Topic: What are you currently reading?

[orbital]

This was just standing there in our bookcase. It started quite ok, let's see how it goes.

Well, that turned out to be one horrible book. Never since Palahniuk's Diary have I come across a novel that pretentious 

Started this one today:


I've only read some of his short stories (back in high school) before.

[bwv 1080]

(although not in this version)

[rockerreds]

Carl Hiaasen-Stormy Weather

[Kullervo]

Started this one today:


I've only read some of his short stories (back in high school) before.

Just finished it today. I'm sure you'll enjoy as much as I did. I'm reading Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics.

[Lethevich]

The Merchant of Venice, thanks to the wonders of online libraries and expired copyrights I've been playing Beethoven's late SQs all day and this is the only work that seems to fit them well - magical scenes like this fit so well with, say, the 3rd movement of op.132:

LORENZO

    The moon shines bright: in such a night as this,
    When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees
    And they did make no noise, in such a night
    Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls
    And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents,
    Where Cressid lay that night.

JESSICA

    In such a night
    Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew
    And saw the lion's shadow ere himself
    And ran dismay'd away.

LORENZO

    In such a night
    Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
    Upon the wild sea banks and waft her love
    To come again to Carthage.

[Gustav]

I am still reading Karl Böhm's autobiography (in English), interestingly he talks a lot about his friendships with various Jewish musicians (Bruno Walter for instance), I wonder why that is the case....

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I am still reading Karl Böhm's autobiography (in English), interestingly he talks a lot about his friendships with various Jewish musicians (Bruno Walter for instance), I wonder why that is the case....

Böhm kept on conducting during the Nazi era, when no Jewish musician was left. Guilt?

Irony of history - we now have Böhm's wonderful 'Ariadne auf Naxos' from 1944...

[val]

"Pourquoi y a-t-il quelque chose plutôt que rien"

Several essays reflecting the modern perspectives of metaphysics.

[Florestan]

"Pourquoi y a-t-il quelque chose plutôt que rien"

Pourquoi donc? 

[val]

[Florestan
Pourquoi donc? 

I don't think that an answer is possible. In fact, I believe the question itself has no semantic meaning.

The question belongs to Leibniz. Anyway it is the title of the book, in French. Even if I have not a metaphysical perspective of the world, I like to read different points of view. They are always stimulating.   

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Even if I have not a metaphysical perspective of the world, I like to read different points of view. They are always stimulating.

Yes, yes! That, to me, has always been the only way of getting at an idea of what might constitute a truth: explore with an open mind as many avenues and viewpoints as possible, contrast them, compare them with each other, and with your own experience and insight.

[Cato]

Following a new personal rule that only books over 700 pages are worthwhile,   

I am now reading the mind-numbingly atomistic, scrupulously psycho-meticulous novel Porius by J.C. Powys, where every little twitch, every breath of wind, every peep of a bird is hyper-scrutinized through the most nanoistic procedures of literary psychoanalysis imaginable, and even the dung from cows is symbologized, if not quite mythologized.

I have read over 125 pages, and so far the hero in two or three hours has had short, gnomic conversations with his cousin about Mithraism and Pelagianism, and visited a cave and a tent, where not much has happened except for that cow dung thing.

The book is marvelously intriguing!   

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Following a new personal rule that only books over 700 pages are worthwhile,   

I am now reading the mind-numbingly atomistic, scrupulously psycho-meticulous novel Porius by J.C. Powys, where every little twitch, every breath of wind, every peep of a bird is hyper-scrutinized through the most nanoistic procedures of literary psychoanalysis imaginable, and even the dung from cows is symbologized, if not quite mythologized.

I have read over 125 pages, and so far the hero in two or three hours has had short, gnomic conversations with his cousin about Mithraism and Pelagianism, and visited a cave and a tent, where not much has happened except for that cow dung thing.

The book is marvelously intriguing!   

Another J.C. Powys lover! I have read Wolf Solent and Weymouth Sands (known as Jobber Skald in the US, IIRC). Powys is an incredible writer. He can be exasperating, but he is almost always absorbing.

[orbital]

Just finished it today. I'm sure you'll enjoy as much as I did.

Oh yes, I am enjoying it very much

[The new erato]

I'm reading the thread about how Bernstein said Beethoven was the greatest composer. It's not any good.

[karlhenning]

It's a fair cop.

[Kullervo]

Oh yes, I am enjoying it very much

  From the beginning I was expecting something sugary and sentimental, but it gets better as it progresses.

[orbital]

From the beginning I was expecting something sugary and sentimental, but it gets better as it progresses.

Exactly, I was expecting it to be sort of like Balzac. I am about half way through, he is in Paris now 

[Kullervo]

Exactly, I was expecting it to be sort of like Balzac. I am about half way through, he is in Paris now 

Do you think Balzac is sentimental? I was thinking more along the lines of Dickens or George Eliot.

[orbital]

Do you think Balzac is sentimental? I was thinking more along the lines of Dickens or George Eliot.

I took Pere Goriot as my yardstick  , a book which I had found overly sentimental.