What are you currently reading?

[Florestan]

a product of it's time and culture, not ours.

So is the music of JS Bach.

[ritter]

So is the music of JS Bach.

?

[Florestan]

?

?

[ritter]

? ?   

I just don't understand what you're trying to say (or imply), cher ami.

[Florestan]

? ?   

I just don't understand what you're trying to say (or imply), cher ami.

What I'm trying to say, querido amigo,  is that each and every work of art created before we were born is a product of its time and culture, not ours.

[ritter]

What I'm trying to say, querido amigo,  is that each and every work of art created before we were born is a product of its time and culture, not ours.

Thanks.

[MN Dave]

John D. MacDonald, Soren Kierkegard, and a book on Macca.

[SimonNZ]

John D. MacDonald, Soren Kierkegard, and a book on Macca.

Paul McCartney? Which book?

[MN Dave]

Paul McCartney? Which book?

FAB. It's pretty well done, but the author's sometimes too opinionated for my liking.

[SimonNZ]

That cover I've got makes it look like a novel so I considered using a different image, but looking now it seems to me that all the other options represent the book equally poorly if in differing ways.

[ritter]

First approach to a novel by Julien Green (after having read a good chunk of volume 1 of his recently published "complete" diaries):

Épaves ("The Strange River"") from1932, included in volume 2 of the Pléiade edition.


The story is taking a while to "take off" (a well-to-do Parisian man witnesses one night a woman being abused by her lover on the banks of the Seine but is too weak to intervene, and four months later--I haven't reached that point--a corpse is found which may or may not be her). The malaise of the high bourgeosie of the 16ème arrondissement seems to be the point of this novel, and the city of Paris is supposed to play a dominant role in it. So far, though, it all feels quite dated and rather uninteresting. Let's see how it evolves...

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam. Poems of ephemerality of life by the Persian philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and poet.

[vandermolen]

Goodbye Christopher Robin:

Set locally on Ashdown Forest in East Sussex.

[Florestan]

More than two thirds into the 1st volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time (Romanian translation). I have mixed feelings about it. Splendid poetical descriptions of landscapes and very fine and insightful psychological observations expressed in, or mixed with, long-winded phrases that often border on, and sometimes cross deep into, anacoluthon territory (might be a translation thing, though). Subtle humor, too. Some sections were page turners, some others not that much. Overall, I like it.

[ritter]

More than two thirds into the 1st volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time (Romanian translation). I have mixed feelings about it. Splendid poetical descriptions of landscapes and very fine and insightful psychological observations expressed in, or mixed with, long-winded phrases that often border on, and sometimes cross deep into, anacoluthon territory (might be a translation thing, though). Subtle humor, too. Some sections were page turners, some others not that much. Overall, I like it.

Excellent! Hint: The Recherche only gets better as you advance...  (but many of its--real or percieved--defects persist).

Un abrazo,

P.S.: Haven't forgotten your PM, but really, really tied up at work. Will revert to you ASAP.

[Florestan]

Excellent! Hint: The Recherche only gets better as you advance...  (but many of its--real or percieved--defects persist).

Un abrazo,

P.S.: Haven't forgotten your PM, but really, really tied up at work. Will revert to you ASAP.

Thanks for the reply. Take all the time you need.

[Mandryka]

More than two thirds into the 1st volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time (Romanian translation). I have mixed feelings about it. Splendid poetical descriptions of landscapes and very fine and insightful psychological observations expressed in, or mixed with, long-winded phrases that often border on, and sometimes cross deep into, anacoluthon territory (might be a translation thing, though). Subtle humor, too. Some sections were page turners, some others not that much. Overall, I like it.

Yes some of this I recognise, especially in the first part, Un amour de Swann is more interesting I think. The long sentences aren't a problem for me in French, maybe it's partly to do with the translation as you say.


There's something else I feel - the philosophy is often a bit half baked IMO. I've spent a lot of time trying to make sense of his ideas about memory and about perception and I just get nowhere. My academic background is in philosophy.

[Irons]

It has taken H E Bates to reignite the reading habit which has slipped away of late. The Grapes of Paradise is eight novellas, the first Death of a Huntsman is based on an unlikely friendship between a portly middle-aged man and a beautiful twenty year old girl. The only thing they have in common is an unhappy dull life.

She informs him that she is planning to move away. Bates with great skill makes a simple exchange moving ......."Neither then, nor later, nor in fact at any other time, did they say a word about her mother. They stood for a long time without a word about anything, simply watching the little lake soundlessly embalmed in October sunlight, the quince-lamps setting the little island on fire.
'I don't think you should go away,' he said.
'Why not?'
He answered her in the quiet, uncomplex way that, as everyone so often remarked, was so much part of him, so much the typical Harry Barnfield.
'I don't want you to,' he said."   

[Florestan]

Yes some of this I recognise, especially in the first part, Un amour de Swann is more interesting I think. The long sentences aren't a problem for me in French, maybe it's partly to do with the translation as you say.


There's something else I feel - the philosophy is often a bit half baked IMO. I've spent a lot of time trying to make sense of his ideas about memory and about perception and I just get nowhere.

Well, memory and perception are amongst the most personal things in the world; what in this respect make sense for Proust might be the top of absurdity for you. Don't try too hard.

My academic background is in philosophy.

Wow, thanks, I've always wanted to know your background but never asked. Now that I know it, a lot of things are explained. 

[Florestan]

Took a break from Proust to read this little novel (more like a novella). Loved every page of it and had not a few chuckles*. It's a big paradox: the more I read classical Russian literature the more I love it; and I can identify with their characters more than with those of any other literature in the world --- yet politically I remain a staunch russophobe. 

* I find Turgenev and Chekhov to be the most humane, gentle and humorous of all the famous 19th century Russian writers.