Now reading...

[paul secor]

Basquiat and the Bayou

I have a few books of Basquiat's paintings and drawings and this is my favorite. Not at all comprehensive but the artworks and comments provide insights into his work.

[rdavenport]

I've just finished J G Ballard's "Crash". I really didn't like it. Repetitive and not at all engaging, which may be the whole point I suppose.

Edited December 11, 2015 by rdavenport

[johnblitweiler]

On 12/5/2015, 12:44:08, sonnyhill said:

I am looking to read a high quality mystery novel.  I am not interested in series or genre fiction -- any recommendations?  The last book I finished was Pamuk's My Name is Red. 

Sundidos and Mojo Snake Minuet by John Litweiler are both, in their ways, mysteries and both are said to have some literary merit. (see goodbaitbooks.com)

[Chuck Nessa]

Take a chance. John tells the truth.

[johnblitweiler]

6 hours ago, rdavenport said:

I've just finished J G Ballard's "Crash". I really didn't like it. Repetitive and not at all engaging, which may be the whole point I suppose.

I think Ballard wrote much better novels than "Crash" later, when he got angrier: "Hello America," "Super-Cannes," "Rushing to Paradise," "Millennium People" for example. Otherwise, his cold, almost clinical style and his recurring incremental plotting could be off-putting.

[sonnyhill]

15 hours ago, johnblitweiler said:

Sundidos and Mojo Snake Minuet by John Litweiler are both, in their ways, mysteries and both are said to have some literary merit. (see goodbaitbooks.com)

Thanks.

[jlhoots]

Gregory David Roberts: The Mountain Shadow

[Leeway]

A lovely novel. 

[ejp626]

I will finally wrap up Nabokov's The Gift today.  I found Chapter 4 really dragged, and Chapter 5, while shorter, isn't much better.  Well, I'm not really that surprised, Nabokov is just not a writer I enjoy reading, so I think I'll postpone reading any further novels by him indefinitely. 

I will be rereading Kafka's The Trial after that and hope to wrap it up by Friday.

If all goes as planned, I will be tackling Middlemarch by the weekend. 

I should also mention that there is a new collection/translation of Joseph Roth's non-fiction pieces called The Hotel Years.  I managed to check it out from the library.  So far, pretty interesting. 

Edited December 15, 2015 by ejp626

[A Lark Ascending]

Enjoyed my reading this autumn but these two tried my patience. 

Finished this after three months. Reads like one of us stringing our posts together, evaluating on a whim and personal prejudice, suddenly going off at tangents (several pages on type sets!). Laboriously tries to draw connections between long forgotten songs with throw-away lyrics. I ended the book no wiser as to how or if LSD explains the music of the mid to late 60s. Made for a nice bedtime read for 20 minutes at a time but the time could have been better spent.

 

The most irritating book I've read since that  sociology book by an undergraduate on British jazz a few years back.

Zweig had a rough time in his last 15 years culminating in suicide (though his wealth meant it was not nearly as rough as others who fled or tried to flee Austria/Germany). 

The sections about the collapse of order after World War I and then from the late 20s are the best parts. Particular interesting section about the state of Austria when he settled in Salzburg after World War I.

But I'm afraid I found the vanity of the man insufferable. Very much the preening aesthete, priding himself on his exquisite taste (not only does he collect monographs of the 'masters' but then whittles them down so he has a collection of their finest pieces), the famous people he fawns around, the high regard everyone has for his writing (he goes to New York and the most memorable thing he sees is his own book on display in a shop). Towards the end he explains what a shrinking violet he is and how he hates verbose prose, preferring writing that moves the action along...and then spends four pages labouring the point. His travels, rather than opening his eyes to other nations just have him reducing the people of the countries he visits to stereotype. The ordinary folk of France and Russia are condescendingly referred to as 'simple people'; and the wives of his preferred 'artists' and 'intellectuals' seem to exist to keep house while their husbands accomplish their 'work'. And how a self-proclaimed 'intellectual' can come out with a line about his 'beloved city of the lagoons'....!!!!!!

If Niles Crane ever wrote his autobiography it would read like this. I constantly visualised Zweig brushing a chair with his handkerchief before sitting down.     

Edited December 15, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[jazzbo]

More speculative history intertwined with archaeological reporting. Fascinating.

 

[rdavenport]

[Brad]

19 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

Enjoyed my reading this autumn but these two tried my patience. 

Finished this after three months. Reads like one of us stringing our posts together, evaluating on a whim and personal prejudice, suddenly going off at tangents (several pages on type sets!). Laboriously tries to draw connections between long forgotten songs with throw-away lyrics. I ended the book no wiser as to how or if LSD explains the music of the mid to late 60s. Made for a nice bedtime read for 20 minutes at a time but the time could have been better spent.

 

The most irritating book I've read since that  sociology book by an undergraduate on British jazz a few years back.

Zweig had a rough time in his last 15 years culminating in suicide (though his wealth meant it was not nearly as rough as others who fled or tried to flee Austria/Germany). 

The sections about the collapse of order after World War I and then from the late 20s are the best parts. Particular interesting section about the state of Austria when he settled in Salzburg after World War I.

But I'm afraid I found the vanity of the man insufferable. Very much the preening aesthete, priding himself on his exquisite taste (not only does he collect monographs of the 'masters' but then whittles them down so he has a collection of their finest pieces), the famous people he fawns around, the high regard everyone has for his writing (he goes to New York and the most memorable thing he sees is his own book on display in a shop). Towards the end he explains what a shrinking violet he is and how he hates verbose prose, preferring writing that moves the action along...and then spends four pages labouring the point. His travels, rather than opening his eyes to other nations just have him reducing the people of the countries he visits to stereotype. The ordinary folk of France and Russia are condescendingly referred to as 'simple people'; and the wives of his preferred 'artists' and 'intellectuals' seem to exist to keep house while their husbands accomplish their 'work'. And how a self-proclaimed 'intellectual' can come out with a line about his 'beloved city of the lagoons'....!!!!!!

If Niles Crane ever wrote his autobiography it would read like this. I constantly visualised Zweig brushing a chair with his handkerchief before sitting down.     

I see it the other way although I'm a big Zweig fan, having read his major fictional works so I'm biased.  The man was a genius and his observations on people, things and events fascinating.  It's obvious that he never comfortable or really acclimated to living outside Austria when he felt he had to leave before Hitler. In addition, many felt had took the easy way out by committing suicide in 1942.  I assume you must have read some of his books otherwise you wouldn't have read his autobiography. 

[A Lark Ascending]

4 hours ago, Brad said:

I see it the other way although I'm a big Zweig fan, having read his major fictional works so I'm biased.  The man was a genius and his observations on people, things and events fascinating.  It's obvious that he never comfortable or really acclimated to living outside Austria when he felt he had to leave before Hitler. In addition, many felt had took the easy way out by committing suicide in 1942.  I assume you must have read some of his books otherwise you wouldn't have read his autobiography. 

No, I've never read his novels (not likely to now!). 

One of the areas of history/culture I'm particularly interested in is the early 20thC and in particular the Late Romantic/Early Modern world (musically speaking) so I came across the name there. The idea of a book about the world before Nazism and how it fell apart appealed. 

He just struck me as very much of the spoiled upper middle classes, wanting for nothing and utterly convinced of his own finer feelings (much of the book had me squirming, he seemed so caught up in his own superior taste).

I'm afraid George Orwell (writing at about the same time though from a different perspective) describes a world I find much more believable. Zweig seemed stuck in a bubble of privilege until the world collapsed around him...and even then he could afford to escape the worst of it. Twice!  

He just rubbed up against all my prejudices. Poor little rich boy. 

Edited December 16, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[ejp626]

28 minutes ago, A Lark Ascending said:

No, I've never read his novels (not likely to now!). 

One of the areas of history/culture I'm particularly interested in is the early 20thC and in particular the Late Romantic/Early Modern world (musically speaking) so I came across the name there. The idea of a book about the world before Nazism and how it fell apart appealed. 

He just struck me as very much of the spoiled upper middle classes, wanting for nothing and utterly convinced of his own finer feelings (much of the book had me squirming, he seemed so caught up in his own superior taste).

I'm afraid George Orwell (writing at about the same time though from a different perspective) describes a world I find much more believable. Zweig seemed stuck in a bubble of privilege until the world collapsed around him...and even then he could afford to escape the worst of it. Twice!  

He just rubbed up against all my prejudices. Poor little rich boy. 

You might like Joseph Roth a bit better, particularly his Berlin reportage, mostly in What I Saw.  Roth was more of a man of the people, though he didn't fit in with society that well either, and drank himself to death to Paris in 1939 (despite having opportunities to move to the US). 

[Brad]

I think you're missing a lot if you don't read some Zweig.  The one book I'd really recommend (although I like them all) is Beware of Pity.  That is an excellent book.

Currently reading A Tale of Two Cities.  Believe it or not, this is my first foray into Dickens.

[Larry Kart]

If you're looking for an all-out (and arguably rather batty) assault on Zweig, here is a diatribe from poet-critic-translator Michael Hoffmann:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n02/michael-hofmann/vermicular-dither

I don't know enough Zweig to have an opinion, though I have been enjoying his biography of Balzac.

[ejp626]

7 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

If you're looking for an all-out (and arguably rather batty) assault on Zweig, here is a diatribe from poet-critic-translator Michael Hoffmann:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n02/michael-hofmann/vermicular-dither

I don't know enough Zweig to have an opinion, though I have been enjoying his biography of Balzac.

This is so over-the-top that now I am a bit sorry I mentioned Roth (since Hofmann is the major promoter of Roth and seems to mostly take this opportunity to run down Zweig and elevate Roth). 

[A Lark Ascending]

1 hour ago, Brad said:

I think you're missing a lot if you don't read some Zweig.  The one book I'd really recommend (although I like them all) is Beware of Pity.  That is an excellent book.

Thanks - might try it. Maybe he's like one of those luvvy actors. Brilliant when on stage, insufferable when talking about himself to the media. 

 

1 hour ago, ejp626 said:

You might like Joseph Roth a bit better, particularly his Berlin reportage, mostly in What I Saw.  Roth was more of a man of the people, though he didn't fit in with society that well either, and drank himself to death to Paris in 1939 (despite having opportunities to move to the US). 

Thanks. Might try him. 

I'm not necessarily hung up on a 'man of the people' approach (after all, Orwell was very middle-middle class). I just don't care for the whole 'art/aesthetic' thing....always seems like a creation of the elite in order to differentiate themselves from 'the masses'. 'The World of Yesterday' was definitely the wrong book for me to read!  

[BillF]

[crisp]

[paul secor]

On ‎12‎/‎17‎/‎2015 at 9:54 AM, crisp said:

Looks like something that would make for a good read this time of year. How was it?

[ejp626]

I thought I would have gotten further this weekend, but I only got through Book 3 (of 8) in Eliot's Middlemarch.  I find I just don't have a lot of patience for her particular omniscient narrative voice.  Is it really that different from Dickens or Trollope?  Probably not, but I do grow weary of her explaining everything to me all the time.  I don't think the book really knows whether it is a novel or a sociological tract...

[A Lark Ascending]

1 hour ago, ejp626 said:

I thought I would have gotten further this weekend, but I only got through Book 3 (of 8) in Eliot's Middlemarch.  I find I just don't have a lot of patience for her particular omniscient narrative voice.  Is it really that different from Dickens or Trollope?  Probably not, but I do grow weary of her explaining everything to me all the time.  I don't think the book really knows whether it is a novel or a sociological tract...

I had to read Middlemarch at school and didn't get on with it. Fortunately I moved schools and didn't have to finish it. However, I tried again ten years later and found it a really rewarding read. Worth persevering or parking it for a time. 

[BillF]

2 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I thought I would have gotten further this weekend, but I only got through Book 3 (of 8) in Eliot's Middlemarch.  I find I just don't have a lot of patience for her particular omniscient narrative voice.  Is it really that different from Dickens or Trollope?  Probably not, but I do grow weary of her explaining everything to me all the time.  I don't think the book really knows whether it is a novel or a sociological tract...

Middlemarch was one of two set books that defeated me on my English degree course with a reading list of hundreds of books. The other was Walter Scott's Heart of Midlothian.

I subsequently managed shorter novels by George Eliot.