What are you currently reading?

[vers la flamme]

Cormac McCarthy, Outer Dark. My fourth of his books recently. I'm enjoying everything though I am getting the impression from this early book that he wrote with some kind of antiquarian thesaurus on his desk 

[Mandryka]

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Borges.

[vers la flamme]

Borges.

I need to pick this up. I have a very short anthology of his works but I want to read all of it. Brilliant writer of a very rare breed.

Cormac McCarthy, Outer Dark. My fourth of his books recently. I'm enjoying everything though I am getting the impression from this early book that he wrote with some kind of antiquarian thesaurus on his desk 

About halfway through. I really like it so far. Reminds me of a fucked up fairytale.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I need to pick this up. I have a very short anthology of his works but I want to read all of it. Brilliant writer of a very rare breed.

He is a great writer, but his themes and writing styles are distinctive. I like some stories while I don't care a few others.

P.s. what do you recommend for Paul Paray's recordings?

[vers la flamme]

He is a great writer, but his themes and writing styles are distinctive. I like some stories while I don't care a few others.

P.s. what do you recommend for Paul Paray's recordings?

I only have a few but I love all of them, my favorite being his Saint-Saëns Symphony No.3 which also features a recording of Paray's own Mass for the 500th Anniversary of the Death of Joan of Arc, a work that's worth a listen. The others I have are his disc of von Suppé and Auber overtures, perhaps not everyone's cup of tea but it's an amazing performance, and then the Chabrier disc which I think I picked up off your good word. I've been meaning to get some more. This is all with the Detroit SO. Great conductor.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Yes, the Saint-Saens disc is exceptional. I will look for the Suppe et al. recording. I also like Dances of Death. Also, the Dvorak/Sibelius disc sounds unique/interesting. No. 9 is a little fast, but some parts of the interpretation/performance are interesting. Thank you for your suggestion.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I don't have much disagreements with what you say, including Casanova and the Hobbesian interpretation of the world.
Writings by La Rochefoucauld offer pessimistic views of human nature. In contrast, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs proffer a contrasting/different view.
I read Kafka decades ago. I must read his works again.
Thank you for your suggestion.

FTFY.

No, really, I mean it 100%. I am absolutely, unshakably and positively convinced that anyone --- and I mean anyone as in I, you and all of our neighbours, all GMGers included --- were prone to corruption, deception and hypocrisy should we be in a position of real power over our neighbours, be it as churchmen, aristocrats or democratically elected government officials.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. --- Lord Acton


I am no anarchist, let alone communist, but I can't help pondering the question: When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?



The only writer who is on the same plane as Dostoevsky in describing the ills of the modern world is Franz Kafka.

OTOH, there are lots (I mean hundreds of thousand, if not millions) of people in this world of ours who have never read Stendhal, Dostoevsky or Kafka but who have been able to lift themselves from poverty to a decent livelihood for them and their family. Moreover, they managed to do it thanks to an economic regime which both S and D and K decried. What do you make of this fact?

Casanova is a superb writer. His Memoirs are excellently written.

[Benji]

Working my way sporadically through all 5 volumes of Philip K Dick's Collected Stories.  There's a certain samey-ness when read in bulk, but there are some real gems in there.  Colony (from Vol 1) and The Crawlers (Vol 3) still give me the creeps just to think about them.

It's uncanny how these stories, mostly written in the 1950's, manage to prefigure the modern reality, in trend if not in detail.  Driverless vehicles, for example, seen as sinister for the further reduction of human agency in an increasingly automated world.

And Dick has insights that escape other writers - e.g. Orwell in 1984, assuming citizens would have to be forced to live with always-on listening devices in their homes, not imagining that notions of convenience might induce people to buy them for themselves and even give to others as presents.

Just last night I was reading Service Call (Vol 4), in which a bunch of technicians get a glimpse of a future in which the must-have item is something called a "swibble" - which turns out to be a device that enables every householder to ensure that their thinking is at all times aligned with the prevailing official ideology - not to have it forced on them, but to want to have one, for the practical advantage that comes from always fitting in.  Can't help feeling that one's only a question of time.

I read all of these way way back. There is one I would really like to find again where a shape shifting amoeba feeds on planetary colonists by taking on familiar shapes and absorbing those unfortunate enough to interact with it - I think early on it mimics a bath towel ... Each time it absorbs a person it grows in size. And IIRC the story ends in panicked colonists trying to escape aboard a 'rescue vessel'... Oops.

A very pulpy kind of sci-fi story but shows some of the authors trademark paranoia. 

[vers la flamme]

Rereading Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. I must have read this book half a dozen times, but it's been several years. It's just as beautiful, powerful, harrowing, and hilarious as I remember it. I need to get back to more of the Vonnegut books I loved as a youth but haven't thought about in quite some time. What a writer.

Edit: Any recommendations for great fiction inspired by World War 2? Also open for suggestions for great nonfiction on the matter. I've always been fascinated with the War, but have read shamefully little about it.



I didn't mention it before but I also read James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. An amazing read.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I need to get Vonnegut's books!
As for a WW2-related fiction, I like The Reader. The story is about guilt- guilt of the illiterate heroine, guilt of the protagonist who didn't help the heroine, and the guilt of entire Germans, who only blame the war criminals but not themselves.
As for non-fictions, I enjoyed American Shogun by Robert Harvey and Lost Victories by Manstein.
Also, Quiet Don is an entertaining story based on the Civil War in Russia after the Soviet revolution. The protagonist, Cossack soldier, oscillates between the Red army and White army. It is a page-turner. The book won both the Nobel prize and Stalin prize in the USSR!!

[Biffo]

Rereading Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. I must have read this book half a dozen times, but it's been several years. It's just as beautiful, powerful, harrowing, and hilarious as I remember it. I need to get back to more of the Vonnegut books I loved as a youth but haven't thought about in quite some time. What a writer.

Edit: Any recommendations for great fiction inspired by World War 2? Also open for suggestions for great nonfiction on the matter. I've always been fascinated with the War, but have read shamefully little about it.



I didn't mention it before but I also read James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. An amazing read.

Not strictly about WW2 but it will give you a good idea of why it happened - The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J Evans. At the other end, chronologically speaking, Berlin The Downfall : 1945 by Antony Beevor is a good read. I am sure you will get plenty more recommendations. I don't have any for the war in the Pacific and the Far East.

[vers la flamme]

I need to get Vonnegut's books!
As for a WW2-related fiction, I like The Reader. The story is about guilt- guilt of the illiterate heroine, guilt of the protagonist who didn't help the heroine, and the guilt of entire Germans, who only blame the war criminals but not themselves.
As for non-fictions, I enjoyed American Shogun by Robert Harvey and Lost Victories by Manstein.
Also, Quiet Don is an entertaining story based on the Civil War in Russia after the Soviet revolution. The protagonist, Cossack soldier, oscillates between the Red army and White army. It is a page-turner. The book won both the Nobel prize and Stalin prize in the USSR!!

I do need to read Shokholov's Don. Somehow I hadn't heard of it until recently when it was referenced in another book I was reading (I forget which, maybe one by Murakami?) I'm going to have to look into the other books you mentioned. They sound fascinating. Thanks.

@Biffo, Coming of the Third Reich sounds great. Thanks.

[Florestan]

the guilt of entire Germans, who only blame the war criminals but not themselves.

If Schlink's idea is that of a collective guilt, I am strongly opposed. A person is responsible amd therefore guilty or not for their own actions only. There is no such thing as collective guilt and least of all in totalitarian systems. Besides, why is it that we never hear or read of the guilt of entire Russians or Chinese, who only blame Stalin or Mao but never themselves?

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

If Schlink's idea is that of a collective guilt, I am strongly opposed. A person is responsible amd therefore guilty or not for their own actions only. There is no such thing as collective guilt and least of all in totalitarian systems. Besides, why is it that we never hear or read of the guilt of entire Russians or Chinese, who only blame Stalin or Mao but never themselves?

That's an important issue I wouldn't take casually. But the subject is beyond the intended scope and depth of this site.
Thank you for your response. Have you read Sholokhov? I have a feeling that you would like it if you a have not already done so.

[Florestan]

Have you read Sholokhov? I have a feeling that you would like it if you a have not already done so.

I've always intended to read it but somehow never managed to do it. I must rectify it asap.

Btw, I heartily recommend you Bulgakov's The White Guard, and of course his masterpiece The Master and Margarita.

And now that I think of it, you must read Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate --- if only for the fact that Stalin considered Grossman even more dangerous than Pasternak and I think he was actually right.

[Artem]

Life and Fate is a really great book. Maybe the best Russian novel.

[vers la flamme]

Life and Fate is a really great book. Maybe the best Russian novel.

I picked it up at Barnes and Noble earlier but put it back on the shelf. Too long for my purposes, though it looked amazing. I reckon I'll get around to it in time. I don't think it's possible to name a best Russian novel with how many phenomenal ones there are. The great Russian writers, or at least most of them, seem to have a way with trying to put the entire world into each book.

[Florestan]

Life and Fate is a really great book. Maybe the best Russian novel.

I see it as sort of a 20th Century War and Peace.

[Florestan]

I don't think it's possible to name a best Russian novel with how many phenomenal ones there are. The great Russian writers, or at least most of them, seem to have a way with trying to put the entire world into each book.

+ 1.