What are you currently reading?

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

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Florestan

Quote from: aligreto on May 18, 2021, 06:24:51 AM
For him, absolutely yes but she, with such strength of character throughout, was sold out in a whimper on the deck of a boat during a very convenient sunset and they all lived happily ever after  ;D

Sometimes strength of character is just a camouflage for weakness. Beside, it was easy for her to be strong while she was not left alone with him and the prospect of a lonely old age; the moment her protective walls fell, she had no other choice --- and possibly no other desire --- than to surrender. She could have very well surrendered in her own house while brushing the carpets, heavy rain outside; the boat and the sunset, though, are much more magically realistic, don't you think?

Quote
Yes, Andrei, you very much are a True Romantic  :laugh:

Thanks, Fergus, I'll take that a compliment.  ;)
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

vers la flamme

I'm going to try reading Love in the Time of Cholera sometime. I probably just wasn't in the right mood at the time.

vers la flamme

Quote from: vers la flamme on May 18, 2021, 02:41:03 AM
Gabriel García Márquez, Chronicle of a Death Foretold



I finished it. Pardon my French, but holy fuck, that book was incredible! A true masterpiece of the Gothic genre. I loved the vivid prose describing violence and disease, and sex of the vilest kind. So many fascinating characters. I reckon this is one I ought to read again and again. I would love to read it in the original Spanish.

Alek Hidell

Quote from: Florestan on May 15, 2021, 10:30:04 AM
As for homosexuality, while I don't care about anyone's sexual preferences and one of my top five composers is Tchaikovsky, I must confess that I do feel uncomfortable with works of art which seem to extoll the virtues of this vice (excuse the pun).

I know this was three days ago, Andrei, but I can't let it pass. Why do you consider homosexuality a vice?
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." - Hélder Pessoa Câmara

Florestan

#10924
Quote from: Alek Hidell on May 18, 2021, 04:29:00 PM
I know this was three days ago, Andrei, but I can't let it pass. Why do you consider homosexuality a vice?

It was a pun marked as such. I don't consider homosexuality per se a vice. What I consider a vice, and am strongly opposed to, is homosexual propaganda and proselytizing  --- and this is the last I'm going to say on this topic. This thread is hardly the place to discuss it and tbh I have no interest in discussing it at all.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Florestan

#10925
Quote from: Florestan on May 18, 2021, 01:45:47 AM
Just started



Mori Ōgai - The Wild Goose.

Has anyone read this very strange book? It builds up slowly and inexorably towards a predictible end which doesn't happen though (because of, well, a wild goose) and  the reader is (1) left completely baffled and clueless as to what actually happened instead and (2) specifically instructed by the author not to speculate about it. WTF?  ???

Anyway, another day, another book.  ;)



Stamboul Train

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

#10926
Quote from: Florestan on May 18, 2021, 09:18:32 PM
I have no interest in discussing it at all.

Disappointing. We should talk about homosexuality Tuesday and Thursday every week.

Quote from: Florestan on May 19, 2021, 01:27:40 AM
Has anyone read this very strange book?

I haven't. In generall, readers are divided on the work. Personally not a big fan of Mori.

Artem

Recently finished


A Christmas story of sorts. I feel it is better to read it during the winter. Will read it again soon.


Enjoyable book, but it could have been much better if the author's intention was not to make an experiment out of it. Two men meet after not seeing each other for a long time and then.. Probably a spoiler after that.


The worst book that I've read this year so far. A collection of ridiculous short stories that lucky aren't too long.


An experimental surrealistic novel. Unfortunately unfinished, because the author died having completed five chapters.

vers la flamme

Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes



My first book by this author; I can't help but to ask, is Abe the Japanese Kafka? I'm about a third of the way into the book and it seems to be a fine absurd, existential drama. Very vivid writing. I love the analytical mind of the unnamed protagonist, which is ultimately futile in dealing with his horrifying situation. I love the vivid descriptions of the dark, fantastical settings.

Alek Hidell

Quote from: Florestan on May 18, 2021, 09:18:32 PM
It was a pun marked as such. I don't consider homosexuality per se a vice. What I consider a vice, and am strongly opposed to, is homosexual propaganda and proselytizing  --- and this is the last I'm going to say on this topic. This thread is hardly the place to discuss it and tbh I have no interest in discussing it at all.

Fair enough. I won't press, although I am left with questions ...
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." - Hélder Pessoa Câmara

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: vers la flamme on May 19, 2021, 05:00:54 PM
Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes



My first book by this author; I can't help but to ask, is Abe the Japanese Kafka? I'm about a third of the way into the book and it seems to be a fine absurd, existential drama. Very vivid writing. I love the analytical mind of the unnamed protagonist, which is ultimately futile in dealing with his horrifying situation. I love the vivid descriptions of the dark, fantastical settings.


Yes, some people think that Abe is like Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia (whoever that is). While I like the Dunes, I haven't read his other works. I must try some of them asap. Mishima liked Abe's works (in spite of the total differences in their styles, themes, and ideology), and he "remained" as only one writer-friend of Abe. Just in case, the below is a WP article about him.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1986/01/20/kobo-abe-a-figure-apart/26b6d4c3-e3c2-4d8a-b28a-55ecf0f3091f/


ritter

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on May 19, 2021, 06:36:03 PM

Yes, some people think that Abe is like Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia (whoever that is). ...
Curious how our perceptions change depending on our background, etc. When reading the names Kobo Abe and Alberto Moravia in one sentence, my question would be "Who can Kobo Abe be?"  :D, as I've read--and enjoyed--quite a lot of Moravia (his books having been in my parents' library from way before I was born).

But that's the beauty of GMG: one get's exposed to things one wasn't aware above previously.

DaveF



I had high hopes of this one, since it's about Elizabethan and Jacobean music and includes walk-on parts for Byrd, Shakespeare, Morley and Richard Mulcaster, as well as the Queen and many of her courtly retinue.  I'm sure the historical research is painstakingly accurate, but the characterisation is non-existent and the writing (admittedly in translation) just dull.
"All the world is birthday cake" - George Harrison

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: ritter on May 20, 2021, 04:11:34 AM
Curious how our perceptions change depending on our background, etc. When reading the names Kobo Abe and Alberto Moravia in one sentence, my question would be "Who can Kobo Abe be?"  :D, as I've read--and enjoyed--quite a lot of Moravia (his books having been in my parents' library from way before I was born).

But that's the beauty of GMG: one get's exposed to things one wasn't aware above previously.

Vice versa  :). Curious about Moravia, and will look for his works.

Florestan

Quote from: vers la flamme on May 19, 2021, 05:00:54 PM
Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes



My first book by this author; I can't help but to ask, is Abe the Japanese Kafka? I'm about a third of the way into the book and it seems to be a fine absurd, existential drama. Very vivid writing. I love the analytical mind of the unnamed protagonist, which is ultimately futile in dealing with his horrifying situation. I love the vivid descriptions of the dark, fantastical settings.

I read it more than a decade ago and I remember not being very impressed, even rather bored --- but I agree about the Kafka comparison. The protagonist is suddenly and unexpectedly caught in an absurd situation and the more he tries to get out of it, the more he is dragged deeper and deeper into it. The difference is that in Kafka there's the absurdity of bureaucracy, to which I can relate only too well, while in this Abe novel the absurdity is completely gratuitous. Not a fan of the latter, honestly.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Florestan

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on May 19, 2021, 06:36:03 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1986/01/20/kobo-abe-a-figure-apart/26b6d4c3-e3c2-4d8a-b28a-55ecf0f3091f/

Most interesting, thanks for posting.

Quoteas a medical student at Tokyo University in the '40s specializing in gynecology, [Abe] was bored. Bored and lazy. He flunked his exams and his teachers demanded he take them again.

"The truth is," Abe told his elders, "I don't really intend to practice medicine."

"Oh," one professor said. "Why didn't you say so? If I'd known that earlier, I'd have passed you." The two men cut a deal. Abe was granted the title of "doctor" under the condition he never practice medicine.

Hah! Nice story.

QuoteAbe gave up directing and writing plays about five years ago. He says one reason "is that there is no country on earth less interested in the theater than Japan."

Which is quite strange, given the long and glorious Japanese theater tradition.

QuoteLike many Japanese intellectuals of the postwar period, Abe joined the Communist Party. He was an active member from 1950 to 1956, but became disillusioned after a visit to Budapest just before the Hungarian uprising. Abe drifted away from the party until he was formally expelled in 1962.

Abe consistently says in interviews that he is opposed to "obsessive" nationalism and the growth of government interference in private lives.

*Communism* and *opposition to the growth of government interference in private lives* are mutually exclusive --- I am surprised that an intelligent person as Abe did not realize that from the beginning. But the again he was certainly not alone in that, and indeed "communism is the opium of intellectuals" (Raymond Aron).
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Florestan, glad you liked the article. I must reread the Dunes. When I read it, I thought that it was like an allegory of the Japanese society and work culture in the post WW2 economic boom.

Florestan

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on May 20, 2021, 10:34:55 AM
Florestan, glad you liked the article.

One more interesting quote:

because of his communist affiliations, the U.S. State Department deals harshly with Abe. Like Graham Greene and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, he has "excludability" status under the 1952 McCarran-Walter act. If he is allowed a tourist visa, it is severely restricted. He must report his whereabouts at all times.

Well, one thing I like about Gabriel Garcia Marquez is that he kept his rabid, unrepentant (and to me wholly repellent) communist affiliation separated from his work; there's no novel of his that can be qualified as subtle, let alone open, communist propaganda.

Plus --- I only very recently became aware of Graham Greene's communist leanings, but The Power and the Glory is, among other things, a devastating critique of a militantly atheist regime --- which actually existed in the Free and Sovereign State of Tabasco under the socialist dictatorship of Tomas Garrido Canabal and his Red Shirts.

QuoteI must reread the Dunes. When I read it, I thought that it was like an allegory of the Japanese society and work culture in the post WW2 economic boom.

Which it might very well be --- but at the time I read it my knowledge of the Japanese society and work culture in the post WW2 economic boom was nil.  :D

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

#10938
No disagreement with your notion of Marquez, but it reminded me of the episode of workers' strike in the 100 Years Solitude. The story is based on the 1928 Banana Massacre. The Colombian workers, de facto half-slaves, of the United Fruit Company near Santa Marta, Colombia began strike for a better work condition and a humane treatment, and the USA gov threatened the Colombian govt to take a military action. Eventually, a bunch of the workers were murdered by the Colombian military, gangs, militias, etc. There are tons of similar incidents caused by the US imperialism/interventionism in the central and South Americas. That's why the communism became very popular there.

Possibly and arguably, the U.S. interventionism may have strengthened the political and ideological appeal of communism.

Florestan

#10939
Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on May 20, 2021, 11:51:13 AM
No disagreement with your notion of Marquez, but it reminded me of the episode of workers' strike in the 100 Years Solitude. The story is based on the 1928 Banana Massacre. The Colombian workers, de facto half-slaves, of the United Fruit Company near Santa Marta, Colombia began strike for a better work condition and a humane treatment, and the USA gov threatened the Colombian govt to take a military action. Eventually, a bunch of the workers were murdered by the Colombian military, gangs, militias, etc. There are tons of similar incidents caused by the US imperialism/interventionism in the central and South Americas. That's why the communism became very popular there.

Possibly and arguably, the U.S. interventionism may have strengthened the political and ideological appeal of communism.

No argument from me in this respect, just noticing the bitter irony that communism, which pretended to act on behalf of, and for the good of, workers and peasants actually killed, imprisoned and ruined the lives of, a great many of those workers and peasants --- quite possibly much more than the USA and their Latin American minions combined.  ;D

It's often said that communism is a good idea badly applied. I think and am actually convinced that, on the contrary, communism is a bad idea applied well --- ie, there's a bad idea to suppress private property, Christian religion and/or traditional customs, and there's no way one can do it other than by state terror. Show me one single communist country which did not institute, and survive by, state terrorism and opression --- and I'll show you a unicorn.

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini