Think the film version ofIn A Lonely Place is supposed to be very different from novel? Haven't read it yet.one way street, feel better, okay? Hope so. Speaking of Jane Bowles, I recently clicked on the collection Your Sister's Hand In Mine---most of which I've already read, but I know I'll buy it---and Amazon emailed me, thinking I might like these (among other more familiar suggestions):
Joy Williams, The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories
Mina Loy, Insel(Neversink)
Neila Larsen, Passing
Leopoldine Core, When Wretched: Stories
Djuna Barnes, Nightwood (New Edition)
Larbi Layachi, A Life Full of Holes
Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights
Millicent Dillon, A Little Original Sin: The Life of Jane Bowles
Anybody read 'em?
― dow, Thursday, 11 February 2016 22:07 (eight years ago) link
Passing and Sleepless Nights are both very good. Aimless a little upthread was reading Passing, too.
Nightwood is an acquired taste, one I was unable to acquire. Have the Loy but haven't read it yet.
― like Uber, but for underpants (James Morrison), Thursday, 11 February 2016 22:50 (eight years ago) link
I've been curious about Insel, have a copy of Nightwood around that I've been meaning to read.
Currently slowly going through The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell, it's not as entrancing as Troubles so far but what is?
― JoeStork, Thursday, 11 February 2016 23:10 (eight years ago) link
didn't know mina loy had written a novel! need to acquire a copy asap.
i liked nightwood fine, but i really liked that collection of early stories virago press put out.
― no lime tangier, Thursday, 11 February 2016 23:14 (eight years ago) link
xposts: further suggestion based on your list, h.d.'s fiction is well worth a read too.
― no lime tangier, Thursday, 11 February 2016 23:17 (eight years ago) link
Yeah, the stories were much more my thing than Nightwood. http://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9780860685869-us.jpg
Weirdly, both the Loy books I've got have the same cover. I mean, when the photo is that cool I see why you use it...http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/1564786307.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/1612193536.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
― like Uber, but for underpants (James Morrison), Thursday, 11 February 2016 23:19 (eight years ago) link
Joy Williams is one of my favorite living authors, but i don't know what is in that collection. but i would read it no matter what was in it.
― scott seward, Thursday, 11 February 2016 23:22 (eight years ago) link
okay, 13 stories never collected before. will buy that when i see it somewhere. i've been meaning to RE-read her stuff for ages. cuz it's been awhile for the older collections. i have almost everything. missing a few things. don't have her guidebook to the Florida Keys, but i would buy it if i saw it.
― scott seward, Thursday, 11 February 2016 23:25 (eight years ago) link
i just think it's cool that they would put a huge retrospective volume like that out in 2015. so many people who have been writing as long as she has get lost in the shuffle. and its not like her stuff ever sold like crazy.
― scott seward, Thursday, 11 February 2016 23:28 (eight years ago) link
Ack, not When Wretched, it's When Watched!
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FPbbyBtKL._SX330_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
― dow, Thursday, 11 February 2016 23:28 (eight years ago) link
Wondered why I couldn't find it--Amazon just kept suggesting Magic: The Gathering cards when I looked for it, which seemed peculiar
― like Uber, but for underpants (James Morrison), Friday, 12 February 2016 00:27 (eight years ago) link
reading Patrick Modiano -- here's what I posted on Facebook earlier this week:
Very strange, after the subdued & reflective tone of the three novellas collected in the volume 'Suspended Sentences', to go all the way back to "La Place de l"etoile" (the author's debut), a wildly uneven postmodern goof of a book, about a thinly characterized self-loathing Jew who is simultaneously obsessed with & repulsed by the French "national character" (not excluding its virulent anti-semitism) -- e.g. at one point, he beats up his provincial schoolmates for being insufficiently reverent towards the canon of minor French novelists, then in the next chapter finds himself drawn into an international scheme to abduct and traffic French girls from the countryside, which he abandons halfheartedly before chapter's end. I'm not finished with it yet, but this is a lot closer to the angry settling-of-scores I was expecting from Modiano, who wears his fascination with the occupation and its collaborators on his sleeve; I'm curious to see how the ambitious 22 year-old author of "La Place..." grew & evolved through the other two novels collected here.
― "meaningless or meaningful / As architecture," (bernard snowy), Friday, 12 February 2016 01:31 (eight years ago) link
Yes, been meaning to check him out!Haven't seen anything by Joy Williams in a long time, but her early stories incl. subtle displacement, more or less in passing ---somebody can't find their $1000 sunglasses, early 70s $---never mind. the author's got some other lenses---then her first novel, State of Grace, where the opening monologue was somebody carefully pulling a cloud of images out of her ear, then they all settle into focus, oh shit (nominated for National Book Award, as well it might have been, lost to Gravity's Rainbow).
― dow, Friday, 12 February 2016 01:49 (eight years ago) link
Finished "La Place de l'étoile" last night -- a strange book indeed. Pastiche of Celine & parody of Proust eventually give way to Kafka, as the shifts in tense & narrative perspective (from first- to third-, even occasionally second-person) become so frequent & jarring, sometimes within a single paragraph, that he had begun to suspect incompetence on the part of the translator &/or proofreader.
― "meaningless or meaningful / As architecture," (bernard snowy), Friday, 12 February 2016 12:15 (eight years ago) link
åsne seierstad, "one of us"
― cozen, Friday, 12 February 2016 18:35 (eight years ago) link
"one of us"? Like in Freaks?
― Tin Machine Mole (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 12 February 2016 18:40 (eight years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/books/review/asne-seierstads-one-of-us-about-rampage-in-norway.html
― cozen, Friday, 12 February 2016 20:00 (eight years ago) link
Jonasson - The 100 year old man who etc. etc.For a book club, which I didn't attend because I was sick. But, I'm 2/3rds through so I might as well finish. It has two parts: a ridiculous adventure yarn where the title character kills a team of criminals one by one, either accidentally or in somewhat self defense; and Forrest Gump, the movie, where staying out of politics is a position spelled out by having every -ist get killed, while the title dude survives by not being into politics -- a stupid philosophy that is not conducive to comedy.
― remove butt (abanana), Friday, 12 February 2016 20:25 (eight years ago) link
The laundrette in my new building has a bookshelf with a copy of that, I wasn't tempted to read it because I saw the film and it was unadulterated waste
― offshore syntax maven (wins), Friday, 12 February 2016 20:31 (eight years ago) link
really enjoying 'europe in autumn'; thanks to fizzles and james m. for mentioning its sequel
― mookieproof, Saturday, 13 February 2016 01:41 (eight years ago) link
Joy Williams is one of my favorite living authors
― Have I The Right Profile? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 February 2016 03:03 (eight years ago) link
_Muriel Spark: Symposium -- just started this, anatomy of a dinner party from hell, typically fine Spark nastinessCarter Scholz: Gypsy -- SF novella about a desperate attempt to achieve interstellar travel, running up against all the non-negotiable indifference of physics and entropy. Really, really good and moving. Beautifull done, really, and takes only 100p where most writers would pad it out to 600 and do it much much worse. Can't recommend this highly enough, tbh. Sholz seems to have been writing since the 1980s, but hasn't published much._This latter sounds great, thanks. Spark sounds good too, don't think I ever got round to reading that one.
Carter Scholz: Gypsy -- SF novella about a desperate attempt to achieve interstellar travel, running up against all the non-negotiable indifference of physics and entropy. Really, really good and moving. Beautifull done, really, and takes only 100p where most writers would pad it out to 600 and do it much much worse. Can't recommend this highly enough, tbh. Sholz seems to have been writing since the 1980s, but hasn't published much._
This latter sounds great, thanks. Spark sounds good too, don't think I ever got round to reading that one.
― Have I The Right Profile? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 February 2016 03:09 (eight years ago) link
Didnt actually mean KSR--I enjoyed his starship novel last year too, though I think Gypsy was a bit better--just referring to SF novel bloat in general, where the material for a cracking short story or novella is bulked up unnecessarily for the market. See also literary fiction too, I guess.
Anyway, I'm glad Gypsy and Europe in Autumn are getting some love!
― like Uber, but for underpants (James Morrison), Saturday, 13 February 2016 03:31 (eight years ago) link
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/12/short-story-collection-smuggled-out-of-north-korea-global-interest-bandi
― calstars, Saturday, 13 February 2016 23:03 (eight years ago) link
not sure what to think of this, but I'll give it a chance. fun to try to draw the line between realism and fiction.
― calstars, Saturday, 13 February 2016 23:04 (eight years ago) link
Another vote for Sleepless Nights, would like to read again someday. Seem to remember a really good description of seeing Billy Holiday. Also enjoyed what I have read of her Collected Short Stories.
― Have I The Right Profile? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 14 February 2016 03:06 (eight years ago) link
The title of the other one I am thinking of is actually The New York Stories f Elizabeth Hardwick.
― Have I The Right Profile? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 14 February 2016 03:19 (eight years ago) link
NYRB Winter Sale---50 books at 50% off (wondering about Poets In A Landscape and Pages From The Goncourt Journals)(maybe the Cendrars):
http://www.nyrb.com/collections/winter-sale?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Winter%20Sale&utm_content=NYR%20Winter%20Sale+CID_093896182073cb3e11f6921e1ab46742&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=Browse%20the%20books
― dow, Sunday, 14 February 2016 04:24 (eight years ago) link
An early version of the Billie Holiday chapter in Sleepless Nights is available here, incidentally, and it conveys the tone of the book fairly well: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1976/03/04/billie-holiday/
― one way street, Sunday, 14 February 2016 05:42 (eight years ago) link
Didnt actually mean KSR--I enjoyed his starship novel last year too, though I think Gypsy was a bit better--just referring to SF novel bloat in general, where the material for a cracking short story or novella is bulked up unnecessarily for the market. See also literary fiction too, I guess.Anyway, I'm glad Gypsy and Europe in Autumn are getting some love!
― Have I The Right Profile? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 14 February 2016 15:40 (eight years ago) link
Started into 131 by Julian Cope this morning after finishing the Viv Albertine book last night. Very touching that Viv Albertine.131 is a bit more comical using Cope's usual idiomatic style, not sure how much of that is sui generis. I haven't really come across any people who talk like that myself but there you go.THink I've read a number of people struggling with the book so not sure how far I'll go with it since I do have a number of other things I want to read, but so far so good.
― Stevolende, Sunday, 14 February 2016 21:09 (eight years ago) link
Philip Schultz: The Wherewithal. -- verse novel about (deep breath) the Holocaust, Polish pogroms, the Zodiac killer, Vietnam War, a kafkaesque take on wirking in californian social security, being an inadvertant murderer... Very good, but somewhat overstuffed, and not everything quite meshes together
― like Uber, but for underpants (James Morrison), Monday, 15 February 2016 10:20 (eight years ago) link
you had me at holocaust followed by zodiac killer
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Monday, 15 February 2016 11:14 (eight years ago) link
:Picked up Children of the Revolution out of the debris around my bed and started into that again. Just read a history of Mott The Hoople up to All The Young Dudes that has me wanting to pick up physical copies of their lps.
― Stevolende, Monday, 15 February 2016 11:40 (eight years ago) link
glad to see your debris field is bearing fruit; I still need to find time to weed out the library books from mine
― got zines but I'm not a scenester (bernard snowy), Monday, 15 February 2016 15:44 (eight years ago) link
stevo, Mott's Brain Capers was one of my most-played albums of and in the 70s, but most of their LPs were good. if sometimes uneven, incl the comps-with-rarities, Rock & Roll Queen and Greatest Hits. Live, recorded on Broadway, improves on some early studio tracks, and is mesmerizing overall (or was; haven't listened to any of their records in a long time). It's much longer on CD, but I haven't listened to their CDs at all. Nevertheless, they play themselves in my head fairly often.
― dow, Monday, 15 February 2016 19:20 (eight years ago) link
Yeah was listening to soundfiles of Brain Capers yesterday. Pretty great.
About time I got through the Dave Thompson book though since it's been somewhere around my bedroom for the last couple of years.& I should know more about the Glam scene really since I do enjoy bits and pieces from that era.
― Stevolende, Monday, 15 February 2016 19:26 (eight years ago) link
While sticking my head pretty far into in The Horse's Mouth, also thinking I need to get John Berger's A Painter of Our Time, and this---anybody read it?http://brooklynrail.org/2016/02/art_books/john-berger-on-artists
― dow, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 18:19 (eight years ago) link
I finished mopping up the last of the gravy from A Majority of Scoundrels last night and picked up The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy by Peter Wilson to wind up the evening. It is enormous, as any book must be that tries to cover that conflict. So enormous that I cannot imagine myself finishing it unless Wilson proves to be an unusually gripping storyteller, but I can imagine sticking with it long enough to make a small start on filling this gaping void in my historical knowledge.
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 18:26 (eight years ago) link
Just had the book With The Beatles featuring the photography of Robert Whitaker drop through the mailbox. It's more visual than text based but does have some comments I think mainly from the photographer.Got some beautiful photos in it. Oversized so wonder how a copy of it disappeared in the mail to me just before this one was ordered. Very glad to have a copy.
― Stevolende, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 18:40 (eight years ago) link
I should probably mention also that I finished The Places In Between last week while vacationing. It was a very readable travel book, more vivid than most. I'd recommend it, just for its minor, but shining, virtues. As usual with the travel genre, one learns many small and interesting things, but the sinews that hold it all together are rarely very strong. Because the essence of the genre is to give minor pleasure it just as rarely matters.
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 18:53 (eight years ago) link
I haven't read that specific selection of Berger's essays, dow, but a lot of his writings from the sixties through the eighties are among my favorite works of art criticism (as an outsider to that field, at least); at his best, he's able to make the act of looking remarkably vivid (as that reviewer says) while maintaining a dynamic sense of historical context.
― one way street, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 21:31 (eight years ago) link
read milan kundera - laughter and forgetting this week. i loved the author when i was in high school but i've pretty much lost the taste for it.
― flopson, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 22:03 (eight years ago) link
Mildly curious to have a go at one of Berger's novels - probably has to be G.. Anyone read it?
Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl, an overwhelming experience. Most things I read can be considered sad (even depressing but I don't think about it in those terms) but because its re-cast as fiction - which has that effect to protect you so that you can get inside the horror, or simply serves as material to be mastered. Nothing like that here. Alexiviech gives you no breathing space as you find yourself inside a collage of decay, irresponsibility and destruction, and a destruction of everything - humans, animals, plants, children, food. In the end there is something of the writer as editor of people - she allows them their voice, but its much better than a mere documentary in her re-workings. Look forward to more sometime. Moved onto Josef Winkler's When the Time Comes which convincingly at the Genet-like transcendence, the collage here is of death and pain, but its done with such artfulness and prose-poetic rhythm that you keep turning the pages. Images are continuously re-thought - death is looked at telescopically in these images that make it sound almost attractive (the body is simply returned to the earth, its so normal it happens all the time, like life) and yet it is all collages in this inorganic manner too - all seems like a painting (and a medieval one too, at times I thought this was sent hundreds of years ago instead of the mid-20th century). He is the kind of writer tnat you need to live inside for several books at a time (if you can bear it) so I'm looking forward to reading Garden of Bitter Oranges when its published later this year.
NYRB Winter Sale---50 books at 50% off (wondering about Poets In A Landscape and Pages From The Goncourt Journals)
Started on The Goncourt Journal! Its compulsive reading atm: a mixture of acid bitchyness, passges of excellent crit (the way they lay into Flaubert after a reading of Salammbo, whom they otherwise have much affection for). Also has plenty of misogny - which in turn reflects on various inadequacies - the men as portrayed here can't stop talking about women. Must've been a key text for Proust.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 22:17 (eight years ago) link
There's a really virtuosic pastiche of the Goncourt journals late in Recherche, iirc. (I mean, I think it's virtuosic but haven't read enough of the actual brothers to properly judge.)
― one way street, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 23:20 (eight years ago) link
Alexievich does sound like a harrowing writer, xyzzzz__; I'll have to come around to her.
― one way street, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 23:27 (eight years ago) link
Yeah, that Chernobyl book, it really really got to me. Frequently quite horrific. Annoyingly, I see it's coming out soon in the UK in a revised/updated/expanded edition, so I seem to have been harrowed by the inferior version.
― like Uber, but for underpants (James Morrison), Wednesday, 17 February 2016 00:55 (eight years ago) link
The Dalkey Archive version is pretty good. I don't know what 'superior' would mean.
ows - in a sense she gets across a raw suffering (which is a cliche peculiar to Russian Lit). She presents things as they appear to have been in a documentary fashion but is also able to cast the net sideways (bits on how Chehkov and Tolstoy - as good as they are - are useless as offering anything to the readers then). Its a bit like the film Come and See. Klimov said somewhere that he didn't show everything, otherwise people wouldn't be able to stand it. Comparison of media aside (and I know its a big aside) Alexiviech probably goes a bit further, as she can show by writing it in a piece of paper and possibly trusts her readers to be able to withstand it some more because: 1) we are far away from it, reading and 2) its harder to picture things in your mind off the page. That 2nd point is more personal, I can switch that off.
This really has a feel of science fic at times.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 17 February 2016 10:12 (eight years ago) link
Flopson -- I'm reading The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, too -- my first Kundera. Shortly after checking it out from the library, I met a young woman who had just read it for a class. Must be something in the air...
― too late to TLOPogize (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 17 February 2016 13:28 (eight years ago) link
There's a really virtuosic pastiche of the Goncourt journals late in Recherche, iirc. (I mean, I think it's virtuosic but haven't read enough of the actual brothers to properly judge.)― one way street, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― one way street, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
One more thing: I think the Goncourt's are all over Recherche... There is a Proust account on twitter - basically someone re-writing Proust as tweets, and for a lot of the time it could double as a Goncourt twitter.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 17 February 2016 13:42 (eight years ago) link