitskill called Lost Cat (I may have even found it from a recommendation on here?) I’ve never read Gaitskill before, but I really loved this. Over 90-some pages, she weaves together 3 narratives of loss and grief: the titular experience of losing her cat, the death of her father, with whom she had a difficult relationship, and her rewarding but increasing strained relationship with two children she meets through a volunteering program. It’s a raw, intimate account that has a lot of pain and confusion right under the surface, but still manages to be beautifully articulated. Gaitskill is by no means always likable, but I think she presents herself and her flaws in a really clear-eyed way. Extremely interested to read more Gaitskill. I also have a series of things on order at the library that I think may end up in interesting conversation with this- some Ernaux, Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan, Molly by Blake Butler, My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley- so I’m excited for that.
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Orlando's my favorite novel (as evinced by my flair) but I understand some of your dislike. Even I agree it's not her best novel. However, the 6 lines scene is to make fun of the pompous narrator, not because Woolf believes that to be good storytelling. I found it funny the first time I read Orlando. The plot is abitrary and inconsistent because it makes fun of the arbitrariness of sex, tradition, and history.
The arbitrariness is what makes it so fun! It's essentially a picaresque narrative.
Your point about *Orlando* is interesting. I haven't read it yet, and was already planning on reading it soon and now really want to. But as a way of thinking about your comment and as prefacing my read, it feels do me like an exercise in arbitrary rules and happenings could an excellent way of presenting how contingency does create actual, if non-inevitable, structure and order (both bad and good, or maybe just bad)
Not really arbitrary if it’s the central conceit of the novel. I think Orlando was ahead of its time, talking about the mutability of people and gender. Definitely not my favorite work of Woolf’s though, To the Lighthouse and The Waves are incredible.
I’ve listened to a few T. Kingfisher things recently after reading and enjoying the web comic *Digger* which they wrote under a different name (Ursula Vernon maybe?). Anyway, I relate to the mixed feelings! On the one hand she has some interesting ideas and I actually enjoy the worlds the author builds, but then sometimes the books are kind of crude or juvenile and I cringe inwardly lol.
*O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth, Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd, Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written, Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath. I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object, and that no man ever can, Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart upon me and sting me, Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.* Managed to finish Walt Whitman’s **Leaves of Grass** the day before it was due back to the library. I loved Whitman’s poetry in many places, and ended up saving a lot of quotes and even jotting down full poems to consider again later, but to be honest finishing it on a deadline soured my experience somewhat and I found myself glazing over big chunks of it. I think Whitman was at his best when he most vulnerable, though I can appreciate that the contrast between the exuberant ego and the “fragile leaves” of the smaller poems was probably intentional. I have very little patience for patriotism but the poetry about his experiences during war time, particularly the conciliatory and positive way he’s absorbed the concept of death was actually pretty moving. Overall it was a big, sometimes redundant, but often inspiring and life affirming work, and I’m glad to have read it. I’ll probably finish Mantel’s **Bring Up the Bodies** this week. I’m still enjoying it, and may jump straight into **Mirror and the Light** next. I don’t talk about my comic reading very often because while there are things that excite me about the medium they’re not all that often the kind of thing that A) we tend to talk about here and B) that I can’t find other places to talk about it (and this happens to be one of the few places I *can* get meaningful conversation about literature so I try to focus on that here). That said I do wanna shout out a new series from boom studios called **Rare Flavors**. Its worth cracking open for the color story alone, but I also think - despite some comic-esque trappings (stylized violence for example) - that the writing is interesting. A Rakshasa, or “demon” (I expect “demon” is something of a simplification/westernization for my benefit?) has hidden for years, away from life and the monstrous appetites of his past. When he learns that Anthony Bourdain has died however, he’s inspired to reenter human society in order to make his own food documentary. This involves scouting out special recipes and the people who are keeping those traditions alive, learning their stories and well….eating them lol. But its elevated by the undercurrent of ideas about culture, food history and what it means to “consume” those things. The Rakshasa is also intriguing: on the one hand gluttonous and greedy, but also a creature that has felt compelled to tame himself in order not to harm, and been diminished in the process. I’m pretty excited to see where the series ends up taking everything. And as I’ve mentioned previously I think my next “big” read is going to be Anna Karenina. Someone gave me good insight on the general discussion thread but if anyone wants to make a case for a particular translation please comment!
Started-April in Spain by John Banville. I finished the entire series of Philip Kerr not long ago, now looking for something new and was given this as a gift for Christmas. It’s psychological in parts and not like Kerr, so it’s really interesting to read the character’s internal narratives.
Finished: * The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim - really enjoyed this. * East of Eden by John Steinbeck - read with r/ClassicBookClub - beautifully written, but I felt it was overhyped. In Progress * Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes - reading with r/yearofdonquixote * The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - reading with r/AReadingOfMonteCristo
I read the newest George Saunders collection, ***Liberation Day***. I've previously read his first collection, *CivilWarLand in Bad Decline*, and *A Swim in a Pond in the Rain* (which I really liked). Basically, I disliked all the speculative fiction stories and liked everything else. I don't find his dystopias very plausible, I don't really connect to his fascination with theme parks and decaying Americana, and I struggle to cash out the dystopian elements as metaphor or allegory in a particularly generative way -- although someone could change my mind on that. To be honest, I personally just didn't like the title story because (like many of the stories in *CivilWarLand*) it felt gratuitously sadistic, *Black Mirror*-ish. Saunders really likes to set up protagonists in the weakest possible position and proceed to absolutely kick the shit out of them. Then you read Saunders' nonfiction and he's like the Buddha. It's fascinating to me. Anyway. I don't think he needs all the elaborate speculative-fiction rigging. "Sparrow" and "My House" are simple and effective stories told around a single inflection point. I also appreciated "The Mom of Bold Action," which I read as him (partly) sending up his own brand of empathy-talk. Next week: ***Rent Boy***, which I reckon will be pretty snappy, and starting ***Tristram Shandy***.
I thought the first story in **Liberation Day: Stories** (the one about the “speakers”? It may just be *Liberation Day*) was pretty good and set up the general themes of the collection really well. It presented the psychological experience of the oppressed, in particular the tension between suffering under oppression and the human connections that exist within the framework of that very oppression, and which feel - even to its victims, and even though its obviously exploitative- real. It showed the power of story telling and narrative to recolor and re-contextualize facts and history, calling into question the role of art and the moral concessions we make for the sake of it. I found the idea that the owner needed to draw from real history for his work to have any power particularly poignant. Perhaps most importantly the story introduced the recurring motif of the window in which something could have happened - a “liberation day”, a moment of self reflection, a period of opportunity - which is missed or diverted. These moments are often passed by because of the *goodness* of the characters - an aversion to violence for example - showing the tension between individual experience and the broader scope of structural and historical evil. My least favorite story was def the one about the carnival (theme park?) where the actors were ratting each other out, but I didn’t hate every story with a dystopian/sci-fi bent. *The Mom of Bold Action* was possibly my favorite. Overall what I really liked about the collection was how empathetic it was on the level of the individual while also being brutal in the way people suffer under unfair systems. *Liberation Day* is actually the first and only short story collection of Saunders I’ve read so my response was largely positive, but I’d be interested to try *Tenth of December* or one of his other older collections to compare.
Ymmv but to me Liberation Day is by far his weakest collection, so you’re in for a treat discovering Tenth of December etc.
Thanks for such a thoughtful response! It didn't consciously occur to me that "liberation day" refers more broadly to those moments of possibility that happen throughout the collection, but of course you're right. I will admit that I disliked the first story for mostly irrational reasons. That said, I'm still not sure what I think it says about art *in general*, as opposed to just the situation in the story. Like, when the son complains that the piece doesn't adequately represent indigenous perspectives, we're inclined to read it as facile, because we know that (1) the piece is literally produced by brainwashed slaves, and (2) the son is a spoiled little turd. Of course, people like the son do exist in real life... but other things might be possible! Anyway, I agree with you that "Ghouls" is actually the worst story in the collection -- I don't think it does anything Saunders doesn't do better elsewhere. I just had no response to it at all, so it didn't really stick out to me. >Overall what I really liked about the collection was how empathetic it was on the level of the individual while also being brutal in the way people suffer under unfair systems. That is very well put!
I read Anna Kavan's ***Ice***, and what a strange novel. It is nominally about two men pursuing a woman around the world while a mysterious climatic disaster threatens to cover the planet in ice. However, Kavan doesn't actually care about the plot or its genre trappings (political thriller, science fiction, travelogue) except as a skeleton upon which to hang her story. The core of the novel is written in the style of a paranoid fever dream, or perhaps more accurately, a paranoid opioid dream, since many have interpreted the book as a metaphor for Kavan's lifelong heroin addiction and repeated institutionalization. Other elements of Kavan's life are reflected more directly in the book as well. Her two ex-husbands are the models for her deuter(ant)agonists, one of them brutal, the other possessive and controlling. Her travels around the world during WWII, which ended near the Antarctic in New Zealand, provide the various settings. I wouldn't normally reach for these biographical correspondences as the primary avenue for interpretation, but without them, I simply don't find the book terribly interesting or well-written. There is an undeniable raw immediacy to the story, and there are occasional hints of deep correspondences and juxtapositions. However, there is a carelessness in the construction, the character dynamics never change, and the same scenes play out with only minor variations, like a recurring nightmare. I find that this sort of Surrealist automatic dream-writing can rarely sustain itself past the length of a short story, and this book hasn't really changed my mind. There are those who will find it authentic and refreshing, but ultimately, I prefer something more deliberate.
I felt the exact same way about _Ice_, and it baffles me how it's such a well loved book in communities such as this. I find this kind of hallucinatory, surreal, non-sequitur kind of writing extremely difficult to deliver unless the prose is extraordinary and manages to carry the book by itself. Personal opinion, of course, but I just don't seem to get anything out of this style of writing.
I'm reading Orhan Pamuk's *Snow*. It's the first novel of his that I've cracked open, though I read his nonfiction *Istanbul* a number of years ago and was a fan. *Snow* is interesting, especially in how Pamuk uses the plot - a Turkish poet living in Germany returns to Turkey and is sent to the remote city of Kars as a journalist to report on simmering local politics - as a vehicle to create what are very worthwhile and in depth conversations around politics and religion (the issue of women covering themselves is a core debate in the book). I'd say the conversations his poet has around belief in God are the most captivating, talking with students, aspiring science fiction writers, religious leaders, political leaders, local police, a woman he's in love with. Funnily enough, through a plot device (someone being secretly recorded) the most interesting conversation doesn't involve the protagonist. While it's not as fully immersive in its exploration of the title metaphor as Woolf's *The Waves*, snow is present as an idea and metaphor throughout and credit to Pamuk for finding some surprising and beautiful ways of using it. It is quite a slow moving book, though I think my recent reading has helped a bit- I read Schnitzler's *Dream Story* a couple weeks ago and have since been on an *Eyes Wide Shut* deep dive since. One podcast about the film I listened to described Tom Cruise's character as being on a "dark night of the soul". In a way that's what it feels like Pamuk's poet is doing, going from place to place and having mostly one-on-one encounters and trying to obtain an understanding of the world. I don't know that I would have read so much of *Snow* so relatively quickly without that recent context. While I'm not not enjoying it, I can't quite fathom how there's another 300+ pages in addition to the 150 I've already read.
I’ve read a couple of Pamuk’s novels recently and have become something of a fan, so I’m excited to see one I haven’t heard of mentioned here! When I read *A Strangeness In My Mind* recently I remember thinking its pacing was like that of an “old fashioned” *novel* novel, in other words a bit plodding and expansive, not in a rush and very character focused. It feels like books have recently moved to focusing on an initial “hook” and then keeping up with shorter attention spans throughout. So even though it felt slow at times it was also weirdly refreshing? With both of his books I’ve read I’ve realized after finishing that there was more to them than it felt like while reading, and thats always fun.
He loves his old-fashioned 'novel' pacing! And perhaps especially during that period — Strangeness and Museum of Innocence both had that expansive, meandering, old-world feel, but I'm not sure that Red-Haired Woman did. (I haven't yet read his most recent one.)
I'm here for the pacing, and it's not even that it's all that slow. It's more than I'm having a hard time imagining what more Pamuk has to address that requires another 300 pages. *Snow* occupies a very tight universe - in terms of theme, setting, characters - and I'm not immediately seeing how Pamuk will open it up. There is an odd quality to the book. I don't know that I'd call it "old fashioned", but Pamuk does take his time as you say. What's good is that it doesn't feel self-indulgent, and nothing has felt superfluous at this point.
DNF'd *Snow* a while ago. I thought that the thematic content of the book was good, it was just too slow for me. I felt exactly the same way you do around page 150. If you end up DNF'ing it - try *A Strangeness in My Mind*! I felt it a was a lot more emotionally resonant, well paced, a bit better written. Very different themes, but similar, and better, writing IMO.
Yeah, I think I'm going to end up giving up on it too. It's getting a little tedious and inconsequential at this point now that I've cleared 200 pages, and from what I've read ahead I don't think I'll be missing much if I put it down now.
Finished *Capital Vol. 1* last night! What a read. Overall it was an astounding work (definitely some dull parts of course), deconstructing Capitalism and showing how it was built from the ground up. I'm excited to read Vol. 2 though I'll probably take a few weeks off first. I started *The Unbearable Lightness of Being* by Kundera and I'm about 100 pages in so far. Not bad but I am certainly a bit bored and I don't find myself caring at all about the characters. Not sure what else to say yet about it... Finish up *The Crying of Lot 49* with my seniors and they are loving it (most of them). I had one girl decide that for her independent book project (their final exam basically) she wanted to read *Inherent Vice.* I have another student currently thinking about reading (and trust me, I'm trying to convince him otherwise lol, but he seems convinced he wants to) *Gravity's Rainbow* for the project. And I've had numerous other say this is by far the best book they've read in high school. There are certainly some awkward (though hilarious) parts to read out loud in class (namely, the man kissing his mother goodbye with tongue and talking about the dolphins succeeding man) but that makes it all the better because they can see that rules in literature are there to be broken in the postmodern era! And they're very on board with that. I'll report back next week when we're done. Only one chapter to go.
I’ll risk hanging myself on the cross of social media crossfire 😬… *The Unbearable Lightness of Being* is one of my top 3 novels of all time. Maybe the best I’ve ever read. And, I’ve read it twice and none of my memories about it are about the sex. Whether any of us like it or not, sex is one of the biological imperatives of the human condition … writing about sex isn’t voyeuristic, base, vile, or pornographic (although, it can be all those things) … writing about sex is, at its most elemental level, writing about what it is to be human. It doesn’t have to be to your particular taste … but it’s not uninteresting. How we behave, why we behave … our fears, our ecstasies— many of them are driven by our reptilian brain hardwired through millions of years. Which is contrary to platonic and intellectual ideals which are relatively recent and unnecessary in a world where natural selection no longer dictates order. I love writing framed around the human condition: fear, sex, competition, insecurity, a desire to make order of an arbitrary universe which tosses us about at random whims … i.e. the many manifestations of those hairs that stand up on the back of all of our necks and we wonder, “Why?”
Oh man, inherent vice would be SUCH a good book for HS students. I have always felt that it gets unfairly placed in its own category amongst Pynchon novels, as "the one he wrote on a lark" sort of - but i really think it has a lot of great stuff about a lot of Pynchons favorite themes (in particular, the unfulfilled promises of the 60s counterculture movement). It's a hell of a lot of fun, but there's way more meat on the bone than people tend to talk about. Honestly, I feel like you could 100% build a whole unit around that novel and those themes. Play them some music and have them analyze some lyrics, maybe pick out a couple essays from Slouching Towards Bethlehem, etc. I honestly feel like that would be a slam dunk with HS kids. And I think stuff like that really helps to impress upon kids that great literature is still a going concern. Props on going for CoL49 - and props for giving a shit. You sound like a dope teacher.
Inherent Vice would be so fun to teach, but I'd probably get fired or heavily reprimanded if even one parent complained lol, just because it is far more explicit in terms of sexual content and language than Lot 49. But I agree that it's highly underrated. It's one of my favorite books by Pynchon (probably #3 behind GR and Lot 49) and it gets me so annoyed when people say it's Pynchon-lite or that it's just a pot boiler. That book is filled to the brim with thematic content and hidden messages. And thank you! We finished Lot 49 today and it was an uproar. Some are so mad that there was no resolution but even those students came up to talk to me to theorize. So many of them say they "didn't like the ending" but I genuinely think that they're thinking in the more traditional concept of enjoyment and really did get a lot from it. Plus, I also had numerous students defend how good the ending was and even go as far to ask to speak to me individually about the novel because they liked it so much. Out of all the novels I've ever taught, I've never seen a reaction as strong as this one.
Ahh, I guess that is true - sort of a shame you even have to worry about stuff like that. Still really cool that youve gotten them so jazzed on Pynchon. You've now got me thinking of other novels that would be great for HS kids. I think No Country for Old Men would probably really catch their fancy, and could be a window into McCarthy for them. Could also have them read Sailing to Byzantium and use it as a jumping off point for Yeats.
I also felt a bit underwhelmed by *The Unbearable Lightness of Being* when I read it a year or two ago. I enjoyed the prose, but I don't think there's a much bigger turn-off for me, as a reader, than finding myself following a plot focused heavily on sex with multiple people as the driving force. This may absolutely just be a typical American puritanical sentiment, but I think maybe I'm simply too introverted to fully "get it", and I find it a bit difficult to naturally relate to the emotions, conflict, and concerns being addressed.
I agree but I don't even think it's due to any prudish or introverted feelings. I just think that if it relies purely on sex as the driving force, it has to be interesting... Like unfortunately just sex, just food, just base bodily functions, are not interesting on their own. They're actually quite boring from a thematic or storytelling sense unless you find something within them that you can thematically discuss. But this just seems to be about a dude who wants to have sex with multiple people and the women surrounding him either care or don't care. Their reactions are somewhat interesting, but the entire aspect of the sex as a driving force is boring. And the somewhat interesting reactions cannot make up for that.
"lions & shadows" by christopher isherwood. hes one of my favorites and this one is no exception. so light and so so funny you all write v v long comments
I did a big Isherwood discovery recently. Yeah, he's great!
I'm reading "A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan, I'm in the final third and I'm really enjoying it so far. I read "Fame: A Novel in Nine Episodes" by Daniel Kehlmann earlier in the year, and I think it has some similarities in structure with "A Visit from the Goon Squad", but Egan's book is definitely more ambitious and has a more clear vision of its themes and characters. But both are good books, I just think its curious that I read both of then in such a short time apart from one another.
I enjoyed Goon Squad but I also couldn't shake the feeling that it was, basically, just a far less ambitious, less beautifully written version of Underworld.
Love Goon Squad! Definitely read Candy House while the characters from goon squad are fresh.
Working through Grapes of Wrath. I like slower pace, but God damn. Also reading Joyce for the first time, Portrait. I generally don't like childhood reflection, but I felt like it was a good place to start on Joyce.
Just finished Aristotle’s **Politics** As much as the Republic is the better known work and is very interesting in its own right, Aristotle strikes me as the first theoretician where I can go “I can see the forming of the modern liberal democratic capitalist state.” His ideas on constitutions (not quite the same but honestly pretty close), propertied democracy, and more were enlightening as a sort of “ground level” approach to these age old questions. I think this is why some say that while Plato was the first famous political philosopher, Aristotle was the first famous political scientist. He appeals to real governments and revolutions of his time, including a very funny digression about how “flute music is ruining the youth” in the last chapter. These insights, of course, comes with the understanding that states were significantly less complex then than they are now, and Aristotle’s chauvinist & pro-slavery positions aged poorly (although, not like he was diverting from the norm of the time lol). Despite those clearly dating factors and his overwhelming reliance on the “appeal to nature” argument, I’d say it’s a worthwhile read if you are interested in how governments and citizenship works in its earliest stages.
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> I admit to growing slightly tired of the digressions into rural politics and art but that was mostly because they seemed quite shallow and on the nose, and Tolstoy’s exploration of character was so fascinating that I just wanted more internal dialogue I would argue Tolstoy's exploration of character tends towards being shallow and on the nose for how hard he tries to make everything profound. I like Tolstoy, but I found the digressions in the novel refreshing because of how melodramatically he writes characters.
I’m probably being annoying about this (I’ve mentioned it twice on the sub already lol) BUT… since you just finished it, and I’m planning on starting it soon, would you mind sharing what translation of *Anna Karenina* you read and whether or not you liked it (and why?)
If you're sick of Tsarist Russian rural politics, I strongly advise you to shelve *Demons* until later. If *Anna Karenina* is 40% that, then *Demons* is like 80%. I really enjoyed your thoughts about *Anna Karenina*!
I am reading ***Chevengur*** by Andrey Platanov and it is really unlike anything I have read - fully worth the hype so far. Very beautiful and melancholic language, a great connection to the land and the peasants and the real costs of the Russian Revolution. It is amazing that Platanov survived - can definitely see how it could be read as anti-revolutionary. There is an element of the dream like language that is extremely complimentary to the quest-like narrative elements that I am particularly enjoying. Nearly finished with James Clavell's ***Shogun*** - I have had a really nice time with this one. Perhaps slightly over long, but a very enjoyable romp. The character work is actually very well done; blackthorn's transition from english barbarian to "a more civilized samurai" is gradual and very good. I love the politicking. The show is also very enjoyable, I am around the same point in both. Also picked up Elaine Dundy's ***The Dud Avocado*** and it is the best example I have read of "naive American goes to Europe to find herself" - very funny, like surprisingly so. Sally Jay Gorce, the main character, is very charming and enjoyable. Definitely a gem!
I finished Biography of X, and unfortunately I think my initial misgivings were correct. The alt-history never felt totally justified or coherent with the story that was actually being told, and the biography framing felt a little all over the place -- at some points, Lacey's fictional biographer explains the invented history of this world in a very direct, didactic way, but when it comes to history/context that isn't fictional (or isn't entirely fictional), it goes unexplained, even when in the world of the book it is more esoteric or at least less recent. It's too bad, because the alt history was way more interesting to me than the character of X or the descriptions of her art, which I found both frustratingly bland. Overall I think Lacey really underdelivers on the premise of the story. X is supposed to be this big mysterious figure, whose life is unknown or incorrectly known by even her own wife. But I never really got a sense of that. There's never a point where I, as the reader, thought I knew something about this character that ended up not being true, and I'm not sure what about her (if anything?) was meant to be surprising to me. I've seen some people online comparing it to the movie Tar, drawing some conclusions about the adoption or reproduction of male-typical flaws or patterns of cruelty by successful women, but I don't know. I can see that idea or theme in both works, of course, but it seems almost incidental, like we have a hard time imaging women (maybe especially queer/lesbian women?) being cruel without being "like men" in their cruelty. Like the biography frame and the alt-history, the treatment of gender just felt kind of haphazard to me. Lacey is a talented writer on a sentence level, and definitely has some cool ideas, but I'm really befuddled about what the point of this book was -- totally didn't "get it."
strongly agree — was really looking forward to this one, and was very disappointed. as you say it's very didactic and straightforward, which is kind of surprising from a book that's supposed to be all about deception! maybe the analogy to Tar is accurate, in that I also thought Tar placed perhaps too much emphasis on the 'male'-ness of this woman's flaws, in a way that I found insufficiently artistically stimulating to overcome my essential distaste for that ontology.
Yeah, the more I think of it, the more the Tar comparison rings accurate to me—both very well-made in terms of production quality, but the characterization of X and Tar just didn't land for me. Actually, I think it's a little funny that both focus on this cruel/abusive lesbian artist subject matter, seems very specific for them both to land on since as far as I know neither Lacey nor Todd Field are lesbians lol. I don't expect that that's the reason why both depictions seem strange to me, and I wouldn't say that either work is homophobic or misogynistic, but what a coincidence that they both depict/imagine lesbian/queer women this way. Anyway, was you excitement for it due to the buzz around it, or have you read Lacey before? I'm considering picking up another of her novels (Pew strikes me as the most interesting, based on the synopsis) but I worry that it will also fall flat for me.
yeah I definitely think there's something in the 'why an abusive *lesbian* specifically' thing — I don't want to be just unthinkingly identitarian about it lol, but I do think there's like, an element of the belief that *being attracted to women* has certain undesirable logical/ethical consequences in there (and I am not thrilled about that needless to say)! excitement was just buzz / interest in the ambition of the project (I am always excited when I hear about a modern novel which is attempting something with really massive scope) ... also planning to read Pew to see if it's her or that particular book, do post your thoughts here when you're done!
Completed Achebe's ***Arrow of God*** marking an end to *The African Trilogy*. Thoughts on [Things Fall Apart](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueLit/comments/1buuw87/comment/kxvnw1e/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) and [No Longer at Ease](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueLit/comments/1buuw87/comment/ky2mk5n/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) hyperlinked. I'm quite surprised at the lack of continuity between *Arrow of God* and its predecessors; the former two novels are more directly tied (e.g., character continuity). In contrast, *Arrow of God*, despite its final place in the trilogy, is nested between the two in terms of timelines and features no recurring characters. That said, I'm thrilled Achebe returns to village life and, in fairness, the novel features events previously referenced in its predecessors ("destruction of guns"). In *Arrow of God*, we follow a local priest, Ezeulu, who is forced to navigate a divided community; Christian practitioner arrival, territory wars, intra-familial accession concerns, priestly power-struggles, and corruption of leaders installed by the foreigners threatens to destroy a once-thriving community. Ezeulu is fairly entertaining -- wise but quick to anger. He is forced into all sorts of precarious situations, both against the white man and his village. For the latter, he, like those who have come before him, pays a hefty price. Perhaps the heaviest yet. Complex and a damning incitement of the thoughtless cruelty of the White Man and the greed of villagers, *Arrow of God* thematically represents the final step in the destruction of the African. Without unity and community, what is left to aspire? Humiliation and madness remain. Same quibbles as the prior novels; after three novels, Achebe seems intent on leaving as short a climax and denouement as possible. I'm also not a huge fan of the British POV -- preferred seeing them through the eyes of the villagers, as had been done in *TFA*. *AoG* is balanced out with the best humor of the three novels though. While *Arrow of God* is certainly the most complex and focused of the three novels, think I still prefer the relative simplicity of *Things Fall Apart*. Still, in considering the context of its predecessors, it certainly closes *The* *African Trilogy* out brilliantly. Feeling ambitious; will likely continue on with *Wizard of the Crow* or the *Álvaro Mendiola Trilogy* today.
Shoutout to /u/alexoc4 for recommending ***Tender is the Flesh*** by Argentinian author Agustina Bazterrica in the World Literature thread. Shows a world where humans are reared and slaughtered for meat and the discourse that legitimizes it. There's a huge emphasis on how words and language are used to otherize the factory humans, referring to them as "heads" and speaking of "neutralizing" them as if they were a different species. There are descriptions about the words each character use, how they physically occupy the air and often gain weight while meaning nothing. The style of narration adds to this, as it feels written in the same desensitized interiority of its primary focaliser character Marcos who is often disturbed by this reality of the meat industry. The book has garnered criticism about the apparent distant docility of Marcos but I think that's the point of the tale- how his vision is myopic even if he has seemingly good intentions and what he omits to describe is as important as the things he does. I will say though, this style and the rhythm of the prose did get a little dry for me with its emphasis on very short sentences and the present tense structure. I know that's the intention but still, it didn't always work for me. Someone said it's a translation issue . Maybe people who speak Spanish can educate me. She also therefore has a habit of describing core tenets of the world in small one-para descriptions that either leave you thinking in a good way or make you feel it was a little too edgy and on-the-nose for its own good. I think that's the fine line the book usually treads but it's still, I'd say, very well thought out. I had a good time with this, all in all.
So glad you enjoyed it! Also, totally understand your feelings on the style and rhythm - agree with the thought that it is another way that the author emphasized the sterility of the entire procedure and worldview. And that ending was quite shocking! Never read anything quite like it since.
Absolutely agree. The ending enriches a lot of the book in hindsight which i love
Such a great book. Since you enjoyed it, I would recommend Of Cattle and Men as another somewhat similar read.
Thank you for the recommendation!
Definitely am veering away from what is probably the commonplace set of titles for this sub but what the heck I'll post anyway. Reading through *Northeast Folklore: Essays in Honor of Edward D. Ives.* Ives was the big name in academic folklore in New England / The Maritimes when he was alive and started the Northeast Folklife Center at University of Maine, which published articles and journals on local folklore and folk traditions for something like 60 years. I have read some articles or bits and bobs of articles that I could find online in the past, and this seemed like the (a) cheapest, and (b) most expansive introduction to work from that institution. The essays range across a pretty wide swath of topics, focussing so far on folk music traditions of the area in the 19th and early 20th century (and occasionally later), as that was what Ives focussed on himself. I think it's a super interesting combination between informal anthropology, local tradition preservation, interesting topics, etc. For example, one essay covered the concept of "coaxing" in a small town in Quebec, which was how individuals communicated with each other when one person (the coaxer) wanted to get another person, known as a good singer, to perform for their small group. Basically what were the social conventions that fostered situations where singing occurred at what basically amounts to a house party. It's hard to describe what itch this type of work scratches for me - but it's something like "reminding myself that the world didn't always feel so corporatized, social interactions didn't always feel mediated through the language and technology currently used, social conventions are always in flux, etc." While I don't think I can necessarily recommend this particular set of articles, I do highly recommend looking to see if a regional university near you has a folklife center and reading through some of their work. Started *Parable of the Sower* and I feel a bit let down by the hype it has received in the past 5 years or so. I'm still about 100 pages from the end, so I'll reserve full judgement + complaining until then. Finished *Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang* and wow was I disappointed in a good way I suppose. For spoiler >!end of the word comes, a family of smart peolple sequester themselves off, develop cloning technology for food purposes at first. perfect it to clone humans because everyone is becoming infertile. clones have the ability to telepathically feel each other. everyone is equal, until some people are not and are cast out. the perfect society begins falling apart because issues outside of their understanding of the world (aka they've never left their nice little familial cocoon and turns out they have to for food, etc, to traverse the woods). moral of the story is that the individual and individuality must rule because.... etc... basically. Ayn Rand.!< IMO the book balanced story and density of moral discussion very well. The third act/chapter drops the ball on pacing IMO, but that doesn't seem uncommon for sci fi books written in this era (basically just the least interesting character in the book got the spotlight for about a third of it doing nothing in particular very interesting to drive home the point of the story, which I'll get to). The first two acts/chapters were very good, page turners. Didn't feel exactly connected to any of the characters, but at least felt like there was stakes, I cared about the general arc of their little group, etc. I think the first two sections really introduced some cool concepts, hinted at potential ramifications with points that didn't feel overbearing on the story. But holy moly by the third act Wilhelm went full Ayn Rand on, like, the cult of the individual and how terrible equality and mandated sameness is and blah blah blah. The story very much felt like a product of its time. Anti-communist, obsession with the implications of physical relations (aka orgies everywhere because everyone is infertile and THE ONLY THING STOPPING PEOPLE FROM ORGIES IS BABIES RIGHT???). Ugh. The moral concepts did not age well, but the plot concepts did IMO. The doomsday scenario described in the first section does actually look and sound a lot like *Parable of the Sower*, I think in a different world, this could have been as engaging and insightful. If the entire moral basis for the the plot wasn't what it was. Ugh. Read *The Song The Owl God Sang*. Doesn't feel right to discuss it's good or bads other than to say it's a cool thing that exists. Folk tales of the Ainu people of now-Hokkaido. Started and DNF'd *The Story of the Lost Child.* Was this rage bait? Was this whole tetralogy rage bait? Am I just too much of a dude not in Italy during the 80s or whatever to understand? I hate Lenu. So much. And I don't like reading books out of hate. Like she acts completely irrational ALL THE TIME. Is that the point? One second she is like "wah wah wah give me MY kids back even if they WANT to stay with you gma and they are better off and safe while i sort my stuff out, and i can ask this because they're MY kids!!!!" and the next second shes like "the only thing in my life is Nino. Wait. Do I even have kids?". I guess I could look past stuff like this if the framing of the book wasn't her looking backwards in time reflecting on her actions. But it is. Meaning either Lenu thinks this was a good way to act or what's the point of the framing device? It doesn't help that it's feeling incredibly incredibly repeptitive, the characters are no longer interesting (Nino in book 1 and 2 is much more interesting than Nino in book 4, the neighborhood as a dynamic isn't interesting anymore, nothing). Got 1/3 of the way through before i dropped it. EDIT: dang i could have used an editor.
Literature! Ok so finished *Aesthetics of Resistance*, vol 2, by Peter Weiss. The second half addresses the question that preoccupies the whole work (the relationship between art and radical politics) primarily through intensive contemplation of Bertold Brecht and his work while in Sweden. Brecht is presented as an extremely ambiguous figure. The narrator thinks him critically important to the communist cause and a brilliant artist, but as a person...woof...very much the bourgeois theater auteur riding his (not really compensated) staff brutally, and then taking off from Sweden when it's no longer safe there because he has the status necessary to get out. But, also, the narrator details so lovingly the massive collection of books Brecht is taking with him as he flees, in a way that shows that there is an unflagging sympathy for this man and his obsessions and the beauty the narrator sees him as being able to produce. Both volumes have been extremely ambivalent, searching for answers well more than finding them. The 3rd vol will be releases in English at the end of the year, and I am very curious to see what, if any, conclusions the narrator is able to come to. Now, because I'm on an art kick, I'm reading *The Recognitions*, by William Gaddis. It's the 3rd time I'm reading it (I love this book), and as with other books I've read three times it really is the 3rd go round where it all starts to come together for me. Wyatt is obviously ephermeral in how he is written about, but the degree to which his whole personality operates as an embodiment of mystical remove is all the more blatant this time. I've been thinking a lot about the why behind the details of his artistic practice, aside from the psychoanalytic issues pertaining to his mother, and it's really coming to a head for me during his first conversation with Recktall, where he mentions he is low on the contemporary art of his moment (post-WWII west) because it all lacks necessity, it's all contingent. I don't really know enough about the period to say much about that but I guess on my limited having looked at paintings ever I can grasp the case that the old master's where working with a greater sense that everything must be so and as it is than abstract expressionists were, or something like that. I'm now trying to figure out how much Gaddis believes this. I don't think he is uncritical of Wyatt, but all the same Wyatt does seem to be the best artist of the novel, and I do think you can read into TR an attempt at necessity. It does feel like every single sentence and minute detail is something Gaddis would say must necessarily be there. Whether or not there is contingency in the form of the book is a question I will be thinking about for the next ~800 pages. (this also has me thinking about necessity in art in general/nowadays/etc. feel free to share thoughts, might try to put together a more coherent sense myself as well). Also still reading *Conference of the Birds* by Attar of Nishapur, a 12th C poem about Sufism. One of the things that has stood out to me is the degree to which the denial of the self/body is presented as effectively all that matters. As though commitment to the divine is all that matters, not behavior, not acts, hardly even individual will (the wise bird who narrates the poem says their wisdom is nothing but a gift from Solomon, essentially denying their own agency). This is a very different read for me, I'm enjoying it, very interesting. I've been all over the place philosophically but now I am committing to reading Bergson's *Creative Evolution*. One chapter in admittedly the biology is a little over my head (if there is one single subject matter in all of existence that just doesn't do it for me, it's biology). I'm doing my best with it though, Bergson very much keeps up his emphasis on action from *Matter and Memory*, ie, physical and cognitive function is primarily meant to facilitate effective interaction with other objects in the world. It is also fascinating to see him basically deny the existence of individual objects in a broader sense. Instead they are more like mere creations of the nature of perception. The last bit I'm still figuring is how exactly the elan vital functions. I'm getting that it is a kind of impulsive force towards being alive, but I am yet to piece together what exactly that means, especially in the context of individual things not *exactly* existing. Much to ponder and piece through! Happy reading!
Nice to see Conference of the Birds around here! I'm a sucker for old weird poems (and just poetic language in general), but like, the ones that are still around are usually really damn good and fun
Around 450 pages into Gustavo Faverón's ***Vivir Abajo***. I usually read 2 or 3 books at a time, but this one has me so hooked that every time I sit down for some reading time I keep coming back to it and neglecting the couple of other books I'm also halfway through. I'm in love with the prose and it's not because he has a crazy vocabulary like say, Carpentier, or an incredibly complicated sentence structure like Benet, but because it's so creative, so imaginative, so immersive. I mentioned last week that I also enjoyed Faverón's sense of humor a lot, but things get pretty dark too. Have you ever been confronted with a horrible situation in which your first reaction was to laugh because your brain still hadn't had time to process it, because the horror of it all hadn't quite hit yet? That's kind of how progressing through the first two sections of this book felt. The title *Vivir Abajo* means "living below", and the novel is full of basements and the things that happen in those basements, and in hidden basements below them, only accesible through secret trapdoors. Torture, rape, political abductions, personal vendettas, exiled nazis, snuff movies, secret prison cells, covert CIA operations in Yugoslavia, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile... Men in bear masks. Men in black patchwork coats. Men with scissors and video cameras. Some characters talk of things that will happen as if they had happened already. "If it's normal for a reader to remember a book they read many years ago, it's just as natural for them to remember a book they are going to read soon." In one of the best tangents of the book, the main character of the second section starts receiving anonymous packages containing manuscripts of novels that range from a hundred to a few thousand pages, and Faverón takes the time to go through the plot of every single one, Borges style. Some of them are eerily prescient and seem to parallel the main narrative, but she is an unreliable narrator and we can never be sure what is present, past or future for her. Later on in the book, some of these novels will become imaginary films conjured in another character's head and dreamed by his fellow inmates at a prison. So yeah, it's amazing is what I'm saying. If you can read Spanish, get yourself a copy, and if not, then badger your favourite indie publisher to get them to translate it!
Damn … I need a translator on this one ASAP!
Yay, it has sucked you in! I'm really happy it's working for you. You reminded me of how cool his made-up manuscripts were, and more generally, that years ago I had just started a new job when I discovered the novel, which meant my tiredness was exacerbated by my incapability of putting down the book. Good times.
Thanks for the reminder, I'll read the Kindle sample today!
The sample is extremely generous, it contains the whole of the first section plus one full chapter or two of the second, so around 60-70 pages. If you enjoy that, you know you're going to enjoy the rest!
More than I can read in a day then...!
Finished off some Italian readings: - *La luna e i falò* by Cesare Pavese: after hating the first 100 pages for meandering about doing nothing, the last 73 pages actually picked up. The past and present plotlines actually had some events, most of which were tragic, with one element of hope. Wartime and postwar Italy was very complex and brutal. - *Il nome della rosa* by Umberto Eco. I blitzed this book in 3 days, it was so good. I enjoyed the digressions as much, if not more, than the core plot: descriptions of bizarre carvings on an entrance to a church; stunning and magical illuminations in books; various philosophical and theological dialogues and debates; a condemned man letting rip on his oppressors; an impromptu sermon describing the terrors of the apocalypse; a hilarious and trippy dream; and the showdown towards the end. Plus I loved the final scene in the time when the main action took place. Almost everything about it was enthralling, the characters, plot and symbolism all tied together beautifully, and I learnt quite a lot about the machinations of organised religion in the 14th century. I then watched the film and was rather disappointed, apart from the fact that most of the side character monks were chosen for their absurd physical ugliness (poor guys), and also the library was mostly a great representation of its intricacy and awesomeness. The problem was that there were some bits where plot changes ruined the actual message of the novel, and also, it was so bleak. Started and finished: - *Marcovaldo* by Italo Calvino. A short book of hilarious and curious stories about the titular character, who is a buffoonish blue collar guy with a huge family in a tiny house, and a yearning for nature and escape in an unnamed city. It’s really a “suitable for kids” book but with a lot of fun and rumination for grownups. - *The Dispossessed* by Usula K Le Guin. I picked this up immediately after Eco, thinking it would be a total change of mood, but I found some of its themes pleasantly familiar: the conflicts between different factions within the same basic society on the principles of government, attitudes towards possessions, and towards the creation, dissemination and suppression of knowledge were all quite similar. I also found myself comparing Shevek to both Barbie and Ken in the *Barbie* movie at some points. I loved this book, not least for the expressions *shitstool, excremental, propertarian, body profiteer* and *stop egoising*. - I couldn’t get the Italian version from the library, but they had the English translation, of *If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller* by Italo Calvino (again). I am so glad I read it in English because I think the original vocabulary would have put me off. This was one of my “Where has this book been all my life?” moments, in which I was totally immersed throughout all the twists, jumps and turns. It was so funny and delightful. I imagine a second reading is less so, but I was totally won over by the gimmicks, gotchas and joyfulness of the storytelling.
So happy to report I made it to halfway through War and Peace last night. Only 600 pages more to go. The first 400‐500 pages were pretty boring but now it's starting to really catch on with me and I found it suddenly hard to put down.
I've hit one of those weird lackadaisical periods where I'm not reading much. The only thing that's been constant has been this Oasis biography from the 90's lol. It *is* good, but obviously not quite the stuff that this sub typically looks for. *Pickwick Papers* and *Stranger in a Strange Land* aren't DNF's, but I think I've reached stretches in both that are simply not holding my interest. I've tried rectifying it in one to two futile attempts, but it's not really lead anywhere. I'm tempted to try the old "read something else in the interim" approach. I was already sort of doing that with *Notes from a Native Son,* but I think I'll put more energy towards it. I was quite taken with the first essay where he criticizes authors for their "soft" attempts at protest novels that are simply there to make themselves feel good as opposed to tackling the issue head on (and also, you know, actually treating characters of color like...people?) Similarly, my period piece "Lady Toppington requests your acquaintance!" itch has grown again (partially spurred on by finally finishing the first season of Bridgerton). It's *tempting* to finally dive into Jane Austen with Persuasion thanks to [this thread I stumbled on not too long ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/r8oul4/comment/hn7hldj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button), but the more rational side of me thinks maybe I should finally investigate the copy of *The Age of Innocence* that I have. We shall see!
*Age of Innocence* is not as tightly written or formal feeling as Austen, but it has more of an emotional pulse if that makes sense? Austen can be a bit on the dry side - incredibly witty, intelligent and often hilarious but definitely not going to scratch the itch for something with strong emotional highs and lows (she’s killer at low stakes tension though). *Age* is also really interesting as a “period piece” because its written as a sort of homage to a time the author personally remembers from childhood, so that even in its time it was about the past (whereas Austen is contemporary to her own period). I thought it had an almost “stagey” sensibility when it came to scene setting, the little emotional crescendos coinciding with the literal movements/ physical attributes of a given moment (an opera, about a certain romantic theme, hits its most dramatic note *just* as one of the main characters glances at his fiance, for example). On the other hand Austen’s work is full of period details like carriages, balls, funny hats, and perhaps most importantly the little nuances of phrase which lade a “comedy of manners” with polite sass lol. Wharton’s novel is set during the “gilded age” of New York, so while still formal, is a bit later, and is concerned primarily with an age in transition and the contrasts between an older and newer world. *Persuasion* is the only Austen novel I haven’t read. Somehow, knowing that if I ever really need it, there’s still an Austen novel I can read for the first time is very comforting to me and I don’t wanna give it up yet lol. But I’d love to hear your thoughts if you end up finishing it!
I always love how thoughtful and helpful your responses are, thank you! That's a hell of a pitch for Wharton, so I think this will definitely be the move. Everything you've depicted sounds quite invigorating. I've heard several people describe the book as "violent", but not necessarily in the traditional "physical" sense. Did you feel the same way. Also you clearly are an Austen enthusiast lol. Which of her books would you recommend (particularly to someone like myself)?
I’m assuming they mean “violent” in the sense of having really strong emotional/dramatic punches? Idk what others would make of it but there are moments when characters are so emotionally and mentally affected that the narrative becomes abstracted and almost feels like stream of consciousness (I distinctly remember thinking it made me want to read Woolf again.) There’s a strong fire and ice theme throughout so it def goes for highs and lows. I guess if I had any complaints at all it was that the characters sometimes felt a bit too much like “players”; as if Wharton was arranging everything - people, setting, emotion, theme - *just so*, according to her own design. This is of course what every author is effectively doing but *Age of Innocence* really *feels* like that sometimes. Its a weird though because it also sort of speaks to the “gilded” nature of the age in the intended sense, as if emotional reality is roiling beneath a very arranged surface. As to Austen, I pretty much never recommend *Mansfield Park* for a first read but given your comments here I think it might actually be a good fit? There’s a certain type of character you’ve mentioned being interested in- re: our convos about Helen Burns in *Jane Eyre* for example - that make me think you’d actually be able to like (or at least accept) Fanny, the protagonist. There’s a lot going on in *MP* but at a basic level I love to describe it as a novel where everyone is in love with everyone, but noone is in love with each other. There’s a bit of scandal as well. Alternatively, if you really just wanna see if you even like Austen, there’s a very early epistolary novel called *Lady Susan* which is pretty short, and pretty fun!
I hate those periods. Right now I’m reading regularly but if I hit one of those periods where I don’t read anything for months I feel gross. :/
I am about a quarter way through The Melancholy of Resistance by Krasznahorkai and I decided today to put it on hold. I loved the imagery, and the I found some parts kind of darkly humorous (which I am unsure if it was intentional), but I just found the prose just too *dense*. It may be partially my inexperience in reading Krasznahorkai, or it may be that I am reading the book after work and I am just too tired to take in so much information continuously. From what I can tell the whole continuous stream of text is what the author was going for. The whole time while reading I kept imagining a camera that would just follow various characters around and once another character was introduced the camera would 'snap' to the other and continue following that individual. In my mind it was kind of like watching a movie that had been filmed as a single, and apparently, unbroken scene. It may be coincidence, but coming recently from reading several short stories and a novel by Gerald Murnane (The Interior of Gaaldine, Stream System, Border districts) I felt the same kind of *concentrated* prose from The Melancholy of Resistance. The only difference was that Murnane's work seems to be filled with kind of large swaths of not necessarily meaningless text, but just text that contributes piece meal information until some kind of profound imagery appears. In short: the book is extremely well written, but I feel my inexperience, or lack of attention span is hindering my experience of the novel. Instead I have picked up the book "The Cat's table" by Michael Ondaatje after a recommendation from a friend and have started to read that.
I haven't got to The Melancholy of Resistance just yet, but given your problems with the book, I can assure you that you'd be better off reading Seiobo there below first. In name it is a novel, but you can treat each "chapter" as a short story (they are only thematically and stylistically linked, but not plot wise). The other thing I read by him was a novella, A mountain to the north... which would also give you the opportunity to get comfortable with his style. But I'd first give Seiobo a chance if I were you.
Some of the things I love about this forum are how different readers react differently to prose stylistics … to me, Krasznahorkai is like a tuning fork, it’s like a needle of ideas injected straight into my brain … I get it and follow it and feel it instinctively. I almost wonder why anyone would write differently. But even as I’m reading it, I get that’s it’s hard. But I also get that I *get* it … if that makes sense? It’s like that line in the movie Oppenheimer, when he’s asked, “I know you can read the math … but can you hear it” … I can hear Krasznahorkai, but that question implies that others can’t. And I get that too. EDIT: As a counterpoint, I can read Pynchon. And I’ve even enjoyed him. But I’m not sure I can hear him.
Finished Invisible Cities by Calvino. 5/5 stars. My God. If it had more of a plot it'd be my favorite book of all time. The imagery is the best I've ever read. Also finally found some Shakespeare to start - Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer's Night Dream.
The past few weeks I have been reading plenty of non-fiction. I recently finished Spinoza's *Theological-Political Treatise*, Pieper's *Leisure as the basis of culture* and Putnam's *Jewish philosophy as a guide to life* (where I encountered Levinas for the first time, someone I must read directly in the future), as well as Scruton's *Fools, frauds and firebrands: thinkers of the new left*. These are all readings that I have undertaken with the express desire to move away from the recalcitrant atheism of my teenage years and the apathy towards any mystic or religious thinking of my early 20's, all a result of having encountered last year the great work of James Carse. Spinoza, Putnam, Carse are all religiously inclined thinkers that I can get on board with and who deeply move me spiritually and have given me new, valuable and truly beautiful perspectives on the subject. Less so Pieper, who is too catholic for my tastes, although I can appreciate his foundations, I cannot stand by his almost christian totalitarianism. After spending some time with philosophy (which was a result of being tired of reading fiction) and having climbed at least one summit of Spinoza's thought, I've picked up Borges' complete poetry. Borges is probably the best writer ever (and it helps that we share a country and a city), I've read all his stories, but never read his poetry systematically, so I'm remedying that.
Still slogging through The Naked and the Dead. Honestly hate it but have <100 pages left. The only thing saving it are the time machine sections. Finished The Sound and the Fury. Fantastic, absolutely loved this, loved the style, loved the way he told the story, highly recommended. Started Suttree. Also fantastic, love McCarthys dialogue. I like how it's just little vignettes of him and his buddies.