what are you reading now?

I don't read frAgmented things I'm a romantic

It's also a good way of reading insofar as you can make lots of inventive links between all the different things you're reading.

I'm in two minds about it as it feels a bit like indulging a bad habit and there's a risk of not really taking in what you're reading.

Striking how miserable Penman makes all these guys sound, ultimately. The end of Charlie Parker's life, the end of James Brown's, the end of Frank Sinatra's. (I don't think Elvis is going to end well, either, if I'm honest.) And I've read the Prince article already, very depressing at the end.

craner said:

You tried the feverish approach?

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Very clever this in retrospect and spotlights a horrible habit of mine of picking up words like chewing gum on a bike tyre.

John Fahey, another dispiriting life story but I'd never heard of him and his music ("Yellow Princess") feels like something I shouldn't have not known about.

This book has had me listening to Frank Sinatra, Charlie Parker, John Fahey and Steely Dan's lyrics.

Finished it last night, rereading the amazing Prince essay.

Made me wonder which stars there are nowadays who might mix a tortured soul with genius. Can't think of many, can you?

The whole oppositional stance disappeared at some point in the mid/late 90s. And with that any writhing tortured flailing. Identify your goals with the goals of the The System and that whole mode vanishes.

Corpsey said:

Finished it last night, rereading the amazing Prince essay.

Made me wonder which stars there are nowadays who might mix a tortured soul with genius. Can't think of many, can you?

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Some of the emo trap stuff maybe? Though I'm hard pressed to think of any geniuses. They do more of the latter than the former for sure.

i'm reading crime and punishment, hadn't read anything by dostoevsky before because somehow i always thought it was very highbrow and complicated. it's kind of the opposite tho, very addictive. story so far like a television soap. fit's in nicely with the incel discussion too cos there's so many losers in the story.

I'm reading minima moralia by Adorno. It's the easy one. All the other stuff is Too hard but this is great.

Yesterday I read "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" by Flannery O'Connor.

I've now read three stories by her and she's already joined my pantheon of favourite writers.

A true blue genius.

“She would have been a good woman,” the Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”

I read The Hare With Amber Eyes the other day. Was a present from my mum. Apparently winner of the Costa award or something but don't let that put you off... if you don't know it's this guy who inherits this collection of Japanese figurines from his great uncle and traces their journey through the family down to him - basically a device to tell the story of his recent ancestors, the fabulously wealthy Jewish banking family Ephrussi. Now, I've never heard of these guys, which, seeing as they were apparently on the same level of the Rothschilds up to the first world war, that one of them was a massive sponsor of Degas, Renoir and other impressionists and is partly who Proust based Swann on, plus they are mentioned as tight bastards in Sholem Alaichem, is no doubt horrendous ignorance on my part. Anyway, the book is about the Paris and Vienna based branches of the family and then spreads further afield to Japan but ultimately cannot help but be about the huge event in the middle of the century which wiped out their wealth and almost them as well. An interesting book that conjures up these places and the art they loved and collected and how it was ripped apart and it does it all with a lack of sentimentality plus huge amounts of learning. I guess it might mean even more if you've read the whole of Proust (I've only read the first book I confess) but even so it's fascinating.

I liked the Hare book very much - the way the objects are a vehicle for the story of the twentieth century. It’s the kind of precious writing that Lula would hate.

jenks said:

I liked the Hare book very much - the way the objects are a vehicle for the story of the twentieth century. It’s the kind of precious writing that Lula would hate.

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Precious? I guess it is kinda finicky at times although I wouldn't have said it was a problem cos it all fits together so well - feels like it was the right way to write it.

Anyway, I picked upa load of charity shop books in the UK, started The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell on the flight back today and it seems promising so far... I like his other ones anyhow.

jenks said:

I liked the Hare book very much - the way the objects are a vehicle for the story of the twentieth century. It’s the kind of precious writing that Lula would hate.

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Definitely gonna call him Lula from now on, nice one Jenks!

yyaldrin said:

i'm reading crime and punishment, hadn't read anything by dostoevsky before because somehow i always thought it was very highbrow and complicated. it's kind of the opposite tho, very addictive. story so far like a television soap. fit's in nicely with the incel discussion too cos there's so many losers in the story.

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just read this bit and i like the idea of "unreal fantasy":

"What do people generally say?" muttered Svidrigaïlov, as though speaking to himself, looking aside and bowing his head. "They say, 'You are ill, so what appears to you is only unreal fantasy.' But that's not strictly logical. I agree that ghosts only appear to the sick, but that only proves that they are unable to appear except to the sick, not that they don't exist."
"Nothing of the sort," Raskolnikov insisted irritably.
"No? You don't think so?" Svidrigaïlov went on, looking at him deliberately. "But what do you say to this argument (help me with it): ghosts are, as it were, shreds and fragments of other worlds, the beginning of them. A man in health has, of course, no reason to see them, because he is above all a man of this earth and is bound for the sake of completeness and order to live only in this life. But as soon as one is ill, as soon as the normal earthly order of the organism is broken, one begins to realise the possibility of another world; and the more seriously ill one is, the closer becomes one's contact with that other world, so that as soon as the man dies he's tips straight into that world. I thought of that long ago. If you believe in a future life, you could believe in that, too."

Which translation are you reading?

translated by constance garnett, does it sound different than the one you read?