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

I finished Michael Wood's ON EMPSON.

The opening chapter or so is often stunningly interesting and droll. Then it comes and goes a bit. But it's Michael Wood so it's better, and funnier, than almost anyone else would be.

Back to Flann O'Brien's drama - still on his first play Faustus Kelly. Will read the rest also.

remy de gourmont - angels of perversity
mirbeau - the torture garden
cendrars - moravagine
apollinaire - the poet assassinated

had only read some of gourmont's criticism prior to the story collection & wasn't that impressed by it (theophile gautier did that kind of thing better!), still interested in reading the novel of his that arthur ransome translated though.

Jean De Florette, Pagnol. I recently watched, and very much enjoyed, the Yves Robert adaptations of Pagnol's memoirs so I'm happy to dive deeper.

I've now read all the Simenon Maigret novels from 1931 up to 1950, and the absence of any mention of WW2 is quite odd

The way my (German) parents talked about their parent's generation a lot of people just wanted to forget about the era as quickly as possible, perhaps in France as well? (though that doesn't explain lack of mentions in the 30's volumes).

Simenon was accused of collaboration after the war, so maybe he wanted to keep quiet about everything. Also, he didn't publish any Maigrets between '34 and '42, and then only a few for the remainder of the war.

2/3rds of the way through Mason and Dixon

Haven't read it, but I've seen favorable review of Simenon's The Train, about a little guy faced with moral conundrums in Vichy France---maybe also self-justification, like On The Waterfront---?

Reminds me, I recently skimmed NYTimes veteran Alan Riding's And The Show Went On, about Vichy Paris (lots of research, incl. interviews of some who were there, now octo- and nonogenerians): some complex situations etc. of too-visible culture workers, big names and others.

Ive got patrick marnham's simenon bio. Should actually read it. I just need to read these other 20 books by simenon himself first.

^ has his priorities straight

Never get into Simenon myself. What am I missing?

Got

economy of phrase, plot and detail. good at the psychology of ordinary people.

Dirty Snow might be Simenon's WW2 novel - one of his best romans durs. Never read any of his Maigret novels but read plenty of his romans durs and they are excellent, brutal, existentialist works not really very far from Camus's L'Etranger.

Eric Foner - A Short History of Reconstruction

woke up in the night so decided to read something comfortingly easy. Turned to James Wood, THE FUN STUFF and reread essays on Hollinghurst and Orwell.

I finished Angels on Toast, Dawn Powell, last night. It's a strange mix of qualities I have a hard time putting my finger on. The most prominent quality is satire, it is not in a pure form. It is certainly not a comedy, even if it has a few comic moments. It has flashes of wit, but they are not allowed the front of the stage. I'm not sure I'll come to any more solid conclusions about it or about Powell, unless I read several more of her works in close succession.

I haven't decided my next book, but I am eyeballing The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton. I read it originally a couple of decades ago and may revisit it. He is easily the most sympathetic modern Christian author I've encountered.

Yeah, if trying to get into Simenon, go for the non-Maigret stuff. Dirty Snow, Red Lights, Striptease, Three Rooms in Manhattan all good starting places.

Now on Frank Tuohy: The Ice Saints, about a woman trying to get her married-to-a-Pole sister/nephew out of 1960s Poland; low-key, insightful and very good on the dreariness of day-to-day life behind the Iron Curtain.

My favorite Dawn Powell is A Time to Be Born, but I suspect any Powell novel you read first will be a favorite.

I just finished a boring John Tyler bio and finished these things.

I did read The Locusts Have No King about two years ago. Enjoyed it. Not enough to ignite an ardent fandom in me.

Turns out I read it back in 2012.

Reading a battered copy of Huysmans "against nature"

Finished Middlemarch which I loved and happy to note that I made good on my post upthread about revisiting Bolano (Last Evenings on Earth and Distant Star). I hope to turn to The Savage Detectives soon and am also interested in reading Enrique Vila-Matas as well. Has anyone read Bartleby & Co.?

It's really good. Very congenial and clever and bookish.

Seconded

All I remember is finding it enjoyable rather than mind-blowing but I kept it (rather than reading it and moving it on); that's a good sign.

I am reading "All My Puny Sorrows" by Miriam Toews.

I've started The Seven Storey Mountain. It is most definitely the work of a new convert, a young man hugely grateful to have found his vocation in monasticism. He is almost painfully careful to frame his entire life story as a justification of Catholic doctrine and to emphasize the perfect sincerity of his new found faith.

Having read other, later works by Merton, it is interesting to see how much he deepened his approach to spirituality as he passed more decades as a cloistered monk. His abbott must have been a fine man, who understood how Merton differed from most of the monks he oversaw, and who allowed Merton to flourish as a scholar of the contemplative traditions, including Buddhism and Taoism.

Miriam Toews: Her 1st, 3rd, and every odd-numbered book seem to be really good, her even-numbered books all seem to be duds. Very odd.

David M. Friedman - Wilde in America
Colm Toibin - House of Names

How is the Toibin? The reviews make it sound nothing like Brooklyn or Nora Webster.

Based on thr Oresteia!

Thought that was posted on the wrong thread for a second

I could never bring myself to read a Colm Toibin book. They sound so dreary

Ha, me neither. Couldn't even read the one(s) he wrote under a pseudonym.

Oh sorry. Mixing him up with John Banville.

I think this new Toibin will indeed be dreary.

He is not the most exciting writer, in any way.

I started SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY, after all these years owning it.

I understand why people love eccentric amusing Empson, but so far this book is giving me very little of that. It seems technical in an I.A. Richards sense. I am finding it very dense and not entertaining, not always really comprehensible.

I have an idea that later Empson is easier. I read some of SOME VERSIONS OF PASTORAL years ago - didn't really get it but it does seem less technical.

But I think my big problem with Empson is -- though he offers lots of local insights and fun, I just don't understand his main ideas. His sense of 'pastoral' has never intuitively made any sense to me, and his senses of ambiguity don't seem to click for me either.

Toibin is one of my favorite writers, particularly when he writes short fiction.

Banville is dreary, yeah.

> John Darnielle, Universal Harvester

Kazuo Ishiguro likes it:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/08/hot-books-summer-reads-holiday-writers-recommend

Ishiguro OTM.

Terry Pratchett Pyramids
not sure if first 11 pages of this are missing or not. Library copy that I've had out for months and am only just getting around to reading.
Events in the Assassins guild college.

Memoirs of A Geezer Jah Wobble
think I mainly picked this up because of teh p.I.L. connections but am getting interested in his solo stuff, probably should have been already.

The Philosopher's Stone Peter Marshall
picked this up from a sale years ago. Got about 100 pages into it then started reading something else.
Thought I'd give it another shot.
History of the transforming object, starts with an ancient Chinese tomb being opened and the lady inside still being perfectly preserved. he then looks at similar beliefs across the globe and across history ancient to modern going through alchemy etc etc.
Should be really interesting.

Wholly without warrant or authorization, I have initiated a new WAYR thread: Heavens! Look at the Time: What Are You Reading During This Summer of 2017?.

I am hoping ILB will soon occupy it, like a hermit crab seeking a new shell, and adorn it with our usual literate observations.

And for the people who use www.ilxor.com, not those heathens who use just ilxor.com

Heavens! Look at the Time: What Are You Reading During This Summer of 2017?

And for the people who use www.ilxor.com, not those heathens who use just ilxor.com

Heavens! Look at the Time: What Are You Reading During This Summer of 2017?🕸