Tore through a handful of books the last couple of weeks: lidia yuknavitch the book of Joan, Jennifer Egan look at me, chris petit the butchers of Berlin, trey ellis platitudes - all diverting and interesting and I might work up something half intelligent to say about some of them at some point but not today (I will say that platitudes has some of the funniest bits I've read in awhile); and now I'm on page 8 of correction and I feel like I'm wading through tar
― scotti pruitti (wins), Sunday, 18 March 2018 18:42 (six years ago) link
So "Cellists," the last story in xpost Nocturnes, turns out to be a strong finish. Continuing the recombinant flow, we go back to the opening "Crooner"'s setting, the Venetian Piazza San Marco, with the hopeful cafe managers and tourists and pigeons and musos. "The big Czech guy with the alto sax," mentioned by the "Crooner" guitarist-narrator, tells this one, and an American lady appears, with a secret, a talent, a calling, none of them quite the same, keep thinking she's also from a story by Elizabeth Bowen, Katherine Mansfield, even, vibe-wise, Jane Bowen---but mainly she's another driving, veering, purposeful, impulsive, compulsive, improvising self-projecting muse-agents in the winter of discontent, racing the clock or feeling it, at least, one of the ones in all these stories (one's in two).Good stuff. Could be quite different from the novels in some ways, at least judging by descriptions in the endpages of this Vintage International trade pb: grafs re An Artist of the Floating World, Never Let Me Go, A Pale View of Hills,The Remains of the Day, The Unconsoled, and When We Were Orphans.
― dow, Tuesday, 20 March 2018 16:22 (six years ago) link
Jane Bowles, not Bowen, of course! Sorry, Jane!
― dow, Tuesday, 20 March 2018 16:27 (six years ago) link
Just to confuse things further - there's an English photographer named Jane Bown. Here's a picture Bown took of Bowen:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/15/elizabeth-bowen-author-fiction
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 20 March 2018 16:38 (six years ago) link
After dipping into James Baldwin's essays on Sunday night, last night I switched over to start one of his novels, Another Country, Lord Alfred's relative estimations of Baldwin as a great essayist and mediocre novelist notwithstanding.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 20 March 2018 19:26 (six years ago) link
Ooof. That's harsh - Another Country may not cohere, precisely, but goddamn the constituent parts are extraordinary.
― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Tuesday, 20 March 2018 19:38 (six years ago) link
Gillian Rose - Love's Work. Reflections on death, medicine (western or otherwise), love, relationships and philosophy as the author approaches the end game in her battle with cancer. I loved the last 10 pages (they were a strange experience - how is she going to end this? It felt like the middle of the book), in the manner which she turned the density of philosophical reflection into an 'ending' that was one and yet didn't feel like one - of life and learning, with the willingness to learn and live and love - and to the last second. You are sure it carried on until the last breath, beyond the last page of the book in which you are holding.
Now more love - onto The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 20 March 2018 21:54 (six years ago) link
You'll find the letters are rather more chaste and philosophical than ardent. The infamous consequence of their relationship for Peter Abelard doesn't get much play in the letters. Or at least, it used to be infamous. Lots of these old iconic stories are getting buried under the onslaught of contemporary media.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 20 March 2018 22:13 (six years ago) link
I know about it cos it was in The Sopranos :)
― Number None, Tuesday, 20 March 2018 22:43 (six years ago) link
the sexy version is rousseau's julie
― adam, Wednesday, 21 March 2018 15:35 (six years ago) link
Eudora Welty: The Ponder Heart -- objectively this is pretty good, but not sure that my own tolerance for the endless blather of a folksy racist hasn't been exceeded by p35
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Thursday, 22 March 2018 00:04 (six years ago) link
I felt the same way - I pressed on and was pleased I did but I haven’t gone back to Welty.
― Tim, Thursday, 22 March 2018 06:48 (six years ago) link
Haven't read the novels or novellas, but much enjoyed what I've read in The Collected Stories(1982 edition); reliable sources have encouraged me to read One Writer's Beginnings and On Writing, also collection of correspondence w William Maxwell, ditto Kenneth Millar AKA Ross MacDonald (reliables have also endorsed the longer fiction, but I may not get to any that, or any more of hers). Oh and I liked a collection of her photography and an exhibition of same, with some pix not in the book, but related to stories, views of the Natchez Trace etc.
― dow, Thursday, 22 March 2018 19:17 (six years ago) link
Her short stories and photos are definitely great. I think I just have an allergy to the sort of Southern whimsy 'Ponder Heart' is strong in.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Thursday, 22 March 2018 23:58 (six years ago) link
I love this photo she took of Katherine Anne Porter, who i also read some of and loved recently
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/18/1c/1b/181c1b769f2ccd3beaf658448bea8660.jpg
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Thursday, 22 March 2018 23:59 (six years ago) link
Wow. Reminds me: where should I start with her writing?
― dow, Friday, 23 March 2018 02:36 (six years ago) link
'Pale Horse, Pale Rider' is a set of 3 novellas you can't go wrong with. The last one is set during the outbreak of the 1918 'Spanish' flu.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Friday, 23 March 2018 02:58 (six years ago) link
New thread: 2018 Springtime For ILB: My Huggles. What Are You Reading Now?
― Leslie “POLLS” Hartley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 23 March 2018 11:18 (six years ago) link