What are you currently reading?

[JBS]

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.

That was my feeling the first time I read MP.  It took me two more rereadings to catch onto all the nuances that belie the surface appearances. Mary and Henry Crawford are indeed attractive, but are so lacking in a moral core that they become evil without even realizing it. Fanny's outward submissiveness masks an inner determination to not have any man if she can't get the man she wants.

The Austen book I don't reread is Pride and Prejudice.

[Ratliff]

That was my feeling the first time I read MP.  It took me two more rereadings to catch onto all the nuances that belie the surface appearances. Mary and Henry Crawford are indeed attractive, but are so lacking in a moral core that they become evil without even realizing it. Fanny's outward submissiveness masks an inner determination to not have any man if she can't get the man she wants.

What you are describing are the surface appearances. I wouldn't say that the Crawfords lack a moral code. I would say they have some good intentions but are so much seduced by the wealth and ease that comes to them by default that they lack the moral strength to carry it out.

If I give Austin credit, it would be in the real nuances the belie the surface appearance. Elizabeth's "unacceptable" cynical comments about the clergy are totally justified. Henry Crawford's courtship of Fanny is interrupted when he must go out collecting rents from tenants on his vast land holdings. What is worse, his his profligate antics, or the fact that he is a slumlord whose wealth is sucked from a vast host of impoverished tenants? Things get out of hand when Sir Thomas must travel to Antigua to get his affairs in order. What was he doing there? Antigua at the time was a British colony which employed enslaved labor to produce sugar cane. Probably he was clearing out the indigenous slaves and importing African slaves, which were much more effective. That's what was going on in Antigua at the time. Upon finding out about his daughters fling with Henry, Sir Thomas exiles her from the family and sequesters her at a remote location with the hated Mrs Norris. So the "honorable" sir Thomas is a slave master and human trafficker who renounces his own daughter to avoid "embarrassment" to his neighborhood.

The book is an inditement of the despicable exploitation that supports the landed gentry in England. Now that I think of it, I'm starting to like the book better.

[Karl Henning]

Re-reading Jan Potocki's The Manuscript Found at Saragossa, which, back in the deeps of Time, our Cato recommended. Although very different in content to Tom Jones, I enjoy it in a roughly similar way.

[ritter]

Re-reading Jan Potocki's The Manuscript Found at Saragossa, which, back in the deeps of Time, our Cato recommended. Although very different in content to Tom Jones, I enjoy it in a roughly similar way.

That's one book I love...I first read it after seeing a clever stage adaptation by Francisco Nieva here in Madrid some 20  years ago. Potocki's technique of "a story within a story within a story" (almost ad infinitum) is fascinating, and the text is very evocative and atmospheric. The 1965 Polish film adaptation by Wojciech Has did little for me, but a French TV miniseries directed by Philippe Ducrest (La duchesse d'Avila, from 1968) had its merits.

[Jo498]

The story within a story with so much levels of nesting that one loses count is an exaggeration of a technique already common in the Arabian Nights. It's been several years that I read it but I loved the Potocki and highly recommend it. Not sure how it could really work as a film. While it's not really about books (like Neverending Story or Name of the Rose with famous movie adaptations I rather disliked, partly for the reason that a movie cannot capture the "bookishness") the mentioned narrative technique does not seem to lend itself to film.

[Brian]

So the "honorable" sir Thomas is a slave master and human trafficker who renounces his own daughter to avoid "embarrassment" to his neighborhood.

The book is an inditement of the despicable exploitation that supports the landed gentry in England. Now that I think of it, I'm starting to like the book better.

Exactly. I just re-read Mansfield Park in January, and the thing that's a struggle is that it's just a vicious read. I'd skim over a paragraph thinking it would be boring descriptions of party planning, then my eye would catch onto a word like a fish hook, and I'd go back and discover that Austen was just seething with sarcasm. Mansfield Park is about as genteel as a knife fight. The fact of slavery hovers over everything Sir Thomas touches - and another thing, too, especially with Fanny's beau, the absolute buffoonery and uselessness of the Church of England on moral issues like slavery. Fanny and Edmund are a uniquely loserly pair of "heroes"; they wind up together because they are useless to anyone else. I don't think Austen had much love for them at all.

The enormous and lengthy subplot about staging the play was - even after I pulled up the play's Wiki and read the scandalous plot summary - not interesting.

EDIT: In her fascinating and highly recommendable (if occasionally far-fetched - but in a quite thought-provoking way) book, "Jane Austen, the Secret Radical," Helena Kelly points out that Mansfield Park received almost no reviews and comment after its publication, and even a column late in Austen's life celebrating her body of work omitted it. The general consensus has been that it's because of the book's weakness; but Kelly, and based on some comments in letters possibly Austen herself, believed it was because of the anti-Church agenda hidden behind Edmund.

[SimonNZ]

finished a couple of quickies:



That How Golf Explains Trump book was actually better written and more substantial than the mere chuckle that the reviews and excerpts indicated. It starts with his petty cheating on the course, but goes on to detail shady purchases, vulgar makeovers, false advertising and claims, all the stiffed contractors and insulted locals, and ends by detailing where foreign policy aligns with his golf property interests. Some of the info was familiar but quite a bit was actually fresh. Its actually a well constructed psychological portrait by someone who knew him well and had access to many others who knew or know him well. No kidding: highly recommended.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music by Rob Young

A few years ago, I got interested in folk and roots music, and its rock offshoots, and eventually I wanted to know more about the whole subject. This enormous tome (almost 700 pages) covers the UK side of things in exhaustive detail.

One thing I like about it is that the author doesn't really respect genre boundaries. This means he is able to discuss the folk influences and explorations of composers like Vaughan Williams, Bax and Holst as part of the same larger phenomenon as the later folk revivals and the folk-rock explosion of the 60s/70s. He also discusses how folk music in Britain was a "floating signifier" that passed through a number of stages in its significance: the recovery of 'buried" national culture in the early 20th century, the politicized working-class music of the mid-century, and the psychedelic, individualist phase from the 1960s onward.

There's so much detail here that it's easy to get lost in it, but on the positive side, I can open any chapter and learn something interesting. It's really quite an achievement, and I highly recommend it for fans of British classical, folk, or rock (or all three).

[AlberichUndHagen]

Started reading Mann's lengthiest work:



Based on the opening pages, there is going to be more time-related pondering, a la Magic Mountain.

[JBS]

Started reading Mann's lengthiest work:



Based on the opening pages, there is going to be more time-related pondering, a la Magic Mountain.

From what I remember (it's been several decades since I read it), Mann ponders over a lot of things over the course of the series (isn't it actually a trilogy?).

[André]

Started reading Mann's lengthiest work:



Based on the opening pages, there is going to be more time-related pondering, a la Magic Mountain.

My favourite book, ever. I read it 4 times in the last 35 years. Mann takes his sweet time retelling Joseph's saga - and its many peripheral stories. It is filled with humorous traits that often come unexpectedly (as in Magic Mountain), and the recurrence of character leitmotives is brilliantly handled.

[Mookalafalas]

Phenomenal writing and scholarship. Like his Teddy Roosevelt trilogy (but unlike his rather cursory LvB), a joy to read. It's not a page turner, but does achieve (for me, anyway) novel-like immersion. And I've always rather disliked Edison.
[asin]081299311X[/asin]

   It's written in reverse chronological order, which as far as I can tell (1/4 in) provides no benefit at all, except welcome novelty.  I read a lot of biography, and it is kind of fun to not start with the parents, ancestors, childhood, etc.   Perhaps when I get to the end there will be some kind of payoff.

[aligreto]

I have just started The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

[AlberichUndHagen]

(isn't it actually a trilogy?).

Actually, it's a tetralogy, however it is one novel in 4 parts, not a novel series in 4 parts. Funny how I am reading at the same time 3 novels among the longest in the world (In search of lost time, Joseph and his Brothers, Les Misérables).

[j winter]

Phenomenal writing and scholarship. Like his Teddy Roosevelt trilogy (but unlike his rather cursory LvB), a joy to read. It's not a page turner, but does achieve (for me, anyway) novel-like immersion. And I've always rather disliked Edison.
[asin]081299311X[/asin]

   It's written in reverse chronological order, which as far as I can tell (1/4 in) provides no benefit at all, except welcome novelty.  I read a lot of biography, and it is kind of fun to not start with the parents, ancestors, childhood, etc.   Perhaps when I get to the end there will be some kind of payoff.

Interesting... I got this at Christmas, but haven't started it.  I'm in the middle of big book on Napoleon at the moment, but this is on the list.  I enjoyed his previous books on Roosevelt, haven't read any others...

[Mookalafalas]

I have just started The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

   I liked that a LOT.  The first has some thriller mystery elements that I had some doubts about, and book two starts off slowly. However, when it eventually moves into the far future, it was the most fascinating and thought provoking Sci-Fi I've read (which isn't much, admittedly).  One point he makes, which I found absolutely persuasive, is that we should NOT be trying to broadcast our presence to ET life.

[Mandryka]

Started reading Mann's lengthiest work:



Based on the opening pages, there is going to be more time-related pondering, a la Magic Mountain.

I'll be interested to know what you make of that, I'm not sure if  I finished it. He certainly had ideas about time and rebirth, and I vaguely remember being a bit put off by it all, but I may well return to it.

[aligreto]

   I liked that a LOT.  The first has some thriller mystery elements that I had some doubts about, and book two starts off slowly. However, when it eventually moves into the far future, it was the most fascinating and thought provoking Sci-Fi I've read (which isn't much, admittedly).  One point he makes, which I found absolutely persuasive, is that we should NOT be trying to broadcast our presence to ET life.

Cheers. I am some eighty pages in at this point and I too like it.

[Brian]

The Mill on the Floss

[AlberichUndHagen]

The Mill on the Floss

Ah, I plan on reading that one at some point too. Btw, I am almost finished with Daniel Deronda and it has been fantastic!