What are you currently reading?

[Mandryka]

I'm reading it actually in Finnish.

I just fell off my chair!

[SimonNZ]

Oh but the best bits have to be those comic scenes with Charlus. Especially his relationship with Charles Morel.

This is maybe the difference between you and me, Simon. You read it for the poetic evocations of innocence. I read it for the sex and violence!

Ha! I actually find Charlus to be a kind of tragic figure, even early on. I see the humour in the writing, but I just feel sad.

The section in the second book on Elstir's art is probably my most re-read stand alone bit from the whole work.

[ritter]

I'd also be interested to know which paragraph that is.

It's the last paragraph of Autour de Mme. Swann (Madame Swann at Home), which closes with this beauty (in the C. K. Scott Moncrieff translation):

"And as the average span of life, the relative longevity of our memories of poetical sensations is much greater than that of our memories of what the heart has suffered, long after the sorrows that I once felt on Gilberte's account have faded and vanished, there has survived them the pleasure that I still derive—whenever I close my eyes and read, as it were upon the face of a sundial, the minutes that are recorded between a quarter past twelve and one o'clock in the month of May—from seeing myself once again strolling and talking thus with Mme. Swann beneath her parasol, as though in the coloured shade of a wistaria bower."

(Apologies to AlberichUndHagen for this spoiler of sorts  )

[SimonNZ]

Lovely. Thanks.

[Mandryka]

I very much liked Une aussi longue absence (not directed by her, but by Henri Colpi, the original script is by Duras, though)

Very good, fabulous acting from Georges Wilson. I also tried Vera Baxter, but somehow I was a bit put off by Gérard Depardieu (who normally I can take, but not here, not today, too strong a presence somehow.)

But I'm with you, I think, the most thought provoking one I've seen so far is Le Navire Night.

[ritter]

Very good, fabulous acting from Georges Wilson. I also tried Vera Baxter, but somehow I was a bit put off by Gérard Depardieu (who normally I can take, but not here, not today, too strong a presence somehow.)

But I'm with you, I think, the most thought provoking one I've seen so far is Le Navire Night.

Glad you've enjoyed those films, Mandryka. TBH, I didn't appreciate  Baxter, Vera Baxter much either, but not because of Depardieu, but for the film itself. I recall that the incessant repetition of the theme song (a piano piece, think) was terribly irritating.

[aligreto]

Atget: Paris





More perusing than reading.

[ritter]

First approach to the work of Claude Simon, with Le jardin des plantes.

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I had meant to read some Simon for years, but kept putting it off. Then, last summer, a reference to Le jardin des plantes (by now, I don't even remember where  ), made me order the first volume of his collected works in the Pléiade edition. When I got it, the peculiar page lay-out of this work appeared daunting to me, and I kept postponing reading it. It's about time now... Voyons.

[Mandryka]

Le Jardin des Plantes is a late  one, maybe the last, and it contains references to previous novels. In fact it was the first one I read too.

[ritter]

Le Jardin des Plantes is a late  one, maybe the last, and it contains references to previous novels. In fact it was the first one I read too.

Yep. I now remember that the book was mentioned in some article on modern painting, as apparently it tells - in a humorous tone - the first private performance of Picasso's Le désir attrapé par la queue in occupied Paris (I haven't reached that point yet, as I couldn't much advance with reading this weekend).

Fortunately, the Pléaide edition is profusely annotated, so any reference to anything (obscure as it may be) is explained with a wealth of background information. These Pléaides are absolute jewels, a summit in the art of publishing. 

[SimonNZ]

currently:



a second reading, after discussing it with someone last weekend and remembering all my favorite parts


also on the go:

[SimonNZ]

1/4 through Moby Dick, but finished this in the meantime:



and finding it as good as I'd heard and can easily see how it became a model for the books that followed it, it retains its power even though being much imitated

[AlberichUndHagen]

Moby Dick is amazing book! I would also recommend from Melville Mardi, unfortunately it has never been thought of nearly as highly as Moby Dick, perhaps because the story evolves from ordinary adventure into allegorical one rather suddenly.

[T. D.]

Don't read much poetry, but this one appealed to me.

[steve ridgway]

Don't read much poetry, but this one appealed to me.

I like the title in connection with the photo of Jupiter but that is enough poetry for me .

[SimonNZ]

Moby Dick is amazing book! I would also recommend from Melville Mardi, unfortunately it has never been thought of nearly as highly as Moby Dick, perhaps because the story evolves from ordinary adventure into allegorical one rather suddenly.

Thanks for that. Next time I see a copy of Mardi I'll grab it.

The reread of Moby Dick has been put on hold as I've recently started Orlando Figes A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, and am finding it every bit as good as its reputation

[SimonNZ]

I wont be reading it immediately, but at a secocondhand bookshop today I picked up a copy of Mary Chestnut's Diary, and in the store opened it to this entry:

"The Yankees, since the war has begun, have discovered it is to free slaves that they are fighting. So their case is noble.  They also expect to make the war pay. They think we belong to them. We have been good milk cows - milked by the tariff, or skimmed,. We let them have all all of our hard earnings. We bear the ban of slavery; they get the money. Cotton pays everybody who handles it, sells it, manufactures it, but rarely pays the man who grows it. Second hand the Yankees recieve the wages of slavery. They grew rich. We grew poor. The reciever is as bad as the thief. "

(entry for July 8th, 1862 - page 175)



Ken Burns quoted her extensively in his Civil War series, but I don't remember hearing that one

[Ratliff]

Mansfield Park, Jane Austin. Her most innovative novel, in which a play within the novel sows the seeds of the family's undoing. Ultimately found myself uninterested in the mores and customs of English landed aristocracy. The poor relation, Fanny, becomes the hero of the story due to her submissiveness, desire to be useful to her superiors and deferential character. I found her insufferable, and thought that the supposedly subversive "Miss Crawford" was the most interesting and attractive character in the book.

What I mainly learned there are authors such as Dostoyevsky, Conrad, Faulkner, Hawthorne, Morrison, Attwood who give me great pleasure from re-reading, but Austin is not in this category.

[SimonNZ]

I've read very little Atwood. Which of hers have you enjoyed rereading?

[Ratliff]

I've read very little Atwood. Which of hers have you enjoyed rereading?

I'm not a huge fan of her dystopian fiction. The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace are her great works, in my opinion.