Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Picked up Martin Amis's 'Time's Arrow' over Christmas, expecting to put it down again sharpish, but I'm glad I stuck with it, letting his Amisisms wash over me, because it's really a pretty excellent novel. The reverse time-flow allows for all sorts of vividly imagined images (e.g. sea-gulls descending backwards with their legs peddling, 'as if to break their fall') and comical reversals, as well as the blackly comical reversal of the meaning of the holocaust. The device of the narrator, inside the protagonist but not the protagonist, is a blessing because it lets Amis get away with using his own voice, that voice that is so unbelievable when put into the head or mouth of one of his cartoon characters.

I've noticed that he can rarely let a description stand without doubling it, which reduces the clarity of his writing, but then this IS his style. I decided to accept it as a sort of poetic trick.

Having finished that, I'm starting 'The Song Machine'. The Taming of the Shrew lies unread on my bedside table, shaming me.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
A dissenting voice, the NYT's Michiko Kakutani:

'Unfortunately, the bulk of the novel seems like an extended setup for this emotional payoff -- pages and pages of sophomoric humor laid as groundwork for one huge philosophical point. As a result, the reader must wade through the first three-quarters of the book, which reads like a virtuosic but mannered performance by a writer eager to exploit the comic possibilities of a structual gimmick, before getting to the heart of the matter.

Perhaps this is exactly what Mr. Amis intended, but it's a risky narrative strategy more suited for the short story form than a novel. As it is, the top-heavy jokey part of the book overshadows its somber conclusion, blunting its larger moral ambitions.'

I think this is pretty hard on the bulk of the book! But I can see what she means.
 

you

Well-known member
Who recommended Adam Nevill's new collection of old stories, Some Will Not Sleep? Was it Droid?

I read the first story last night and enjoyed it immensely. Looking forward to the next one.

I'm half way through Langan's The Fisherman. Feels like this middle section is dragging somewhat. I really liked the two contemporary characters at the start but I'm less keen on this historic hypo-diegesis tbh. And the mystical stuff with the ropes and stuff... bit too fantastic for me.
 

droid

Well-known member
Who recommended Adam Nevill's new collection of old stories, Some Will Not Sleep? Was it Droid?

I read the first story last night and enjoyed it immensely. Looking forward to the next one.

Yeah, enjoyed that one too. Hes very good at shorts. Really love 'doll hands'.

I'm half way through Langan's The Fisherman. Feels like this middle section is dragging somewhat. I really liked the two contemporary characters at the start but I'm less keen on this historic hypo-diegesis tbh. And the mystical stuff with the ropes and stuff... bit too fantastic for me.

Has the 'quest' started yet? It livens up quite nicely there.
 

you

Well-known member
Yeah, enjoyed that one too. Hes very good at shorts. Really love 'doll hands'.



Has the 'quest' started yet? It livens up quite nicely there.

I just finished the bit where they chop ropes and the Fisherman gets dragged out into the sea... I will push on. I miss the widowers from the start.
 

droid

Well-known member
I liked the black beach and the leviathan but thought the section before dragged a little. He pulls it all back with some old skool schlock at the end though.
 

you

Well-known member
I liked the black beach and the leviathan but thought the section before dragged a little. He pulls it all back with some old skool schlock at the end though.

Still on it. At times I feel this book is as good as Ligotti - and that is saying something, because I always feel horror is more effective in short format. So to produce a novel that can be likened to one of the great short masters is no mean feat. I can't help but feel a better edit would really help this book though. The middle section could certainly be trimmed back in some cases. I'm not sure how much all the coming and going of the peripheral characters adds to the book.

Also - the sex scene is utterly needless. They are notoriously difficult to do well, and Langan's is not wonderful. It is OK, - but again I question what it adds. Surely a kiss or embrace would've been just as effective, if not more so.
 

jenks

thread death
I am currently reading The Last Wolf by László Krasznahorkai (in my head I have the Fast Show bloke saying this...)
 

bruno

est malade
finished

martin booth, gweilo
peter hopkirk, trespassers on the roof of the world
somerset maugham, far eastern tales

reading

joseph roth, leviathan
homer, iliad
 

droid

Well-known member
Reading the dog stars for the 4th time.

"We were on the edge of a small basin above treeline and in the bottom were patches of old snow and a small lake recently cleared of ice... A lake like a gem set in a bezel of tufted tundra and rough scree, the water green with the luminous unapologetic green of a semiprecious stone but textured with the wind. Then it wasn't. The surface stilled and glassed off, polishing itself in an instant, the water reflecting the dark clouds that massed and poured against the ridges like something molten and it was suddenly very cold and the snowflakes began to touch the surface. Ringless, silent, vanishing. I let go the sled's bridle. I was fifty yards from the water. The snow heavier. A white scrim that darkened the air, that hastened the dusk the way a fire deepens the night. I stood transfixed. Too cold for bare hands but my hands were bare. The flakes struck in my eyelashes. They fell on my sleeves. Huge. Flowers and stars. They fell onto each other, held their shapes, became small piles of perfect asterisks and blooms tumbled together in their discrete geometries like children's blocks."
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I read 100 pages of 'The Portrait of a Lady' and although I was enjoying it, I feel I've hardly the time to read it properly. The long sentences, the endless piling on of detail... Maybe if Netflix and Twitter didn't exist.

I hate being defeated by a book, though, so I'll probably anxiously return to it over the weekend.

Now started reading Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's 'Good Omens', which is something like the antithesis of 'TPOALady'. Very easy to read, and fun, and funny. I suspect I'll finish it by the end of the week. Then, unless James calls me back, I think I'm going to try 'Slaughterhouse Five', which is short.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Slaughterhouse 5 is brilliant, as is Good Omens. The latter was one of my favourite books as a teenager (that's not a dis, I still think it stands up as an adults' book).

As far as Vonnegut goes, only other thing I've read is Cat's Cradle, which is also fantastic. I think my GF has a copy of Breakfast Of Champions lying around somewhere, should probably read that too. I like how KV has this knack of coming out with little observations on human nature, society, religion and so on which somehow ought to sound homiletic, even trite, but somehow don't.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Terry Pratchett books used to be among the only books I'd read without being required to by a teacher, so it's a welcome return for me.

Never read any Gaiman other than the first volume of Sandman, which I thought was quite good, and which is apparently the weakest of the series.
 

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
teenaged years for me was reading sandman comics and vonnegut books.
i did read Good Omens as a teen but i've been put off of Gaiman lately because of all the Amanda Palmer stuff.

my ex girlfriend* picked up KV at the airport and drove him to a reading and back
she said something about him that i have since forgotten - it was probably something about him either being a dick, or funny and insightful, i don't know.




*this girl broke up with her boyfriend to date me and he killed himself.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Gaiman and Palmer makes sense, he used to be emotionally close to Tori Amos and they wrote each other's characters into their respective works; he's closer to that kind of geek than you might realize.

Just read W.E.B Du Bois' "The Comet" and wished it was longer.
 
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