The Caravaners is very good - comedic novel about a militaristic Prussian gentleman and his wife traveling through the UK being baffled. Quite different in tone from the other Van Arnim I've read, which was more of an E.M. Forster thing.
Also racing through The Way Of All Flesh again for a podcast.
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 11 December 2019 11:32 (four years ago) link
finished epitaph for a spy, not sure if i've ever read a novel with such a wholly useless/unimpressive protagonist. in the other Ambler's i've read the main character while completely out of their depth at least had a little something about themselves, in epitaph there's nothing, just totally ineffectual and hopeless. v relatable tbh.
― oscar bravo, Wednesday, 11 December 2019 17:03 (four years ago) link
In the early going that he boasts of not having seen The Wizard of Oz and claims he never will, which is just...weird?
― Suggest Banshee (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, December 11, 2019 3:26 AM (eighteen hours ago)
i read dyer's book on d.h. lawrence a long time ago. it was good -- really enjoyable -- but i remember him spending a weird amount of time talking about all of the lawrence books he wasn't going to bother to read.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 11 December 2019 22:17 (four years ago) link
new thraed Poetry uncovered, Fiction you never saw, All new writing delivered, Courtesy WINTER: 2019 reading thread
― Fizzles, Saturday, 14 December 2019 08:46 (four years ago) link
Last night I started my first ever Eric Ambler novel, Judgment on Deltchev. It's set in the immediate post-WWII period in an unnamed Balkan country that seems loosely modeled on Bulgaria, but really is generic.
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 14 December 2019 17:02 (four years ago) link
The last of my autumn reading:
Ursula LeGuin - The Left Hand of DarknessAlicia Kopf - Brother in IceHalldor Laxness - The Fish Can Sing
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 18 December 2019 16:41 (four years ago) link
Just finished Brent Weeks The Way of Shadows and am onto the sequel Shadow's Edge. Also about a quarter into Mary Shelley's Frankenstein which is a lot more florid than I was expecting.
― oscar bravo, Friday, 27 December 2019 16:45 (four years ago) link
I liked Ali Smith’s Autumn, with its decentering of time and focus on Pauline Boty, a fantastic artist
― Dan S, Sunday, 26 April 2020 02:54 (three years ago) link
It's been fascinating reading Ali Smith doing this hyper-topical litfic thing - the last in the quartet is due out in July and goodness knows how she's going to keep it feeling up-to-date, it feels like we've had at least three very distinct eras in the UK in the last six months.
― Tim, Sunday, 26 April 2020 09:12 (three years ago) link
(On the subject of Pauline Boty, UK people might like to watch Ken Russell's 60s doc on four british pop artists which is up on player for now: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00drs8y/monitor-pop-goes-the-easel but you should be warned that there is Peter Blake content.)
― Tim, Sunday, 26 April 2020 09:15 (three years ago) link
Gerard Manley Hopkins - Poems and ProseGottfried Benn - Poems and Prose
Benn's essays make him out to be just an appalling individual: the man who keeps quiet and goes about his work, disregarding what is going on outside in the way he waves away at Nazism (not quite working outright with the regime but just keeping his head down the whole time), and finding the eugenicism more than a bit ok. Writes away after all is said and done as if nothing has happened, collecting prizes and acclaim.
Then I turned to his poems and they are often great. The usual riddle.
The Hopkins poems and journals are a marvel tho'. Nature and god find an intensity in a set of poems that were written by this...jesuit priest? No bohemians around. The Geoffrey Hill lecture on the one poem (Monumentality and bidding) is a good companion to read this with.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 26 April 2020 14:40 (three years ago) link
we have Spring 2020 'What Are You Reading?' thread now. we're right up with times:
"And sport no more seen / On the darkening green" -- What are you reading SPRING 2020?
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 26 April 2020 16:56 (three years ago) link
Ah thanks didn't read the title
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 26 April 2020 19:45 (three years ago) link
lock thread...
― koogs, Sunday, 26 April 2020 20:10 (three years ago) link