NYRB Publishing

Who is John Galt? Sorry, couldn't resist, but also it's a real question & please state yr case for The Entail, thx. Seems like we're due for an Ivy Compton-Burnett revival too, or have they already done that?

they definitely read them, not sure how many from that suggestion box they actually follow up on

My interest in Galt came about thanks to a set of posts on the blog Wuthering Expectations. There's a bunch on Galt, but the three on _The Entail_ start here: The Entail, Galt's best book (hit "newer" post to keep going, or click the John Galt label to see the rest of the posts.)
I've read parts of it on Project Gutenberg and really wanted to keep going, but I don't enjoy reading longform on a screen, and don't have an ereader. If I remember correctly, my suggestion primarily consisted of quotes from the book and some links (including the above). Probably some embarrassing, daffy rambling, as is my wont.
I guess a suggestion from someone who hasn't read a book isn't likely to weigh too heavily.

Dunno about revival, but they have released some Compton-Burnett. I enjoyed _Manservant and Maidservant_ a lot, but haven't picked up anything else yet. I keep thinking I'm not a fan of dialogue-heavy novels, but that novel is a good case against that belief.

I just now enjoyed all those Galt quotes, descriptions and speculations. Checked my local library online: no Galt, but they do have Castle Rackrent, in an Edgeworth twofer with Ennui. That's another promising title, re the attitude in the Wuthering commentator's Castle quotes.

nyrb is pretty responsive on twitter too

Nah, read it. I recoil from fiction about the groves of academe but this novel works -- and a quick read.

― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, December 14, 2013 8:17 AM (1 month ago)

i think i had heard of the reissue before i was privy to a talk by a MORAL PHILOSOPHER all about STONER and what a etc. etc. example it was, the whole thing (the talk i mean) seemed to be an exercise in academic narcissism ('oh i found this book… how coincidental that it is about unsatisfying academic life…')

… so i kind of felt like that was a red flag

Would have preferred it if the tone was somewhat different, maybe black comedy too much to ask, but perhaps something more muted than the "Ah Stoner, Ah humanity!" that we get.

Reading speedboat right now and loving it

yeah, just read it, so good.

also reading Speedboat. This might be my new favourite sentence of all time:

"I stole a wash cloth once from a motel in Angkor Wat."

i should reread that book some less sad weekend than the one i read it

A quick search on Qiu Miaojin brings up:

http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/chinese/notes-of-a-crocodile

^ Reading p good so far.

Has anyone here tried to suggest anything to them?

Yes, had a friendly email exchange with an editor there - I was pushing Image of a Drawn Sword by Jocelyn Brooke but it stalled somewhere up or down the editorial line.

I loved John Galt's 'The Member' -- very cynical political satire

I read "The Siege of Krishnapur" by J.G. Farrell, checked it out from the library solely bc it was a NYRB but wasn't sure about it because it looked like bland historical fiction. I ended up loving it, it's incredibly dark comedy - basically all these British people get trapped in their compound in India during a mutiny and things get more and more disgusting and terrible.

Farrell is the best, check out The Singapore Grip and Troubles. The latter won the Lost Booker prize a while back and is every bit as good as Siege...

I had "The Singapore Grip" out from the library too but didn't get to it before the due date.

It's more expansive than the previous two novels and does a better job with the colonial "other", who are just shadowy presences in Siege... and Troubles. It does sacrifice some of the claustrophobia and hysteria of the other two, though.

i bought siege because hilary mantel said it was one of her favorite historical novels

description makes it sound good!! i hadn't figured it was comedy. i don't know what i thought it was. the british edition's cover is v offputting though

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Talock3zL._BO2%2C204%2C203%2C200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click%2CTopRight%2C35%2C-76_AA300_SH20_OU02_.jpg

its 'black comedy' i think. i liked 'singapore grip' better fwiw, thought the characters were better and the story a little more engaging

i read like a quarter of 'the long ships' in the bookstore the other day it was so rad

― max, Thursday, August 5, 2010 12:39 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha i just came here to ask whether you had read it because it seemed like your cup of tea.

did you finish? recommended?

its on my to-read list. ari read it and loved it

it's not young adult, is it?

ari is an adult woman

stop bragging

so "speedboat" is good?

discussed on this thread

renata adler

i didn't love it fwiw

it's real good

http://nyrbclassics.tumblr.com/tagged/Classics-and-Coffee-Club

so, re nyrb classics, this makes me not like them

It's having its intended effect on me. Makes me want to go out and read a bunch of NYRB classics.

i mean that's kinda my default state so

anyone read Olivia Manning?

Hilarious

When I get round to Memoirs of a Revolutionary I am so reading that passage in a coffee chain.

It'll be postmodern. Therefore right.

Olivia Manning is pretty good--her two war trilogies (Balkan and Levant) are extremely readable

Which trilogy to read first, assuming one has time to read?

Balkan comes first--lead-up to the war (WW2)--then Levant which is mostly during WW2 in Egypt, etc

I just recommended they re-publish Sir Thomas Urquhart's translation of Rabelais. Would be good alongside Florio and Burton.

man if they would put out the rest of the florio i would be so delighted

it seems it's out of print anywhere : (

I've got a modern library edition somewhere that (I think) used to be cheap and findable second-hand, but it's £30+ on abe now.

Interesting article on Florio and Shakespeare.

If Florio was indeed involved in the Folio, a number of other passages may well be his work. It is well known that Gonzalo's utopian vision in The Tempest is lifted from Florio's translation of Montaigne's essay "Of Cannibals". The standard view has been that this represents Shakespeare's borrowing from Montaigne; the alternative is that it might represent Florio borrowing from himself.

Which somewhat weakens the claim in the re-issue as Shakespeare's Montaigne.

In all, the OED ascribes 1,224 first usages to Florio – words such as "judicious", "management" and "transcription", but also "masturbation" and "fucker". In this, he is matched only by Chaucer and Shakespeare.

truly our god

From recently published NYRB Jessica Mitford collection: "The Best of Frenemies"---JM may have invented the term, way before Sex In The City:
http://nyrb.typepad.com/classics/2010/10/making-frenemies-with-jessica-mitford.html

Heard this morning that NYRB is republishing The Go-Between and Eustace and Hilda, with the former being "one of the best novels of the 20th Century." I've never read either; how are they?

You've gotta read The Go-Between, don. Own the NYRB Eustace and Hilda, but only read the first few chapters, which were grebt. If you want to start a reading group...

Thanks! I would, but since my library doesn't have any Hartley, and I don't have much of a book budget currently, will take a while (though I may ask librarian to order those).

Go-Between is ace. Apparently Hartley misunderstood his own book, though--without spoilering the plot, he thought the prejudices of all the non-central characters were perfectly correct
Is E&H the first book only, or the whole trilogy? Book 1 is good, haven't tackled the rest

Trilogy

Talk sounds intriguing:

http://www.nyrb.com/collections/classics/products/talk/?variant=1094931493