What are you currently reading?

[ritter]

Could you please share them?

This, right at the beginning, I found rather apt:

"Cela lui fit mal augurer de celle-ci qui portait un nom de princesse d'Orient sans avoir l'air de se considérer dans l'obligation d'avoir du goût".
The name in question is Bérénice (and a line from Racine's tragedy —"Je demeurai longtemps errant dans Césarée..."— is used as a sort of leitmotif in the first pages).

"Il y a des vulgarités qui retiennent"
So true  .

That Pirandello looks very appealing, BTW!

Good day to you, Andrei.

[Florestan]

This, right at the beginning, I found rather apt:

"Cela lui fit mal augurer de celle-ci qui portait un nom de princesse d'Orient sans avoir l'air de se considérer dans l'obligation d'avoir du goût".
The name in question is Bérénice (and a line from Racine's tragedy —"Je demeurai longtemps errant dans Césarée..."— is used as a sort of leitmotif in the first pages).

"Il y a des vulgarités qui retiennent"
So true  .

Thanks, nice indeed.

That Pirandello looks very appealing, BTW!

It's a page turner. Love and politics in the context of the end-of-19-th-century Sicilian disillusionment with the Italian unification. This is one of the numerous testimonies I've read according to which for the former Kingdom of Two Sicilies the unification (actually, a military conquest) was rather harmful to the common folks.

Good day to you, Andrei.

Good day, Rafael.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Interestingly, the other day I was pondering what to get my teeth into once I have finished reading through my Somerset-Maugham collection and I was considering my DH Lawerence collection.

Sounds like a wonderful plan. Love the novels and short stories of Lawrence.
Now reading Daughters of the Vicar.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

However, Hiroko Oyamada is really good. Her two books, The Factory and The Hole, are very much worth reading.

I just found a copy of The Hole in one of those take a book, leave a book boxes at a local park. Excited to read it. I've heard good things about Oyamada.

Really enjoying Kafka on the Shore. Compared to the other Murakami I've read, this one is a truly sprawling epic.

Oyamada's works are considered to be genuine, artistic literature, for the sake of artistic merit, rather than entertaining readers. Interesting to hear positive opinion in the West.

[vers la flamme]

Been meaning to read some Lawrence. Last week I picked up Sons & Lovers and read the first chapter, but decided I wasn't quite in the mood for it. Is this generally considered the best place to start? I ought to try again soon.

[Brian]

About to start "Circe" by Madeline Miller, a retelling of bits of the Odyssey.

[Florestan]

Been meaning to read some Lawrence. Last week I picked up Sons & Lovers and read the first chapter, but decided I wasn't quite in the mood for it. Is this generally considered the best place to start?

The only Lawrence I tried. I started it many, many moons years ago and never finished it. He doesn't seem to be my cup of tea.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Maybe there is no chemistry between you and Lawrence, and nothing is wrong with that. 
Btw, Katherine Mansfield is a good writer with a similar style. Her short stories, such as Garden Party and Her First Ball, are pretty good, I think.
She is like a half Lawrence, half Chekhov.

P.s.. James Joyce is similar to me. When I read his works, nothing happens to me.

[Florestan]

Maybe there is no chemistry between you and Lawrence, and nothing is wrong with that. 

Maybe, and of course.

Honestly, Far from the Madding Crowd (not Lawrence, of course) started as a humorous page turner but ended up less than half way as a complete bore. There's nothing wrong with that, I hope. 

Pirandello, otoh...

It's a page turner. Love and politics in the context of the end-of-19-th-century Sicilian disillusionment with the Italian unification. This is one of the numerous testimonies I've read according to which for the former Kingdom of Two Sicilies the unification (actually, a military conquest) was rather harmful to the common folks.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Maybe, and of course.

Honestly, Far from the Madding Crowd (not Lawrence, of course) started as a humorous page turner but ended up less than half way as a complete bore. There's nothing wrong with that, I hope. 

Pirandello, otoh...

I was disappointed by Pasternak's Zhivago. It is one of very, very few books not as good as movie adaptations.

[Florestan]

I was disappointed by Pasternak's Zhivago.

Hah! I loved it more than the movie --- especially the appended poems.

[Mandryka]

Been meaning to read some Lawrence. Last week I picked up Sons & Lovers and read the first chapter, but decided I wasn't quite in the mood for it. Is this generally considered the best place to start? I ought to try again soon.

Women in Love for me, and maybe The Rainbow. In truth I can't remember much about the latter except really being impressed, the former has things which I find totally unforgettable. Sons and Lovers was OK but didn't impress me as much, despite some touching family scenes.

For a different tack, try Sea and Sardinia. I vaguely remember Mornings in Mexico was OK too.

[vers la flamme]

^Going to have to see if I can check out those books sometime.

Anyway, discussion on this page has me remembering that I ought to really check out Pirandello, Pasternak, and also Mansfield, about whom I know little to nothing... Too many interesting books on the world.

Still hooked on Murakami's Kafka. I'm burning through it, with about 70 pages left. God, it's such a fucked up book—deeply flawed, really, but there is something beautiful at the core of it. I'm almost reminded of a book I read this time last year and really loved: Hermann Hesse's Narcissus & Goldmund, a similarly twisted epic of self discovery. But it's pure, peak Haruki Murakami, all cats & classical music & missing persons & twisted sex. The more of his I read, the more I find Haruki Murakami to be a writer with many flaws, very significant ones, perhaps unforgivable for some. But I'm hooked. For better and worse I find this stuff very relatable. It's good to be getting back to his work, which I really discovered late last year, after a few months of reading many other writers.

[SimonNZ]

To anyone interested in Lawrence but not wanting currently to read any of his books I can heartily recommend Geoff Dyer's freewheeling Out Of Sheer Rage about his obsession with Lawrence. I especially liked that he was far more interested in the nonfiction and the letters (all 30 or 40 volumes of the latter which he describes reading in a headlong rush in their entirety).

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I'm almost reminded of a book I read this time last year and really loved: Hermann Hesse's Narcissus & Goldmund,

My favorite book since I read it first time when I was around 14 y/o.
The story is based on some contrasts such as Art vs. science, beauty vs. knowledge, pleasure vs. discipline, danger vs. stability, etc.
First time they met, Narcissus and what he represented appeared to be superior vis a vis Goldmund and what he embodied. However, when the latter was dying, the situation was inverse.
When Goldmund was dying, Narcissus, an epitome of rationality and intelligence, says "If I know what love is, it is because of you."
Goldmund's last words were "How are you going to die one day, Narcissus, since you have no mother? Without a mother one cannot love. Without a mother one cannot die."
This work has always been very special to me.

[SimonNZ]

Started:



on the "Indo-European" mother tongue and its traces in modern usage

[vers la flamme]

My favorite book since I read it first time when I was around 14 y/o.
The story is based on some contrasts such as Art vs. science, beauty vs. knowledge, pleasure vs. discipline, danger vs. stability, etc.
First time they met, Narcissus and what he represented appeared to be superior vis a vis Goldmund and what he embodied. However, when the latter was dying, the situation was inverse.
When Goldmund was dying, Narcissus, an epitome of rationality and intelligence, says "If I know what love is, it is because of you."
Goldmund's last words were "How are you going to die one day, Narcissus, since you have no mother? Without a mother one cannot love. Without a mother one cannot die."
This work has always been very special to me.

Yes, that last interaction hit me hard, especially because I lost my mother when I was a kid. I suspect I'll be rereading Narcissus & Goldmund at least a few more times throughout my life. There's a few more big Hesse works I still need to read for the first time, too: Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game being the big ones.

[aligreto]

Yes, that last interaction hit me hard, especially because I lost my mother when I was a kid. I suspect I'll be rereading Narcissus & Goldmund at least a few more times throughout my life. There's a few more big Hesse works I still need to read for the first time, too: Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game being the big ones.

I think that you might need to build up a lot of stamina reserves before tackling The Glass Bead Game. I found it to be a very fine read but tough going nonetheless.

[André]

When I was in the old part of Toulouse 2 years ago I went into a library (fantastic place covering different buildings and different floors with entries on 3 different streets, almost a labyrinth) and came out with 2 items: the complete Contes normands by Maupassant (almost 900 pages) and the complete novels by Hesse. All of them old friends, stuff I had read when I was much younger. I'm still only halfway through the Maupassant, so the Hesse is somewhere in the future. My reading is much slower than it was 40 years ago  . But I'll get there eventually.

[Florestan]

When I was in the old part of Toulouse 2 years ago I went into a library (fantastic place covering different buildings and different floors with entries on 3 different streets, almost a labyrinth) and came out with 2 items: the complete Contes normands by Maupassant (almost 900 pages) and the complete novels by Hesse. All of them old friends, stuff I had read when I was much younger. I'm still only halfway through the Maupassant, so the Hesse is somewhere in the future. My reading is much slower than it was 40 years ago  . But I'll get there eventually.

Must be the only library in the world which loans books by years, not by weeks.