what are you reading now?

craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Bloody hell, I read The White Hotel years ago. I never thought I'd hear this book mentioned in elevated company again! The Holocaust passages are searing, from what I recall. Isn't there a Pale Fire-style section that is one long poem, too? He wrote some interesting novels. My favorite is a roman a clef he wrote about Akhmatova and Mandelstam and their circle, although I can't for the life of me remember what it was called. I no longer seem to own any of his books. He's good, though.
 
slowtrain

slowtrain

Well-known member
I kinda liked The White Hotel, but I thought all the psychoanalysis stuff was kinda lame.

I just liked the poem and the journal.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Bloody hell, I read The White Hotel years ago. I never thought I'd hear this book mentioned in elevated company again! The Holocaust passages are searing, from what I recall. Isn't there a Pale Fire-style section that is one long poem, too?"
Click to expand...
Yeah, kinda - the first chapter is letters among Freud's circle, the next chapter is a longish and surreal erotic poem, then the following chapter is a long exposition of that poem in prose. After that it becomes apparent that the poem and its explanation were created by a patient of Freud for the aid of her analysis, the next chapter is that analysis and then it moves forward into the analysed woman's future... and the holocaust stuff, which is indeed searing.

"I kinda liked The White Hotel, but I thought all the psychoanalysis stuff was kinda lame."
Click to expand...
I know what you mean actually - it all worked out a little too neatly, it was the psychoanalysis equivalent of a Sherlock Holmes denouement where every single bit fits neatly into the whole picture. Although later events in the book which reveal that she's been lying or that Freud was mistaken do undercut this slightly.
Kinda interested in various types of counselling and analysis at the moment as I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who are undergoing or who have undergone different styles of counselling.
 
blacktulip

blacktulip

Pregnant with mandrakes
"He is not just a credit to Sidcup Art School; he is an inspiration to every London child who peeps a recorder or strums a guitar. I cannot think of another member of the British artistic, cultural or media world who has done so much or who has so widely penetrated the global consciousness. David Attenborough? Stephen Fry? He knocks them into a cocked hat... Arise Sir Keef, I say, and if there were any damn merit in it, he would have the Order of Merit, too." -Boris Johnson
 
Bangpuss

Bangpuss

Well-known member
Rich, no worries on the lend. Although I sincerely hope you've kept The White Hotel in good condition, since I bought it for my girlfriend and then stole it back to lend to you! If it turns out to be battered, the book won't be the only thing dog-eared.

Maybe there's some cheap Freudian relevance to the fact that my ex got me on to DM Thomas after finding a volume of his poetry in a library. Poetry and Striptease it was called, and that was fucking great as well, from what I read. She had to copy it out and email it to me because it was in the reference section, and all of his poetry is out of print. If anyone knows where I can get a copy of that, I'd be most appreciative.

I remember the first line of the title poem is:

Be great to fuck you on the dunes
 
blacktulip

blacktulip

Pregnant with mandrakes
Quite an easy find, actually, and cheap:
'Poetry and Striptease' is a poem of his, not the title of any volume as far as I know.
 
grizzleb

grizzleb

Well-known member
Laszlo Krasnahorkai's 'The Melancholy of Resistance' is pretty amazing. Really nice prose, straddles the divide between narrative and texture really nicely all the time. Darkly, hyperbolically funny too.
 
blacktulip

blacktulip

Pregnant with mandrakes
Very good so far:

longest-cocktail-party.jpg
 
D

drilla

Well-known member
last several things completed:

Dreaming of Babylon - Richard Brautigan
1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
In the Miso Soup - Ryu Murakami
Piercing - Ryu Murakami
Swimming in Cambodia - Spalding Gray

reading now:

Jakob Von Gunten - Robert Walser
Exercises in Style - Raymond Queneau
The Franchiser - Stanley Elkin
Stories of Five Decades - Hermann Hesse

on deck:

Tales of Pirx the Pilot - Stanislaw Lem
The Living End - Stanley Elkin
Rhinocerus - Eugène Ionesco
 
Last edited:
grizzleb

grizzleb

Well-known member
grizzleb said:
Laszlo Krasnahorkai's 'The Melancholy of Resistance' is pretty amazing. Really nice prose, straddles the divide between narrative and texture really nicely all the time. Darkly, hyperbolically funny too.
Click to expand...
Woah, so this book took a crazy turn and has now become more philosophical (and dense) whilst impressively retaining the same flow of narrative and prosody. At times it feels almost like a phenomenology of self-awareness and epiphany.

bandshell - I think Dubliners is one of my favourite books, I just love it. Don't think I've read naturalism at the quality of it anywhere else. And it's certainly the best short story collection I've read.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
bandshell said:
started Dubliners the other day. enjoying it.
Click to expand...

I'm really, really digging Flan O'Brien at the moment so I guess Joyce is the logical next step. If 'logical' is the right word...

Odd that O'Brien is held in such high esteem these days - well it's not of course, because he's great - whereas he was often unfavourably compared to Joyce during his lifetime, from what I can gather. But I think a lot of critics and other writers at the time thought Joyce was basically a dirty-minded pseud, didn't they?
 
Last edited:
grizzleb

grizzleb

Well-known member
Joyce pretty much gave O'Brien a career when he gave At Swim Two Birds a few lines of praise, after O'Brien basically chased him down with a copy in France. And then O'Brien ungratefully wrote derisory stuff about him.

You should read Dubliner's and Portrait if you haven't Tea, they're just amazing. Still not got the nuts for Ulysses yet.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
stagey oirishness obviously. hugh kenner characterised obrian as a wastrel. a bloke with all the talent in the world who wasted it on journalism and alcoholism. seems fair enough. makes me like flann o brain more. that wasnt his real name by the way. ive never read anything by him but my grilfriend read a lot of his best book out loud to me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top