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

There's not much point in making brief commendatory comments on a Jane Austen novel, but I finished Northanger Abbey and, of course, it is chock full of small perfections and excellences.

I did find it a shame that Austen put her normally level-headed heroine through several pages of acting like a ninny, merely to score some editorial points against Gothic romances. It would have been a better novel if she'd omitted that minor piece of it, as it was superfluous to the plot and pulled her main character out of character.

JUst found taht my local remainder/2nd hand bookshop has got a range of Michael Moorcok books from 2 years back in these include anthologies of several of his characters including a Jerry Cornelius short fiction thing which I'll go back for. But I just bought a copy of THe Nomad of Time.
THink i'll be back for several others,
Maybe this should have gone more in the recent purchases thread cos it might takle me a while to actually read these.

After I finish the 4AD history I'll probably get back into the copy of Stoned2 by Andrew Loog Oldham I started before Xmas. BUt I have been meaning to read more Moorcock for a while. Though do wish I had got through more of him in my teens or 20s.

rupinder gill - on the outside looking indian

This title is catnip to my poor undiscriminating pun-loving heart, how does the book measure up?

I don't know, Catherine Morland is pretty naive and silly throughout the book. Are you referring to her morbid suspicions at the Abbey? Because for someone ignorant about the motivations of more or less everyone she meets I wouldn't say it's all that out of character. And it does drive home the point of the novel.

xp its really cute. have only read abt half so far. its a memoir abt sortof having a second adolescence after feeling stifled in her youth by her traditional indian parents

Catherine Morland's innocence and naivety is obvious on every page of Northanger Abbey, but these do not equate with empty-headed silliness. Her strange fantasies about General Tilney's faking his wife's death and burying a weighted coffin, then secretly keeping his wife in a dungeon and feeding her at midnight after the servants and his children were in bed, so that no one would know she was still alive - these do not reflect her normal trusting outlook and goodness of heart. Instead, she's briefly transformed into an over-excitable silly goose, which she has shown no propensity toward beforehand.

People get the strangest ideas in the dark! It's not the most believable turn of event, but I just thought it funny. And I do think there's a point to it, and to having a climax of sort to her reading induced fantasies.

I moved on from Burney's Evelina to her journals and letters:

Mr. Stephen Fuller, the sensible, but deaf old gentleman I have formerly mentioned, dined here also; as did Mr. Rose, whose trite, settled, tonish emptiness of discourse is a never-failing source of laughter and diversion.

"Well, I say, what, Miss Burney, so you had a very good party last Tuesday?—what we call the family party—in that sort of way? Pray who had you?"
"Mr. Chamier."
"Mr. Chamier, ay? Give me leave to tell you, Miss Burney, that Mr. Chamier is what we call a very sensible man!"
"Certainly. And Mr. Pepys."
"Mr. Pepys? Ay, very good— very good in that sort of way. I am quite sorry I could not be here; but I was so much indisposed—quite what we call the nursing party."
"I'm very sorry; but I hope little Sharp is well?
"Ma'am, your most humble! you're a very good lady, indeed!—quite what we call a good lady! Little Sharp is perfectly well: that sort of attention, and things of that sort,—-the bow-wow system is very well. But pray, Miss Burney, give me leave to ask, in that sort of way, had you anybody else?"
"Yes, Lady Ladd and Mr. Seward."
"So, so!—quite the family system! Give me leave to tell you, Miss Burney, this commands attention!—what we call a respectable invitation! I am sorry I could not come, indeed; for we young men, Miss Burney, we make it what we call a sort of rule to take notice of this sort of attention. But I was extremely indisposed, indeed—what we call the walnut system had quite—-Pray what's the news, Miss Burney?—in that sort of way, is there any news?"
"None, that I have heard. Have you heard any?"
"Why, very bad! very bad, indeed!—quite what we call poor old England! I was told, in town,—fact—fact, I assure you— that these Dons intend us an invasion this very month, they and the Monsieurs intend us the respectable salute this very month;—the powder system, in that sort of way! Give me leave to tell you, Miss Burney, this is what we call a disagreeable visit, in that sort of way."
I think, if possible, his language looks more absurd upon paper even than it sounds in conversation, from the perpetual recurrence of the same words and expressions—

Margerite Duras - Summer Rain
Cesare Pavese - Told in Confidence and Other Stories
Ann Quin - Passages

The Duras has her main theme (a love ravaged) in among an immigrant family on welfare in a 'sink estate' and that aspect doesn't quite come off (although I'll have to reflect on this a bit more - maybe I am not used to Duras really depicting this in her fiction). The scenes between the family and teacher had its comic moments. The Pavese is a bunch of short stories - 'Nudism' has his masterful descriptions of nature and those windows into an eroticism I hadn't quite seen as clearly. Ann Quin had a renewal theme - from a love that is frustrated and never quite comes through - that could be fruitful to read alongside someone like Jean Rhys, Duras or Pavese - except the former is so much more elliptical. They all talk about what is essential.

I'm really curious about that Ann Quin novel; I've only read Three, which was troubling, and vivid in a claustrophobic way.

I think Three might be my favourite, but Passages is possibly her most accomplished. (Lots of qualifiers there, ha.)

Read Three such a long time ago, can't remember a thing about it

I am now reading Fathers and Sons, Turgenev, in the Rosemary Edmonds translation published by Penguin Classics in 1965. Very readable so far. I will be interested to see how Turgenev describes his main "nihilist" character, compared to how Dostoevsky would frame such a character: as a craven, fiery-eyed monster.

I finished The First Bad Man by Miranda July. It was pretty consistently enjoyable, often quite funny and ended up packing an emotional punch (especially applicable to any parents out there). Probably the best part was the relationship between Clee and Cheryl, though I don't want to ruin it with spoilers. I think July's fearlessness as a writer is both a blessing and a curse, but more often a blessing. Some of the overtly wacky California stuff, like the color therapist, seemed kind of superfluous to me.

Started reading London the Biography by Peter Ackroyd. Been meaning to for years, probably decades. Bought it for a nominal price plus p+p last year and it's been sitting there.
But will be interesting I think.

Also gone back to Stoned2 after finishing the 4AD bio.

When we read Evelina in my 18th century lit course twenty years ago the class liked it more than any Austen.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, March 4, 2016 1:40 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

shaking my fist

rereading Pride and Prejudice bc i'm teaching it. it's pretty dece.

i've never taught Austen before. try to imagine how annoyed by me my students are lately.

Richard Wright, Black Boy
Dionne Brand, What We All Long For
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis
Thomas King, Truth and Bright Water

i got new(ish) penguin classics eds of:

clark ashton smith
algernon blackwood
arthur machen

and i have to say, the opening of the story s.t. joshi chose to open the smith with does not fill me with excitement about descending this particular rabbit hole:

"I, Satampra Zeiros of Uzuldaroum, shall write with my left hand, since I have no longer any other, the tale of everything that befell Tirouv Ompallios and myself in the shrine of the god Tsathoggua ..."

That Machen anthology is a bit odd too, in that it doesn't include The Great God Pan

Is that Penguin Classics the White people and other Weird stories one?

if you find a good opium dealer you will be all set with those books.

how do you think one pronounces the name 'tirouv'. 'terry'?

stevolende, yes it is. aw fuck they're ALL s t joshi. gughghghgh

AMEN to o. nate's take on Miranda July's The First Bad Man.

Really liked this Rivka Galchen essay The Only Thing I Envy Men in the New Yorker, part of a longer essay Little Labors coming out later this year.

When I discovered how brilliant Muriel Spark’s novels were—they also were mostly out of print when I found them—I did feel a bit of fury, an emotion I nearly always deny myself, but that was that. (My daughter’s middle name is Spark.) And yet I had never envied men their literary place, and I still don’t, and I had never envied men much of anything, ever … until very recently. I now envy men, but for just one thing.

I found this over on Twitter. I RTed off Helen Dewitt who seemed chuffed by the mention of The Last Samurai

When on earth was Muriel Spark out of print? the mind boggles.

aw fuck they're ALL s t joshi. gughghghgh

Do all the introductions say how (x) is pretty good but not quite up to the level of lovecraft?

xp
I think quite a lot of her stuff was oop till quite recently - like The Bachelors has just come back out, but I can't remember seeing it in bookshops ever (outside those odd 90s omnibus volumes), ditto The Public Image. Don't know if I've ever seen a new copy of Robinson on shelves. Usually, Girls/Prime/Ballad and a changing cast of three or four others were all I'd see new (2nd hand totally different, obviously).

rivka galchen is great

reading the Penguin edition of Thomas Ligotti stories -- I started last night with "The Last Feast of the Harlequin", which was gripping (if ultimately disappointing)

Perhaps my experience is slightly skewed by living in Scotland, but I see quite a lot of secondhand Spark out and about (tho' yes, Public Image and Robinson are nowhere near as common as her best-known trio - Prime in partic is everywhere)

i bought a lot of new trade paperback spark editions in the late 80's. they had a bunch with similar covers/designs back then. had to dig in 2nd hand stores for some of the more oddball 70's ones.

in the u.s. obviously.

speaking of the new yorker, i tried to read a recent don delillo story in there and zzzzzzzzzzzzzz....didn't make it.

i have to remember to never ever do this again:

"and their odd obscurity, seemed to cluster around . . . something."

it's fine, really. just remind me not to do that if i do that.

it is a little weird that a 25 year old writer in 2001 would be "clumsily seeking out books by women". like it was hard to find good ones?

i wish that thing had been about muriel spark. i could read about her all day long.

No, it isn't hard once you get started, but when you have 'lofty' ideas of literature, it can seem as though the world of Proper Literature and High Art and Experiment solely belongs to men, with perhaps the exception of Woolf, though she's not as good as Joyce anyway (am reframing my thoughts as a teen here, feel free to mock that attitude but it was what I was socialised into). I don't think I discovered Quin and Lispector and Sarraute &c &c until I was around 25ish.

that makes sense. it's terrible though! women rule.

i would also never mock anyone's teenage attitude. i feel like i've been preaching the gospel about my fave women writers for so long i forget sometimes that they are not household names.

i think katherine anne porter was a real teen epiphany for me. and willa cather. and katherine mansfield. i am glad i found them early. most of my reading back then was olde tyme american dude stuff like sinclair lewis and thomas wolfe and stuff like that. dreiser. stuff i would never read now but i would totally read porter, mansfield, and cather in a heartbeat now! they live with me. dreiser not so much.

But the way Dreiser wrote about women, Sister Carrie and Jenny Gerhardt based in part on the lives of his older sisters I think, making their ways through A Man's World, in rough new-money Chicago and New York--that's as far as I've gotten, but sure am glad I read those.
Yeah, Ferrante's said that 19th Century male authors were her first literary heroes, took her a while to check out Eliot etc. Not at all like The Neapolitan Novels' little Lenu and Lila getting into Little Women so early.
The first female writers I can remember being impressed by: some of the few then extant in science fiction mags/collections, like Margaret St. Clair, and, a few years later, the poet Denise Levertov, in the crucially good-and-available mass paperback literary mag, New American Review---which also sometimes incl. Ellen Willis on political events/issues, like the head-clearing "Lessons of Chicago," though of course I knew her more as a rock critic, one of the first, still in the New Yorker then.

are there any good books by men but

i also could not finish that recent delillo story

okay, i'm totally remembering now that i did a book report in front of my english class in high school on ayn rand and i'm cringing a little.

and i'm also remembering that 99% of the books we read for class in school were by men.

need to know more about this book report tbh

ugh, it's embarrassing. a youthful infatuation with the fountainhead. the really embarrassing part was my teacher had to correct me when i said ayn wrong. i pronounced it Ann. still not as embarrassing as the report on heroin that i gave in my american studies class where i turned off all the lights and played "heroin" by the velvet underground on a boombox. the 80's were rough.