The Decline and Fall 2016 of gILBert the fILBert: What Are You Reading Now?

I read the lovely NYROB editions of Back and Caught last month.

Mark Kermode
Born Mark James Patrick Fairey 2 July 1963 (age 53) Barnet, London, England
Residence Brockenhurst, Hampshire, England
Occupation Film critic, presenter, writer, musician
Spouse(s) Linda Ruth Williams

I've always wondered if he took Kermode after Frank - or for the pun on 'commode'?

it's his mother's maiden name

no pretty sure it's cause it sounds like shitter

It's Kerr-mode though, innit.

I read Janet Malcolm's In the Freud Archives, after reading about it on here (I think). I couldn't decide if it was a bagatelle, a vanity project, or if it cut right to the heart of Freud's legacy. Probably a mixture of the three. Masson and Swales come out of it seeming agreeably mental.

On a related note, having read and enjoyed a few of Adam Phillips' books, and Irving Yalom's Love's Executioner, are there other canonical 'literature of therapy' or books I could/should look for?

I've just started Don Quixote

yo también

Started readin orientalism (which I've only read parts of before) and Anagram by Moore. Also been given books by two old guys from the pub (James Herbert and wilbur smith, naturally) which I'll be too polite to not read. I liked Herbert when I was a teenager...

Herbert and smith wrote the books, they're not the old guys .

read the title story of Ted Chiang 'The Story of Your Life' last night. Haven't seen Arrival yet, but really loved the story

Finished Magda Szabo's The Door, it didn't make me feel bad about myself.
Sorry if this makes me an inhuman monster.

is it meant to? I've been looking forward to reading it for a while, have a copy in my pile.

Just finished Magda Szabo's The Door. Really excellent, mysterious, unnerving, but man. Some books leave me feeling worse about humanity, the future, the world, this is the rare book that left me feeling worse about myself.
― JoeStork, Saturday, December 10, 2016 6:40 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also, for the record, Stoner bored me.

did you enjoy Szabo, though?

i hope i haven't painted a target on my back by sticking my neck out as a Stoner-liker :-P

I don't know about anyone else, but I hold a mean grudge about book recommendations. You're dead to me now.

It was more that the narrator's guilt over her failures and justifications for said failures had uncomfortable parallels to moments in my own life that i try not to dwell on too much.

I've been reading Homo Zapiens by Victor Pelevin and enjoying the hell out of it. Man is wow to man.

I've been slowly reading Eimear McBride's vivid, densely sensory Lesser Bohemians and feeling like I should be reading it aloud; I'm also starting Ishion Hutchinson's latest collection of poems, House of Lords and Commons, and Dorothy Parker's stories in Laments for the Living--I don't know that I'd call Parker underappreciated, but her use of dialogue is exact and unsparing in a way that goes beyond her reputation as a wit.

Started readin orientalism (which I've only read parts of before) and Anagram by Moore

After reading her three novels in the last month, this strikes me as the weakest (I read it first).

did you enjoy Szabo, though

It was fine, v good character study, some insight into Hungarian life, I wasn't particularly emotionally invested but that was my problem really.

It was more that the narrator's guilt over her failures and justifications for said failures had uncomfortable parallels to moments in my own life

If it's any consolation (I highly doubt it) I didn't blame her for what happened.

Yeah, I didnt think that her actions were wrong or indicative of a deeply flawed character or anything; it's more that I related to her method of self-examination, which admittedly is not super healthy.

Also, for the record, Stoner bored me.

I read Janet Malcolm's In the Freud Archives, after reading about it on here (I think). I couldn't decide if it was a bagatelle, a vanity project, or if it cut right to the heart of Freud's legacy. Probably a mixture of the three. Masson and Swales come out of it seeming agreeably mental.

There's a point where Swales seems like he is going to be the normal guy, compared to Masson anyway - and then suddenly, nope.

I'd lean towards bagatelle, but I'd read Janet Malcolm's bagatelles any day. Did you read about the court case? Seems so strange that he contested five single quotes, when he's so oblivious and obnoxious over so much of the rest of the book

I received the over-a-thousand-page second volume of the Pike/Wilkins translation of The Man Without Qualities for Christmas. I started it last night. I will decide about whether or not to read the over-600 page Posthumous Papers section of this volume after I drag myself another 400 pages, across the finish line on page 1130 of the 'official' novel.

(Aimless tilts his head back to gaze at the ceiling and lifts hands, palms upward, in an imploring gesture.)

merry xmas ILB

finished The Last Samurai and started the Rick Perlstein Goldwater book on xmas eve. verrry addictive so far

btw, if anyone has a remarkably clever title for the winter 2017 WAYR thread, ILB will soon be in the market for such a thing and will pay top dollar.

granta are doing a nice series in which writer's write about their favourite book from a given year, lots of links here: https://twitter.com/GrantaMag

which leads me to: should i read ice by anna kavan?

Desmond Morris the Naked Woman since it was on a charity shop shelf last week.
Also started Tom Jones.

xp Goodreads just recommended Ice to me, I'm def curious, though I just started Jerusalem and should probably not have too many other books going for a bit.

imo, the problem with computer-generated recommendations is that they just try to feed you more of whatever you read the most, so that if you follow their suggestions your breadth of reading material will automatically narrow further and further until you are reading nothing but clones of some book you originally enjoyed, minus any sense of discovery. I like to play the field.

i wouldn't read that far into my being intrigued by one computer generated recommendation.

Hooray another Pelevin fan! I just got Empire V for xmas. Haven't started it yet.

i reread ice earlier this year and it was a lot more enjoyable than my first go through. not really comparable to anything else i can think of. also been planning on revisiting eagle's nest, one of her earlier novels which is more in a kafka mode. would love to get hold of her short story collections, the ones i've read are a+ stuff.

Can't scroll up right not, assume you are talking about Anna Kavan, right?

the one and only. would be interested to know if anyone's read any of the pre-ak helen ferguson novels?

Speaking of Tarkovsky and such - I have quite a lot of Russian poetry, but it's all fairly old. Does anyone know anything about newish Russian poetry they'd like to recommend?

Helen DeWitt fans, have you read her second novel, Lightning Rods? I've been curious although hear it's quite different from The Last Samurai.

I did a search upon finishing tLS last week, seemed to have gotten mixed reviews (but also apparently is sort of about statistics? very high chance i will read it)

some discussion beginning here

a kind of simulation but better than the real thing ever was - the Tom McCarthy thread

I would completely recommend Lightning Rods - it's very different but also brilliant - the two together make me think she's just the best. There's a kind of what-was-that-? quality to it… a taste I don't really get anywhere else (my other comments are in that linked thread although they do lead down into incomprehensibility)

and xp on Russian poetry - I enjoyed the selection of new Russian political poets in the previous issue of N+1 (no. 26) - I don't think you can get to it if you're not a subscriber, but ilx mail me and I'll share or, if you want to go hunting, the names are Kirill Medvedev, Galina Rymbu, Elena Kostyleva, Roman Osminkin, Keti Chukhrov.

L.rods is very funny and weird

Any algorithm recommending anna kavan and not harper lee is already ahead of the game imo

Cool, thanks for the link and thoughts on l rods. The posts in the McCarthy thread have definitely further piqued my interest!

lightning rods is very good in a very different way from last samurai. i saw her speak earlier this year and she is, i think, super brilliant.

yeah i thought lightning rods was hilarious, half from the writing itself and half from my ongoing disbelief that someone actually wrote this book. also very angry. she's def brilliant, i'd be kinda terrified to speak to her.

It is happening again: A Model TrILBY; or, What Are You Reading Now, Winter 2016/17