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[BillF]

Another Highsmith.

[ejp626]

I finished God's Grace by Malamud last night.  It is the freakiest book by a well-known member of the "literary establishment" that I can recall.  Maybe Bear by Marian Engel, but she is basically an unknown outside of Canada, and I'm not really sure she was ever part of the establishment.  I didn't like it for lots of reasons, but I can't really go into them now.

I am starting Galapagos by Vonnegut.  I'm enjoying this more, though the narrative voice is a bit overbearing at times (and even smug) as John was discussing.  Still, even though Vonnegut probably has an even bleaker worldview than Malamud, the tone is not as off-putting.

I've read a couple of the stories in Faulkner's Go Down, Moses, and think they were pretty good.  I'll turn back to reading this full time after Galapagos.

[HutchFan]

On 1/22/2016 at 1:20 PM, A Lark Ascending said:

I've read a couple of Henry James novels but found them hard going. I did like 'The Turn of the Screw'...read that twice...but was helped there by a 60s/70s film version (THe Innocents) and later getting to know the Britten opera. 

Oi, yes. Henry James' novels are a tough slog! The prose is so heavy and labyrinthine. I prefer his short stories too. I guess he's more effective in smaller doses!

...Besides, I'd much rather read the writings of Henry's brother, William James, the psychologist and philosopher. 

[HutchFan]

On 1/24/2016 at 5:52 AM, BillF said:

I've never taken to Amis fils though, but then neither did Dad. Martin said eventually he was able to calculate to the minute just when his latest book would go spiralling across the room after he had given it to the old man to read.

Bill -- Funny story. Did Kingsley object to the lewdness of Martin's writing? Or was it something else that bothered him?

[BillF]

I don't think lewdness was the issue. The old man could be as lewd as you like. It 's a generational thing - why I've read all of Kingsley's books, but never got anywhere with Martin's.

Edited January 26, 2016 by BillF

[Kevin Bresnahan]

[BillF]

16 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Oi, yes. Henry James' novels are a tough slog! The prose is so heavy and labyrinthine. I prefer his short stories too. I guess he's more effective in smaller doses!

 

Recently someone expressed surprise that I'd managed to read James's The Ambassadors. But it was at the end of a three-year course in English Literature and after such things as Sir Thomas Browne and Gibbon's Decline and Fall, I was well in training!

[ejp626]

2 hours ago, BillF said:

Recently someone expressed surprise that I'd managed to read James's The Ambassadors. But it was at the end of a three-year course in English Literature and after such things as Sir Thomas Browne and Gibbon's Decline and Fall, I was well in training!

I've not read that many of Henry James novels, either the early or later ones.  I'll probably get around to it one day, and have 3 or 4 that will someday make my to read pile.  The one that I read in college was indeed The Ambassadors.  I found it a novel that one admired more than really enjoyed, which is the case with a lot of late James.

[ejp626]

Midway through Faulkner's Go Down, Moses.  Enjoying it, some stories more than others.  Some of the humorous scenes in "The Fire and the Hearth" are the equal of anything in The Reivers, which is to me just an excellent comic romp.  Granted, Faulkner deals with many heavier themes in Go Down, Moses, particularly when looking at black characters with "mixed" blood. 

I'm going to take a short break before starting in on "The Bear" and read Bove's very short novel Armand.

[paul secor]

Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus

[A Lark Ascending]

Very good Cold War thriller set in the mid-50s at the time of Britain's nuclear research, set against the background of US/UK tension in the run up to Suez. A lot of the book is set around Aldeburgh in Suffolk near the Orford nuclear research station (Britten's contemporary rehearsal's of 'Noye's Fludde' are there in the background). Wilson is American but lives there - his main character is an American who has gone native. You get the impression Wilson is at least partly writing about himself. 

Recommended to lovers of historically set thrillers. I've read three of his books and like him as much as Alan Furst. More tight in the narrative and with more twists but equally as engaging (not a criticism of Furst...the latter is more impressionistic). Though you are constantly thinking 'Did this really happen or has he made this bit up?' 

[Jazzjet]

2 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

Very good Cold War thriller set in the mid-50s at the time of Britain's nuclear research, set against the background of US/UK tension in the run up to Suez. A lot of the book is set around Aldeburgh in Suffolk near the Orford nuclear research station (Britten's contemporary rehearsal's of 'Noye's Fludde' are there in the background). Wilson is American but lives there - his main character is an American who has gone native. You get the impression Wilson is at least partly writing about himself. 

Recommended to lovers of historically set thrillers. I've read three of his books and like him as much as Alan Furst. More tight in the narrative and with more twists but equally as engaging (not a criticism of Furst...the latter is more impressionistic). Though you are constantly thinking 'Did this really happen or has he made this bit up?' 

Two new names to me and the themes sound right up my street so thanks for the tip. I've recently finished Charles Cumming's 'The Trinity Six' and enjoyed it very much. This one has a more modern setting but the background is the world of Burgess, McLean, Blunt etc. He's written several other novels in the espionage genre so I will definitely try those. Another fairly recent read is 'Dominion' by C.J. Sampson. This is one of those novels set in a world where Britain has surrendered to the Nazis but is very atmospheric with lots of period detail. Again, highly recommended.

[A Lark Ascending]

I've read that Cumming's book (and another by him) - enjoyed them. The only Sampson I've read was 'Winter in Madrid' about the Spanish Civil War and that one put me off him - think it was an improbable love story which wound me up (had the same reaction to 'Birdsong' at the start though that one got better once it got to the trenches). 

Furst is superb. His books cover the 30s and 40s but have the good sense to explore the nooks and crannies of the period rather than aiming for the big events. So you end up in odd places like Bulgaria and Macedonia as well as Paris, Britain, Russia etc. You can read them in any order as they don't follow a chronological or thematic sequence though they do overlap in places - I think I'm right in thinking that at some point in every book a situations happens in a bar in Paris with a bullet hole in a mirror.  

[Joe]

Just finished Mark Nowak's REVENANTS (Coffee House). If only all so-called "documentary poetics projects" were this humble, careful, luminous.

Now reading Mario De Andrade's MACUNAIMA, a foundational text in Brazilian literary Modernism... "Rabelais in the rain forest"

[jlhoots]

Sigrid Undset: Gunnar's Daughter

Edited February 1, 2016 by jlhoots

[Brad]

I've been watching War and Peace and lately I've had an interest in the Napoleonic Wars (even before the program aired in teh US) and, well, I've decided to take the plunge.  Yes, you got it: War and Peace.

Reading War and Peace may have been discussed before but obviosly a major undertaking.

In thinking about whether to do it, I came across a couple of articles that may be of interest for those thinking about it:

Seven Reasons You Should Give War and Peace a Chance

Why Read War and Peace

In doing a little research there is apparently some debate about which translation to choose.  Many like the translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky (Vintage Classics) while others prefer the one by Anthony Briggs (Penguin).  I chose the P & V one but may take a look at the Briggs one just to compare styles.

[ejp626]

1 hour ago, Brad said:

I've been watching War and Peace and lately I've had an interest in the Napoleonic Wars (even before the program aired in teh US) and, well, I've decided to take the plunge.  Yes, you got it: War and Peace.

Reading War and Peace may have been discussed before but obviosly a major undertaking.

In thinking about whether to do it, I came across a couple of articles that may be of interest for those thinking about it:

Seven Reasons You Should Give War and Peace a Chance

Why Read War and Peace

In doing a little research there is apparently some debate about which translation to choose.  Many like the translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky (Vintage Classics) while others prefer the one by Anthony Briggs (Penguin).  I chose the P & V one but may take a look at the Briggs one just to compare styles.

Good luck with that.  I've basically always found the P & V translations to be the best, though I've only read their Anna Karenina, The Master & Margarita, Demons and Notes from Underground.  I'll probably get around to War and Peace in a couple of years.

[Larry Kart]

32 minutes ago, ejp626 said:

Good luck with that.  I've basically always found the P & V translations to be the best, though I've only read their Anna Karenina, The Master & Margarita, Demons and Notes from Underground.  I'll probably get around to War and Peace in a couple of years.

Sorry but the P/V translations are pretty bad, a triumph of hype. But don't take my word for it; see this from Gary Saul Morson, who really knows his stuff:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/40906160/The-Pevearsion-of-Russian-Literature

 

 

[A Lark Ascending]

War and Peace is not a difficult book - just long. Until the last 200 or so pages (can't be exact - it's 40 years since I read it). There Tolstoy shifts off the story to a long philosophical treatise. I got through about half of that section and then admitted defeat. A pity as I'd made it that far (mainly on trains going to interviews). I really enjoyed the bulk of it, especially the depictions of battlefield chaos and the fog of war that enveloped everyone from ordinary soldier up to the supposed tacticians. I felt 'Anna Karenina', which I read just before, had the edge just because it had a unity to it without that preachy voice at the end. I don't re-read many books but I'd like to read them both again...maybe the end of W&P will make more sense at 60 rather than 21!     

[Leeway]

Most translations have their strong and weak points, including P&V. I've read War & Peace twice now, the last time in the Rosemary Edmonds translation, and found it perfectly satisfactory. Probably not best to obsess over any particular translation. Recently I had a chance to compare Bulgakov's Master & Margarita in 3 translations: P&V, Ginsburg, and Burgin. P&V occasionally came off stiff; Ginsburg reads very well but her text was imperfect; Burgin reads well also but leaves nuggets of text untranslated. P&V does have some useful notes. Hard to say which was the best. I would not automatically default to P&V if other translations are more available. 

[A Lark Ascending]

I only read Schnabel's version. 

[Brad]

1 hour ago, Larry Kart said:

Sorry but the P/V translations are pretty bad, a triumph of hype. But don't take my word for it; see this from Gary Saul Morson, who really knows his stuff:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/40906160/The-Pevearsion-of-Russian-Literature

 

 

Unfortunately, that comes with a fee.  Would love to read it.

[ejp626]

18 minutes ago, Brad said:

Unfortunately, that comes with a fee.  Would love to read it.

Yes, I am not going to sign up to Scribed to find out what axe Morson has to grind.  I can say that I read 3 translations of Master and Margarita, alternating chapters like Leeway, and I thought P & V was the best.  I don't read Russian, so I can't speak to the accuracy, but this one seemed to convey the ideas the most clearly and generally had more felicitous phrasing -- for me.  Though I did copy over in the margins a few places where I thought Burgin was better.

It is clear that some people get very heated when there are different translations to choose from, but it seem that some of these people are expecting some Platonically perfect translation, which is of course absurd.  For at least a subset of these critics, only reading in the original is acceptable.

[HutchFan]

I've read War & Peace in a couple different translations, and -- naturally -- translators do make a difference. That said, I think some critics and readers of Russian can make too much of these differences. Garnett's translation was the first version I read, and it's usually looked down upon now. In comparison, the Pevear and Volokhnosky translation does seem less "Victorian."  Tolstoy himself approved Maude's translations, and Briggs has his advocates. 

Just read the darn book, I say. Even if a given translator misses some aspect of the novel -- whether it's fudging on tone or meaning -- the greatness of Tolstoy's achievement is going to come shining through. Besides, there are all sorts of other barriers to fully understanding the book that are just as important as the translation (if not more so). For example, Tolstoy could assume that his readers would know about Russia's conflicts with Napoleon; it was common knowledge. But, when I first read the book at 19, I knew very little of Napoleon's life and campaigns and even less about 19th century Russia. That made for a bit of a tough slog at the beginning. But as I progressed none of that stuff mattered. The universality of Tolstoy's characters and his stunning portrayal of life carried the day.

BTW: Under the spell of Tolstoy, I studied Russian for a few years in college. I wanted to read him and all the rest in the original Russian. Sadly, my language skills never got that far. Even so, I'm glad to have read many Russian writers in English -- even if I'm missing out on something. Sure, every work of art loses something in translation, but it hasn't been enough to keep them from being among my favorite books.

 

One other thing: Here's some interesting reading on the topic of translating Russian literature: The Translation Wars by David Remnick (not behind a pay wall).

Edited February 2, 2016 by HutchFan

[ejp626]

Agreed.  It is far more important to read these books than to obsess over translation.

Speaking of other barriers, I am almost done with Faulkner's Go Down, Moses.  That is a tough slog, and in some places I have no idea exactly who is talking to whom and whether this is a conversation that happened in the past or it is an imagined conversation.  Either seems plausible.  I was reasonably well-versed in the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era, but I can imagine these novels will feel more and more foreign as time passes, though racial strife seems eternal in the heart of America. 

I can only imagine the difficulties in trying to translate this, let alone The Sound and the Fury, and then the critics coming along and saying what a mess the translators had made of Faulkner.

Edited February 2, 2016 by ejp626
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