NYRB Publishing

The same thing happened to me with the Gadda, it's fairly rare for me to abandon a book. Perhaps I should try again.

The two Elaine Dundy novels are light and enjoyable; I love "Hadrian The Seventh", I love "Ringolevio" (though my copy is Canongate / Rebel Inc. FOR SHAME) both political romps in their very different ways; I found "In Hazard" by Richard Hughes an absorbing and intense wonder; "Sleepless Nights" by Elizabeth Hardwick herself is an odd favourite of mine: it's wispy and intangible, I've read it a few times and each time I start thinking "oh there's nothing to this" and end in raptures of one kind or another. Again, my cop is a 1980s Virago Classic so perhaps I should just shut my mouth about it.

I'm reading "Warlock" and it keeps reminding me of the song "Pancho and Lefty". I think it's the phrase "he only did what he had to do". Sometimes I hear it in the voice of Emmylou Harris and sometimes in the voice of WIllie Nelson, but that doesn't seem to relate to the character speaking the words.

The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold.

No spoilers.

Acquainted with Grief -- the only other Gadda novel available in English -- is well worth tracking down. That Awful Mess... is, well, an actual mess -- intended by its author, and perhaps the execution of its translation added to this.

You and your Virago classics Tim! I think I've seen that Hardwick in a 2nd hand shop whenever I pass through...

to go along with the hadrian the seventh recommendation, i see they also publish a.j.a. symonds' quest for corvo which is entertaining and well worth a read if you're into rolfe/corvo. don't think i've actually ever seen a nyrb publishing publication (though that radiguet cover looks familiar).

Actually you may well find Quest for Corvo fascinating, even if you know nothing about Corvo/Rolfe--I'd never read him when I read it, and really enjoyed it.

Other good and easy to get into NYRBS would be:

LJ Davis: A Meaningful Life (also very nastily funny)
Gifford's 'The Big Clock' (which is more immediate and less experimental than Clark Gifford's Body, though CGB is great stuff)
Barbara Comyns: The Vet's Daughter
John Wyndham: The Chrysalids

i mentioned jg farrell upthread, gonna mention him again. 'troubles' is weird and absurd and often hilarious. the story is not "funny" but the major's interior monologue of bafflement at what's going on around him is hysterical.

yeah i remember looking for the farrell around xmas time & only finding another edition - vantage mb? - i should see if i can pick that up tomorrow. was there a long write-up of elaine dundy in the newyorker? if thats who im thinking of than i think ill pick that up too

i dont think so - i've read some elaine dundy so i think i would remember

(but who knows)

I can't find a dedicated thread for the magazine, but: this is one of those issues where I want to read every article.

i am reading a house and its head for book club

http://assets.nybooks.com/media/img/books/9780940322646.jpg

so far i am finding it infuriatingly badly written on a technical level, but quite funny.

really? i remember your post asking about ivy c-b and hoping youd get a response since i picked up the nyrb edition of 'manservant and maidservant' but havent gotten around to reading it yet.

to be fair to ivy c-b, i'm only 30 pages in.

I've only read one Ivy CB, and had a similar reaction. Since several people told me that all of her books were basically the same, I never tried another.

it's basically 200 pages of dialogue afaict. it's like reading a really long play, but it's even more exhausting because her style makes who is actually speaking terribly obscure.

i've read many of these but the ones that really stuck with me and still live on my shelf are

- radiance of the king

- adventures and misadventures of maqroll

- hindoo holiday

- a life like any other

- fancies and goodnights

- the bog people

- the world of odysseus

oh and warlock, duh

but it's even more exhausting because her style makes who is actually speaking terribly obscure.

Henry Green can be like that but when it clicks finally, it's kind of thrilling.

x-post I read the World of Odysseus recently and liked it a lot.

<3 <3 <3 Maqroll the Gaviero! Other perennial NYRB favorites: Envy, Anatomy of Melancholy, and especially Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, one of the most heartbreaking and fucked up things ever written.

well now i have to read it

upcoming titles include 'the letter killers club' by sigizmund krzhizhanovsky which at least one ilxor is v excited about

Also the stories of Robert Sheckley!

I'm another ilxor very excited about it (the krzhizhanovsky )!

Shecklety! THat's great!

sheckley! at least my third or fourth favourite bad writer

fuck i can't type today

i wasn't correcting your spelling, just exclaiming

it kind of words as one of those almost-after-the-fact bowdlerisations. like 'oh shhhugar.'

Sheckley? Really? Will there be any overlap with with The Masque of Mañana?

thomp, do you really consider Robert Sheckley a bad writer? If so, I believe you will bring the wrath of the Sluglords down on your head.

sorry--didn't read it as a correction, it was just an xpost :)

starting to get into the ivy cb a bit more. i still maintain that the style is totally exhausting and reader hostile for absolutely nothing in return, but she draws a good character, and it's very funny. almost like a victorian 'the office' at times.

anyone read Hav, the Jan Morris travel fiction thing that they have forthcoming. Usually enjoy morris, am tempted.

insert question mark

Saw that on the website, with a blurb from UKLG.

Any good NYRB non-fiction recommendations along the lines of 'The World of Odysseus' & 'The Thirty Years War'?

& to hijack the NYRB thread with some Melville House, I was greatly entertained by slowly stumbling across these in the first large bookstore I've had the chance to visit in a while:
http://biblioklept.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/duel.jpg
(If I knew how to create a poll ...)

I've read 4 of those before, and they were all excellent. The Conrad is also very funny.

Henry Green can be like that but when it clicks finally, it's kind of thrilling.

― Cuius regio, eius radicchio (Michael White), Thursday, August 18, 2011 7:04 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha this has turned out to be otm.

another nice NYRB nonfiction is "the bog people"

ive been dipping in and out of "when the world spoke french" which is nice and has a lot of primary sources but seems to lose some of its impact due to... not being in french

anyone besides Michael White read The Unpossessed?

Thought about it, but no, not yet.

was not able to finish. too bawdy for my taste.

Fwiw, I'm presently reading 'Quand l'Europe parlait français'.

"bawdy" ooh la la!

It was just bawdy enough for me as I recall.

Elizabeth Hardwick introduction + similarities to my beloved Dawn Powell = easy sell

I enjoyed it, Alfred.

Just read the NYRB collection of Elizabeth Hardwick's stories, which was really excellent (although the last few were a bit too similar stylistically to be best enjoyed all read together).