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

Local library is down to two Roths, counting Everyman, in their discards/donations shop--last one in the stacks: Exit Ghost. Are those good?

Everyman is extraordinary and Exit Ghost isn't bad in the horny-aging-writer genre. I loved those years when there was a Roth novella each year or so. Nemesis is the other great one, and The Humbling and Indignation are fine/worth reading.

I just finished the audiobook of The Ape's Wife and Other Stories, by Caitlin Kiernan. Highly entertaining reimaginings of well-worn tropes, as well as some more original ideas. The cast of readers is solid, including Bronson Pinchot, who is one of my favorites.

Just FYI, I got this and most of the other audiobooks I've been listening to from Chirp, which has the oddest assortment of titles I'd never ever consider but end up buying because they are priced like cutouts.

Has anyone read The Dying Animal? It’s another of the late novellas. The plot line is so parodically horny-aging writer, I wonder in retrospect if it wasn’t a comedy and I missed the point entirely.

Thanks! I've already started reading Exit Ghost, which so far has room for some reading as comedy, which may or may not be deliberate, and I like that, also that it's npt overtly joeky. It is implicitly amusing to yours truly that the very accomplished novelist- narrator describes the way that several other (mostly male, all younger) characters have to have things just so, when he himself is that way, also as carefully described, of course!

At the same time, I'm a little put off by the way Roth himself has to set everything in place, especially with the rattling machinery of coincidence---but so far, he's a good enough yarnspinner to keep me going along.

And old Zuckerman needs to shut up a little with some of his oh-so-self-aware motivations--not shut up altogether, but some are more plausible than (more elaborately detailed) others---and as a lifer novelist, an observer and dealer in plausibility, he should be more wary of detailing motivations like cars, of being that kind of confident.

But that can turn out to be part of Roth's leaving room for reading as good comedy. Not there yet, but we'll soon see, I hope (yeah, it is a novella, or close to it).

And thinking back on it just a little more, I see I'm being somewhat unfair to Z. and his creator: whatever his actual range of reasons for a decade of self-imposed isolation in the boondocks, it is entirely plausible that he (specifically) comes back to NYC, now recently post-9/11, to get an operation because he's tired of peeing so much, and he the proud artistic monad now wants to be like and with everybody--he almost lets himself put it in just those terms---also, more generally, despite having triumphed over loneliness for years, still enjoying the memory of that he's just fallen off the wagon, lost his "sobriety" of solitude---and, motivations aside, he's watching himself make wtf impulsive decisions, more and more.

I guess this is a spoiler regarding American Pastoral, so

the moment where Zuckerman finally reaches his daughter Merry in a tenement in New Jersey, and learns that she has been responsible for bombings resulting in many deaths, and sees that she has decided to starve herself to death as a Jain in atonement, is powerful

I could be getting this wrong, it's been years since I've read it, but that is my memory of it

I finished Rachel Heng's The Great Reclamation, about the history of Singapore under British colonial rule and the Japanese invasion in WWII, about its quest for independence and the dredging of sand and reclamation of land around its shores. It centers on a single family.

I skipped Le Carre's first two novellas and have started in chronological order, reading The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1963) and The Looking Glass War (1965), and am planning to read A Small Town In Germany (1968) and The Naive and Sentimental Lover (1971) before resuming the Smiley novels

I am tempted by The Honourable Schoolboy

I will do you the courtesy of not posting to ilx quoted out of context

I finished Alan Hollinghurst's *The Line of Beauty*. It took me a week and it was an absolute pleasure to be part of.

'To be a part of' is a weird construction but absolutely fits the novel's Jamesian palpable present-intimate feel. It's an astonishing feat of close writing.

fwiw le Carré's first two novels are, I'll have said here before, a delight - I wouldn't skip them!

The Line of Beauty, thought Chinaski as he gazed back across the garden at dusk, was something rather intimate. He found himself feeling almost sentimental, like the mother of the bride in a country town on a summer evening, as he realised how astonished he was to have been part of something so palpably, closely present.

Well put, Chinaski

Hehehe. Nicely done, pinefox. Cheers Alfred.

I finish ROOM AT THE TOP. Thinking about varieties of 'realism' and how this novel is a kind of exemplar of a 'return to' such, I remark that it has diversity of voice, point of view, mode - with sections of fantasy (like BILLY LIAR you could say), extrapolation, pastiches of official discourse dreamed up by the narrator, moments of 'out of body experience' where he refers to himself in the 3rd person; not to mention the altered states of drunkenness and passion. A good instance of the nuance and complexity of fictional modes that are readily thought simple and unitary from a distance.

I said that the fact that the novel is set in the 1940s hadn't been much noticed. Actually one critic, Dominic Head, does point it out, noting that the novel is narrated from 10 years later - so it's a late-1950s POV on a 1940s life. Technically that's from a Conservative era to a Labour one, and in this particular instance this needn't be quite an incidental link. The later era is "you've never had it so good" time, and the character's earlier passion for life has been lost.

I return to Sean O'Casey's 1933 play WITHIN THE GATES. It's four acts, rather overlong, each act (or 'scene') showing one seasonal moment in a city park. A range of characters often without proper names come and go. A Bishop, a couple of atheist orators, an engaging young Yeatsian poet, a beautiful, passionate but physically ailing young woman. I don't think the balance in this play is quite right, or that a central action is particularly visible amid the melée. A flaw, I find, is O'Casey's very bad rendition of phonetic English (especially working-class) voices. I believe that O'Casey lived in England by this time, which must have emboldened this approach.

I've only seen the movie of Room At The Top, long ago, but yeah it left a lingering sense of England still marked by the War, finding ways through that, and he meets a fellow veteran of a certain campaign, who was an officer, now condescending to this member of the lower class/

Finished Exit Ghost, which was good enough to be frustrating: I would be following Zuckerman,back and forth, tolerant of his handheld camera/baseball catcher's mask (there's usually a sense of a grid, of wires in the view, but ok; he turns the camera on himself, effectively enough at times), then one of the other characters would get into close-range deposition, spilling their guts in response to his nosy questions---he's the great novelist Zuckerman, and he wants to know! Speaking of xpost rattling machinery: some of this seems good, but there's so much of it---and this is the "real" talk, interspersed with Z.'s increasingly long-ass compulsive fantasy scripting of dialogue with the fabulous WASP literary aspirant, from the loveliest old oil money neighborhood in Houston, which Roth seems to know something about, along with a lot of other things that could have come across a lot better in third-person narration, with characters not having to explain themselves to Zuckerman, which also tends to make good scenes go on too long, as the yadda-yadda format becomes distracting.

(Also he sticks in this long thing about George Plimpton, who may have died while the book was being written, as happens in the book.)(This while some other promising material is left to become merely anecdotal, although pretty good for that.)

I found Nemesis, which I think is all third person, and looks like there aren't any writers in it, as far as I've skimmed. Will also check Everyman; thanks again for the tip.

Jenny by Sigrid Undset (1911). A young independent female painter falls in love... one of those books where I would dearly love to know the thoughts of the author, intentional fallacy be damned. Jenny gets mansplained at by a friend who thinks the most important thing is work (artistic, or otherwise intellectually fulfilling) but all women eventually - given the chance - give it up for the sake of a man. Women are 'completely devoid of self esteem', 'Woman has no soul', 'You admit more or less openly that love affairs are the only thing that interest you'. We don't really hear Jenny's side - 'She thought he was right in some things and wrong in others, but she was not inclined to discuss them' - I don't blame her! But she does seems to agree with his basic idea - 'But that is how we are made - all of us'. One of her friends, also a painter, has just given it up completely for a man and a life of housework. We do hear of a man, her fiance's father, who gave up his dreams of being an artist for the sake of marriage, and a loveless one at that. But he has a job, the housework is 100% his wife's responsibility - and she resents it, but the idea that these things should be shared more equally has not come up. Clearly these women, independent and artistic at the beginning, seem doomed to become the prisoners of their patriarchal society, while the men claim it's all down to biology. I'd just like to know how clearly Undset herself saw things.

been meaning to update the thread properly, but i’ve just picked up the blazing world by jonathan healey, as pre-bedtime break from solonoid and wtf is going on with this dude’s style.

after an enjoyable boost seeing “enormity” used uh.. “correctly” on the first page, i began to realise that there is something terribly wrong with his style, which is clipped to the point of being ungrammatical, producing crippled sentences like

“But it was also fragile and thoroughly traditional. *A place still dominated by the land and turn if the seasons*”

that’s not a sentence my man.

i don’t care much about And and But starting sentences, but their proliferation makes for some seriously choppy progress down the page.

“Population was growing, but the economy wasn’t developing in such a way to cope, leading to a serious poverty problem …”

what in blazes is going on here. the vanished “the” before population throws me into a mock barnsley accent, emphasised by “the economy” shortly after. but lest you dwell too long on that you’re dealing with “but the economy wasn’t developing in such a way to cope” (visions of the economy wailing “i can’t cope!”). better *if* you’re going to do this to have “but the economy couldn’t cope” maybe, but do economies *cope*? you need an implied mechanism there. cope *with what*? “cope with the rising demand for food or requirement for people to make a living” maybe.

then the coup de grace — “leading to a serious poverty problem.” see what you’ve got here mate, you’ve got a serious poverty problem. maybe try “leading to widespread poverty”? perhaps? poverty *is* a problem. goddam fucker sounds like mealy mouthed corporate politician.

that is all. had to get it off my chest. hope it’s just the introduction. feels horribly deliberate. like he’s trying to capture history as a news bulletin. it sounds like he’s writing via a telegraph communication.

“towns were reborn as social hubs”

towns were not reborn as social hubs.

I think that the rule (if it's a rule) that you mustn't start a sentence with 'But' is a bad rule.

It is actively useful and helpful to logical argument and clarity to start sentences with 'But', and correspondingly unhelpful to be forbidden from doing so.

Terry Eagleton, as I recall, has long flouted that rule, which will have had an influence on my sense of these things, since my teens.

Starting a sentence with 'And' I feel is a somewhat different matter, less helpful and probably lacking elegance, but I still wouldn't ban it.

"the economy wasn’t developing in such a way to cope"

Good critique of this. Isn't it actually missing "as"? Needs to be: "the economy wasn’t developing in such a way as to cope". Otherwise it's meaningless.

"The country's population was growing, but its wealth was not, and poverty per head thus steadily increased."

How about that?

I think that the rule (if it's a rule) that you mustn't start a sentence with 'But' is a bad rule.

It is actively useful and helpful to logical argument and clarity to start sentences with 'But', and correspondingly unhelpful to be forbidden from doing so.

Terry Eagleton, as I recall, has long flouted that rule, which will have had an influence on my sense of these things, since my teens.

Starting a sentence with 'And' I feel is a somewhat different matter, less helpful and probably lacking elegance, but I still wouldn't ban it.

Do you mean 'And'?

Does your last point mean: don't make it two separate sentences but one long sentence with 'and' in it?

A watershed had been reached in 1588−9, when a pamphlet war exploded in which scabrous publications under the pseudonym of Martin Marprelate (‘Martin Bash-bishop’) made noisy calls for the abolition of the episcopacy.

now it’s been a while since i’ve read any of the MM tracts but - feel like i’m going slightly mad here - “Marprelate” does not carry any of the insinuation that “bash-bishop” does, right? i mean my immediate response was excruciated laughter, but then i’m not a 17th century expert, so maybe it’s… intended?

Do you mean 'And'?

Does your last point mean: don't make it two separate sentences but one long sentence with 'and' in it?

“why are you reading this, fizzles?”

anton howes, who i think is pretty good, mentioned it approvingly.

I think you're neglecting the consideration that on your model, sentences could become very long, and on mine they could become shorter and more manageable.

There is a place for long sentences when necessary, but in general I think one should be aiming to minimise, not maximise length.

Thinking of the tonal difference that I intuitively feel between 'But' and And' here, I find myself thinking that 'And' can feel journalistic.

MANCHESTER UNITED boss Eric Ten Hag is planning a sensational swoop for England captain Harry Kane.

And Old Trafford chiefs have promised the Dutchman a sizeable war chest to land his target.

Whereas 'But' to my mind can usually be used for the purpose of relatively elegant logical development.

Baudelaire, to be sure, was a romantic, a poet of the halo and the swan, who might have been at home in one of Byron's narratives. But he was also a realist, an urban analyst who was the contemporary of Marx and the early Flaubert.

my model, such as it is, is vary short and long sentences. this writer’s model, such as it is, is fire sentences at you as from a mitrailleuse.

you’re pushing at an open door. i don’t know how many times i have to say i’m not against using and or but as sentence openers. just don’t overdo it.

fwiw le Carré's first two novels are, I'll have said here before, a delight - I wouldn't skip them!

― the pinefox, Sunday, June 4, 2023

ok, I will circle back to them!

just got a fit of the giggles thinking about the phrase “i’m going mar my prelate”. i’m supposed to be asleep ffs. early start.

also “fear about witchcraft was at its height”. “fear *of* witchcraft”.

i’m being picky, sure, (not on bishop basher - that’s egregious), but it’s v choppy. choppy and hamfisted. damn thing reads like a work email.

And/But he's got you reading and writing and thinking and writing some more about it. What more could a writer want, aside from money?

yo pinefox, this is even better:

Baudelaire, to be sure, was a romantic, a poet of the halo and the swan, who might have been at home in one of Byron's narratives. But (H)e was also a realist, an urban analyst who was the contemporary of Marx and the early Flaubert.

Damn!

And/But he's got you reading and writing and thinking and writing some more about it. What more could a writer want, aside from money?

Dow: I don't agree that your version is an improvement. I think it's an alteration, fine in itself but with a slightly different meaning from what I wrote.

Dow was an ILX poster. But he was also resistant to some aspects of the Internet.

Dow was an ILX poster. He was also resistant to some aspects of the Internet.

Both valid statements, but not the same.

I've started Sean O'Casey's 1942 play RED ROSES FOR ME.

And/But he's got you reading and writing and thinking and writing some more about it. What more could a writer want, aside from money?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nu6aGcDeAg

Silvia Federici Caliban and the Witch
So far I've only reached the end of the first chapter. Interesting to read about discrepancies between how feudalism etc are taught and some of the reality. Like how much push back peasants had against their landlords supposed masters. I think things are somewhat simplified in school history :-) so interesting to see the version presented here.
I think this is something I have been meaning to read for a while. I have just recently listened to the Books On Fire series on the book which was interesting. They have a current series on the Dawn of Everything which I also need to read as I think I need to read the rest of Graeber.

How Europ0e Underdeveloped Africa Walter Rodney
his book on imbalance between continents and how the once advanced area of Africa got robbed and backburnered and colonised and all those shit things.
I just read a couple of paragraphs describing the arrival of my dad's tribe in East Africa from further North which si much later than I'd assumed. He's saying 16th century, not sure when I'd assumed but could have been as much as a thousand years earlier so I really need to read a history of the tribe.

Sara Ahmed The Feminist Killjoy's Handbook
Australian author looks into the stereotype that's associated with feminism and explores what positive could be morphed out of that. Very interesting book. I need to read more of her work, I read Living A Feminist Life a couple of years ago.

How To Read A Suit Lydia Edwards
The development of men's formal attire since the invention of the suit in the late 17th century, I think up to the end of the 20th.
A book I think I need a copy of that isn't borrowed from the library. Especially with there only being one copy in the system and at least one person waiting to get hold of this after me.
Great book anyway, got some nice photos of clothing and breakdown of the elements thereof.I think I'm also going to need to read her initial book in this miniseries How To Read A Dress. Think I need to be able to salivate over the pair of these books at my leisure though. & see what I can incorporate into my own designs.

I've started Sean O'Casey's 1942 play RED ROSES FOR ME.

hell yes

with a slightly different meaning from what I wrote.

J Edgar, do you know the play? That's interesting.

Dow: roughly, yes. Just as it would be if 'but' appeared in the middle of a sentence rather than at the start of a second sentence.

Finished Valis by PKD. I'm not sure I've had my perception of a book turn on a dime so quickly - I disliked the first half, enjoyed it much more after the movie was introduced. Let's just say I feel for this guy's (five) ex-wives.

Started reading Sergio Pitol's The Love Parade based on xyzzzz's recommendation in the Winter thread. I'm only 10 pages in but the writing is so elegant and I'm loving it so far.

J Edgar, do you know the play? That's interesting.

I haven't looked at O'Casey since I was too young to understand him but my stepdad was a communist committed to the cause of a free Ireland -- I would try to read him & Behan & all the other stuff on the shelves, fancying myself very erudite & worldly. these sorts of biting-off-more-than-I-could-reasonably-chew moments in my development as a reader were pretty crucial for me