Please use the receptacle provided: What are you reading as 2023 begins?

Finished Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad. Felt a sense of urgency as I had been reading it for 7 months when I realized it's the same book it took Mark forever to read on Peep Show, and I didn't want that comparison. Now started Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich.

Also started Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg, because I can't go too long without a fix of down and out 20th century grifters.

xxpost he made a lot of good records Not only do you get the mighty wry drone of his voice carrying the words, but records are shorter than books! Also, although he did make some effective unaccompanied albums, esp. his ESP-DISK, Call Me Burroughs, peak years bought added value via appropriate music of Material, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, R.E.M., Kurt Cobain, and Hal Willner, among others.

So I'd much rather listen than read much more, but although his texts could push racism and misogyny past too-hip irony and socially relevant-to-over-the-top satire, including of his own cosmic comic strip reels and jabs, you could say the same for some of Celine's antisemitic forays: there's still something convincingly repulsive in there at times.

Although Burroughs' voice as a writer, on the page, also can convey a lifelong struggle with what he identifies as systems of control, especially heroin and language, and the confounding existence of women: sometimes he seems to be writing around the awareness of having killed his wife---agreeing to play William Tell with his pistol while wasted----but what the hell was he of all people doing with a wife?? Some said the kid wasn't his, but sure looked like him, whaa--life is complicated---again, not to let him off the hook, but he surely could twist on it---

you could say the same for some of Celine's antisemitic forays: there's still something convincingly repulsive in there at times.

He sometimes *seems* to get possibly deliberately crazy, ridiculous with it,and/or he can't help it, just feels so good to rub out faces in it, so what I meant to say re pushing past (or through irony and satire, more in Burroughs' writing than that of Celine, but some kind of compulsion in both cases---coming full circle to basic badness---

But meanwhile, in the reading experience, small distinctions can make for bumps I feel, however much it matters or doesn't (Celine could maybe give himself a pass, be the smugly virtuous physician when not writing; Burroughs doesn't have that, and can convey that sense of writing around, of droning over and pushing past anxiety and chaos, building his own system of control for the moment, over and over again)

Also, Celine concentrated most of his anti-semitic writing in what he called his pamphlets, actually three full-length books, evil gutter clowning: let me entertain you, shock you and invite you on a wild ride---with his *relatively* non-tainted novels of universal futility kept acceptable enough as Literature (though he still loved to rant about Jews in interviews etc.), thus giving himself another pass of sorts.

It’s a pass insofar as a lot of ppl will only read the novels and not see the other stuff, otherwise it has the opposite effect: by putting the bulk of the antisemitism in the direct form of pamphlets there is zero plausible deniability, no outsize literary character to hide behind

& I’ve only read some Burroughs but the misogyny tends to be more diffused in the corpus right, so it’s less clear cut than with céline

otoh he did fucking kill a woman

Relevant, I’ve been bad at posting my reading itt but earlier this year I read the big new céline bio & found it really didn’t tackle that stuff well; the author bemoans the neverending “céline culture wars” in a way that suggests he’s somehow moved beyond it but he doesn’t really do anything at all different: c wrote some great books but his antisemitism cannot be ignored but he wrote some great books but

This leads to a bizarre section at the end where he tries to outline ways to resolve the argument (which is already absurd, there’s no way these debates stop happening while céline is still being published, either he is forgotten forever or the debates go on sorry if it bores you pal) and — no shit — one of his suggestions is that we consider the true objective worth of the books only, by looking at the prices his books go for at auction! It’s probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read in a book tbh

Was that bio by Damian Catani?

That’s the one yeah

Ah ok, that's a shame - read bits of it (the early chapters) but didn't finish.

The book has this gap bcz since it was published these 'new' novels have been discovered. Not that it would make that much of a difference.

o.nate, Martin Amis wrote a review about Burroughs in about 1980 that could interest you.

Thanks, I think I found it: "William Burroughs: The Bad Bits" from the New Statesman (1977). I liked this analogy:

Reading him is like staring for a week at a featureless sky; every few hours a bird will come into view or, if you're lucky, an aeroplane might climb past, but things
remain meaningless and monotone. Then, without warning (and not for long, and for no coherent reason, and almost always in The Naked Lunch), something happens: abruptly the clouds grow warlike, and the air is full of portents.

I can relate to that feeling.

The Wild Boys is the book of his that remains most important to many fans and detractors alike

If I get around to another of his books, I may try that one. Thanks.

The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped by Paul Strathern

leonardo da vinci, niccolo machiavelli and cesar borgia all hung out and went on a hike through emilia-romagna in the autumn of 1502. who knew? this book tells the story in a surprising amount of detail, mostly surmised indirectly through oblique references in their correspondences and notebooks. extremely enjoyable popular history writing

Very excited to start Wrong: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper by Diarmuid Hester before I dive into Cooper's own The Marbled Swarm. The episode of Bad Gays about Cooper with Hester was fantastic, which bodes well.

Glad you found it, o. nate!

Previously on ILB: several favorable mentions of early (life) Burroughs, esp. Junkie and Queer and maybe Exterminator! (he was an exterminator for a while). I still want to check those. Also I think The Job may incl. some I have read when they were published in Rolling Stone: his conversation with Bowie, and his chatty review of Scandals of Scientology (the Church made an example of the author), incl. some of his own experiences with the e-meter, to understand what one did in past lives: an effort toward going clear---something about hiding a body in an alley--he didn't endorse anything except the e-meter, which he considered a very good polygraph. Also would want The Job to include his Crawdaddy confab with Jimmy Page.

Somewhere mentioned smoking hash in an orgone box---was a big Denton Welch fan (not saying those interests were related)

Very excited to start _Wrong: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper_ by Diarmuid Hester before I dive into Cooper's own _The Marbled Swarm_. The episode of Bad Gays about Cooper with Hester was fantastic, which bodes well.

I took four different books with me for a four night beach vacation because I had only just finished my previous book and hadn't landed on a new one yet. I wound up deciding on a bit of fluff by Bill Bryson called At Home, published about a decade ago. Bryson excels at writing books compounded of hundreds of short, pithy anecdotes and factoids, draped upon a flimsy narrative structure just strong enough to sag under this weight, but not collapse.

What saves him is his keen sense of wit and irony in his choice of anecdotes and factoids. They are genuinely interesting for the five to ten minutes you spend engaged with each of them before you move on to the next. It fits the profile of 'beach reading' very well.

I continue, now and again, reading THE BEST OF C.M. KORNBLUTH.

Thread of Wonder, the next 5000 posts: science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction 2021 and beyond

reading Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina -- utterly excellent, part of a trilogy though mercifully not a trilogy tracing a narrative arc as you can't find a copy of the third volume in English for less than a hundred buck

reading Shane McCrae's memoir Pulling the Chariot of the Sun -- I have memoir fatigue and didn't expect to find, in this, a book I think everyone should read; his story is hard, kind of unimaginable, and the writing is piercing -- every page a pleasure, but "pleasure" is the wrong word because every page is also hard going, his story is painful to hear but his telling is stunning. I'm reading a galley, it's not out til August.

I almost bought The Bridge on the Drina at the store yesterday.

I have a musty old hardback copy of *Bridge on the Drina* that I *will* get around to one day.

Funny, I find Shane McCrae’s poetry insurmountably bad, but have always enjoyed the bits of prose I’ve read. I’m interested in this memoir!

I couldn’t make it to NY to see Bob Glück read this past week, so I am re-reading his Elements, re-issued in 2013 nearly thirty years after its first publication. While not on par with his other book of stories, Denny Smith, there are moments of stunning clarity and insight. I highly rate all of his novels, particularly Jack the Modernist, for those who are interested.

Most interesting about his writing is its ability to make me want to write— a unique and powerful gift for any writer to share with their readership.

Several books back, but this one keeps coming back to the spotlight in memory theater: Karen Joy Fowler's novelBOOTH, which earns its brevity x caps via encompassing mutability of family experience, tree of lives, with BOOTH in the face ov history courtesy little brother John Wilkes re-absorbed, as much as possible, into family context, while changing it, another change, incl. the way stories told by one's memory gradually change over many years.
Fowler, known for her speculative fiction with a strong feminist undercurrent, at least, and often with an uncommon sense of the historical, here boldy reaches through the ever-expanding welter of mid-etc. 19th Century lore & troves, apparently authenticated discoveries and bullshit, esp. regarding all things related to the Civil War, and brings forth Rosalie, the least-known offspring of Junius, among those who made it to adulthood,for the center of the chronicle's first section. On an isolated homestead, she minds her little sibs, living and ead, while also sorting out her sense of her parents, with mother frequently incapacited, father frequently on tour, fairly frequently crazy when he comes back. It's not unstressful and often fairly eerie to watch, but it's a way of life, frequently bringing the news from inner and outer spaces, day to day, night to night: she finds a balance.
Gradually, especially when the family moves back into town, to Baltimore--later, as adults, in New York City and so forth--the outer world grows a lot, with Rosalie taking her turns in the foreground, as the young 'uns grow up, each with a very distinctive personality, variations on a theatrical sensibility. John emerges as, while never the best actor, a born dreamer, and joiner of kid gangs he romanticizes, while gradually losing sense of fair play, also sense, period. Abe starts showing up periodically, likewise other increasingly familiar bits of plot points, but only when necessary, only for a while.

Hester’s book is incredible and while ‘The Marbled Swarm’ is a departure in his oeuvre, it is one of Cooper’s most accomplished books— its structure, syntax, and tonal shape are a real marvel. Just be prepared for some squishing

Just finished the Hester and yes, it is a really great insight into how Cooper's work is informed by/goes onto inform so much interesting, cool stuff. Delighted it exists.

I continue with SUDDEN TIMES. It becomes very much book about "the Irish in England" - in a certain generation, 1980s, 1990s, going through Coventry, Birmingham and London. Much of its world is that of building sites and labourers. Meanwhile it also develops its very menacing plot of crime, murder, vengeance, fear - but does all this through its meandering monologue which could veer anywhere at any time.

finished Notre Dame de Paris. i especially bought the penguin modern classics ebook thinking it'd be a more modern translation and better quality than random PG-based ebook but the translation is 1974 (49 years) and the ocr problems run into the hundreds, even in the chapter titles. i wonder if i can send them my corrections and if they'd care?

anyway, it's early Hugo and i think i prefer later Hugo. 22 pages of the view from Notre Dame, which is bascially a list of buildings, in the 1400s.

also, over a week until the end of the month, too late to start Germinal (which was the plan) so do i just start on April's list?

I finish Dermot Healy's SUDDEN TIMES (1998). I add:

* the book has a very unusual structure. The first half is set in a 'present day', but with flashes of traumatic memory. The second half is about that traumatising past. OK so far. But the odd thing is that the narrative then never returns from the massive 'flashback' or story of earlier events. The point that the 'present' story had reached is just abandoned.

* the book becomes quite dark. The protagonist's friend is burned to death by acid by, probably, protection racket gangsters. Then he gets involved with similar or the same gangsters and they burn his brother to death. Quite horrific. The protagonist gets through it in a state perhaps numbed, also very disturbed and hallucinatory.

* the voice of the book is a main distinction. It's varied, unpredictable, light on its feet. The whole book is narrated in small, sometimes tiny, subsections, within chapters, within 7 large sections. The voice at times is very close to Beckett; this must be conscious. But often the subject matter is too modern (1980s-1990s) to be so Beckettian.

The puzzling structure makes me feel that this book is not wholly satisfactory, though it is somewhat impressive in forging this literary voice.

Why/how does a Beckettian voice work only with earlier subject matter? I hadn't thought of that, not having seen anybody but Beckett trying it.

Dow, I don't think I sought to imply that a Beckettian voice would only *work* with earlier subject matter - hadn't thought of it that way ... More just that much of the time the book is talking about Ireland in, maybe, the mid-1990s and doesn't feel so much like Beckett. But there are numerous specific moments where it does; where the phrasing and diction are so Beckettian that it seems that the author must know this. In those moments, usually, the subject isn't very modern and specific, and phrasing and diction are rather more old-fashioned.

If you're interested in post-Beckettian writing (ie: somewhat 'influenced' by SB) then this is possibly of interest.

Quite likely (I haven't looked) the author doesn't see himself as especially Beckettian and may well think that's only a small part of what he was or is doing.

As for 'not having seen anybody but Beckett trying it' -- I think it would be fair to point to a host of derivatives, in various veins, from Pinter and Stoppard to, definitely, John Banville, who is sometimes so close as to seem like sheer pastiche. Even Eimear McBride has Beckettian traces, as Adam Mars-Jones pointed out c.10 years ago - and now I think of it she went on to write a more deliberately Beckettian book.

Try also:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/since-beckett-9780826491671/

Thanks! Come to think of it, can imagine Pinter, especially, encouraged by Beckett's approach: the playwright developing a sense of heightened aural realism, voices in his head via "street" cadence and found articulation (individualistic and received), for instance---neither writers' characters are anything like professional or classy, Educated speakers.

Of course, that can be tricky---Beckett can come off too predictably Beckettian on the page---

I started Bowen's short stories and Kawabata's Thousand Cranes.

Dow, FWIW, I think it's accurate to say that Pinter revered Beckett, and thus was hardly even embarrassed by the fact that his (early?) work so obviously resembled Beckett's. There was some slight personal contact between them.

I just happened to hear a radio production of Stoppard's play this week and was - predictably - struck by a certain cadence and rhythm that was derivative of Godot -- again, blatantly and famously so. Again the writer reveres Beckett.

One thing I will suggest is that academic reflection on 'Beckettian tradition' has probably too easily forgotten these obvious stage examples by going off into more rarefied examples in prose fiction (even, say, DeLillo!).

I must read that volume of Bowen stories (which must be about 500pp?).

Gerald Murnane - Tamarisk Row
Hermann Bruger - Tractaus Logico-Suicidalis

Murnane's first novel is dense, exhausting, at times exhilarating read. Not since Proust have I felt such power in the rendering of childhood memory -- a lot of times it feels like a writer, in doing things, is attempting to copy Proust -- and while Murnane has read him the sentences don't feel like Proust at all, he ploughs different depths - even if they can both end up exhausting. Its a hell of an effort too, for a first one.

The Bruger is more of an end of life affair, as the writer goes through 1046 pieces (from a line to a paragraph) of 'suicidology' (he would kill himself a short while after). Weirdly enough its lighter than it sounds: a lot on Kleist, Kafka, Bernhard and other German language writers make an appearance (philosophy but mostly literature). Camus. And...Houdini, his passages on him end up being some of the most moving. The escape artist, almost as if Bruger was writing to cheat death for the very briefest of moments.

Finished David Smith’s translation of César Vallejo’s Trilce, an utterly weird but moving reading experience. I had only read stray poems here and there before, and apparently the Eshleman translation is the one I should seek, but I quite enjoyed the somewhat literal element of Smith’s.

I'm reading and loving Calvino's Mr Palomar. Though I greatly enjoyed The Baron in Trees many years ago, and though should be very much up my strada, I always found Invisible Cities and If... a bit too... ethereal?... in their fabulism for me. This is wonderful though - minutely observed and ruminated episodes of everyday life, like a droll companion to Ponge or a phenomenological M Hulot. Particularly liked the horny tortoises and querelous blackbirds.

― Piedie Gimbel, Sunday, March 5, 2023

If we're still operating on a seasonal turnaround for each new WAYR thread, it's time to move to new digs. I'll happily let anyone who wishes decorate the new place with a title and a welcome mat. I'm a bit burned out atm.

Hermann Bruger

*Burger

I've started on Walter Benjamin, RADIO BENJAMIN: a large collection of his writing for radio.

xxp done.

A halo of warmth in the darkness of the year: what are you reading spring 2023?

thx gyac