What are you currently reading?

[j winter]

I'm approaching the end of War & Peace -- we could always swap... 

[André]

Maupassant: A Life





This was a wonderful book to re-read [English translation unfortunately] after many years.

Superb. Heart-rending, especially since it is so dispassionately, almost clinically told.

[Brian]

I'm approaching the end of War & Peace -- we could always swap... 

Wow! I looked up word counts thinking I could take on W&P... it's actually almost three times the size of Moby-Dick. So you have the easy end of the trade!

How do you like it?

[Jo498]

Wow! I looked up word counts thinking I could take on W&P... it's actually almost three times the size of Moby-Dick. So you have the easy end of the trade!

But W & P is a far more "traditional" narrative and overall very readable. The only challenge is the huge length. (I have a pbck edition in 4 volumes which might have made it a little easier.) One gets a few essayish pages with Tolstoy harping on his view of history, namely that it is not "great people" like Bonaparte who "shape history" but anonymous forces and chance. Despite that nursery rhyme "For want of a nail" etc. this was somewhat of a new and provocative position in the mid-19th century but hardly anymore and the theoretical reflection don't take that much space.
No sublibrarian starting with scraps concerning war Krieg guerre bellum polemos, no sermon on just war, no ballistics of cannons or chemistry of gunpowder etc.

[Florestan]

But W & P is a far more "traditional" narrative and overall very readable. The only challenge is the huge length. (I have a pbck edition in 4 volumes which might have made it a little easier.) One gets a few essayish pages with Tolstoy harping on his view of history, namely that it is not "great people" like Bonaparte who "shape history" but anonymous forces and chance. Despite that nursery rhyme "For want of a nail" etc. this was somewhat of a new and provocative position in the mid-19th century but hardly anymore and the theoretical reflection don't take that much space.

And IIRC the essay is placed at the very end of the book so it can be easily skipped (better said, ignored, because there's nothing more to read after it). W&P was a real page turner for me.

[Jo498]

It must have been about 25 years that I read War and Peace, so I am not sure. I thought there were some reflections in history interspersed within the book. But while not always a page turner it was a readable books and the only challenge is the sheer length, it's not difficult and not particularly longwinded. (Whereas I got stuck roughly in the middle of Anna Karenina because I was bored to death by the Kitty - Levin subplot and the harvesting or whatever. Although AK is a shorter book and probably even more traditional because it has only family/love stories, not politics mixed with family/love)

[aligreto]

Superb. Heart-rending, especially since it is so dispassionately, almost clinically told.

Yes indeed; a tragic tale.

[vandermolen]

It must have been about 25 years that I read War and Peace, so I am not sure. I thought there were some reflections in history interspersed within the book. But while not always a page turner it was a readable books and the only challenge is the sheer length, it's not difficult and not particularly longwinded. (Whereas I got stuck roughly in the middle of Anna Karenina because I was bored to death by the Kitty - Levin subplot and the harvesting or whatever. Although AK is a shorter book and probably even more traditional because it has only family/love stories, not politics mixed with family/love)

I read W and P at university and thoroughly enjoyed it, although I did get a bit fed up with Tolstoy's 40 page philosophical digressions every now and then. I read it a second time as well. Like you I got stuck with AK and never finished it (I preferred the TV dramatisation with Nicola Pagett )

[SimonNZ]

I've only read AK once when I was much younger but at the time the Kitty-Levin stuff were my favorite parts.

[vers la flamme]

I read Anna Karenina in high school and loved it. Never tried W&P. In trying to decide what to read next I'm considering the Kreutzer Sonata which should be a good quick read, but I'm not sure if I'm in a Tolstoy mood.

Finishing Narcissus & Goldmund has left a void in my heart. What an incredible book. I've started a couple of books since, that have been sitting on my shelf forever, but I'm having a hard time to get into them, Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, & Camus's L'Étranger, which I've read in English but never en français.

[AlberichUndHagen]

I'm approaching the end of War & Peace -- we could always swap... 

Relatively speaking, I am approaching the end of Proust's In the shadow of young girls in flower. The narrator recently met Elstir, a painter. Narrator certainly makes me squirm with embarrassment at times with his relentless stalking. At least in this book he is still an adolescent but I understand he continues his borderline narcissistic and possessive traits even in later volumes when he is older.

That being said, especially this Balbec section of the book is incredibly evocative text.

[André]

I read Anna Karenina in high school and loved it. Never tried W&P. In trying to decide what to read next I'm considering the Kreutzer Sonata which should be a good quick read, but I'm not sure if I'm in a Tolstoy mood.

Finishing Narcissus & Goldmund has left a void in my heart. What an incredible book. I've started a couple of books since, that have been sitting on my shelf forever, but I'm having a hard time to get into them, Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, & Camus's L'Étranger, which I've read in English but never en français.

It really etches in one's mind and heart. Try Demian if you haven't done so already.

[AlberichUndHagen]

Btw, I found Moby Dick much more readable than that part of War and peace which I managed to read. Of course, one cannot judge a book unless one has completely read it.

[Jo498]

"Kreutzer sonata" is a quick read but many hate it because it is Tolstoy in his puritan preacher mode. The best of his shorter prose is probably "The Death of Ivan Ilich", an utterly brilliant piece, psychologically infinitely more subtle than Kreutzer sonata.

[Florestan]

I've only read AK once when I was much younger but at the time the Kitty-Levin stuff were my favorite parts.

Finally, something we can agree upon. 

[FelixSkodi]

[Mandryka]

Anyone got an opinion about what Ernaux does?

[Mandryka]

Relatively speaking, I am approaching the end of Proust's In the shadow of young girls in flower. The narrator recently met Elstir, a painter. Narrator certainly makes me squirm with embarrassment at times with his relentless stalking. At least in this book he is still an adolescent but I understand he continues his borderline narcissistic and possessive traits even in later volumes when he is older.

That being said, especially this Balbec section of the book is incredibly evocative text.

Have you come to the bit yet where the narrator ejaculates in his pants when he sees someone (Gilbert maybe) going for a walk in the Jardin du Luxembourg? That was the moment when I sat up and said to myself that this Recherche du temps perdu isn't quite what it seems.

His stalking is central to the novel IMO. As much as he stalks other people, he can never find out the truth. Other people are in some sense fundamentally unknowable -- I think that's the idea.

[FelixSkodi]

[ritter]

On a humorous note, reading the title of that book, and the blurb on Amazon, I was reminded of an anecdote that has become famous here in Spain: when bullfighter Rafael "El Gallo" was introduced to José Ortega y Gasset and told the latter was a philosopher, someone tried to explain to him what a philosopher actually did. The bullfighter's response was "Hay gente pa tó"—loosely translatable as "It takes all sorts (to make a world)".