What are you currently reading?

[JBS]

Purchased today:
Hemingway: The Short Stories: The First Forty Nine Stories

Meaning all of Hemingway's short stories from 1938 or earlier.

[SimonNZ]

Started:

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Baudelaire, Les Fleurs Du Mal (The Flowers of Evil).

[aligreto]

Purchased today:
Hemingway: The Short Stories: The First Forty Nine Stories

Meaning all of Hemingway's short stories from 1938 or earlier.

Nice. Enjoy the read.

[Florestan]

Baudelaire, Les Fleurs Du Mal (The Flowers of Evil).

Pounds the table! My favorite French poet and one of my Top Five.

[SimonNZ]

Still going with Connie Willis, but also half way through this:



short articles for the Guardian from 2003 to 2005 that make me now want to read her other books on China, especially those focusing on the lives of Chinese women

[vers la flamme]

I can't believe how beautiful and captivating The Brothers Karamazov has become in its second half. The book I'm currently on, Brother Ivan Fyodorovich, and the previous book, Boys (which was all subplot) are both very beautiful, very intriguing, full of excellent character study. The jump forward of two months really did so much to develop all of the novel's characters, especially in light of the fact that the whole of the first half of the book takes place over some 3 or 4 days.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

My favorite French poet and one of my Top Five.

Same for me. Verlaine today!

[Florestan]

Same for me. Verlaine today!

Verlaine, my second favorite French poet after Baudelaire. 

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Verlaine, my second favorite French poet after Baudelaire. 

B admired Wagner. I heard that many composers, including Debussy, liked Verlaine.

[Florestan]

B admired Wagner. I heard that many composers, including Debussy, liked Verlaine.

I love Baudelaire, Verlaine and Debussy.

[ritter]

....

Par contre, Wagner is the most overrated bore in the whole history of Western music.

O ciel, che noia! 

Good evening, Andrei.

[Florestan]

O ciel, che noia! 

Good evening, Andrei.

Good morning, Rafael. I edited my post. 

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Gertrude, Hermann Hesse. A love triangle among an introverted composer, a passionate opera singer, and a girl of upper-class family.

[vers la flamme]

Gertrude, Hermann Hesse. A love triangle among an introverted composer, a passionate opera singer, and a girl of upper-class family.

Never read this one; sounds good. I'd love to read more Hesse.

Yesterday I finished The Brothers Karamazov. What a book! I was definitely in the mood for more Dostoevsky, so I've started The Double, a much shorter novel from the very beginning of his career. So far so good, it's quite funny:

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Never read this one; sounds good. I'd love to read more Hesse.

Yesterday I finished The Brothers Karamazov. What a book! I was definitely in the mood for more Dostoevsky, so I've started The Double, a much shorter novel from the very beginning of his career. So far so good, it's quite funny:

It is a wonderful novella. Among Hesse's earlier/pre-Demian works, possibly Gertrude and Peter Camenzind are the most accomplished works though Beneath the Wheel is better-known In populace.

I love The Gambler.  The characters and psychologies are well-developed and well-depicted. There are plotter, sycophant, defeatist, nihilist, etc. I like the grandma. I don't listen to Prokofiev's The Gambler much. I should do so occasionally.

[vers la flamme]

It is a wonderful novella. Among Hesse's earlier/pre-Demian works, possibly Gertrude and Peter Camenzind are the most accomplished works though Beneath the Wheel is better-known In populace.

I love The Gambler.  The characters and psychologies are well-developed and well-depicted. There are plotter, sycophant, defeatist, nihilist, etc. I like the grandma. I don't listen to Prokofiev's The Gambler much. I should do so occasionally.

I just saw Beneath the Wheel at a used bookstore yesterday but I put it back on the shelf and got something else. Hesse is great but I kind of burned myself out on his work after reading 3 or 4 of his novels back to back last year.

[vers la flamme]

Must confess that ultimately I did not like The Double very much. Dostoevsky would go on to write much, much finer things. But I will revisit it in the future.

Just finished a book I started yesterday, another recommendation from our DBK, Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country.



The story of an ill-fated love affair between a wealthy dilettante and a very young provincial geisha in a resort town of the Japanese snow country, I had somewhat mixed feelings about the book, but did ultimately find Kawabata's spare and lyrical prose very beautiful. Despite that the protagonist, Shimamura, was among the least compelling characters I've ever read about—he has very little personality, he does not work nor endure any serious hardship—I still found him a relatable figure. He seems to experience great pain from the beauty of the world, a feeling I know only too well, though one I've never been able to understand. His relationship with the hard-partying Komako reminded me a bit of some of the flings I've had when I was a bit younger. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in Japanese literature. You can read it very easily in a day or an afternoon.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Must confess that ultimately I did not like The Double very much. Dostoevsky would go on to write much, much finer things. But I will revisit it in the future.

Just finished a book I started yesterday, another recommendation from our DBK, Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country.



The story of an ill-fated love affair between a wealthy dilettante and a very young provincial geisha in a resort town of the Japanese snow country, I had somewhat mixed feelings about the book, but did ultimately find Kawabata's spare and lyrical prose very beautiful. Despite that the protagonist, Shimamura, was among the least compelling characters I've ever read about—he has very little personality, he does not work nor endure any serious hardship—I still found him a relatable figure. He seems to experience great pain from the beauty of the world, a feeling I know only too well, though one I've never been able to understand. His relationship with the hard-partying Komako reminded me a bit of some of the flings I've had when I was a bit younger. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in Japanese literature. You can read it very easily in a day or an afternoon.

Thank you for the review. Kawabata's works sometimes appear to be thin, simple, or superficial. There are no explanations or descriptions much let alone psychologies. And the characters in his works don't challenge their circumstances 
Funny, Mishima, whose works are like Gothic architecture-flamboyant and energetic, loved Kawabata's works, which are like origami.
Kawabata received Nobel Prize because of Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, and the Old Capitol. Though I prefer the latter two and Dancing Girl of Izu, still Snow Country is a beautiful story. It seems to me Thousand Cranes is a solid and fine work.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Visconti: Explorations of Beauty and Decay. Analysis of my favorite cinema director.