catalog

Well-known member
Has anyone read War and peace. Bloke at work who reads a lot, it's his favourite novel. On my list, but not with much degree of seriousness
 

droid

Well-known member
He peered into the dark. Between the tall trees on either bank was a swath of stars, a river of constellations that flowed heedless and unperturbed. Between the brightest, needling the arm of Orion and the head of the Bull, were distances of fainter stars that formed, as Wynn stared, a deep current, uninterrupted, as infused with bubbles of light as the aerated water of a rapid. Except that he could see into it and through it and it held fathomless dimensions that were as void of emotion as they were infinite. And if that river flowed, that firmament, it flowed with a majestic stillness. Nothing had ever been so still. Could spirit live there? In such a cold and silent purity of distance? Maybe it wasn’t silent at all. Maybe in the fires that consumed those stars were decibeled cyclones and trumpets and applause.

As in our own. Our very own voluble fire.


From the new Peter Heller.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Has anyone read War and peace. Bloke at work who reads a lot, it's his favourite novel. On my list, but not with much degree of seriousness
A friend said to me recently that Anna Karenina was much better. he said that the last 100 or so pages of W&P are basically Tolstoy outlining his own system of thought, rather than a denouement as such.

I think the disagreement over American Psycho here has sprung up in part because of different expectations around what a novel is, and what the pleasures of reading novels are. I think it's a great work of art (I was blown away when I read it years ago, a few of the passages just seemed to throw the whole thing into counterpoint - Version has quoted one of them above) but does it deliver the usual satisfactions I'd associate with a novel - identification with characters, the satisfaction of plot resolution etc? I'd say no. Does it offer deep insight into the time it was written, even the "human condition" (or perhaps the white male American condition)? I'd say yes.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
For the record I'm reading Maoism: A Global History by Julia Lovell, which is what it says on the tin, though perhaps a bit odd in structure as it's not a chronological history, more tracing the pattern that is Maoism and how it's appealed and survived in a variety of contexts.

I've been derailed by picking up Wilhelm Reich's The Sexual Revolution. It was written in 1935 so a lot of it is out of date but it opens with a couple of searing chapters with Reich outlining his view of the psyche in relation to psychoanalysis. I might try and post a bunch of quotes as tweets. I'll post a link here if I do.

Managed to read 18 books so far this year, falling short of my goal of a book a week. Only 4 novels though, 2 of which are by women! Fiction is my weak point. Tea has just lent me Borges Labyrinth though so maybe that will change.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
For the record, dem novels are
All Quiet on the Western Front
Hound of the Baskervilles
Semiosis - Sue Burke
The Loosening Skin - Aliya Whitely.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
War and Peace I've never read, guess I should really. A few years ago (I think I mentioned this before) but I was going out with a girl who worked at the Barbican and she had free (or discounted) tickets for loads of good stuff. One time they showed the entirety of the Bondarchuk adaptation in one day (with breaks for drinks and some food maybe) so we went to see that. Kinda cool to be immersed in the whole thing for nine hours or whatever like that but I guess it still misses stuff out... I don't remember it that well now anyway.
 
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version

Well-known member
I think the disagreement over American Psycho here has sprung up in part because of different expectations around what a novel is, and what the pleasures of reading novels are. I think it's a great work of art (I was blown away when I read it years ago, a few of the passages just seemed to throw the whole thing into counterpoint - Version has quoted one of them above) but does it deliver the usual satisfactions I'd associate with a novel - identification with characters, the satisfaction of plot resolution etc? I'd say no. Does it offer deep insight into the time it was written, even the "human condition" (or perhaps the white male American condition)? I'd say yes.

I don't think it's that. I think there are specific things about that particular novel Jeks and Catalog just don't like, e.g. Jenks mentioning the emphasis on surface. I didn't get the impression it was because they were only interested in traditional storytelling and neat plots or anything like that.
 

jenks

thread death
yes, i have read War and Peace - it is magnificent but as Danny says above the final section is this essay on History which does take the wind out of the book's sails. The actual story is very compelling and the broad canvas allows for characters to come and go building up point and counterpoint along the way. I preferred Anna Karenin, although you do have a lot of hunting scenes to get to the train station.
These big books generally slip down pretty easily - they just need time - i was commuting two hours a day by train when i read most of the long 19th C stuff and it was before smartphones, so i was knocking off 50-70 pages a day no problems.
 

jenks

thread death
I will defend myself here, as Djuna Barnes, Jane Austen, Mina Loy, Renata Adler, Elaine Dundy, Olivia Manning and Jean Rhys are among my favorite writers and I wrote a 50,000 word thesis on Nancy Cunard. But point taken.

This thread, though, is a bit like the movie thread. It is hard to engage with because it is not really about anything specific, but every now and then something pops up (like Blade Runner 2049) that engages or annoys enough people to get a conversation going on. But nobody can force it.

Where does one start with Cunard - i only really know her via Pound.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Where does one start with Cunard - i only really know her via Pound.

You don't really have to, she's not a great writer, but if anything her long poem Parallax is interesting and good.

There is a volume of her poetry in print now:


There wasn't when I was doing my dissertation, I had to read this stuff in the British Library!
 

catalog

Well-known member
I don't think it's that. I think there are specific things about that particular novel Jeks and Catalog just don't like, e.g. Jenks mentioning the emphasis on surface. I didn't get the impression it was because they were only interested in traditional storytelling and neat plots or anything like that.

it's a bit of both for me maybe... i don't always need strong characters i can identify with, but it deffo helps.

i just think AP is not very good. I would class it along with something like 'trainspotting', although i prefer trainspotting still, cos there's more going on. AP is just not interesting enough for me, i don't buy the big claims being made for it. It's a satire, which i get, but the satire is not compelling enough for me.

To me, there's really no way you can compare it some other novels I've read eg Moby Dick, Quixote, Gravity's rainbow. I know they are all totally uncontroversial classics, so it's a bit unfair to bracket a 90s. novel along with them. I would not class trainspotting with those either, but i just prefer it to AP.. I'm sort of clutching for that as something vaguely similar, but maybe its not really...

I should've probably explained a bit better,when i joined in with jenks on the pile on
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I don't think it's that. I think there are specific things about that particular novel Jeks and Catalog just don't like, e.g. Jenks mentioning the emphasis on surface. I didn't get the impression it was because they were only interested in traditional storytelling and neat plots or anything like that.
Happy to accept I'm wrong on that - was an idle thought. Probably related to reflecting on my own (lack of) reading of novels.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I absolutely loved Trainspotting when I read it. Again, it was so many years ago that I now don't know whether I trust that love now. Was it just the skag and dogshit and nihilism I was into?
 

catalog

Well-known member
I've read and re-read it a few times over the years, admittedly not that recently. It's easily the best thing he ever did, although the few others he did at the time (acid house, marabou stork nightmares, ecstasy) were also enjoyable. I was fully into the whole thing, with rebel Inc. I found out about bukowski through them.

I've not looked at trainspotting again for a good while, mainly cos I've stopped rereading things anc my interests have gone elsewhere, but I still really love it, in a way that I could not love AP.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
The one bit I remember is when Spud goes out on a bender with some other people, including a girl he fancies, and they walk home together (I think there's a tie in with 'There is a light that never goes out'?), and it's quite touching.

Oh, and Renton shagging someone at a funeral—his mate's wife, or something? And some hideous story about AIDS.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
No Trainspotting still stands up for sure... I've read it several times and each time I realise I've forgotten how vivid and vibrant it is and how it just jumps off the page. Sure when I was a kid in the 90s and saw it in the cinema it was "cool, drugs!" but that's just a part of it. It probably is Welsh's best novel (that I've read) but I think he's a really great writer. There are others who set out to do (roughly) what he does, but I can't think of anyone in... er, in my lifetime maybe, who does it half so well.
 

catalog

Well-known member
i do remember the bit about renton shagging his brothers wife, at his brothers funeral. yeah, pretty gross. i can't remember that spud story, but i do remember the 'grannys old junk' one, which was good, about his gran being a smack addict as well. and there's the really good one about jackie and rentons brother, and the gambling ripoff. yeah the AIDS one i remember as well, where they dress up the baby? i think that's what i like so much about trainspotting, the sense of a whole world he creates, it's very compelling.

the acid house is full of great ones too, 'a soft touch' is so good, only like 5 pages long but he packs a whole world in. they did a film and that was one of the stories, but they got it all wrong.
 
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