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I liked The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time, though it is hard to get past the absurd premise (that the Minotaur wasn't killed by Theseus, and being immortal turns up in the U.S. South). This book is slightly more introspective and even poetic in places than the first one. However, I thought the ending was a real cheat (even worse than the ending to The Sopranos), so I'd definitely knock off a star and a half for that. Just launching into Tishomingo Blues. As far as the classics, Thackeray's drawing upon Horace and others has convinced me to take a bit of a detour into Roman literature (Horace's Odes and Epistles and thence to Juvenal). This is definitely a big gap in my knowledge base.

I'm in the home stretch of Vanity Fair and should wrap it up later today. In general, I enjoyed it, though the pace flags at some places, especially in the second half. I read that at one point Thackeray was planning for 18 installments and then the success led him to expand to the customary 20 installments. I would have been satisfied with 18, I think. I'm going to jump to a couple of relatively contemporary novels -- Steven Sherrill's The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time, which is a just published sequel to The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break. Then Elmore Leonard's Tishomingo Blues (2002). They are thematically linked, since both involve Civil War re-enactments. After this, back to the classics -- Smollett's The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, which is generally considered Smollett's best novel.

I agree. I read his novels in chronological order, and they really started to sound about the same -- an uncle that cheated the narrator out of some large amount of money, one (or two) nagging ex-wives, generally some poking fun at the liberal sacred cow of the moment, etc. I believe Ravelstein, his final novel, does break the mold, though I never got around to reading that one. Of the late Bellow novels, the only one I really liked was The Dean's December.

I reread Calvino's Invisible Cities -- always worth revisited. I also read Primo Levi's The Periodic Table. I liked it quite a bit. I've finally gotten a few chapters into Vanity Fair. It's quite interesting so far, but it is a brick of a novel. My edition has all the illustrations Thackeray did, and is well over 800 pages!

I saw the Marshall Mastry exhibit in Chicago. Yes, it is quite strong, and I came away from it with more appreciation of his art. I really wish I could see the Beckmann exhibit, but it just isn't in the cards. I'll likely pick up the catalog, however. The Mystical Landscape exhibit at the AGO is a bit of a mixed bag, but some nice paintings throughout. I've been a few times.

I saw Rogue One in the theatre, which sort of splices itself into Star Wars (#4), since the whole point is to show how Princess Leia ended up with the plans for the Death Star in the first place. (Rogue One did exceed my expectations, BTW). At any rate, my son and I were grabbing lunch after the movie, and he asked me who Carrie Fisher was. I knew, even without turning around, that the news crawl on the TV was going to say she was dead. A disturbance in the force, as it were. I'm so very, very sad that she passed away, though, given that she probably had severe brain damage from not getting enough oxygen right after the heart attack, it is likely for the best... RIP

I have to say the Abner Lonely Universe series sounds intriguing... Anyway, in between the longer works, I have been reading some very short works as well. Dino Buzzati's The Siren (which I personally found to be second- or even third-rate Borges) and Bellow's Seize the Day. I do see what Bellow is going for -- showing just how far apart the middle aged man and his father are -- but the main character Tommy Wilhelm is just such a self-pitying mess. I really can't stomach all the time we spend inside his head. (I read this many years ago in undergrad and had more clinical detachment at that time.)

I ended up watching Dr. Strange (just barely) before it left the cinema houses. I know you aren't supposed to think too much about these movies, but I really was never sold on Cumberbatch as the title character. He doesn't really look the part, and he certainly isn't grizzled enough. I realize Strange doesn't normally engage in fisticuffs, but Cumberbatch looks like he'd blow away in a heavy breeze. Most disappointing to me is how the special effects all were borrowed from Minority Report, Dark City and Inception. There is a plot twist that was lifted from another recent science fiction movie. And the main villain looks not that far off from the evil MCP from the original Tron movie: It's a bad sign when a couple of hours after a movie you are still ruminating about how it disappointed you. So anyway, not recommended.

I'm going to stream it on Hoopla. I don't know if there is an actual CD. Probably not. Perhaps your library has a subscription to this. I can check out 8 titles a month to stream. The selection is interesting. Lots of Blue Note, Impulse, Prestige titles and some of the 1201 stuff. I'm starting to like it far more than eMusic, since eMusic is now so jammed up with PD duplicates that you can hardly find the legitimate releases.

Kafka's The Castle. It's quite interesting how one can feel totally different about a novel when one rereads it much later. I'm about 1/3 through The Castle, and I know I am much less sympathetic to K. than I was as a young man. There's no question the Castle remains an arbitrary force that meddles with the villagers, but this time around I find K. to be incredibly pompous, stiff-necked and unwilling to learn from any of the people trying to give him advice, Have some humility, man, and listen to others. That's not the same as being a servile toady to the Castle. (In contrast, I believe The Trial still affected me roughly the same way after a gap of close to 20 years.)

I just wrapped up The Pale King. It's somewhat interesting watching the editor reveal what is behind the curtain (many of Wallace's notes suggest that he was going to radically reshape the material), but there is essentially no plot to speak of. It's basically quite a few portraits of the sort of person who can handle the extreme tedium of working as a tax inspector/auditor for the IRS. It was fundamentally unsatisfying to me, but I think that was largely the point... I'm rereading some classics - Kafka's The Castle, Calvino's Invisible Cities and Borges' Ficciones. Then I am going to start Vanity Fair. Not sure how long that will take me.

I finished up The Way of All Flesh. While there is almost no plot to speak of, this still held my attention, mostly due to the narrative voice, which constantly rejected Victorian-era mores. I've just started David Foster Wallace's The Pale King. This is an unfinished novel, pieced together from his notebooks and computer files. It is a fairly sad book, with the early chapters somewhat preoccupied with death and suicide. It's also quite choppy and episodic, though this seems to have been part of the plan (rather than something that the editor was forced to revert to). I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it, particularly since Wallace had hinted that it would be "about nothing," i.e. there would never be a big denouement at the end where different strands get wrapped up. On the other hand, so few people write about the tedium of corporate office life (Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End is an honorable exception) that I want to like it. I guess I'll see how I feel when it ends, but I am not quite liking The Pale King as much as I had hoped.

I only learned about Siskind recently. I haven't seen a full exhibit, but I have gone through a few monographs. If the weather cooperates, I'll be heading to Buffalo on Sat. to go to the Albright-Knox. The collection is quite strong (I try to go about once a year), and right now they have a mini-exhibit on Picasso.

I'm making reasonable progress through Butler's The Way of All Flesh (roughly 1/3 in now). It's still fairly interesting. The stress on unhappy childhood reminds me just a bit of Maugham's Of Human Bondage, but actually I like The Way of All Flesh considerable better (so far). I'm also starting Steve Zipp's Yellowknife, which is sort of a fantastical view of life up north. Interesting so far.

I found the majority of the male characters to be thoroughly unappealing, particularly Will Ladislaw, who seemed quite a drip actually. And Fred Vincy seemed to have too easy a path to redemption. Too much fell into his lap, even if it didn't seem that way to him at the time. I guess Sir James was reasonably sensible. The book only really held my interest when we saw Lydgate struggling.

I think I was actually in a position to repeat until Calgary scored 10 points in the last 2 minutes to send the game to overtime. Nonetheless, another huge upset in a year just full of them.

I actually have a post dedicated to books I should have read (mostly for university) but didn't for one reason or another. The one I feel worst about is Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale. It looks like I will finally get to it by next fall.

I'm also reading Butler's The Way of All Flesh for the first time. I'm not quite sure where it is going, but I do find the sly asides that the narrator inserts into the story are amusing.

I vaguely remember reading Cohen's Beautiful Losers but I didn't remember much about it. So I decided to read it again. It's definitely different, sort of about a failed love triangle.

Carol Shields -- Unless (Her final novel) Leonard Cohen -- Beautiful Losers

Ottawa 55 -- it has just been one of those years...

I really liked The Alexandria Quartet and do mean to reread it one of these days. I haven't gotten terribly far with any other of Durrell's novels, even though many of them are short. I'm nearly done with The Cure for Death by Lightning and am halfway through To Kill a Mockingbird. Both involve small rural communities and the rumors and gossip that can lead to serious consequences. Both could be considered coming of age novels, though Scout is quite a bit younger than Beth Weeks, the narrator of Cure for Death. Both also feature racism quite prominently, either against Blacks or First Nations people. The main difference is that To Kill a Mockingbird is a quasi fairy tale where Atticus is essentially a prince in disguise, whereas Beth's father is the monster that must be slayed.

This does look interesting, but I am wondering if you have any clips on SoundCloud? It doesn't appear that the album is featured on your site (yet?).

Unbelievably dispiriting news. 2016 may well go down as the worst year ever in terms of losing musicians/artists that I cared the most about. I should have made a bigger effort to catch him on his last tour, but I think I was moving between cities at the time. I was hoping he would do a tour, even just a handful of cities, to support his last, dark masterpiece You Want It Darker, but it was not to be. RIP

I finally conquered The Federalist Papers, or they conquered me, not sure which. Quite dense stuff, especially one of the last papers (83) written by Hamilton on why trial by jury wasn't in the Constitution proper (though it was added only 4 years later as part of the Bill of Rights). In a few months, I expect to tackle Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, but I need some lighter stuff in the meantime. I'm just starting Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, which I never read in high school (unlike so many other Americans). After that, probably Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh.