Now Is The Winter Of Our Dusty-dusty 2015/2016, What Are You Reading Now?

Been reading a lot of Muriel Spark recently - devoured A Far Cry from Kensington and the Abbess of Crewe in the last week, and I'm just starting on The Bachelors.

There's a copy of her autobiography in the library as well - should I wait till I've read most of the others or does it matter? Don't know if there's much about the books and the process of writing in it or if its more general.

it mostly (entirely?) covers pre-success years; it's not all that interesting, tbh; i read it on a train journey and remember remarkably little. it's frank without being at all revealing.

i think kensington and the other couple of late novels with a 50s/60s london setting and a female protagonist at the pre-beginnings of a literary career perhaps tell you more about that moment of her life than do the autobio? idk. which one is kensington, anyway, is it the one with the 'pisseur du copie' bit?

Aiding and Abetting is a delight and easily finished in an afternoon.

Yeah Kensington is the 'pisseur du copie' one!

loved that bit

i need to do a re-read of her books. well, not all of them, but there are a bunch i haven't read in years. and i am older now and my memory is terrible so they will be all new to me.

i'm at the point i was at with philip k dick in my early twenties where my ideas about the late vs early styles are falling apart because i can't remember what happens in what anymore

At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell

The Ern Malley Affair - Michael Heyward

Now reading Joan Didion's The Last Thing He Wanted. It is interesting, but after 60 or so pages the elaborately constructed artifice of the narrative voice is wearing on me. She knows how to convey the particular sort of hesitation involved with simultaneously confronting and wishing to evade the story one is telling, but she is so committed to that narrative tic that it is a bit of a 'one note samba'.

Wolfgang Hilbig - Sleep of the Righteous. Probably the best writer I found in the last six months. On the surface this is a book about the East German Stasi, but it delays any plot until the end (and its a short book), instead concerning itself with some of the most toxic moods and environments that I've not seen drawn this vividly for a long time.

I really want to get I but its a hardback available for nearly 20 quid.

Marguerite Duras - Outside. A collection of articles she wrote for the french press from the late 50s till the 80s. Pieces range from the political to interviews w/Bataille and the like. Breezing through for a more rounded portrait than anything else.

as it happens I am reading dusty-dusty. Karamazov. Second attempt, I don't remember why I got bored of it last time around.

As she's been mentioned a lot recently, decided to read Muriel Spark's Loitering with Intent, which I hadn't read before and which someone had bought me for Christmas.

Mischievous and immense fun, of course. a book that is literally a sheaf of papers - the novel Fleur Tablot is writing, and the accumulating memoirs of the Autobiographical Association with which the novel becomes interleaved. Life imitating art is a phrase that's overused, I think, and it's kind of unclear what it means a lot of the time. But this book scumbles the line between the two by design and with the aid of a group of weak-minded aristocratic (mainly) grotesques. Its main themes are the writing of life, ie biography, specifically autobiography, and writing itself; this is a book where the business of writing is seen to be done. (This was one of Kinglsey Amis's irritations - writers in books who don't seem to write and are only apparently there to be articulate and have time on their hands - and though that's hardly a distinction, I mention it because I think he makes that observation in a review of another excellent book about death and writing life in art, Elizabeth Taylor's Mrs Palfrey At the Claremont.) But yes, the book's full of how she gets her writing done, the times of day, the business of proofing and writing and typing out, and getting published etc.

It is also obviously autobiographical itself, and it seems likely that the conundrum out of which the book sprang was how to write some of her own autobiography.

The other theme is living itself, specifically the good life (John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua and Renaissance figure Benvenuto Cellini's autobiography are frequently referred to.) Fleur Talbot is observant and not particularly kind, but is interested in people. The members of the Autobiographical Association seem uncertain about what might have been interesting in their own lives. It's required that they're specially selected 'for their weakness and folly' in order that they encourage the introduction of fiction into their lives. Speaking of which, Spark's great at pithy truth bombs:

Well, what I found common to the members of Sir Quentin's remaining group was their weakness of character. To my mind this is no more to be despised than is physical weakness. We are not all born heroes and athletes. At the same time it is elementary wisdom always to fear weaknesses, including one's own; the reactions of the weak, when touched off, can be horrible and sudden.

Oh Christ, I've got to to go to work - you realise once you look just how much there is in her books; there was another thing about people who talk about 'being frank' or 'to be frank' being slap bang in the centre of the book, and how that's contrasted to being interesting about your life - there's a specific bit Fleur says about writing autobiography that puts it well, but I can't find it right now.

Oh and I used the word 'theme' up there though something about her books makes me shy away from the word; they're not so grand, more like a scherzo, though the themes she deals with - Life, death and God are of course themselves as grand as you get, this combination is definitive I think.

i hope other people here have read Elizabeth Taylor. Besides me and James. So great. Since Fizzles mentioned her...

I have read the other Liz (well, I've read In a Summer Season - "her most sex-infused work", according to Wikipedia - and based on that have several others by her waiting in the pile. Virago in the UK have done a p dece job of keeping her novels in print.)

The other Elisabeth Taylor starred in an adaptation of Spark's Driver's Seat. Found that out a few weeks ago and really want to watch that.

Oh Christ, I've got to to go to work - you realise once you look just how much there is in her books

^^^^^ A real inspiration in compression without clottedness: so much substance, yet she really seems to break the 180p mark. A lot of would-be great novelists could learn a lot from her in this area alone.

finished nathalie sarraute's the planetarium. this was great, though did find myself having to go back and reread sections to figure out who was actually saying what (not always successfully) as the dialogue even within sentences seemed to switch between different characters.

& now started on michel butor's passing time, set in a dingy northern english manufacturing town.

Shalamov's Kolyma Tales at the moment. Some beautiful writing and some of the people in his short stories are still finding fleeting moments of beauty and having long internal daydream monologues about nature/poetry and celebrating the occasional petty victory of an "easy day" in an atmosphere where casual cruelty, severe privation and death is the daily norm. They are beautifully crafted stories, but they don't feel like fiction at all, in fact they feel more real than some of the first hand accounts of Gulag life from the archives. Then some of his characters die in a mostly undignified fashion or talk about how they have become ghosts, who are not even sure that their previous life of freedom isn't a work of fiction any more. It is really wonderful stuff.

Is Don Quixote worth a read? Im intimidated by the size of it

― i;m thinking about thos Beans (Michael B), Saturday, March 12, 2016 11:42 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, yes, definitely yes.

― emil.y, Saturday, March 12, 2016 11:59 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This has started circling my consciousness recently, and I find that somehow books tend to float to the surface when I'm 'ready' to read them (probably the subconscious arrangement of overheard literary flotsam rather than divine providence...probably). There's usually a grouping of things on the same theme on these occasions. Anyway, yes. I think it's time.

Recently finished [Pedro Páramo] by Juan Rulfo, which was astonishing. It's a tiny masterpiece. Such incisive character observations...you get some 70 searing insights into inhabitants of a forgotten Mexican town and all within the space of about 120 pages. Such inventive narrative devices employed too... Oh and it is the embodiment of perfect surrealism. Currently treating myself to Bolaño's Woes of the True Policeman, which I need longer to process, but needless to say the labyrinth has both deepened and revealed more of itself. It's so hilarious too.

Oh! Pedro Páramo should have been in italics...not its own bracketed format. Though that would be nice.

[pedroparamo]A horse can be heard circling ILX, but no one can see it[/pedroparamo] (and this is emitted as a mist from the screen)

i recommend don quijote to everyone, it's not daunting or difficult, frequently funny, playful and meta.

I keep looking for the vol. of Rulfo's short stories.

Shalamov's Kolyma Tales at the moment.

One for the ages. His poetry was one of the major discoveries of last year.

reverse order (very little to report): lightning field by dana spiotta; the first bad man by miranda july; america, america by ethan canin

Not his fault, but I always get Ethan Canin and Ethan Hawke mixed up, see his books and go 'This guy's writing is still a thing?'

Yes yes yes to Shalamov's Kolyma Tales. As you calzino says, almost unbearably bleak/sad/cruel at times, but the writing is brilliant.

Just got an advance copy of Cortazar's poems, coming later in the year from City Lights--have only read his fiction, so looking forward to this.

Now on Elizabeth Greenwood: Playing Dead -- a history/investigation of people faking their own deaths, and how/why one might go about it. The prose is very mid-level magaziney, but the subject is so interesting that I mostly don't mind.

I liked Mr. Metarey and the explanation for the thrift and economy of WASPs, and the very act of not throwing things away but letting man-made things and labor also have an organic life. And the father and the mostly mute neighbor who moves rocks.

Should I persist with The Kitchen God's Wife? It was lying around the house and I picked it up in an idle moment but I'm not really into that kind of intergenerational guilty secrets potboiling family drama.

Yesterday+Wednesday, I read the first half of John Banville's The Sea. The passage where the narrator moves from recollecting his childhood imagination of adult life, through the history of the 1920/1930s as he finds it reflected there, into the story of his wife's life as he knows it -- really powerful, haunting stuff

I should give that a go again, definitely my favourite of the two booker prize winning novels whose titles start with 'The Sea'. I am a Banville fan but I tried 'The Untouchable' last year and the narrator was such a douche I just couldn't enjoy it. Curiously I had the same problem with the other booker prize winning novel whose title starts with 'The Sea', but I managed to finish that at least.

As much as I love ornate prose, Banville often reads like a parody of orotund expression. I still recommend The Untouchable though -- the concise British version of Harlot's Ghost.

Yeah, Banville over-writes. I will say "The Book of Evidence" is a good read though.

Yeah, The Sea, might try some more. How are the mystery novels? Wondering about the Banville in his pseudonym's approach to genre.

The mystery novels are dour and a bit dull. I really rate The Untouchable, Book of Evidence and the Revoltions trilogy.

never been tempted to read him. have looked in his books. put them down.

Likewise. Even the one(s) written under a pen name.

other people i have never read: a.s. byatt, margaret drabble, maeve binchy, nadine gordimer, iris murdoch, doris lessing.

think i started a few by doris lessing and never finished them. these are just off the top of my head. there are a lot more where that came from!

wait, is the other Sea one the iris murdoch Sea one?

why don't i read iris murdoch? i'd probably like her.

you're not actually allowed to read both byatt and drabble. if you do they come round your house to make you pick a side

i think i started to read possession and just knew right at the start i was never gonna read it.

After finishing Didion's The Last Thing He Wanted, which was readable, but a bit of a jumble, I have been reading an obscure H.G. Wells novel forming part of a Collected Works that I purchased for $1.99 for my Kindle, called The War in the Air. (I may be misrembering this and only succeeding in producing a paraphrase of the title.) It shows Wells' characteristic strengths (strongly imagined) and weaknesses (rather trashy and flashy, a bare notch above A Boy's Own Paper).

Scott, i think you would like Byatt's short stories, maybe Elementals or Little Black book

Drabble's really good: again, though, start with her stories--there was a collected edition a couple of years ago

Iris murdoch not so much. If it wasnt for her husbands industrious airbrushing of her memory, shed already be well out of print. Not very convincing fictions as vehicles for putting across dud philosophical systems.

i've been a little stalled with the 2nd ferrante book but its not her fault really i just keep picking up jazz crit and jazz interviews to read and every time i go back to elena those guys are STILL at the beach and i'm beginning to worry that those guys are never going home and are just gonna go swimming for the rest of their lives. i think maybe 20 or 30 less pages of the beach might have been good. it doesn't help that they keep talking about Beckett because then it just reminds me that i always stall out with him too.

wrt to Gordimer and Lessing you might need more context in terms of the politics of Southern Africa from that time. I really enjoyed both and especially want to read more Lessing this year.

I read Murdoch's The Bell last week, my third Murdoch. Ponderous but worthwhile. I wonder if anyone reads her generally.

i think maybe 20 or 30 less pages of the beach might have been good

yeah that bit dragged for me, don't worry there's plenty of abuse and misery to come.

Kind of stalled myself for a little bit, but have finished the second Brooke-Rose, dipped into some Stein, and am actually just about to go in for some Lessing myself. Another loan from my mum - this time Memoirs of a Survivor, as it was the first Lessing she read (and so it will be mine).

I thought the beach part was fun (also fateful, of course), but then I enjoyed the whole saga. Think EF's got a sly, dark sense of humor. Never read much Lessing set in South Africa, but maybe try The Golden Notebook. Also The Four-Gated City, but only when you're actually craving another long-ass read. She did write several shorter novels, but I haven't read 'em.
Speaking of Murdoch, gave my Professor Emeritus Mom's copy of The Red and the Green the Random Read Test, seemed like it might be okay. Mom? "Not up to Spark." She keeps doing that. " Hey, I finally read 100 Hundred Years of Solitude." "Eh, Borges is better."

Hey, I finally read 100 Hundred Years of Solitude." "Eh, Borges is better."

This is a huuuuuuuuuge truth, though.

jeez mom, it's not a competition

They specialised in different trades.

re: Lessing - I talked about Southern Africa not South Africa.

I really want to read The Four-Gated City, but its part of the Children of Violence cycle? Can you read 'em in any order?