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

yeah it's good. recommend it.

we had lunch ladies here. at school.

i made a mental note of that book - along with the "hawk lady" book that i mention above - when it showed up on the NYT top ten of the year.

will keep that one in mind.

i'm doing a writing course at the moment and the first night the teacher used stories by lydia davis, kafka, ben marcus, and an irish writer called joanna walsh.

was familiar with the first 3 and i have joanna walsh's non-fiction book about staying in hotels, which i love, partly because i love hotels. there's a good extract here - http://granta.com/hotel-haunting/

but i really liked the two stories of walsh's he gave us - both from this: http://galleybeggar.co.uk/store/3am-books/fractals - it's kind of like lydia davis, sparse, sometimes feels personal to the writer, confessional at times.

http://i.imgur.com/Qpi4Jpj.gif
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Lucia Berlin sounds remarkable, and very close to (current) home and past literary interests. With the Black Mountain connections, I'm surprised her name is unfamiliar to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSEuQRf99xM

Thanks for the reassurances about reading The Horse's Mouth first, guys. Good interview here (and note, in right rail, other contributors to this Fall-Winter 1954-1955 issue, incl Andy Warhol already):
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5071/the-art-of-fiction-no-7-joyce-cary

Peter Stamm - All Days are Night
Elena Ferrante - Story of the Lost Child

I think those two are quite similar - all the big and small emotions are flattened as things that happen (almost more so in Ferrante, as the 'operatic' element kicks in) but for this Nothern and that Southern European author its life presented as processes the characters are made to go through. So the flight and to, then back, to where you come from in the Ferrante but also that alienation (coded as alienation) of characters drawn up by Stamm (there is a flight of sorts too). In both art and its practice is unable to save anyone, only providing punctuation as we carry on from time spent in life and the various jails it has to offer: failed marriages, oppressive families. Happiness is presented as moments of light from the cell window, at other points its solitary confinement.

I literally just bought that Stamm today

Didn't find the emotions to be flattened in The Neapolitan Novels, though obv we're meant to feel the onslaught of events, emotions, information/sensory overload at times---as Lila-Lina has those moments of maltdown, re "dissolving boundaries," when the rationalized order of things reminds us it's an illusion, and she lives in dread of this experience, as a control freak, but building to rebellion vs the bullshit promises/establishment of control etc--um, the other thing is, I read the books as they were published in the US, so had some breathing spells. Reading them one after another sounds flattening indeed, exhausting!

Although, according to interviews, the whole thing was written pretty quickly, and the narrator gives the impression of that, typing away while looking for Lila, or maybe still competing, trying to cover her ass vs. headlines OLD HALF-FORGOTTEN LIT CELEB BROAD'S OUTLIER LIFELONG FRENEMY SOURCE FOUND DEAD, EPIC SUICIDE NOTE TELLS ALL, as well as, as she pretty much admits, suddenly sees/is seized by a way to tell all and jump past the unknowable (is she really an opportunist hack? She can't know---views of literature do change, and change again---and we never see her earlier writing, just get "and then I wrote" paraphrasing, ditto with Lina, who is not the only control freak, eh first-person narrator---writing, as a pro or an outlier, is there as slippery fuel for development of central characters, wherever they go)(watch out, other characters)

Also watch out, readers---I don't rec reading nonstop.

i plan on reading all of them in one go. i am a fan of immersion. if its something worth immersing myself in.

I have all three and im going to read them all in row, about 100 pages in on the first

you and douglas adams have the same definition of trilogy, i take it.

xpost "cover her ass" *just in case* those headlines (not a spoiler)(although saying it isn't is, sorry damn)

you and douglas adams have the same definition of trilogy, i take it.

― ledge

ha, I have the first three with the fourth on order from the library, bit of a brain fart

I finished reading the Poems of Nazim Hikmet (translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk). A while back, I read Philip Larkin's collected poems straight through (like a novel) and this is another one that works well that way. The poems stay pretty close to the life, and the life is eventful enough and the main particulars easy enough to summarize that the connections draw themselves pretty well without in-depth background knowledge. A big chunk of these are prison poems and another chunk are exile poems. (I was reading this at the same time as Guantanamo Diary, so there were a lot of emotional resonances there, making for difficult reading at times.) It's hard to imagine these could be translated better.

the (exceedingly short) novels of friedrich dürrenmatt

dow - the speed of events is such there is no space to feel much? Its not so much onslaught as that. Mostly I think its good that I dunno - her father's death is give maybe a couple of paras as is the changing of the neighbourhood due to immigration. Did laugh at the passing mention of 9/11.

I had breathing spells because I got them via Inter-library loans. One of them lasted a year - mostly because the 4th wasn't yet translated by the time I finished the 3rd.

I finished reading the Poems of Nazim Hikmet (translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk).

Ritsos' Diaries of Exile possibly works in a similar way. Maybe some of Vallejo's stuff too.

dürrenmatt is great!

Sorry for assuming you were gobbling up The Neapolitan Novels, xyzzzz. New paperbacks---wanna check the Stanwyck bio, though some (not this Times writer) say it's way too detailed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/books/review/paperback-row.html?smid=tw-nytbooks&smtyp=cur&_r=0

xpost: have only read the two barlach novels so far, but yes, liked their mix of surface realism and phantasmal grotesquerie.

just finished Peter May's The Blackhouse, which i was hoping would be Scottish equiv of scandi-noir being based on Lewis but it didn't get there. wasn't helped by things like this:

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘Sure I’m sure.’
‘You’re not infectious or anything?’
‘Of course not. Why?’
‘Because you look bloody terrible.’
‘Thank you. That makes me feel a whole lot better.’

which seems ok until you realise these are 6/7 year old kids talking. he also used the phrase 'puked and vomited' in the last chapter. puked AND vomited. aren't they the same thing? luckily, it was cheap.

tørgny lindgren's "sweetness"

Just got Women Crime Writers of the 1940s & 50s: eight novels in two volumes, edited by Sarah Weinberg, published by the Library of America. Several concise pages of introductory material here:
http://womencrime.loa.org/?page_id=187

Sarah Weinman, that is.

Nice line-up in that set:

Laura by Vera Caspary (1943) -- this was a bit arch for my tastes at the time, should re-read it
The Horizontal Man by Helen Eustis (1946) -- don't know this one
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes (1947) -- great book
The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (1947) -- also great, nicely claustrophobic
Mischief by Charlotte Armstrong (1950) -- don't know it
The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith (1954) -- classic Highsmith nightmare material, really good
Beast In View by Margaret Millar (1955) -- very underrated writer
Fools’ Gold by Dolores Hitchens (1958) -- don't know it

starting on cortázar's first novel the winners

Patrck McGilligan - Young Orson
* Shakespeare - Julius Caesar

Shifted some stuff around near the bed which lead me to pick up Viv Albertine's Clothes, Clothes, Clothes , Music, Music, Music, Boys Boys, Boys which I started over Xmas again. I'm finding it very interesting. Just got as far as Viv becoming Mick Jones steady after Steve Jones tried to seduce her very unsubtly by demanding a blowjob off her. So punk is starting to happen. She's got a guitar that mick Jones helped her select but no sign of teh Slits as yet.

Still reading through the 4AD history Facing the Other Way which has got into the 90s and the generation or wave after Throwing Muses and Pixies. Still mainly reading this on buses which is why it's taking so long to get through, though book is a few hundred pages long.

& still reading Inside the Dream palace teh Chelsea Hotel history on the bog. Got as far as Warhol making films in the mid 60s so maybe about 1/2 way though the book.

åsne seierstad, "one of us"

I finished Guantanamo Diary. I imagine some day this will be assigned in schools as a cautionary tale of a time when America lots its moral compass, but maybe I'm being too optimistic. Slahi has a very appealing and relatable authorial voice, and even a subtle sense of humor. Some of the scenes are just so absurd that they must have happened: such as the guard who promises to watch a movie with Slahi before she gets transferred out of GTMO, and so on her last day they watch "Black Hawk Down" together.

Just finished our own Phil Dellio's collection Interrupting My Train of Thought, which I've been reading a few entries at a time over the last few months (I tend to always have a music and/or film book--and this one has a lot of both--on the go for breaks from my school reading as a means of sanity-preservation). Great stuff, with a bit of it coming from ILX. If you ILXers keep turning out such quality (published) writing--see also, Us Conductors, Wolf in White Vans, several 33 1/3 volumes--I'm gonna have to create a special ILX section on my bookshelf.

Oh, and I created a S*****y playlist with 194 of the songs mentioned in the book, in case anyone was looking for 14 hours of musical distraction or accompaniment.

Didn't know of Interrupting My Train of Thought, and not sure who he is on ilx, but i read the buying-nixon-books essay on the amazon preview pages and it seemed very promising

Tbh i dont know who ANYONE is on ilx, and can't keep track when people change their usernames, so he could be me for all i know

A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell. Had read the first two or three Dance... novels many years ago, but couldn't remember a damm thing about them, beyond the odd name (Widmerpool, Jenkins.) Now I can see much more clearly the humour in the writing, and the debt to Proust; very much enjoying the movement between England and France, school and university, childhood and adulthood, and so on. Planning on persevering with the whole sequence this time.

Am also in the process of moving, to a smaller flat, after eight years of accumulating...stuff...all in the same place. Looking at all these bloody boxes of books, the Kindle finally seems a LOT more appealing.

wait, Phil. D, right? i never knew that. until now.

"Tbh i dont know who ANYONE is on ilx,"

I'm me!

i was in a good book with lots of ilxors! if you've never read it i think you can probably find it for a penny on amazon.

Interrupting My Train of Thought is by the ilxor known as Clemenza, I think

ah, okay. i guess phil d. would have been too obvious.

Sorry--Interrupting My Train of Thought is indeed clemenza's.

What was this book with you and other ILXors, scott?

Have fun with Powell, Ward. I read the sequence in 2007, and while it was rewarding it wasn't as complex as I wanted. Widmerpool faded in and out of plausibility.

"What was this book with you and other ILXors, scott?"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007FGT02Q/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

WITH ESSAYS BY: Matt Ashare * Tom Breihan * Aaron Burgess * Jon Caramanica * Daphne Carr * Jeff Chang * Ian Christie * Kandia Crazy Horse * John Darnielle * Laina Dawes * Geeta Dayal * Rob Harvilla * Jess Harvell * Michaelangelo Matos * Anthony Miccio * Amy Phillips * Dave Queen * Ned Raggett * Simon Reynolds * Chris Ryan * Scott Seward * Greg Tate * Derek Taylor * Douglas Wolk

9 or 10 ILXoRz!

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Thanks Alfred - complex in terms of narrative incident and architecture, or in terms of profundity of thought (or both?)

Tbh i dont know who ANYONE is on ilx

I'm your favourite living author! I just need a small loan to publish my next book...