2019 Autumn: What Are You Reading as the Light Drifts Southward?

I haven't read a Green novel that didn't compel me to stop for a minute, return to the start of the chapter, and take notes on lacunae.

I started my third reading of Daniel Deronda and will pick up my copy of Corey Robin's Clarence Thomas book in a bit.

Green leaves little doubt about how we are to view his five primary characters. There is no subtlety in the frequency with which he quotes them directly and then describes their words as having been "wailed" at one another. Lacunae aside, they seem transparently rationalizing, selfish and manipulative.

I am nearly finished with At Freddie's and will resume reading the Henry Adams history after I am done with this short novel.

My impression is that it has all of Fitzgerald's customary strengths of concision, acute observation, and dry wit. Its major weakness is that it revolves around the lives and characters of theatrical people, whose oddities make them appear interesting at first, but when carefully probed, even by Fitzgerald's generous eye, they become rather empty and tedious. It seems wise of Penelope to have confined the book to 160 pages.

I'm reading Younghill Kang's East Goes West, a pre-WWII picaresque about an educated Korean youth trying to make it in North America, in a Penguin Classics edition from this year that came out together with three other novels by Asian-American writers. It's funny, observant, and a stylistic marvel.

― president of deluded fruitcakes anonymous (silby), Monday, October 28, 2019 9:32 AM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

have that, must read that

― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Tuesday, October 29, 2019 12:16 AM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

finished this today finally, after a run of evenings devoted mostly to video games, and indeed you must. Recommended if you like idylls about wanting to read everything, novelistic evidence that people are always the same, lamentations of selling, notes on the Machine Age.

donald antrim - elect mister robinson for a better world

it's a riot

Yeah all of Antrim is great. The Hundred Brothers especially and the memoir about his mother...

His father taught an Eliot course I took in my undergrad years.

I'm about halfway through Middle England by Jonathan Coe. Not sure it will help me understand Brexit any better but so far it is an enjoyably droll domestic comedy that seeks to take a cross-section of society.

i've only read his stories in the emerald light in the air and was totally unprepared for how flat-out bonkers and surreal elect mister robinson is. the combination of over-the-top violence and his measured, beautifully constructed sentences is hysterical

Don’t want to stop reading. started reading The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin and knocked out the first quarter of it already.

That's a coincidence, Silby, I saw a documentary on her last night and also wanted to read this novel!

I would also like to read MIDDLE ENGLAND some time.

I am still reading A KIND OF LOVING. It's very enjoyable. I have my next two novels after lined up already.

Enjoying The Flamethrowers, though the early 20th century Italy bits fascinate me more than the 1970's NYC bits, which as a time and setting feels a bit overexplored. That being said I did read some of that during breakfast yesterday and the place I was at played "Street Fightin' Man" and "Pale Blue Eyes", it was pretty lol.

I've pretty much admitted defeat with Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower. It's partly my state of mind, partly having left large gaps between reading and partly my being unable to deal with books that basically require me to construct a family tree. I've fallen through the elisions and can find it in me to care what happens to anyone.

Don’t want to stop reading. started reading The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin and knocked out the first quarter of it already.

― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Sunday, November 17, 2019 9:41 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

perfect book

the kindness of her spirit inhabits her work in a way that really moves me.

I've pretty much admitted defeat with Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower. It's partly my state of mind, partly having left large gaps between reading and partly my being unable to deal with books that basically require me to construct a family tree. I've fallen through the elisions and can find it in me to care what happens to anyone.

― Life is a meaningless nightmare of suffering...save string (Chinaski),

When I recorded my experiences about four years ago here, I was so disappointed with my first Fitzgerald that I kept away until I gave The Bookshop and Offshore a try. I'm glad I did.

It never surprises me when a book I loved fails to connect with another reader. I've often enough been on the other end of that event, eagerly seeking out a book that was praised by a trusted source and finding no joy in it. Reading is very personal and personal conditions vary almost as much within individuals and between them. Maybe try again later, but only if your curiosity has revived.

"The Fall and the Rise and The Fall" Brix Smith Start
"My First Summer in the Sierras" John Muir
"The Great God Pan and Other Stories of Horror" Arthur Machen

I'll definitely try more Fitzgerald. I'll have a break and maybe give this another go. I've been reading lots about Kant and Coleridge so it's a good fit in terms of subject matter if nothing else.

The Great God Pan is fantastic.

there were certain parts that were particularly great but idk, not sold on him tbh. It was almost comical how deeply misogynistic the first two stories were, uptight British men quailing before the unutterable evil that is femininity wot wot. Just ridiculous.

I also don't find the Wicker Man scary... as a theme, "civilized" Brits recoiling at paganism more often strikes me as deeply silly than as horrific.

I assume Anglo-Paganism as a theme for horror is some sort of cultural working-out of the cultural loss from Christianity's ascendancy. Same with heavy metal.

Machen is certainly ridiculous and reprehensible in places but he does access something to do with the unrepresentable and the uncanny. And I'd agree that this particular brand of landscape horror isn't (only) about class but about loss.

I do like his Arabian Nights-nested narration structures and there are passages that are just fantastic so I'll probably finish it. It's a good follow-on from "Voyage to Arcturus" (which was admittedly even more phantasmagorical and insane)

I've been looking at a Machen volume that was presumably brought into the local 2nd hand/remainder bookshop for Halloween. Think it might be that one, have been meaning to pick an anthology up by him for a while. Think I have an illustrated thing by him somewhere that came out about 20 odd years ago.

Looks like it might be The White People and other stories.

I do enjoy this picture of turn of the century London that he paints, where it's just full of unemployed dandies bumping into each other and trading salacious gossip over endless bottles of chianti

The new Julian Barnes, 'The Man in the Red Coat', is a sort of biography but a very achronological and expansive and meandering one. Really beautifully done, actually: an elegant and witty wander through Belle Époque Paris. Barnes is the only one of those Best Young Writers of 1983 or whatever it was that I would still make strong claims for. And this includes a lot of writing about art and artists, which he's very strong on.

I just ordered that one on the basis of some great reviews I read. Looking forward to it.

It's impressive how Barnes has kept writing books - so many book, so regularly. He's never given up or run out of ideas. I'm glad if this new one is doing well.

It’s odd: he’s not one of my favourite authors, but he takes up a lot of shelf space.

Finished A KIND OF LOVING at last.

Very good: dense, down to earth, droll, thoughtful. Surely one of the best works of its particular genre / movement / era.

Just read Melissa Harrison's All Among The Barley. Wonderful. Written in a slightly clipped arcane 1930s vernacular without seeming forced, and dealing with contemporary issues of English identity in a slyly murderous way. FFO The Falling, Ben Wheatley and the gothic pastoral in general. May contain scenes of harvesting.

Half way through and loving it, the evocation of time and place and customs and atmosphere is just incredible.

Been dipping into the book on Cartoon Music which is various essays by different people on various aspects of teh subject from the beginning of film adaptation to the current day of when the book was published.
Pretty interesting.

Found a cheap copy of Viv Albertine's 2nd book To Return Unopened which I read about the 1st chapter of.
Really enjoyed her 1st book with the repetitive title which covered her punk etc years.

I finished the 650 pp. of Henry Adams' History of the First Madison Administration, 1809-1813, but for some reason I am now forging ahead with the next volume, his 700 pp. History of the Second Madison Administration, 1813-1817. I am determinedly ignoring whatever misgivings I may have about this decision and plowing ahead. For now.

Somebody’s got to

Virginia Woolf: ORLANDO.

I read A Kind of Loving as a teenager because my parents had it lying about the house. Fond memories of it and might be tempted to re-read to see how it stacks up now. I also remember a movie and televised drama, both decent.

I've recently read:
A few Maigrets, addictive.
An American Marriage, Tarayi Jones. I read this because my wife was reading it for a book group. Soapy, not particularly sophisticated, overpraised, but an enjoyable enough read.
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. I picked this up because Amazon had it for less than a quid and I thought I had nothing to lose if I didn't stick with it. Oddly reminiscent of the Jones in some ways, both use characters to tell the story and then fail to give them plausible voices, both progressively bien pensant but pulling their punches the cause of fair mindedness, neither quite as well written as I'd hoped but both moderately entertaining reads.
The Fountain Overflows, Rebecca West. Not great, but a fascinating curio, a window into a certain strand of 20C intellectual fashion, popular fiction from the 50s weirdly mixing the values of the Sunday Post, watered down Nietzscheanism and hints of the supernatural.

Started reading the Once and Future King this morning since I picked it up yesterday. Meant to get a copy for years, having seen the Disney film of Sword in the Stone as a kid. Can see how the book feeds into wanting to make a cartoon like that out of it. Book has a very conversational writing style that the fillm may pick up on.Need to rewatch the thing.
Had assumed beforehand that the book would be a lot more stuffy and classically written.

also started reading
The Walker's Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs
which I picked up yesterday after finding out a local shop has a number of cheap copies of Gooley's books. This turned up being recommended by a speaker who came into do a weather reading talk in the Tulca festival a few weeks ago.

& read the first couple fo chapters of Walter Yetnikof's Howling at The Moon

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. i haven't read all that much genre fiction (bar some hard-boiled detective fiction), so it's not really correct for me to say that i'm not into sci-fi books, but i've just never really given it much of a go. really enjoying this so far, about 200 words in. will be reading the remaining books in the series

rest of 3BP is p different from the first 200 words

Fall by Stephenson, love that guy

Maybe some inspiration here :

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/books/notable-books.html

What I've read this year so far:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKbQ8pBUEAE5YHq?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

I can’t even

This year?! It would take me less than half and hour to read all those... book covers, but only if they were in a much higher resolution.

How does one get through a book every day and a half? Do you not do movies or television or go out? Or are you a speed reader?

A Maigret Christmas & Other Stories

Started reading the Once and Future King this morning since I picked it up yesterday. Meant to get a copy for years, having seen the Disney film of Sword in the Stone as a kid. Can see how the book feeds into wanting to make a cartoon like that out of it. Book has a very conversational writing style that the fillm may pick up on.Need to rewatch the thing.

Loved this when I was an Arthurian mythos obsessed kid. Remember the second volume - relating to adult Arthur - being quite heartbreaking.