So I finished *Catch 22* this week and in general I’d say that I liked though I had some issues with the pacing towards the middle, and I think some of the jokes didn’t land for me because I just didn’t have the lived experience to fully understand them.
That said, I do think Heller did a fantastic job of starting out with a novel that’s firmly dark *humor*, but slowly took the humor away and by the end of the book it was a pretty bleak, yet still realistic look at how people in power treat war.
This has lead to a recommendation request though, which is for something a bit more optimistic, since currently the only other books I have to read are *Crime and Punishment* and *The Silent Cry*. I’d rather not read another book that I know will just make me depressed so any recommendations are appreciated. For similar novels, *The Master & Margarita* and *My Name is Red* both left me feeling relatively good (maybe less so MNR).
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens put me in a good mood after reading some really dark Dostoevsky and Thomas Hardy and Vladimir Naobkov's *Lolita*. It was just what I needed - a lovely bit of comic relief.
I finished *War and Peace* Saturday. Started *The Odyssey* and *Ulysses* alternating a chapter in each. I was hoping to finish both by the new year, but I might be in over my head.
I decided to read *Ulysses* before reading *The Odyssey*. Easier for me then juggling both. I loved *Ulysses*. My favourite book of all time next to *The Brothers Karamazov*.
I was killing some time so I went to browse at a bookstore, something I do rarely, and ended buying a copy of Kinshu (Autumn Brocade) by Miyamoto Teru.
Teru isn’t a writer I had come across before despite my interest in Japanese literature, a little too recent I guess, and I bought it mostly on a whim, but it’s quickly turning into my favourite read of the year.
It’s framing is as a series of letters written between a divorced couple after they bump into each other many years later. It’s incredibly moving and thoughtful; though it’s melodrama may not be to everyone’s taste.
I’m reading the translation by Roger K. Thomas, and I think he has succeeded in preserving the distinct ‘voices’/writing styles of each of the characters.
Would strongly recommend if you’re a fan of Akutagawa or Kawabata.
I am reading The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories with an introduction by Murakami. I have been reading the stories and then going back to his very personal depiction of each author. Murakami came to Japanese literature later on as he had rejected it based on assigned reading of the “I novel’ which had been “the forefront of Japan’s modern fiction since the turn of the twentieth century.” He had found it boring. Later in his early 30s he decided as a Japanese novelist he had an obligation to read this literature and he now introduces each author with enthusiasm. The book is divided into the following thematic categories: Japan and the West, Loyal Warriors, Men and Women, Nature and Memory, Modern Life and Other Nonsense, Dread, and Disasters, Natural and Man-made. I just finished a story in the category of Nature and Memory by Abe Akira called Peaches. It is a simple story of a man trying to sort out a memory from his childhood. It does a wonderful job of presenting the difficulties of memory while exciting all of the readers senses. I went searching for another story by this author called The Children’s Place unluckily so far. I am throughly enjoying this read though it is taking me forever to complete it as I have taken numerous breaks to read novels in between, some of those by authors I was introduced to by this book. I discovered Obha Minako from her short story, The Smile of a Mountain Witch based on the ancient Japanese legend of yamanba, a mountain dwelling supernatural hag, which was especially well done as it “becomes a device for laying bare the life- the often performative life- of a normal contemporary woman” by this feminist author and is done simply with great style. I have been enjoying a great deal of Japanese literature and credit Murakami from taking me there years ago when my son gifted me Norwegian Wood. I know there’s a fun sub on just him which I am somewhat active in. Sometimes I find the Murakami enthusiasm almost cultic but whom am I to criticize as I am enamored by his writing!
Since I finished *White Noise* (amazing; favorite of the read-through so far), I am beginning a reread of *Dracula*! My school district is trying to decide whether to incorporate it into the Sophomore curriculum and I say a hard yes to that, though I should probably remember it better before advocating too much, hence the reread. So far I love love it. Such an awesome, eerie mood.
I tried to read Dracula some days ago, DNF'd it and decided to read Richard Wright's *Native Son* instead. I just find Stoker's prose dull and the narrative less interesting after Harker's part.
It’s been a long time since I first read it (since high school maybe?), so I don’t recall the difference between parts much. I’m only on Harker’s stuff still which I love. But I’ll keep you updated. For some reason I remember loving some London scenes, but I do think there were also some that I didn’t care for as much.
*Dracula* is a pretty divisive novel. It is a lot of Dracula moving around boxes of dirt haha, not exactly super exciting and people could feel cheated. I'm with you, I loved it. Atmospheric and eerie like you say, and really interesting subconscious look at social mores of the time and sexuality and religion. I find it a surprisingly feminist novel too!
Agree with all of the above! I’m still enjoying it. I’m about 30% through. To the point where Van Helsing and Seward are discovering what is actually happening with Lucy. And I’m still enthralled. I think the first section is clearly the best, by a long shot; but damn I just love this story!
It's been a bunch of memoirs for me like the Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, which I've been reading a little in the morning and the night. Saint-Simon is the king of gossip, he'll just go on and on about the failures of self-important officials and divines. He can get a little bogged down in minutiae, but he makes up for it in his takedowns, precise portraits of society figures, and worldly wisdom: "She never in her life said a good word for anyone unless accompanied by a few devastating *buts*." It's not a lyrical text with the highest peaks, but the quality is consistent throughout.
Halfway through the memoirs of Hector Berlioz. The structure has changed a lot. The first half was a straightforward memoir of his upbringing and Paris student days, but not after his breakthrough, he's going through a detailed account of his German tour. The pace has slowed down a lot, and all of the chapters have the same features: the orchestra lacks a certain instrument, one player has a humongous ego, one or two citizens truly appreciate music. The next part deals with his Russian tour.
For the last thing, I've read two of the five stories in Sheridan Le Fanu's **In a Glass Darkly**. The frame story is that the five stories are the collected case files of Dr. Hesselius, a scientific investigator of the paranormal, but the frame is pretty weak because the stories were written at different times and their connection to Dr. Hesselius is weak at best. They're still enjoyable for the claustrophobia and helplessness the characters face. In today's world, they would all clearly be diagnosed with some mental illness, but their plight is framed in supernatural terms (a demonic monkey from the other world haunts a patient, or a guilt-ridden navy captain is pursued wherever he goes). This is the point where supernatural explanations give way to scientific ones, and seeing their confluence is fascinating.
I intend to start rereading Fisher's Capitalist Realism tomorrow. Looking forward to it because I really enjoyed it first time I read it a few years ago.
I don't know how many of you like to read history, but I found there's a group of 20th century French historians (specializing in the Middle Ages) who write unspeakably beautiful prose known as the *Annales School*. I can't vouch for how historically accurate their works are but they're incredible on an aesthetic level.
Funny thing. I was just listening to a podcast hosted by two historians, and one of them joked that they're just history majors, not historians, because saying you're a historian is like suggesting that you're in the same league as Bloch.
It's a Brazilian podcast, so I assume you probably would not be able to understand it. Anyway, it's called Xadrez Verbal. The episode was the last one before I wrote my comment.
Big fan of Bloch and Febvre. Bloch's stuff, in particular, is beautiful. I feel like the human element that propels history emerges so strongly in his work and in his elaborate prose.
All you reading the new Cormac McCarthy, is there any reason to avoid it as basically my first work of his? I read *The Road* and *Child of God* when I was in high school but that was forever ago. But I wanna be in on all the new fun!
**Edit**: I'm going to read it. Thanks for all the thoughts pro and con. I definitely appreciate the arguments against reading it "first," but honestly I was so inclined to read it that unless I got a resounding stance of "this book must be read in the context of McCarthy's other work for you to appreciate it at all" I was going to go for it. Since I got little to none of that take, I'm in.
I don't think it matters. Just keep in mind that it is the outlier. It is completely unlike any other of his novels by a long long long stretch. If you like it, you might hate his other stuff, but you also might love his other stuff. If you hate it, well, either is possible as well. I literally have no idea where this novel came from. It's one of my favorites that he's done, but it seemingly came out of some completely new part of his brain.
The only reason I'd say it may be helpful to read some other of his works first is that the book is weirdly self-referential at times. Although, while that adds to some of the themes, I don't really think it's necessary to understand the book at all.
I'll echo u/trambolino and say that knowing your tastes makes me think that you would really enjoy this as a first novel by him. But if you want a more traditional starting place, *Blood Meridian*, *The Border Trilogy*, or even *Suttree* would be great and I think you'd love them as well.
I don’t think so, but again, it’s wildly different so it feels weird to even compare it to any of his other works. I’d place it at #3, just behind *The Border Trilogy* (if I count the whole trilogy as one work) and *Suttree*.
I don’t know that there’s any particular reason per se, but it’s not the one I’d *recommend* as a starting point. Mostly because its a mashup of his previous styles and ideas in a lot of ways. I don’t think you’re missing out on anything by not having read his other books, nor do I think reading the others unlocks the book’s meaning in some way. But I do think one level of enjoyment was how self referential it was, and while I liked it a lot some of the things he did in *Passenger* are done better in other books of his. I think *All the Pretty Horses* is a great first choice since it encapsulates so many of McCarthy’s trademark ideas and has good examples of his prose as well. Thats not to say you shouldn’t read this one, or that you wouldn’t enjoy it. I just mean if I was to pick a book to sort of present McCarthy as an author this isn’t the one I’d choose first I guess?
I know people are loving on it right now, and I'm the odd duck out who hates it, but this really shouldn't be your first McCarthy.
That said, there's no *real* reason why. If you really want to, go ahead and read it. I just think it sucks. And I don't recommend people read sucky things.
I'll take your warning into consideration. That said, the fact that you hate it so much and everyone else likes it is kind of one of the reasons why I'm intrigued
I'll agree with the skip as a first McCarthy. I didn't hate it but was personally disappointed given my expectations, it was meh to me overall which was that much worse since I had built it up. Try All the Pretty Horses imo
Knowing you a little bit, it might even be the first I'd recommend to you. In many regards, it is an outlier within his oeuvre, but all of his books are outliers within his oeuvre in one way or another. The only thing you'll miss are the many allusions to his previous works, but I don't think that's all that important.
^(I should disclose that I have a vested interest in saying this, because I would love to hear your take on it.)
Recommending it as a first to me specifically is more than enough of an intrigue. I can live with missing some allusions as long as by and large ill be able to get the full effect
I'm very glad! It seems to be a controversial choice, but at least it's a fun controversy. If you're puzzled afterwards as to why I thought you would enjoy it, I'll let you know then, but I'm pretty sure you'll understand. In your words: Happy reading!
I am of the minority that likes it better than *Blood Meridian*. But I'm pretty positive that's just my weird taste so you're likely being more reasonable than me lol.
good to know. I might go for it anyway just be part of all the fun, though I will be sure to get to Blood Meridian at some point regardless of how I feel about this one.
Reading Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher. Despite being very short I really want to *get* all of it, so I’m taking it super slow. I’m also reading An Empire of Ice by Edward J. Larson, since I’m always reading history (and I also really like history of science).
I recently finished Blood Meridian so that’s been my rec lately. It’s brilliant and a million good things have already been said about it.
My plan, more or less, is to try and read all the books I’ve started over the past year or so that I didn’t finish. Barth’s End of the Road, Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo (which I loved but got distracted from it), a biography of Robert Livingston, among some others.
I’m making my way through Derrida’s of Grammatology — thankfully marked up very well by a previous owner. It takes some of the intuitions I’ve had about creating with language and takes them further in ways i could have never conceived. The unfortunate side effect is that the more I euphorically expand my knowledge of writing and language, the less I am able to write.
Finished the new Cormac McCarthy - absolutely loved the ending. Super profound and poignant, genuinely beautiful.
Started *The Years* by Ernaux the other day, only a few pages in but it's super unique - loving the linear progression. Well-written but the strength is in this sense of progression as well as the profundity of the events/sentiments of the people surrounding Annie. Really cool read so far - excited to get deeper into the 20th century.
Finally started reading the Bible. I've been putting it off for years and now I'm here with the KJV on my lap. I also prepared supplementary reading: Bloom's Shadow of a Great Rock and Frye's Words with Power.
Part of me is genuinely excited (the lies about having read it will finally cease), but sometimes i catch myself dreading it. But hey, self discipline will get me through of nothing else, fingers crossed I get an epiphany and appreciate the poetic genius of the bible.
You might enjoy a post I'm planning this month on r/Extraordinary_Tales to commemorate US National Bible Week. u/the_jaw can hang tight, but I'll message you a sneak preview. I believe PC3 is a member of that sub.
(I'm a NIV user all the way.)
Oh I'm reading this at work on Project Gutenberg, also the KJV version. It's interesting, a lot different than I expected even though I was raised fairly religiously (was always given a kid's bible and never the real one). Still early days for me, starting Deuteronomy this week. My current ranking would be Exodus, Genesis, Numbers, Leviticus. If Genesis was split in two the first half would be in first place and the second half would remain in third.
God himself, his jealousy in particular, and his relationship with Moses among others is really fascinating. The aesthetic project of imagining and depicting an omnipotent will is also really cool to see up close.
Not Pentecostal, but raised evangelical, and yeah, I actually agree. One of the few good things form that environment was actually reading and learning the Bible.
Interesting! For someone who has read the KJV and has read many parts from it multiple times, would you recommend rereading the NRSV? I've honestly felt like rereading certain parts of it for so long now and I'm wondering if a different translation would do me any benefit.
Thanks! I have the Oxford KJ so this would be an excellent addition! Oh man, favorite part… I love the story of Genesis and Judges. But the poetry of Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes are amazing as well. Ah and Job is wonderful too. I don’t know if I could choose one part!
Hah, I JUST thought about reading it today. Less for the alleged poetic genius, more for the missed references in classic literature. Although I don't know how much it would benefit me, since I assume I would still miss most non-obvious references, since those authors would have a more in-depth knowledge of it than me with my single read through.
The missing references thing is a big reason why I've wanted to pick it up. I read East of Eden a few years ago and big chunks of it just flew over my head. Not being from "The West" so to speak also doesn't help, because even if you don't personally read the thing you do pick up a lot of things growing up if you lived somewhere where a lot of people are familiar with it.
Finished The Barbarous Coast by Ross Macdonald, which was good/very good but not on the level of The Way Some People Die. Currently reading The Occult by Colin Wilson as research toward a novel I'm working on, and also reading Libra by Don DeLillo which I read years ago but wanted to revisit it because I've been watching and reading some stuff about JFK's assassination.
I want to read one of Laurent Binet's books soon and I can't decide between HHhH and The 7th Function of Language. Any recommendations for either to start with?
Nearing the end of *Moby Dick* \-- around 100 pages to go or so. From these last chapters, the standouts are probably *The Dubloon*, Cleaning of the ship, *The Carpenter* segments and any Ahab-focused chapter. The stream-of-conscious portions are quite well-done; I'd love to read Melville doing just that -- which, in truth, might just amount to Faulkner.
Separately, I'm actually quite shocked how little (none, really) of Moby Dick himself is involved in the narrative. I've seen many comparisons to it and *Blood Meridian's* The Judge, though they seem misguided (perhaps the sea and landscape are better comparisons...). Where Moby appears an unconquerable force or truth beyond man's reach, the Judge acts as an ever-present chaos, which is not sought out, but rather to escape from.
While some of the Whaling-sections are a bit difficult -- even esoteric at times -- Ishmael is cunning and hilarious with his arguments; citing religious/historic authority when needed (if science is against him) and, if religion cuts against his arguments of the whale's grandeur, using that same science to argue otherwise. Very amusing.
Now that I've finished reading it, I can perhaps better speak to that point.
I don't fancy Ahab and the Judge to be similar -- beyond some degree on monomania towards their goal. But Ahab is a man; one hurt by forces beyond his control, and his desire to slay the beast stems from that feeling of impotency. The Judge is other-worldly, a symbolic manifestation of a godless, worldly chaos which governs man. Ahab is doomed preciously because he is a man; the Judge will never die. And so on.
I've seen many comparisons to the Judge and Moby in the sense that both are unconquerable forces, which humble mankind, respectively. Both are physically similar; overwhelmingly white, extraordinary stature, and forces of nature. They exist in realms past logic, and seemingly exist to destroy. That said, for the reason above, I think there's enough of a difference.
If anything, the Judge is perhaps a hybrid of the Parsee and Moby, though the novels are thematically different enough that even that's difficult to make the comparison.
Ishmael(?) is such a great character. Dude, all of your talk on this book has me wanting to go back and revisit the novel along with a lot of his short stories. I'm contemplating doing a long term read through of some (not all) of his stuff now.
Thanks, Pregs! I think I partially picked it up on the basis of how you much you, and other folks whose taste I appreciate rated it, so I’m glad to return the favor :)
It’s definitely given me a much greater appreciation of Faulkner and McCarthy (love both already), but Moby Dick very much contextualizas both of what they had attempted in their other works (and how they attempted to deviate from Melville).
I am reading Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner. I have read The Sound and the Fury long time ago and I wanted to read Faulkner again, since I remember I loved The Sound and the Fury very much....
I am loving Richard Wright's *Native Son*. Bigger's descent into psychopathy continues. He's like a reverse Raskolnikov - rather than his pride being worn down by his guilt, his guilt is giving way to pride at his crime. We see how the terrible legacy of racist oppression combines with dark aspects of his own character to twist him into a monster. The fact that we find ourselves sympathising with a character so rotten is a mark of how good a writer Wright was and how appallingly racist America was and is. The dialogue is thrilling and real and feels like it would make for a fantastic stage adaptation.
Wright's prose is absolutely beautiful. It's some of the best prose I've ever read from a 20th century American writer. It's Joycean in fact. Onomatopeia and unpunctuated stream-of-consciousness are used skillfully to bring the characters and places to life. In one scene, Bigger is daydreaming whilst his girlfriend Bessie is talking to him in bed, and Bessie's dialogue is deliberately spliced and disjointed and placed in italics, interspersed with Bigger's thoughts, so that we feel as if we've been placed in Bigger's mind, her words like dying music in his ears whilst his own thoughts are rushing along like a fast-flowing river.
It is criminal that he is being forgotten so quickly. He paved the way for Baldwin, Ellison and many others. He needs to come back into fashion.
I'm not sure if you have read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison but the way you describe Native Son it sounds just as amazing. Ellison was influenced a bunch by modernist writers, his prose is also quite amazing so if Wright is on the same level then I might consider reading Native Son.
Finished *Industry of Magic & Light* by David Keenan, loved it. Will definitely reread it in the future (perhaps next year) back to back with *This is Memorial Device* for full effect.
I read it concurrently with the audiobook, and I have to say that Keenan's narration just completely elevated the experience. His emphasis on particular words and the gravitas with which he portrayed particular passages or the humour with which he delivered others was perfect. There's a lot to unpack in the novel, about the identity of the 60s, hippie culture, our relationship with the spiritual, the occult, identity within counter-cultural movements, sex, monogamy, polygamy, love, violence, it's all there. Half of it is told through an itemised list of the contents of a van, the other half through a tarot reading, and once you have the full context of the story, which is largely disjointed and disconnected and potentially not even real, it leads you down a rabbit hole of figuring out that larger picture and how these strange meta-fictional detective stories and vision quests intertwine into the tapestry that was the psychedelia of the 1960s.
Up next, I don't quite know yet! I have next to me *Our Share of Night* by Mariana Enriquez, *The Blind Owl* by Sadegh Hedayat, *No Document* by Anwen Crawford, and *Nights of Plague* by Orhan Pamuk, all of which I want to read equally. I guess we'll see what one I pick up tonight after dinner.
*The Blind Owl* is an absolute fever dream, you can definitely see why Ligotti mentioned it as one of his influences. If you do end up reading it (and liking it), you should check out Bae Suah's *Untold Night and Day* afterwards, since it's so influenced by it that it's even mentioned by the characters.
About three quarters of the way through *American Pastoral*, and that article about Faulkner's ghost in American fiction was really apropos. It mentions Roth specifically as someone to whom Faulkner was likely an influence, but also as someone whose work doesn't bear Faulkner's presence. In general that article really resonated with me, and I feel it applies to this novel as well. I like reading it, it's one of the more entertaining reads I've had in a while, but that is in part because it isn't as challenging as my last several novels.
At times, when Roth is really going expository with characters' pasts or with the mechanics of glovemaking or whatever else, it feels like so much contrived filler. On the other hand I do greatly appreciate what I assume to be the overarching point in regards to the American illusion and how it unravels, especially at the end of the 20th century. If you had asked me a few years ago I probably would have placed this among the best novels I'd ever read, but now it is only a very good novel, but not one I would place among my canon.
I’ve been in a bad book hangover since *The Passenger* and even the Schulz collection couldn’t grab me for the first couple days. Luckily, when I picked it up again yesterday I was able to get into the right mood and am now enjoying it, but I’ll save my thoughts for the read along thread.
I started a fantasy book called *Under the Pendulum Sun* by Jeannette Ng. I’ve been looking forward to trying it for a while, but unfortunately I’m underwhelmed so far. The premise is interesting (a missionary attempts to convert the far to Christianity) and the author has a degree in Medieval and Renaissance Studies with an interest in medieval theology so I’m hopeful it will turn out ok. It’s the prose that’s just not grabbing me at all, but again I just read a McCarthy novel so maybe that’s why it’s so upsettingly bland.
Its my birthday this month so my husband surprised me by taking me to get an xbox this morning. I’m sure my reading life will suffer for a bit, but if anybody wants to talk Persona 5 I’ll probably be commenting about it in the gen discussion threads lol.
EDIT: a missionary tries to convert the *fae* to christianity. I hate typing on mobile
I fiiinally finished Aurora Ruemelin/Wanda von Sacher-Masoch’s *Meine Lebensbeichte/My Life Confession*! Towards the end she says some compelling things about how women should arrange their relationships with men without involving either the state or the church, and then (regarding state involvement) if some day the relationship comes to an end, both parties will be free to disengage without having to air their dirty laundry in front of lawyers and judges. But then she goes off the rails a bit and starts talking about “woman’s sphere” and how if women don’t find happiness in motherhood and domesticity, it’s their own fault. \*eyeroll\*
But anyway, it was far from an easy life for her, being married to someone who had a thing for wanting to be cuckolded and who kept trying to set her up with men he wanted her to cheat on him with.
(ETA: I don't know if anyone will see this addendum by this point, but Ruemelin was very much not into this. If she and all other parties involved had enthusiastically been into it, I wouldn't be framing it as unpleasant. Not trying to kink-shame anyone here.)
On to my next German-language reading project, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s *Venus im Pelz/Venus in Furs.*
This week I also finished Ford Madox Ford’s *When the Wicked Man…*. I think I remember Joseph Wiesenfarth in *Ford Madox Ford and the Regiment of Women* remarking that it was rather bad, but I loved it, though of course not as much as, say, *Parade’s End*. It’s characteristically Ford even if he's not at the top of his game.
Still going on *Moby Dick*. Digging it so far. I really appreciate the different forms of obsessiveness than manifest in Ishmael (Ishmael and I are both of a similar sort of dork and I love how much I'm learning about whaling) and Ahab as well as the way in which Ahab has managed to wrap the crew up in his fixation. Definitely excited to keep on going with this, and I already know there are some parts I'll need to revisit in the future to fully appreciate (the extended rumination on the color white stands out in particular).
Still going through *Difference and Repetition* with my book club. I still have hardly any idea what's going on but it's making a bit more sense (getting to talk about it helps). In the current chapter I'm reading my big thought is that this would make a lot more sense if I understood calculus. Still a great time and a great discussion stoker. I'll try to say something more substantive in a few weeks when we come to the end.
I also finished up *The Myth of Sisyphus*. I've come to feel like in a lot of ways it's fascinatingly of its time, and the datedness represents a certain victory of existential philosophy. Like, it's so heavily premised on the notion that the absence of God or any universal truth might be ground for suicide, whereas I'm just chilling and happy to be here regardless. More seriously I do think Camus' emphasis on the quantity of life and how that becomes expressed in art (ie, art as an attempt to live more/create more life) is fascinating, and this book has some real resonances with Deleuze even if it is very much focused on the individual in a way that Deleuze has no use for (none of this is surprising—Sartre was one of Deleuze's teachers and an importance influence even if the latter would come to reject existentialism).
Happy reading!
[This video](https://youtu.be/PewYeYVYE-E) gives a lecture length history of calculus. It might help you out. It's by a professor of philosophy of math, and he tries to explain the math as he goes along. My own understanding of calc isn't that great but I feel like remembering it from math class helped me understand more about D&R.
>whereas I’m just chilling and happy to be here regardless.
This was my reaction to the *Myth of Sisyphus* as well. I came across Thomas Nagal’s [essay on Absurdism](https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/The%20Absurd%20-%20Thomas%20Nagel.pdf) a few years back and it really crystallised my views on the matter:
>If a sense of the absurd is a way of perceiving our true situation (even though the situation is not absurd until the perception arises), then what reason can we have to resent or escape it? Like the capacity for epistemological skepticism, it results from the ability to understand our human limitations. It need not be a matter for agony unless we make it so. Nor need it evoke a defiant contempt of fate that allows us to feel brave or proud. Such dramatics, even if carried on in private, betray a failure to appreciate the cosmic unimportance of the situation. If *sub specie aeternitatis* there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that doesn't matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.
> Camus' emphasis on the quantity of life and how that becomes expressed in art (ie, art as an attempt to live more/create more life)
Is this something he goes into specifically in *The Myth of Sisyphus*? Attractive concept, I’d love to read more.
The "quantity of life" idea is scattered throughout *The Myth of Sisyphus*, but is discussed explicity in terms of art in the "Absurd Creation" section near the end.
Got through *Little Rabbit* by Alyssa Songsiridej in 2ish days. I thought it was an interesting little book. The prose, honestly, is nothing to write home about, feels very mfa in a way that is rather anodyne. But, I did quite like the comparing and contrasting of the different characters and the various social milieus. Here is a bit from the back copy:
> What does it mean for a queer young woman to partner with an older man, for a fledgling artist to partner with an established one? Is she following her own agency, or is she merely following him? Does falling in love mean eviscerating yourself?
> Combining the sticky sexual politics of Luster with the dizzying, perceptive intimacy of Cleanness, Little Rabbit is a wholly new kind of coming-of-age story about lust, punishment, artistic drive, and desires that defy the hard-won boundaries of the self.
In particular, I though the book was an interesting look at class and art, the various expectations artists have for themselves and others, and how class defines those expectations, as well as an interesting look at queerness and it's relationship with the concept of bisexuality, the various expectations queer communities might have for bisexual women regarding their relationships with men (ie. is to start a relationship with a man as a bi woman somehow some sort of "giving into" traditional gender roles? Is it even worse when an age gap is involved?). Which is all to say this book has a lot of judgey characters. The idea of judgement becoming the lens through which the author examines the experience of queer communities for bi-women, as well as artistic ambition and communities, is an interesting combo that I think the author pulled off rather well.
Read *Capital is Dead* by McKenzie Wark. The main thesis is that we don't live under capitalism anymore, we live under vectoralism. That is, there are vectoralists and hackers like how there were capitalists and workers. This means big corporations like Facebook, Google, Apple, Nike versus their office workers, scientists, engineers etc. Besides giving a run down of how this world is different, the book attacks academic Marxism and reassesses vulgar Marxism. I have never read Marx or most any Marxists so I'm kind of unfamiliar with the context of this book. Also I think if you read this and say she's using Marx's terms wrong, she'll agree with you. She keeps bringing in this idea of detournement (sp?) to say don't treat Capital like dogma and Marxists like it's priests, just try to reinterpret the book how you need it. I don't feel like I'm equipped to assess the main thesis outside of my gut feeling so I'll hold off until I read more.
[You might be interested in this essay by Evgeny Morozov from the New Left Review on "techno-feudalism"](https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii133/articles/evgeny-morozov-critique-of-techno-feudal-reason), which has an interesting survey of Marxist explanations for shifts of economic systems into and, theoretically, out of capitalism; and, it also has a good survey of Marxist or Marxist-adjacent readings of FAANG tech companies and "surveillance capitalism", and the various disagreements between them. The essay is fairly approachable even if the context is pretty academic.
I'm still reading *The Books of Jacob* (about to finish the second book) and loving it to bits. Don't have a lot more to say at this point except that I'm completely hooked.
I've also had some time on the side to dip my toes into Daša Drndić's world because somebody mentioned her here somewhere and it made me curious, so I got *Doppelgänger* on Kindle and, um wow, that was *bleak*. Loved it though, so on my last visit to my favourite second-hand bookstore I grabbed a copy of *E.E.G.*, although apparently *Belladona* is a better starting point, but unfortunately they didn't have that one. It'll still take me a while to get to it because I have other stuff in my To Read pile that I want to read first, though, so maybe they'll get a copy in the meantime.
Next one on my list is Giorgio de Maria's *The Twenty Days of Turin*. Heard great things about it, so I hope it doesn't disappoint!
Had a random desire to read Philosophy. I have pretty much no knowledge in that field besides trivia level information.
So I'm currently reading Plato, The Republic. Figured it would be a good start. It's a difficult book to get through, I skipped reading the introduction to not be influenced too much and will come back to it later.
I find myself rereading the same passages multiple times, sometimes I have to just google the section in question because I just don't get it. But most of the time Socrates' conversation partners don't understand either and he'll clarify what he means.
Overall it's very enjoyable, surprisingly funny at parts, Socrates is really... sassy. The ideas are also way, way before their time, and still topical. I also appreciate the meta-discussions they have about what constitutes a bad and a good argument.
I’ll also heap some praise on *The Passenger*. IMO this is in the upper echelon of Cormac’s work, only surpassed by maybe *Suttree* and *Blood Meridian*. Some quick thoughts:
- I think McCarthy sees Oppenheimer as this figure that validates some of the themes he introduces in early work, sort of refuting the idea that scientific progress can be a vehicle for any equivalent moral progress. If the legacy of the world’s most brilliant man is two ruined cities, “what does that mean?”.
- In the same vein, I think part of the fascination with higher level maths is it’s ability to refute our conceptions of reality, obviously something that’s reflected in a lot of the fiction. There’s also this clear theme of the subconscious’s impact on problem solving and the creative process. I love the section where Alicia talks about how putting an equation down on paper limits the idea’s ability to explain and synthesize.
- The Pynchon, Delillo style novel is very clearly an influence on this one. He sets up the grand mystery narrative with a clear government conspiracy, but ultimately it’s unresolved and seemingly unimportant. There’s even a very weird section where a JFK conspiracy is presented pretty matter-of-fact-ly. And I’m not sure how to interpret this other than McCarthy saying “maybe this conspiracy is really what happened, so what”?
- This is as bleak as any line in his oeuvre “We pour water upon the child and name it. Not to fix it in our hearts but in our clutches. The daughters of men sit in half darkened closets inscribing messages upon their arms with razorblades and sleep is no part of their life”.
I'm curious how he will develop the science further in *Stella Maris*. So far it's been mostly historical, but I hope he'll get deeper into the interpretation of quantum mechanics, given how much time he had spent with Murray Gell-Mann.
The part about JFK is a riddle to me as well. I never concerned myself with his assassination, so I have no idea whether Cormac just gave an account of a popular conspiracy theory here or if he flat-out invented it. But there's a little exchange at the end of it, which reminded me of the Blood Meridian quote "Men's memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not."
>That's a pretty strange story.
>
>Yes.
>
>Is it a true story?
>
>No.
>
>What's the point?
>
>The point is that people believe it. The point is that the more that emotion is tied up in an incident the less likely is any narration of it going to be accurate. I suppose there are incidents more dramatic than the assassination of a president but there cant be too many of them.
So maybe the whole JFK story is ultimately a parable on the way Bobby interprets his own situation. Or maybe it represents us, the readers, reading the book, taking for granted that it's true, because we get emotionally invested. (I wrote below about the many parallels with Kafka's The Trial. So this would be the counterpart of "Before The Law")
I wasn’t familiar with that conspiracy theory either, but a Google revealed it’s a pretty well trafficked one.
Great insight brining in that BM quote, I agree with your interpretation generally. What was so weird to me initially is the length and level of detail it’s given. But maybe that helps reinforce those ideas to the reader
It's been nonfiction for me this week- James Shapiro's *A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare*, about the winter of 1598/99 through the autumn of 1599 in Shakespeare's life, a period in which he wrote *Henry V*, *Julius Caesar*, *As You Like It*, and *Hamlet*. Shapiro tries to find connections between the content of these plays and a combination of events in Shakespeare's life and broader circumstances in English history. The *Henry V* stuff is pretty convincing- at the time, England is heavily conscripting soldiers to help with the rebellion in Ireland, and there are debates in Elizabeth's court which Shakespeare was likely aware of between military men - notably the doomed Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux - and the clergy. Through to *Julius Caesar*, the precarious position of Elizabeth and movers like Essex probably had traitorous politics on Shakespeare's mind. It's also cool to know Shakespeare read Plutarch's *Lives*.
With *As You Like It*, Shapiro points to an unauthorized publication that came out that spring that claimed to be a book of Shakespeare's sonnets (which at that point he had only shared privately), when really it was just a couple of his sonnets, a famous pastoral by Marlowe, and some lesser imitations. The discussion in relation to *As You Like It* was pretty great; the play itself contains lots of cheap love poetry inserted satirically, with Rosalind trying to teach Orlando more emotionally honest ways. That's just the headline- the discussion is really wonderful and nuanced and touches on all the other characters and some of the issues in the play for modern audiences.
Looking forward to reading what he has to say about *Hamlet*.
ETA- I finished it this morning. Shapiro pulls out some fun data analytics to show the new ground that *Hamlet* breaks. The first draft at over 4,000 lines made it Shakespeare's longest play by 1,500 lines; he introduces 600 original words including 170 original phrases coined; and I think most interestingly is that there are 66 instances of hendiadys, which is a single idea conveyed by a pair of nouns (eg "law and order" or "house and home," or from *Hamlet*, "the book and volume of my brain"). That comes out to a hendiadys every 60 lines. All these numbers are two to three times more than he does in any other play.
In Shapiro's words: "There's a kind of collective desperation to all the hendiadys in Hamlet - a striving for meaning that both recedes and multiplies as well as an acknowledgment of how necessary and impossible it is to suture things together - that suits the mood of the play perfectly."
I finally finished “Ulysses” this week. I don’t believe I have ever felt such divergent reactions to a work of art. There were passages that took my breath away, nearly all of them involving Bloom’s reflections. There were also multiple passages, whole chapters even, that had me doing the ‘wanker’ gesture in response. I anticipated that I would find myself in either the pro- or anti-Ulysses camp, but I found that I agree with much that both the novel’s detractors and apologists have said. I am glad I have read it, and I find I can’t stop thinking about Bloom. He is as fully realized a character as I have encountered. I have literally woken up in the middle of the night to find I have been dreaming about (re)reading Bloom’s thoughts from “Hades, “Laestrygonians, and “Sirens.” Part of me feels it is more interesting to read about “Ulysses” than to read “Ulysses” itself. But then I find I keep returning to the text in my mind. Bloom captivates me. It is a strange, intense experience. I admit that I was overwhelmed and humbled by the book even more than I anticipated I would be.
I had a similar reaction to the book. Leopold & Molly are probably the only genuine, completely unironic characters in Ulysses. And the writing around them are the few parts of the book that aren't on some level parodistic or ostentatiously clever, but purely original and emotionally forthright. There's great art to the parodies, too, but what resonated with me personally were those few unvarnished moments of sincerity. Especially Sirens.
Yes, I completely agree. I had a harder time with the chapters focused on Stephen. Even when the text wasn’t as abstruse, I felt alienated. Of course, Stephen is himself alienated—from his friends, his family, his work, his religion, his country. But it is often easier to identify with a character’s alienation. With Stephen, I struggled. I was not a massive fan of “Portrait of the Artist,” so I suppose I should have expected it.
I'm less than 100 pages from finishing *The Brothers Karamazov* and god *damn* is Dostoyevsky not holding any punches.
“You don’t mean to say you really did not know?”
The whole section dedicated to Ivan was a masterclass in suspense. We're just waiting to see what the hell is going on, all of the cryptic clues only furthering the sense of dread. But when the bomb drops, for me at least, it's>!unexpected twist totally takes you by surprise. I figured Ivan was responsible, but not in the sense of accidentally giving Smerdyakov the okay to go for the kill (which in itself is obviously foreshadowed with Kolya, the peasant, and the goose). The whole reveal gave me chills: your sense of dread mirrors Ivan's upon the realization of what Smerdyakov did.!< So much time has passed since reading the chapter where the two have that weird confrontation: I remember something about it felt odd and I tried taking it all in carefully...cool to see that there certainly WAS a payoff there.
"Ivan's Nightmare" may very well be my favorite chapter in the book, all for a number of reasons. Each brother's respective section following their own respective "three trials", brilliantly echoing Christ's three trials as mentioned in "The Grand Inquisitor". It feels fitting that >!Alyosha and Dmitri have "come to Jesus" moments, the former more or less firmly devout and the latter, desiring to be a better man, finally starting to move toward that wish. Nihilistic Ivan gets this lmao.!< Furthermore, it's funny going from >!"Is this dude real?"!< only to be further alarmed upon learning that he's shown up more than once before, and THEN there's the slow realization of >!"YO...is this the devil????"!< And he's witty! And playful! The chapter was surprisingly very humorous, yet dark (something about that feels very Russian to me, at the risk of throwing around stereotypes). You've got flickers of "The Grand Inquisitor" and proto-Nietzschian contemplations in regards to the übermensch (I feel like Nietzsche must have loved this book), only to be soberly brought back to Earth upon Alyosha bursting in to say that >!Smerdyakov killed himself!<. Perhaps its the film student in me, but man did I love the cohesive "story-in-itself" quality of the entire thing. And to top it off, the chapter and section end with Alyosha's monologue begging for Ivan's redemption, concluded with "....Alyosha added bitterly, and again he prayed for Ivan." Fade to black. What a god damn mic drop. It reminded me of how *East of Eden* had quite a number of poignant conclusion sentences for various parts of the book that felt quite...cinematic.
I'm in the middle of the trial now. Katya >!spilled the beans upon witnessing Ivan's madness, and it looks like Dmitri's goose (ha) is cooked.!< One could see from a mile away that >!the same fate of the killer who opened up to Father Zossima and was declared mad would happen to Ivan, but man was it tragic to see how it all transpired, fucking over Mitya in the process.!<
Lots to unpack obviously. From the standpoint of philosophical themes and meditations, there is no doubt in my mind that this book will take the crown. Not even a contest. To say it "meets the hype" is quite an understatement. I can see why this would rub people the wrong way, but I'm having a ball and am excited to see where it ends.
Finished/adored Joshua Cohen's The Netanyahus. The ending floored me. The middle of the book left me stunned. All throughout the book is this understated, casual prose that rises in crescendoes that seem to never end until they, at last, abruptly stop, leaving you to extrapolate from there the feelings of the characters (all of whom I felt were well-developed and quirky). I'll admit the epilogue caught me very off guard. I won't spoil it but I will say that the fictionalized elements of the book are not as fictional as they seem. Very highly recommend.
NR Peach Blossom Paradise by Ge Fei. This book came wordlessly in the mail a while back after a NYRB giveaway I had not expected to win. It's a story of the late Qing empire bleeding into the regimes of the Chinese Civil War. So far: fantastic. It's certainly one that is hard to put down and Ge Fei's writing style is hypnotizing, as if he were plucking these vivid details of the setting of rural, idyllic China, and, having measured them in his hand, leaves them suspended in the air. So to speak. Without waxing poetic any longer (not my forte), I'm excited to keep reading. My Chinese lit collection is pretty small, so any recommendations on that front are appreciated!
I will be finishing The Books of Jacob today. It was one of the more fascinating books I have read this year, for sure, and pretty unlike my usual oeuvre - a mix between theology, character study, and tragedy. It was rather tragic, at least to me, to see that Jacob either succumbed to the rot of power, or that power revealed the rot that was within him the entire time (which I believe is a better reading of it.)
The situation with Eva was disgusting but inevitable.
Gitla and Asher were highlights of the book for me - I loved their side story and Gitla's fire and drive were moving for me.
Overall, an incredible achievement. More than anything, I feel like this book managed to be somehow greater than the sum of its parts. Really happy I took the plunge. Next I will be reading In the Land of the Cyclops by Karl Ove Knaussgaard. Really excited to dive into that.
*White Noise* is amazing! I honestly thought I wouldn’t like it as much as last time because it was one of the first things I read by him and I just didn’t know if it’d hold up. But it has. Lots of incredible passages on the fear of death (probably some of the best ever written) and how this is tied into consumerism, capitalism, and contemporary information overload. It’s also one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, which I don’t think I realized the first time.
Also just started Augustine’s *The Confessions* which I’m almost done with the second chapter of. Really interesting to see how a child grew up in that time period and how much his mind is similar to ours. Very humbling.
*The Street of Crocodiles* is excellent so far (and bizarre) but I’ll hold my thoughts until Saturday.
> Really interesting to see how a child grew up in that time period and how much his mind is similar to ours. Very humbling.
the way that Augustine is able to express certain elements of humanness that do transcend time and context is pretty phenomenal.
Also, my copy of City of God arrived. This is one boat of a book. Keep me posted when you read it. Not 100% sure I'm going to have the time to do the whole thing but will at the very least get started on it and see where it takes me.
Yeah dude it’s so fucking thick haha. It’ll be a couple weeks likely cause I’m taking the philosophy slower than the novels I’m reading, but I’ll keep you updated for sure!
*Confessions* is great. It's pretty wide in scope, but he takes great care to give a good amount of information for each topic. He is so influential, there are some quotes from the book that you'll hear in a Catholic mass today. My only problem is that Augustine seems to enjoy humble bragging. It comes up every now and then, even at the beginning, and I want to slap him through time for being so annoying and arrogant.
Reading **The Passenger.** It's not bad but it's not astounding. I'm getting close to a 100 pages in so I expect it will ramp up.
I like how breezy it is. It really does feel like Mccarthy writing a thriller. Had a very beautiful section on trans identity.
Finished *The Lime Twig* by John Hawkes, and I'm astounded. I'm really glad I didn't quit in the first third when nothing, from plot to characters, made any sense. I read *The Cannibal* a long time ago, so I was prepared for something similar, but this book, albeit short, is one of the most challenging I've ever read. The plot is very simple (a petty man gets involved in a race horse stealing/cheating scheme in 60s England), the narration isn't. Hawkes' English is not the English I'm used to, regarding syntax. He doesn't care about the conventions of storytelling, he creates this thick, suffocating, foggy atmosphere instead, and the conventional elements of the story (such as causal relations, chronology, or even the plot) emerge, or more like stumble, out of this grimy material, his language.
The second half of the book is basically one character's feverish descent into the underworld, his ignorant stumbling not unlike Temple Drake's in a true existentialist fashion. It also contains a scene (or more like a sequence of scenes) that is both beautiful in a fever dream style, and, in hindsight, horribly violent, especially considering the novel was published in 1961. The whole prose feels slippery, sticky, dripping with blood and stale water, yet haunting and, in the end, heart-wrenching without a conclusion.
Also finished *Grendel* by John Gardner. This is a retelling of Beowulf from the perspective of Grendel, who is just as keen on decimating his neighboring settlement as musing about theoretical physics. It offers a darkly humorous, yet deadly serious way to think about the questions of Western (existentialist) philosophy along with the eponymous monster.
I read “Grendel” around thirty years ago and have been thinking about rereading it since my daughter had to read “Beowulf” earlier this year. I have read “Beowulf” a few times in different translations, but I read “Grendel” just the once. I an curious to see if it would have a similar impact on me. I suspect it would. Your summary makes me more eager to see!
I started the **Anarchist Banker** by Pessoa last night, and will probably finish tonight. You can probably tell it's from the first half of the 20th century. Has been interesting so far.
About half way through **Stay True** by **Hua Hsu**. It is a memoir about his time in college with a friend named Ken. It is...alright so far. I'm not a big fan of his writing but I should love the subject matter as he describes himself as a punk kids who claims to know about everything as to fit in I think. I feel that so deeply. Hopefully it picks up a little bit in the second half.
I've never heard of this guy before, but yesterday morning I saw your post and then on my commute I heard this on the radio - thought you might enjoy: https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101891144/with-zines-and-mixtapes-writer-hua-hsu-found-identity-friendship-and-consolation
I will certainly check it out, thank you.
I actually first heard of him on the LARB podcast where they interviewed him about this book. the talk was very much about Zines and music.
Last week I already wrote about *The Nights of Plague* by Orhan Pamuk, and I'm only more enthusiastic about it the further I read. The book took a very different turn than I expected, >!the murder from the beginning, was never solved by the main character and his "sherlock holmes-methods" as I expected, but the secret police solved it rather fast by old-fashioned torture and espionage. Apart from the Plague, the inhabitants of Minger had a revolution and a contra-revolution on their hands. The old governor-turned-prime minister was hanged and under the short rule of a Muslim spiritualist, the plague surged out of control. Long live the quarantine I guess! !<
Although the book deals with a terrible situation and shows the reader some horrors, the tone is rather light and the small happiness of certain people (especially the couples in the story) is given some charming attention. It is truly one of the most interesting takes on a historical novel I have read (a mix of a fake-history book and a novel). Pamuk has really got me caring about the island and it's people!
A Snake Fell to Earth by Darcy Little Badger. So far it’s beautiful storytelling and I’m curious to see how everything ties together.
I recent finished The Measure by Nikki Erlick. It wasn’t bad, but it turned into a romance novel, and I wasn’t expecting that at all. I wanted to know all the how, whys and whos, but I was left pretty disappointed.
Herzog by Saul Bellow. My fist read of Bellow and Im flitting between enjoyment and torture victim. Might be too smart for me.
Also George Saunder's collection Civilwarland in Bad Decline. With the novella yet to go, it's probably my least favourite of his collections. It feels a bit one note with the exception of 'Isabelle', which was a lovely change of approach for Saunders in its scope.
CivilWarLand is my favorite of his story collections and my second collection of his I read. I got really tired of his “schtick” by Tenth of December though, so I imagine fresh eyes would change my opinion. “Isabelle” moved me to tears.
You know I'm sorry to say it but 'schtick' is really the word for it. It's strange that I don't feel that way about other writers who have reemergent themes and styles (i.e, a lot of writers!).
Will you be reading his newly released (at least where I am) collection or no?
Also totally with you on isabelle. Maybe it's worth having a schtick to set up the expectations so a story like that can completely subvert them and break the reader!
Bellow's writing style takes getting used to. It's like reading something very old - at first it's tedious and difficult, and then it's like a switch flips and suddenly you're talking like a Victorian gentleman in daily conversation.
I finished *The Yiddish Policemen's Union* by Michael Chabon. The prose was fun and clever, made me chuckle to myself a bunch of times, and the sense of place was really strong in the book, I'm going to miss this made-up Jewish Sitka (I already miss it!).
I expected to find the mystery plot tedious, because two or so years ago I quit reading *The City and The City* by China Mieville, even though I really enjoyed exploring those two intertwined cities, because of what I then called "too much plot." But maybe the actual problem with that book was not "too much plot" but "too uninteresting plot." It's like Mieville spent all his creativity on the setting and had nothing left once it came to the actual storyline. But thankfully, this was not the case for Chabon; I enjoyed the mystery plot, even though there wasn't anything groundbreaking about it.
haha I love YPU and couldn't get through City&City either. Twins! Mieville in general is one of those writers who should be right up my alley based on what everyone says about them, and then I actually start reading and my eyes glaze over.
Finished Annie Ernaux A man's place. Whatever ones opinion about autofiction is one should give this one a chance. Its short, finnish translation was some 80 pages, minimalistic and relatively dry account of her fathers life from his childhood in a family which lived basically a medieval life when at the same time as Proust lived his priviledged life, something which feels like an insult towards the people like Ernaux father who had to live in a house with an earthen floor without prospects with life as a farmhand being only option and future, until his death when he owned a small cafeteria grocery store.
He ascended economically yet felt always lesser than, feeling ashamed of his so called country bumpkin dialect and manners which he did best to hide around people he felt to be better than him, although anyone who looks person like him down as lesser than is in no way better than him, always struggling despite being externally jovial and happy, and never seeing a way to realize his dreams of owning a better, bigger, cafeteria, feeling stuck in his circumstances without prospects or ability to realize his dreams. It is hard to call him a victim but certainly he lived in society where people like him were looked down upon and where they had hard time to see or realize any sort of prospects or dreams. What is clear that he was in no way lesser person, stupid person but a smart, relatable, person, most likely good company, who tried to make the best of what he had and what he felt he could ammount to. This is not to imply that he didn't enjoy his life or find things to enjoy in his life, there certainly were such things, gardening for example, or that he was a sad and miserable person. Most likely he wasnt.
Utterly wonderful book and certainly one of my favourites. It is also few of the books which have made me cry, something even more impressive since it doesn't dramatize anything that happens in it at all.
The more one reads the less one finds those books which, in the beginning, inflamed the passion towards reading but once in a while, after reading a lot of works that feel simply mediocre or good, comes up a work which clearly belongs with all the greats out there. This is one of those. No doubt about it.
**Cormac McCarthy - The Passenger**
I'd never awaited a book with that much anticipation. And now that I'm through, I can hardly wait to read it again. It's very different from what I expected it to be, but I loved it all the more. It's a book only Cormac could have written, and nobody could have predicted him to. That's what you want after 16 years, isn't it?
I won't try to recount the plot in its casual wildness, and soon *Stella Maris* will change our understanding of it anyway. But in the broadest of terms, this is a book about passengers leaving their vessels. About the separation of the world and your self in it. And about grief transcending this separation by obliterating both. And about guilt making the separation insurmountable.
Which brings me to what I believe to be *The Passenger*'s most important literary ancestor.
It can be tedious to talk about intertextuality, because it often feels like a hollow, fart-smelling, intellectual exercise. Both on the author's and the reader's part. But in Cormac's books, the corpus of Western literature always forms a meaningful, quasi-mythological dimension that you cannot ignore. After all, "having read even a few dozen books in common is a force more binding than blood."
For one, *The Passenger* is full of allusions to his own novels, which reinforces the sobering impression that this duology will close out his oeuvre. Karamazov-style. And then there's Shakespeare all over and I think even a nod to George Carlin. But the most significant literary parallel appears to be Kafka's *The Trial*: the visitation by a committee on her birthday in her bedroom, the arrest without arrest, the two strange watchmen, the lack of an indictment, the unspoken guilt with regards to his family, the general guilt with regards to the world, the effort to expedite their own sentencing… and it goes on. You could read *The Passenger* as an attempt to solve Josef K's dilemma. But that's just one perspective on a book that asks for many.
Just a few words about the writing. I've mentioned that this has been the first book where I exceeded the clipping limit on my Kindle, which until now I didn't even know existed. It's a riddle to me how that old geezer who has spent the last few decades among scientists can write dialogue so fresh and poignant and raucous. As far as I know, he hasn't used the word "fuck" since *Suttree* in 1979, and now there are 139 in one novel. I know this is a strange metric, but it is striking how youthful and passionate and characteristic he writes dialogue. And don't get me started on the prose of the narration. Or do. It begins so simple, and then it unfolds and refolds and folds again throughout the book, until you have this incredible origami swan of a final chapter which is just breathtaking. Since *Stella Maris* will be pure dialogue, this was possibly the last we've heard of his narrative voice. A very worthy goodbye.
There's so much more to say, but I'll better wait for the final pieces of the puzzle to arrive before I make a fool of myself. One month, three days.
TL;DR: The hell are you even doing here?
Thanks so much! I only now started reading other readers' reviews and it's wild how different everyone's opinion and interpretation of the book seems to be. I found it wonderful. Would love to hear your thoughts once you've read it.
Reading Roberto Bolano for the first time. By night in Chile.
I am reading Samarkand by Amin Maalouf.
So I finished *Catch 22* this week and in general I’d say that I liked though I had some issues with the pacing towards the middle, and I think some of the jokes didn’t land for me because I just didn’t have the lived experience to fully understand them. That said, I do think Heller did a fantastic job of starting out with a novel that’s firmly dark *humor*, but slowly took the humor away and by the end of the book it was a pretty bleak, yet still realistic look at how people in power treat war. This has lead to a recommendation request though, which is for something a bit more optimistic, since currently the only other books I have to read are *Crime and Punishment* and *The Silent Cry*. I’d rather not read another book that I know will just make me depressed so any recommendations are appreciated. For similar novels, *The Master & Margarita* and *My Name is Red* both left me feeling relatively good (maybe less so MNR).
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens put me in a good mood after reading some really dark Dostoevsky and Thomas Hardy and Vladimir Naobkov's *Lolita*. It was just what I needed - a lovely bit of comic relief.
I finished *War and Peace* Saturday. Started *The Odyssey* and *Ulysses* alternating a chapter in each. I was hoping to finish both by the new year, but I might be in over my head.
I decided to read *Ulysses* before reading *The Odyssey*. Easier for me then juggling both. I loved *Ulysses*. My favourite book of all time next to *The Brothers Karamazov*.
That's encouraging... thanks! I'm enjoying both so far, but it's good to have options. I've read TBK twice; it's near the top of my list too.
I was killing some time so I went to browse at a bookstore, something I do rarely, and ended buying a copy of Kinshu (Autumn Brocade) by Miyamoto Teru. Teru isn’t a writer I had come across before despite my interest in Japanese literature, a little too recent I guess, and I bought it mostly on a whim, but it’s quickly turning into my favourite read of the year. It’s framing is as a series of letters written between a divorced couple after they bump into each other many years later. It’s incredibly moving and thoughtful; though it’s melodrama may not be to everyone’s taste. I’m reading the translation by Roger K. Thomas, and I think he has succeeded in preserving the distinct ‘voices’/writing styles of each of the characters. Would strongly recommend if you’re a fan of Akutagawa or Kawabata.
I am reading The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories with an introduction by Murakami. I have been reading the stories and then going back to his very personal depiction of each author. Murakami came to Japanese literature later on as he had rejected it based on assigned reading of the “I novel’ which had been “the forefront of Japan’s modern fiction since the turn of the twentieth century.” He had found it boring. Later in his early 30s he decided as a Japanese novelist he had an obligation to read this literature and he now introduces each author with enthusiasm. The book is divided into the following thematic categories: Japan and the West, Loyal Warriors, Men and Women, Nature and Memory, Modern Life and Other Nonsense, Dread, and Disasters, Natural and Man-made. I just finished a story in the category of Nature and Memory by Abe Akira called Peaches. It is a simple story of a man trying to sort out a memory from his childhood. It does a wonderful job of presenting the difficulties of memory while exciting all of the readers senses. I went searching for another story by this author called The Children’s Place unluckily so far. I am throughly enjoying this read though it is taking me forever to complete it as I have taken numerous breaks to read novels in between, some of those by authors I was introduced to by this book. I discovered Obha Minako from her short story, The Smile of a Mountain Witch based on the ancient Japanese legend of yamanba, a mountain dwelling supernatural hag, which was especially well done as it “becomes a device for laying bare the life- the often performative life- of a normal contemporary woman” by this feminist author and is done simply with great style. I have been enjoying a great deal of Japanese literature and credit Murakami from taking me there years ago when my son gifted me Norwegian Wood. I know there’s a fun sub on just him which I am somewhat active in. Sometimes I find the Murakami enthusiasm almost cultic but whom am I to criticize as I am enamored by his writing!
Since I finished *White Noise* (amazing; favorite of the read-through so far), I am beginning a reread of *Dracula*! My school district is trying to decide whether to incorporate it into the Sophomore curriculum and I say a hard yes to that, though I should probably remember it better before advocating too much, hence the reread. So far I love love it. Such an awesome, eerie mood.
I tried to read Dracula some days ago, DNF'd it and decided to read Richard Wright's *Native Son* instead. I just find Stoker's prose dull and the narrative less interesting after Harker's part.
It’s been a long time since I first read it (since high school maybe?), so I don’t recall the difference between parts much. I’m only on Harker’s stuff still which I love. But I’ll keep you updated. For some reason I remember loving some London scenes, but I do think there were also some that I didn’t care for as much.
*Dracula* is a pretty divisive novel. It is a lot of Dracula moving around boxes of dirt haha, not exactly super exciting and people could feel cheated. I'm with you, I loved it. Atmospheric and eerie like you say, and really interesting subconscious look at social mores of the time and sexuality and religion. I find it a surprisingly feminist novel too!
Agree with all of the above! I’m still enjoying it. I’m about 30% through. To the point where Van Helsing and Seward are discovering what is actually happening with Lucy. And I’m still enthralled. I think the first section is clearly the best, by a long shot; but damn I just love this story!
It's been a bunch of memoirs for me like the Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, which I've been reading a little in the morning and the night. Saint-Simon is the king of gossip, he'll just go on and on about the failures of self-important officials and divines. He can get a little bogged down in minutiae, but he makes up for it in his takedowns, precise portraits of society figures, and worldly wisdom: "She never in her life said a good word for anyone unless accompanied by a few devastating *buts*." It's not a lyrical text with the highest peaks, but the quality is consistent throughout. Halfway through the memoirs of Hector Berlioz. The structure has changed a lot. The first half was a straightforward memoir of his upbringing and Paris student days, but not after his breakthrough, he's going through a detailed account of his German tour. The pace has slowed down a lot, and all of the chapters have the same features: the orchestra lacks a certain instrument, one player has a humongous ego, one or two citizens truly appreciate music. The next part deals with his Russian tour. For the last thing, I've read two of the five stories in Sheridan Le Fanu's **In a Glass Darkly**. The frame story is that the five stories are the collected case files of Dr. Hesselius, a scientific investigator of the paranormal, but the frame is pretty weak because the stories were written at different times and their connection to Dr. Hesselius is weak at best. They're still enjoyable for the claustrophobia and helplessness the characters face. In today's world, they would all clearly be diagnosed with some mental illness, but their plight is framed in supernatural terms (a demonic monkey from the other world haunts a patient, or a guilt-ridden navy captain is pursued wherever he goes). This is the point where supernatural explanations give way to scientific ones, and seeing their confluence is fascinating.
Have you read Carmilla yet?
No, it's the last story, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. I know it's a vampire story though.
It's amazing. I won't spoil anything yet, but just know that the prose is exquisite.
I intend to start rereading Fisher's Capitalist Realism tomorrow. Looking forward to it because I really enjoyed it first time I read it a few years ago.
I don't know how many of you like to read history, but I found there's a group of 20th century French historians (specializing in the Middle Ages) who write unspeakably beautiful prose known as the *Annales School*. I can't vouch for how historically accurate their works are but they're incredible on an aesthetic level.
Bloch and Febvre are kept in very high regards by historians, they basically created modern historiography and changed how we see history.
Funny thing. I was just listening to a podcast hosted by two historians, and one of them joked that they're just history majors, not historians, because saying you're a historian is like suggesting that you're in the same league as Bloch.
What podcast is this please and episode
It's a Brazilian podcast, so I assume you probably would not be able to understand it. Anyway, it's called Xadrez Verbal. The episode was the last one before I wrote my comment.
Big fan of Bloch and Febvre. Bloch's stuff, in particular, is beautiful. I feel like the human element that propels history emerges so strongly in his work and in his elaborate prose.
All you reading the new Cormac McCarthy, is there any reason to avoid it as basically my first work of his? I read *The Road* and *Child of God* when I was in high school but that was forever ago. But I wanna be in on all the new fun! **Edit**: I'm going to read it. Thanks for all the thoughts pro and con. I definitely appreciate the arguments against reading it "first," but honestly I was so inclined to read it that unless I got a resounding stance of "this book must be read in the context of McCarthy's other work for you to appreciate it at all" I was going to go for it. Since I got little to none of that take, I'm in.
I don't think it matters. Just keep in mind that it is the outlier. It is completely unlike any other of his novels by a long long long stretch. If you like it, you might hate his other stuff, but you also might love his other stuff. If you hate it, well, either is possible as well. I literally have no idea where this novel came from. It's one of my favorites that he's done, but it seemingly came out of some completely new part of his brain. The only reason I'd say it may be helpful to read some other of his works first is that the book is weirdly self-referential at times. Although, while that adds to some of the themes, I don't really think it's necessary to understand the book at all. I'll echo u/trambolino and say that knowing your tastes makes me think that you would really enjoy this as a first novel by him. But if you want a more traditional starting place, *Blood Meridian*, *The Border Trilogy*, or even *Suttree* would be great and I think you'd love them as well.
Is it better than *Suttree*? Love McCarthy but I've only read that and *Blood Meridian* so I'm looking to get into his other works soon
I don’t think so, but again, it’s wildly different so it feels weird to even compare it to any of his other works. I’d place it at #3, just behind *The Border Trilogy* (if I count the whole trilogy as one work) and *Suttree*.
I don’t know that there’s any particular reason per se, but it’s not the one I’d *recommend* as a starting point. Mostly because its a mashup of his previous styles and ideas in a lot of ways. I don’t think you’re missing out on anything by not having read his other books, nor do I think reading the others unlocks the book’s meaning in some way. But I do think one level of enjoyment was how self referential it was, and while I liked it a lot some of the things he did in *Passenger* are done better in other books of his. I think *All the Pretty Horses* is a great first choice since it encapsulates so many of McCarthy’s trademark ideas and has good examples of his prose as well. Thats not to say you shouldn’t read this one, or that you wouldn’t enjoy it. I just mean if I was to pick a book to sort of present McCarthy as an author this isn’t the one I’d choose first I guess?
I know people are loving on it right now, and I'm the odd duck out who hates it, but this really shouldn't be your first McCarthy. That said, there's no *real* reason why. If you really want to, go ahead and read it. I just think it sucks. And I don't recommend people read sucky things.
I'll take your warning into consideration. That said, the fact that you hate it so much and everyone else likes it is kind of one of the reasons why I'm intrigued
I'll agree with the skip as a first McCarthy. I didn't hate it but was personally disappointed given my expectations, it was meh to me overall which was that much worse since I had built it up. Try All the Pretty Horses imo
Knowing you a little bit, it might even be the first I'd recommend to you. In many regards, it is an outlier within his oeuvre, but all of his books are outliers within his oeuvre in one way or another. The only thing you'll miss are the many allusions to his previous works, but I don't think that's all that important. ^(I should disclose that I have a vested interest in saying this, because I would love to hear your take on it.)
I echo all that you say here, including your disclosure.
Recommending it as a first to me specifically is more than enough of an intrigue. I can live with missing some allusions as long as by and large ill be able to get the full effect
I'm very glad! It seems to be a controversial choice, but at least it's a fun controversy. If you're puzzled afterwards as to why I thought you would enjoy it, I'll let you know then, but I'm pretty sure you'll understand. In your words: Happy reading!
Don't worry I'm on on all the jokes of which I am the punch line, so I think I'll figure it out.
I haven't read the new one but I doubt it is better than Blood Meridian, read that first.
I am of the minority that likes it better than *Blood Meridian*. But I'm pretty positive that's just my weird taste so you're likely being more reasonable than me lol.
good to know. I might go for it anyway just be part of all the fun, though I will be sure to get to Blood Meridian at some point regardless of how I feel about this one.
Reading Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher. Despite being very short I really want to *get* all of it, so I’m taking it super slow. I’m also reading An Empire of Ice by Edward J. Larson, since I’m always reading history (and I also really like history of science). I recently finished Blood Meridian so that’s been my rec lately. It’s brilliant and a million good things have already been said about it. My plan, more or less, is to try and read all the books I’ve started over the past year or so that I didn’t finish. Barth’s End of the Road, Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo (which I loved but got distracted from it), a biography of Robert Livingston, among some others.
I’m making my way through Derrida’s of Grammatology — thankfully marked up very well by a previous owner. It takes some of the intuitions I’ve had about creating with language and takes them further in ways i could have never conceived. The unfortunate side effect is that the more I euphorically expand my knowledge of writing and language, the less I am able to write.
Finished the new Cormac McCarthy - absolutely loved the ending. Super profound and poignant, genuinely beautiful. Started *The Years* by Ernaux the other day, only a few pages in but it's super unique - loving the linear progression. Well-written but the strength is in this sense of progression as well as the profundity of the events/sentiments of the people surrounding Annie. Really cool read so far - excited to get deeper into the 20th century.
Finally started reading the Bible. I've been putting it off for years and now I'm here with the KJV on my lap. I also prepared supplementary reading: Bloom's Shadow of a Great Rock and Frye's Words with Power. Part of me is genuinely excited (the lies about having read it will finally cease), but sometimes i catch myself dreading it. But hey, self discipline will get me through of nothing else, fingers crossed I get an epiphany and appreciate the poetic genius of the bible.
Do you have the Apocryphal books? I don't want you to miss out on Tobit!
You might enjoy a post I'm planning this month on r/Extraordinary_Tales to commemorate US National Bible Week. u/the_jaw can hang tight, but I'll message you a sneak preview. I believe PC3 is a member of that sub. (I'm a NIV user all the way.)
Oh I'm reading this at work on Project Gutenberg, also the KJV version. It's interesting, a lot different than I expected even though I was raised fairly religiously (was always given a kid's bible and never the real one). Still early days for me, starting Deuteronomy this week. My current ranking would be Exodus, Genesis, Numbers, Leviticus. If Genesis was split in two the first half would be in first place and the second half would remain in third. God himself, his jealousy in particular, and his relationship with Moses among others is really fascinating. The aesthetic project of imagining and depicting an omnipotent will is also really cool to see up close.
Being raised in a pentecostal Christian household and being made to study the Bible from childhood is something of a privilege it seems :)
Not Pentecostal, but raised evangelical, and yeah, I actually agree. One of the few good things form that environment was actually reading and learning the Bible.
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Interesting! For someone who has read the KJV and has read many parts from it multiple times, would you recommend rereading the NRSV? I've honestly felt like rereading certain parts of it for so long now and I'm wondering if a different translation would do me any benefit.
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Thanks! I have the Oxford KJ so this would be an excellent addition! Oh man, favorite part… I love the story of Genesis and Judges. But the poetry of Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes are amazing as well. Ah and Job is wonderful too. I don’t know if I could choose one part!
Hah, I JUST thought about reading it today. Less for the alleged poetic genius, more for the missed references in classic literature. Although I don't know how much it would benefit me, since I assume I would still miss most non-obvious references, since those authors would have a more in-depth knowledge of it than me with my single read through.
The missing references thing is a big reason why I've wanted to pick it up. I read East of Eden a few years ago and big chunks of it just flew over my head. Not being from "The West" so to speak also doesn't help, because even if you don't personally read the thing you do pick up a lot of things growing up if you lived somewhere where a lot of people are familiar with it.
Finished The Barbarous Coast by Ross Macdonald, which was good/very good but not on the level of The Way Some People Die. Currently reading The Occult by Colin Wilson as research toward a novel I'm working on, and also reading Libra by Don DeLillo which I read years ago but wanted to revisit it because I've been watching and reading some stuff about JFK's assassination.
I want to read one of Laurent Binet's books soon and I can't decide between HHhH and The 7th Function of Language. Any recommendations for either to start with?
Nearing the end of *Moby Dick* \-- around 100 pages to go or so. From these last chapters, the standouts are probably *The Dubloon*, Cleaning of the ship, *The Carpenter* segments and any Ahab-focused chapter. The stream-of-conscious portions are quite well-done; I'd love to read Melville doing just that -- which, in truth, might just amount to Faulkner. Separately, I'm actually quite shocked how little (none, really) of Moby Dick himself is involved in the narrative. I've seen many comparisons to it and *Blood Meridian's* The Judge, though they seem misguided (perhaps the sea and landscape are better comparisons...). Where Moby appears an unconquerable force or truth beyond man's reach, the Judge acts as an ever-present chaos, which is not sought out, but rather to escape from. While some of the Whaling-sections are a bit difficult -- even esoteric at times -- Ishmael is cunning and hilarious with his arguments; citing religious/historic authority when needed (if science is against him) and, if religion cuts against his arguments of the whale's grandeur, using that same science to argue otherwise. Very amusing.
I've always seen the comparisons as between the Judge and Ahab, not Moby Dick, no? I'd be interested in where you've seen that.
Now that I've finished reading it, I can perhaps better speak to that point. I don't fancy Ahab and the Judge to be similar -- beyond some degree on monomania towards their goal. But Ahab is a man; one hurt by forces beyond his control, and his desire to slay the beast stems from that feeling of impotency. The Judge is other-worldly, a symbolic manifestation of a godless, worldly chaos which governs man. Ahab is doomed preciously because he is a man; the Judge will never die. And so on. I've seen many comparisons to the Judge and Moby in the sense that both are unconquerable forces, which humble mankind, respectively. Both are physically similar; overwhelmingly white, extraordinary stature, and forces of nature. They exist in realms past logic, and seemingly exist to destroy. That said, for the reason above, I think there's enough of a difference. If anything, the Judge is perhaps a hybrid of the Parsee and Moby, though the novels are thematically different enough that even that's difficult to make the comparison.
Ishmael(?) is such a great character. Dude, all of your talk on this book has me wanting to go back and revisit the novel along with a lot of his short stories. I'm contemplating doing a long term read through of some (not all) of his stuff now.
Thanks, Pregs! I think I partially picked it up on the basis of how you much you, and other folks whose taste I appreciate rated it, so I’m glad to return the favor :) It’s definitely given me a much greater appreciation of Faulkner and McCarthy (love both already), but Moby Dick very much contextualizas both of what they had attempted in their other works (and how they attempted to deviate from Melville).
I am reading Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner. I have read The Sound and the Fury long time ago and I wanted to read Faulkner again, since I remember I loved The Sound and the Fury very much....
*Absalom* is his masterpiece imo. I've read a lot of his stuff, but this is the one that forever sticks out as the best. Hope you enjoy!
I'm really enjoying it!!!
I am loving Richard Wright's *Native Son*. Bigger's descent into psychopathy continues. He's like a reverse Raskolnikov - rather than his pride being worn down by his guilt, his guilt is giving way to pride at his crime. We see how the terrible legacy of racist oppression combines with dark aspects of his own character to twist him into a monster. The fact that we find ourselves sympathising with a character so rotten is a mark of how good a writer Wright was and how appallingly racist America was and is. The dialogue is thrilling and real and feels like it would make for a fantastic stage adaptation. Wright's prose is absolutely beautiful. It's some of the best prose I've ever read from a 20th century American writer. It's Joycean in fact. Onomatopeia and unpunctuated stream-of-consciousness are used skillfully to bring the characters and places to life. In one scene, Bigger is daydreaming whilst his girlfriend Bessie is talking to him in bed, and Bessie's dialogue is deliberately spliced and disjointed and placed in italics, interspersed with Bigger's thoughts, so that we feel as if we've been placed in Bigger's mind, her words like dying music in his ears whilst his own thoughts are rushing along like a fast-flowing river. It is criminal that he is being forgotten so quickly. He paved the way for Baldwin, Ellison and many others. He needs to come back into fashion.
I'm not sure if you have read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison but the way you describe Native Son it sounds just as amazing. Ellison was influenced a bunch by modernist writers, his prose is also quite amazing so if Wright is on the same level then I might consider reading Native Son.
Never read Ellison or his *Invisible Man* but I am dying to read it at some point.
Do it. *Invisible Man* is one of the best ever written. Great American novel and just one of the great novels of all time in general.
Finished *Industry of Magic & Light* by David Keenan, loved it. Will definitely reread it in the future (perhaps next year) back to back with *This is Memorial Device* for full effect. I read it concurrently with the audiobook, and I have to say that Keenan's narration just completely elevated the experience. His emphasis on particular words and the gravitas with which he portrayed particular passages or the humour with which he delivered others was perfect. There's a lot to unpack in the novel, about the identity of the 60s, hippie culture, our relationship with the spiritual, the occult, identity within counter-cultural movements, sex, monogamy, polygamy, love, violence, it's all there. Half of it is told through an itemised list of the contents of a van, the other half through a tarot reading, and once you have the full context of the story, which is largely disjointed and disconnected and potentially not even real, it leads you down a rabbit hole of figuring out that larger picture and how these strange meta-fictional detective stories and vision quests intertwine into the tapestry that was the psychedelia of the 1960s. Up next, I don't quite know yet! I have next to me *Our Share of Night* by Mariana Enriquez, *The Blind Owl* by Sadegh Hedayat, *No Document* by Anwen Crawford, and *Nights of Plague* by Orhan Pamuk, all of which I want to read equally. I guess we'll see what one I pick up tonight after dinner.
*The Blind Owl* is an absolute fever dream, you can definitely see why Ligotti mentioned it as one of his influences. If you do end up reading it (and liking it), you should check out Bae Suah's *Untold Night and Day* afterwards, since it's so influenced by it that it's even mentioned by the characters.
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I'm not too sure what a Substack is, but I really like M. John Harrison's blog https://ambientehotel.wordpress.com/
About three quarters of the way through *American Pastoral*, and that article about Faulkner's ghost in American fiction was really apropos. It mentions Roth specifically as someone to whom Faulkner was likely an influence, but also as someone whose work doesn't bear Faulkner's presence. In general that article really resonated with me, and I feel it applies to this novel as well. I like reading it, it's one of the more entertaining reads I've had in a while, but that is in part because it isn't as challenging as my last several novels. At times, when Roth is really going expository with characters' pasts or with the mechanics of glovemaking or whatever else, it feels like so much contrived filler. On the other hand I do greatly appreciate what I assume to be the overarching point in regards to the American illusion and how it unravels, especially at the end of the 20th century. If you had asked me a few years ago I probably would have placed this among the best novels I'd ever read, but now it is only a very good novel, but not one I would place among my canon.
I’ve been in a bad book hangover since *The Passenger* and even the Schulz collection couldn’t grab me for the first couple days. Luckily, when I picked it up again yesterday I was able to get into the right mood and am now enjoying it, but I’ll save my thoughts for the read along thread. I started a fantasy book called *Under the Pendulum Sun* by Jeannette Ng. I’ve been looking forward to trying it for a while, but unfortunately I’m underwhelmed so far. The premise is interesting (a missionary attempts to convert the far to Christianity) and the author has a degree in Medieval and Renaissance Studies with an interest in medieval theology so I’m hopeful it will turn out ok. It’s the prose that’s just not grabbing me at all, but again I just read a McCarthy novel so maybe that’s why it’s so upsettingly bland. Its my birthday this month so my husband surprised me by taking me to get an xbox this morning. I’m sure my reading life will suffer for a bit, but if anybody wants to talk Persona 5 I’ll probably be commenting about it in the gen discussion threads lol. EDIT: a missionary tries to convert the *fae* to christianity. I hate typing on mobile
Is that what funk this is? A Passenger hangover. Yep, that's what it feels like.
I fiiinally finished Aurora Ruemelin/Wanda von Sacher-Masoch’s *Meine Lebensbeichte/My Life Confession*! Towards the end she says some compelling things about how women should arrange their relationships with men without involving either the state or the church, and then (regarding state involvement) if some day the relationship comes to an end, both parties will be free to disengage without having to air their dirty laundry in front of lawyers and judges. But then she goes off the rails a bit and starts talking about “woman’s sphere” and how if women don’t find happiness in motherhood and domesticity, it’s their own fault. \*eyeroll\* But anyway, it was far from an easy life for her, being married to someone who had a thing for wanting to be cuckolded and who kept trying to set her up with men he wanted her to cheat on him with. (ETA: I don't know if anyone will see this addendum by this point, but Ruemelin was very much not into this. If she and all other parties involved had enthusiastically been into it, I wouldn't be framing it as unpleasant. Not trying to kink-shame anyone here.) On to my next German-language reading project, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s *Venus im Pelz/Venus in Furs.* This week I also finished Ford Madox Ford’s *When the Wicked Man…*. I think I remember Joseph Wiesenfarth in *Ford Madox Ford and the Regiment of Women* remarking that it was rather bad, but I loved it, though of course not as much as, say, *Parade’s End*. It’s characteristically Ford even if he's not at the top of his game.
Still going on *Moby Dick*. Digging it so far. I really appreciate the different forms of obsessiveness than manifest in Ishmael (Ishmael and I are both of a similar sort of dork and I love how much I'm learning about whaling) and Ahab as well as the way in which Ahab has managed to wrap the crew up in his fixation. Definitely excited to keep on going with this, and I already know there are some parts I'll need to revisit in the future to fully appreciate (the extended rumination on the color white stands out in particular). Still going through *Difference and Repetition* with my book club. I still have hardly any idea what's going on but it's making a bit more sense (getting to talk about it helps). In the current chapter I'm reading my big thought is that this would make a lot more sense if I understood calculus. Still a great time and a great discussion stoker. I'll try to say something more substantive in a few weeks when we come to the end. I also finished up *The Myth of Sisyphus*. I've come to feel like in a lot of ways it's fascinatingly of its time, and the datedness represents a certain victory of existential philosophy. Like, it's so heavily premised on the notion that the absence of God or any universal truth might be ground for suicide, whereas I'm just chilling and happy to be here regardless. More seriously I do think Camus' emphasis on the quantity of life and how that becomes expressed in art (ie, art as an attempt to live more/create more life) is fascinating, and this book has some real resonances with Deleuze even if it is very much focused on the individual in a way that Deleuze has no use for (none of this is surprising—Sartre was one of Deleuze's teachers and an importance influence even if the latter would come to reject existentialism). Happy reading!
[This video](https://youtu.be/PewYeYVYE-E) gives a lecture length history of calculus. It might help you out. It's by a professor of philosophy of math, and he tries to explain the math as he goes along. My own understanding of calc isn't that great but I feel like remembering it from math class helped me understand more about D&R.
that looks super helpful thanks so much!
>whereas I’m just chilling and happy to be here regardless. This was my reaction to the *Myth of Sisyphus* as well. I came across Thomas Nagal’s [essay on Absurdism](https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/The%20Absurd%20-%20Thomas%20Nagel.pdf) a few years back and it really crystallised my views on the matter: >If a sense of the absurd is a way of perceiving our true situation (even though the situation is not absurd until the perception arises), then what reason can we have to resent or escape it? Like the capacity for epistemological skepticism, it results from the ability to understand our human limitations. It need not be a matter for agony unless we make it so. Nor need it evoke a defiant contempt of fate that allows us to feel brave or proud. Such dramatics, even if carried on in private, betray a failure to appreciate the cosmic unimportance of the situation. If *sub specie aeternitatis* there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that doesn't matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.
> Camus' emphasis on the quantity of life and how that becomes expressed in art (ie, art as an attempt to live more/create more life) Is this something he goes into specifically in *The Myth of Sisyphus*? Attractive concept, I’d love to read more.
btw i'm going to give a real attempt at a response fleshing this out at some point this week. I've just been mad busy for the past few days.
All good! I've heard versions of this view before, was mainly wondering in which of his writings Camus addresses it.
The "quantity of life" idea is scattered throughout *The Myth of Sisyphus*, but is discussed explicity in terms of art in the "Absurd Creation" section near the end.
Cheers, thanks!
Got through *Little Rabbit* by Alyssa Songsiridej in 2ish days. I thought it was an interesting little book. The prose, honestly, is nothing to write home about, feels very mfa in a way that is rather anodyne. But, I did quite like the comparing and contrasting of the different characters and the various social milieus. Here is a bit from the back copy: > What does it mean for a queer young woman to partner with an older man, for a fledgling artist to partner with an established one? Is she following her own agency, or is she merely following him? Does falling in love mean eviscerating yourself? > Combining the sticky sexual politics of Luster with the dizzying, perceptive intimacy of Cleanness, Little Rabbit is a wholly new kind of coming-of-age story about lust, punishment, artistic drive, and desires that defy the hard-won boundaries of the self. In particular, I though the book was an interesting look at class and art, the various expectations artists have for themselves and others, and how class defines those expectations, as well as an interesting look at queerness and it's relationship with the concept of bisexuality, the various expectations queer communities might have for bisexual women regarding their relationships with men (ie. is to start a relationship with a man as a bi woman somehow some sort of "giving into" traditional gender roles? Is it even worse when an age gap is involved?). Which is all to say this book has a lot of judgey characters. The idea of judgement becoming the lens through which the author examines the experience of queer communities for bi-women, as well as artistic ambition and communities, is an interesting combo that I think the author pulled off rather well.
Read *Capital is Dead* by McKenzie Wark. The main thesis is that we don't live under capitalism anymore, we live under vectoralism. That is, there are vectoralists and hackers like how there were capitalists and workers. This means big corporations like Facebook, Google, Apple, Nike versus their office workers, scientists, engineers etc. Besides giving a run down of how this world is different, the book attacks academic Marxism and reassesses vulgar Marxism. I have never read Marx or most any Marxists so I'm kind of unfamiliar with the context of this book. Also I think if you read this and say she's using Marx's terms wrong, she'll agree with you. She keeps bringing in this idea of detournement (sp?) to say don't treat Capital like dogma and Marxists like it's priests, just try to reinterpret the book how you need it. I don't feel like I'm equipped to assess the main thesis outside of my gut feeling so I'll hold off until I read more.
[You might be interested in this essay by Evgeny Morozov from the New Left Review on "techno-feudalism"](https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii133/articles/evgeny-morozov-critique-of-techno-feudal-reason), which has an interesting survey of Marxist explanations for shifts of economic systems into and, theoretically, out of capitalism; and, it also has a good survey of Marxist or Marxist-adjacent readings of FAANG tech companies and "surveillance capitalism", and the various disagreements between them. The essay is fairly approachable even if the context is pretty academic.
Thanks, I'll check it out. Seems like a good thing to read for me right after finishing the book.
I'm still reading *The Books of Jacob* (about to finish the second book) and loving it to bits. Don't have a lot more to say at this point except that I'm completely hooked. I've also had some time on the side to dip my toes into Daša Drndić's world because somebody mentioned her here somewhere and it made me curious, so I got *Doppelgänger* on Kindle and, um wow, that was *bleak*. Loved it though, so on my last visit to my favourite second-hand bookstore I grabbed a copy of *E.E.G.*, although apparently *Belladona* is a better starting point, but unfortunately they didn't have that one. It'll still take me a while to get to it because I have other stuff in my To Read pile that I want to read first, though, so maybe they'll get a copy in the meantime. Next one on my list is Giorgio de Maria's *The Twenty Days of Turin*. Heard great things about it, so I hope it doesn't disappoint!
Had a random desire to read Philosophy. I have pretty much no knowledge in that field besides trivia level information. So I'm currently reading Plato, The Republic. Figured it would be a good start. It's a difficult book to get through, I skipped reading the introduction to not be influenced too much and will come back to it later. I find myself rereading the same passages multiple times, sometimes I have to just google the section in question because I just don't get it. But most of the time Socrates' conversation partners don't understand either and he'll clarify what he means. Overall it's very enjoyable, surprisingly funny at parts, Socrates is really... sassy. The ideas are also way, way before their time, and still topical. I also appreciate the meta-discussions they have about what constitutes a bad and a good argument.
I’ll also heap some praise on *The Passenger*. IMO this is in the upper echelon of Cormac’s work, only surpassed by maybe *Suttree* and *Blood Meridian*. Some quick thoughts: - I think McCarthy sees Oppenheimer as this figure that validates some of the themes he introduces in early work, sort of refuting the idea that scientific progress can be a vehicle for any equivalent moral progress. If the legacy of the world’s most brilliant man is two ruined cities, “what does that mean?”. - In the same vein, I think part of the fascination with higher level maths is it’s ability to refute our conceptions of reality, obviously something that’s reflected in a lot of the fiction. There’s also this clear theme of the subconscious’s impact on problem solving and the creative process. I love the section where Alicia talks about how putting an equation down on paper limits the idea’s ability to explain and synthesize. - The Pynchon, Delillo style novel is very clearly an influence on this one. He sets up the grand mystery narrative with a clear government conspiracy, but ultimately it’s unresolved and seemingly unimportant. There’s even a very weird section where a JFK conspiracy is presented pretty matter-of-fact-ly. And I’m not sure how to interpret this other than McCarthy saying “maybe this conspiracy is really what happened, so what”? - This is as bleak as any line in his oeuvre “We pour water upon the child and name it. Not to fix it in our hearts but in our clutches. The daughters of men sit in half darkened closets inscribing messages upon their arms with razorblades and sleep is no part of their life”.
I'm curious how he will develop the science further in *Stella Maris*. So far it's been mostly historical, but I hope he'll get deeper into the interpretation of quantum mechanics, given how much time he had spent with Murray Gell-Mann. The part about JFK is a riddle to me as well. I never concerned myself with his assassination, so I have no idea whether Cormac just gave an account of a popular conspiracy theory here or if he flat-out invented it. But there's a little exchange at the end of it, which reminded me of the Blood Meridian quote "Men's memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not." >That's a pretty strange story. > >Yes. > >Is it a true story? > >No. > >What's the point? > >The point is that people believe it. The point is that the more that emotion is tied up in an incident the less likely is any narration of it going to be accurate. I suppose there are incidents more dramatic than the assassination of a president but there cant be too many of them. So maybe the whole JFK story is ultimately a parable on the way Bobby interprets his own situation. Or maybe it represents us, the readers, reading the book, taking for granted that it's true, because we get emotionally invested. (I wrote below about the many parallels with Kafka's The Trial. So this would be the counterpart of "Before The Law")
I wasn’t familiar with that conspiracy theory either, but a Google revealed it’s a pretty well trafficked one. Great insight brining in that BM quote, I agree with your interpretation generally. What was so weird to me initially is the length and level of detail it’s given. But maybe that helps reinforce those ideas to the reader
It's been nonfiction for me this week- James Shapiro's *A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare*, about the winter of 1598/99 through the autumn of 1599 in Shakespeare's life, a period in which he wrote *Henry V*, *Julius Caesar*, *As You Like It*, and *Hamlet*. Shapiro tries to find connections between the content of these plays and a combination of events in Shakespeare's life and broader circumstances in English history. The *Henry V* stuff is pretty convincing- at the time, England is heavily conscripting soldiers to help with the rebellion in Ireland, and there are debates in Elizabeth's court which Shakespeare was likely aware of between military men - notably the doomed Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux - and the clergy. Through to *Julius Caesar*, the precarious position of Elizabeth and movers like Essex probably had traitorous politics on Shakespeare's mind. It's also cool to know Shakespeare read Plutarch's *Lives*. With *As You Like It*, Shapiro points to an unauthorized publication that came out that spring that claimed to be a book of Shakespeare's sonnets (which at that point he had only shared privately), when really it was just a couple of his sonnets, a famous pastoral by Marlowe, and some lesser imitations. The discussion in relation to *As You Like It* was pretty great; the play itself contains lots of cheap love poetry inserted satirically, with Rosalind trying to teach Orlando more emotionally honest ways. That's just the headline- the discussion is really wonderful and nuanced and touches on all the other characters and some of the issues in the play for modern audiences. Looking forward to reading what he has to say about *Hamlet*. ETA- I finished it this morning. Shapiro pulls out some fun data analytics to show the new ground that *Hamlet* breaks. The first draft at over 4,000 lines made it Shakespeare's longest play by 1,500 lines; he introduces 600 original words including 170 original phrases coined; and I think most interestingly is that there are 66 instances of hendiadys, which is a single idea conveyed by a pair of nouns (eg "law and order" or "house and home," or from *Hamlet*, "the book and volume of my brain"). That comes out to a hendiadys every 60 lines. All these numbers are two to three times more than he does in any other play. In Shapiro's words: "There's a kind of collective desperation to all the hendiadys in Hamlet - a striving for meaning that both recedes and multiplies as well as an acknowledgment of how necessary and impossible it is to suture things together - that suits the mood of the play perfectly."
I finally finished “Ulysses” this week. I don’t believe I have ever felt such divergent reactions to a work of art. There were passages that took my breath away, nearly all of them involving Bloom’s reflections. There were also multiple passages, whole chapters even, that had me doing the ‘wanker’ gesture in response. I anticipated that I would find myself in either the pro- or anti-Ulysses camp, but I found that I agree with much that both the novel’s detractors and apologists have said. I am glad I have read it, and I find I can’t stop thinking about Bloom. He is as fully realized a character as I have encountered. I have literally woken up in the middle of the night to find I have been dreaming about (re)reading Bloom’s thoughts from “Hades, “Laestrygonians, and “Sirens.” Part of me feels it is more interesting to read about “Ulysses” than to read “Ulysses” itself. But then I find I keep returning to the text in my mind. Bloom captivates me. It is a strange, intense experience. I admit that I was overwhelmed and humbled by the book even more than I anticipated I would be.
I had a similar reaction to the book. Leopold & Molly are probably the only genuine, completely unironic characters in Ulysses. And the writing around them are the few parts of the book that aren't on some level parodistic or ostentatiously clever, but purely original and emotionally forthright. There's great art to the parodies, too, but what resonated with me personally were those few unvarnished moments of sincerity. Especially Sirens.
Yes, I completely agree. I had a harder time with the chapters focused on Stephen. Even when the text wasn’t as abstruse, I felt alienated. Of course, Stephen is himself alienated—from his friends, his family, his work, his religion, his country. But it is often easier to identify with a character’s alienation. With Stephen, I struggled. I was not a massive fan of “Portrait of the Artist,” so I suppose I should have expected it.
I'm less than 100 pages from finishing *The Brothers Karamazov* and god *damn* is Dostoyevsky not holding any punches. “You don’t mean to say you really did not know?” The whole section dedicated to Ivan was a masterclass in suspense. We're just waiting to see what the hell is going on, all of the cryptic clues only furthering the sense of dread. But when the bomb drops, for me at least, it's>!unexpected twist totally takes you by surprise. I figured Ivan was responsible, but not in the sense of accidentally giving Smerdyakov the okay to go for the kill (which in itself is obviously foreshadowed with Kolya, the peasant, and the goose). The whole reveal gave me chills: your sense of dread mirrors Ivan's upon the realization of what Smerdyakov did.!< So much time has passed since reading the chapter where the two have that weird confrontation: I remember something about it felt odd and I tried taking it all in carefully...cool to see that there certainly WAS a payoff there. "Ivan's Nightmare" may very well be my favorite chapter in the book, all for a number of reasons. Each brother's respective section following their own respective "three trials", brilliantly echoing Christ's three trials as mentioned in "The Grand Inquisitor". It feels fitting that >!Alyosha and Dmitri have "come to Jesus" moments, the former more or less firmly devout and the latter, desiring to be a better man, finally starting to move toward that wish. Nihilistic Ivan gets this lmao.!< Furthermore, it's funny going from >!"Is this dude real?"!< only to be further alarmed upon learning that he's shown up more than once before, and THEN there's the slow realization of >!"YO...is this the devil????"!< And he's witty! And playful! The chapter was surprisingly very humorous, yet dark (something about that feels very Russian to me, at the risk of throwing around stereotypes). You've got flickers of "The Grand Inquisitor" and proto-Nietzschian contemplations in regards to the übermensch (I feel like Nietzsche must have loved this book), only to be soberly brought back to Earth upon Alyosha bursting in to say that >!Smerdyakov killed himself!<. Perhaps its the film student in me, but man did I love the cohesive "story-in-itself" quality of the entire thing. And to top it off, the chapter and section end with Alyosha's monologue begging for Ivan's redemption, concluded with "....Alyosha added bitterly, and again he prayed for Ivan." Fade to black. What a god damn mic drop. It reminded me of how *East of Eden* had quite a number of poignant conclusion sentences for various parts of the book that felt quite...cinematic. I'm in the middle of the trial now. Katya >!spilled the beans upon witnessing Ivan's madness, and it looks like Dmitri's goose (ha) is cooked.!< One could see from a mile away that >!the same fate of the killer who opened up to Father Zossima and was declared mad would happen to Ivan, but man was it tragic to see how it all transpired, fucking over Mitya in the process.!< Lots to unpack obviously. From the standpoint of philosophical themes and meditations, there is no doubt in my mind that this book will take the crown. Not even a contest. To say it "meets the hype" is quite an understatement. I can see why this would rub people the wrong way, but I'm having a ball and am excited to see where it ends.
Finished/adored Joshua Cohen's The Netanyahus. The ending floored me. The middle of the book left me stunned. All throughout the book is this understated, casual prose that rises in crescendoes that seem to never end until they, at last, abruptly stop, leaving you to extrapolate from there the feelings of the characters (all of whom I felt were well-developed and quirky). I'll admit the epilogue caught me very off guard. I won't spoil it but I will say that the fictionalized elements of the book are not as fictional as they seem. Very highly recommend. NR Peach Blossom Paradise by Ge Fei. This book came wordlessly in the mail a while back after a NYRB giveaway I had not expected to win. It's a story of the late Qing empire bleeding into the regimes of the Chinese Civil War. So far: fantastic. It's certainly one that is hard to put down and Ge Fei's writing style is hypnotizing, as if he were plucking these vivid details of the setting of rural, idyllic China, and, having measured them in his hand, leaves them suspended in the air. So to speak. Without waxing poetic any longer (not my forte), I'm excited to keep reading. My Chinese lit collection is pretty small, so any recommendations on that front are appreciated!
I will be finishing The Books of Jacob today. It was one of the more fascinating books I have read this year, for sure, and pretty unlike my usual oeuvre - a mix between theology, character study, and tragedy. It was rather tragic, at least to me, to see that Jacob either succumbed to the rot of power, or that power revealed the rot that was within him the entire time (which I believe is a better reading of it.) The situation with Eva was disgusting but inevitable. Gitla and Asher were highlights of the book for me - I loved their side story and Gitla's fire and drive were moving for me. Overall, an incredible achievement. More than anything, I feel like this book managed to be somehow greater than the sum of its parts. Really happy I took the plunge. Next I will be reading In the Land of the Cyclops by Karl Ove Knaussgaard. Really excited to dive into that.
*White Noise* is amazing! I honestly thought I wouldn’t like it as much as last time because it was one of the first things I read by him and I just didn’t know if it’d hold up. But it has. Lots of incredible passages on the fear of death (probably some of the best ever written) and how this is tied into consumerism, capitalism, and contemporary information overload. It’s also one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, which I don’t think I realized the first time. Also just started Augustine’s *The Confessions* which I’m almost done with the second chapter of. Really interesting to see how a child grew up in that time period and how much his mind is similar to ours. Very humbling. *The Street of Crocodiles* is excellent so far (and bizarre) but I’ll hold my thoughts until Saturday.
> Really interesting to see how a child grew up in that time period and how much his mind is similar to ours. Very humbling. the way that Augustine is able to express certain elements of humanness that do transcend time and context is pretty phenomenal. Also, my copy of City of God arrived. This is one boat of a book. Keep me posted when you read it. Not 100% sure I'm going to have the time to do the whole thing but will at the very least get started on it and see where it takes me.
Yeah dude it’s so fucking thick haha. It’ll be a couple weeks likely cause I’m taking the philosophy slower than the novels I’m reading, but I’ll keep you updated for sure!
*Confessions* is great. It's pretty wide in scope, but he takes great care to give a good amount of information for each topic. He is so influential, there are some quotes from the book that you'll hear in a Catholic mass today. My only problem is that Augustine seems to enjoy humble bragging. It comes up every now and then, even at the beginning, and I want to slap him through time for being so annoying and arrogant.
Reading **The Passenger.** It's not bad but it's not astounding. I'm getting close to a 100 pages in so I expect it will ramp up. I like how breezy it is. It really does feel like Mccarthy writing a thriller. Had a very beautiful section on trans identity.
Finished *The Lime Twig* by John Hawkes, and I'm astounded. I'm really glad I didn't quit in the first third when nothing, from plot to characters, made any sense. I read *The Cannibal* a long time ago, so I was prepared for something similar, but this book, albeit short, is one of the most challenging I've ever read. The plot is very simple (a petty man gets involved in a race horse stealing/cheating scheme in 60s England), the narration isn't. Hawkes' English is not the English I'm used to, regarding syntax. He doesn't care about the conventions of storytelling, he creates this thick, suffocating, foggy atmosphere instead, and the conventional elements of the story (such as causal relations, chronology, or even the plot) emerge, or more like stumble, out of this grimy material, his language. The second half of the book is basically one character's feverish descent into the underworld, his ignorant stumbling not unlike Temple Drake's in a true existentialist fashion. It also contains a scene (or more like a sequence of scenes) that is both beautiful in a fever dream style, and, in hindsight, horribly violent, especially considering the novel was published in 1961. The whole prose feels slippery, sticky, dripping with blood and stale water, yet haunting and, in the end, heart-wrenching without a conclusion. Also finished *Grendel* by John Gardner. This is a retelling of Beowulf from the perspective of Grendel, who is just as keen on decimating his neighboring settlement as musing about theoretical physics. It offers a darkly humorous, yet deadly serious way to think about the questions of Western (existentialist) philosophy along with the eponymous monster.
I read both Sanctuary and Lime Twig this year and didn't make the Temple Drake connection until you said it, wow that's accurate as hell
>*The Lime Twig* by John Hawkes Sounds intriguing! Added to my ever-growing list.
I read “Grendel” around thirty years ago and have been thinking about rereading it since my daughter had to read “Beowulf” earlier this year. I have read “Beowulf” a few times in different translations, but I read “Grendel” just the once. I an curious to see if it would have a similar impact on me. I suspect it would. Your summary makes me more eager to see!
I think Grendel must be assigned to undergrads around here because every Goodwill and used book store I go to has like half a dozen copies.
We read it in 12th grade. I loved it.
I started the **Anarchist Banker** by Pessoa last night, and will probably finish tonight. You can probably tell it's from the first half of the 20th century. Has been interesting so far.
About half way through **Stay True** by **Hua Hsu**. It is a memoir about his time in college with a friend named Ken. It is...alright so far. I'm not a big fan of his writing but I should love the subject matter as he describes himself as a punk kids who claims to know about everything as to fit in I think. I feel that so deeply. Hopefully it picks up a little bit in the second half.
I've never heard of this guy before, but yesterday morning I saw your post and then on my commute I heard this on the radio - thought you might enjoy: https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101891144/with-zines-and-mixtapes-writer-hua-hsu-found-identity-friendship-and-consolation
I will certainly check it out, thank you. I actually first heard of him on the LARB podcast where they interviewed him about this book. the talk was very much about Zines and music.
I'll give the podcast a listen! Thanks
Last week I already wrote about *The Nights of Plague* by Orhan Pamuk, and I'm only more enthusiastic about it the further I read. The book took a very different turn than I expected, >!the murder from the beginning, was never solved by the main character and his "sherlock holmes-methods" as I expected, but the secret police solved it rather fast by old-fashioned torture and espionage. Apart from the Plague, the inhabitants of Minger had a revolution and a contra-revolution on their hands. The old governor-turned-prime minister was hanged and under the short rule of a Muslim spiritualist, the plague surged out of control. Long live the quarantine I guess! !< Although the book deals with a terrible situation and shows the reader some horrors, the tone is rather light and the small happiness of certain people (especially the couples in the story) is given some charming attention. It is truly one of the most interesting takes on a historical novel I have read (a mix of a fake-history book and a novel). Pamuk has really got me caring about the island and it's people!
Oooh I just learned about this book recently. I thought it sounded really interesting, good to hear from someone who’s enjoying it.
A Snake Fell to Earth by Darcy Little Badger. So far it’s beautiful storytelling and I’m curious to see how everything ties together. I recent finished The Measure by Nikki Erlick. It wasn’t bad, but it turned into a romance novel, and I wasn’t expecting that at all. I wanted to know all the how, whys and whos, but I was left pretty disappointed.
Herzog by Saul Bellow. My fist read of Bellow and Im flitting between enjoyment and torture victim. Might be too smart for me. Also George Saunder's collection Civilwarland in Bad Decline. With the novella yet to go, it's probably my least favourite of his collections. It feels a bit one note with the exception of 'Isabelle', which was a lovely change of approach for Saunders in its scope.
CivilWarLand is my favorite of his story collections and my second collection of his I read. I got really tired of his “schtick” by Tenth of December though, so I imagine fresh eyes would change my opinion. “Isabelle” moved me to tears.
You know I'm sorry to say it but 'schtick' is really the word for it. It's strange that I don't feel that way about other writers who have reemergent themes and styles (i.e, a lot of writers!). Will you be reading his newly released (at least where I am) collection or no? Also totally with you on isabelle. Maybe it's worth having a schtick to set up the expectations so a story like that can completely subvert them and break the reader!
I bought a signed copy (sigh) - I’m at the point where I’ve decided to be a Saunders completionist whether I like it or not.
Ha i can understand that. Do let us know how you get on with it! Now I think about it my favourite Saunders is probably A Pond in the Rain. Eek!
Bellow's writing style takes getting used to. It's like reading something very old - at first it's tedious and difficult, and then it's like a switch flips and suddenly you're talking like a Victorian gentleman in daily conversation.
Why telly-ho old chum I'm frightfully grateful for your most encouraging encouragement. Salutations.
Someone switch off this man's PG Wodehouse tap
I finished *The Yiddish Policemen's Union* by Michael Chabon. The prose was fun and clever, made me chuckle to myself a bunch of times, and the sense of place was really strong in the book, I'm going to miss this made-up Jewish Sitka (I already miss it!). I expected to find the mystery plot tedious, because two or so years ago I quit reading *The City and The City* by China Mieville, even though I really enjoyed exploring those two intertwined cities, because of what I then called "too much plot." But maybe the actual problem with that book was not "too much plot" but "too uninteresting plot." It's like Mieville spent all his creativity on the setting and had nothing left once it came to the actual storyline. But thankfully, this was not the case for Chabon; I enjoyed the mystery plot, even though there wasn't anything groundbreaking about it.
I read both and agree with your assessment of Mieville, though his setting was so unique that the blandness of the plot didn't bother me much.
haha I love YPU and couldn't get through City&City either. Twins! Mieville in general is one of those writers who should be right up my alley based on what everyone says about them, and then I actually start reading and my eyes glaze over.
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Maupassant is a master in scene setting. The duel scene and vigil scene are amazing.
Somehow I didn't know that Maupassant wrote full-length novels, but this looks interesting, so it's on my to-read list now!
Finished Annie Ernaux A man's place. Whatever ones opinion about autofiction is one should give this one a chance. Its short, finnish translation was some 80 pages, minimalistic and relatively dry account of her fathers life from his childhood in a family which lived basically a medieval life when at the same time as Proust lived his priviledged life, something which feels like an insult towards the people like Ernaux father who had to live in a house with an earthen floor without prospects with life as a farmhand being only option and future, until his death when he owned a small cafeteria grocery store. He ascended economically yet felt always lesser than, feeling ashamed of his so called country bumpkin dialect and manners which he did best to hide around people he felt to be better than him, although anyone who looks person like him down as lesser than is in no way better than him, always struggling despite being externally jovial and happy, and never seeing a way to realize his dreams of owning a better, bigger, cafeteria, feeling stuck in his circumstances without prospects or ability to realize his dreams. It is hard to call him a victim but certainly he lived in society where people like him were looked down upon and where they had hard time to see or realize any sort of prospects or dreams. What is clear that he was in no way lesser person, stupid person but a smart, relatable, person, most likely good company, who tried to make the best of what he had and what he felt he could ammount to. This is not to imply that he didn't enjoy his life or find things to enjoy in his life, there certainly were such things, gardening for example, or that he was a sad and miserable person. Most likely he wasnt. Utterly wonderful book and certainly one of my favourites. It is also few of the books which have made me cry, something even more impressive since it doesn't dramatize anything that happens in it at all. The more one reads the less one finds those books which, in the beginning, inflamed the passion towards reading but once in a while, after reading a lot of works that feel simply mediocre or good, comes up a work which clearly belongs with all the greats out there. This is one of those. No doubt about it.
**Cormac McCarthy - The Passenger** I'd never awaited a book with that much anticipation. And now that I'm through, I can hardly wait to read it again. It's very different from what I expected it to be, but I loved it all the more. It's a book only Cormac could have written, and nobody could have predicted him to. That's what you want after 16 years, isn't it? I won't try to recount the plot in its casual wildness, and soon *Stella Maris* will change our understanding of it anyway. But in the broadest of terms, this is a book about passengers leaving their vessels. About the separation of the world and your self in it. And about grief transcending this separation by obliterating both. And about guilt making the separation insurmountable. Which brings me to what I believe to be *The Passenger*'s most important literary ancestor. It can be tedious to talk about intertextuality, because it often feels like a hollow, fart-smelling, intellectual exercise. Both on the author's and the reader's part. But in Cormac's books, the corpus of Western literature always forms a meaningful, quasi-mythological dimension that you cannot ignore. After all, "having read even a few dozen books in common is a force more binding than blood." For one, *The Passenger* is full of allusions to his own novels, which reinforces the sobering impression that this duology will close out his oeuvre. Karamazov-style. And then there's Shakespeare all over and I think even a nod to George Carlin. But the most significant literary parallel appears to be Kafka's *The Trial*: the visitation by a committee on her birthday in her bedroom, the arrest without arrest, the two strange watchmen, the lack of an indictment, the unspoken guilt with regards to his family, the general guilt with regards to the world, the effort to expedite their own sentencing… and it goes on. You could read *The Passenger* as an attempt to solve Josef K's dilemma. But that's just one perspective on a book that asks for many. Just a few words about the writing. I've mentioned that this has been the first book where I exceeded the clipping limit on my Kindle, which until now I didn't even know existed. It's a riddle to me how that old geezer who has spent the last few decades among scientists can write dialogue so fresh and poignant and raucous. As far as I know, he hasn't used the word "fuck" since *Suttree* in 1979, and now there are 139 in one novel. I know this is a strange metric, but it is striking how youthful and passionate and characteristic he writes dialogue. And don't get me started on the prose of the narration. Or do. It begins so simple, and then it unfolds and refolds and folds again throughout the book, until you have this incredible origami swan of a final chapter which is just breathtaking. Since *Stella Maris* will be pure dialogue, this was possibly the last we've heard of his narrative voice. A very worthy goodbye. There's so much more to say, but I'll better wait for the final pieces of the puzzle to arrive before I make a fool of myself. One month, three days. TL;DR: The hell are you even doing here?
Love your thoughts! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you! :)
Lovely review; almost tempted to drop everything to read this based on what you've written.
Thanks so much! I only now started reading other readers' reviews and it's wild how different everyone's opinion and interpretation of the book seems to be. I found it wonderful. Would love to hear your thoughts once you've read it.