The Book Discussion Thread

[Benny Profane]

For Barthelme, I'm very, very fond of the collection 40 stories published on Penguin. It's some sort of compilation of his various books. Again, he rocks my mind in each of these short pieces. Just when you think things couldn't get more creative, he twists the perspective of the world even more. His novels Snow White and The Dead Father, as well as his nonfiction stuff, are also well-worth seeking out. Both are inspiring writers to me, following the footsteps of the tradition-based ideal of TS Eliot, yet unafraid of really messing up the whole literary game.

Might I add, you should also get ahold of the works of John Hawkes, Richard Brautigan, Stanley Elkin and Robert Coover.


Thank you, kind sir. I didn't see this before my trip to the bookstore so I bought Sixty Stories by Barthelme. The first three are really good so far, and I definitely see what you're saying about creativity and awesomeness. Very imaginative writer. Thanks for all the recs.

Finished Brazil by Updike yesterday. The man just has a way of describing things that are so perfect and yet so unique. I would highly recommend this one.

[lovejuice]

The Simple Art of Murder
some of the stories, i like very much. though i think the introductory essay is a crok of shit, but worth reading nonetheless since it features prominently in the genre debate across the atlantic.

[Sycophant]

I tore through about a quarter of Ryu Murakami's In the Miso Soup yesterday. After reading so much Twilight, it's good to be reminded that the first-person narrative perspective can, in fact, be well done.

[Spaceman Spiff]

some of the stories, i like very much. though i think the introductory essay is a crok of shit, but worth reading nonetheless since it features prominently in the genre debate across the atlantic.

Any class stories to recommend? I just finished Spanish Blood, and it was merely okay.

[lovejuice]

Any class stories to recommend? I just finished Spanish Blood, and it was merely okay.
i remember it's getting better later on. and there is one story which's really good because the tone is different from the rest.

[EvilShoe]

Loved A Scanner Darkly. Final 20 pages or so was Dick at his best. Really gripping, emotional stuff there. Makes sense, as it's a personal work.

[D_Davis]

Loved A Scanner Darkly. Final 20 pages or so was Dick at his best. Really gripping, emotional stuff there. Makes sense, as it's a personal work.

Yeah - the final part is really some of Dick's finest writing. He wasn't often a great writer (more of a great ideas man), but there are parts of ASD where the prose shines.

[Mara]

Help please?

I was talking to a teenage relative over the holidays and he told me about a short story he read in school that he really enjoyed and wanted me to check out. But he couldn't remember the name.

The plot was about a man with a halo, and the wife was really embarassed about it and kept trying to hide it, and finally got rid of it by tricking him into sinning, or something.

I figured I'd google it, and do you know what I found? TEN THOUSAND FAN FICTIONS ABOUT A VIDEO GAME.

I don't suppose the story sounds familiar to anyone?

[Kurosawa Fan]

Help please?


Sorry Mara. I'm no help.

Finished Ender's Game last night. Some of it was really creepily written. And not in a good way. Like Peter and Valentine discussing her period, or how many pubic hairs they had. Seemed completely unnecessary. Still, the story was solid, and it had a heck of an ending. But even if I didn't know that the sequels were terrible, I wouldn't feel compelled to see where the story goes from here.

Moving on to The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter.

[Mara]

In rereads, I have completely skipped the Peter and Valentine plots. I can't even pretend to be interested.

[Kurosawa Fan]

In rereads, I have completely skipped the Peter and Valentine plots. I can't even pretend to be interested.

I don't blame you. Dull, and like I said, certain segments were just downright creepy.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Finished The Financial Lives of the Poets in a day. It's a brisk read, and is a very good book. Story chugs along and kept me intrigued. It was especially poignant due to a few parallels between myself and Matthew. Lacked a bit of the depth and complexity of The Zero, but I consider The Zero one of the best books I've ever read, so it's hard to keep up that level of quality. Still, Walter continues to impress me. I need to seek out more of his work. No excuse not to at this point.

Not sure what I'll read next. I guess I'll see what I'm in the mood for in the morning.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I've decided to read two books at once again. I'm going to slowly make my way through The Book of Basketball, which is something I can pick up and read an essay or two and then read something else.

I'll also be reading Escape From the Deep by Alex Kershaw.

[D_Davis]

Started Calvino's Invisible Cities this morning. Very nice. It must have been a big influence on Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams, as I am getting a similar vibe.

[Ezee E]

Picked up The Old Man and the Sea and a book about Salvador Dali at the library today.

[ledfloyd]

i'm loving 2666, even though i'm 200 pages in and still not sure what it's all about.

[thefourthwall]

Started Calvino's Invisible Cities this morning. Very nice. It must have been a big influence on Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams, as I am getting a similar vibe.

That's a neat connection--I've read both of those but hadn't thought of it. And this reminds me, I should see what Lightman's up to. I think I'd read his only two books a while ago, but surely he's put out more since.

[D_Davis]

That's a neat connection--I've read both of those but hadn't thought of it. And this reminds me, I should see what Lightman's up to. I think I'd read his only two books a while ago, but surely he's put out more since.

I'm pretty sure Lightman puts out a book about every 2 year, or so. I picked up Ghost, a more recent one, last year, but haven't read it yet. I read Einstein's Dreams once a year - love that book. I'm really digging Invisible Cities, as well. I enjoy being able to pick it up for a few moments and read a vignette or two.

Also, if you like these both might I suggest Nocturnes, by Kazuo Ishiguro. While not totally similar, I did pick up on a similar vibe, and the stories were all very poetic and beautiful.

[Benny Profane]

i'm loving 2666, even though i'm 200 pages in and still not sure what it's all about.

The five stories are very loosely connected, so don't expect it all to tie together at the end. That's not what it's all about. Just roll with it.

[ledfloyd]

The five stories are very loosely connected, so don't expect it all to tie together at the end. That's not what it's all about. Just roll with it.
word, i saw the last part was called 'the part about archimboldi' and thought it might tie together. i'm fine with it not though. i'm loving it either way.

[ThePlashyBubbler]

Made a resolution to up my reading this year, and arbitrarily chose 36 books as a goal. Already made it through two (The Broom of the System and The Crying of Lot 49), though I've only got a few days left of Christmas break. We'll see how I hold up when school starts up again.

[lovejuice]

while i insist that his style fits a short story more than a novel, so far i am enjoying the sun also rises.

[ledfloyd]

In March, 2009, The Guardian newspaper reported that an additional Part 6 of 2666 was among papers found by researchers going through Bolaño's literary estate.

interesting.

[Ezee E]

interesting.
... WHICH COMBINES EVERYTHING.

I figure Archimboldi slaughters all the European teachers while the police do nothing about it, and it gets covered in a newspaper.

[D_Davis]

while i insist that his style fits a short story more than a novel, so far i am enjoying the sun also rises.

I reread this last year, and didn't like it at all. While I love Hemingway's prose, I just can't get into the story here at all. Reminds me of Reality Bites or something: just a bunch of people sitting around and complaining about stuff.

[lovejuice]

I reread this last year, and didn't like it at all. While I love Hemingway's prose, I just can't get into the story here at all. Reminds me of Reality Bites or something: just a bunch of people sitting around and complaining about stuff.
it kinda is, but some of the going-on underwater is compelling. i actually like it more and more as i read on. i used to date a harlot like brett, so i understand the awkwardness those people get caught in.

[Winston*]

Ender's Game was okay.
More than Human was awesome.
Catch-22 was awesomer. So awesome.

Btw in a book written by a homophobe, an alien race called the buggers? Hmm.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Btw in a book written by a homophobe, an alien race called the buggers? Hmm.

And didn't you catch a vibe between Ender and Alai? Lots of touching and closeness there.

[D_Davis]

.
More than Human was awesome.


Good man. Truly one of the best books I've read.

[ledfloyd]

i'm through the first three parts of 2666. loved parts 1 and 3. part 2 feels unfinished, with the stuff about the araucanians and amalfitano's telepathy? madness? never really going anywhere.

[Ezee E]

Didn't like Part 2 AT ALL really.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Well, for the second time this year I finished a book in one day. This time it was Alex Kershaw's Escape From the Deep. After getting about 300 pages into The Book of Basketball, I decided to take a break and start the Kershaw. It's a very quick read, only a bit over 200 pages, and it's one I certainly didn't want to put down (obviously). The story is truly amazing, and Kershaw does a brilliant job fleshing out the people involved and giving them depth and importance. If I have one complaint about the novel, it's that it almost moves too fast. This is my first Kershaw, so I don't know if it's just his style, but everything was very cut and dry. He certainly isn't a wordsmith. Still, it was an enthralling read, one I'd highly recommend to nonfiction fans.

[D_Davis]

This is my first Kershaw, so I don't know if it's just his style, but everything was very cut and dry. He certainly isn't a wordsmith. Still, it was an enthralling read, one I'd highly recommend to nonfiction fans.

Could one make the argument that brevity is a style of wordsmithing? There is something bold and striking about a prose style that is straight to the point.


***


Anyone here read Columbine, by Dave Cullen?

Sounds really good.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Could one make the argument that brevity is a style of wordsmithing? There is something bold and striking about a prose style that is straight to the point.


***


Anyone here read Columbine, by Dave Cullen?

Sounds really good.

You could, but with the Kershaw, it was like everything was in laymen's terms. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it was noticeable.


Haven't read Columbine, but I've heard great things.

[D_Davis]

You could, but with the Kershaw, it was like everything was in laymen's terms. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it was noticeable.

I see. A fine line between brevity as a style, and something being overly simple.

[Winston*]

And didn't you catch a vibe between Ender and Alai? Lots of touching and closeness there.
Yeah. I don't want to make any rash accusations, but Orson Scott Card is definitely a paedophile.

[lovejuice]

stumble upon this website. quite interesting.

http://garydexter.blogspot.com/2009/11/index_04.html

[Ezee E]

Started reading The Old Man and the Sea and was in love with it so much that I had to stop reading so that I could set a time to simply read it without any distractions.

[ledfloyd]

took a break between parts 3 and 4 of 2666 to read the white tiger. i thought it was cool it was dedicated to ramin bahrani but i'm really not digging it.

[Lucky]

I'm about 100 pages through The Unbearable Lightness of Being as I promised lovejuice. I'm really digging it so far. This is going to sound ignorant of me, but I like books with short chapters. It really motivates me to read more per sitting.

[thefourthwall]

THIS! THIS!!!!

Finished reading The End of the Affair, as far as I remember the film, they're fairly similar, and I love the film, so I was excited that all I loved from the film was from the book. I loved the book because it is the most unique tale of redemption I've ever encountered. I'm curious how other people read the ending...

do they see Bendrix as remaining where he is spiritually at the end? Hating God for proving His existence? Or do they think that he's on the beginning of a path to finding, as Sarah did, love to and from God?

The fact that the novel is semi-autobiographical is mind-blowing to me because of how raw and vulnerable the emotions and thoughts shown are. I wonder how much of Greene's own relationship to Catholicism is similar to what the book's novelist encounters.

[Llopin]

took a break between parts 3 and 4 of 2666

Good to see some Bolaño reading. Recently he's rocketed, interest-wise.

I've read almost everything the guy wrote, Distant Star and Savage Detectives being (maybe) my favourites. Also, his short stories and poetry are kick-ass. I'm such a fanboy that I even visited Blanes, the town were he spent most of his later years (from 1980 to his death), and talked to his friends and visited his former writing studio. Keep in mind that 2666 IS an unfinished affair. Bolaño originally planned to release each part separately (for lucrative reasons, it would appear) when finished, which never happened. That would explain the dimension difference between them (the fourth is surprisingly longer than all others) and the constant feeling of randomness. All in all, it's a diamond on the rough.

By the by, they just published The Third Reach here, a lost novel of his originally from 1989.

[Duncan]

2666 was actually going to be my next big read. I've fallen into a tradition of reading a ~900 page book at the beginning of the year.

So far this year I've read:

The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon - I gotta admit, I find a lot of CanLit really boring, but this surprised me. It's told from Aristotle's perspective and is about the 7 years during which he tutored Alexander the Great. Bloody, sexy, and written in a modern, masculine prose. But by a woman. Not spectacular, but it's a good read.

Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme - Read this based on earlier interest in this thread. Loved the first 3/4s. Funny, insightful, way high-brow concerns about phenomenology and Kierkegaard's ideas on irony by way of totally absurd short stories. Really dug it. Later on he adapts this kind of faux simple speak where the idea is, in part, to really deconstruct genres and story structures to their most essential parts while simultaneously critiquing/mocking those structures through said irony. Or something...I dunno. Didn't hold my interest as much as his earlier work. Excellent stuff overall, though.

Runaway by Alice Munro - This is what I'm talking about with the whole CanLit thing. Banal stories. Prosaic prose. It's all very subtle and deliberate, I know, but if each story was any more than ~50 pages, I think I would have just stopped reading. Often it's just 2 hrs of time invested for like 1 sentence of emotional payoff at the end. I get why people like her (but I don't get quotes from the Atlantic on the front of this thing that say she's the writer most likely to be read in 100 years. Sentence to sentence, I think it's hard to argue that she's very interesting. Taken as a whole, OK, I understand the appeal), but this isn't the strain of literature for me.

[Llopin]

2666 was actually going to be my next big read. I've fallen into a tradition of reading a ~900 page book at the beginning of the year.

I would encourage you to read the book, but maybe you should try a less ambitious Bolaño previously. I don't know if the short stories have been translated and published in english, but that's a good starting place.

Oh, and I'm glad you liked Barthelme. He, like Borges, demands for re-readings to be fully appreciated, but on first impression the stories do come up as exciting. That, for me, is what literature is all about. Inventiveness, passion, wit. Much unlike Munro, of whom I tried to read some short stories and was bored out of my ass. Tedious prose for middle-aged wives, I say.

[lovejuice]

2666 was actually going to be my next big read. I've fallen into a tradition of reading a ~900 page book at the beginning of the year.
which remind me to finish my (somewhat) big read, house of leaves. not that i don't enjoy it, but so far, i feel like it's good regardless of the gimmick, not because of. i imagine, the first hundred pages written in a more straight forward manner might have been equally compelling. also while i enjoy the family, truant is plain annoying.

[Duncan]

I would encourage you to read the book, but maybe you should try a less ambitious Bolaño previously. I don't know if the short stories have been translated and published in english, but that's a good starting place.

Oh, and I'm glad you liked Barthelme. He, like Borges, demands for re-readings to be fully appreciated, but on first impression the stories do come up as exciting. That, for me, is what literature is all about. Inventiveness, passion, wit. Much unlike Munro, of whom I tried to read some short stories and was bored out of my ass. Tedious prose for middle-aged wives, I say.

I've jumped into the deep end before with "difficult" authors and never really had a problem. I usually find it more rewarding than working up their most ambitious books. That said, pretty sure I've read one of his short stories in the New Yorker that was published right after he died.

Glad I'm not alone on Munro. Everyone here in Canada seems to adore her.

[Benny Profane]

I didn't find 2666 difficult at all, and liked it exponentially more than The Savage Detectives, the only other Bolano I've read.

[Ezee E]

2666 isn't difficult at all. It's just a long book is all.

[Llopin]

Let me rephrase: it is good to read Bolaño's previous work in order to put the pieces together more accurately. It being his "ultimate" work, I find it more rewarding if one has more experience of his themes and demons (As in, before watching 2046, be sure to watch WKW's previous films, sort of). The novel is, of course, fairly easy to read. Man, Bolaño is sure rippin' it nowadays.

Since I'm around, I'll ask for guidance on two writers I'm interested on reading. Will Self and TC Boyle. Any recs?

[ledfloyd]

I didn't find 2666 difficult at all, and liked it exponentially more than The Savage Detectives, the only other Bolano I've read.
i found the middle section of savage detectives difficult.

[Benny Profane]

i found the middle section of savage detectives difficult.

I didn't find it difficult, just verging on tedious in some parts.

[Benny Profane]

By the way Llopin, my next read will be The Blood Oranges by John Hawkes based on your recommendation.

[Mysterious Dude]

Finally finished Don Quixote. It only took me three months (I read nine shorter books while I was working on it).

I have a feeling Cervantes was just making it up as he went along.

I noticed there were several parts where Don Quixote would give his opinion about something, and the narrator was careful about making it clear that all the characters were amazed at how intelligent he was about the topic in question, when he was so insane about matters of chivalry. It seems to me that Cervantes was using the character to express his own opinions.

This and The Brothers Karamazov are the only books I've read that I would consider to be fairly long. I notice that both books digress occasionally from the main narrative for unrelated short stories. Is this normal?

[Mara]

I'm taking a short breather from Confederacy of Dunces (which I'm reading slowly anyway, because I only listen to it on my commute.) I find it more fascinating than funny, and almost repulsive on a certain level. So I'm taking a break and coming back in a few days.

Meanwhile, I'm reading a book to review for a small magazine that my sister is involved with, and my feelings are deeply mixed. It's called The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance and it's a humorous memoir by a girl named Elna Baker, who I guess has a small reputation as a comedienne and contributer to NPR. The entire book is a sell on how much you like this girl, who is sort of aggressively quirky and (for a Mormon) pretty rebellious, and I'm just not sure if I like her.

And then I turn a page and love her, and think maybe I should look her up and we can be best friends. (Our world is a small world-- cursory research has already turned up two friends of friends who know her personally.)

Anyway, it's unusual for me to be a quarter of the way through a book and not know if I like it or not.

[Melville]

This and The Brothers Karamazov are the only books I've read that I would consider to be fairly long. I notice that both books digress occasionally from the main narrative for unrelated short stories. Is this normal?
What are the digressions in The Brothers Karamazov? I remember it all fitting together.

[Mysterious Dude]

What are the digressions in The Brothers Karamazov? I remember it all fitting together.
There is a long flashback in which the elder Zosima (not a particularly major character) recounts how, in his youth, he got into a duel, then decided to become a monk.

Later, Ivan tells a story about Christ coming back to earth during the Inquisition, and being interrogated.

I guess I shouldn't call them 'unrelated,' but I think they are definitely digressions from the narrative.

[Melville]

There is a long flashback in which the elder Zosima (not a particularly major character) recounts how, in his youth, he got into a duel, then decided to become a monk.

Later, Ivan tells a story about Christ coming back to earth during the Inquisition, and being interrogated.

I guess I shouldn't call them 'unrelated,' but I think they are definitely digressions from the narrative.
Ah, okay, related to character and theme, but digressing from the narrative of the brothers and their father's murder. But as I recall, the majority of the book is comprised of those back-and-forths about faith, ethics, love, publicness, etc. The characters' grappling with these issues, including telling stories within stories about them, seems like the foundation of the narrative, with the story of the father's murder being one of many narrative layers, though certainly a major one, on top of it. I think Ivan's lengthy conversation with Alyosha, including the Grand Inquisitor portion, is the book's core scene. (It's also a really good example of Dostoevsky's use of ironic distance mixed with earnestness, as the narrator, a somewhat ironic fellow himself, narrates a story of Ivan earnestly narrating an ironic story.)

I should read Don Quixote some day. I got about 150 pages into it before abandoning it. While I liked it, I found its episodic nature to be overly repetitive. But I've heard that the second part, with the fake Quixote, is much more interesting.

[dreamdead]

Rereading The Great Gatsby for a literature class. I'm happy to revisit it since I'd initially only loved the latter half. This time, though, themes and critiques about race and masculinity are more fluidly suggesting themselves. I'd forgotten how transparent infidelity in the novel was suggested, and how themes of femininity exist in Gatsby/Nick so that their story is laden with gay undertones, even if it doesn't need to be the dominant reading. Looking forward to finishing it next week.

[thefourthwall]

None of the shorter books in my to-read pile were capturing my interest, so I started Atwood's The Blind Assassin last night, the only book that I was excited about reading at that point, but I'm intimidated by it's length. Hopefully, I can remember all the subplots, characters, and points in the long time (I'm assuming) it's going to take me to get through it.

[Mara]

I'm a big fan of The Blind Assassin. I remember it reading quite quickly.

The plot is quite twisty, though.

[Winston*]

themes of femininity exist in Gatsby/Nick so that their story is laden with gay undertones, even if it doesn't need to be the dominant reading.

Forgetting undertones, isn't Nick outright gay? He sleeps with a man in the book.

[Lucky]

Forgetting undertones, isn't Nick outright gay? He sleeps with a man in the book.

What? It's been about two years since I last read it but I don't remember that at all.

[ledfloyd]

yeah, that didn't happen.

[Mara]

Forgetting undertones, isn't Nick outright gay? He sleeps with a man in the book.

I think you're confusing it with "The Engorged Gatsby", the porn remake.

[Winston*]

Page 25


“Come to lunch some day,” he suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator.

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

“Keep your hands off the lever,” snapped the elevator boy.

“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. McKee with dignity, “I didn’t know I was touching it.”

“All right,” I agreed, “I’ll be glad to.”

. . . I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.



What happens in that ellipsis then?

[Mara]

I'm going to admit that I've never stopped to think about that passage. Excellent memory.

[Mara]

Meanwhile, I'm reading a book to review for a small magazine that my sister is involved with, and my feelings are deeply mixed. It's called The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance and it's a humorous memoir by a girl named Elna Baker, who I guess has a small reputation as a comedienne and contributer to NPR. The entire book is a sell on how much you like this girl, who is sort of aggressively quirky and (for a Mormon) pretty rebellious, and I'm just not sure if I like her.

And then I turn a page and love her, and think maybe I should look her up and we can be best friends. (Our world is a small world-- cursory research has already turned up two friends of friends who know her personally.)

Anyway, it's unusual for me to be a quarter of the way through a book and not know if I like it or not.

I ended up hating this book, and hating the girl who wrote it on a very personal level. It pissed me off so much that I'm considering not writing a review, because given the "small world" she would assuredly read it and it might hurt her feelings.

[lovejuice]

for a long time, i have never been disappointed by any book as when i finished the conformist. partly because i'm a big fan of moravia's collected erotic tales.

his analysis of fascism seems oddly simplistic and off the mark. people choose facism just because they want to become one with the crowd? one can make that argument surely, but not the way he does. the book focuses so much on its central character that it ends up being about why marcello chooses facism and fails to make any general comment on the political phenomena.

i also have some beef with how sexuality is treated here, which really is a shame. the espionage ends up being a farce, and not a particularly interesting one at that. perhaps moravia's style is more befitting a short story.

what do you guys think of the movie?

[Sven]

I ended up hating this book, and hating the girl who wrote it on a very personal level. It pissed me off so much that I'm considering not writing a review, because given the "small world" she would assuredly read it and it might hurt her feelings.

What did you dislike about it?

[Mara]

What did you dislike about it?

I'm working on the review today, as a matter of fact. I'll probably post part of it or some it up once my thoughts are organized.

[Benny Profane]

Forgot to write that I read Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan, which was basically a speculative book about how we would go about living on places other than Earth. I wish I knew it was written in 1994 before I bought it, as probably so much has changed since then, but it was still very interesting. His basic points:

- We are an exploratory species by nature. If we don't eradicate ourselves, we will have to leave Earth eventually.

- When looked at in photos from far away in the solar system, you gain perspective that, as of now, there is no other safe place to travel, and that the Earth is so small and vulnerable, the notion of division by tribes or countries seems ridiculous.

- The universe is 15 billion years old, and so unimaginably vast, that to think it was created solely for humans, when our presence is just a small blip at the end of the time scale, and that a sentient deity who actually cares about what we do here, is also ridiculous. He goes into the evolution of how humans perceive themselves in relation to their position in the universe.

- He goes pretty in depth into what it would take to create a habitable world on Mars.

- The other places most likely to be habitable in the solar system would be a near-Earth asteroid or Titan, a moon of Saturn. Didn't know that.

- The ratio of money spent on military defense to the space program is ridiculous.

[Adam]

isn't that the book where he also talks about establishing an empire strikes back city in the atmosphere of Venus? It's things like that that make me wish I was born in like the year 2400 or some such nonsense. I want to live in a cloud city on Venus

[Benny Profane]

isn't that the book where he also talks about establishing an empire strikes back city in the atmosphere of Venus? It's things like that that make me wish I was born in like the year 2400 or some such nonsense. I want to live in a cloud city on Venus

I don't recall anything about ESB, or any notion of world-building on Venus, but he does talk about Venus quite a bit.

[Winston*]

Halfway through this The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo everyone in the world is reading or has read, is this book sponsored by Apple?

[Kurosawa Fan]

Halfway through this The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo everyone in the world is reading or has read, is this book sponsored by Apple?

Pretty sure it was sponsored by sadomasochism.

[Benny Profane]

Finished The Blood Oranges by Hawkes and am moving on to White Teeth by Zadie Smith.

[Duncan]

Read Colossus by Sylvia Plath. Slim collection of poems. Cold, almost sterile feeling, but with--maybe--a dry sense of humour running beneath them. Some of them, anyway. Others are just depressing as hell.

Finished the first three parts of 2666. Liked them a lot, but I've hit a wall about 100 pages into the 4th part. I feel like I'm watching the first 5 minutes of a Law and Order: SVU episode over and over and over again. I can only read about 10 pages at a time before I just get bored.

Might mix it up with Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibtion from time to time.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Part four was my least favorite part of 2666, but stick with it, because, in my estimation at least, part five is the highlight of the novel.

[Benny Profane]

Part four was my least favorite part of 2666, but stick with it, because, in my estimation at least, part five is the highlight of the novel.


What he said.

EDIT: It also picks up when you meet the German. I do remember those huge blocks of text though. Ugh.

[ledfloyd]

Finished the first three parts of 2666. Liked them a lot, but I've hit a wall about 100 pages into the 4th part. I feel like I'm watching the first 5 minutes of a Law and Order: SVU episode over and over and over again. I can only read about 10 pages at a time before I just get bored.
yes, the stuff about the church defiler was entertaining, but it's getting very tedious. i actually took a break to reread invisible cities. so good.

[Duncan]

Yeah, I liked the church defiler stuff, too. I'm definitely sticking with it (I very rarely give up on a book), but it's going to take me longer to read than I thought it would.

Read the first story/chapter of The Atrocity Exhibition just now and thought it was pretty brilliant. Loved the image of a woman spread out over an entire dystopic city on enormous billboards and how it dealt with our relationship(s) to celebrity.

[D_Davis]

Read the first story/chapter of The Atrocity Exhibition just now and thought it was pretty brilliant. Loved the image of a woman spread out over an entire dystopic city on enormous billboards and how it dealt with our relationship(s) to celebrity.

It's a pretty sweet book. Not my favorite Ballard, but still a totally interesting read. I do love the final two stories, "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan," and "The Assassination of JFK..." Both of those are absolutely brilliant. He was such a creative author. I've never read another author who really understood modern urban society like Ballard did.

I'm going to read The Complete Short Stories this year. Should be great. I've probably read about half of them over the years.

[Ezee E]

Had to hurry up at the library and pick a book. I was thinking Invisible Man but it was gone. 2666 isn't at this location, so that was out.

While in Ellison, I came across Ellroy, and went with White Jazz.

[ledfloyd]

Had to hurry up at the library and pick a book. I was thinking Invisible Man but it was gone. 2666 isn't at this location, so that was out.

While in Ellison, I came across Ellroy, and went with White Jazz.
good choice.

[Sven]

I'm working on the review today, as a matter of fact. I'll probably post part of it or some it up once my thoughts are organized.

Has anything come of this? I'm still curious.

[Hugh_Grant]

Finished The Blood Oranges by Hawkes and am moving on to White Teeth by Zadie Smith.

Ooooo. WT is on my syllabus. Can't wait to hear what you think.

[Mara]

Has anything come of this? I'm still curious.

Oh, no. I got sick again and put off the book review. I can sum up what I've been thinking on it, though.

You can sell a memoir one of two ways. The first is under the supposition that your life is particularly interesting and people would want to know about it. The second is that you are a charming and interesting individual, and so people will want to read your memoir to know more about you.

I think that, recently, the second has become the more common. In the age of the blog, we all love to sell ourselves. So, with a book like this, it's not a question of whether you like her book, it's a question of whether or not you like HER: Elna Baker, the writer.

And for the most part, I didn't. She was occasionally charming, and often hilarious. But she was also spoiled, entitled, vain, shallow, selfish, and manipulative. She admits frankly that she is a liar, and she does lie almost constantly. (Not to us-- the memoir felt very sincere-- but she describes lying to almost everyone else.) And she's a terrible liar, getting herself into wacky situations that she tries to play off as cute, but are irritating because she's being so moronic.

Elna isn't afraid to point the finger at herself. Most of the book is self-deprecating, but it backfires. When self-deprecation works, the author says, 'Oh, I'm a idiot' and we all giggle and say, "Oh, Elna." David Sedaris, for instance, is a master of this. But it doesn't really work for her.

I'm going to give a somewhat long example to prove my point.

There's a portion after Elna has lost a bunch of weight and is feeling very pretty and confident when her parents take her to Turkey for a vacation. (Her parents support her financially through most of the book, and they paid for her weight loss, and later for plastic surgery to tweak what was left.) They get to Turkey and it becomes one o'clock, which is when Elna eats. She has to keep to a very strict diet to maintain her weight. However, with going through customs and everything else, they miss her mealtime, and Elna loses. her. shit. She begins to cry and complain and fuss until her family gets so sick of her that they essentially leave her behind while they go and look for a restaurant. Elna is mad that she's being deserted, so she pretends to faint and falls on the street, where she has to wait until someone notices her.


They'll come running, I imagined. They'll shake me. I'll open my eyes and weakly say, "I don't know what happened. I felt faint and then it all when black...

However, her parents don't come back. Instead she's shaken by what turns out to be an emaciated, disabled Turkish beggar. Elna is startled and reflects on this:


You're hungry because you're on a diet, I thought. She's hungry because she's starving. I considered all the food I'd been giving up. The three spoonfuls of yogurt I dumped down the drain each morning to save on calories. Or the trick I use at restaurants: If you don't want to overindulge, take two-thirds of your meal and cover it in salt.

You're an asshole. I felt genuinely bad, upseat, disappointed with myself.

But, see, at this point, I'm not thinking, "Oh, Elna." I'm thinking, "Yeah, actually, you are an asshole."

She is also obsessed with her own sexuality and appearance. It is of vital importance to her to be validated as a beautiful, sexy woman, and she will make out with anyone to prove it. I'd have a problem with that kind of thinking even if she wasn't Mormon, but the fact that she is just makes it more baffling. She's an unpleasant mixture of crippling self-doubt, hopeless neediness, and total self-absorbtion.

It's too bad, because there are portions of the book that are great. The chapter "Babies Buying Babies," where she works in a toy store, would stand alone as a great personal essay about excess, racism, and consumerism. There's also a chapter where she tries to go to a church dance in a homemade outfit of a fortune cookie, but it gets smooshed on the subway so that it looks like a vagina. THAT is hilarious. I'm giggling just thinking about it.

But, overall, I found it frustrating, episodic, uneven, and off-putting. Not recommended. At all.

[monolith94]

Yeah, I just read a bit of her blog, about her taking her dad's money which is suppossed to go to her health insurance and she uses it to buy shoes... what???

[Winston*]

I told my mother I thought the writer of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was a creep for making his avatar have sex with tattoo girl, she said the writers's not a creep because she came on to him. That was a weird conversation.

[Mara]

I told my mother I thought the writer of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was a creep for making his avatar have sex with tattoo girl, she said the writers's not a creep because she came on to him. That was a weird conversation.

Ow my brain.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Ow my brain.

Mine too.

[ledfloyd]

RIP JD Salinger.

[Mara]

RIP JD Salinger.

Holy crap. Yep, it's on cnn. I'll link it in the Obit thread.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Books are heavy. Moving is making me rethink my stance about the transition to digital and the Kindle taking over.

[Mara]

I'm addicted to the tactile experience of books. I love the way they feel, the way they smell.

It's like those sad last generation of writers who can't compose with the clack of a typewriter.

[ledfloyd]

I'm addicted to the tactile experience of books. I love the way they feel, the way they smell.

It's like those sad last generation of writers who can't compose with the clack of a typewriter.
i feel the same way. i'll be damned if i'm going to read on some electronic gadget. i already have my own portable reading devices thanks.

[Kurosawa Fan]

i feel the same way. i'll be damned if i'm going to read on some electronic gadget. i already have my own portable reading devices thanks.

I feel the same way. Except when I'm moving and packing them into boxes.

[ledfloyd]

I feel the same way. Except when I'm moving and packing them into boxes.
haha, touche.

[Ezee E]

Yeah. The repacking and unloading of books is probably the most annoying of the moving process. They're deceiving.

This is why I've mostly stuck with just getting books from the library now. How cheap are books on the kindle/iPad?

[Kurosawa Fan]

Yeah. The repacking and unloading of books is probably the most annoying of the moving process. They're deceiving.

This is why I've mostly stuck with just getting books from the library now. How cheap are books on the kindle/iPad?

Very rarely are books over $9.99, but some classic authors you can get huge collections for $.99.

[EvilShoe]

I feel the same way. Except when I'm moving and packing them into boxes.
Why don't you just digitalize your kids as well while you're at it. :|

[ledfloyd]

Why don't you just digitalize your kids as well while you're at it. :|
i suppose that would be preferable to packing them in boxes.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Why don't you just digitalize your kids as well while you're at it. :|

I have cages for them.

[Winston*]

People that talk about how great books smell weird me out. Every been in a second hand book shop? They smell like the musty hands of dead people.

[Mara]

People that talk about how great books smell weird me out. Every been in a second hand book shop? They smell like the musty hands of dead people.


Ha! New books smell the best. The paste and binding and the paper. Old books don't smell great, but I don't mind it particularly.

[Grouchy]

People that talk about how great books smell weird me out. Every been in a second hand book shop? They smell like the musty hands of dead people.
Heh, I love that musty, dead smell you describe.

[EvilShoe]

i suppose that would be preferable to packing them in boxes.
I guess you Americans are too sophisticated to box kids.

Reading Gentlemen of the Road. Enjoyable light read. Didn't care for Yiddish Policeman's Union at all, glad I can appreciate this one.

[ledfloyd]

I guess you Americans are too sophisticated to box kids.

Reading Gentlemen of the Road. Enjoyable light read. Didn't care for Yiddish Policeman's Union at all, glad I can appreciate this one.
i prefer Yiddish Policeman's Union. i don't think either one feels like a major work though. you could say this about just about everything he's written since Kavalier and Clay though. i've enjoyed most of his output since then; but, for me at least, it lacks the power of a book like Kavalier and Clay.

[Chac Mool]

I don't know if it's been discussed yet or not, but has there been a better book this decade (or century, for that matter) than Roberto Bolano's 2666? I finished it about a month ago, but I my mind can't help being haunted by little details, scenes, and characters that --almost-- coalesce into a hidden structure or an overarching insight...

[Malickfan]

I don't know if it's been discussed yet or not, but has there been a better book this decade (or century, for that matter) than Roberto Bolano's 2666?

Yes.

[EvilShoe]

i prefer Yiddish Policeman's Union. i don't think either one feels like a major work though. you could say this about just about everything he's written since Kavalier and Clay though. i've enjoyed most of his output since then; but, for me at least, it lacks the power of a book like Kavalier and Clay.
Not a big fan of the crime genre, and this did not end up being one of the few I enjoyed. It's definitely more ambitious than Gentlemen of the Road, though.

Kavalier and Clay is amazing, yes. Hopefully he attempts to write a novel like that again soon.

[Milky Joe]

I don't know if it's been discussed yet or not, but has there been a better book this decade (or century, for that matter) than Roberto Bolano's 2666?

Wouldn't the decade and the century be the same thing at this point?

Anyway, the answer is no, there hasn't been.

[Malickfan]

Bolano just had another new one come out called Monsieur Pain.

[Malickfan]

Oh, and Don Delillo's new one is out now as well, Point Omega.

It's 117 pages only and $24 bucks though.

[ledfloyd]

i'm on the last part of 2666 and i don't think it's the best book this decade. i prefer things like The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Fortress of Solitude, Cloud Atlas, House of Leaves and The Road. it's still very very good. as trying as the beginning of the fourth part was with the relentless recapping of the crimes the climax of that segment might be the high point of the novel so far.

[Duncan]

i'm on the last part of 2666 and i don't think it's the best book this decade. i prefer things like The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Fortress of Solitude, Cloud Atlas, House of Leaves and The Road. it's still very very good. as trying as the beginning of the fourth part was with the relentless recapping of the crimes the climax of that segment might be the high point of the novel so far.

Climax referring to the reveal of who the private detective is?

[ledfloyd]

Climax referring to the reveal of who the private detective is?
there's that. but just the way he wove together the congresswoman's story with the other two or three plotlines made it feel compulsively readable when, as you said, getting through the first half of that section was a bit onerous.

and also, you find out what's behind alot of the murders.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I don't know if it's been discussed yet or not, but has there been a better book this decade (or century, for that matter) than Roberto Bolano's 2666? I finished it about a month ago, but I my mind can't help being haunted by little details, scenes, and characters that --almost-- coalesce into a hidden structure or an overarching insight...

It's up there, that's for sure. Not sure I'd rate it above The Zero.

[Llopin]

Speaking of Bolaño, his missing novel El Tercer Reich, written around 1989, was released here today. For what I've read, it seems particularly similar in thematics and style to La pista de hielo (The ice rink?). Looking foward to reading it.

Stuff I've read recently:
The Living End by S. Elkin
The End of the Road by John Barth
The collected stories of T.C. Boyle (still on it)
Michael Kohlhaas by Kleist
Lenz by Buchner

[EvilShoe]

Climax referring to the reveal of who the private detective is?
Kinda blanking on this. Could you refresh my memory?

[Duncan]

Kinda blanking on this. Could you refresh my memory?

It's never made explicit, but it's implied that it's Juan de Dios Martinez a few years down the road. According to the politician's long monologue, the private detective she hired to find her friend quit the police force (or had been fired, but again it's implied that he quit after burning out or just being disgusted by the whole system) and living in this apartment that is filled with a bunch of the objects that are mentioned earlier, during his courtship with the older psychiatrist. It's also mentioned that he has a portrait of an older woman in a gold frame. Then he goes to Seattle and dies of cancer.

[Duncan]

Read The Atrocity Exhibition by JG Ballard. Really liked it, though I thought it became a bit redundant by the end. He seems to be exploring many of the same themes over and over again, but from new and creative angles, so that keeps it interesting. It accumulates to a pretty disturbing picture of the future or this guy's mind or wherever. Seems like the only things that exist are pictures of Elizabeth Taylor and car crashes. Everything else is almost super-dystopic, like not only is it a desolate world, but may have been nullified completely.

Also read Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. It was light and easy. Often funny, often kind of sad. I wouldn't want to be in this guy's family. It's kind of creepy knowing about a stranger's sister-in-law's c-section. I also found a bunch of the jokes just kind of mean. Like joking about the premature sister of this childhood bully who died after a few days with the living. I get that he's probably never seen this bully in 30 years or something, but it's still weird to be making jokes like that in a book that is going to be read by a best seller's audience. I guess it was a decent enough time killer.

[D_Davis]

Read The Atrocity Exhibition by JG Ballard. Really liked it, though I thought it became a bit redundant by the end. He seems to be exploring many of the same themes over and over again, but from new and creative angles, so that keeps it interesting. It accumulates to a pretty disturbing picture of the future or this guy's mind or wherever. Seems like the only things that exist are pictures of Elizabeth Taylor and car crashes. Everything else is almost super-dystopic, like not only is it a desolate world, but may have been nullified completely.
.

Ballard's fascination with cars and their representation of sex and America is fascinating.

What did you think of those final few stories?

[lovejuice]

Also read Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim...I also found a bunch of the jokes just kind of mean. Like joking about the premature sister of this childhood bully who died after a few days with the living.
i think, a lot of stuffs that he wrote are made up. that one sounds read though.

[Mara]

Sedaris admits to stretching the truth for comic effect.

By that way, that's not his best work. I would rank him thusly:

1. Naked
2. Me Talk Pretty One Day
3. When You Are Engulfed in Flames
4. Dress Your Family in Cordoroy and Denim
5. Holidays on Ice

I never actually finished Barrel Fever. Lost interest.

[Duncan]

Ballard's fascination with cars and their representation of sex and America is fascinating.

What did you think of those final few stories?

Both "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan" and "The Assassination of JFK Considered as a Downhill Motor Race" were among the best in the book. Ballard adds little annotations at the end of each story in my edition. He says that "Why I Want..." was distributed as a scientific paper with the Republican seal on it at the Republican National Convention and people read it as a straight-faced analysis of what made Reagan a great presidential candidate. "The Assassination..." was probably the most bizarre take on the event I've ever read. But both stories seemed to be pretty much saying what the whole book was saying, the fetishizing of content and image until it splinters away from any relation to actual reality and is stripped of its underlying meaning, the merging of body with car, and, in this case, the life cycle with its movements through a race course. The last two stories (the appendices) were disturbing if only because I didn't know all the stuff they do to a body during plastic surgery.

[Duncan]

Yeah, I could tell Sedaris was making stuff up. Some events from his childhood were told in way too much detail to maintain verisimilitude. No one remembers the pattern of a stranger's blouse who you never even met but stood in line behind once at the dry cleaners when you were like 7.

[D_Davis]

Both "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan" and "The Assassination of JFK Considered as a Downhill Motor Race" were among the best in the book. Ballard adds little annotations at the end of each story in my edition. He says that "Why I Want..." was distributed as a scientific paper with the Republican seal on it at the Republican National Convention and people read it as a straight-faced analysis of what made Reagan a great presidential candidate. "The Assassination..." was probably the most bizarre take on the event I've ever read. But both stories seemed to be pretty much saying what the whole book was saying, the fetishizing of content and image until it splinters away from any relation to actual reality and is stripped of its underlying meaning, the merging of body with car, and, in this case, the life cycle with its movements through a race course. The last two stories (the appendices) were disturbing if only because I didn't know all the stuff they do to a body during plastic surgery.

I agree completely - I think those final few stories really get to the heart of the theme of Ballard's overall body of work. I guess you could say they are a reduction of the Ballardian philosophy and principles.

[D_Davis]

Yeah, I could tell Sedaris was making stuff up. Some events from his childhood were told in way too much detail to maintain verisimilitude. No one remembers the pattern of a stranger's blouse who you never even met but stood in line behind once at the dry cleaners when you were like 7.

This is what bugs about these modern day memoirs. There are full pages of detailed dialog in books like A Heartbreaking Work..., and Running With Scissors, that the authors claim to remember from their child hoods, along with little ironic details that are there only to show the legacy of their hip personas. I don't like these kinds of memoirs. I love reading memoirs written by people who have led truly remarkable lives.

[Mara]

Agreed, but to make a distinction, Sedaris is a humorist, not a memoirist. He's just using his own life stories in an amusing way.

To make a (huge) exception to the epic-life rule, though, one of my favorite memoirs-- if not one of my favorite books of all time-- is Annie Dillard's An American Childhood. But I make that exception because she's a beautiful writer.

[D_Davis]

Annie Dillard led an exceptional life, and she was a remarkable artist.

[ledfloyd]

finished 2666, began lethem's chronic city.

the fifth part of 2666 really is spellbinding. the diversions he goes on regarding entrescu and popescu, the sammer guy, and ansky are perhaps more exciting than the story about archimboldi. and the way it all ties together in the end is something else. i almost feel a desire to reread the entire thing immediately.

[D_Davis]

Maybe I'm just biased.

:D

[Kurosawa Fan]

Agreed, but to make a distinction, Sedaris is a humorist, not a memoirist. He's just using his own life stories in an amusing way.

Exactly. Sedaris should not be put in the same category as Burrows and Eggers. Their goals are completely different.

[ThePlashyBubbler]

Plowed through James Baldwin's Go Tell It On the Mountain yesterday morning before the Super Bowl. I was really impressed with the way it so casually transformed a rather small-scale story focus, with only three or four central characters, into something that felt so resonant and all-encompassing. Really captured many of the draws and contradictions of religion as well, without completely endorsing or reprimanding those who believe. Great stuff.

[Benny Profane]

White Teeth was a string of vain attempts at drama and profundity, seen mainly through the lens of religion versus science, and immigrants living in London. It starts out OK but quickly deteriorates. Characters are shoe-horned into the obvious themes and have little room to breathe. They are either fanatical assholes or passive morons. Attempts at humor fall well short. The ending was very abrupt and somewhat ridiculous. Honestly, avoid this one.

[lovejuice]

White Teeth...Characters are shoe-horned into the obvious themes and have little room to breathe. They are either fanatical assholes or passive morons.
this is why i grew tired of post-post-colonial literature (for a lack of a better word). i have eyed the novel for some time, but been afraid it would be like the god of small things and some second-rated morrison's. your description makes it sound exactly so.

[kuehnepips]

White Teeth .... Honestly, avoid this one.

Told you so.

[Duncan]

Hate asking questions like this, but regarding the ending of 2666, did I miss something? Or was that ice cream thing really just a wtf moment? Or I guess it's more than that, but did it tie back into the earlier stuff somehow?

[ledfloyd]

Hate asking questions like this, but regarding the ending of 2666, did I miss something? Or was that ice cream thing really just a wtf moment? Or I guess it's more than that, but did it tie back into the earlier stuff somehow?
i don't think it tied into anything. unless it's supposed to metaphorically.

[Benny Profane]

I totally don't remember that.

[Hugh_Grant]

:(

White Teeth is one of my all-time favorites. In fact, it's on my syllabus, and I can't wait to teach it. I seriously hope my students like it better than you.

[Duncan]

i don't think it tied into anything. unless it's supposed to metaphorically.

All I could think of was that it might have been the same guy who wrote the seaweed book, but I flipped back looking for his name and couldn't find it anywhere. I guess I can read my own reasons into ending a 900 page book like that, but it still seemed a little peculiar.

Anyway, overall I'd say it was a pretty great book, but moment to moment I'm highly ambivalent. I think part two was actually my favourite.

[ledfloyd]

All I could think of was that it might have been the same guy who wrote the seaweed book, but I flipped back looking for his name and couldn't find it anywhere. I guess I can read my own reasons into ending a 900 page book like that, but it still seemed a little peculiar.

Anyway, overall I'd say it was a pretty great book, but moment to moment I'm highly ambivalent. I think part two was actually my favourite.
strange, i found that to be the weakest. the bookends of part 1 & 5 were definitely the highlights for me.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Just bought tickets to see David Sedaris in April. Fourth row. Can't freakin wait.

[Duncan]

strange, i found that to be the weakest. the bookends of part 1 & 5 were definitely the highlights for me.
I loved the image of the geometry book hung out for years on a clothesline, and I loved that dream about Boris Yeltsin and the giant crater and the tigers and whatnot. That's basically the reason I read books. I also loved that it was more low-key, kind of sad and lost, with the wife off writing him letters from typewriters in the offices she cleans at night. I really dug its sort of absurd, melancholic tone. Not that it matters, but I'd go 2>5>1>3>4.

Also read Beckett's Malone Dies. Kind of similar to Molloy, but I didn't like it as much. I guess he's taking the style to a more terminal point, but it felt a little tiresome at times. Malone lying in bed, Malone trying to reach his dropped pencil, Malone trying to move pots around on the floor, Malone literally waiting for the sun to rise...so that he can see where he's moving his pots. I don't know. I loved Molloy, so maybe I just read this one wrong.

[ledfloyd]

yeah, i liked those images. it just seemed like the most fragmentary of the chapters to me. it seemed like it ended right when it was developing into something.

i need to read some of beckett's novels. i've only read his plays, but i enjoyed them.

[Ezee E]

I don't know about you guys, but it seems like I can predict if I'll like a book within the first chapter or not. It hasn't really failed me once.

With that, I'm going to probably love Invisible Man if that remains the case.

[ledfloyd]

I don't know about you guys, but it seems like I can predict if I'll like a book within the first chapter or not. It hasn't really failed me once.

With that, I'm going to probably love Invisible Man if that remains the case.
the opening of that book is fantastic.

i'm almost done rereading breakfast of champions. i know kurt considered it one of his lesser works but it's probably my favorite. i don't know, i need to read some others, namely cat's cradle.

about to dive into some saul bellow. i got herzog and the rain king one from the library today.

[Melville]

In A Portrait of the Artist, Joyce (or the stand-in for his youth, at least) says that art should invoke a stillness in one's being. I just read Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus, and it reminded me of that. It's occasionally almost Emersonian in its description of nature and sensuous life, but far more serene, gentle, inclusive. Its effect is cumulative, rather than based on the power of individual verses, but I'll toss up a quote anyway:

...A few notes of music, a tapping, a faint
hum—: you girls, so warm and so silent,
dance the taste of the fruit you have known!

Dance the orange. Who can forget it,
drowning in itself, how it struggles through
against its own sweetness. You have possessed it.
Deliciously it has converted to you.

[Duncan]

Read Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard because I kept seeing his name mentioned by writers I admire, or in articles about writers I admire. The "plot" is about a student visiting his father for his weekend in the Austrian countryside. The father is a doctor and they go on his rounds together, visiting all these grotesque specimens of humanity. It's a very pessimistic book about a fundamental sickness in people and the world. The last place they go is a castle where a prince launches into a 100 page monologue. Maybe it's because Bernhard is compared to Beckett on the jacket, or because I just read a book by Beckett, but this monologue was so, so similar to something by him. Meandering, focused on language, philosophical, humanity stripped down to the essentials. It was very good. Kind of surreal and disturbing. I'd definitely recommend it and will probably pick up something else by him.

[Melville]

Reading some more poetry:

- a different translation of Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil than I'd read previously. Still Romantic, bilious, and lacerating.

From "Parisian Landscape":
How sweet to see the first star in the sky,
the first lamp at the window through the mist,
the coalsmoke streaming upward, and the moon
shedding a pale enchantment on it all!
From there I'll watch the easy seasons pass
and when the tedious winter snows me in,
I'll close my shutters, draw the curtains snug,
and build my Spanish castles in the dark,
dreaming of alluring distances,
of sobbing fountains and of birds that sing
endless obbligatos to my trysts—
of everything in Idylls that's inane!

From "Against Her Levity":
to castigate your body's joy,
to bruise your envied breasts,
and in your unsuspecting side
to gash a gaping wound

where in final ecstasy
between those lovelier
new lips, my sister, I'll inject
my venom into you!


- also, E.E. Cummings' 100 Selected Poems, most of which I hadn't read before. He sure did have a way with words, though it sometimes melts down into a confusing mush.

—to have tasted Beautiful to have known
Only to have smelled Happens—skip dance kids hop point at
red blue yellow violet white orange green-
ness

o what a proud dreamhorse moving(whose feet
almost walk air). now who stops. Smiles.he
stamps

EDIT: I can't get the spacing in Cummings' poem to work. Bah.

[Mysterious Dude]

S.E. Hinton wrote The Outsiders when she was only sixteen. Reading the book, that fact is quite apparent. It is a very immature work. Themes are bluntly stated numerous times ("Greasers are people, too!" "But Soc's and greasers really aren't all that different!") and the story is often melodramatic and contrived. I think someone bursts into tears about every other chapter ("Greasers have emotions!") and the book really lost me when they had to save a bunch of children from a burning building.

[ledfloyd]

huh, i didn't realize she was that young. i haven't read it since i had to in 8th grade. i remember thinking it was ok.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Finished The Poisonwood Bible. It was a good book, but disappointing. It had a chance for greatness. The story was truly special, well thought out and realized. Kingsolver has a great handle on her prose. The one flaw, and it was a big one, is that she too often takes the easy way out by making certain deplorable characters too cartoonish. There are two in particular in the Price family that are given no depth, and it really hurts the effectiveness of the story. Nathan, the father, is so villainous, so black and white, it hurts any indictment of Christianity and/or organized religion. If she was writing him as an allegory, and that's her explanation for the exaggeration and absurdity, it just didn't work well enough.

[dreamdead]

Despite the laboriousness of the prose, Henry James's Daisy Miller actually ended up being really interesting. It's best when overtly analyzing the dynamics between European prestige and the culture's willingness to look down on the alien American culture, one that is especially unclear about how burgeoning femininity is meant to adhere to the rigid constraints on society. I like that James portrays Daisy as so masculine and unassuming, and though it's pretty much the prototype for the seduction plot stereotype, it's still a wonderfully plotted narrative.

[Benny Profane]

I finished The Idiot by Dostoevsky. Reading this book, you would definitely think that all Russians were either mad or delirious, as pretty much every character is on the verge of some sort of breakdown. I definitely enjoyed it a lot, but felt like it didn't offer the same deep, psychological insight that his other works that I've read do (C&P, TBK, Notes). There is a chapter though when he is expounding on two types of ordinary people, the ones who don't know they're ordinary and the ones who are full of doubt, that definitely made the book for me.

The ending with Prince Myshkin falling apart when he's being introdued into society by the Epanchin family with all the anti-Catholic and "democratic" drivel he starts spewing didn't seem set up too well. I guess I didn't buy that scene at all, it was kind of outta nowhere. I heard beforehand that the ending (in Rogozhin's house) was really haunting but it didn't have that great of an impact on me. I don't want to sound negative though, because I really thought it was a great book, just not as great as the other stuff of his I've read, but that's like criticizing Rubber Soul for not being as great as Revolver.



Now reading Red Harvest, my first from Dashiell Hammett. Anyone read him? Never see him talked about here.

[lovejuice]

Now reading Red Harvest, my first from Dashiell Hammett. Anyone read him? Never see him talked about here.
davis probably is well versed in him. i read the maltese falcon, which is not exactly my cup of tea, as far as a detective novel goes. still it's a solid example of its own sub-genre and makes me crave for the thin man.

from what i have read, i'll say: hammett > chander.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Now reading Red Harvest, my first from Dashiell Hammett. Anyone read him? Never see him talked about here.

I own this one, as well as Maltese Falcon, but Falcon is the only one I've read thus far. I thought it was pretty great. Just a fun, breezy read. Nothing too substantial.

[D_Davis]

Now reading Red Harvest, my first from Dashiell Hammett. Anyone read him? Never see him talked about here.

Absolutely love the prose, but I couldn't get into the narrative at all - even through it was the basis for a number of killer films that I like. I like a lot of the Continental Op stories form Hammett, but I prefer The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man. It is great to read Hammett, though, and discover all of the things he did that influenced a ton of other books, authors, and movies. He was a brilliant writer.

[D_Davis]

from what i have read, i'll say: hammett > chander.

I prefer Chandler, but only slightly.

[Benny Profane]

Absolutely love the prose, but I couldn't get into the narrative at all - even through it was the basis for a number of killer films that I like. I like a lot of the Continental Op stories form Hammett, but I prefer The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man. It is great to read Hammett, though, and discover all of the things he did that influenced a ton of other books, authors, and movies. He was a brilliant writer.

Thanks. I'm glad I haven't seen any of the movies his books are based on. If RH goes well I'll definitely read the others.

[Melville]

Just read Romeo & Juliet for the first time. I didn't much care for it. The characters seemed ciphers; the love story, undeveloped. The fact that Romeo was madly in love with a different girl mere moments before swooning over Juliet kind of makes the romance unbelievable and weightless. However, I think there was a lot of interesting thematic stuff related to how love interacts with society.

It seems to me that the play divides society into three broad groups: the titular individuals, the lovers; the everyday society of the two feuding families; and the kind of abstract remainder, all the other people in the city, with its social superstructure of church and state, represented by the friar and the prince. The lovers and the families share the same destructive tendency toward rashness and ill-temperance, and in that sense, the lovers’ actions are in line with their social milieu. The social superstructure condemns their rashness, but lets it slide (as the prince says in the end, he winkingly let the feud continue).

But outside of this broad similarity, Shakespeare explicitly stands the lovers in contradistinction to the families. Most obviously, the lovers bridge the divide created by the feud. Romantic love takes one outside of everyday social structures, by singling out a single Other, orienting one's being toward that Other, and pushing society to the background. And in so doing, it allows the lovers to bypass their families' feud. But it doesn't just unite the lovers outside of society in the neverland of romance: When the romance is working, it serves to pacify. At least two characters note that Romeo's love "feminizes" him, in the sense that it pacifies him. In this pacified state of love, Romeo is brought out of the limiting confines of the feuding families and into the broader order of the community. When a member of the enemy family demands to fight him, he at first refuses; partly, he does so because he's all aswoon with love and has no interest in operating within a ridiculous feud, but he also cites the prince's condemnation of the feud—that is, he is operating in the larger collective structure, rather than in the insular, destructive structure of the families. Furthermore, the social superstructure actively attempts to lift the lovers out of the confines of their families, as the friar explicitly aids them in getting married and in escaping. So love is explicitly categorized as an overcoming of everyday social barriers and a movement toward larger collectivity. That's essentially stated right in the prologue, but I thought I would add some words to it.

As I mentioned, this effect of love is due to a kind of pacification—or feminization. And in some sense, the bloody-minded feud, the arrogant division between the two social groups, and the controlling nature of Juliet's father can all be read as faults of excess masculinity; the lovers' love, which ultimately ends the feud, is a feminine subversion of that patriarchal order. Maybe it's also worth noting the historical role of marriage in overcoming provincialism, uniting tribes, etc. All of this reminds me of the early view of sex, presented in The Epic of Gilgamesh, as a pacifying, socializing force rather than something unruly and outside of proper society. In a more complicated existential setting, it also reminds me of the picture of love in It’s a Wonderful Life.

Yet this effect of love occurs only when the romance is working. Once it all goes to pot, the love itself becomes destructive, because it is no longer pacifying but frenzying. When going to Juliet's tomb, Romeo no longer says that he is feminized: instead, he says that he is made wild. Love brought the lovers outside the realm of their everyday social bonds, but that process is unstable. Given the right set of circumstances, it can move them into the broader collective, acting as individuals on a larger stage, rather than as mere representatives of family, confined by upbringing and inborn social bonds. But given a slightly different set of circumstances, the removal of the social bonds leads to wildness, frenzy, violence heedless of any norms. And thence, everybody ends up dead.

I don’t think Shakespeare is presenting this as a universal structure, nor am I sure of how clear cut it is. And perhaps I’m trying too hard to match the play with Kierkegaard’s dual analyses of love in Either/Or. But it’s interesting nonetheless. The other aspect of the play that I found interesting was the degree of internal commentary, with various characters commenting on the nature of Romeo & Juliet’s love; e.g., the friar early on says that Romeo loves "by rote", just falling madly for one girl after the next. There’s some nice interplay between this and the structure I described above.



Now reading Kosinski's The Painted Bird. Quite the exhibition of atrocities.

[Duncan]

I finished The Idiot by Dostoevsky. Reading this book, you would definitely think that all Russians were either mad or delirious, as pretty much every character is on the verge of some sort of breakdown. I definitely enjoyed it a lot, but felt like it didn't offer the same deep, psychological insight that his other works that I've read do (C&P, TBK, Notes). There is a chapter though when he is expounding on two types of ordinary people, the ones who don't know they're ordinary and the ones who are full of doubt, that definitely made the book for me.

The ending with Prince Myshkin falling apart when he's being introdued into society by the Epanchin family with all the anti-Catholic and "democratic" drivel he starts spewing didn't seem set up too well. I guess I didn't buy that scene at all, it was kind of outta nowhere. I heard beforehand that the ending (in Rogozhin's house) was really haunting but it didn't have that great of an impact on me. I don't want to sound negative though, because I really thought it was a great book, just not as great as the other stuff of his I've read, but that's like criticizing Rubber Soul for not being as great as Revolver.
Sounds about right.

[Benny Profane]

Finished Red Harvest. Nothing special, but a fun read.

Moving on to heavier things. The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

[D_Davis]

[quote=Benny Profane;245322]Finished Red Harvest. Nothing special.../quote]

Except for some of the best, most stylish prose ever written.

[Benny Profane]

[quote=Benny Profane;245322]Finished Red Harvest. Nothing special.../quote]

Except for some of the best, most stylish prose ever written.


Stylish, yes. Best, not even close.

[Skitch]

Just got word from Greg, The Big year is supposed to start filming in May!

[D_Davis]

[quote=Daniel Davis;245328]


Stylish, yes. Best, not even close.


Some of the best, yes.

But then again, you and I probably have polar opposite opinions of what good prose is.

;)

[Skitch]

A friend of mine started a book-of-the-month group on FB, just picked up this months selected reading, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Flipping through it, I think I'm going to really enjoy it.

[ledfloyd]

finished herzog last night. i didn't love it but i enjoyed it. damn the olympics for robbing me of two weeks of reading time. i'm doing awful this year.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I'm trying again with Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House. I picked it up once before, but time constraints kept me from going beyond disc 1 of 9. However, after reading Slaughterhouse-Five last year and loving it, I'm giving it another go. "Who Am I This Time?" rocked. Love his mix of heady concepts and sudden emotional whallops.

[Benny Profane]

finished herzog last night. i didn't love it but i enjoyed it. damn the olympics for robbing me of two weeks of reading time. i'm doing awful this year.


Herzog is one of my all-time faves. It's not your typical middle-age intellectual-in-a-tailspin story, and that's what I found so captivating. The letters he writes that nobody will ever read were a pure joy to read. Anything in particular that kept you from loving it?

[kuehnepips]

... Anything in particular that kept you from loving it?

Makes me sleepy.

[ledfloyd]

Herzog is one of my all-time faves. It's not your typical middle-age intellectual-in-a-tailspin story, and that's what I found so captivating. The letters he writes that nobody will ever read were a pure joy to read. Anything in particular that kept you from loving it?
heh, i agree with kuenhepips it did make me sleepy. i felt like it wandered for awhile before finding it's footing in the second half. i read the second half much quicker than the first. i will agree the letters are the highlight.

[dreamdead]

Their Eyes were Watching God is a harrowing read, especially in the section with the approaching storm. However, I am bothered by the ease in which critics seem to posit that Janie's first two husbands are materialist and abusive fools even as they valorize Tea Cake, her third husband, when he out-and-out beats her so that others might learn a lesson. Neither Hurston nor Janie ever speak out with their voices against this treatment, which is mighty scary, even if it's historically typical. Otherwise, the commentary about men, both white and black, being unable to consider Janie's perspective has some light, especially considering the treatment of Hurston's career immediately after her death.

[Mysterious Dude]

I'm not even halfway through The Swiss Family Robinsons and I already wish some animal would come out of the woods and kill them all.

They kill every animal they encounter! A bird. Shoot it! A turtle. Shoot it! A porcupine. Shoot it! A flamingo. Shoot it! A kangaroo! Shoot it! It also seems like this island has animals from just about every continent, too.

[lovejuice]

I'm not even halfway through The Swiss Family Robinsons and I already wish some animal would come out of the woods and kill them all.
i remember liking the movie, a lot. if memory doesn't fail me, there are two similar movies about a family caught on a desert island. in one, the climax is a fight against pirates, in another, the family encounters a giant mutant crap.

[Mara]

I'm not even halfway through The Swiss Family Robinsons and I already wish some animal would come out of the woods and kill them all.

Haven't read it, but your response reminds me of my response to Robinson Crusoe, which should win some sort of award for being a classic under false pretenses. That book is such a load of rubbish I was physically angry while reading it (heart beating fast, flushed.)

I love Defoe's Moll Flanders, though. A much better survival story.

[Mara]

Let's discuss for a moment how Defoe titled his works.


The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, where-in all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself.


The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who Was Born In Newgate, and During a Life of Continu'd Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife [Whereof Once To Her Own Brother], Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon In Virginia, At Last Grew Rich, Liv'd Honest, and Died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums.

[D_Davis]

the family encounters a giant mutant crap.

Best typo ever?

:lol:

(don't mean to poke fun....but I totally LOL'ed)

[Mysterious Dude]

To be fair, I don't think that kind of titling was all the unusual in the early eighteenth century. Take Gulliver's Travels:

Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships

There's also a great Elizabethan play called Arden of Feversham, in which the whole story is given away in the title:

The lamentable and true tragedy of master Arden of Feversham in Kent. Who was Most wickedly murdered by the means of his disloyal and wanton wife who for the love she bore to one Mosbie, hired two desperate ruffians Black Will and Shakebag to kill him. Wherein is showed the great malice and dissimulation of a Wicked woman, the unsatiable desire of filthy lust and the shameful end of all Murderers.

[Mara]

There's also a great Elizabethan play called Arden of Feversham, in which the whole story is given away in the title:

The lamentable and true tragedy of master Arden of Feversham in Kent. Who was Most wickedly murdered by the means of his disloyal and wanton wife who for the love she bore to one Mosbie, hired two desperate ruffians Black Will and Shakebag to kill him. Wherein is showed the great malice and dissimulation of a Wicked woman, the unsatiable desire of filthy lust and the shameful end of all Murderers.

It works. I want to read it now. Plus buy two cats and name them Black Will and Shakebag.

[Cherish]

finished 2666, began lethem's chronic city.

Ledfloyd, what happened to Chronic City? Did you finish it/like it?

[kuehnepips]

Plus buy two cats and name them Black Will and Shakebag.

:lol:

Shakebag is of course the black one?

[ledfloyd]

Ledfloyd, what happened to Chronic City? Did you finish it/like it?
i did finish it and i did enjoy it.

i could see it being a divisive book because it moves at an incredibly deliberate pace, and the plot mostly plays out via conspiracies that are products of the pot addled minds of two men that spend most of their time watching marlon brando films, the muppets, and bidding on esoterica on ebay.

i didn't find it as immediately satisfying as the fortress of solitude, and it would take me at least another reading to completely understand it's themes and whatnot, but it might have more to say. it's very concerned with and critical of the way we live today. particularly manufactured news stories and 'reality' tv. it seems to argue that there is a lot of truth to be found in pop culture, be it positive or negative.

also of note is that in the acknowledgements at the end he mentions alot of people and books he borrowed plot points from, and a review i read pointed out that he lifted a complete sentence from a saul bellow novel. not surprising, given lethem's vehement defense of fair use and the like, but interesting nonetheless. the whole thing is riddled with references to pop culture real and imagined, particularly brando and the muppets, but it's fitting.

for me, it's a clear bounce back from the disappointment of you don't love me yet.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I'm trying again with Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House. I picked it up once before, but time constraints kept me from going beyond disc 1 of 9. However, after reading Slaughterhouse-Five last year and loving it, I'm giving it another go. "Who Am I This Time?" rocked. Love his mix of heady concepts and sudden emotional whallops.

Thanks to a lot of runs at work, I'm about halfway through the book now. My favorites so far have been "Harrison Bergeron," "Who Am I This Time," and "All the King's Horses."

That last one is awesome. It's about a group of sixteen people whose plane goes down in China during the Cold War. They're captured and offered a way out - all they have to do is play a game of chess. With them as the pieces. The moral dilemmas are fantastic, as is the awful tension between each move by the protag. Also, Dylan Baker voices the story, and his voice for the chinese jailer is darkly hilarious - he sounds uncannily like Kim Jong Il in Team America.

[Cherish]

i could see it being a divisive book because it moves at an incredibly deliberate pace, and the plot mostly plays out via conspiracies that are products of the pot addled minds of two men that spend most of their time watching marlon brando films, the muppets, and bidding on esoterica on ebay.

Ah, I'm glad you liked it. I did too, but I've read a lot of negative reactions. I dearly loved Perkus, so the pot-addled conspiracies didn't wear thin. And that scene where the group is bidding on ebay was probably my favorite thing I read last year.


also of note is that in the acknowledgements at the end he mentions alot of people and books he borrowed plot points from, and a review i read pointed out that he lifted a complete sentence from a saul bellow novel.

Yeah, I think Perkus's rants especially were "borrowed." So, he didn't acknowledge the Bellow one? Interesting...

Anyway, great comments. Thank you!

[ledfloyd]

Ah, I'm glad you liked it. I did too, but I've read a lot of negative reactions. I dearly loved Perkus, so the pot-addled conspiracies didn't wear thin. And that scene where the group is bidding on ebay was probably my favorite thing I read last year.
it's bizarre how intense that scene is.

it's people bidding on things on ebay, yet he writes it as if it's a life or death situation.

i think he credited saul bellow for humboldt's gift. but i assumed it was thematic material he borrowed, until i read the review and saw he lifted sentences. i'd be interested in reading some of the other stuff he acknowledges.

[monolith94]

I'm not even halfway through The Swiss Family Robinsons and I already wish some animal would come out of the woods and kill them all.

They kill every animal they encounter! A bird. Shoot it! A turtle. Shoot it! A porcupine. Shoot it! A flamingo. Shoot it! A kangaroo! Shoot it! It also seems like this island has animals from just about every continent, too.
While this may not be the best book for an adult audience, as a kid I totally loved SFR. I must've read it at least 10 times. I just loved imagining myself building a whole new society from scratch.

[Melville]

Their Eyes were Watching God is a harrowing read, especially in the section with the approaching storm. However, I am bothered by the ease in which critics seem to posit that Janie's first two husbands are materialist and abusive fools even as they valorize Tea Cake, her third husband, when he out-and-out beats her so that others might learn a lesson. Neither Hurston nor Janie ever speak out with their voices against this treatment, which is mighty scary, even if it's historically typical. Otherwise, the commentary about men, both white and black, being unable to consider Janie's perspective has some light, especially considering the treatment of Hurston's career immediately after her death.
I just read this last night. Big meh. A free and easy man comes along and rescues a woman from social strictures, and they live together free and easy, despite all hardship. It's a cliched concept of freedom and love explored in a simplistic, uninteresting way. Also disliked the way that the characters all seemed goofy and simple. That goofy simplicity is in keeping with the book's folktale style, but the tale was too detailed and realistic to achieve the affecting directness of folktales, so the simplicity felt boring and inconsequential at best and a reinforcement of racial stereotypes at worst.

[lovejuice]

While this may not be the best book for an adult audience, as a kid I totally loved SFR. I must've read it at least 10 times. I just loved imagining myself building a whole new society from scratch.
who haven't? i love imagining myself and anne hathaway spawning the world with our children.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Finished The Kite Runner this morning for my class. I cannot stress how terrible it was. How it gained such a sterling reputation is beyond me. It's without a doubt the corniest story I've read, full of mawkish happenstance and blunt symbolism. It's attempts at any level of depth or profundity are laughable. I hated nearly every page of this, and it only got worse as it went along. I understand the book club love. It's an easy novel, and it's perfect for those who read casually and don't want to dive deeper into the complexity of a novel, who don't want to bother with subtext. It's the critics and the professors who blow my mind. I just read that this is the common reading selection for Purdue for '10-'11. I mean, these are people who should know better, who are learned enough to separate art from trashy soap opera. They've completely dropped the ball with this one.

[Melville]

Just read Blue Eyes, Black Hair by Marguerite Duras. She's a marvel. Characters and narrative built of atmosphere, of modulations, repetitions, and extremes of mood, of obscure longings. Everything ethereal, melted together into mystery and raw emotion. She draws attention to the story as a story (very explicitly in this book, with descriptions of an actor telling the story on a stage), but rather than using that as a distancing device, she uses it as another layer in the fugue, a direct announcement of the story's resonance precisely as a story for both the reader and the characters themselves. Beautiful stuff.

[Llopin]

Just read Blue Eyes, Black Hair by Marguerite Duras. She's a marvel. Characters and narrative built of atmosphere, of modulations, repetitions, and extremes of mood, of obscure longings. Everything ethereal, melted together into mystery and raw emotion. She draws attention to the story as a story (very explicitly in this book, with descriptions of an actor telling the story on a stage), but rather than using that as a distancing device, she uses it as another layer in the fugue, a direct announcement of the story's resonance precisely as a story for both the reader and the characters themselves. Beautiful stuff.

I dislike Duras, pretty much. L'amant is the only novel of hers I've been able to digest without getting bored out of my mind. I suppose you're a fan of the whole noveau roman scene?

[Benny Profane]

Finished The Kite Runner this morning for my class. I cannot stress how terrible it was. How it gained such a sterling reputation is beyond me. It's without a doubt the corniest story I've read, full of mawkish happenstance and blunt symbolism. It's attempts at any level of depth or profundity are laughable. I hated nearly every page of this, and it only got worse as it went along. I understand the book club love. It's an easy novel, and it's perfect for those who read casually and don't want to dive deeper into the complexity of a novel, who don't want to bother with subtext. It's the critics and the professors who blow my mind. I just read that this is the common reading selection for Purdue for '10-'11. I mean, these are people who should know better, who are learned enough to separate art from trashy soap opera. They've completely dropped the ball with this one.


I cannot stress how correct you are. What class is this for?

[Kurosawa Fan]

I cannot stress how correct you are. What class is this for?

ENG 202: Novel as Genre. I really like the professor too, but her selections up to this point have been pretty disappointing. The Poisonwood Bible was good but heavily flawed, and this was just garbage. Next up is Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I had heard good things, but with her track record I'm fearing the worst right now.

[Mara]

"The Kite Runner" was unfailingly mediocre. I forgot it almost the moment I read it.

[Benny Profane]

ENG 202: Novel as Genre. I really like the professor too, but her selections up to this point have been pretty disappointing. The Poisonwood Bible was good but heavily flawed, and this was just garbage. Next up is Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I had heard good things, but with her track record I'm fearing the worst right now.


I'd like to think an English professor could pick a better book than The Kite Runner to discuss with the class.



That's like going to culinary school and at the end of the semester the teacher treats you to a meal at The Cheesecake Factory.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I'd like to think an English professor could pick a better book than The Kite Runner to discuss with the class.



That's like going to culinary school and at the end of the semester the teacher treats you to a meal at The Cheesecake Factory.

You're giving The Kite Runner far too much credit here. Long John Silver's would have been a better comparison. Or a Hungry Man dinner.

[Mara]

ENG 202: Novel as Genre.

What does that even mean?

Plus, the syllabus seems to be heavy on recent, popular nonspeculative fiction. I can't think of any college-level course that should have that focus.

ENG 202: Book Club!

[Kurosawa Fan]

What does that even mean?

Plus, the syllabus seems to be heavy on recent, popular nonspeculative fiction. I can't think of any college-level course that should have that focus.

ENG 202: Book Club!

I'm in the class, and I couldn't tell you what it means. I think your description is more accurate than hers. I think she's dumbing things down for the kids in class, which is unfortunate. But man, there are a lot of kids in that class complaining about how tough she grades these things. I have a 98% right now, with very little effort. I'm not bragging about my own skills here, just wondering what the hell is so difficult for the others. I mean, is it really that hard to find an angle to write about with The Kite Runner? Hosseini spells everything out!

[Mara]

But what do the kites mean? And, I'm still confused-- is child rape bad or not? WHY WON'T THEY JUST TELL US?

[Melville]

I dislike Duras, pretty much. L'amant is the only novel of hers I've been able to digest without getting bored out of my mind. I suppose you're a fan of the whole noveau roman scene?
I haven't read any other nouveau roman authors, but I suspect that I would like them: the direct evocation of experience is really my favorite thing in any art; phenomenology is my thematic obsession. Looking over the list of authors in the Wikipedia article on the nouveau roman, the only other names I recognize are Claude Simon and Alain Robbe-Grillet.

[D_Davis]

I cannot stress how correct you are. What class is this for?

Overrated General Fiction 101?

[lovejuice]

ENG 202: Novel as Genre. I really like the professor too, but her selections up to this point have been pretty disappointing. The Poisonwood Bible was good but heavily flawed, and this was just garbage. Next up is Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I had heard good things, but with her track record I'm fearing the worst right now.
even if you don't like foer's, i hope your next read, the lovely bones, will satisfy you. i recall mara has a lot of nice things to say about that book. :P

[Llopin]

I haven't read any other nouveau roman authors, but I suspect that I would like them: the direct evocation of experience is really my favorite thing in any art; phenomenology is my thematic obsession. Looking over the list of authors in the Wikipedia article on the nouveau roman, the only other names I recognize are Claude Simon and Alain Robbe-Grillet.

I tend to believe nouveau roman works are annoyingly intellectual: form-experimenting just for the sake of it. The idea of ignoring the plot and showcasing the way of telling it more than anything else is not too shabby, but they go way too far, resulting in pedantic excurions into aimless fiction. Still, I'd recommend Grillet's Les gommes and Butor's La modification, which are the most interesting.

I'm much more fond of the Oulipo guys (the OTHER 50s french branch of messing around with literature), including Queneau and Perec. They're more fun.

[Mara]

even if you don't like foer's, i hope your next read, the lovely bones, will satisfy you. i recall mara has a lot of nice things to say about that book. :P

Oh, that book was such trash. It had potential, too.

[dreamdead]

I think she's dumbing things down for the kids in class, which is unfortunate. But man, there are a lot of kids in that class complaining about how tough she grades these things. I have a 98% right now, with very little effort. I'm not bragging about my own skills here, just wondering what the hell is so difficult for the others. I mean, is it really that hard to find an angle to write about with The Kite Runner? Hosseini spells everything out!

Unfortunately, when you teach literature to a class of largely freshmen/sophomores, there is very much the tendency to grab a lesser set of texts that do a more obvious job spelling out their themes. So although the best students kind of end up going "duh" at the instructor pointing out a recurrent theme or metaphor, it becomes so obvious that the lesser students also see it. The other possibility is to genuinely teach the material that they desire but risk having only four or five of you able to keep up. The current model of teaching sadly favors the former style.

[Melville]

I tend to believe nouveau roman works are annoyingly intellectual: form-experimenting just for the sake of it.
Are you applying this to Duras as well? I have the exact opposite reaction. She's immediately engaging for me, more than any other author I've ever encountered. I don't think she's experimenting with form for the sake of experimentation, but for the sake of directness and force. And she seems the opposite of overly intellectual: her novels are saturated with emotion and sensuality. Her prose gets right to the emotions and moods, evoking sense and consciousness, seeing in them the story's themes. She captures the essence, paring away details of plot and setting that I often find perfunctory. It's emotionally bracing, even overwhelming, to me.

I'll look into the other books you mentioned.

[Ezee E]

Need a book for airplane trip this week. Hmm.......

[Benny Profane]

Need a book for airplane trip this week. Hmm.......



The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 should get you in the mood to fly.


But seriously, it's an awesome book.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Unfortunately, when you teach literature to a class of largely freshmen/sophomores, there is very much the tendency to grab a lesser set of texts that do a more obvious job spelling out their themes. So although the best students kind of end up going "duh" at the instructor pointing out a recurrent theme or metaphor, it becomes so obvious that the lesser students also see it. The other possibility is to genuinely teach the material that they desire but risk having only four or five of you able to keep up. The current model of teaching sadly favors the former style.

Yeah, I have to take back everything I said out loud and in my head about my professor. She asked to see me after class today after reading my first paper on The Kite Runner (not a complimentary one) and she said, essentially, that I'm much more advanced in literary criticism than everyone else in the class and that I have carte blanche to write anything I want with my essays from here on out, and she'll grade them separately. She admitted that The Kite Runner is mediocre at best, but that she uses it as her middle selection to give those who struggled with the first novel a chance to get their grade up to a better level. Apparently the average grade in the class is a C-. I knew there were some who were struggling, but I didn't realize how many. Apparently this is a required course for a few different unrelated majors, so most of the class isn't interested in dissecting a novel.

[Mara]

That's cool of her. I have been that teacher, unfortunately, where you're dumbing it down for 95% of the students, and you realize that the other 5% are bored and unchallenged.

[Ezee E]

The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 should get you in the mood to fly.


But seriously, it's an awesome book.
Ha. I came across something called The Dog Fighter that seemed interesting, and grabbed a collection of Lehane's short stories.

[Hugh_Grant]

That's cool of her. I have been that teacher, unfortunately, where you're dumbing it down for 95% of the students, and you realize that the other 5% are bored and unchallenged.

Yes.
I have said to some of my better students, "I hope you aren't bored."

Years ago, we had a faculty member (now retired) who taught Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow in a freshman English class. At the time, I worked in the college's writing center, and we'd get some really confused students looking for help. I know we have some hardcore Pynchon groupies on this board, but for John Q. Two-Year-College Student, the choice of text was not appropriate, especially the way this professor was teaching.

Pynchon, however, has reappeared on sophomore-level syllabi, a more appropriate level.

A colleague of mine is teaching the Foer novel in his sophomore Fiction course. I haven't read it, but I love Everything is Illuminated.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I'm reading Paradise Lost at home lately, really enjoying it, but, God Almighty, the text takes a lot of unpacking. It took me half an hour to go through ten pages, decoding the structure of thoughts, understanding who's saying what, reading all the annotations on important images. Even so, it's a very rewarding read, and given all my past enjoyment of Greek myth and Christian texts and Shakespeare plays (all of which continually receive homages), I'm getting an added kick out of it.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Finished Things Fall Apart yesterday. The final paragraph of the novel should be put on a pedestal and admired by any and all authors, either current or aspiring. The entire novel was truly fantastic. It's such a slow, steady experience, detailing the day to day life of an African village pre-Colonialism. Achebe holds back on the conflict until we have a firm grasp on the history and the traditions of this village, making what takes place in the last 50 pages all the more meaningful and devastating.

And seriously, that last paragraph. What a punch in the gut. I'm prone to hyperbole, but it's definitely among the finest endings to a novel I've ever read

[lovejuice]

And seriously, that last paragraph. What a punch in the gut. I'm prone to hyperbole, but it's definitely among the finest endings to a novel I've ever read

while i love the novel, i remember a class discussion in which not many people express fondness for that ending. i too think it's trying too hard to be cynical, and doesn't go very well with the rest of the novel.

glad you like it. is this for the book club class?

[Kurosawa Fan]

while i love the novel, i remember a class discussion in which not many people express fondness for that ending. i too think it's trying too hard to be cynical, and doesn't go very well with the rest of the novel.

glad you like the novel.

What??? That paragraph is the essence of the novel. It's the purpose of Achebe's aims. He gives us all the details that we never knew about a culture destroyed by the greed of others, and then gives us just a touch of why we never knew, about how the history was written by those in power. Without that paragraph, I'm not sure I would have been quite as fond of it as I was.

[lovejuice]

What??? That paragraph is the essence of the novel. It's the purpose of Achebe's aims. He gives us all the details that we never knew about a culture destroyed by the greed of others, and then gives us just a touch of why we never knew, about how the history was written by those in power. Without that paragraph, I'm not sure I would have been quite as fond of it as I was.
you have a point there, and that does indeed tie it to the rest of the novel very well.

the way i read it is achebe just taking a jab at a white people in power. ("look! what an arrogant colonial bastard those people are!") it feels too slight, considered what he has been achieving throughout the novel.

[Kurosawa Fan]

you have a point there, and that does indeed tie it to the rest of the novel very well.

the way i read it is achebe just taking a jab at a white people in power. ("look! what an arrogant colonial bastard those people are!") it feels too slight, considered what he has been achieving throughout the novel.

I read it as an example of just how different the two cultures experiences were during that time. The Igbo people saw an entire life in Okonkwo (and so many others like him), while the Europeans merely saw another crazed savage that needed pacification. It may be a jab, but it's an appropriate jab considering what took place during the colonization.

[Melville]

Well, now I have read a boring book by Duras. Moderato Cantabile was disappointing. The relentless externalization was at odds with the flux of identity and obscure longings, making them somewhat random, even silly. It didn't get inside them like Duras' later stuff.

[Duncan]

Just finished this book Warlock by Oakley Hall. Really amazing. It's kind of like 100 Years of Solitude but instead it's a realistic Western set in late 19th century Texas. Starts off with the new marshal coming to this mining camp, Warlock, and generally follows the conventions of genre, civilization rising, law and order becoming firm, but in the end turns everything kind of upside down. Characters are very finely (though perhaps not roundly) drawn and their histories are revealed elegantly without ever interrupting the current action. It's plotted perfectly, with character decisions always surprising but their motivations rock solid based on what we know about them. Yeah, maybe not the best book you'll ever read, and the female characters could have been more plentiful or had more say, but it's just a really solid novel all around. Tough to poke any holes in it.

edit: Also, Thomas Pynchon called it "One of our finest American novels," which is why I read it in the first place.

[kuehnepips]

Just finished this book Warlock by Oakley Hall. ..

Okay, I'll lasso a copy of this one.

[lovejuice]

edit: Also, Thomas Pynchon called it "One of our finest American novels," which is why I read it in the first place.
from your description, it sounds like it is.

[ledfloyd]

interesting, i never heard of that book or of the author. i might have to seek it out.

[Ezee E]

I think I may put The Dogfighter down. Repetition of scene after scene, mostly going for a shock factor. I can't find anything written about this on the internet outside of amazon reviews, so that may be saying something. I'll read a bit more and decide from there.

[Benny Profane]

Just finished this book Warlock by Oakley Hall. Really amazing. It's kind of like 100 Years of Solitude but instead it's a realistic Western set in late 19th century Texas. Starts off with the new marshal coming to this mining camp, Warlock, and generally follows the conventions of genre, civilization rising, law and order becoming firm, but in the end turns everything kind of upside down. Characters are very finely (though perhaps not roundly) drawn and their histories are revealed elegantly without ever interrupting the current action. It's plotted perfectly, with character decisions always surprising but their motivations rock solid based on what we know about them. Yeah, maybe not the best book you'll ever read, and the female characters could have been more plentiful or had more say, but it's just a really solid novel all around. Tough to poke any holes in it.

edit: Also, Thomas Pynchon called it "One of our finest American novels," which is why I read it in the first place.

Sounds very interesting. I will read this book this year.

[EvilShoe]

Hotel New Hampshire was a good book. Irving's rather formulaic (hookers, strange sexual acts, tragic family events) but it still works in that one.

[Benny Profane]

Recently I have finished:

The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright

Of Love and Other Demons by Marquez

Nine Stories by Salinger


I liked them all, but especially The Looming Tower, which in addition to being a searing indictment of the CIA and their botched handling of the events leading up to 9/11, does a great job explaining the history of the jihadi movement and the people/governments involved. There are tons of names but Wright does a great job of keeping it unmuddled. I feel like I know all there is to know after reading it. Incredible, exhaustive research, and I can see why it won a Pulitzer.

I also tried to read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, but by chapter 2 more than half of the stuff was beyond me, and I put it down.


Now reading The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer.

[Adam]

Recently breezily reread José Saramago's The Cave and it remains one of my five or so favorite books from the aughts

Also just finished Isabel Allende's Eva Luna, which I stuck with 'til the end even though I found it generally poorly written and more than a little lame at times. It has its charms, for sure, but unlike with The Cave, I get the sense that maybe this wasn't such a seamless spanish-english translation, so that could've been part of my problem. Came kinda sorta highly recommended from someone I know with usually solid taste, too

[Ezee E]

James Franco has written a collection of short stories that comes out later this year. One of them is in this month's Esquire.

It was...... okay. Kinda funny, kinda good.

[lovejuice]

I really enjoy Fukuyama's The End of History. The book got bashed a lot by people like Chomsky because it's viewed as in support of American/Bush-ish global domination. More precisely, the book claims why it is only natural most countries become more like America. His argument is flawed but powerful. His understanding of Hegel is compeling, and he can word his idea well.

[D_Davis]

Reading this right now:

http://www.filmjunk.com/images/weblog/gangleaderforaday.jpg

So far, it is excellent. A great companion piece while watching The Wire. Apparently the author also wrote an extensive blog series on The Wire.

[Mara]

I asked my dad, who has a PhD in Anthropology, if he had "The Savage Mind" by Claude Levi-Strauss, since it's out of print and I want to read it. He found it and handed it to me, and then gave me a funny look.

"Do you want me to explain it?" he asked.

"Well, let me give it a whirl and see how much I understand."

He kinda laughed. "Nat, it's not a novel. You don't just read Levi-Strauss."

:lol: This should be interesting.

[ledfloyd]

the guy is named after a pair of pants, how difficult can it be? :P

i finally finished bellow's henderson the rain king. i kind of loved it.

[Melville]

I read Lem's Solaris over the last couple days. Great book. Lem's prose is painfully pedestrian, consisting largely of flat dialogue and tedious, “this-and-this-and-then-this” descriptions—but that weakness is overcome by the strength of the book's central metaphors, which are beautiful and compelling.

First among these is the living, conscious sea on the planet Solaris. Like the great, white whale of Moby Dick, it stands as a metaphor for the unknown, a playing ground for humanity’s quest for meaning and understanding amidst impenetrable mystery. And like the white whale, it is assigned multiple meanings within that unifying theme. It is a symbol of the single consciousness itself, proceeding with apparent design but according to ultimately inexplicable inner workings; it is Otherness on a vast scale, the ineffableness of another’s mind; most prominently, it is God in the limit of his traditional assignation of a being whose existence is its essence: pure operation, pure movement, something that cannot but do as it does, that cannot but be a creator. With its mysterious, unified consciousness and its ripples of vague creation, which soon vanish as burst bubbles, it also invokes the Buddhist view of existence as a great sea, the ripples on the surface of which form our individual consciousnesses and the material existence of which we are conscious, with these ripples being part of the whole but having the illusion of distinctness. However, despite the richness of this central metaphor, I don’t think Lem quite gives it the depth and grandeur it deserves, instead bogging it down with menial descriptions of the phenomena on the sea.

The second central metaphor, and the one which I thought more original and far more poignant, is the ex-lover that the sea creates from the protagonist’s memory. She had killed herself after the protagonist left her. She is the weight of memory, the weight of regret, the embodiment of a moment that one cannot escape, a moment that defines everything in its wake. She is the longed-for return to the past, the revival of memory, the wish to dislodge it from its impossible distance and make it tangible, alive, present. And she is the essence of a person in love: she cannot exist without her loved one; her being is constituted as being-for-him. Lem makes this tragic relationship effectively sad. He evokes the protagonist’s regret, his overpowering wish to be with her and to right his wrong; and, too, he evokes her despair at the tenuous nature of her existence, an existence borne only in his eyes. Also, I like that their situation immediately riddles their relationship with distances, petty lies and illusions. Even the impossible return to the past, to that illusory wellspring, the trace of memory, is filled with heartrending disappointment, with the same flaws that brought ruin to their original relationship. But that only makes the protagonist’s yearn for it even more poignant.

Unfortunately, I couldn't help compare it to better treatments of the same themes. Its exploration of humanity's relationship to the unknown pales next to the scope and nuance of Melville. And Lem is no Tarkovsky: the film adaptation improves enormously both on the book's artistry and on its exploration of love, self-hood, and memory. However, it's nonetheless a great book.

[D_Davis]

I read Lem's Solaris over the last couple days. Great book. Lem's prose is painfully pedestrian, consisting largely of flat dialogue and tedious, “this-and-this-and-then-this” descriptions—but that weakness is overcome by the strength of the book's central metaphors, which are beautiful and compelling.

The prose used in Solaris is an example of form following function. It is actually quite a bit more dry and pedestrian than his other books (which can be far more poetic and exciting) and this was done to reflect the sterile environment and mental state of the characters. It works incredibly well as it creates feelings of malaise and boredom, which is quite ironic given the situations that the characters find themselves in. It compliments the general feelings of isolation felt by the characters through its lack of ornate style. Lem is great it changing his prose style to fit the narrative.



Unfortunately, I couldn't help compare it to better treatments of the same themes. Its exploration of humanity's relationship to the unknown pales next to the scope and nuance of Melville. And Lem is no Tarkovsky: the film adaptation improves enormously both on the book's artistry and on its exploration of love, self-hood, and memory. However, it's nonetheless a great book.While I totally disagree with these comparisons, I am nonetheless glad you enjoyed it. Solaris is a great starting point for reading one of SF's most interesting contributors.

[Milky Joe]

I've always wanted to read that book. Are you a fan of Moby Dick now, Daniel?

[D_Davis]

Are you a fan of Moby Dick now, Daniel?

No, not at all. It's one of my least favorite books I've ever read.

[Melville]

The prose used in Solaris is an example of form following function. It is actually quite a bit more dry and pedestrian than his other books (which can be far more poetic and exciting) and this was done to reflect the sterile environment and mental state of the characters. It works incredibly well as it creates feelings of malaise and boredom, which is quite ironic given the situations that the characters find themselves in. It compliments the general feelings of isolation felt by the characters through its lack of ornate style. Lem is great it changing his prose style to fit the narrative.
I'm not the biggest fan of ornate style, so I wouldn't call for it here anyway. A lot of my favorite authors (e.g. Dostoevsky and Hamsun) are not at all ornate stylists; Hamsun, in particular, has a very pared-down style. And even drab prose can be good, and can be put to good use (e.g. by Hemingway, who uses it well to evoke world-weariness). But Lem's prose is just weak. I'm all for form following function, but I don't think his prose serves the function you ascribe to it. It told me nothing about the characters; it just felt bland and uninspired. And it was emblematic of a trend in contemporary literature that I strongly dislike: a tendency to take on the form of a (bland) movie, just describing a sequence of events, trying to describe them with verisimilitude but conveying little of the characters' interior worlds. I prefer books that dive into the themes and feelings directly.

EDIT to clarify: there are plenty of scenes where Lem effectively uses his style to convey something about the characters, and I really liked those scenes. But there are also plenty of scenes where the descriptions just sit there, going on for far too long, and accomplishing nothing that I found interesting or compelling.

[D_Davis]

But there are also plenty of scenes where the descriptions just sit there, going on for far too long, and accomplishing nothing that I found interesting or compelling.

I do agree with this, and this is a complaint I also have with the film version, which takes the problem to a whole new level.

[Melville]

I do agree with this, and this is a complaint I also have with the film version, which takes the problem to a whole new level.
Ah, if only I could permanently dwell in the atmosphere of Tarkovsky's compositions...

Clarifying my edit-to-clarify: I thought the flat prose was used well to convey the tedium and distance in the romance. The worst uses of it, for me, were the first thirty or so pages and the descriptions of the physical phenomena on the surface of the sea.

[D_Davis]

Clarifying my edit-to-clarify: I thought the flat prose was used well to convey the tedium and distance in the romance. The worst uses of it, for me, were the first thirty or so pages and the descriptions of the physical phenomena on the surface of the sea.

OK - I can totally understand this, and I mostly agree.

[D_Davis]

Gang Leader for a Day is awesome. It's not all that well written, and for a sociology text it is surprisingly straight forward and not pedantic in the slightest, but it is entirely engaging and interesting.

[Benny Profane]

Anyone know if that's the guy they talk about in Freakonomics?

[D_Davis]

Anyone know if that's the guy they talk about in Freakonomics?

It is. Sudhir Venkatesh is a sociology professor at Columbia U, and he has written for the Freakonomics blog, and is generally involved in that community.

I think we wrote about the economy of crime in Freakonomics.

[Melville]

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin is one of the best things I've read. Astounding. Explosive. Prose of mad rhythms. Words like fire. Lacerating psychology. Sublime frenzy. Totalitarianism as insane logic, kinematics, ritual. Love as insane liberation—from both the Self and the They. Love as imagination, imagination as soul, as living, trembling receptivity.

The only flaw is that it contains a discussion of the square root of negative one that is completely wrong in multiple ways. Strange, since Zamyatin was an engineer. Maybe the translator, Natasha Randall, took liberties, though the prose is too dazzling to allow me to really criticize either of them for this one problem.

[Melville]

In lieu of any real goals or realizable desires now that I've completed my PhD, my plan for the year is to finish 52 books, two of which must be Finnegans Wake and Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. So far I'm three books ahead of schedule, but I've only been reading exceedingly short books. I'm expecting to fail miserably, but whatever.