Words! Words! Words!: Autumn 2012 'What do you read, my lord?' thread

got through most of on the eve yesterday on the plane - it's riveting, and contains some of the same flourishes that enderared me to turgenev with first love. bersenyev's quiet despair recalls petrovich's, too; articulating the torture of being "friend-zoned" seems to be one of turgenev's stronger talents. (i've still got 40 pages or so, so no spoilers - elena has just told her parents about the marriage.)

i do think i am sort of souring on constance garnett, the translator, though. it's hard to tell of course, being a non-native reader, but the prose can seem a little awkward at times, almost like it's clear i'm reading a translation. maybe it's just my mind playing tricks on me, because i KNOW it's a translation. idk

k3v, thanks for reminding me that I need to reread "First Love" today.

you most certainly must

Turgenev is the least read of the Major Russians, right? On the Eve is such a perfect, lapidary thing .

he's more of a minor with Bulgakov, Goncharov, right? I wouldn't call him a major

probably read more than Gogol, though, right?

I've seen more writers cite "The Overcoat" in the last few years than, say, F&S.

you know what's fun? Googling any kind of syllabus

sounds like a good class: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/slavic/syllabi/G6204.pdf

turgenev was certainly a major at the time and deserves to remain one; i think what's up is the contemporary idea of Big Fat Important Russian Novels is baffled at the sight of fathers and sons

and yeah kev constance garnett is p tortured a lot of the time. i can't knowledgeably recc a turgenev translation tho.

i revived the dostoevsky thread that only i post in the other day but i just finished rereading demons which is prob my favorite dusty; it is hilarious and upsetting and its narration has all these weird structural inconsistencies a polite word for which is "polyphonic", which i've discovered i really enjoy (i also like when ishmael disappears halfway through moby-dick)

totally!

i mean ishmael disappearing

James unfortunately did a lot to create the false Tolstoy/Dostoevksy vs Turgenev binary, although it's true Turgenev (mostly) had no interest in sprawl.

i've never read turgenev, but i kind of blame pevear and volokhonsky for not translating him.

let's start an email campaign

On The Eve as an Oprah book

there's a mean parody of turgenev in demons actually, right down to his (apparently) irritating habit of kissing you on the cheek. he arranges a choreographed dance for a party wherein each of the four dancers represents something like "the mainstream russian press" or "western thought" and everyone hates it.

lol I remember that, he also delivered this amazingly ridiculous prose-poem speech, didn't he? Demons is def my second-favorite of the Big Four Dusty novels (after greatest-nove-ever-written C&P)

not sure what it says about me that while reading this passage

'Then leave me! You see, Elena, when I was taken ill, I did not lose
consciousness at first; I knew I was on the edge of the abyss;
even in the fever, in delirium I knew, I felt vaguely that it was
death coming to me, I took leave of life, of you, of everything; I
gave up hope. . . . And this return to life so suddenly; this light
after the darkness, you--you--near me, with me--your voice, your
breath. . . . It's more than I can stand! I feel I love you
passionately, I hear you call yourself mine, I cannot answer for
myself. . . You must go!'

my first thought was buffy

xp yeah it's his Last Work (the narrator is skeptical) and called lol merci, and it's totally incoherent and has all these visions of early roman kings and mermaids whistling chopin, and goes way over the ideal length for a public reading (twenty minutes says the narrator). someone yells "you never saw any ancus marcius! that's all just style!"

Style baby! Dylan's still swinging with those early Roman kings (and mermaids whistling Chopin)

alfred, since you won't answer me on twitter: is juan cole's book the best on thurgood marshall's jurisprudence? or is there another you'd recommend?

btw man, the last few chapters of on the eve are chock full of the kind of literary flourishes that make me weak. for an ending i guessed a hundered pages prior, pretty well-done

hundred*

Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography by Georgi M Derluguian, as recommended to me by ogmor a while ago

The enfant terrible of Chechen resistance arrived dressed in a bizarre uniform
(decorated with what he claimed were the insignia of Gengis Khan), a black military
beret reminiscent of Saddam, the checkered Arab qufiya kerchief around his
neck, and with his face mostly obscured by a huge pair of sunglasses. Raduyev had
a good reason to hide his face; it had been badly scarred by a bullet. Rumor had it
that after suffering his head wound, Raduyev went mad, or at least developed an
addiction to painkillers; but to many people his actions before being shot in the
face did not look entirely rational either.

Gentlemen Of The Road by Michael Chabon - On a Chabon kick, I guess. Not a full meal, but a fun lark w/ really neat sentences.

"...preserved from drowning only by gentlemen of the road fated someday to be hanged."

Yeah, that's the stuff.

xp

Also, I suspect some Long Ships influence, which is just super.

Found an recording of Chabon reading - always pleased to hear how enthusiastically dorky his voice is.

alfred, since you won't answer me on twitter:

wait what -- realy?

https://mobile.twitter.com/radiokeller/status/273637228494868480

:(

new-ish poetry: bought, after many months of trepidation, Troy, Unincorporated by Francesca Abbate—an amusing (post)modern retelling of Troilus & Criseyde in a crummy midwestern town. found much to love on a first reading, copied some dozen (mostly short) quotations into my lil pocket notebook... need to mull it over a bit more but all in all, I'm satisfied

(only bad taste in my mouth = $18 for a new paperback, c'mon!)

Muriel Spark's Complete Short Stories: this is the stuff

Is the first story "The Ormolu Clock"? My copy of that went missing in a move along with The Complete Short Stories of Elizabeth Bowen. I guess I should take the Aimless approach and avoid angst, but I don't have his sangfroid.

Should have said "share his sangfroid" to accentuate the alliteration.

"adopt the Aimless approach"

Tom, delete ILB now please.

j/k

Hey, the ebook of Curriculum Vitae came out here last month.

Muriel Spark's Complete Short Stories: this is the stuff
Yes, yes it is. "And still, like Squackle-wackle, she was quite an interesting person. It was only in my more vibrant moments that I deplored them."

It opens with 'The Go-Away Bird', which is really a short Spark-style novel in itself. "THe Ormolu Clock' isn't in it. Fuck this "complete" bullshit!

School officially done now as of today. Can read stuff of my own choosing again!

(for the next three weeks or so, that is)

"Late Coetzee >> Early Coetzee imo

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 3 December 2012 12:14 (1 week ago) Permalink

gonna read Summertime soon, we'll see

― nostormo, Monday, 3 December 2012 18:56 (1 week ago) Permalink"

finished Summertime - tend to agree.
very good book.

Erick Kastner: Going to the Dogs - a NYRB book I'd never heard of before, but it's great; written and set in ~1930 Berlin, everything's falling apart, very funny

Went to a guest lecture/reading by Howard Jacobson at Goldsmiths last night...fantastic stuff. He discussed the complete disappointment that haunts you as a writer forever (and this was a lecture hall filled mainly with MA/PhD Creative Writing students), how reading, rather than the novel, is dead, the pointlessness and awfulness of genre fiction and other stuff all with a great deal of charm and humour. Read a bit from his new novel too which sounded interesting....might actually pick up The Finkler Question over xmas and give it a go, it's sat on my shelf for a while.

Highlight was a very elderly woman asking Jacobson whether he used comedy as a way of working out/in more serious topics and then trying to flesh out her question by referencing Borat ("Have you seen hat wonderful male wrestling scene?"). Cue a ten minute chat about the merits of Borat lol

how reading, rather than the novel, is dead, the pointlessness and awfulness of genre fiction

was this all tongue in cheek or is he an actual douche

jacobson is def a literary snob and a cultural conservative, cld well be actual irl douche too.

Certainly comes across that way in the one or two interviews I've been 'luky' enough to see..

He was being serious as far as I could tell.

Re: genre fiction - the majority of his ire was directed at thrillers and it stems from a complete disinterest in plot (plus he said he finds thrillers impossible to understand/his brain doesn't work in that way and he loses track instantly).