what are you reading now?

IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Nice one, did you find a hard copy already?
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. When you described your idea for a story I was nstantly reminded of this book in that there are three stories set in the same place at different periods, loosely linked together and each featuring moral dilemmas of vaguely the same type (I hope I'm recalling this correctly) - the overall narrative of the book itself jumps between the three stories, and, I felt, ultimately it delivered an interesting take on how the characters "ought" to act to resolve their problems. Ultimately I found it satisfyingly unexpected in its implied conclusions and I hope that you do too... either way I would be keen to hear your thoughts.
 
you

you

Well-known member
jenks said:
Finally finished the Sebald biog Speak Silence (@you )- I'm glad i had gone on a deep dive into him beforehand, it really made the whole experience much more interesting. The book is quite odd - she can't quite make up her mind what kind of biog she wants to write - a hagiography, a takedown, a literary analysis so ends up doing a bit of everything - i quite liked the fact it was a mass of contradictions but the unevenness of tone is a little offputting at times. Sebald's reputation seems to be in the balance - undoubtedly brilliant in many ways, he had a ruthless streak for taking others stories and repurposing them without acknowledging them. On top of that i know some jewish writers are unhappy with a german writer taking on voices of the holocaust. However, as a witness to history he's pretty unflinching, brutal really.
Click to expand...

It is a conflicted biography. I felt the lengthy evaluations of where and where not Sebald departed, covered, chose not to include, or just plain copied the lives of others in his work at once fascinatingly rich in detail but torn in purpose. And there is, of course, a heavy similarity with displacement, re-naming, covering up etc.. But, although these choices of Sebald's do raise difficult and uncomfortable questions about the ethics of fiction, two questions sprang to mind. Firstly, how different to writers like Maugham (a notorious copier and credit taking ventriloquist) is Sebald? What degree of separation from the lives of others is where the ethical line is? Secondly, given his upbringing, wasn't it better he empathise and try to tell the stories of others rather than continuing the denial of the previous generation?

I'm reading the Treglown biography of Dahl at the moment.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
you said:
It is a conflicted biography. I felt the lengthy evaluations of where and where not Sebald departed, covered, chose not to include, or just plain copied the lives of others in his work at once fascinatingly rich in detail but torn in purpose. And there is, of course, a heavy similarity with displacement, re-naming, covering up etc.. But, although these choices of Sebald's do raise difficult and uncomfortable questions about the ethics of fiction, two questions that sprang to mind. Firstly, how different to writers like Maugham (a notorious copier and credit taking ventriloquist) is Sebald? What degree of separation from the lives of other is where the ethical line is? Secondly, given his upbringing, wasn't it better he empathise and try to tell the stories of others rather than continuing the denial of the previous generation?

I'm reading the Treglown biography of Dahl at the moment.
Click to expand...
Yeah - on the one hand I thought Proust did this stuff all the time but when youre being a ventriloquist for a holocaust victims there are a whole bunch of ethical issues. But clearly a deeply troubled man. I didn’t like the over determined reading about the car crash - as if he’d been willing it upon himself since his early 20s
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
What's wrong with him just making a load of shit up based on what next man said its called fiction he's alright in my book.

But, I don't actually like reading him, it's like wstching paint dry
 
entertainment

entertainment

Well-known member
catalog said:
What's wrong with him just making a load of shit up based on what next man said its called fiction he's alright in my book.

But, I don't actually like reading him, it's like wstching paint dry
Click to expand...
Couldn't finish Rings of Saturn not because it was boring but because of this sense you got of him savouring his own boringness as implied esoteric literary value. The abject academicness of it. Really annoyed me that book.
 
you

you

Well-known member
entertainment said:
Couldn't finish Rings of Saturn not because it was boring but because of this sense you got of him savouring his own boringness as implied esoteric literary value. The abject academicness of it. Really annoyed me that book.
Click to expand...

Have you read any Ben Lerner? Chris Kraus? Handke?

I never felt Sebald was deliberately aiming for esotericism or obscurity, nor was his approach deeply academic (whatever interpretation of that you take). He worked with images, allegory, layers, memories.... the dream of history. But I don't find his writing stuffy or particularly academic in posturing.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
Must agree with @you here. I think he’s pretty clear for most of the time. There’s a haunting that runs through his work which I think is about the persistence of memory and a duty/responsibility not only not to forget but to take that responsibility seriously. In that way I think of him like Stepanova, Drndric and Alexievich.
 
entertainment

entertainment

Well-known member
you said:
Have you read any Ben Lerner? Chris Kraus? Handke?

I never felt Sebald was deliberately aiming for esotericism or obscurity, nor was his approach deeply academic (whatever interpretation of that you take). He worked with images, allegory, layers, memories.... the dream of history. But I don't find his writing stuffy or particularly academic in posturing.
Click to expand...
Not esoteric in that sense. I find his unindulgence a posture. For me these images of his are deployed within an annoying assumption of literary virtue. That's what I find academic. This sense that things are there to be registered within a discourse that privileges them. It's the same professionalism I get with Rachel Cusk. Ben Lerner sort of maybe, but there's still something endearingly wide eyed that redeems him.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
you said:
Have you read any Ben Lerner? Chris Kraus? Handke?

I never felt Sebald was deliberately aiming for esotericism or obscurity, nor was his approach deeply academic (whatever interpretation of that you take). He worked with images, allegory, layers, memories.... the dream of history. But I don't find his writing stuffy or particularly academic in posturing.
Click to expand...
he didnt say that. he said it was boring. which it is. a terminally insipid and boring man talking about his terminally boring holiday. i sort of enjoyed and was able to re-read about a third of it recently.
 
you

you

Well-known member
yeah, u know wot, actually, like I mesn, some books r boring and cos you dont finish them thats it
nabokov pale fire boring too pretentious and privileged didnt finish
middlemarch boring read a quarter
possession by as byatt too academic
Moby Dick is brilliant... I'll explain further: it is good i liked it a lot
american psycho is not boring and i finshed it it is brilliant
european fiction is boring
the scottish cannot write
sebald some of his books are okay but others are more than okay but most are a bit boring and i dont finish them all
tokarczuk is boring and covers are boring
vargas llosa can be okay but can also be good
pychon is interesting but dont finish books
blood meridian is cool
some dickens r better than others wickpicker papers bit long
toni morrison a bit boring maybe 7/10 boring but also sad
j h prynne is not boring even though hes british
schulz alright but lost my copy i think on a train or a bus somewhere it was a paperback
gordon burn doesnt have anough action
em forster i picked up before i watched the film but merhcant vory r too slow so i gave my copy away
poe is funny in places
scarlet and black gave up maybe another translation will be different i dont know
dilillo is cool like him
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Went to Bivar the second hand English bookshop. Today the selection was quite poor I have to say, and I feel that if they took two pounds off the price of every book in there it would be a bit fairer.
Still I bought a book of short stories by Ballard called The 4 Dimensional Nightmare and something called The Pusher by Ed McBain which I think is a hardboiled thing - in fact they had about twenty of his works, some in the rather nice Penguin green, and I opted for the issue with that colour.

I toyed with a Patrick O'Brien but I'm not really that bothered about a random book from the middle of the series. As they didn't take cards I had to be ruthless so I left that and some Mickey Spillane gear.

They have a display rack of pulp etc with lurid covers which is nice to look at - some Bond etc and one called The Woman That Slept With Demons which was 20 euros for some reason, collectible apparently.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
One of the best ‘pulp’ things I read was Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain. Many writers could’ve learnt a lot from him
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
IdleRich said:
That's certainly a good - in fact probably great - film but I've not read the book
Click to expand...
I think you’d really like it. I read it as it was just lying around and I had nothing on the go. Ten pages in and I was hooked. Taut, psychological convincing, slightly sexy. Like a modern Terese Raquin
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
jenks said:
I think you’d really like it. I read it as it was just lying around and I had nothing on the go. Ten pages in and I was hooked. Taut, psychological convincing, slightly sexy. Like a modern Terese Raquin
Click to expand...
Yeah that does sound good. I love the idea of hardboiled fiction but it doesn't always live up to the idea in my head. Looking at the back of this one the writing is so clumsy

"Detective Kling, promoted off the beat, Pphelped Steve Carella - more, anyhow, than Hernandez's sister, a prostitute in a self-service vice dive. (She spilt nothing... except her own blood, and that later.)"

It's not just me is it, that's a horrible mangling of the language? I suppose a certain kind of brutish and simplistic writing could theoretically reinforce the idea that you're reading the direct thoughts of a hard-boiled man of action, not someone who has the time to mess about learning fancy words or how to use semi colons etc but that's not the feeling I'm getting here. Maybe I would in the case of The Postman Always Rings Twice - taut is the almost cliched description of this style when it's done well, but it really is what you're looking for, and I will try and check it out cheers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top