mairi

New member
The Schopenhauer Cure

ok peeps, whatcha reading at the moment?

Now I am ending my Irvin Yalom's book " The Schopenhauer Cure". And I really like it. It is about man which has the character as Shopenhauer had (snoby, unpleasant, greedy person which argued with everybody but very clever with interesting thougts) and he should to be in psychology group provided by Irvin Yalom. The story about changes which were made in this man and impact of Schopenhauer's philosophy on people.
Also there lots of facts about Schopenhauer's life. It really worth to read it.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I picked up "Mumbo Jumbo" by Ishmael Reed and ofc. it's fucking great, I'm ecstatic. I also have this stupid Celine book I know I'll love but I'm never gonna read probably. Yet again.

I also read Madame Bovary for my college class and it made me cry a lot, so that's good. I really like it, etc.

*reps for team leo*
 

bruno

est malade
I also have this stupid Celine book I know I'll love but I'm never gonna read probably. Yet again.

which one? i have nord and mort à credit waiting to be read (since 1995) but i finished a selection of letters to the nrf (his publisher) and it was a hilarious, sad and generally enjoyable read even with most letters dedicated to haggling for money. i have less and less patience for novels but i loved the letters, i think i will have to do that with authors i am on the fence about.
 

bruno

est malade
giorgio de chirico's memoirs: annoying book which you should avoid unless you enjoy constant complaints about modern art, about de chirico counterfeits and general self-aggrandising. the first half is amusing with visits to apollinaire etc. but the rest is dull.

dominique vivant denon, voyage to egypt: fascinating account of the french expedition to egypt by this self-made diplomat, spy, erotic artist, collector/looter and later founder of the louvre. his were the first detailed sketches of the various monuments that were to form the basis of the description de l'égypte. amusing descriptions of expedition travails, the people and customs of egypt (then under rottoman rule) and the impression the ancient monuments caused on this aesthete. the expedition ends with napoleon's fleet defeated by admiral nelson..

curzio malaparte's kaputt and muss: kaputt is a very funny, very dark indictment of the war (and war in general) depicting various axis scenes near the end of the war, his best work (that i've read). malaparte was war correspondent of the corriere della sera, a very gifted writer with fascist leanings who fell afoul of mussolini who he describes in muss, a less successful (posthumous) novel of almost comical vehemence, published now to rehabilitate him in the eyes of the public (where no writer is allowed to have right-wing leanings, ever).
 

bruno

est malade
currently forcing myself to read hugo pratt's una ballata del mare salato (featuring corto maltese, but without pictures) with the aim of learning italian, non capisco troppo but i am making strides.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
It's so weird, I was listening to the Emmanuelle 2 soundtrack last night. This is more evidence of my psychic powers.
 

bruno

est malade
hello oliver! coincidentally i found the bilitis soundtrack this weekeend. it's good to see you here.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
which one? i have nord and mort à credit waiting to be read (since 1995) but i finished a selection of letters to the nrf (his publisher) and it was a hilarious, sad and generally enjoyable read even with most letters dedicated to haggling for money. i have less and less patience for novels but i loved the letters, i think i will have to do that with authors i am on the fence about.

Mort à Credit to be precise. I can imagine him being amazing at letter writing. I picked this up years ago because I knew he was supposedly one of Bukowski's biggest influences and I went through an early high-school Bukowski trend (it didn't stick in the ugly ways like with a lot of Americans my age these days, thank god). There's one early part where he describes talking to a restaurant's owner who waxes poetic about how he's going to die at peace with all of his loved ones surrounding him, and calmly ascend to heaven.

Then Celine, being a magnificent bag of dicks, proceeds to describe in the most brutal and explicit details how this man ends up having a stroke months later that sounds like the world's most gruesome punishment, with the physical impact reminding me of those awful Final Destination films, and how he (being a doctor) couldn't do anything to stop such oncoming agony hitting this man like a train.

I KNOW I have to read it, its just that I put so many other books on the agenda.
 

bruno

est malade
i have similar piles of books to read which i will get around to sometime this decade!

and yes, céline can be very blunt, the letters are no less so but also funny and charming (he has to be, after all his books and publisher are his lifeline and means of existence, especially in exile), and there is a tenderness and loneliness that is hard not to identify with.

i especially enjoyed the very acid comments on sartre (who he says visited him in germany during the war looking to publish) and all those who sipped cafés during the war and became antifascists after. (malaparte suffered similarly with moravia and others who published with him and rejected him after the war).

i like letters but especially memoirs, one advantage is that the writer doesn't even have to be notable or good, just at the right place and time as in the case of a memoir by daniel filippachi i read recently, who is a terribe writer but founded lui, was boss of paris match and met everyone from charlie parler to dali and even céline, and collected surrealist art, plus is filthy rich, hard to get more interesting than that.
 
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