what are you reading now?
slowtrain
Well-known member
I didn't know he wrote plays, but then, I was unaware of this existence until two days ago. I like his Tempest painting, although I like the life-sized doll he had made of ex-girlfriend even more.
Yeah, his paintings are brilliant (never realised he lived so far into the 20th cent!)
Turns out hes' done a few plays, the one i had heard of is called 'murderer, the hope of women'...
Now reading: One Hundred Years of Solitude... Never read it before, I am becoming slowly addicted... Seriously sucked in, i would start just reading half a chapter or so each time, and now i cant really go a read without at least two...
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slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
'The Shootist' by Glen Swarthout...a Western, yes, but a 'modern' ('75) one, by which I mean something very different from cowboy heroics. If you seen the film starring John Wayne you'll know the story, but the novel is very good too...
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Great stuff, but sooo confusing with all those characters with the same name...lots of incest too, I recall.
Speaking of bonkers Latin Americans, I'm nearly done with 2666 - think I'll pick up something fairly light and inconsequential after that!
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Really enjoyed it, for the most part. One thing I'm not so sure of are the crazy run-on sentences that go off on a tangent for a page or two at a time and make him look like he's boshed a huge line of chong and then shat his brain into the word-processor...but I'll enlarge on this tomorrow. Great, great book on the whole.
dd528
Well-known member
This is a bit of a long shot but I'm going to try it anyway...
I'm trying to track down a copy of a novel called The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar by the Sierra Leonean poet and novelist Syl Cheney-Coker. It was published in the UK in 1990 as part of the same Heinemann African Writers Series that brought authors such as Chinua Achebe and Nadine Gordimer to international attention.
The book is out of print, and the cheapest copy I've been able to find online is about 50 quid plus international posting from the States, which is more than I can afford to pay. I've trawled through websites stocking old books and book exchanges and so on to no avail. Nothing on ebay either. I've emailed the publisher, but haven't had anything back so far.
My old university library has a reference copy available, but I think it might limit my enjoyment of the book a bit if I had to trek to the other end of the country and read it with a librarian looking over my shoulder every five minutes to make sure I'm not making any illicit pencil marks.
If anyone has any idea where I might be able to find a copy to buy at a reasonable price I'd be really thankful.
...
On the actual subject of the thread I just finished The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. If I was forced to pick a favourite novelist, he'd probably be the one, but my god that book was tough going.
It's told in four sections, and the first section is damn near unreadable. Faulkner loves his fragmented text and stream of consciousness and multiple narratives, and has little interest in the normal rules of punctuation. When you couple that with a large chunk of the book being told from the point of view of a character with severe developmental difficulties, it's pretty difficult.
It gets easier as you go through it and move on to the point of view of other characters though. He has a gift for teasing out the way that people come into conflict with each other through a perfect storm of circumstance and their own decisions, and he illuminates the nature of postbellum southern American life with skill bordering on genius if you ask me. I suppose that's why they gave him the Nobel Prize...
I probably wouldn't recommend that one as a first taste for anyone who hasn't read Faulkner before (maybe The Wild Palms or Absalom, Absalom! would be better), but the more I think about it, the more I think it is one of his most devastatingly brilliant books.
Moving on to Slaughterhouse 5 now. Been wanting to read it for a while. More due to my interest in the bombing of Dresden rather than an interest in Vonnegut. I've not read anything else by him, and I don't know much about him to be honest. Looking forward to it though.
I'm trying to track down a copy of a novel called The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar by the Sierra Leonean poet and novelist Syl Cheney-Coker. It was published in the UK in 1990 as part of the same Heinemann African Writers Series that brought authors such as Chinua Achebe and Nadine Gordimer to international attention.
The book is out of print, and the cheapest copy I've been able to find online is about 50 quid plus international posting from the States, which is more than I can afford to pay. I've trawled through websites stocking old books and book exchanges and so on to no avail. Nothing on ebay either. I've emailed the publisher, but haven't had anything back so far.
My old university library has a reference copy available, but I think it might limit my enjoyment of the book a bit if I had to trek to the other end of the country and read it with a librarian looking over my shoulder every five minutes to make sure I'm not making any illicit pencil marks.
If anyone has any idea where I might be able to find a copy to buy at a reasonable price I'd be really thankful.
...
On the actual subject of the thread I just finished The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. If I was forced to pick a favourite novelist, he'd probably be the one, but my god that book was tough going.
It's told in four sections, and the first section is damn near unreadable. Faulkner loves his fragmented text and stream of consciousness and multiple narratives, and has little interest in the normal rules of punctuation. When you couple that with a large chunk of the book being told from the point of view of a character with severe developmental difficulties, it's pretty difficult.
It gets easier as you go through it and move on to the point of view of other characters though. He has a gift for teasing out the way that people come into conflict with each other through a perfect storm of circumstance and their own decisions, and he illuminates the nature of postbellum southern American life with skill bordering on genius if you ask me. I suppose that's why they gave him the Nobel Prize...
I probably wouldn't recommend that one as a first taste for anyone who hasn't read Faulkner before (maybe The Wild Palms or Absalom, Absalom! would be better), but the more I think about it, the more I think it is one of his most devastatingly brilliant books.
Moving on to Slaughterhouse 5 now. Been wanting to read it for a while. More due to my interest in the bombing of Dresden rather than an interest in Vonnegut. I've not read anything else by him, and I don't know much about him to be honest. Looking forward to it though.
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IdleRich
IdleRich
The Sound and The Fury is really good - I think it may be the only Faulkner I've read but it really is astounding. So clever in the way that the story sort of coalesces out of the sometimes dyschronic and almost always disjointed fragments.
Speaking of which, I'm reading a book called It Has To Be This Way by M Anthony Penwill which I picked up at a friend's house yesterday. The book, which appears to be at least partly based on real events, is told in diary fragments and other notes and relates to the disappearance of the narrator's step-sister; I understand it was given away as a companion piece to an artwork consisting of a video on the same subject.
The narrator (an artist) tells of how she came to learn that her sister (Chris) was in a motorcycle accident that left her brain-damaged and lacking in memory. Extracts from the diary of the missing girl's boyfriend, known only as S, reveal that she spent her time after the accident in obsessively rearranging old photos - unable to process the way their content relates to her memories she instead uses them as a predictive tool based on her own interpretation of the tarot.
The plot thickens as you realise that the mysterious S is seemingly deranged and has his own insane reasons for his actions relating to Chris. As well as this there are links to Swedenborg, the possibly hermaphrodite Queen Christina of Sweden, Strindberg and various other mystical pieces of literature, science and art.
The book is only about seventy odd pages long and I'll finish it in a bit but so far it's quite intriguing.
Speaking of which, I'm reading a book called It Has To Be This Way by M Anthony Penwill which I picked up at a friend's house yesterday. The book, which appears to be at least partly based on real events, is told in diary fragments and other notes and relates to the disappearance of the narrator's step-sister; I understand it was given away as a companion piece to an artwork consisting of a video on the same subject.
The narrator (an artist) tells of how she came to learn that her sister (Chris) was in a motorcycle accident that left her brain-damaged and lacking in memory. Extracts from the diary of the missing girl's boyfriend, known only as S, reveal that she spent her time after the accident in obsessively rearranging old photos - unable to process the way their content relates to her memories she instead uses them as a predictive tool based on her own interpretation of the tarot.
The plot thickens as you realise that the mysterious S is seemingly deranged and has his own insane reasons for his actions relating to Chris. As well as this there are links to Swedenborg, the possibly hermaphrodite Queen Christina of Sweden, Strindberg and various other mystical pieces of literature, science and art.
The book is only about seventy odd pages long and I'll finish it in a bit but so far it's quite intriguing.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Some info here
http://www.mattsgallery.org/artists/seers/books/books1-01.php
I haven't seen the show so maybe I'm missing a massive chunk of the experience. Which sort of seems appropriate in a way....
http://www.mattsgallery.org/artists/seers/books/books1-01.php
I haven't seen the show so maybe I'm missing a massive chunk of the experience. Which sort of seems appropriate in a way....
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
The Sound and the Fury is great, aside from the subject matter it's a great outline of what happens if you drink nuff nuff nuff whisky and try and write something coherent. I like that about it, but don't think it can be read without that context, or any of Faulkner really.
I just finished that book Blood River about the Telegraph writer who decides to travel down the length of the Congo river by foot without protection. It's really good.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3665952/The-chaos-that-rules-the-Congo.html
I just finished that book Blood River about the Telegraph writer who decides to travel down the length of the Congo river by foot without protection. It's really good.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3665952/The-chaos-that-rules-the-Congo.html
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Finally finished 2666 last week - might jot down some more thoughts on it in the Bolano thread. Great book, much less of a 'slog' that it could have been given its 900 pages, although some of it (the crimes section in particular) is pretty heavy going.
Picked up Patrick Hamilton's The Slaves of Solitude the other day for a spot of 'light' relief. I just love his prose so much, he's got a wonderful way of sounding slightly formal yet disarmingly informal at the same time. He also has the most amazing knack of making you hate a character and really enjoy hating them.
Picked up Patrick Hamilton's The Slaves of Solitude the other day for a spot of 'light' relief. I just love his prose so much, he's got a wonderful way of sounding slightly formal yet disarmingly informal at the same time. He also has the most amazing knack of making you hate a character and really enjoy hating them.
Last few months have read Mason & Dixon, Absalom, Absalom, and Europe Central. Would highly recommend all of them.
Want to try reading some Bolaño. My girlfriend bought me 'The Third Reich', anyone read that? it's on my 'to read' list.
Want to try reading some Bolaño. My girlfriend bought me 'The Third Reich', anyone read that? it's on my 'to read' list.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
The Slaves Of Solitude was great - I don't think any other writer can make you hate a character, and gleefully anticipate their comeuppance, quite as effectively as Hamilton. Bleak and funny with enough humanity to (occasionally) relieve the gloom. Great stuff.
Mark 'League Of Gentlemen' Gatiss's The Vesivius Club was an enjoyable romp, narrated by Lucifer Box, a sort of dandyish, bisexual, Edwardian James Bond with a hint of Sherlock Holmes (but as debauched and sensuous and Holmes is ascetic and austere). Unfortunately I think the last quarter of the book failed to live up to the earlier chapters, with an unconvincing baddy and a rather run-of-the-mill, 007-esque race-against-time-to-defuse-the-bomb-thwart-the-villain-and-rescue-the-hostages caper. Still, as adventure/mystery fluff goes, the cast of spies, scientists, cultists, ingenues and ladyboys and backdrop of opium dens, orgy pits, steampunkish doomsday machines &c. &c. were quite winning, and the book has some nice illustrations.
Just started Andrew Miller's Ingenious Pain, set in the 18th century and apparently about a man who can't feel pain. It's got glowing praise splashed all over the back and my girlfriend raves about it, so I've got high expectations for it.
Mark 'League Of Gentlemen' Gatiss's The Vesivius Club was an enjoyable romp, narrated by Lucifer Box, a sort of dandyish, bisexual, Edwardian James Bond with a hint of Sherlock Holmes (but as debauched and sensuous and Holmes is ascetic and austere). Unfortunately I think the last quarter of the book failed to live up to the earlier chapters, with an unconvincing baddy and a rather run-of-the-mill, 007-esque race-against-time-to-defuse-the-bomb-thwart-the-villain-and-rescue-the-hostages caper. Still, as adventure/mystery fluff goes, the cast of spies, scientists, cultists, ingenues and ladyboys and backdrop of opium dens, orgy pits, steampunkish doomsday machines &c. &c. were quite winning, and the book has some nice illustrations.
Just started Andrew Miller's Ingenious Pain, set in the 18th century and apparently about a man who can't feel pain. It's got glowing praise splashed all over the back and my girlfriend raves about it, so I've got high expectations for it.
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jenks
thread death
Alone in Berlin - Fallada. Really got into it over the weekend
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/07/hans-fallada-alone-berlin-rereading
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/11/alone-in-berlin-morally-compromised
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/07/hans-fallada-alone-berlin-rereading
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/11/alone-in-berlin-morally-compromised
finished jonathan franzens freedom a few weeks ago which i loved and got sort of obsessed by.
now reading something a bit lighter (as in the nick hornby/tony parsons sort of mould) - david nicholls' one day. expected to hate it but its hard to dislike. not hard to see why its being made into a film.
now reading something a bit lighter (as in the nick hornby/tony parsons sort of mould) - david nicholls' one day. expected to hate it but its hard to dislike. not hard to see why its being made into a film.
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a disproportionate percentage of my reading choices these days are dictated by what happens to be on the 1 english shelf in the local second hand bookshop. last week when i stopped by picked up The Poisonwood Bible, and did not let the fact that it was in the Oprah book club discourage me. only started, i like the use of language, and really looking forward to it for some reason... anyone?
IdleRich
IdleRich
Never heard of it - what's it about?
I'm reading The 120 Days of Sodom - interesting but repetitive - just read the bit where he takes a young (ie seven year old) girl's "virginity" by shitting into her cunt until her hymen is broken. I'm only up to day sixteen.
Also, just read Solaris, the science stuff is great but the interactions between the people are jarringly and frustratingly badly written, they pull you out of the story every time they occur. Shame 'cause the ideas are great. The film is better.
I'm reading The 120 Days of Sodom - interesting but repetitive - just read the bit where he takes a young (ie seven year old) girl's "virginity" by shitting into her cunt until her hymen is broken. I'm only up to day sixteen.
Also, just read Solaris, the science stuff is great but the interactions between the people are jarringly and frustratingly badly written, they pull you out of the story every time they occur. Shame 'cause the ideas are great. The film is better.
crackerjack
Well-known member
One Day is fantastic in a middlebrow/hugely popular/don't-mention-on-dissensus kinda way.
It also resolved two what-to-buy? xmas present dilemmas for me so I love it double