what are you reading now?

Just finished On Beauty by Zadie Smith. It's been described as a homage to Howard's End and the first few chapters are a scene for scene re-creation set in a modern university. After that though it diverges from the template and apart from a few sneaky hints (a cameo from a family called the Wilcoxes, a copy of Room With a View left lying around) and the odd scene that jerks you back (finding the will for example) it does develop in a totally different direction.
Very concerned with race and class and very easy to read, I did find it a bit simplistic and almost patronising at times. Also, how many times have you read about a once-brilliant but fading academic? And how many times that you read about that was he consumed with jealousy for a more brilliant rival? A lot of themes from her other books seem to recur here as well (the one rebellious but confused "street" child for example) and all of this combined to make it seem very familiar. As with her other books she seemed to have a problem with the ending, it didn't so much finish as just stop.
Reading that back it sounds overly negative. Her style is clear and a pleasure to read and I looked forward to picking it up every time I went back to it - it definitely provided a welcome break from chewing my way through V. I'm gonna go out and buy something else at lunchtime, any suggestions?

petergunn said:

i am currently working my way thru Mordecai Richler's catalog... just finshed "Barney's Version", which i could not recommend highly enough...

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Have you read Solomon Gursky? I think Mordecai is greatly underrated - kind of a Canadian Roth. I think the balance of serious and comic themes is usually handled very skillfully, i think he does childhood particularly well - easily equal to Augie era Bellow. I would also recommend St Urban's Horseman.

He has also fathered at least two other novellists - his daughter had a novel published last year as did his son, Daniel a while back.

The File - Timothy Garton Ash

In which TGA retrives the file the Stasi used to have on him in the 80s, and tracks down the people who were informing on him, comparing his notes with theirs. Really outstanding memoir/personal history that becomes an essay on memory. A Recherche du temps perdu for the Cold War. Superbly written as always, too.

Amazon-style perfect companion - Stasiland by Anna Funder

parasite rex carl zimmer
http://www.carlzimmer.com/parasite_1.html

but not after any food.
i hardly ever read fiction at all anymore.

the moon is a harsh mistress - heinlein (really great)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress
the book of thoth - crowley (mostly boring)
http://www.rahoorkhuit.net/library/thoth/index.html
breaking open the head - pinchbeck (interesting)
http://www.breakingopenthehead.com/
from the ashes of angels - collins (really interesting, sometimes boring)

On Stupidity: Avital Ronnell, Clever and stimulating. Not too hard a read, tho maybe a little too cute, now and then, for my personal taste.

And a big shout out to Cormac McCarthy. God that man has texture to his text. As another said, tough poetry. Wonderful, must read some more very soon.

And the TGA above also sounds fascinating.

And a copy of Sebalds, 'Austerlitz' sits on my shelf, plastic wrapper still intact. Hmm.

And....

"I'm gonna go out and buy something else at lunchtime, any suggestions?"

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I got White Noise by DeLillo in the end, not really enjoyed anything by him before but my brother recommended this one and it sounds a bit more interesting than Underworld so here goes.

IdleRich said:

I got White Noise by DeLillo in the end, not really enjoyed anything by him before but my brother recommended this one and it sounds a bit more interesting than Underworld so here goes.

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really?

i've read about 2/3 of his stuff and would say Underworld is def. his best...

jenks said:

Have you read Solomon Gursky? I think Mordecai is greatly underrated - kind of a Canadian Roth. I think the balance of serious and comic themes is usually handled very skillfully, i think he does childhood particularly well - easily equal to Augie era Bellow. I would also recommend St Urban's Horseman.

He has also fathered at least two other novellists - his daughter had a novel published last year as did his son, Daniel a while back.

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i bought Solomon Gursky, have not read it yet...

Currently reading St. Urbain's Horseman, i like it, but not as much as Barney's Version... it's good, but has def. aged as a "60's novel"... (i know Barney's version will age as a 90's novel, but right now that doesn't bother me...) , but i'll know more when i finsih it..

i might like Barney's version more b/c it contains the montreal of the 90's as well as the montreal of his youth. most of his books before that that deal w/ montreal are his childhood memories written when he lived in London, so it's interesting to see him reflect on the present day state of his childhood home... "then and now"...

project breif on reality show about a mom who is also a bounty hunter

"really?
i've read about 2/3 of his stuff and would say Underworld is def. his best..."

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I guess that's what most people think but I found it fairly boring. It was quite clever but the conversations just annoyed me and I thought it was empty over all. I guess I'm in the minority on that one though.
I'm about half way through White Noise now and I'm enjoying it a lot more - it's just as clever clever but at least it's making me laugh.

IdleRich said:

I guess that's what most people think but I found it fairly boring. It was quite clever but the conversations just annoyed me and I thought it was empty over all. I guess I'm in the minority on that one though.
I'm about half way through White Noise now and I'm enjoying it a lot more - it's just as clever clever but at least it's making me laugh.

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don dellilo is one of those people who basically writes the same book 17 times... some times more he does it well, sometimes not ("mao II" or whatever it's called, i'm looking at you!").
"underworld" is , to me, the best execution of all the themes he dwells on over and over again (modern relationships, media, technology, 20th centurty history ).

i just feel like "underworld" is the "exile on main st" of delilo books , or at least the "sticky fingers". "white noise' is more like the "aftermath" or "between the buttons", which is to say, a less grandiose take on similar themes and ideas. some people prefer that, some people feel like he could go deeper into it. i also feel one of delilo's key (and underrated elements) is his understanding of urban nyc life and "white noise" is a very suburban book, so i feel something is lacking...

if you like "white noise", you should cop his first book "americana", (his "england's newest hit makers" (sorry)) which was published in 1971 and it's very cool to see what parts of his style are there and what aren't. it's funny, i read the whole book w/o knowing when it was written and then i checked the copyright date and was like "OHHHHHHHHHHH!"

I must admit the only ones I've read are Underworld and another the name of which I can't remember, it was a really short one about an imaginary boy or something, very throw-away. I'm desperately trying to find an album for that but I can't really think of one I'm afraid.
I am surprised that you say that he writes the same book over and over again, though White Noise is recognisably the same writer I would say that it's really quite different - a lot more humorous, a lot less concerned with its own importance which was the overriding feeling that I got with Underworld and the main reason I disliked it. I guess the point of it was to somehow capture a century of so of the US but despite the size of the book I felt that he failed in that undertaking.
I'd say that (so far) White Noise is more like a Let It Bleed to Underworld's EoMS, shorter and less overblown but far more enjoyable. I guess I shouldn't get too excited yet, there is still plenty of time for it to go wrong.
I'll try and check out Americana. Any other recommendations?

his newest book "Cosmopolis" is short and sweet... can't decide if his take on globalism and hip hop is good or ridiculous... either way it IS funny... if you prefer 'white noise" to "undergorund" b/c it's isn't epic or whatever, i wou;d say you'dig Cosmopolis... nothing as memorable as the 'hitler studies" riffs in "white noise", but there are some great riffs on WTO anarchist types...

OK, thank you - on to the list it goes...

I think it is interesting that you both pick up on the humour in White Noise because i feel that is precisely what has leeched out of DeLillo's work. I really enjoyed Underworld but it was quite clearly in love with its own self importance. It was avowedly a 'big book' (like Franzen's the Corrections) and i really admire its ambition.

I tend to like Mao II and Libra, i thought the two slender works he has produced since Underworld - The Body Artist and Cosmopolis really aren't up to much by comparison.

"I think it is interesting that you both pick up on the humour in White Noise because i feel that is precisely what has leeched out of DeLillo's work."

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What do you mean here, that he got less funny as he went on but bit by bit so no-one noticed?

"I really enjoyed Underworld but it was quite clearly in love with its own self importance. It was avowedly a 'big book' (like Franzen's the Corrections) and i really admire its ambition."

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In love with its self-importance and also its cleverness I would have said. I found that too much of a double-whammy to really enjoy the whole thing but yeah, I guess it was ambitious and that's got to be a good thing.

"I tend to like Mao II and Libra, i thought the two slender works he has produced since Underworld - The Body Artist and Cosmopolis really aren't up to much by comparison."

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What would the book (of his) be where there are a couple and some kind of ghostly or imaginary child or something? I'm being pretty vague here I know but it was a while since I read it and I've no idea what it was called but I suspect you might.

White Noise > Mao II > Dow Jones > Cosmopolis > Underworld if my recollections are right...

Right now Im on a non fiction Cold War bend...reading The Mitrohkin Archives about the KGB/FSB. Gulag Archipelago up next.

I found "Cosmopolis" to be a pretty bare and pointless read, whereas in "Underworld", whilst the superstructure of interconnection was pretty loose, (and perhaps little more than an excuse for grandiosity) there were passages and images of extraordinary power, and I didn't find it a difficult read by any means. Of course it all depends on why you read books, but character and plot aren't massively important to me, and that might colour my judgement somewhat.

Not so much difficult as irritating I thought - that scene when they kept headbutting each other, I don't know why but I found it so annoying. I had to read it in a fairly short time because it was borrowed and I had to return it so maybe forcing the sheer volume of pages down quickly caused me to choke on it.