What are you currently reading?

[Jo498]

Try some of the shorter prose pieces, e.g. "The Death of Ivan Ilic", "Hadji Murat", "The cossacks" etc. There are quite a few ranging from short story to short novel length. They are not all similarly great but most of them masterpieces and also accessible.

I finished the Decamerone. It took me more than one month, so a bit longer than the deka hemérai or 10 days (or two weeks, the narrators take breaks for friday and saturday because they don't want to share lascivious stories on the days Jesus suffered) it takes in the fictional setting and the pandemic is not over. I don't know if the plague in Florence was over in 1348 after these two weeks. Probably not.
A hundred stories. They cover a very broad range. Some or fairly silly or maybe also dependent on Italian word play that gets mostly lost in translation. Many are also rather dependent on very ribald confusions being played for laughs and a handful were probably considered as bordering pornography until fairly recently. (The most daring story is maybe the following: One of two close friends begins an affair with the others' wife. Her husband finds out and as revenge he provokes a situation where his friend has to hide in a chest (for fear of being discovered) and the cuckolded guy then has sex with the others wife on top of the chest. Because they were great friends and this was considered a fairly mild revenge (as opposed to killing/maiming whatever) they agree to remain great friends and set up a menage à quatre to everyone's content!)
Mostly still entertaining although the horny monks and some other tropes are a little old when they return for the third time in a very similar fashion. The amazing thing for me is also the window into the mid-14th century. This was written only a few decades after the Divine Comedy, Boccaccio being less than 50 years younger than Dante. And it is mostly the exact opposite: Everyone is horny all the time and very little afraid of ending up in the first circle's storm...

[aligreto]

Mayle: A Year in Provence





This book was all the rage at one time and everybody read it, except me [because everybody else did at the time]. It describes exactly what it says on the cover. The characters are wonderful and true to life, if something of a caricature. What I found most appealing was the accounts of conversations that were had. I had many laugh out loud moments but I think that one would need a smattering of basic French to fully appreciate the humour.

[SimonNZ]

Still going with Robert Fisk, but in the meantime finished this:

[greg]

Just started this massive undertaking- the legendary, one and only, Umineko no Naku Koro ni (it's a visual novel in the mystery genre).

I say massive, because if it were a book, it would be over 3600 pages! Expecting to take about 2 months to finish this.

What led me to pick it up were: 1) it's related to Higurashi When They Cry, which I love, and 2) the reviews of some people make it sound like this was some sort of life-altering experience that it's so good.

Finished the first half (Questions arc). The second half (Answers arc) is supposed to be just as long. It took well over 100 hours to get through the first half.

My conclusion is... 10/10. Honestly this is so good that it makes most stories, regardless of genre/format, look bad. It's a murder mystery but there is some really heavy stuff that will make you think, to say the least.

But it will remain a sort of "underground" story because visual novels aren't often read outside of Japan.

[SimonNZ]

Started:

[Florestan]

Started:

Does he say when Rome fell? (I presume that by Rome he means not only the city itself but also the empire.)

[SimonNZ]

I'm only a few chapters in but from the introduction it sounds as though he intends to stop at 476.

[Florestan]

I'm only a few chapters in but from the introduction it sounds as though he intends to stop at 476.

Thanks, just as I suspected: as wrong as it gets.

[SimonNZ]

Thanks, just as I suspected: as wrong as it gets.

Okay. Without further information I'm going to assume you see the "fall of Rome" as happening in 753 BC when Romulus and Remus began an era of ecological destruction.

My second guess is that you date it to the arrival of the first "immigrant boat people" fleeing the war in Troy

[JBS]

Okay. Without further information I'm going to assume you see the "fall of Rome" as happening in 753 BC when Romulus and Remus began an era of ecological destruction.

My second guess is that you date it to the arrival of the first "immigrant boat people" fleeing the war in Troy

Wrong direction in time, I think. Remember that Andrei, being Eastern Orthodox, is in communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople but not the Bishop of Rome.

The "Second Rome" fell in 1453 CE. I would guess that is what he is referring to.

[SimonNZ]

Well, yeah, I was joking.

I guessed he was dating it the way Gibbon - who I still haven't read - does.

[Florestan]

Wrong direction in time, I think. Remember that Andrei, being Eastern Orthodox, is in communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople but not the Bishop of Rome.

The "Second Rome" fell in 1453 CE. I would guess that is what he is referring to.

Precisely. The so-called "Byzantine" Empire (a misnomer fabricated post factum for ideological reasons and wrong on multiple levels) was actually the Eastern Roman Empire which after the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire in 476 remained as THE only Roman Empire. The rulers in Constantinople (between 1204 and 1261 in Nicaea) never ever called themselves anything else that Emperor of the Romans (Basileus ton Romaion), their realm the Empire of the Romans (Basileia ton Romaion) and their subjects Romans (Romaioi). It fell on May 29, 1453.  As for Rome itself, it fell into a long period of insignificance in 402 when the capital of the Western Roman Empire was moved to Ravenna; it is in this latter city where Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus and sent the imperial insignia to Constantinople --- in itself an acknowledgment of the continuity of the Empire. Actually, from Octavian Augustus to Constantin XII there is an unbroken succession of emperors.

[vers la flamme]

Just resumed Mann's Doctor Faustus. I put it down about 1/3 of the way a few months ago. I find it extremely dense, but fascinating. After having finished Death in Venice a few days ago, which I loved, I've had an appetite for more of this author's work. I'm thinking of getting The Magic Mountain as well.

[Jo498]

The Magic Mountain is not quite as dense as Faustus although the latter might be relatively more accessible for lovers of classical music. Most of the shorter pieces (like Death in Venice which is probably the weightiest of the novellas and short stories) and most of the other long novels are rather more accessible as well. E.g. his debut "Buddenbrooks" or his last "Felix Krull".

[Mandryka]

Just resumed Mann's Doctor Faustus. I put it down about 1/3 of the way a few months ago. I find it extremely dense, but fascinating. After having finished Death in Venice a few days ago, which I loved, I've had an appetite for more of this author's work. I'm thinking of getting The Magic Mountain as well.

Magic Mountain is the one I've found most interesting, by far.

[vers la flamme]

I appreciate the feedback. I'm going to get my hands on the Magic Mountain I think.

[Jo498]

Although it's been almost 30 years that I read Dr. Faustus when I was 20 and I was maybe a little overtaxed, my favorite is also The Magic Mountain (and I re-read this about 20 years ago). Despite the confined setting it feels less contrived than Dr. Faustus. And one could also argue that Mann tried to put a little too much into the latter book. I mean, 12 tone music and the particular German relationship to music, Theology and the Devil, Nietzsche, syphilitic madness and finally the contemporary history between the wars including the 3rd Reich could suffice for at least three books.
I have not read the Joseph cycle (got stuck in the first book I tried which was not the first of the series but one a friend particularly recommended) and neither "Lotte in Weimar" and the one about that Saint or Pope. But I think I read all the other novels and most of the shorter prose although some of this is even more than 30 years ago when I was a teenager.  I think they are all less ambitious (and less "deep") than Magic Mountain and Faustus.

[André]

I couldn't get past the first half of Doktor Faustus. But I savoured every word of Buddenbrook, The Magic Mountain and the Joseph cycle at least 3 times each. The latter two figure among the handful of books I'd take to the desert island.

[AlberichUndHagen]

Speaking of Mann, I'm almost done with the first part of Joseph Tetralogy. Usually with Mann (as with Buddenbrooks and Magic Mountain) I often find the beginning the least good part. So far, this has been strictly speaking the exact opposite. I liked the beginning quite a lot because it had that certain Mann touch in it. Then it becomes a bit too much like reading the Old Testament itself (I do understand that it is inevitable, this is about characters in Bible after all but some parts of the book are a bit of a chore, rather impressive considering I've read Tolkien's Silmarillion, which I don't find hard to read at all while having heard some people in fact comparing it to reading Bible).

This is not to say that there are not interesting parts even after the beginning, merely saying that it doesn't quite have the quality of say Buddenbrooks or Magic Mountain. During this quarantine I've read far less often than before, which has contributed to my rather slow progress. I've focused more on playing games.

[Jo498]

Buddenbrooks is very entertaining and comparably "light". I have to try the Joseph books again eventually. The most recent one by Mann I read was "Felix Krull" (his last work although began already in the early years of the 20th cent.). This is also supposed to be quite light and it's certainly not bad but I don't think the theme (confessions of a womanizer and con man) lends itself so well to Mann's style. It's quite funny but too longwinded and slow moving for it subject matter. It's also technically a fragment and stops in the middle without really resolving many hints we get early on.