What are you currently reading?

Started by facehugger, April 07, 2007, 12:36:10 AM

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SimonNZ

Quote from: MN Dave on October 10, 2020, 02:09:51 PM
John D. MacDonald, Soren Kierkegard, and a book on Macca.

Paul McCartney? Which book?

MN Dave

Quote from: SimonNZ on October 10, 2020, 03:22:19 PM
Paul McCartney? Which book?

FAB. It's pretty well done, but the author's sometimes too opinionated for my liking.
"The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence." — Arthur Schopenhauer

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

#10204
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.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

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.

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

ritter

Quote from: Florestan on October 26, 2020, 08:36:07 AM
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

Quote from: ritter on October 26, 2020, 08:43:53 AM
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.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Mandryka

Quote from: Florestan on October 26, 2020, 08:36:07 AM
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.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

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."   
You must have a very good opinion of yourself to write a symphony - John Ireland.

I opened the door people rushed through and I was left holding the knob - Bo Diddley.

Florestan

Quote from: Mandryka on October 26, 2020, 10:53:18 AM
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.

Quote
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.  :)
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Florestan

#10212


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.  :D

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

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: Florestan on October 27, 2020, 06:17:23 AM


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.  :D

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

Would you be nice and include Pushkin as well please?   :) :) :)

Florestan

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on October 27, 2020, 08:38:05 AM
Would you be nice and include Pushkin as well please?   :) :) :)

I haven't read much Pushkin beside some little poems but I'll take your word for it.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

#10215
And Quiet Flows the Don. Sholokhov. Funny, the book was awarded both the USSR Stalin Prize and Nobel Prize. I have read the novel more than 10 times.

Mandryka

#10216
Quote from: Florestan on October 27, 2020, 06:12:13 AM
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.




He does present himself as saying something general about the nature of perception, memory etc. Talking about the human condition in general. And I think he was seriously about exploring contemporary academic philosophers like Henri Bergson (about whom I know nothing.) When I reread the first three volumes recently large parts of it seemed like large passages of philosophical reflection loosely hung onto a story line.

It's a long time since I was a philosopher - I taught it in a couple of universities here, and left it for more financially profitable things when Thatcher restructured British higher education. But unlike maths (my other subject as an undergraduate and graduate student) the philosophy has left its mark but the maths is totally, frighteningly,  forgettable.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

André

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on October 27, 2020, 07:15:00 PM
And Quiet Flows the Don. Sholokhov. Funny, the book was awarded both the USSR Stalin Prize and Nobel Prize. I have read the novel more than 10 times.

I have read it 4 times. A splendid epic. Never a dull moment.

BWV 1080

Went through music school with a minor in theory and never once heard of partimento and the various schemata that comprised the building blocks of 18th (and a good chunk of 19th) century music


Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: André on October 28, 2020, 05:46:22 AM
I have read it 4 times. A splendid epic. Never a dull moment.

Agree totally!!