ILB Gripped the Steps and Other Stories. What Are You Reading Now, Spring 2017

Maybe we should form a book club? Oh wait

read & much enjoyed the selected stories of julian maclaren-ross. his memoirs now definitely on my radar!

started in on a selection of edward dahlberg's fiction, poetry, criticism, memoirs, letters & whatever classification the sorrows of priapus might fall under.

late response to mark s: russell hoban's frances books are all really delightful -- well paced and gentle and funny, some of my favorite kids' books. (i dearly wish there were a frances stuffed animal, i have a friend it would make the perfect gift for.) i read the mouse and his child a few years ago and i don't know if i'd even count it as a children's novel, it's quite intense and frightening in ways that i think would have traumatized me as a kid.

Maclaren-Ross: his memoirs are great. Do not bother with his letters, though. Just lots of begging for money and asking for deadline extensions, basically.

I think I'm going to ditch Henderson the Rain King - unless anyone can convince me to stay? I'm about 100 pages in, and I'm finding it a bit all over the place. The heart of darkness narrative is hackneyed, the centre of consciousness is the least convincing Bellow stand-in I've come across (6ft 4, wrestler, testosterone mountain - aye, right. I mean, there's worse reasons to write, but do all his leading men have to be irresistible/repulsive?) and even his sentences, usually his greatest ally, don't zing to the same degree. Maybe I'm dead inside.

No, I think that's warranted: there's something interesting about the way Bellow steers directly into the pitfalls of white writers inventing a private Africa as an exotic backdrop for the white hero's inner struggle, but that doesn't mean it works as fiction or as a critique of that colonialist impulse.

I've started reading Amulet, one of Roberto Bolano's novels. It is written entirely as a first person narration by a woman character. I will report my impressions later.

Maclaren-Ross: his memoirs are great. Do not bother with his letters, though. Just lots of begging for money and asking for deadline extensions, basically.

yep, and obviously from love and hunger if for any reason you haven't read it. some of his essays and fragments are good too - or are those collected with the short stories?

I think I'm going to ditch Henderson the Rain King - unless anyone can convince me to stay

I ditched twice, resumed it two summers ago, endured a desultory read. Not worth it.

Really feel like almost every long novel after Augie March is a disappointment. Some shorter stuff here and there is good though.

Haha I've been approaching and backing off from Henderson for years now, the fact of its existence is fascinating but I'm afraid to finally pick it up. I'm like could this even be good if it were

"What Kind of Day Did You Have?" is the best thing he wrote after the seventies. If you want a rant, check out The Dean's December.

I did enjoy Ravelstein, though it has receded enough that I do only have vague sense impressions of it.

I've been reading Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book: Shonagon's historical moment (around 1000 CE) is distant enough that, as with Proust's characters, her fascination with rank and her thorough contempt for servants, commoners, and less skillful courtiers are more ridiculous than wholly repellent (although her snobbery sometimes takes on bizarre forms, as when she writes a poem to mock an unsophisticated man for losing his home in a fire, or when she states that ugly people should never let themselves be seen napping). That aside, Shonagon is witty and vividly observant, and I appreciate how open her writing is to reverie and digression.

Just finished Kenner, The Pound Era

I've been trawling thru Diana Athill's Make Believe, a memoir of her dealings with Hakim Jamal, a former Black Panther and distant relative of Malcolm X - who also had affairs with Jean Seberg and Gale Benson, a socialite and daughter of a Tory MP. All feature in some way, its pure late-60s/early 70s and has a similarly energy to some of Doris Lessing's fictional work - a very similar intersect of class, race, unbound sexuality. A play between freedom and catastrophe as sides of the same coin. Allen Ginsberg's poetry (discussed this a bit on the book biuying thread) and have just started on Elizabeth Hardwick's study/biography of Herman Melville (as part of the Penguing Lives series) and I like her prose v much - and I see NYRB will be issuing a book of her essays, which is clearly happening, although its slightly disappointing that Confidence Man only gets literally a couple of pages of crit, touching on its modernity then leaving it at that(!)

a play between freedom and catastrophe as sides of the same coin--often the cliche take on the 60s, and not without plenty of justification, but also I've known people running classes, bands, free clinics, voter registration drives, and more questionable endeavors, starting in the 60s/early 70s, and though probably all of them have had experience with catastrophe, they're still at it, for better and worse.

Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to in Search of Lost Time by Eric Karpeles: appealing description here, any of y'all familiar with it?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0500238545/ref=pe_848010_240916020_em_1p_2_ti

dow yes, plenty of positives, certainly not trying to deny - however it was mostly the worse for almost all concerned as portrayed in this book.

I've dipped into the Karpeles book: it's not hugely revelatory, but it's pleasant to look at, and beats interrupting your reading to do image searches.

xpost oh no doubt mostly the worse, from what I've read about some of that, especially Seberg's last years.

I might try the Karpeles book, since Proust is often at his most enjoyable when relating to painting and paintings.

When at his most painterly too, unlike a number of other authors.

Really feel like almost every long novel after Augie March is a disappointment.

Disagree w/ this - Herzog could hardly be termed a disappointment, and Humboldt's Gift might be the best thing he ever wrote.

searching for a bday present for dr vick i broke my resolve and bought a second copy of "the ipcress file" to read instead of the one i've misplaced in my flat: glanced at the opening pages -- never read this stuff before! so maybe i *haven't* misplaced a copy of "the ipcress file" somewhere in my flat and was thinking of "funeral in berlin" all along (GiS-ed for the cover i thought this missing copy had, and no sign of it, which doubly puzzles me: clearly my brane less than billion-dollar these days)

nearly finished "only when i larf"and nicola barker's "darkmans"

also bought (for me) jean rhys: "wide sargasso sea "(bookshop lady v enthusiastic) and "good morning, midnight"

plus vick's bday present to me included the original 1731 poem THE SOT-WEED FACTOR, or A VOYAGE TO MARYLAND by Eben.Cooke, gent., which i started reading on the bus home last night (additional prsent from vick: the revisionist harper lee, which i'm a bit wary of, AT SWIM TWO BIRDS, which for some reason i've never read, despite loving FoB to bits, and THE SURGEON OF CROWTHORNE, which i know nothing abt whatever but starts well)

I am reading "A Posthumous Confession" by Marcellus Emants, which is a nineteenth century slow sickly slick of self-loathing if ever I read one, just my cup of (gone-cold) tea.

Recently read and enjoyed The Surgeon of Crowthorne myself - it's a bit like a less erudite version of Richard Holmes' Dr Johnson and Mr Savage, and includes one of the most squirm-inducing incidents I've ever read about.

That Emants was translated by JM Coetzee, who is a neighbour of mine. I raved about it to him at a bbq and he looked very embarrassed and barely said anything. We also offered him some of our vegetarian bringings, but he couldn't eat them because he's allergic to coconut. I really am not sure what my point is here, other than deeply unimpressive showing off.

Well, I'm impressed.

I've never read any Coetzee, btw; any recommendations?

Really feel like almost every long novel after Augie March is a disappointment.

Disagree w/ this - Herzog could hardly be termed a disappointment, and Humboldt's Gift might be the best thing he ever wrote.

― Bernie Lugg (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 7 June 2017 08:11 (two hours ago)

Also there is his basic message of "When I finally came of age, I realized that the life of the mind wasn't all that so now I hang around with wise guys and zaftig shiksas to keep things interesting. But behind the scenes, in the sanctum sanctorum of my thoughts, the intellectual project continues unabated. Hermaphrodites, The Best of Both Worlds1'

I've never read any Coetzee, btw; any recommendations?

― Tim, Wednesday, 7 June 2017 11:03 (fifty-nine minutes ago)

I've only read "Disgrace" but it is excellent

Xpost to James Redd

Caveat - I went through my major 'Bellow phase' well over 20-30 years ago, and might well revisit my opinions now. I mean, I really enjoyed Henderson the Rain King back then, but suspect I would have a lot more difficulties with it now.

But - yes, Bellow grew more conservative as he get older, and I don't share a lot of his views about cultural collapse, the moronic inferno, blah blah. At the same time, I think his prose, right up to Ravelstein, retains a liveliness and zest for life and culture that mitigates the grumpiness; plus, he could frequently be unexpectedly tender, humane and engaged with the world (in this regard, but almost no other, he reminds me a little of Kingsley Amis (a confirmed Bellow hater, unlike his son)). Just recently I mentioned on ILB the long, lateish short story 'Him With His Foot In His Mouth' which contains a sincere tribute to the work of Allen Ginsberg, not a writer you wld expect Bellow to have much time for. He was constantly capable of this kind of surprise and generosity of spirit, and these are not traits I generally associate with a frozen in aspic reactionary.

Moreover, I love that combo of intellectual pondering and lusty living that's in Humboldt and other books and that you seem to disdain. I think this helped me to bring down authors and intellectuals from their ivory towers and see them as human, flawed, like the rest of us.

'Him With His Foot In His Mouth'

The first Bellow I ever read. I didn't really have a concept of early or late then, and really enjoyed it. Like many of the first things you read by an author it becomes an initial reference point against which you read other works that other people may come to first. I ended up reading the rest of the short stories in that volume, Herzog and Augie March, but haven't explored beyond.

Herzog is near great, agreed; Ravelstein unintentionally funn

've never read any Coetzee, btw; any recommendations?

― Tim,

I'm not crazy about hsi early novels, but Disgrace moved me about 15 years ago. I liked Elizabeth Costello too.

Recently read and enjoyed The Surgeon of Crowthorne myself - it's a bit like a less erudite version of Richard Holmes' Dr Johnson and Mr Savage, and includes one of the most squirm-inducing incidents I've ever read about.

omg i can't believe you just reminded me of this. but yes it's v enjoyable.

looking forward to it! very dr vick to trick me into squirm w/o a warning

(i gave her darnielle's white van book and the mantel abt the french revolution)

I really like Coetzee - especially Disgrace, Elizabeth Costello (though it's a polemic, really) and Michael K.

The narrator is taking Albertine to their first Wednesday with Mme Verdurin and her followers, the most faithful being Princess Sherbatoff, who has "quarreled with her family, in exile from her homeland", and from high society everywhere else, so makes a virtue of necessity, associating only with a very few other prestigious outsiders. "The Princesse was very rich; at every opening night she had a large ground-floor box, to which, authorized by Mme Verdurin, she took the faithful and never anyone else. People would point out this pale, enigmatic figure...They admired both her influence and her humility, for though always having with her an Academician, Brichot, a celebrated scholar, Cottard, the leading pianist of the day, and later on M. de Charlus, she still did her best to book the gloomiest baignoire and remained at the back...living exclusively for the little group, who, a little before the end of the performance, would withdraw in the train of this strange sovereign who was not without possessing a shy, fascinating, worn-out beauty. But if Mme Sherbatoff did not look at the auditorium, and remained in the shadows, it was in order to try to forget that there existed a living world that she desired passionately but was unable to get to know; the 'coterie' in a baignoire was for her what their almost corpse-like stillness is for certain animals in the presence of danger."

Yes, that Emants is amazing.

I swiftly zizzed through this peculiar little number, which sees a Sinclair/Sebald figure survey a present-day England where it's clear to them something has gone terribly wrong, something easily recognisable to anyone who reads the Real England thread.

http://probabilitydistributiongroup.bigcartel.com/product/this-wounded-island-volume-one-the-condition-of-england

In the Arndale Centre in Dartford we found an inscription on a wall which read God knows more than you and he doesn't even exist. Green found this to be a perfect summary of our journey to date.

When we returned to the site the next day the message had been removed by the authorities.

Re Coetzee, I'd second Disgrace and Michael K, and add Waiting for the Barbarians, Boyhood and Youth (the last two of which, while hardly rollicking LOL stuff, are surprisingly funny)

Gardiner said that two rising trends on their platform are “puppet horror” and “dark mermaids.”

http://www.publishingtrends.com/2017/01/digital-book-world-asks-what-do-the-readers-and-the-gatekeepers-want/

it would be so easy to combine those two and make a fortune.

Escaping THe Delta
Elijah Wald's history of the Blues. Pretty interesting so far, if a bit dry possibly. He's been exploring the ori8gins of the genre. Says a lot of things were swept up into the category, shows that most of those viewed as archetypal blues artists may have been playing much wider styles live as opposed to what was recorded I guess that's nothing new, John Hammond etc have been shown to be somewhat agendaed. Wald does say that before that, throughout the 20s those recording were doing things more widespread to see what regional styles might catch on. & after a certain point they knew what would sell and therefore cut out the widespread recording of different styles.

I've listened to one side of Robert Johnson's King of the Delta Blues and heard what sounded like a jukebox playing through several different performer's styles. I think he has been shown to have picked up influence from a number of different artists, but that always sticks in my mind when the idea of purity or authenticity comes up.
looking forward to reading this through.

Just finished Elmore Leonard's SWAG. I enjoy everything he writes but this was by far and away the best one I've read - has the usual loose narrative but doesn't spin on too long like some of the others.

I finished Bolano's Amulet last night. It is definitely of a different cast than 2666, Savage Detectives, or the other novels of his I've read, in that its narrative style employs much impressionism, some surrealism, with a bit of stream-of-consciousness thrown in for good measure.

Although he does succeed in this experiment to a large degree (I got some pleasure from the book), I'd have to endorse his decision to move away from this style in his subsequent novels. Both 2666 and Savage Detectives are much more effective books. The somewhat airy contrivance of Amulet suffers in comparison with their greater brutality and directness.

yep, and obviously from love and hunger if for any reason you haven't read it. some of his essays and fragments are good too - or are those collected with the short stories?

outside of a simenon translation don't think i'd ever read any j m-r productions: will keep an eye out for the novel too... the selected is made up of pieces from the collections published during his life + an otherwise uncollected later story (no essays). think i must have first come across his name in nz novelist/publisher dan davin's collection of reminiscences of his writerly acquaintances way back in the nineties.

Anybody around here read this?
The Collected Poems: A Dual-Language Edition with Parallel Text (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
"No doubt anyone with an interest in Marcel Proust will be grateful for Penguin's new dual language edition of The Collected Poems, incisively edited by Harold Augenbraum and drawing on the work of 20 translators. But devotees of David Foster Wallace, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, Jean Rhys -- even Kenneth Burke -- will also be enthralled: if an infinite book has no beginning or end, then surely this is one. Augenbraum's introduction and hugely entertaining notes help make the volume at least three books, really. Palimpsest or holographic to the poems, Augenbraum's given us a biography of Proust as well as an engrossing cultural history, a cubist portrait of the writer's milieu and his most intimate friendships. [ ...] All along the book has been a network of boulevards and gardens, cross streets and alleys, and we are flaneurs, flaneuses, wandering once more through Proust's youth, roaming through the middle of the text again, and we find there much worth discovering, much worth remembering."
—John Hennessey, Huffington Post

Also wondering about Proust's Days of Reading.

Of Love and Hunger is excellent. Very Patrick Hamilton, from memory.