Winter 2021: ...and you're reading WHAT?!

it is fun to read the goodreads reviews that totally don't get it, or think that it's celebrating the abuses it documents

I gave up on Lincoln in the Bardo last night.

As far as I read, the qualities of his imagined version of the bardo was the most interesting feature of the book and by 100 pages in, that particular feature was fixed and its continuing interest was exhausted. As befits ghosts trapped in the bardo, all the characters are unhappy and tormented by some aspect of their earthly life which they obsess about endlessly. This tends to make each character very sketchy and one-note, which Saunders seems to understand, because he keeps multiplying them.

All this was very keenly imagined and depicted. My difficulty was that such characters became extremely tedious company, no matter how many of them I was introduced to. I just couldn't stick to it. NB: Many ILBers enjoyed this book, so take this opinion as personal to me.

I think Piedie Gimbel's link is good.

‘I think it’s generational jealousy really,’ said Moneyshire when asked about Carol Oates’ comments. ‘The typical reader of Oates’s time, the olden days, was probably wealthy, had a lot of time on their hands, maybe had a few slaves and could devote a lot of time to big complicated books. Whereas now, because of the internet, we don’t have to spend hours evoking trauma. We can just write the word ‘trauma’ on a page of spotless creamy paper, with a grainy black and white image of some twigs or a bruised leg – and that really does the same job.’

Just read The Fourth Island by Sarah Tolmie, which I saw recommended on Reddit, of all places. A novella about a fourth Aran Island, existing out of time and hidden from almost everyone, on which lost and despairing people occasionally wash up and find themselves fixed in certain ways. It’s written in a kind of fragmented folktale style, skipping backwards and forwards in different characters’ lives. I thought it was quite lovely.

That sounds quite good!

My experience with Lincoln in the Bardo is that is gets more fluid and readable later on - it really starts by throwing the format and eccentricities at you but coheres much more in the second half.

I finished Garth Greenwell's Cleanness, which is a book I appreciated, and then Patricia Lockwood - No One Is Talking About This, which a lot of people here are talking about, also a good example of "starts by throwing the format and eccentricities at you but coheres much more in the second half."

Currently reading: Kelly Link - Get Into Trouble.

Cleanness was uneven, as a series of anecdotes might be. The first couple were the best.

Brad, Guide and Period are....uh...probably the most insane of the Miles cycle. That line you posted is one of my favorites, too, lol.

Autofiction can be fine, imho... I was taught by two of the main members of the New Narrative school, so I have some bias, yes. But a lot of more mainstream autofiction seems a little lazy and/or suspect, and the oversaturation of the market with that type of stuff is a real thing.

Also, I fucking hate Gore Vidal, even before I read that quote for the first time today. Ghastly misogynist shite.

you have more of a talent for hating than I do

Might very well be true.

Regarding your experience with LitB, I will honestly say that I think Saunders is a masterful short story writer, and a pretty middling to mediocre novelist. And that's okay!

(As in, I also didn't care for LitB, thought it was a novella-length book that he stretched out interminably)

i'm half way through shuggie bain. so far it's been a mixture of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5VaPQflLq0

and comic scenes that are about as funny as a bbc1 comedy for old people, and extremely light and superficial melodrama. i understand it gets better, so i'm going to stick with it, but staggered it won so many prizes tbh.

Regarding your experience with LitB, I will honestly say that I think Saunders is a masterful short story writer, and a pretty middling to mediocre novelist. And that's okay!

― it's like edging for your mind (the table is the table), Friday, March 19, 2021 10:33 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

fundamentally agree with this even though i enjoyed bardo more than expected (likely bc i went in with low expectations)

it DOES feel like an overextended novella

Brad, Guide and Period are....uh...probably the most insane of the Miles cycle. That line you posted is one of my favorites, too, lol.

― it's like edging for your mind (the table is the table), Friday, March 19, 2021 10:13 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

two people have suggested that period will be my favorite and i'm so excited to get to it

Period is the most like The Sluts, if you've read any other Cooper. Very much about the lines between online sociality and fantasy vs/ the "real world"

Having one of those weekends, so rather than sleeping away the day I found myself rereading The Mystery of Mercy Close (Marian Keyes). I’ve actually read this before, probably about a year after it came out, but had only meant to dip into it today and instead ended up rereading the whole thing with barely a pause.

I think her stuff is very unfairly maligned, mainly by people who’ve never read her and mainly because of the marketing, cos her subjects are dark. There’s addiction (Rachel’s Holiday), bereavement (Anybody Out There?), all the classics. But even the lightest books are tinged heavily with darkness, as the author has experienced these things herself and writes them too.

TMOMC is about depression - something the author talked about a lot - but it’s also as the title says, a mystery. Not just the titular one in the plot but the things that our narrator Helen, a misanthropic post-crash private detective struggling through the ruins of her life - has going on in the background. Why won’t her former best friend speak to her anymore, what happened with her and sleazebag Jay, why has she ended up homeless?

So I really enjoyed it and all its wonderfully detailed characters on reread, particularly the overachieving sister (been there) and the fussy, overinvolved mammy (been there too), but most of all the long slow tightening as Keyes unravels the plot and as Helen falls apart. Even the tertiary characters in this have life and vigour and the short sharp sentences that sometimes fade into spiralling vague thoughts exactly mirror Helen’s personality at different times. Sometimes it is brisk, sometimes it is slow (but not very often, the whole thing takes place over a week with sparingly used flashbacks). Truly a great way to spend a grey Saturday morning/evening.

Also, it’s March, shouldn’t we have a spring thread?

yes. great idea!

Done and dusted.

Spring 2021: Forging ahead to Bloomsday as we read these books