every story in the Blow-Up short story collection, er, blew my mind. my favourite was the one about the family that live in a big house with a tiger. also the newest edition is very pretty imohttps://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/612R7sXddlL.jpg
― flopson, Wednesday, 19 October 2016 14:37 (seven years ago) link
it's only a hundred and some pages so i'm trying to savour every page of A Month In The Country as long as possible. such a dream
― flopson, Wednesday, 19 October 2016 14:42 (seven years ago) link
ah yes sorry James yes the Fantomas thing is what I was thinking of
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 19 October 2016 15:14 (seven years ago) link
The Cortázar story you are referring to is Casa Tomada/House Taken Over and yes, it's a good one. Think the English collection is comprised of the collections I mentioned already plus those from Final del Fuego.
― Sketches by T-Boz (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 19 October 2016 16:30 (seven years ago) link
Truth be told, I know he is the poster boy of Boom translators, but Gregory Rabassa's work leaves me kind of cold and I don't have the skill and stamina to read a long novel in Spanish. Maybe I should look for which Cortázar novels were translated by Paul Blackburn and read one of those.
― Sketches by T-Boz (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 19 October 2016 16:47 (seven years ago) link
Cool, thanks all! Will seek out the Blow-Up collection, perhaps after finishing Hopscotch. I'm enjoying it - all of the jazz is a pleasant surprise (apparently Cortazar played trumpet himself), although the Latin-Franco machismo and La Maga as a manic-pixie-dreamgirl avant la lettre grates a bit (I guess it could be read parodically? but that seems quite charitable. . .)
I do wish my Spanish were good enough to read in the OG. Maybe one day.
― Federico Boswarlos, Thursday, 20 October 2016 23:47 (seven years ago) link
Every time I read Balzac I wonder why we read Dickens.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 20 October 2016 23:54 (seven years ago) link
You and Joyce.
― Sketches by T-Boz (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 20 October 2016 23:55 (seven years ago) link
That reminds me, I need to read more Balzac. I enjoyed the two I've read: "Cousin Bette" and "Pere Goriot". I've yet to read any Dickens novels. I started "Bleak House" once.
― o. nate, Friday, 21 October 2016 00:21 (seven years ago) link
I recently finished Nicholson Baker's "Vox". A pretty fun, smutty and occasionally sexy novel. Of course the concept of a phone sex chat line is very dated, but in some ways it seems ahead of its time - Internet, mainstreaming of porn, yadda yadda.
― o. nate, Friday, 21 October 2016 00:27 (seven years ago) link
I finished Franco Moretti, THE BOURGEOIS
then Muriel Spark, THE DRIVER'S SEAT
― the pinefox, Friday, 21 October 2016 08:40 (seven years ago) link
Flann O'Brien - The Best of Myles
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 21 October 2016 09:10 (seven years ago) link
― o. nate
I'm reading Cousin Pons and laughing almost every page.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 21 October 2016 10:25 (seven years ago) link
i read a little burton, 'anatomy of melancholy'
sometimes his prose really does seem to be like a word dump, every so often he reaches a point where the commas just start piling up and it's as if expressing a whole thought is a distraction
― j., Friday, 21 October 2016 23:03 (seven years ago) link
― xyzzzz__, Friday, October 21, 2016 2:10 AM (thirteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
would like to read that, never read any of the Myles na gCopaleen stuff
― harold melvin and the bluetones (jim in vancouver), Friday, 21 October 2016 23:05 (seven years ago) link
katherine dunn - geek love
― harold melvin and the bluetones (jim in vancouver), Friday, 21 October 2016 23:06 (seven years ago) link
I just got a copy of that Best Of Myles a couple of weeks back. Found it in a charity shop and had enjoyed the novels I'd read by him . Saw a copy of a book of the same title but different cover today and wondered if the contents were the same since I've seen books of the same or similar title with about 4 or 5 different covers
― Stevolende, Friday, 21 October 2016 23:28 (seven years ago) link
https://es.pinterest.com/pin/257127459952367990/
― Wig Wag Wanderer (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 22 October 2016 04:07 (seven years ago) link
ooooooooookay...
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Saturday, 22 October 2016 04:31 (seven years ago) link
I've had Blow-Up on my 'get' list for a couple of years now, and I keep finding other things to read. Will need to bite the bullet at some point.
(re-)Reading Jock Colville's diaries (I'm a sucker for 30s-40s British political diaries), and about to start Loque's War Music.
― two crickets sassing each other (dowd), Saturday, 22 October 2016 08:48 (seven years ago) link
Flower Confidential about commercial production of flowers by Amy Stewart.
Gang leader For A Day is my transport book.
Boutique is my bog book. Think it's by Melanie Fogg.
― Stevolende, Saturday, 22 October 2016 09:02 (seven years ago) link
Sorry, somebody just happened to tell me last night that there was a recent ballet based on "Casa Tomada" (and a few other Cortázar stories as it turned out) which is what those Pinterest photos are about.
― Wig Wag Wanderer (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 22 October 2016 12:36 (seven years ago) link
The invention of morel might work as a play (I think reading that, and Sylvia ocapmpo is why someone recommended Blow Up to me)
― two crickets sassing each other (dowd), Saturday, 22 October 2016 12:56 (seven years ago) link
Lorrie Moore's Anagrams. I'm laughing after every other sentence.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 22 October 2016 13:00 (seven years ago) link
There was indeed at least one play of a The Invention of Morel which generated some interesting photos I came across once, let's see if I can find.
― Wig Wag Wanderer (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 22 October 2016 14:07 (seven years ago) link
No can find, it has gone off the Internet, I'm afraid.
― Wig Wag Wanderer (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 22 October 2016 14:26 (seven years ago) link
Good to know, regardless!
― two crickets sassing each other (dowd), Saturday, 22 October 2016 14:47 (seven years ago) link
Judge Dredd: BLOCK MANIA
― the pinefox, Saturday, 22 October 2016 16:40 (seven years ago) link
Anagrams is lovely. Was about to say more, but do not wish to spoiler.
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Saturday, 22 October 2016 22:22 (seven years ago) link
Just finished Wolf hall. Sublime writing. May move on to Bring Out The Bodies since I have that lying around.May finish off Ford Maddox Ford's March Of Literature since I have that about 200 pages from the end.
― Stevolende, Sunday, 23 October 2016 09:26 (seven years ago) link
you guys, reading... it's just, so swell :')
― flopson, Sunday, 23 October 2016 18:28 (seven years ago) link
Robert Bothwell - The Penguin History of CanadaDerek Parfit - Reasons and Persons, part III: "Personal Identity"
― jmm, Sunday, 23 October 2016 18:43 (seven years ago) link
― Madame Bob George (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 23 October 2016 19:07 (seven years ago) link
currently reading:
J.R. Ackerley - We Think The World Of You
just got few a couple dozens pages on my commute but so far so good. I love british novels with bracingly smart narrators, of which this is one
― flopson, Monday, 24 October 2016 16:37 (seven years ago) link
Started reading the Vivienne Westwood autobiography last night when I couldn't drop off to sleep. Had picked it up cos I found it cheap in TKMAxx. Just at a time that I was reading about her in The look by paul Gorman.just picked up a load of new stuff today too.
But hoping Vivienne might be inspiring in garment making.
― Stevolende, Monday, 24 October 2016 16:42 (seven years ago) link
The only JR Ackerley I've read is My Father and Myself, which is fantastic. An autobiography that takes in being gay in Edwardian London, fighting in the trenches in WW1, and a central mystery about his father that only comes to light after his death... it's a really compelling read.
― Zelda Zonk, Monday, 24 October 2016 23:16 (seven years ago) link
His memoir about his dog, My Dog Tulip, is also great: the non-fictional treatment of the experiences he also fictionalised beautifully as We Think the World of You.
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Tuesday, 25 October 2016 02:21 (seven years ago) link
I've more than half-finished Caro's LBJ volume 4, The Passage to Power, JFK is dead. The whole gang is headed to DC on Air Force One with the coffin on board. As the most dramatic moment of the story, the day of the assassination and Caro's accompanying observations occupies a very substantial number of pages. 100 or so? I haven't counted them. Caro does a good job of convincing the reader that LBJ's tasks in the days and months following JFK's murder are nearly impossible to pull off, so that when Johnson manages to pull it off we'll be suitably awestruck.
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Tuesday, 25 October 2016 02:51 (seven years ago) link
Does he comment on the Paul Krassner story of what happened when LBJ was left alone with JFK's body.
― Stevolende, Tuesday, 25 October 2016 07:22 (seven years ago) link
finished 2000AD: THE APOCALYPSE WAR
Toni Morrison, SONG OF SOLOMON
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 25 October 2016 08:23 (seven years ago) link
the dialogue between Ackerley's stand-in and his in-laws is fantastic
― flopson, Tuesday, 25 October 2016 14:32 (seven years ago) link
Paul Beatty's The Sellout won Man Booker. Anybody here read it?http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/business/media/paul-beatty-wins-man-booker-prize-with-the-sellout.html?_r=0
― dow, Wednesday, 26 October 2016 00:27 (seven years ago) link
comment on the Paul Krassner story
nope
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Wednesday, 26 October 2016 00:30 (seven years ago) link
The nobel went to a musician, now the UK book prize goes to an American. Does anything make sense anymore? ANYTHING?
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 26 October 2016 00:50 (seven years ago) link
Did it make sense before?
― Madame Bob George (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 26 October 2016 00:59 (seven years ago) link
I finally finished volume 1 of "The Demons" by Heimito von Doderer, which took ages* and felt like a shapeless first draft of "A Dance To The Music of Time" (or something) set in inter-war Vienna. I am genuinely torn about whether to follow up with vols 2 and 3, it's such a swirl of character and event that6 I found it hard to keep up with and often even a slog. Very little happens in the course of the 470 pages of volume 1, but somehow I want (all of a sudden) to know more about what happens to these people.
*Admittedly, and slightly confusingly, I slipped in a concurrent read of "The Emperor's Tomb" by Joseph Roth which follows a similar milieu at a not-so-different point in history in the same geographical location, albeit to very different ends. A few times I expected character from one to turn up in the other.
― Tim, Wednesday, 26 October 2016 15:50 (seven years ago) link
THat Krassner story is in the bottom right corner of this page of the Realist from their Archives http://www.ep.tc/realist/74/18.htmlLooks like there's a stack of the 60s satirical magazine on that site.
Apparently the rumour started there was believed by a load of people at the time that came out. It's presented as an unpublished part of the Manchester book on the investigation into The Death Of The President.I thought if they went into 100 pages on the flight they might have mentioned that somewhere.
― Stevolende, Wednesday, 26 October 2016 16:29 (seven years ago) link
why would a serious historian reference a story like that in his book?
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Wednesday, 26 October 2016 17:27 (seven years ago) link
Tim - at this rate you are going to make me read The Demons. I've read nearly everything by Joseph Roth.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 26 October 2016 17:53 (seven years ago) link
What he said
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Wednesday, 26 October 2016 20:41 (seven years ago) link