What are you currently reading?

Started by facehugger, April 07, 2007, 12:36:10 AM

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Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Have you guys listened to JJ Rousseau's music? I thought that the music was mediocre.

Brian

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on September 20, 2020, 10:53:53 AM
Have you guys listened to JJ Rousseau's music? I thought that the music was mediocre.
Not yet but Nietzsche wrote some pretty prosaic piano music.

Florestan

Quote from: Jo498 on September 20, 2020, 10:43:10 AM
nice but not quite Beethoven.

I guess you could say that about most composers.  ;D

I strongly disagree to making Beethoven the universal standard by which all other composers are to be judged.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Jo498

Not the universal standard but a plausible standard and comparison for 1812-20 piano trios, wouldn't you say? I have not compared with Hummel, Hoffmann might not be far behind Hummel with that trio and by composing a (pre)romantic opera he was apparently more ambitious than Hummel.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Biffo

Quote from: aligreto on September 20, 2020, 09:19:35 AM
As a young man I devoured his books. I am now, as a more "mature" man, embarking on a slow re-reading project.  ;D

As a young man I read several of his novels, now, 40+ years later I can remember very little about them. I remember one of the central characters of Point Counterpoint was obsessed with the Heiliger Dankgesang of Beethoven's Op 132 String Quartet; I hadn't heard the work at the time so it didn't mean much to me.

A colleague told me he thought Ape and Essence was the nastiest book he had ever read, can't remember why or whether he ever gave me an explanation.

Goof luck with your re-reading project

Mandryka

#10145


When she was 15, Vanessa Springora became the partner of Gabriel Matzneff, an author who had published pedophile literature including the diaries of his sexual adventures with teenagers in Thailand, and had published a tract in praise of sex with adolescents less that 15 years old. In the end she dumped him, deciding that his pedophile tendencies would mean that he would stop loving her when she aged. And she was worried that she would figure as a character in one of his books.

This book is her revenge: her revenge consists in turning him into a character in her book.


It is utter rubbish from every point of view - literary or moral. Its only reason for existence is to make a bit of dosh for its author post metoo.

Back to Proust now!

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

aligreto

Quote from: Biffo on September 21, 2020, 02:36:05 AM
As a young man I read several of his novels, now, 40+ years later I can remember very little about them. I remember one of the central characters of Point Counterpoint was obsessed with the Heiliger Dankgesang of Beethoven's Op 132 String Quartet; I hadn't heard the work at the time so it didn't mean much to me.

A colleague told me he thought Ape and Essence was the nastiest book he had ever read, can't remember why or whether he ever gave me an explanation.

Goof luck with your re-reading project

Cheers. I think that he wrote people very well. However, not all of those characters would necessarily come with a high recommendation. A lot of his characters were wanton and irresponsible but he did not try to justify them.

Brian

Quote from: Mandryka on September 22, 2020, 12:17:42 AM
It is utter rubbish from every point of view - literary or moral. Its only reason for existence is to make a bit of dosh for its author post metoo.
I hope the man's "literature" is unpublished as it is surely much, much worse.

AlberichUndHagen

Finished Anna Karenina couple of days ago which I liked.

Now reading some Shaw essay on Ibsen.

vers la flamme

Quote from: Brian on September 23, 2020, 03:35:36 PM
I hope the man's "literature" is unpublished as it is surely much, much worse.

He is quite well published:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Matzneff#Work

Florestan

Quote from: vers la flamme on September 24, 2020, 02:53:03 PM
He is quite well published:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Matzneff#Work

A brazen pedophile was awarded (twice!) a prize from the Académie française. Sweet.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

vers la flamme

Quote from: Florestan on September 25, 2020, 01:27:42 AM
A brazen pedophile was awarded (twice!) a prize from the Académie française. Sweet.

Insane, right. I understand the French literary establishment has been catching some flak in recent years for backing this guy.

Florestan

Quote from: vers la flamme on September 25, 2020, 02:11:07 AM
Insane, right. I understand the French literary establishment has been catching some flak in recent years for backing this guy.

Many of the so-called intellectuals have lost their effing minds long time ago.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Jo498

Basically the whole French intellectual and literary establishment signed a petition for the abolishment of any age of consent laws (it's 15 in France but I think still sufficiently disputed that there is nothing like automatic statutory rape) in the 1970s... They have been libertines since Marquis de Sade...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_of_consent_laws
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/frances-existential-crisis-over-sexual-harassment-laws/550700/
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

ritter

Never read anything by Mr. Matzneff (and TBH have no inclination to do so anytime soon), but perhaps the Académie thought that you can  simultaneously  be a brilliant writer and a pedophile. France (fortunately) is one of the few countries where witchhunts and damnatio memoriae are not applied as easily as elsewhere.


Florestan

Quote from: ritter on September 25, 2020, 02:51:02 AM
Never read anything by Mr. Matzneff (and TBH have no inclination to do so anytime soon), but perhaps the Académie thought that you can  simultaneously  be a brilliant writer and a pedophile.

Apparently, the main topic of his books is exactly his pedophilia. However brilliantly they might be written --- and I have very strong doubts that Matzneff's style is anywhere near Proust's or Cioran's --- this fact, combined with an elementary moral sense, should have give them pause for reflection. But it seems that the aforementioned elementary moral sense, which would make any humble, crass, barely literate plumber who has never read a single book in his life, let alone one prized by the Academie francaise, instantly recoil in horror at Matzneff's deeds, is in short supply among the enlightened, educated and oh so refined French intelligentsia.

Quote
France (fortunately) is one of the few countries where witchhunts and damnatio memoriae are not applied as easily as elsewhere.

Maybe. The fact remains, though, that witchhhunts and damnatio memoriae, while not trademarks of the French Revolution, were applied during that glorious historical event with a tenacity and a thoroughness unparalleled before and which I would qualify as German, were it not incongruous with the context.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Florestan

#10156
Quote from: Jo498 on September 25, 2020, 02:43:57 AM
Basically the whole French intellectual and literary establishment signed a petition for the abolishment of any age of consent laws (it's 15 in France but I think still sufficiently disputed that there is nothing like automatic statutory rape) in the 1970s... They have been libertines since Marquis de Sade...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_of_consent_laws
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/frances-existential-crisis-over-sexual-harassment-laws/550700/

The irony is that Marquis de Sade was a madman whose own family requested his incarceration and he was transferred from Bastille to another prison a few days before the former was taken by storm. And btw, on July 14, 1789 "the Bastille was nearly empty, housing only seven prisoners:[26] four forgers; James F.X. Whyte, a "lunatic" imprisoned at the request of his family; Auguste-Claude Tavernier, who had tried to assassinate Louis XV thirty years before; and one "deviant" aristocrat, the Comte de Solages, imprisoned by his father using a lettre de cachet". Some big deal indeed, taking by storm a prison devoid of any political prisoner...
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

André Le Nôtre

#10157
Quote from: Mandryka on September 22, 2020, 12:17:42 AM

Back to Proust now!

en français ou en anglais?

I have had the very beautiful Modern Library hardcover (1950s?) translated by Scott Moncrief sitting on my shelf for years, but the thought of beginning this immense work is a bit daunting--especially given the many other things on my to-read list.

I have read very little poetry lately. I am looking to diving into either Jim Harrison or possibly Borges, but where to start?

Currently nearly finished with Connemara--Listening to The Wind by Tim Robinson (first in a trilogy. Truly a great writer, but much of the local history of the place is really a bore, for me at least--and I am an Irish citizen. Perhaps volumes two and three are more focused on the natural history and older history (Celtic and earlier), which would be of more interest to me personally.

aligreto

Somerset Maugham: Of Human Bondage





This is a two volume, 957 page novel about emotional immaturity, stupidity and lack of common sense. There is no empathy whatsoever accruing from the reader [me] for the situations that the main character finds himself in as it is always blatantly obvious that he is constantly making the wrong decision. Interestingly, Maugham wrote in his preface "This is a novel, not an autobiography; though much in it is autobiographical, more is pure invention."

Mandryka

#10159
Quote from: ritter on September 25, 2020, 02:51:02 AM
Never read anything by Mr. Matzneff (and TBH have no inclination to do so anytime soon), but perhaps the Académie thought that you can  simultaneously  be a brilliant writer and a pedophile. France (fortunately) is one of the few countries where witchhunts and damnatio memoriae are not applied as easily as elsewhere.

Quote from: ritter on September 25, 2020, 02:51:02 AM
Never read anything by Mr. Matzneff (and TBH have no inclination to do so anytime soon), but perhaps the Académie thought that you can  simultaneously  be a brilliant writer and a pedophile. France (fortunately) is one of the few countries where witchhunts and damnatio memoriae are not applied as easily as elsewhere.

I downloaded the notorious Les moins de seize ans, a tract in praise of young flesh but not interestingly argued and not poetically written. I also got hold of a copy of a biography of Lord Byron which he wrote, which seems rather more interesting but I haven't read it properly yet.

Just started to read this - and I'm dipping into L'innommable

I mean, I take a break from Proust by reading Beckett - what have I become?  :o

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen