What are you currently reading?

[vers la flamme]

Have you read Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time? I just suddenly thought you may like it.  Short in a way, 12 short novels, funny, intelligent and arguably "great." I had a friend at university who wrote a doctorate about it, and argued it was a really major contribution to literature. 

Never read, or heard of, Powell. I just looked it up, and read a little bit of the first volume, and it definitely sounds right up my alley. I would not call a 3000 page epic short though Though it looks like if I read one novel at a time it would be quite manageable, which is perhaps what you mean. Thanks for the rec.

[Iota]

Can't wait to read The Woman in White, as well...

As compulsive a page-turner as I've ever read. I remember reading somewhere that Gladstone (Prime Minister at the time) once cancelled all his evening's appointments so he could continue reading it.

Middlemarch is absolutely worth reading. Unputdownable.

I remember finishing that book and just feeling, well that's it, I never need to read anything else. Really a marvellous novel, full of such compassionate insight, and prose to make the senses dance.

Deronda is always her masterpiece for me.

I saw a good adaptation of that on the BBC a number of years back, but have never read it. Seems I might do well to put that right.

[Mandryka]

Never read, or heard of, Powell. I just looked it up, and read a little bit of the first volume, and it definitely sounds right up my alley. I would not call a 3000 page epic short though Though it looks like if I read one novel at a time it would be quite manageable, which is perhaps what you mean. Thanks for the rec.

Epic is not quite the word. You have yet to meet Widmerpool -- once met, you're never the same again.

[vers la flamme]

Epic is not the word. Comedy maybe. And yes, one small step at a time.

The other descriptor used in the Amazon synopsis was "panorama", do you like that any better?

[DaveF]

Hetty in Adam Bede is such a fascinating character. She's selfish, shallow and vain and does questionable things - yet she is depicted essentially as an impulsive child, not as cruel in a cold, calculating sense. In fact, by today's standards she really IS still a child. Which makes what happens to her much harder to stomach...

Yes, agree completely - and Eliot understands her perfectly, by the standards of the time.  What is surprising, from a feminist writer whose own sexual morals put her outside polite society, is that she is never seen as having been exploited and abused by Donnithorne.  And the casual dismissal of her at the end is very hard to forgive - perhaps her reappearance in Hayslope would have messed up the happy ending.

[DaveF]

Epic is not quite the word. You have yet to meet Widmerpool -- once met, you're never the same again.

His appearance as "the fiancé" in At Lady Molly's is probably, for me, the funniest scene in the whole of 20th-century literature.

[Mandryka]

The other descriptor used in the Amazon synopsis was "panorama", do you like that any better?

Well, it's all and none of Polonius's list of genres:

tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited.

I think it's the same sort of vibe as Anthony Burgess's Earthly Powers -- another novel to read if you haven't already done so.

[Mandryka]

By the way -- I don't know why, but I just thought of Baron Corvo's Hadrian VII!

[vers la flamme]

Well, it's all and none of Polonius's list of genres:

tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited.

I think it's the same sort of vibe as Anthony Burgess's Earthly Powers -- another novel to read if you haven't already done so.

That was one of my favorite bits of Hamlet, which I read for the first time only in the past wintertime. And no, I haven't read a page of Burgess... which I also need to fix. I've been curious about Earthly Powers ever since I first read the infamous opening line:

It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.

You reckon he really based his protagonist on Maugham? (Another writer I haven't read a page of—I guess my 20th century British lit is lacking, though I really like Graham Greene.)

[AnotherSpin]

That was one of my favorite bits of Hamlet, which I read for the first time only in the past wintertime. And no, I haven't read a page of Burgess... which I also need to fix. I've been curious about Earthly Powers ever since I first read the infamous opening line:

You reckon he really based his protagonist on Maugham? (Another writer I haven't read a page of—I guess my 20th century British lit is lacking, though I really like Graham Greene.)

Try The Razor's Edge.

Perhaps David Godman's account of the history and circumstances of Maugham's meeting with Sri Ramana Maharshi will whet your interest. During my long journeys in India I stayed in Sri Ramanashram on a number of occasions.

[Spotted Horses]

Try The Razor's Edge.

I remember, many years ago, enjoying Maugham's Of Human Bondage, but I tried to read it again and fount it utterly insufferable. The Razor's Edge might be a better bet.

[AnotherSpin]

I remember, many years ago, enjoying Maugham's Of Human Bondage, but I tried to read it again and fount it utterly insufferable. The Razor's Edge might be a better bet.

I read The Razor's Edge many years ago, left a mark for years. Would recommend this book to anyone in their formative years. I don't know how I'd read it now.

The screen adaptations, especially the second one, with Bill Murray as the main protagonist, are hilarious in the part about the experience in India.

[vers la flamme]

Try The Razor's Edge.

Perhaps David Godman's account of the history and circumstances of Maugham's meeting with Sri Ramana Maharshi will whet your interest. During my long journeys in India I stayed in Sri Ramanashram on a number of occasions.

This definitely whetted my interest, thanks. I've long been curious about the wave among generations previous to my own of Europeans traveling to India for extended periods of time on quests of spiritual self-discovery, a wave that it appears you may have been a part of–so maybe I'll have to grill you on your experiences some day 

[AnotherSpin]

This definitely whetted my interest, thanks. I've long been curious about the wave among generations previous to my own of Europeans traveling to India for extended periods of time on quests of spiritual self-discovery, a wave that it appears you may have been a part of–so maybe I'll have to grill you on your experiences some day 

 

[T. D.]

I remember, many years ago, enjoying Maugham's Of Human Bondage, but I tried to read it again and fount it utterly insufferable. The Razor's Edge might be a better bet.

The Moon and Sixpence, somewhat based on Paul Gauguin, is rather good. I enjoyed it.

[Peter Power Pop]

The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1 - 1969-73

[Mandryka]

It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.

It was this quote which made me think of Corvo's Hadrian VII - that novel and his Desire and Pursuit of the Whole are life changing. Well worth reading about Baron Corvo's life too - A J Symons Quest for Corvo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Rolfe


Symons, Rolf, Burgess - a demi monde of particularly English and rather louche eccentrics, free thinkers and bon viveurs - which doesn't exist any more except on GMG.

[AnotherSpin]

It was this quote which made me think of Corvo's Hadrian VII - that novel and his Desire and Pursuit of the Whole are life changing. Well worth reading about Baron Corvo's life too - A J Symons Quest for Corvo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Rolfe


Symons, Rolf, Burgess - a demi monde of particularly English and rather louche eccentrics, free thinkers and bon viveurs - which doesn't exist any more except on GMG.

What kind of animal is this, a "free thinker"?  

BTW, never heard of Rolfe. And Symons too, will check.

[steve ridgway]

Lunar Photographs from Apollos 8, 10, and 11 - NASA 1971.

[Mandryka]

What kind of animal is this, a "free thinker"?  

A free thinker is someone whose opinions are not by consensus or dogmatic assertions. It's an Enlightenment idea