Bonfires In The Sky: What Are You Reading, Winter 2021-22?

not very experimental, but it ain't that sort of meal

I like Hollinghurst, tho have only read the most recent one and The Line of Beauty

how's the recent? imo he is the best modern (i.e. elegiac; aware of info overload) approximation of an austenian comedian of society i've read

He's gotten worse, or, rather, his material is thinning and his treatment of it etiolated and blah.

love both the Swimming Pool Library and the Line of Beauty (with the latter taking the nod). from reading round here, decided not to venture further, disappointedly.

Kind of agree with Alfred-- it's fine, and there remain some exquisite sentences (pages even), but it does sort of seem like he's run out of material.

Even not having read The Stranger's Child, I found Sparsholt to be a little much like The Line of Beauty, and one of the major criticisms of Sparsholt is that it was too much like The Stranger's Child..

That said, if you like his sort of thing, then it is probably worth a read.

The Line of Beauty is very much one of my favorite novels. I was afraid of rereading it 2018, but, happily, it still won me over.

'i knew i could never love it or want it, but it was an achievement, this armour of useless masculinity' is a rollercoaster in twenty words

I wrote:

Non-ubiquity, in and of itself, is no more profound than ubiquity.

That's the main point I was trying to make, that the extent to which a piece of art is well-known is a useless way to judge its quality. It's entirely possible to have a profound engagement with a popular (even an immensely popular) work of art, and it's just as possible to have a profound experience with a terribly obscure one.

TTITT, you "reworded" what I said as "collective or shared experience is more profound than individual experience, and that thus, more popular media is more profound than what lurks in the shadows" and that isn't what I think, neither is it what I said. That's at least in part my fault, because I added:

Less so if anything because at least ubiquity has the kind of profundity that comes from shared experience

This was only a half-expressed thought and I'm sorry for any lack of clarity. But here's what I think: my experience with a piece of art is deeply individual and comes from my individual engagement with it: that experience will be more or less profound according to the art and me. But that engagement also comes with a context (I might be alone, I might be in a class, or a book group, or a concert , or a club...) That context can also lead to a profound experience, in addition to the personal engagement with the art itself. Being one of a thousand people going crazy to an amazing record in a club can be (though isn't always) a deeply profound experience and it's a profound experience which simply isn't available from solo engagement with that same work of art.

To be clear, I'm neither saying being one of those thousand is a more profound experience than engaging intensely with a piece of art on my own, and I'm not saying work that millions of people engage with intensely is somehow better than work that a very few people engage with intensely, I'm saying that shared experience can bring its own profundity.

If it makes you feel any differently, although I'm not a poet (and thank goodness for that) I do engage in literary pursuits that also fail to get much or any attention outside a tiny circle of somewhat interested people and I feel the frustration of not being able to reach wider audiences who might find the work valuable, so these questions are at least somewhat personal to me also.

Great post Tim

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🥉ded

I didn't love Cold Spring but that particular Bishop poem is weird and great. Was it a misreading of a headline about the finding of a mammoth or am I misremembering? It read likes Poe or Washington Irving.

I liked Tim's post but it does use a model of ubiquity that is about as pure and perfect as possible to illustrate the point (something I'm going to clumsily call the phenomenology of engagement). The presence of media in that space is of course governed by contingency to some extent but nothing close to the governance of space in literary magazines - and in particular with regards to poetry. It makes perfect sense to interrogate the ongoing presence of someone like Lowell in that space, an interrogation that isn't really about engagement at all but about the 'political' (in the broadest possible sense) nature of ubiquity and who controls access.

This whole discussion seems to correctly revolve around trying to sidestep Old School High/Low Divisions or Poptimist/Rockist Divides, as opposed to Duke's Dictum "if it sounds good it IS good" or whatever Ellingon actually said, or its contrapositive, **WARNING Obligatory YouTube Content **
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CscPTI8fwA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV3z2Ytxu90

Thanks for that clarification, Tim. I do agree with you to a certain extent, but I think Chinaski gets at the reasons behind my aggravation and occasional outbursts on the issue — who allows such ubiquity to happen? Who makes it happen, what stake do they have in it? How can media consumption and consumption of art be connected to ideas of manufactured consent? Why are certain types of difficult or weird poetry (or writing) pushed over others, as this is certainly a real phenomenon? To what extent do writers have to change their work in order to find an audience or gain credit from institutions, and to what extent do writers need to forge their own path and hope that institutions will catch up to them? These are complicated questions, I think, and that's maybe why I find myself confused and self-contradictory at times.

All that said, sometime in the next day I'll start a thread on here around this conversation. I apologize for my excessive word spillage clogging up this thread. Let's please make this about books we're reading again.

Antonio Lobo Antunes - Act of the Dammed

Managed to finish this lol experimental novel, its in a Faulkner-esque vein, detailing the getaway of a rotten family from Salazar's Portugal. I liked a lot of the writing even if I didn't really go for the narrative so much. There are a couple of lines around Angola, and I know Antunes explores those colonial wars more in his other writing so I'll make sure to pick some more up.

'a future for socialism' by john roemer

under 200p informal and accessible discussion of possible alternative socialist economic systems written in the wake of the collapse of the soviet union and the apparent failure of the command economy by a marxist economic theorist and analytic political philosopher. most of the book is an investigation of roemer's 'coupon socialism', where every adult has an equal number of "coupons" which they can trade in the stock market but are prohibited from selling. the fact that workers can trade coupons preserves the "allocation" incentive where productive firms are rewarded with high share prices, but the fact that they cannot sell them prevents the ownership of the means of production from concentrating in the hands of a wealthy minority. he also discusses proposals around worker-owned firms and forms of socializing corporate governance, mostly based on japan's keiretsu system. it includes some theoretical investigations as well as discussions of the hybrid market socialism systems that existed in yugoslavia and hungary in the 70s and 80s. the book is in many ways a product of its time. in some ways that limits it; roemer was at the cutting edge of economic theory in the early 90s, but many recent developments (particularly the fields of mechanism design, market design and matching theory which study different forms of non-market allocation when private property is infeasible or undesirable) that were nascent at the time of writing have now matured, and it would be great to read an updated version that engaged with them. however, the best part of the book being a product of its time is that no one would/could write a book like this today. it's virtually unheard of for a contemporary economist with requisite mastery of economic theory to ask huge questions like 'how should we transition to socialism?', and actually make bold proposals that are specific enough to analyze formally. the book that comes closest is glen weyl's radical markets, but that wasn't from an explicitly socialist perspective (and glen has since pivoted to a weird form of blockchain-based decentralized "digital democracy"). most western socialists today seem to want to "get to scandinavia." that's a fine goal, but it's refreshing to read perspectives from a time when people were still thinking about socialism beyond the social democratic welfare state. the book's also very well-written, roemer is a clear and succinct writer. also, the fact that it's not only short but divided into short chapters (most under 5 pages) made it very digestible

xp sounds interesting; i love experiments

It will change your life!!

Pretty good portrayal of a centrist labour councillor around page 1120 of Alan Moore's Jerusalem. Throw in a few jibes at Corbyn and it could be from this year.

I agree with Tim's statements above.

Though I don't altogether share Tim's aesthetic tastes, I find that his statements on, at least, this board are almost always wise, accurate and precisely formulated.

No matter how far I tread in xpost Devil House, when I look at the bookmark, the needle, it's still in the middle, aieee---something so densely immersive is this. All of JD's novels, including Master of Reality, his response to thee album, in 33 1/3's series of same, are lives continuing after and via shattering events: picking up the pieces when feasible, making of them what you can and will and must more often walking on them: a thought that occurred somewhere in here early on, maybe when the narrator is walking up to a little old house, repurposed as the office of a young female real estate agent, who is vibrant with ambition and skills, an oddly bright note in this small potatoes market and hick town (which is just starting to glimmer, a few years before The Great Meltdown of 2008 and its effects on California land speculation).
The reason the narrator is walking up the path to her office, as she probably tunes in to pretty quickly, is that, although he consents to be shown around, he's already chosen the first house he mentions, known as the Devil House to some True Crime mavens down through the ages, starting, in the mid-80s, with the discovery of gutted corpses atop a pile, maybe a pyre, of porn---books, mags, VHS tapes, shreds---amid elaborate interior decoration.
The reason he's picked the Devil House is that he's a True Crime author, Gage Chandler (mentioning significance of his name, in a way that gives a clue to his private correlations, now with their own glimmer), and his editor has talked him into living there, after a fact-checker of another book came across references to this case, which has become obscure at best to non-mavens. One thing that tips scales of interest for editor is location: the small town of Milpitas, which also brought us what became the hit True Crime-based movie River's Edge, so maybe Gage can find more gold in those sleepy little row homes.
Although this one is a bit apart, and "in the shadow of the freeway," also remodeled, but he moves in, to do his thing. Which is catching, amplifying the vibes, charging the particles of minutiae, the research done, all traces on microfiche, scanned posts, primordial listservs, his own interviews, and especially all the hospital records and mich other printed matter, even a diary-sketchbook of one of the perps, so available on eBay.
This is nothing, the 80s: his careermaking book was about certain events of 1972, the still stan-hearted The White Witch of Morro Bay. Who was indeed white, but that's about it.
He specializes in venturing, delving, debunking, even deconstructing, without disappointing. He knows that amazing stories which begin for most of the audience with "a bloody climax" (essential, unmistakable ingredient, beyond debunking) can read quite differently if you and he start tip-toeing in from the beginning, but not too slowly, and finding just the right point of entry.
He also knows, and this is a or the other key ingredient of Darnielle's themes, in fiction and music, that the supernatural, and attendant ancient glories of the arts, ov legacy, can be a language for personal mythology, however oblique stroke, in some sense inchoate, struggling, yet succeeding in being personally coded, branded, enough to also reached Those Who Know, and shocks, confounds, titillates ignorant villagers etc.
But this is has not turned out to be that assigned True Crime book, as he tells you upfront.
Nevertheless, while settling into his process, he reflects on the true life of Miss Crane, young high school teacher, AKA The White Witch of Morro Bay (these pages could be from his book of that title; there is a high generic vein of True Crime). in recounting, revisiting the granular, perhaps with some speculative fiction between dots, he gently presses her moments into something that suggests she was born with some orientation toward the quotidian, incl. her own approach to collecting, which became evidence against her---she even finds her own way towards----Mrs Dalloway?
But then. On to the business at hand in Devil House.

Yet another key ingredient of this book in particular (also a whiff of it in Wolf in White Van, esp, whenever narrator walks to the convenience store): the elusively beguiling (has something to do with the hypnotic pull of drones, of monotony) everydays of Northern California, starting here ca. 1972, after upheavals in rough patch of the 60s, settling back down, for a while, and on what, but never the same: Miss Crane leads a sheltered life, but it's the time and setting as in Emma Cline's The Girls. I'm far from there, but it's not that different, these days---nor is The Crying of Lot 49, which seems more and more relevant--big 60s kids buzzword---every year.
It's also apparent to the Devil House narrator, considering target events of 1986, and in the same area during his early 2000s stake-out.

Stefan Collini: THE NOSTALGIC IMAGINATION: HISTORY IN ENGLISH CRITICISM (2019)

Renata Adler - Speedboat
Deidre Bair - Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography.

I must admit, SPEEDBOAT is one of the books I most ought to read that I have never yet come close to reading.

An easy read once you get accustomed to the fragmentation.

Didn’t she write a famous takedown of Pauline Kael?

This, probably: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1980/08/14/the-perils-of-pauline/

She's a fine cultural critic. I treasure her essays on the confirmation of Rehnquist as chief justice and on the Lewinsky-Clinton affair

Can't wait!

I can't wait for this volume, to be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York) in August this year. It will include a previously unpublished autobiographical study of Lowell's childhood, plus memoirs of figures including T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, John Berryman, and others. pic.twitter.com/Gto1eEdfXq

— John Haffenden (@johnhaffenden) February 22, 2022

lol

Can't haridy wait.

I suspect Lowell may be more read about than read these days. I was in a smallish independent bookstore yesterday and happened to check the small poetry section (maybe a couple yards of titles). There were no books by Lowell to be found. For comparison, there were several volumes by Rupi Kaur (I thumbed through one hoping to be appalled but sadly must report that I liked the few poems I read), the obligatory Bukowski, a surprisingly large section of William Blake. There was one anthology called "100 Poems to Break Your Heart" which appeared to be, as the title suggests, a selection of sad poems, in chronological order, with exegesis, and there was a Lowell poem in that.

There was also a large stack of "Devil House" prominently displayed on the front table. Reminded me I need to read "Universal Harvester".

I suspect Lowell may be more read about than read these days.

Agree. Especially as most of us are confronted with LRB (or NYRB, TLS or whatever) articles about his letters, always by Colm Toibin, once every 3 months.

I'm reading Audrey Schulman's Theory of Bastards.

The parts of Devil House I mentioned above, especially the fictional True Crime author's reverie on the pre-TC life of Miss Crane---that fine tuning of the fictional and the real author's shared (though not entirely the same) sense of what can be shared, and not, expressing that boundary too, crossing over, just long enough: another example of JD at his best---and a lot of subsequent development was worthwhile---but the ending lost all credibility even before I got to the bottom of the page.
And it exposed some inherent structural weaknesses of the Devil House story proper that I then realized I'd been keeping almost below the level of awareness, building enjoyment around, because the virtues of the book had that kind of momentum---yeah, yeah, the same old Willing Suspension of Disbelief, but it could have kept on working for a while, allowing a decent interval before the penny dropped---if not for the ending.
And I'm the jaded novel reader who usually says, "Endings, shmendings." But this wasn't baggy enough for that. (There was also a close-to-penultimate set piece, but it did no harm.)

But I still say it's worth reading.

the ending lost all credibility Unless! Unless it is a deliberate "loss," of a character, giving an exaggerated confession:"If I say this much, which is true, it's bad. But if I add this much more bullshit, it makes my whole huge mess blow up, and go away!" Manic (true to to this character) and magical thinking, thematically appropriate as hell to the story, and the story-within-the-story. Or is this my own magical thinking? Is this post fan fiction? All of this shell gaming is also thematically appropriate to the JD reading experience. Just read this damn book, if you were already thinking you might.
RIP Dave Hickey wrote that he believed in the evolutionary, not the creationist theory of art: as soon as some one sees it, it continues to change, all bets should be off.
But I can't unsee what the "loss" or loss made a bit more visible re preceding structural weaknesses, though they don't upstage all the good stuff.

But if I add this much more bullshit, it makes my whole huge mess blow up, and go away!" Manic and maybe so magical it's too magical to be more than a moment's outburst, not an official confession, but it's being recorded.

The Audrey Schulman has got its hooks into me. It's set in the near future, where there is increasing evidence of climate crises and attendant issues. Most people wear a Bindi, a version of Siri worn as an implant, and wear Lenses, a kind of contact-lens version of Google Glasses. The protagonist is a long-term sufferer of endometriosis and we're slowly told her story - of multiple misdiagnoses and how she has learned to live with pain - while also being shown her other 'story': her role as a researcher and nascent evolutionary biologist, assigned to study bonobo chimps (all in captivity, their habitats having been largely destroyed). The latter unfolds in the present with the rest told in flashbacks. I almost don't want to mention Houellebecq but he's probably the closest analogue I can think of. Thankfully, Schulman is free of Houellebecq's stink of fascism and is more concerned with compassion - with the bonobos and with the central character's pain. The architectural work in entwining the two narratives is masterful.

Several of us have read that, starting with James Morrison, of course, think most would agree with you, I know I would, although I do wish you hadn’t mentioned that other guy.

A friend of mine mentioned he was reading the newest Houellebecq and I've never thought the same of that friend.

Reading a set of Myles na gCopaleen CRUISKEEN LAWN columns from 1940s to 1960s.

On the whole fair to say: in the 1940s he is astoundingly consistent with his lightness of touch; in the 1950s he veers into anger, sometimes reactionary - yet he does still retain the underlying verbal wit and can often pull something out, eg with an alphabet of Irish items late in the 1950s. Didn't read so much 1960s this time, but he still seems able to keep going till near the end.

Another simple observation: into the 1950s, the column more typically becomes broken up into smaller sections, separated by asterisks; possibly a sign of loss of inspiration and flow.

Individual columns are treasurable though, eg: one where he essentially pretends to be have been W.B. Yeats on the first night of THE PLAYBOY.

Anyone read Meredith? I've put down The Egoist three times in twenty years while digging his poetry ("Modern Love" sonnet sequence in particular). I picked up Diana of the Crossways and I'm rarin' to go.

Seems to me Meredith went out of fashion ages ago, so perhaps ripe for a reappraisal. Recall reading Wilfrid Sheed writing about Edmund Wilson saying to him "What do you think of Meredith, Sheed? We don't think much about him now, do we?"