grizzleb

Well-known member
That's why contrarianism sometimes does good things. Often I find threads such as these just amount to people saying that a book is good without ever really qualifying it. I liked that post jenks. Might check out that guy. I want to read more prose that's just about walking aroun in nature. Alot of my favouite books have at least some of that. Florid sounds great too
 

luka

Well-known member
i think jenks, and this is something ive talked about before, that good writing is usualy bad writing if the prose has a sheen, and a facile professionalism, its probably bad prose. theres no blood and guts in macfarlane. its a complacent guy taking complacent walks and writing complacent books about them. theres no struggle.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
i think jenks, and this is something ive talked about before, that good writing is usualy bad writing if the prose has a sheen, and a facile professionalism, its probably bad prose. theres no blood and guts in macfarlane. its a complacent guy taking complacent walks and writing complacent books about them. theres no struggle.

What do you think about Nabokov? Master Prose Stylist (tm) or flashy showman? He's said to have kept a note card on ever line in Lolita, and I can believe it. That's the only book of his I read but I thought it was great. I don't mind novels that are written in a very mannered style as long as it's done well.
 

jenks

thread death
Catch-22. I like it.

I find myself remembering bits of C22 years after having read it - a sign of a book that has worked. Some are just the gags - Major Major Major Major but also the critique of war 'what if everyone felt that way? - then i'd be a damned fool to disagree' (or whatever.) The dreadful way in which Snowden is revisited and eventually revealed. The stench of death and the Dante-esque portrait of Rome. Brilliant stuff.

I would also recommend Something Happened which doesn't have the gags of C22 but does have a consistent voice which builds to a crescendo. Maybe we are used to the unsaid now but he skewers all family pieties and it reads like a Mad Men without the sentiment.

In fact with Heller there's not much of his stuff that isn't worth reading - he certainly struggled with all of his work and there were generally big gaps between novels.Comedy didn't come easy to him but reads so smoothly.
 

jenks

thread death
i think jenks, and this is something ive talked about before, that good writing is usualy bad writing if the prose has a sheen, and a facile professionalism, its probably bad prose. theres no blood and guts in macfarlane. its a complacent guy taking complacent walks and writing complacent books about them. theres no struggle.

I still think I'd disagree, his close connection to Thomas is not complacent but heartfelt and real.

With your version of what prose should be is a suspicion of the 'well made', that somehow proficiency should not be trusted, in fact distrusted, that somehow inability is has a potential virtue to be valued over I dunno "writing with its best clothes on." I'm not so certain, the struggle is always there but whether it needs to be evident I'm not so sure.I don't think anyone really finds it easy to write a book. I suppose it is more case of whether we consider the struggle to be worth the effort. Is the sheen always to be held in contempt?

This thread is about recording what we read and is one of the few I still bother to contribute to. It would be interesting if people did do more than record what they read and maybe say why they liked it and if this exchange does that then it's all good.
 

hucks

Your Message Here
I'm reading Red Plenty by Francis Spufford. It's a historical novel (which he describes as a fairy tale) about the economy of the Soviet Union. It is fucking boss. I've just got to the bit set in Gosplan and it feels like the big baddy has finally been revealed.

There's a bunch of references at the back about what is true and what was invented for the story. Apparently Spufford can't speak Russian which makes the whole undertaking pretty amazing, really. The next book I want to read is one referenced in the back called Planning Problems in the Soviet Union.

I think it might be the kind of book certain leftist types would go nuts about. There's already been a symposium.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"This thread is about recording what we read and is one of the few I still bother to contribute to. It would be interesting if people did do more than record what they read and maybe say why they liked it and if this exchange does that then it's all good."
Very true.
 

Bangpuss

Well-known member
Francis Spufford teaches at Goldsmiths, which I will be attending next year. Will probably check out Red Plenty.
 
i think jenks, and this is something ive talked about before, that good writing is usualy bad writing if the prose has a sheen, and a facile professionalism, its probably bad prose. theres no blood and guts in macfarlane. its a complacent guy taking complacent walks and writing complacent books about them. theres no struggle.

You're going to love this. He's written the libretto for a jazz opera about Orford Ness

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/jul/08/untrue-island-orford-ness-macfarlane

"One December night, Arnie and I fisted off the nose of the Ness until 3am. The sky was cloudless, the moonlight strong enough to read by, and Jupiter stood bright in the sky. We drank too much hot wine from Thermoses, and caught whiting to cook up for a hungover breakfast in the barracks. The next day Arnie heaved his double bass over to the New Armoury, and we tried out a seven-verse lyric that I'd written the night before, with a call-and-answer relation between spoken text and musical response."
 
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viktorvaughn

Well-known member
I'm going on holiday soon and want to take something challenging I won't get the time to read at home.

I've got Solzhenitsyn's' The Gulag Archipelago and Middlemarch on my shelf. Does anyone have any experience of these?

Gulag is scary long as the first book is actually only parts 1-2 of 7, so there are another two books with the other parts. Each is about 600 pages so it's 1800 pages on quite a hardcore topic. Amazon reviews say it's amazing tho.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
Never read the Gulag one (always been a bit scared) but Middlemarch is a pretty solid classic. Maybe it's not quite the secret to the meaning of life it's held up as and it does have some flaws (the ending being weak according to common consensus I think) but you will not regret reading it.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I'm going on holiday soon and want to take something challenging I won't get the time to read at home.

I've got Solzhenitsyn's' The Gulag Archipelago and Middlemarch on my shelf. Does anyone have any experience of these?

Gulag is scary long as the first book is actually only parts 1-2 of 7, so there are another two books with the other parts. Each is about 600 pages so it's 1800 pages on quite a hardcore topic. Amazon reviews say it's amazing tho.

Can't really help with the whole book, but the first chapter is incredible. As I recall I left in the second chapter and never returned, as the style changed somewhat. May be misremembering, but I'd say certainly start it and see where you get from there.

I'm not very good at long books in general, so I probably got scared.

Read that MacFarlane piece, and must admit I'm not keen on his style (the book might be totally different, no idea). My eyes glazed over quite quickly. It feels very forced, trying too hard to be (a certain kind of) 'good writing'. Reminds me of me as a teenager, trying to use as many 10 cent words that I'd just learned as possible. Maybe that's precisely why I don't like it!
 
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viktorvaughn

Well-known member
Can't really help with the whole book, but the first chapter is incredible. As I recall I left in the second chapter and never returned, as the style changed somewhat. May be misremembering, but I'd say certainly start it and see where you get from there.

I'm not very good at long books in general, so I probably got scared.

I read the first chapter last night and realised I wasn't ever going to get to the end of the book (tho it was wicked I agree). I started reading some sci-fi instead, think I'll take Middlemarch on holiday next week, plus the Third Policeman.
 

grizzleb

Well-known member
Just read Edward Limonov's 'My Butler's Tale', a fiction/memoir kind of thing, the main character is a self-obsessed misanthrope with delusions of grandeur. Pretty funny book really. If you enjoy Celine et al you will enjoy this.

Also read a bunch of Kafka short stories, guy really was amazingly talented. 'In the Penal Colony' is just perfect, as are the ones narrated by a chimp and a dog. I read 'The Castle' years ago but didn't really get it, now I see why he's so feted.
 

Immryr

Well-known member
I'm going on holiday soon and want to take something challenging I won't get the time to read at home.

I've got Solzhenitsyn's' The Gulag Archipelago and Middlemarch on my shelf. Does anyone have any experience of these?

Gulag is scary long as the first book is actually only parts 1-2 of 7, so there are another two books with the other parts. Each is about 600 pages so it's 1800 pages on quite a hardcore topic. Amazon reviews say it's amazing tho.

i've had the gulag archipelago sitting on my shelf for a long time. i bought it at the same time i bought a day in the life of ivan denisovic, but i wasn't that enthralled by the shorter book and have never found the energy to slog through gulag.
 
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