What are you currently reading?

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

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Artem

Compass was very poetic, dreamy, lyrical, encyclopaedic at points. Love story and an ode to the Middle East. Not an easy read, but worth it.

Tesson was a miss for me. A self-help kind of book about living alone with nature.

Labatut was more interesting, although the first half feels like an embellished wikipedia article on physics and scientific discovery.


Mandryka

Quote from: Artem on December 30, 2021, 12:55:58 PM
Compass was very poetic, dreamy, lyrical, encyclopaedic at points. Love story and an ode to the Middle East. Not an easy read, but worth it.


Yes, very good. There's another one by him which I liked, called in French Zone.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Artem

Whishlisted now. Thank you for the suggestion. It feels like the best contemporary literature is being written in French these days.

Artem

First book of the year is by a contemporary author from Colombia. A brutal realistic tale of attachment/non-attachement.


SimonNZ


SonicMan46

Well, some new books - first a hardcover from the History Book Club (member since 1970s) and others new on my iPad (Kindle purchases):

A Brave and Cunning Prince (2021) by James Horn - centers on the Powhatan chief Opechancanough (relative, possibly brother, of Powhatan of Pocahontas fame) - the majority of the relatively short book is about Jamestown (1607), the first permanent English settlement on the North American continent (for those unfamiliar with American history; the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620).  Having read many books on this topic, this new one is well done, concise, and recommended.

The Dawn of Everything; A New History of Humanity (2021) w/ David Graeber and David Wengrow - just getting started and indeed a different approach; expect to enjoy but for more and plenty of reviews check Amazon HERE.

Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19 (2021) w/ Alina Chan and Matt Ridley - have not started yet, but 5* Amazon comments and 4.5/5 ratings on Goodreads (review attached for those interested); since the start of this COVID pandemic, I've been reading 2-3 books per year on infectious disease, and viruses in particular.   Dave :)

   

Spotted Horses

Faulkner, Mosquitoes.



This is an early Faulkner novel, his second published, which predates his focus on the weight of history on Southern culture.

It is a novel that satirizes artistic culture in New Orleans. A wealthy widow plans a four day yachting excursion, inviting members of the New Orleans artistic community - a painter, a sculptor, a novelist, two poets, a literary critic, as well as a friend who is a hanger-on to the artistic community. Also invited is the widow's neice and nephew. The morning of the departure, the niece invites a perfect stranger, a girl she met "downtown" who brings along her boyfriend.

The novel satirizes the hypocrisy and foolishness of the artists, who spend their time getting drunk, lusting and scheming after the young, attractive "non-artistic" passengers.

I enjoyed the book a lot.

Having finished the novel I realize I made a big mistake. I read a Kindle Edition without realizing that passages removed by the publisher because they were too sexually explicit for 1927 sensibilities were restored in the print version I also have. Now I am debating whether I should read it again.

There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. - Duke Ellington

Dry Brett Kavanaugh


Artem

That's pretty cool. Will this make Haruki Murakami even more famous?

ritter

#11769
First approach to the work of Jean Anouilh, with arguably his greatest success, Antigone.


This wartime version of Sophocles' play is thought by some to be an "anti-Greek tragedy". It follows the original quite closely, but introduces new characters (Antigone's wet nurse) and although somehow set in antiquity, introduces modern language and customs (they even drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, drive cars   ;D). In any case, it's beautifully written and must be very effective onstage.

It's surprising the author and original producer, André Barsacq, got away with presenting this in the last months of the German occupation of Paris —it was premiered in February 1944– as it is a clear glorification of revolt against injustice.

Mandryka

#11770


It's really good fun when he's in Waterloo -- reminds me of Voyage au bout de la nuit. The battle is complete chaos!  But Waterloo's over now and I'm asking myself, do I want to go further. It looks like an action novel, but occasionally I think there may be more to it than that (Fabrice seems to be trying to "find himself" maybe.)


Actually looking at Gallimard's blurb I think I'd better press on

QuoteUn livre unique, une somme romanesque, un livre dicté en moins de deux mois et qui est le sommet de l'improvisation, un récit sur Bonaparte, Waterloo, l'Italie, un grand ouvrage politique, que dire encore en faveur de ce qu'Italo Calvino appelait «le plus beau roman du monde». Une comédie humaine, un itinéraire spirituel, plusieurs histoires d'amour enfermées dans une petite ville d'Italie, avec le passage du temps, le charme de la mémoire, les «paysages sublimes», le paradoxe d'un héros qui trouve son paradis en prison, toutes les vertus et toutes les lâchetés, il faudrait tout citer. Manqueraient encore la merveilleuse brièveté de la phrase, et le sens de l'humour. Toute la littérature française en un volume.


Stendhal's prose is good: limpid, lively.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Florestan

Quote from: Mandryka on January 13, 2022, 08:52:03 AM


It's really good fun when he's in Waterloo -- reminds me of Voyage au bout de la nuit. The battle is complete chaos!  But Waterloo's over now and I'm asking myself, do I want to go further. It looks like an action novel, but occasionally I think there may be more to it than that (Fabrice seems to be trying to "find himself" maybe.)


Actually looking at Gallimard's blurb I think I'd better press on


Stendhal's prose is good: limpid, lively.

Go ahead, it's a fabulous book. Gallimard is spot on.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Ganondorf



This relatively unknown gem from H.P. Lovecraft is really really good. I think it is one of my favorite stories from him, ever. The guy was certainly a crazy racist lunatic but he was a genius cracy racist lunatic. What an imagination the guy had.

Also, by Lovecraft's standards, this doesn't exactly reflect the lowest low of his racial prejudices although they most certainly are there.

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

#11773
Quote from: Mandryka on January 13, 2022, 08:52:03 AM


It's really good fun when he's in Waterloo -- reminds me of Voyage au bout de la nuit. The battle is complete chaos!  But Waterloo's over now and I'm asking myself, do I want to go further. It looks like an action novel, but occasionally I think there may be more to it than that (Fabrice seems to be trying to "find himself" maybe.)


Actually looking at Gallimard's blurb I think I'd better press on


Stendhal's prose is good: limpid, lively.

Masterpiece- a story about a romantic young mans quest for meaning of life. In contrast to Julien Sorel in the Red and the Black, who is exceptionally intelligent and beautiful, it seems to me that Fabrice is an average guy except for his social status. Still, the story is exciting and dramatic, and his passionate relationships w women and the nuanced relationship between him and his aunt are beautifully presented in the novel. While Sorel sees an achievement of upper social status as a goal/meaning of his life, Fabrice searches for aesthetic and passionate dimensions in life.

As always, Stendhal proffers his deep insights into the human nature and psychology, as well as the corruption in society.

Jfyi, the below is a fine review article.

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/08/29/reviews/990829.29mendelt.html


Florestan



Jan Potocki --- The Manuscript Found in Zaragoza

One third into it. Stories within stories within stories. My head is spinning.  :)

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

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: Florestan on January 14, 2022, 09:04:03 AM

Jan Potocki --- The Manuscript Found in Zaragoza

One third into it. Stories within stories within stories. My head is spinning.  :)

One Thousand and One Nights is like that. I don't recall any other work that presents stories in that manner.

Mandryka

#11776
Quote from: Florestan on January 13, 2022, 09:35:47 AM
Go ahead, it's a fabulous book. Gallimard is spot on.

I'm at page 240 (out of about 700.)

Anyway I've been listening to this

https://www.youtube.com/v/rTvfO-Jveg0&ab_channel=pianushko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTvfO-Jveg0&ab_channel=pianushko

and this phrase of Stendhal's came to mind: une teinte de douce mélancolie et de résignation.

L'imagination est touchée par le son lointain de la cloche de quelque petit village caché sous les arbres : ces sons portés sur les eaux qui les adoucissent prennent une teinte de douce mélancolie et de résignation, et semblent dire à l'homme : la vie s'enfuit, ne te montre donc point si difficile envers le bonheur qui se présente hâte-toi de jouir.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

ritter

#11777
Starting Georges Bernanos'novel Monsieur Ouine.



Bernanos, one of the great French catholic writers of the 20th century, took 10 years to finish this novel, considered an extremely pessimistic work, but also kind of a literary tour de force. The works by Bernanos I've read in the past, Diary of a Country Priest (on which Robert Bresson's stunning film is based), Dialogues des Carmélites (used by Poulenc as libretto for his opera) and his book on the Spanish civil war —which he experienced first-hand—, Les Grands cimetières sous la lune, have been quite impressive. The latter is an extremely interesting pamphlet: Bernanos, a catholic of conservative tendencies, initially sympathised with Franco's uprising, but soon became disenchanted and revolted by the repression he was seeing in Majorca (where he was living), and scandalised by the Catholic Church's condoning of the excesses being perpetrated. This very honest stance caused Bernanos to be rejected by the French right-wing circles, to which he traditionally had been close. Apparently, no less a figure than Hannah Arendt considered the book one of the best ever written against fascism.

André

Quote from: ritter on January 16, 2022, 01:02:01 PM
Starting Georges Bernanos'novel Monsieur Ouine.



Bernanos, one of the great French catholic writers of the 20th century, took 10 years to finish this novel, considered as extremely pessimistic work, but also a kind of literary tour de force. The works by Bernanos I've read in the past, Diary of a Country Priest (on which Robert Bresson's stunning film is based), Dialogues des Carmélites (used by Poulenc as libretto for his opera) and his book on the Spanish civil war —which he experienced firsthand—, Les Grands cimetières sous la lune, have been quite impressive. The latter is an extremely interesting pamphlet: Bernanos, a catholic of conservative tendencies, initially sympathised with Franco's uprising, but soon became disenchanted and revolted by the repression he was seeing in Majorca (where he was living), and scandalised by the Catholic Church's condoning of the excesses being perpetrated. This very honest stance caused Bernanos to be rejected by the French right-wing circles, to which he traditionally had been close. Apparently, no less a figure than Hannah Arendt considered the book one of the best ever written against fascism.

Very interesting, thanks Rafael. I know Bernanos's work by reputation only. Bresson used another Bernanos novel for one his most personal and bleakest (even for him) movies, Mouchette. Obviously Bernanos had a rather pessimistic look on mankind.

Florestan

Quote from: Mandryka on January 16, 2022, 11:34:13 AM
I'm at page 240 (out of about 700.)

Anyway I've been listening to this

https://www.youtube.com/v/rTvfO-Jveg0&ab_channel=pianushko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTvfO-Jveg0&ab_channel=pianushko

and this phrase of Stendhal's came to mind: une teinte de douce mélancolie et de résignation.

L'imagination est touchée par le son lointain de la cloche de quelque petit village caché sous les arbres : ces sons portés sur les eaux qui les adoucissent prennent une teinte de douce mélancolie et de résignation, et semblent dire à l'homme : la vie s'enfuit, ne te montre donc point si difficile envers le bonheur qui se présente hâte-toi de jouir.

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