Now reading...

[Leeway]

Thanks for that, Leeway. I shall be adding "echt" to What Word Did You Learn Today?

Not to be confused with "ech"!

[BillF]

At 100+ pages, a Fitzgerald novel is quickly read. All the same, I found this one very satisfying. Set like The Beginning of Spring in about 1912, it shows a society on the edge of profound change, though this time it's not Russia, but England, where women's suffrage and atomic physics are about to arrive.

Once again, the handling of leading characters is unorthodox. The narrative structure was as surprising as in the film The Place Beyond the Pines. In both a violent event causes the narrative to apparently abandon the main character in favour of a newcomer, but in both a resolution of the two elements is finally achieved.

[ejp626]

I have to admit that I found Elizabeth Bowen's To the North a bit unfulfilling. I expect I will like The Hotel (her first) and The Heat of the Day more. Jury is definitely still out on The House in Paris and The Death of the Heart.

I did enjoy Krzhizhanovsky's Autobiography of a Corpse (NYRB) quite a bit. He is sometimes compared to Kafka, and I think that is generally a fair comparison.

I'm just starting Platonov's Happy Moscow (NYRB) now. It looks promising, but it is an unfinished novel, so there is always some disappointment that he didn't see it through.

[Head Man]

Finished this in one sitting yesterday. An interesting period piece describing a year in the author's life at the beginning of WWI.

Thanks to whoever recommended this...

[Thomas Jackson]

K'wan - The Fix 2

word.

[BillF]

I have to admit that I found Elizabeth Bowen's To the North a bit unfulfilling. I expect I will like The Hotel (her first) and The Heat of the Day more. Jury is definitely still out on The House in Paris and The Death of the Heart.

Some Bowen novels are more avant garde than others. My wife and I were both defeated by the complexity of The House in Paris, but very taken by The Heat of the Day and The Death of the Heart.

[Simon8]

[Larry Kart]

A.B. Yehoshua's "Mr. Mani"

I have to admit that I found Elizabeth Bowen's To the North a bit unfulfilling. I expect I will like The Hotel (her first) and The Heat of the Day more. Jury is definitely still out on The House in Paris and The Death of the Heart.

Some Bowen novels are more avant garde than others. My wife and I were both defeated by the complexity of The House in Paris, but very taken by The Heat of the Day and The Death of the Heart.

Bowen's "The Little Girls" is terrific, IMO.

[A Lark Ascending]

After being enthralled by Richard Evans' book on Nazi Germany 1933-39, this took a bit of getting into. A rather plain telling of the tale - not difficult to read or follow, there's just something a bit donnish and tight-lipped about the style. But having got Wellington to India it's starting to engage me.

Might just be the problem I generally have with the start of biographies - I can't get too excited about ancestral background or the natures of siblings (although at least one of Wellington's had an import impact on his career and a sister had a bit of a harum-scarum experience in Revolutionary France).

Alongside, another volume in one of my favourite detective series:

I shouldn't really like these as most of the leading characters are aristocratic buggers (as was Wellington!) - but I do. Clearly part of some devious plot to brainwash us into thinking that the toffs are OK really.

Edited January 11, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[ejp626]

A.B. Yehoshua's "Mr. Mani"

I have to admit that I found Elizabeth Bowen's To the North a bit unfulfilling. I expect I will like The Hotel (her first) and The Heat of the Day more. Jury is definitely still out on The House in Paris and The Death of the Heart.

Some Bowen novels are more avant garde than others. My wife and I were both defeated by the complexity of The House in Paris, but very taken by The Heat of the Day and The Death of the Heart.

Bowen's "The Little Girls" is terrific, IMO.

I'll try to get to it, one of these days. The Toronto Public Library's copy doesn't circulate (the number of novels they have locked up is kind of mind-blowing) but I can get one out of Robarts.

I just finished Platonov's Happy Moscow. While parts of it are bleak and the plot itself is pretty thin, I liked it quite a bit. For me, it works better than Soul, which I found a bit tedious. I'll see how it measures up against The Foundation Pit in another week or so.

I'm following it with Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus to which it is tangentially related through the figure of a woman entertainer flying through the air. I've been planning to read this novel for years now, and it is time.

I'm also working through Walser's A Schoolboy's Diary, which is another interesting NYRB offering.

[erwbol]

350 pages into William Gibson's The Peripheral, I'm not convinced by the last 200+ pages, but I'll reserve judgement for now. I doubt this one ends up having a high re-readability factor.

Ordered this last week.

[Matthew]

George Whitefield: America's Spiritual Founding Father by Thomas Kidd. Fascinating account of Whitefield and his impact on the American colonies. Helped to usher in the "Great Awakening" of the 1740s.

Well, it started out good, but half-way through, wound up being one of those books you finish just because you feel a sense of obligation. Not too insightful, and most of all, gave no sense of the person. Meh.

[uli]

quote ejp626

"I'm also working through Walser's A Schoolboy's Diary, which is another interesting NYRB offering.

"

guessing this is "Fritz Kochers Aufsätze. Also laying around here together with other of Walsers short stories.()Sometimes I like to read one or two just before going to sleep.

Edited January 15, 2015 by uli

[ejp626]

quote ejp626

"I'm also working through Walser's A Schoolboy's Diary, which is another interesting NYRB offering

guessing this is "Fritz Kochers Aufsätze. Also laying around here together with other of Walsers short stories.()Sometimes I like to read one or two just before going to sleep.

It's combined in different ways from the original books. It starts with Fritz Kocher's Essays but there is a separate story called "A Schoolboy's Diary" and it ends with "Hans".

I enjoyed Hello Moscow, though I don't think it is for everyone, as it is pretty bleak.

I'm about 1/3 through Carter's Nights at the Circus. It's entertaining, and it is starting to get just a bit Felliniesque as this reporter goes undercover as a clown to join a touring circus and see if the main attraction (a winged woman) is a fraud or genuine.

Edited January 15, 2015 by ejp626

[erwbol]

350 pages into William Gibson's The Peripheral, I'm not convinced by the last 200+ pages, but I'll reserve judgement for now. I doubt this one ends up having a high re-readability factor.

Story picked up pace again in the next chapter. A successful novel in the end. Not much to say about the plot, which is basically very simple, though the world is quite fleshed out in the end. Most characters are kind of thin.

I do intend to reread this one later this year.

Edited January 16, 2015 by erwbol

[jlhoots]

Jonathan Lethem: Dissident Gardens

[paul secor]

Jonathan Lethem: Dissident Gardens

I may be in a minority, but I found that one poorly written.

[jlhoots]

Jonathan Lethem: Dissident Gardens

I may be in a minority, but I found that one poorly written.

O.K. - how about Motherless Brooklyn & Fortress Of Solitude??

If you don't like those you need to stay away from Lethem!!

[paul secor]

I did like Motherless Brooklyn. I felt that Dissident Gardens was overwritten with too much explaining.

[Jazzmoose]

Story picked up pace again in the next chapter. A successful novel in the end. Not much to say about the plot, which is basically very simple, though the world is quite fleshed out in the end. Most characters are kind of thin.

I do intend to reread this one later this year.

Excellent; I'll have to check it out.

[BillF]

Short stories by Fitzgerald. A bit of an anticlimax after the novels, I thought.

[ejp626]

I snuck in Elizabeth Bowen's The Hotel, as it was short. It was ok, nothing amazing. In a few weeks I'll be tackling The House in Paris -- and some day The Little Girls and few of the others.

I've just launched into Platonov's The Foundation Pit. I think it will be a bit challenging, but looking forward to it. This will officially wrap up my 6 or so month foray into Russian authors. Definitely time for a change.

But I perhaps will end up easing myself into European and American fiction by way of Mittel-Europa.

Gregor Von Rezzori and probably some Kafka. Maybe even some Stephan Zweig. We'll see...

Quite excited about An Ermine in Czernopol, but I'm going to hold off a bit longer on Rezzori's other novels.

Edited January 25, 2015 by ejp626

[BillF]

Now this was a good Fitzgerald! This is where I think she's at her strongest - writing about something she has experienced personally, in this case a London theatre school, rather than, say, Moscow of a century ago or the lives of Italians in the 1950s. Wonderful sense of ironic humour, with more than a hint of Evelyn Waugh. Strongly recommended, particularly to anyone keenly interested in theatre.

[ejp626]

At Freddie's

Now this was a good Fitzgerald! This is where I think she's at her strongest - writing about something she has experienced personally, in this case a London theatre school, rather than, say, Moscow of a century ago or the lives of Italians in the 1950s. Wonderful sense of ironic humour, with more than a hint of Evelyn Waugh. Strongly recommended, particularly to anyone keenly interested in theatre.

This could be something right up my alley. I often enjoy novels about theatre if they aren't too inside baseball. (That's probably one reason I liked Birdman so much, as I have some experience with oddball actors.) For another theatre novel, there is also Bulgakov's Black Snow.

[duaneiac]

Found it at the library used book sale for 50 cents.