what are you reading now?
Ness Rowlah
Norwegian Wood
On to "These Demented Lands", not really got the flow of it yet though, a bit more spaced out than "Morvern Callar".
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
I have a second edition or third edition of that but I've never read it. Let me know if it's good.
slightly crooked
Active member
On to "These Demented Lands", not really got the flow of it yet though, a bit more spaced out than "Morvern Callar".
I'm a big fan of Warner, but wasn't entirely convinced by TDL. He seems to alternate between two main styles with his novels: a tender, lyrical, intimately-observed character-driven style (Morvern, The Sopranos, The Worms Can Carry Me To Heaven) and a psychedelic tinged take on the picaresque (TDL, The Man Who Walks) - although you could maybe argue The Sopranos has elements of both.
Of the second style I thought The Man Who Walks was more successful as there's more humour in there to drive it along.
grizzleb
Well-known member
Just polishing off Umberto Eco's 'Foucault's Pendulum' at the moment. Really enjoying it, the way he connects all these disparate threads and shows the appeal of these worlds on the border of fact and fiction is well impressive. The constant Templars/Rosy Cross chat can get a bit tiresome, just telling who is who in that mess, but I guess that is the point. Eco seems to enjoy throwing alot of factual stuff into his works that annoys sometimes. I had to give up on 'The Island of the Day Before' because of all the old timey science stuff.
Also enjoying 'Lanark' by Alistair Gray, nice Kafka vibes but not as opaque. Nice richness to his surrealism I really like too.
Also enjoying 'Lanark' by Alistair Gray, nice Kafka vibes but not as opaque. Nice richness to his surrealism I really like too.
empty mirror
remember the jackalope
ok, i am impressed you got through it. i must try again.
luka
Well-known member
do you like this? i do, i think its a good way to start a poem
alvaro de campos/fernando pessoa
we crossed paths on a downtown lisbon st, and he came up to me
in his shabby clothes, with professional beggar written all over his face
drawn to me by some affinity that i also feel for him
and with a broad, effusive gesture i reciprocally gave him all i had
(except of course what was in the pocket where i keep more money:
im no fool, nor a zealous russian novellist,
just a Romantic, and that in moderation)
it goes on, but theres limits to how much im willing to type out for you ingrates....
good isn't it...
alvaro de campos/fernando pessoa
we crossed paths on a downtown lisbon st, and he came up to me
in his shabby clothes, with professional beggar written all over his face
drawn to me by some affinity that i also feel for him
and with a broad, effusive gesture i reciprocally gave him all i had
(except of course what was in the pocket where i keep more money:
im no fool, nor a zealous russian novellist,
just a Romantic, and that in moderation)
it goes on, but theres limits to how much im willing to type out for you ingrates....
good isn't it...
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I'll let you know when I've read more than a couple of pages.
OK, so the first few chapters are basically background and exposition, but some proper Adventure has started now. I'm really enjoying the hilariously stilted 19th-century English - what you might call the "Whereupon, without further ado, he produced a hearty luncheon of gammon, kippers and eggs, which we devoured precipitately" school of prose (paraphrasing, but you get the idea). I also perversely quite like the character of Job, who's more or less Sam Gamgee if he'd been a BNP voter. "'Oh Lordy, sir, here's a rum do! These darkies mean to bum us to death, and no mistake!' he ejaculated*, with a look of childlike terror on his endearingly big, round, honest, stupid, racist, working-class face. I smiled inulgently and soothed him with a mint humbug and some soft cooing noises."
*as much as I hate to admit it, this one still gets me every time
lanugo
von Verfall erzittern
Currently I am reading Rilke's only novel "Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge". The plainness and liveliness of the poetical prose are exhilarating. Some passages are fairly cryptic, though, and Rilke's German, at times, is so idiosyncratic that even as a native speaker some sentences are incomprehensible to me. Then again, Rilke's the genius, not me. Already one of my favourite Künstlerromane.
matt b
Indexing all opinion
Half way through David Peace's latest- Occupied City.
Awesome.
Using the Rashomon/In the Grove, multiple viewpoints of same event tactic, he seems to have realised/overcome his (self inflicted) connundrum that victims are almost forgotten in crime novels and does so beautifully- a joy to read so far.
Having read a number of the Martin Beck novels over the summer, which (in hindsight, obv.) have made redundant all your Rebus', Wallenders', Girl With... etc, Peace seems to be changing the genre's landscape in the same way Sjowall and Per Wahloo did 30 years ago adding layers and layers (magick, kids!).
His best yet?
Jenks- have you got hold of this yet? (and, BTW post more on your cycling blog!)
The Beck novels, I'd also recommend highly.
Oh, and a new Oishinbo arrived in the post today.
Awesome.
Using the Rashomon/In the Grove, multiple viewpoints of same event tactic, he seems to have realised/overcome his (self inflicted) connundrum that victims are almost forgotten in crime novels and does so beautifully- a joy to read so far.
Having read a number of the Martin Beck novels over the summer, which (in hindsight, obv.) have made redundant all your Rebus', Wallenders', Girl With... etc, Peace seems to be changing the genre's landscape in the same way Sjowall and Per Wahloo did 30 years ago adding layers and layers (magick, kids!).
His best yet?
Jenks- have you got hold of this yet? (and, BTW post more on your cycling blog!)
The Beck novels, I'd also recommend highly.
Oh, and a new Oishinbo arrived in the post today.
jenks
thread death
empty mirror
remember the jackalope
^ yeah it looks all right
it is more like prose though, innit?
it is more like prose though, innit?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
To read Cyclonopedia once could be considered adventurous; to read it twice begins to look like masochism...
Actually I think I'm getting more out of it the second time, just because I know what to expect from the ultra-abstruse guerrilla-academic style and can concentrate more on the ideas. I've nearly finished it and will probably pick up Moby Dick next.
Actually I think I'm getting more out of it the second time, just because I know what to expect from the ultra-abstruse guerrilla-academic style and can concentrate more on the ideas. I've nearly finished it and will probably pick up Moby Dick next.
craner
Beast of Burden
Linking with the general "mean spiritedness" theme going around Dissensus at the moment, I've been getting a hell of a lot out of Philip Roth lately. I fiinished American Pastoral and thought it was magnificent. Portnoy's Complaint was totally great. I Married a Communist was fun. The Ghost Writer had some moments, but I don't seem to enjoy the Zuckerman novels as much. I hated The Anatomy Lesson as previously noted. What should I read next?
I also read Claire Bloom's memoir Leaving a Doll's House as it was lying around my mother's house over the summer. In it I learnt that Roth is a total shit. But I already knew that. That's really what the books are all about. "I am a total shit. And it's probably my father's fault. My father was a great man. And he was a small man."
I also read Claire Bloom's memoir Leaving a Doll's House as it was lying around my mother's house over the summer. In it I learnt that Roth is a total shit. But I already knew that. That's really what the books are all about. "I am a total shit. And it's probably my father's fault. My father was a great man. And he was a small man."
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
David Galula - Counterinsurgency Warfare
finally got around to it - still pretty much the defining tome in its field nearly 50 years on. the On War of counterinsurgency, you might say. pretty good read too - a slim little volume, very clear & to the point, no abstract theory, a minimum of military jargon.
finally got around to it - still pretty much the defining tome in its field nearly 50 years on. the On War of counterinsurgency, you might say. pretty good read too - a slim little volume, very clear & to the point, no abstract theory, a minimum of military jargon.