what are you reading now?

you

you

Well-known member
I've always liked ballard, his last three books were really good, crash is mental, I was going through adolescent alcoholism, drank a lot of cheap vodka over two nights and read crash ( yeah, thats how I roll ) - pretty vivid experience.

Notes from the underground - this was the first Dostoevsky book I read, I read it because it was small, wish I hadn't, it's perhaps his most philosophical, political and time sensitive book - requires a load of background reading imo - I only did this after reading demons, gambler, Bros K etc...... by which point the impression of NFTU had faded..... when I finish the rest of his works i'll revisit it. If anyones looking at secondary texts for it please post em though.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
i did the background reading for it... but i was 18. that was a long time ago. i dont remember what i read.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
luka said:
ballard writes good prose but its fun to attack sacred cows i agree. a lot of what the narrator of notes says i think dostoyevsky would agree with. hes not a hero obviously but the attacks on all he silly things that weere happening at the time all thee stuff about a rational world of rational people pursuing their own self intereest in a rational way, which he scoffs at is very good and still relevant today. theres still crazed ideologues around, it all still holds....
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It's that assault on rationalism that you find in 'Crime and Punishment' (and probably in a lot of his other works) - Raskalnikov's arrogant belief that he can escape the emotional/moral consequences of murder, can view it as a rational (utilitarian?) act, and the INSTANT crumbling of his plans into physical and mental chaos upon taking action (and BEFORE taking action, in fact).

Dostoevsky's writing tends towards a sort of 'irrational' excessiveness too (stylistically/emotionally etc.). To me, this is the source of his power/genius and also the reason why reading his stuff can sometimes be tough going. But I did love 'Crime and Punishment' despite its flaws (I read ''Brothers Karamazov'' years ago and I don't think I could possibly have understood any of it).

A great Russian book which covers some of the same ground is ''A Hero Of Our Time'' by Lermontov. Really wonderful book, quite short but fascinating.
 
e/y

e/y

Well-known member
Corpsey said:
A great Russian book which covers some of the same ground is ''A Hero Of Our Time'' by Lermontov. Really wonderful book, quite short but fascinating.
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fantastic book, my favourite all Lermontov's works. his poems are excellent, too, though I'm not sure how well they translate to English.
 
you

you

Well-known member
Check out demons by FD - massive political and proto-existential shit aside, it's a wonderful example of how the guy can totally flesh out very, very complex characters and questions.... and leave them open and hanging - totally different beast to NTFU and BK ( and HoOT or anything by Checkov or Gogol... )... it's basically a messy, untidy, chaotic book.... that leads to a lot of introspection and emotional dissonance - badass tome...
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Just read Michael Chrichton's 'Disclosure'...the Spanish translation though!

Proper potboiler but I'm quite proud of myself for being able to follow the whole thing. Can anyone recommend any good spanish language books that arent too hard to read? Someone mentioned Borges to me a while back, someone I've been meaning to check out for a while in English anyway, but maybe he's a bit hard going to read in the original language?
 
F

faustus

Well-known member
you said:
Check out demons by FD - massive political and proto-existential shit aside, it's a wonderful example of how the guy can totally flesh out very, very complex characters and questions.... and leave them open and hanging - totally different beast to NTFU and BK ( and HoOT or anything by Checkov or Gogol... )... it's basically a messy, untidy, chaotic book.... that leads to a lot of introspection and emotional dissonance - badass tome...
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definitely my favourite of his.

i'm reading super-cannes by ballard, it's lots of fun
 
F

faustus

Well-known member
Benny B said:
Just read Michael Chrichton's 'Disclosure'...the Spanish translation though!

Proper potboiler but I'm quite proud of myself for being able to follow the whole thing. Can anyone recommend any good spanish language books that arent too hard to read? Someone mentioned Borges to me a while back, someone I've been meaning to check out for a while in English anyway, but maybe he's a bit hard going to read in the original language?
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hey, this is my area at the moment.

try Antonio Muñoz Molina, his books are all pretty short and straightforward. I liked en ausencia de Blanca.

Sin noticias de Gurb by Eduardo Mendoza is very popular for people learning Spanish, I've found, because it's simple and pretty funny.

Bolaño isn't too difficult in the books I've read, try La Pista de Hielo maybe

I think Los girasoles ciegos by Alberto Méndez was the first book I read in Spanish (that wasn't by Roald Dahl or something like that). It's not easy-going because of the subject matter, in fact it's really, really bleak, but the language wasn't too bad.

An author who's not so easy, but who I'm trying to recommend to everyone at the moment, is Rafael Chirbes. He's fucking ace! But nothing translated into English as far as I can tell, even though he's been going for years.

You could try tracking down the Granta magazine Los mejores narradores jóvenes en español, it's lots of short stories some of which are ok. I tried reading a couple of the authors' novels though, and they were generally awful.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Thanks very much Faustus! I'm gonna try and track some of these down today, or maybe look them up when I move to Spain in September.

I've actually got a Molina story (la poseida) in a penguin collection of parallel text short stories. It seemed a bit too difficult when I tried to read it a couple of months ago but my reading skills have come on a lot since then so I'll give it another go.

The ones I really liked (possibly just because I could understand them the best) from that collection were 'La indiferencia de Eva' by Soledad Puertolas, 'Te literario' by Julio Ramon Ribeyro and 'Walimai' by Isabel Allende.

I like Garcia Marquez quite a lot but found his story 'Maria dos prazeres' beyond me in the original language at that point.

Thanks again though for the recommendations faustus.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Just started (well a couple of hundred pages in) to Infinite Jest which I'm enjoying a lot. So far very readable, very funny etc although possibly not quite the transcendental experience I was expecting from all the recommendations - though maybe that's the problem, anything that's built up too much can suffer I think. Anyway, it's relatively early days yet and the fact that I've laughed out loud a few times and felt compelled to read passages aloud to my girlfriend must be a good sign.
 
F

faustus

Well-known member
so you're off to Spain Benny? where did you decide on in the end? i remember giving you a very pessimistic view of english teaching a while back, glad to see it didn't put you off :)
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
hehe, no you didn't put me off. Definitely took what you said into account though and I've been studying Spanish as much as possible before I go, should make things easier.

Anyway I'm off to Seville. Got a couple of job interviews lined up there. I've quit my job here, got the flight booked...its on!

Any further advice or even just pessimistic doom-mongering from yourself would be very much appreciated though ;)
 
F

faustus

Well-known member
spain is great, and i actually live here, as opposed to having formed my opinion through disappointing trips to la rambla and parc guell.

weather's horrible today tho.

benny i'll send you a PM, this thread's waaay off topic (funny though)
 
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