What are you currently reading?

[JBS]

James Joyce, Faulkner, Henry James; interesting that incomprehensibility as a literary movement seemed to peak in the early to mid 20th century, then receded, leaving us with books that we can understand. Then came the incomprehensible movies, such as Mulholland Drive.

They were trying out stream-of-conciousness, trying to represent the ebb, flow, flying off into tangents as we think and sense, of the human mind, observing, feeling, analyzing, in turn and sometimes all at once.  Virginia Woolf was another one of that school, although her sentences tended to be more structured and more grammatical.

Joyce (in Finnegan's Wake) tried what might be called stream-of-subconciousness.

They can be rather heavy going, but I'm not sure they can be called incomprehensible--with the glaring exception of Finnegan's Wake.

[ritter]

In the "Antique and Used Book Fair" here in Madrid last week, I managed to get an affordable and well-preserved copy of the 1944 2-volume edition of Ramón del Valle-Inclán's complete works.





So, I'm revisiting (after many decades) the four Sonatas (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter), which constitute the "gentle memoirs" of the fictional Marqués de Bradomín* (who was an "admirable Don Juan" and "ugly, catholic and sentimental", and seen by many critics as an alter ego of the author). The 4 short novellas (from 1902 - 1905) are widely regarded as one of the summits of modernist prose in the Spanish language.

* In what was a nice gesture, King Juan Carlos I in 1981 granted the title of Marqués de Bradomín to Valle-Inclán's son, "wanting to show [his] Royal appreciation to the memory of the great writer and to give reality to the literary creation of a fictional character".

[Ganondorf]

Started reading The Golden Bowl yesterday. This may take some time as the book is relatively long and with Henry James you need to read carefully plus I've heard this is exceptionally complex and subtle book, even for Henry James.

[Florestan]

In the "Antique and Used Book Fair" here in Madrid last week, I managed to get an affordable and well-preserved copy of the 1944 2-volume edition of Ramón del Valle-Inclán's complete works.





So, I'm revisiting (after many decades) the four Sonatas (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter), which constitute the "gentle memoirs" of the fictional Marqués de Bradomín* (who was an "admirable Don Juan" and "ugly, catholic and sentimental", and seen by many critics as an alter ego of the author). The 4 short novellas (from 1902 - 1905) are widely regarded as one of the summits of modernist prose in the Spanish language.

* In what was a nice gesture, King Juan Carlos I in 1981 granted the title of Marqués de Bradomín to Valle-Inclán's son, "wanting to show [his] Royal appreciation to the memory of the great writer and to give reality to the literary creation of a fictional character".

I have --- and enjoyed greatly --- the Romanian translation whose title reads The Loves of the Marquis of Bradomin

[ritter]

I have --- and enjoyed greatly --- the Romanian translation whose title reads The Loves of the Marquis of Bradomin

Great, Andrei! I'm enjoying the Sonatas tremendously (and the edition I managed to get is an object of beauty in itself).

BTW, last night I attended a performance of Valle's "children's farse" La Cabeza del dragón (The Dragon's Head) at the Teatro María Guerrero (where the Spanish National Theatre Company --Centro Dramático Nacional-- is headquartered). It was great fun, and first-rate theatre. The stalls were studded with golden effigies of Valle-Inclán:

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Universal Man: The Lives of John Maynard Keynes. Richard Davenport-Hines.

[vandermolen]

Universal Man: The Lives of John Maynard Keynes. Richard Davenport-Hines.

We live quite near to Charleston Farmhouse where members of the Bloomsbury Group (including Keynes) lived or visited.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

We live quite near to Charleston Farmhouse where members of the Bloomsbury Group (including Keynes) lived or visited.

That's wonderful Jeffrey! As you know, he was a cultured man who loved and supported music, theatre, literature, fine art, etc. more than economics. He and his Russian wife must have loved there.

[Mandryka]

Just read Gavin Stevens's poetic account of Eula's failed attempt to seduce him. But my real reason for posting is to see if anyone can recommend any secondary literature about the Snopes trilogy. I have a book of annotations of The Hamlet, which is helpful because I know so little about American history and culture and even language. But I have nothing on The Town or The Mansion.

I see that Jefferson County Mississippi exists, and is presumably related to Faulkner's town. Wiki talks about how it was in something called The Antebellum South. This is a new concept for me, and I'd like to know more if it impacts what Faulkner was talking about. This is why I need secondary literature. I've just never studied America before.

I have, amazingly, actually been to Mississippi -- to Jackson -- where I ate grits and biscuits and gravy for the first time (and in the case of grits, the last!)

[Spotted Horses]

Just read Gavin Stevens's poetic account of Eula's failed attempt to seduce him. But my real reason for posting is to see if anyone can recommend any secondary literature about the Snopes trilogy. I have a book of annotations of The Hamlet, which is helpful because I know so little about American history and culture and even language. But I have nothing on The Town or The Mansion.

I see that Jefferson County Mississippi exists, and is presumably related to Faulkner's town. Wiki talks about how it was in something called The Antebellum South. This is a new concept for me, and I'd like to know more if it impacts what Faulkner was talking about. This is why I need secondary literature. I've just never studied America before.

I have, amazingly, actually been to Mississippi -- to Jackson -- where I ate grits and biscuits and gravy for the first time (and in the case of grits, the last!)

Yoknapatawpha country and it's capital city Jefferson, in Faulkner's work, is thought to be based on Lafayette county, Mississippi, and the city of Oxford, where Faulkner lived.

I am originally from The Bronx, New York, which not quite as distant from Frenchman's Bend as London, England, but close. I learned about Faulkner's world by reading Faulkner.

Before continuing with the Snopes trilogy you might consider Absalom, Absalom.

I stumbled on this, which might be of some use.

https://faulkner.drupal.shanti.virginia.edu

[j winter]

Greetings!  Wow, you have just poked into a gigantic can of worms

One thing you need to understand is that Faulkner's work is *deeply* interconnected with the history and culture of the American South, and is often most celebrated for the ways that it comments upon and reflects on that society in all of it's many facets - race, economics, religion, urban vs rural, modernism and 19th vs 20th century ideas of morality... there's a LOT packed into it.  Reading Faulkner without any grounding in US history will be a challenge -- I'm not saying it wouldn't be a worthwhile challenge, but it would be somewhat like reading Tolstoy if you had no prior knowledge of Russian history or culture, or didn't know who Napoleon was -- you could still likely enjoy the story and the characters and learn a lot in the process, but you'd miss an awful lot as well.

Depending on how much you want to invest in this... A good brief history of the US might be helpful as a starting point.  The antebellum period means roughly between the War of 1812 and the US Civil War in 1861 -- meaning the period when plantation slave culture was at its apex in the South.  That period is the foundation upon which the rest of Southern history rests; Faulkner's South is a place that has recently been cast down from that height, very much against its will (think of Milton's Satan bestirring himself in Hell), and one large focus of his work is on how the New South differs (or doesn't) or makes it's peace (or doesn't) or moves beyond (or doesn't) those antebellum ideas.  Sometime it's the main theme of a work, other times it's very subtly brought forward through a line of dialogue or a stray thought, but it's a thread that's almost always there if you look for it.  Which is not at all to say that this is the only thing going on in Faulkner -- like many great writers he's usually doing several things at once, in every convoluted sentence, but this is often one of them.

There are several good literary biographies of Faulkner -- Jay Parini's is fairly accessible, though it assumes that you've read many of his books.



If you really want to go whole hog on the history of Yoknapatawpha county, Cleanth Brooks is the classic account:



I also recall this as being pretty useful back in the day...



If it makes you feel any better, I was born and raised in the US, not in the deep South but in an area very much influenced by southern culture; and I still struggle quite a bit with Faulkner sometimes.  He can be one of the most difficult writers I've ever read, but it's definitely worth the effort.

Enjoy the journey!   

[Mandryka]

Really helpful posts, thanks.

[SimonNZ]

various things on the go:








and given up on early as being all style and no substance - the same reaction I had to one of the author's previous books:

[Florestan]

An informative and entertaining book which makes lots of points I've been making for years. 

[Spotted Horses]

The Black Prince, Iris Murdoch



One remarkable thing about Iris Murdoch novels is that old, unattractive characters can conceive passionate attractions to other old, unattractive people, which can lead to irrational or immoral behavior.

In The Black Prince the central characters are Bradley Pearson, a 58 year old man who has written a single novel and is a retired Tax Inspector, and Arnold Baffin, Pearson's friend and a prolific writer who Pearson considers himself to have "discovered." Pearson considers Baffin's work to be of lesser quality, due to Baffin's high productivity, and decides that in his retirement he seclude himself at a seaside cottage and write his great work. Entanglement with Baffin, Baffin's wife and daughter, Pearson's ex-wife and his ex-wife's brother, Pearson's sister and husband keep getting in the way. As the story develops things get more and more out of control. The novel is in the form of a memoir supposedly written by Pearson.

I enjoyed the book a great deal.

[Mandryka]

Just finishing The Town and I feel ready to pursue it with The Mansion. But my main reason for posting is to see if anyone can refer me to some secondary literature about Faulkner and women characters. What do the feminist critics make of him?

I wouldn't be surprised to find that Faulkner was influenced by Balzac in this trilogy, and indeed elsewhere. Flem Snopes is a Balzacian character, the Rastignac of Yoknapatawpha!  But the women are enigmatic - interesting to think of Eula alongside great female literary suicides - Emma Bovary, Anna Korenina.

[Brian]

I enjoyed the book a great deal.

Thanks for this. The only Murdoch book I've read was After Claude, a stylistically fun but very strange book that delayed me exploring further. This sounds fun.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending. Elizabeth Dunn.

[SimonNZ]

Finished John Le Carre's A Perfect Spy.

Many have claimed this is Le Carre's masterpiece, Philip Roth going further to say it is "the best English novel since the war". I can't agree, though the novel has much to recommend it, and I was happy to have taken the time.

I've still got maybe four or five left to read, but my favorite and most admired of his would be The Little Drummer Girl. (with a shout-out for the unjustly neglected The Mission Song)

[JBS]

Thanks for this. The only Murdoch book I've read was After Claude, a stylistically fun but very strange book that delayed me exploring further. This sounds fun.

Only Murdoch I've ever read is A Severed Head. I have to admit sexual chaos among a bunch of upper-middle class Englishpeople didn't make me want to read more of her.

TD
While at Barnes and Noble today, I reminded myself I have no Bukowski.
So

A selection by John Martin of 200+ poems.
Also saw this is now available in paperbook so snagged it as well

If you've never read his book on Gettysburg, I recommend it, even if you're not particularly interested in the U.S. Civil War or military history in general.