Now reading...

[A Lark Ascending]

Standard but very enjoyable Scandi-thriller. Occasionally you catch the translation. But I'll read the next in line (for some reason I've already read the third).

About to start on:

[Jazzmoose]

Philip K. Dick, THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE.

Damn. I thought you'd disappeared!

[jlhoots]

Paula Hawkins: The Girl On The Train

[ejp626]

I have to say I am not enjoying Maugham's Of Human Bondage. It is very hard for me understand why it is often considered one of the top 100 books of the 20th Century, aside from the fact that there are lots of people who like watching car crashes -- but only if it is sufficiently high-minded (i.e. they wouldn't be caught dead watching reality TV but they'll read books like Madame Bovary or Anna K. or Of Human Bondage). I really don't like Philip Carey as a character. He is portrayed as a thoroughly unpleasant young man, who goes out of his way to snub his uncle and generally only hangs out with people he can look down on. Maugham seems to justify everything because Carey lost both parents as a child and has a physical handicap as well (a clubfoot). The only section of the book that was bearable (so far) was when he was off in Paris trying to become an artist. Now he is back in London, doing a fairly poor job of studying to be a doctor. And he falls hard for a waitress, essentially only because she snubs him. She instantly becomes forbidden fruit. I know the heart wants what it wants, but anyone with a smidgen of self respect would have broken things off after only one or two of the times she makes it clear just how little she thinks of him, not the 10 times we are up to so far.

It is really hard to fathom how Maugham is going to keep this going for another 300+ pages. I find it tedious and not at all compelling. I am kind of dreading it actually, and would not finish the book except I am going to be seeing a play based on the book in a few weeks. Though if this ends the way I think it will, I should probably skip it (the play) and try to get my money back.

[ejp626]

I have to say I am not enjoying Maugham's Of Human Bondage. It is very hard for me understand why it is often considered one of the top 100 books of the 20th Century, aside from the fact that there are lots of people who like watching car crashes -- but only if it is sufficiently high-minded (i.e. they wouldn't be caught dead watching reality TV but they'll read books like Madame Bovary or Anna K. or Of Human Bondage). ...

It is really hard to fathom how Maugham is going to keep this going for another 300+ pages. I find it tedious and not at all compelling. I am kind of dreading it actually, and would not finish the book except I am going to be seeing a play based on the book in a few weeks. Though if this ends the way I think it will, I should probably skip it (the play) and try to get my money back.

I don't remember if I dissed Vargas Llosa's The Bad Girl here, but certainly also thoroughly disliked that novel. Now that I am far enough into Of Human Bondage, I can see that Vargas Llosa pretty much cribbed the entire thing from Maugham, making me dislike The Bad Girl even more!

[A Lark Ascending]

I did 'Of Human Bondage' back in 1972-3 for 'A' Level - had to read it three times!!!! Answer questions on it!

I recall enjoying it even though we were doing that godawful 'literature' thing of 'dissecting' every sentence in the hope that we could find enough reasons to dislike it.

Probably appealed to a 17 year old being very much a coming of age novel.

[ejp626]

I did 'Of Human Bondage' back in 1972-3 for 'A' Level - had to read it three times!!!! Answer questions on it!

I recall enjoying it even though we were doing that godawful 'literature' thing of 'dissecting' every sentence in the hope that we could find enough reasons to dislike it.

Probably appealed to a 17 year old being very much a coming of age novel.

Perhaps so. There are several books I liked in my youth that I don't care much for now. I kind of shudder to think what I'd think of Catcher in the Rye now.

Perhaps my experience is tainted in having had one or two of those hopeless love affairs, but I had at least a bit of dignity and managed to move on (even if it took a bit longer than it should have). I can't have any respect for a spineless character like Philip, and yet I don't take pleasure in thinking how much better I am than him (that's what I meant about car crashes and reality TV).

[crisp]

I read OHB a few years ago and enjoyed it so it isn't just a book for adolescents (unless I suffer from arrested development, which is possible I suppose). I found Philip sympathetic in his quest for fulfilment and the ending was satisfying. Naturally, I've forgotten most of it.

But if you aren't enjoying it I'd recommend dropping the book. Life is too short to slog through books you don't enjoy when there is so much else to be read.

If you want to give Maugham a second chance, try The Painted Veil or The Razor's Edge, both intriguing (and shorter).

[Leeway]

Continuing with the Africa/South Africa theme, Schreiner's book (1883) is less a novel than a set of linked vignettes, often quite vivid, depicting life on a Boer farm, as well as many aspects of colonial life in the British colony. The book's questioning of colonial strictures on race and religion, and its advocacy of feminism, is quite strong. Lessing was a fan of the book and it is easy to see why; I suspect she was quite influenced by it. Still it is a bit of a peculiar read, as it veers from realism to fantasy to philosophy to soliloquy, covering many genres and forms of storytelling.

[Leeway]

Just finished A Ripple From the Storm, by Doris Lessing, from the "Children of Violence" series, following the travails of Martha Quest. It seemed a natural segue from Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm and in fact, that story is mentioned in Storm, where the book served as an inspiration for one of the characters.

Martha Quest is the same old Martha: saying all the right things one minute, doing all the wrong things the next, including a spectacularly ill-considered marriage (her second and she's only 23 here), that doesn't survive the wedding night. Martha will always leave you scratching your head, like a bad shampoo.

Anyway, the interest here, for me at any rate, is Martha's involvement in the "Red" or Communist movement in South Africa/Rhodesia (given as Zambesia in the story) during World War II. The explorations of race and feminism are also fairly interesting. The other characters are rather irritating, not to say irritable with each other; there is constant friction among them. Not surprisingly, their efforts don't come to much. The narrative places one very tactilely into the story; not always comfortable but sufficiently interesting.

Edited May 19, 2015 by Leeway

[ejp626]

I finished Ben Lerner's 10:04, but it didn't do much for me. The combination of a really self-absorbed New York writer (how many times do we have to hear how big his advance was?) and postmodernism fell flat.

I've just started Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai, which is much more to my taste. It is a coming-of-age story of a gay boy in Sri Lanka. It is quite different from most, as it starts out a fair bit like Narayan's Swami and His Friends, though the boy wants to play with girls, but gets far more serious as the boy grows older and as ethnic tensions erupt in Sri Lanka.

The author and his family ultimately fled to Canada. It is not yet clear if that same fate awaits the protagonist of the novel.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Among the many interviews -- Mayor Ray Flynn and Derek Sanderson..

[jazzbo]

Re-reading this fascinating book. One of the three biographies of Krishnamurti that I've read and enjoyed.

[BillF]

1975 and the mid-century author is taking on a few postmodern touches. I think she's at her best in the 60s.

[Tim McG]

Deep Down Dark by Hector Tobar

[ejp626]

I've finally gotten reasonably deep into The Burn by Vasily Aksyonov. I have to agree with the reviewers that say it comes across as a Russian version of Pynchon's V or Gravity's Rainbow. If anything, I am having more trouble keeping track of characters and what is real vs. what is imagined than I did with Pynchon. I should try to dig out my copy of the Golden Years of Soviet Jazz CDs and play them while reading this. It would probably help me get in the mood a bit better.

[Leeway]

MADAME BOVARY - Gustave Flaubert. Translated by Lydia Davis

Coming off Lessing's work, it occurred to me that Martha Quest is Lessing's Madame Bovary, and, conversely, Madame Bovary is Flaubert's Martha Quest. I was also thinking of the similarities between Bovary and Cervantes' "Don Quixote."

I was prompted to re-read "Bovary" because of Lydia Davis's new-ish translation. I found it quite good at capturing Flaubert's tone and style. As for the novel itself, it's truffles to me. I do think it's a great novel qua novel, practically note-perfect, except perhaps for the very end, where the "conductor" let's the baton slip a bit, as if in a hurry to conclude the piece. Still, a great work of fiction, an actual "masterpiece" if there was one, in my estimation.

[jazzbo]

I did 'Of Human Bondage' back in 1972-3 for 'A' Level - had to read it three times!!!! Answer questions on it!

I recall enjoying it even though we were doing that godawful 'literature' thing of 'dissecting' every sentence in the hope that we could find enough reasons to dislike it.

Probably appealed to a 17 year old being very much a coming of age novel.

Perhaps so. There are several books I liked in my youth that I don't care much for now. I kind of shudder to think what I'd think of Catcher in the Rye now.

Perhaps my experience is tainted in having had one or two of those hopeless love affairs, but I had at least a bit of dignity and managed to move on (even if it took a bit longer than it should have). I can't have any respect for a spineless character like Philip, and yet I don't take pleasure in thinking how much better I am than him (that's what I meant about car crashes and reality TV).

Not my favorite by the author, but I do really like the author. May have read this (but not for school) about the time that Bev did, and could stand to tackle it again one day.

[A Lark Ascending]

Fourth in this series of 'Blue Shire' detective novels (though it does have a council estate where some of the troublemakers lurk!). Really enjoying these - quirky main character with awkward family relationships. Though she doesn't half kill off the characters around him quickly.

Been meaning to read a Blake bio for a while. The Westbrook Blake concert last Saturday made me pull this off the shelves where its been sat a couple of years.

[Matthew]

Been meaning to read a Blake bio for a while. The Westbrook Blake concert last Saturday made me pull this off the shelves where its been sat a couple of years.

How is the Blake book? I've been dying to read it, but it's incredibly expensive in the USA.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Matthew

[BillF]

Set largely in the British jazz scene of 1958, this one was a trip down memory lane for me.

[jlhoots]

Kline: Orphan Train

[A Lark Ascending]

Been meaning to read a Blake bio for a while. The Westbrook Blake concert last Saturday made me pull this off the shelves where its been sat a couple of years.

How is the Blake book? I've been dying to read it, but it's incredibly expensive in the USA.

I'm 60 pages in and very much enjoying it. There's a big section of plates in the middle that are linked into the text and help you understand his early work as an apprentice engraver (that might explain the expense). Very good on the origins of his worldview in the Dissenting tradition. I've never quite 'got' what Blake was railing against but it's starting to make sense now. I knew he was deeply suspicious of industrialisation and 'reason' but the text makes clear how this was rooted in a general mistrust of authority both civil and religious.

[Head Man]

Had to give up on this, I'm afraid....too clever by half. Her "What I Loved" is one of my favourite reads.

[niels]

Just finished:

Louis Couperus - Van oude Mensen, de dingen, die voorbijgaan (Old People and the Things that Pass)

Great novel that has some resemblance to his masterpiece "De Boeken der Kleine Zielen (Small Souls)".

And now started:

Stendhal - De Kartuize van Parma (The Charterhouse of Parma)