Big Books

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Pogue Mahone was a big fucking book, many thanks to @jenks for recommending, be interested to see what @shiels and @droid might think of it

There’s a point about 400 pages in where you still have no idea where it’s going, who and what the narrator even is, which clues can be believed and the consequences of building up of accumulated layers of the same events from a woman both re-remembering and losing cognitive faculties (around memory) at the same time

Even at 500 pages I was experiencing a swirling gyre of narrative at every line. Names, dates, London, Ireland, sepia newspaper toned dark nights of the 50’s of B Behan into psychedelic paisley into the present. The madness of it, its undercurrents of inter-generational trauma teased out long form. Its relentless dissection of identity. The psychological geography of London from the 50’s to early 70’s from a dying generation.

Resonant story telling of intense focus, the ability to dissect time, elongated and frieze framed. A meditation on ageing, infirmity, vulnerability, the power fallibility and plasticity of memory. Tremendous, if you want a ride rather than a wade through to spring, get some
 

DLaurent

Well-known member
AKA Tomes - Walt Whitman or Balzac complete works. I'd never read them. The average novel is too long for me.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I'm up to Lestrygonians and although I am enjoying it I am absolutely gutted at how shallowly my bookmark has penetrated Ulysses. And I've not even read most of the hard bits yet. To return to the alpine metaphor, feels like climbing a mountain, it's hard going (nice views, though), and you think you're doing alright and then you walk around a corner and the long and hideously steep path to the peak is revealed.
 

catalog

Well-known member
Keep going corpse, you won't regret it.

What sort of page numbers? I'll see if I've got anything written down from there.
 
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