Dial

Well-known member
Swoon: Two poets and an internet romance. Which should make all cringe. She's in Tokyo, he's in New York. Its not fiction (with a caveat) and consists of edits/selections from a voluminous correspondance. I enjoyed the intelligence and passion and realness. ( more than once - after delivering floods of passion - she rejects him quite bluntly on the basis of his looks) That said, the caveat to its non-fictionality would be that, as time went on, ( or, at least, we learn this late in the book) they began to publicly perform their correspondance. I'm split on this: both highly suspicious, and thinking the awareness and conscious shaping must have been a great thing.

On the subject of which, liked the O'Hara poem a few posts back.
 
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DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
Just finished "Gormenghast" by Mervyn Peake. It's like a childrens book for adults or something. The language is challenging and my eyes kinda glazed over during some of the more descriptive/psychological bits. He does repeat certain things a lot but it's a great story with lots of inventive twists. It feels very light-hearted and is funny in many parts until someone dies and it's really unexpected and it gets very somber.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Just finished "Gormenghast" by Mervyn Peake."
That's great. When I was little my parents bought me an audio book of that read by celebrity fan Sting. I can't get on with audio books though so I had to get the novel and the sequels. I think it's Titus Groan and Titus Alone, both worth reading as well.
Wasn't there a tv adaptation a few years back or am I making that up?
 

jenks

thread death
Currently reading Fred Vargas - someone new to me. Kind of like a french Rankin, thoroughly enjoyable. Would heartily recommend her as an example of someone who is clearly above being labelled as mere'genre fiction'

also got the new edition of McSweeney's which is lovingly put together - 3 books in a magnetic slip cover (not very easy to describe but quite beautiful) - one a collection from Oulipo, another a selection of poetry and the last a collection of short stories based on ideas from F. Scott Fitzgerald's notebooks.

and re-reading some Chekhov short stories.
 

jenks

thread death
That's the bunny. Dunno why I didn't watch it really.

In remember watching it and being impressed with visuals and the grand parade of English character actors but it didn't make me feel like picking up the book(s).

Peake was in the vanguard when the concentration camps were 'liberated'. I remember reading somewhere that Gormenghast is a response to the camps - a place with no escape to the outside - alternatively a retreat from the world into fantasy. A kind of King Lear? - i dunno, i'm not an expert on him but I am sure there will be people here who are - sci fi and fantasy stuff dominating people's preferred reading.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Peake was in the vanguard when the concentration camps were 'liberated'. I remember reading somewhere that Gormenghast is a response to the camps - a place with no escape to the outside - alternatively a retreat from the world into fantasy. A kind of King Lear? - i dunno, i'm not an expert on him but I am sure there will be people here who are - sci fi and fantasy stuff dominating people's preferred reading."
That's interesting but kind of strange because if I remember correctly, certainly in the last book and possibly in the second, Titus does indeed "escape" Gormenghast and wander round outside.
 

hurricane run

Well-known member
Just finished reading the damned united by david peace geting inside brian clough's (legendary football manager and contrarian) head, joyous also just read the state of denmark by derek raymond rather bleak re-version of 1984/brave new world but far more attuned to the mores of the uk class system in a fascist state raymond, an old etonian, unlike orwell, appreciates his own distaste for those socially below him not quite the hate of celine sadly
 

don_quixote

Trent End
i read the damned utd in like four days (in term time!!), i loved it... but i am a nottingham forest fan so would lap anything about clough up even if i am too young to have any real memory of him at forest.

i really enjoyed gormenghast on the telly, but didn't even have a clue it was a book at the time... only found that out recently, am very tempted to buy it now though.
 

D84

Well-known member
Peake was in the vanguard when the concentration camps were 'liberated'. I remember reading somewhere that Gormenghast is a response to the camps - a place with no escape to the outside - alternatively a retreat from the world into fantasy. A kind of King Lear? - i dunno, i'm not an expert on him but I am sure there will be people here who are - sci fi and fantasy stuff dominating people's preferred reading.

I thought it was about, if anything, the class system, the royal family, England etc: ie. all these rules and systems that no one really needs but have to be followed for the sake of formality and the maintenance of the status quo.

Titus Alone
is the last one which describes his adventures in the outside world not governed by Gormenghast's arcane systems etc. I read it long after I read the first two so I'm not sure how it compares exactly except perhaps the atmosphere isn't as dusty and vivid as the previous two books; I can hardly remember what happens in it so long ago did I read it. It was thoroughly and surprisingly enjoyable though - funny in parts and poignant. Huge influence on Moorcock and his New Wave pals.
 
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J

johnny_yen

Guest
Move Under Ground by Nick Mamatas
The Good German by Joseph Kanon
Positively 4th Street by David Hajdu
 

jenks

thread death
depressing and brilliant. absolutely brilliant. read it in about 4 hours late one night, then sobbed like a bloody child afterwards

Have just finished it - maybe the best thing I've read in ages. It's like a western set in the near future. teh weight of the prose and the sense of unblinking focus and unsentimental approach to the devastation and the collapse of civilisation.

I'm surprised K-Punk hasn't written about it soemwhere - all ghostly and utterly depressing but gripping.

I don't know what everybody else is reading but i urge you to read this.

and it's just come out in paperback here!!
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Sounds great...but what book is it?

I'm reading Dog Years by Gunter Grass - very good but I'll save any more than that until I finish it.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Sorry, in my enthusiasm i forgot.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy"
Ah, thanks, I had a quick flick through the thread but I couldn't immediately work it out.
It's already on my list, looking forward to reading it, I've heard nothing but good things.
 

DRMHCP

Well-known member
"Earthly Powers" by Anthony Burgess
"The Way of All Flesh" by Samuel Butler
"The Woodlanders" by Thomas Hardy

all 3 on the go at once! all were verging on overdue with the library so thought I'd start all 3 together thinking probably one would prove to be a load of crap so I'd be down to a more manageable 2 - so far they're all good though so I'm still juggling all three
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I'm about 100 pages into James Clavell's Shogun - the writings a bit clunky in places, and he feels no compunction about shoehorning in three pages of mediaeval Japanese history in the form of bare-faced exposition, but it's reasonably exciting in a swashbuckling kind of way.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Ah yes, another surprisingly enjoyable epic dealing at great length with an enormous-dicked (some kind of obsession with Clavell it seems) English hero and his battles with cunning eastern schemers.
See also Taipan, Noble House etc and to a lesser extent King Rat.
 
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