Brideshead is nostalgia as a life style choice. I'm unsure if you'll appreciate its theorising that love is a forerunner for religion, but tis essential reading just to meet tragic 'n' magnetic Sebastian. *adores*Quoting Melville (view post)
Brideshead is nostalgia as a life style choice. I'm unsure if you'll appreciate its theorising that love is a forerunner for religion, but tis essential reading just to meet tragic 'n' magnetic Sebastian. *adores*
Definitely. I fell in love with his character.
It was actually an odd reading experience--I'd love it while reading it, but as soon as I'd set it down I had a hard time picking it back up again. It took much longer than it should have to complete it.
Impressed, of course, and one of those texts that slaps you back down and reminds you how very little you know (or "get"). I wish one of my profs had dared take it on in a class, as it begs to be carefully unpacked, something I find extremely difficult to do on my own. My heart is still with "Prufrock" though.
Goodness. Which makes this list all the more impressive, as I'm sure you're reading quite a bit for your studies as well...
Memories of the Future
"Criticism can be monumentally creative, of course, at times highly artistic, highly personal. But it rarely relates to the work of art being assessed. It is an expression of the critic's own subjectivity." -Joyce Carol Oates, Journals
Which makes it oh so British.
Actually, it is a testament to how good the book is that it remains compelling after he (and Lady Marchmain) essentially exit the novel.
Memories of the Future
"Criticism can be monumentally creative, of course, at times highly artistic, highly personal. But it rarely relates to the work of art being assessed. It is an expression of the critic's own subjectivity." -Joyce Carol Oates, Journals
I didn't know you had read this. What is it?
Memories of the Future
"Criticism can be monumentally creative, of course, at times highly artistic, highly personal. But it rarely relates to the work of art being assessed. It is an expression of the critic's own subjectivity." -Joyce Carol Oates, Journals
Hmmm, never even heard of him. Looking at Amazon, this is what's available in English:
The Post-Office Girl
Decisive Moments in History: Twelve Historical Miniatures
Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman
The World Of Yesterday
Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman and the Royal Game
Amok & Other Stories
Twilight & Moonbeam Alley
Fantastic Night and Other Stories
Chess: A Novel
...and that's just page one. I'll have to see what's at my local library. I'm intrigued.
Memories of the Future
"Criticism can be monumentally creative, of course, at times highly artistic, highly personal. But it rarely relates to the work of art being assessed. It is an expression of the critic's own subjectivity." -Joyce Carol Oates, Journals
*gasps*
*gasps again*
Two of my favorites.
Memories of the Future
"Criticism can be monumentally creative, of course, at times highly artistic, highly personal. But it rarely relates to the work of art being assessed. It is an expression of the critic's own subjectivity." -Joyce Carol Oates, Journals
This just missed my list--I have about another third to go. Will definitely be on the list of favorites for 2009.
Trying to get my hands on this. Went on a Rosenbaum binge earlier in the year, and Martin is a particular favorite. But it is a series of essays and they are the editors, correct?
I had avoided re-reading Catcher, afraid I would now find Holden insufferable. Luckily, when I gave him another shot earlier this year that proved not to be the case at all. While I no longer identify with him as I did in high school, I share your fascination with him as a character. I like how Salinger forces the reader to sift through all of Holden's exclamations and speeches and stammers to try and discover the "real," as-of-yet-unformed Holden lurking beneath the ridiculous posturings. As with real teenagers, you can't take anything at face value. For instance, I read an interesting essay on Holden's supposed hatred of movies--the author claims that in fact Holden probably loves the movies given how much he talks about them (at least a dozen times) and how much knowledge he has of them!
A comment I read by Kent Jones (I think, or was it Gavin Smith?) about Wes Anderson I think also applies perfectly to Salinger: they are both artists that if you don't like you can't stand at all, but if you are attuned to their register you love them unconditionally and can't exactly understand what others don't get.
Memories of the Future
"Criticism can be monumentally creative, of course, at times highly artistic, highly personal. But it rarely relates to the work of art being assessed. It is an expression of the critic's own subjectivity." -Joyce Carol Oates, Journals
Ah, The World Of Yesterday is brilliant. It's an autobriography of sorts which perfectly reflects the state of Europe before and after WWI. Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman is heartbreaking... Every one of his short stories is amazing, I assure you.
I think you'd really like Beware of Pity, which I see is also available in English.
They're the editors, but they contribute a lot of writing as well. It begins with the series of emails/letters from one cinephile to another, and then that's the jumping point for a bunch of essays... if my memory serves me well. It's a bit of a scattershot book, but in a good way, and also a necessary way given the topic. Nicole Brenez's letters alone are worth the price of admission, I think you'll probably get a lot out of her.
I've been keeping a list at home. I'll post it when I return there. I think there's ~45 books on it, including a few short stories.
Wishful thinking, perhaps; but that is just another possible definition of the featherless biped.
The atmosphere of dread and politico-existential uncertainty was terrific. I might have underrated it a bit.
Yeah, I agree with you and KF. I never understood why people's reaction to this book is so frequently based on whether or not they relate to Holden. The book is great because of how well it develops and communicates Holden's character through his narration, and how well that characterization captures a certain teenage archetype. Even in high school, I never identified with Holden, but I still loved the book.
I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?
lists and reviews
2008 is mostly detective novels for me. a lot of which i don't even care to remember or write the title down.
L. Carrington's "The Hearing Trumpet"
M. Kammen's "Visual Shock"
J. Kristeva's "Desire in Language"
C. Bukowski's "Ham on Rye"
J. E. Stiglitz's "Globalization and its Discontent"
F. de Saussure's "Course in General Linguistics"
J. Mitchell's "Psychoanalysis and Feminism"
J. Rose's "Sexuality in the Field of Vision"
S. Jackson's "The Melancholy of Anatomy"
I. Murdoch's "The Red and the Green"
A. Breton's "Nadja"
S. R. Fischer's "A History of Reading"
V. Havel's "The Garden Party and Other Plays"
J. Fforde's "The Big over Easy"
I. Murdoch's "The Unicorn"
J. P. Sartre's "What is Literature?"
R. Sorensen's "Philosophy and the Labyrinths of the mind"
D. Lessing's "The Grandmothers"
A. Carter's "Love"
I. Murdoch's "A Word Child"
M. Foucault's "The Use of Pleasure"
D. Tammet's "Born on a Blue Day"
C.G. Jung's "Modern Man in Search of a Soul"
J. Fowles's "The French Lieutenant's Woman"
M. Heidegger's "Poetry, Language, Thought"
J. Rhys's "Wide Sargasso Sea"
D. Lodge's "The Art of Fiction"
I. Murdoch's "The Sovereignty of Good"
E. Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited"
I. Calvino's "Numbers in the Dark"
W. Faulkner's "As I lay Dying"
P. Coelho's "The Witch of Portobello"
G. Greene's "The Tenth Man"
I. Murdoch's "An Accidental Man"
E. Fromm's "The Art of Loving"
A. Christie's "The Mystery of the Blue Train"
A. Camus's "A Happy Death"
E. Queen's "And on the Eigth Day"
A. Christie's "Sad Cypress"
I. Calvino's "t zero"
A. Christie's "The Secret Adversary"
I. Murdoch's "The Bell"
A. Christie's "Hercule Poirot's Chirstmas"
M. Innes's "Hamlet, Revenge!"
R. Williams's "Culture and Materialism"
C. Dickson's "The Plague Court Murders"
J. D. Carr's "The Problem of the Green Capsule"
A. Garve's "Home to Roost"
G. Simenon's "The Bar on the Seine"
M. Innes's "Honeybath's Haven"
F. W. Crofts's "The 12:30 from Croydon"
J. L. Swanson's "Manhunt"
G. Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle"
W. Gombrowitz's "Ferdydurke"
I. Murdoch's "Bruno's Dream"
J. Walter's "The Zero"
G.K. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday"
T. Coletti's "Naming the Rose"
J. Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"
I. Murdoch's "The Message to the Planet"
R. O. Paxton's "The Anatomy of Fascism"
E. Le Grand's "Kundera or The Memory of Desire"
H. De Balzac's "Old Goriot"
M. Kundera "The Curtain"
E. L. Doctorow's "Ragtime"
L. Hutcheon's "A Theory of Parody"
H. Boll's "18 Stories"
V. Woolfe's "To the Lighthouse"
S. Weil's "The Need for Roots"
F. Vertosick's "When the Air Hits Your Brain"
J. Agee's "A Death in the Family"
J. Conrad's "Heart of Darkness and Other Stories"
M. Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology"
G. Deleuze's "Spinoza: Practial Philosophy"
E. A. Abbott's "Flatland"
L. Althusser's "For Marx"
R. Carver's "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?"
U. Eco's "Misreadings"
K. Marx & F. Engels's "The German Ideology"
E. Wilson's "To the Finland Station"
N. Bobbio's "Liberalism and Democracy"
J.L. Borges's "Fictions"
L. Krasznahorkai's "The Melancholy of Resistance"
E. Fromm's "Escape from Freedom"
I. Murdoch's "Henry and Cato"
"Over analysis is like the oil of the Match-Cut machine." KK2.0
KotSW, IC and tBR are among my favorite novels. how do you find "midnight's children"?
"Over analysis is like the oil of the Match-Cut machine." KK2.0
Love what you read, methinks we are in the same academic fieldritch:
...in which I'm shamefully lacking never having read any of Murdoch's works (The Sovereignty of Good has been sitting next to my bed for months)--what did you like best? or what do you think is the best place to start?
sorry to burst your bubble, but like melville, my field is actually science. :PLove what you read, methinks we are in the same academic field
i am planning on finishing all 23 murdoch's novels before this april. i have been her big fans since when i read the sea, the sea six years ago as recommended by none other than ebert himself. the novel remains my favorite, although it requires patient to get through some of the more low-keyed parts. (in a way, most murdoch's novels are like this. they can get pretty slow at the beginning and sometimes at the end.) a fairly honorable defeat is another good title, and quite amusing through out. the first half of the good apprentice is glorious, although it drops during the second half. any of these mentioned three titles, i think, is a good place to start.
"Over analysis is like the oil of the Match-Cut machine." KK2.0
You defended your PhD thesis and still had time to read more than 80 books? It's nice to see that you can still make me feel like I'm wasting my life.
How are these? I just bought Nadja a few weeks ago.
Nice.
I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?
lists and reviews
Someone grab lovejuice while he's here and don't let him leave again!
to be honest, i'm not a believer of nadja. even hard for me to praise it as a groundwork for all surrealist novels that follow since in many ways it's too different from angela carter's or leona carrington's. (calling carter a surrealist is a bit of a stretch here, i do admit.) in fact, i don't even have that same feeling as when i see the picture of dali or magritte. still i'm mighty curious what you would think about it.
sartre's what is literature? is glorious. i had this one argument with a fool about the difference/sameness between prose and poetry, and how much i would like to shove the book down his stupid throat! the french lieutenant's woman much exceeds my expectation considered i'm not a big fan of 19th century novel. it works very well as both a parody and an homage. you probably get even more out of it than i do if you are familiar wit the genre.
and thank you, kf.
"Over analysis is like the oil of the Match-Cut machine." KK2.0
I know you were looking for Greene recs earlier this year, and I read The Quiet American a couple months ago and it shot to the top of my list from Greene. Amazing book, one of the best I've read. If you haven't read it yet, give it a go when you get some time.and thank you, kf.
it's actually my favorite film from the year it's released (2003?). what do you think of the movie adaptation?
"Over analysis is like the oil of the Match-Cut machine." KK2.0
Decent. I rewatched it immediately after reading the novel, and was disappointed that I didn't like it as much. But that novel is so hard to live up to. It's incredible.
How was this? Joyce Carol Oates rate this extremely highly in her journals and essay on Murdoch, and I'm highly intrigued. I read The Bell this year and it would have been one of the honorable mentions of the honorable mentions.
Memories of the Future
"Criticism can be monumentally creative, of course, at times highly artistic, highly personal. But it rarely relates to the work of art being assessed. It is an expression of the critic's own subjectivity." -Joyce Carol Oates, Journals
henry and cato is quite good. it won't make my top five, but definitely within the ten. (i like the bell more.) slightly different from her other work; the book features motives unfamiliar within her oeuvre. only problem is the coda which, i find, drags on for too long.How was this? Joyce Carol Oates rate this extremely highly in her journals and essay on Murdoch, and I'm highly intrigued. I read The Bell this year and it would have been one of the honorable mentions of the honorable mentions.
if you are familiar with her work, i strongly recommend it. the book is best read with a "comparing" mind.
i'm interested. where do you read that essay by JCO?
"Over analysis is like the oil of the Match-Cut machine." KK2.0
That makes sense--if I'm remembering correctly, JCO wishes some of the things she liked from Henry and Cato showed up more in Murdoch's work.
The essay was collected in The Profane Art. I believe it's currently out of print (I had to use the local library).
Memories of the Future
"Criticism can be monumentally creative, of course, at times highly artistic, highly personal. But it rarely relates to the work of art being assessed. It is an expression of the critic's own subjectivity." -Joyce Carol Oates, Journals
Posting Permissions
forum
Reply With Quote