Now reading...

[kinuta]

[Matthew]

The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World by Miroslav Volf 

[sgcim]

The Master and Margerita

[kinuta]

15 hours ago, Bluesnik said:

Do you mean his autobiography (Life)? Yes, I've read that and enjoyed it a lot. And about what I said in my former post, I'm only repeating what the book says, though it sounds reasonable to me. But it might be a bit overstated, that's true.

Yes, that's the one.

I don't read many music related biographies but really enjoyed Life.

I saw the The Beatles a few times in Sheffield, and quite honestly they weren't all that good.

I think they sounded at their best in small clubs, but their rise was so rapid around Love Me Do that they moved to larger gigs never to go back to the small venues. The first Sheffield gig was slated to be at The Black Cat Club, which was a teenage club held every Friday at St Aidan's church hall.

The call for tickets was so huge that it was moved to the larger Azena Ballroom. I was only 15 at the time and remember clearly going there with my very first girlfriend. The amplification was puny and we couldn't hear very much for the constant sceaming and shouting. I wasn't impressed but changed my mind after hearing the first album.

[ejp626]

9 hours ago, sgcim said:

The Master and Margerita

Definitely a classic!  I try to reread this every 10 years or so...

Squeezing in Hoban's Turtle Diary (NYRB) during breaks from the 2nd vol. of Musil's The Man Without Qualities.  I'd say Turtle Diary is a bit of an unknown gem, but I'm only about 1/3 through so far.

[ghost of miles]

Rereading for the first time since I was a teenager:

[jlhoots]

Lauren Wilkinson: American Spy

[HutchFan]

R.V.W.: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams by Ursula Vaughn Williams

 

[Marzz]

On 3/5/2019 at 2:40 AM, Brad said:

I was having trouble getting into And The Don Flows to the Sea so I decided to put it down for awhile and I'm now reading Joseph Roth's Rebellion.  I've read The Radetzky March and The Emperor's Tomb and those were excellent. If you like Stefan Zweig -- and I've read all his novels and memoir -- you'd probably like Roth. 

I just ordered this one thanks to your post, Brad. I've read some Roth and especially enjoyed Hotel Savoy (that ejp626 mentioned above ) and The Radetzky March - Radetzky I've read a few times! I haven't given much consideration to the different English translations, though it seems Hofmann is a preferred (?) choice for Roth. My copy of Radetzky was translated by Joachim Neugroschel.

Wish I could read German.

 

Edit: Forgot to add, I'm almost through a re-read of Tolstoy's classic Anna Karenina.

Wish I could read Russian.

 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Marzz

[Brad]

1 hour ago, Marzz said:

I just ordered this one thanks to your post, Brad. I've read some Roth and especially enjoyed Hotel Savoy (that ejp626 mentioned above ) and The Radetzky March - Radetzky I've read a few times! I haven't given much consideration to the different English translations, though it seems Hofmann is a preferred (?) choice for Roth. My copy of Radetzky was translated by Joachim Neugroschel.

Wish I could read German.

 

Edit: Forgot to add, I'm almost through a re-read of Tolstoy's classic Anna Karenina.

Wish I could read Russian.

 

I may start Anna Karenina soon.  Which translation did you read. The translators that are in vogue are Pevear and Volokhonsky although as you may know they have received a lot of criticism for the way they translate. 

Hope you enjoy Rebellion. 

[kinuta]

[Marzz]

On 4/2/2019 at 3:40 AM, Brad said:

I may start Anna Karenina soon.  Which translation did you read. The translators that are in vogue are Pevear and Volokhonsky although as you may know they have received a lot of criticism for the way they translate. 

Hope you enjoy Rebellion. 

The first translation I read (years ago) was the Louis & Aylmer Maude. And I loved it! But how much of that was because of the Maudes I don't know. For my current re-read I picked up the Pevear/Volokhonsky and to be honest I haven't found a huge difference overall, as I expected. Also, I must say I'm enjoying it immensely and have picked up quite a few things I'd missed on my first read - not because of the new translation though, just that it's a second read through.

Yes, I've read some of the criticism toward Pevear/Volokhonsky but then without having read the original in Russian, I can't make that judgement myself. Also it's fair to say that all of the translations have been "criticized" in one way or another. The Maude translation was a "first love" for me and so will probably remain a favourite for that reason alone, though I wouldn't avoid the Pevear/Volokhonsky. Hope you read it soon, a wonderful novel!

Edited April 3, 2019 by Marzz

[ejp626]

2 hours ago, Marzz said:

...

Yes, I've read some of the criticism toward Pevear/Volokhonsky but then without having read the original in Russian, I can't make that judgement myself. Also it's fair to say that all of the translations have been "criticized" in one way or another. The Maude translation was a "first love" for me and so will probably remain a favourite for that reason alone, though I wouldn't avoid the Pevear/Volokhonsky. Hope you read it soon, a wonderful novel!

It is pretty hard to tell about translations, which is most faithful vs. which is most personally appealing.  I did compare 3 translations of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and ultimately liked Pevear/Volokhonsky the best.

I believe I now have all the major novels by Dostoevsky translated by them, as well as Anna Karenina and War and Peace.

[Brad]

Based on some articles I tend to shy away from P & V where possible. However, they seem to be everywhere so it’s hard to avoid them.  I read the Briggs version of W & P but compared it to the P & V version and glad I read the former. 

Edited April 3, 2019 by Brad

[Bluesnik]

On 02/04/2019 at 10:58 AM, Marzz said:

Wish I could read German.

Is Joseph Roth a German? I always held him for an American. But then I'm lucky because I do read German.

[Brad]

3 hours ago, Bluesnik said:

Is Joseph Roth a German? I always held him for an American. But then I'm lucky because I do read German.

He’s Austrian so you should have no problem. 

[medjuck]

On 4/1/2019 at 7:09 AM, ghost of miles said:

Rereading for the first time since I was a teenager:

I read a version that supposedly was the "revised" edition that Fitzgerald prepared after the commercial failure of the original edition.  May have been a mistake on my part.

On 3/13/2019 at 10:52 AM, ghost of miles said:

A question for fellow John le Carre fans on the board:  over the years I've read The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (twice), recently finished the next two books in the Karla trilogy (The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People) and am now about 75 pages into A Perfect Spy.  I also have Adam Sisman's recent biography of le Carre on order.  What other le Carre novels would you recommend?  And how is The Secret Pilgrim?

The first two: Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality are good, easy reads and important for understanding Smiley. 

On 3/30/2019 at 9:03 AM, ghost of miles said:

Fitzgerald beautifully evokes the magical charge and the vicious, temporal economy of adolescent relations in these stories:

I have a "complete" short stories volume and somehow didn't notice that some of them involved continuing characters.  (Except the Pat Hobby stories.)  How many Basil &Josephine stories are there? 

[ghost of miles]

54 minutes ago, medjuck said:

I read a version that supposedly was the "revised" edition that Fitzgerald prepared after the commercial failure of the original edition.  May have been a mistake on my part.

The first two: Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality are good, easy reads and important for understanding Smiley. 

I have a "complete" short stories volume and somehow didn't notice that some of them involved continuing characters.  (Except the Pat Hobby stories.)  How many Basil &Josephine stories are there? 

I am wary of reading Malcolm Cowley’s “revised” version, which evidently switches books 1 and 2 so that the narrative unfolds in chronological order, instead of starting on the Riviera and then moving into book 2 as a flashback. While FSF did indeed say near the end of the life that he’d like to re-order it that way, I think it would undermine the original’s power, which pulls you into an expatriate spell that slowly reveals an underlying darkness. 

Re Basil and Josephine, there are 14 stories in all—nine about Basil and five about Josephine. One of the Basil stories (“That Kind Of Party”) went unpublished in FSF’s lifetime; Saturday Evening Post rejected it because they didn’t like its representation of 11-yr-olds having kissing parties (the horror, the horror!). FSF renamed the Basil character in an apparent bid to publish it elsewhere, but it didn’t appear in print until 1951. I’m not sure why the editors of the Basil and Josephine collection didn’t restore the name of Basil to the story’s protagonist, but at least they collected it with the others. Some of the Basil and Josephine stories appeared in FSF’s 1935 Taps At Reveille volume of short stories. Maxwell Perkins had urged FSF to publish all of them as a single book, but FSF passed on that idea for various reasons. They were written between 1928 and 1931 and drew deeply on Fitzgerald’s own adolescent experiences. 

[ejp626]

2 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

Re Basil and Josephine, there are 14 stories in all—nine about Basil and five about Josephine. One of the Basil stories (“That Kind Of Party”) went unpublished in FSF’s lifetime; Saturday Evening Post rejected it because they didn’t like its representation of 11-yr-olds having kissing parties (the horror, the horror!). FSF renamed the Basil character in an apparent bid to publish it elsewhere, but it didn’t appear in print until 1951. I’m not sure why the editors of the Basil and Josephine collection didn’t restore the name of Basil to the story’s protagonist, but at least they collected it with the others. ...

Yeah, they make a bit of a big deal about not silently correcting issues like the name.  Kind of silly.

Anyway, there are also 17 Pat Hobby stories.

[medjuck]

I was wrong: I have a "collected" short stories but not a complete short stories.  I just discovered that you can buy a kindle edition of The Complete Writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald for $1.49! (I think most of his work is now PD despite the new opyright laws.) 

[Bluesnik]

20 hours ago, Brad said:

He’s Austrian so you should have no problem.

Ah, thanks.

[ghost of miles]

1 hour ago, medjuck said:

I was wrong: I have a "collected" short stories but not a complete short stories.  I just discovered that you can buy a kindle edition of The Complete Writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald for $1.49! (I think most of his work is now PD despite the new opyright laws.) 

Does it include the infamous Philippe stories?

[kinuta]

 

[Matthew]

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Star Trek - The Original Series Book 1). Enjoyed touching base with the original Star Trek, that I want to start to read the books. Book 1 is a Gene Roddenberry book treatment of the movie; it's better that I thought it would be.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Matthew

[kinuta]