what are you reading now?

[IdleRich]

Just started reading Sebald's The Rings of Saturn and it's such lovely, simple prose that the pages almost turn themselves even though the book is bascially (so far) about nothing other than some paintings he's seen, books he's read and a depressing walk he's making along the East Anglia coast. In fact everything in the book is melancholic, depressing and deals with things coming slowly and sadly to an end; already about five people have died but normally in low-key and lonely ways and those deaths are reflected in the collapse of herring stock, the manor house brought low and the impoverishment of formerly wealthy Lowestoft. Dunno if I'm exactly making it sound good but it's recommended to anyone who enjoys reverie, ends of eras and crystal clear writing.

 

[craner]

The very name Lowestoft makes me feel ill.

Are you writing any more film essays?

 

[you]

Just started reading Sebald's The Rings of Saturn and it's such lovely, simple prose that the pages almost turn themselves even though the book is bascially (so far) about nothing other than some paintings he's seen, books he's read and a depressing walk he's making along the East Anglia coast. In fact everything in the book is melancholic, depressing and deals with things coming slowly and sadly to an end; already about five people have died but normally in low-key and lonely ways and those deaths are reflected in the collapse of herring stock, the manor house brought low and the impoverishment of formerly wealthy Lowestoft. Dunno if I'm exactly making it sound good but it's recommended to anyone who enjoys reverie, ends of eras and crystal clear writing.

that's an amazing book - I felt Will Self's Walking to Hollywood chapter about his coastal walk definitely took a few cues from it- Sebald is an amazing writer, the WWII hangover, the barren, impoverished landscapes etc etc the meandering, hypo-hypo diegesis'... all beautifully haunting ellegories and metaphors all delivered in/through a delicate floating prose - dope shit fo sho.

EDIT - I rambled about Austerlitz a while back

 

[IdleRich]

"Are you writing any more film essays?"

I'd like to (after all I have now got $1.74 in my account!) - I know they're a bit crap but it's my first attempt and I was enjoying it. Just got to get back in the zone or something.

 

[IdleRich]

"all beautifully haunting ellegories"

Is this a word I don't know or is it somewhere between allegories and elegies? I like it.

 

[craner]

They weren't crap. I really enjoyed reading them, and I don't think I've seen one of the films you were writing about, so they must have been -- objectively -- very good. If you wrote one about Mario Bava, I'd be delighted.

 

[you]

Is this a word I don't know or is it somewhere between allegories and elegies? I like it.

ha! it could be couldn't it - consider that nicked!!!! Nah, it's just me being an idiot and not spellchecking whilst distracted at work...totally going to use that from now on though...

 

[Slothrop]

The Third Policeman is great. The Best of Myles, a collection of O'Brien's columns from the Irish Times, is funniest book I've ever read. At Swim - Two Birds is nuts, though. Pretty much unreadable.

They're all brilliant, he's an utterly fantastic dark comic writer. I didn't think At Swim Two Birds was particularly unreadable, either, although large parts of it (particularly the parts that are more or less verbatim translations of irish legends) are a bit weird.

 

[Slothrop]

When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When money's tight and hard to get
And your horse has also ran,
When all you have is a heap of debt -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When health is bad and your heart feels strange,
And your face is pale and wan,
When doctors say you need a change,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When food is scarce and your larder bare
And no rashers grease your pan,
When hunger grows as your meals are rare -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

In time of trouble and lousey strife,
You have still got a darlint plan
You still can turn to a brighter life -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

 

[IdleRich]

"They weren't crap. I really enjoyed reading them, and I don't think I've seen one of the films you were writing about, so they must have been -- objectively -- very good. If you wrote one about Mario Bava, I'd be delighted."

Well, thanks for the encouragement, maybe self-conscious cos I haven't tried writing anything "creatively" since I did my GCSE English half a life-time ago. I will write some more then, cheers - though I don't know enough about Bava to write about him - surely more your speciality.

"ha! it could be couldn't it - consider that nicked!!!! Nah, it's just me being an idiot and not spellchecking whilst distracted at work...totally going to use that from now on though..."

Good coinage.

By the way, has anyone got any theories about Infinite Jest - been reading a few bits about the way it finishes in the middle of all the stories and checked a few of the extrapolations made by fans. This one is a bit ridiculous because it goes into several orders of explanation - by which I mean it just doesn't just talk about what happens next but also what happens after that as a result and then what happens after that. Irritatingly, a lot of what he says for the bits I'm interested in I agree with up to a point.

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend

I know at least one person above has read it so will know what I'm on about.

 

[grizzleb]

I read 'At Swim Two Birds' a few weeks ago. Found it strangely heavy-going considering the prose isn't that difficult really. Something about the way it shifts around and the dialogue is used. I loved those hard drinking, 'simple' poems and conversations that were had though. They did make me laugh. I liked the realist bits about the authors daily life the most I think.

I think the central themes of authorship, character creation were pretty interesting. I'm yet to really complete my thoughts on it. I mean on one level you have a naturalist, realist depiction of someone who's supposed to be the 'real' author (O'Brien himself), but actually he's just another character in a book. Then you have another author inside that work who for most of the text is actually absent - who doesn't himself create the world but rather the world springs forth from him. And then inside this you have a mix of characters who are either 'created' and sort of faceless and entirely interchangable (nor 'real' characters), or you have the 'legendary/mythic' characters who weren't really 'created' at all and have an excess of content that is kind of impenetrable. Interesting stuff.

 

[Mr. Tea]

By the way, has anyone got any theories about Infinite Jest - been reading a few bits about the way it finishes in the middle of all the stories and checked a few of the extrapolations made by fans. This one is a bit ridiculous because it goes into several orders of explanation - by which I mean it just doesn't just talk about what happens next but also what happens after that as a result and then what happens after that. Irritatingly, a lot of what he says for the bits I'm interested in I agree with up to a point.

That's kind of intriguing, though. It'd be interesting to know how far along the chain of inferences this guy's extrapolations agreed with whatever the author imagined might happen (bit late to test that now, of course).

I imagine this would be very difficult, as most novels are not accurately modelled by a Markov chain, where (say) events in chapter 10 would depend only on those in chapter 9 - it's much more likely they'd depend on some or all of chapters 9, 8, 7...1. And the more dependencies there are, the harder any kind of inference or prediction becomes.

 

[IdleRich]

"I imagine this would be very difficult, as most novels are not accurately modelled by a Markov chain, where (say) events in chapter 10 would depend only on those in chapter 9 - it's much more likely they'd depend on some or all of chapters 9, 8, 7...1. And the more dependencies there are, the harder any kind of inference or prediction becomes."

Yeah, that's especially true when the novel is a thousand pages long and some of the bits that (if I read it correctly) turn out to be most important are footnotes to footnotes about seemingly trivial things. And when the first chapter is chronologically the last and happens seemingly a year after the events of the final chapter - a year in which a lot of things have obviously happened but which are totally unexplained.

 

[BareBones]

Some of that stuff is talked about here Rich, but yeah not in any way conclusively...
http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?8221-David-Foster-Wallace-RIP/

w/r/t that link, there's some interesting theories there but yeah it does seem a bit like he's inferring maybe a bit too much from too little. I think I agree that it was Orin sending out the tapes though.

 

[IdleRich]

I was hoping it was Mario - he seems to have been closer to Himself and thus more likely to know where the mastertape was, plus he has more of a motive to take revenge on the men who cuckolded him(self). Of course it fits better with Orin's personality but I was thinking that if it was Mario it would have been a nice curveball. I do find that bit about Orin being at the post office early on a fairly good argument though.
Will check the link anyway, cheers.

 

[BareBones]

ha, I really don't want it to be Mario, because he's one of the most heart-meltingly lovely characters i've ever read.

 

[IdleRich]

Read that thread in the link - everyone wondering about a lot of the same stuff as me and reading the same guesses all over the internet. Makes me feel part of a community of the confused.

 

[Corpsey]

Reading ''The Killer Inside Me'' by Jim Thompson. Really like it...

I just hope he doesn't go to in depth with psychoanalysing/explaining themotivations of Lou. I'm over halfway through.

 

[Slothrop]

I loved those hard drinking, 'simple' poems and conversations that were had though. They did make me laugh.

I found the various drunken conversations absolutely hilarious - I think the genius of it is that they initially seem like a sort of grotesque parody but after a while you realize that they're probably actually more realistic than most 'naturalistic' literary dialogue, insofar as they mostly consist of people repeating themselves, ignoring each other, misunderstanding each other and failing to get a word in edgeways...

 

[slim jenkins]

Reading ''The Killer Inside Me'' by Jim Thompson. Really like it...

I just hope he doesn't go to in depth with psychoanalysing/explaining themotivations of Lou. I'm over halfway through.

Great writer...your fears are unfounded, as far as I recall (read it years ago). Just finished this Horace McCoy, a great depiction of despair in search of the Hollywood dream.