What are you currently reading?

[JBS]

It's a really great book. I should re-read it myself, as it must be min 15 years since I last read it.

Do give a look at Intruder in the Dust, one of Faulkner's 'simplest' opuses, and a really endearing work.

I read both As I Lay Dying and Light in August for high school English classes. I remember AILD as being more understandable but LIA as going deeper into human psyche.

Read Sound and Fury about 20 years ago. Didn't like it. I've read Intruder in the Dust twice. It is a "simpler" book but bear in mind Faulkner supposedly wrote it as a sort of response to Kill A Mockingbird, to support the idea that the South could sort out its problem of racism without external intervention. It's not fair to call him a racist or a Lost Cause advocate (if anything he was its enemy) but he couldn't completely escape being a white Southerner .

[vers la flamme]

Another recommendation from our friend Dry Brett Kavanaugh... Yukio Mishima's Five Modern Noh Plays



Brilliant, so far. I'm only on the second play. I'm going to watch some youtube videos of classic Noh drama so I can get a bit of context around what this very old art form is supposed to be all about. But even just as literature, I'm finding it impressive. The plays seem to have an almost dreamlike character. I don't know if this is something traditional, or whether it's Mishima adding his own flavor to the form. But like I said, I'm enjoying it. I recently tried to read The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, but had to put it down about halfway through; I just wasn't connecting with it. Everything else of his I've read has really blown me away, and looks like this shouldn't prove an exception. A unique talent.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Another recommendation from our friend Dry Brett Kavanaugh... Yukio Mishima's Five Modern Noh Plays



Brilliant, so far. I'm only on the second play. I'm going to watch some youtube videos of classic Noh drama so I can get a bit of context around what this very old art form is supposed to be all about. But even just as literature, I'm finding it impressive. The plays seem to have an almost dreamlike character. I don't know if this is something traditional, or whether it's Mishima adding his own flavor to the form. But like I said, I'm enjoying it. I recently tried to read The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, but had to put it down about halfway through; I just wasn't connecting with it. Everything else of his I've read has really blown me away, and looks like this shouldn't prove an exception. A unique talent.

+1. Traditionally, No(h) dramas are centered on surreal, ghostly, and mystical beauty. I would say that today No is only popular among a few intellectuals in Japan. I like these modern No plays by Mishima. I imagine that the translation by Donald Keene, Columbia Univ. professor emeritus who received the prestigious Order of Culture from his majesty Emperor of Japan, is very elegant. My edition has other works, including Dojoji- a humorous and ironic play. But I think it is in "Death in Midsummer and Other Stories." 

[vers la flamme]

+1. Traditionally, No(h) dramas are centered on surreal, ghostly, and mystical beauty. I would say that today No is only popular among a few intellectuals in Japan. I like these modern No plays by Mishima. I imagine that the translation by Donald Keene, Columbia Univ. professor emeritus who received the prestigious Order of Culture from his majesty Emperor of Japan, is very elegant. My edition has other works, including Dojoji- a humorous and ironic play. But I think it is in "Death in Midsummer and Other Stories."

I don't know the original Japanese, but I am impressed with Keene's translation. Very direct, and elegant, as you say. I would love to read Death in Midsummer & Other Stories, available from the great New Directions publisher, some of the stories are also translated by Dr. Keene. Of Mishima's short fiction, I only know the great Star, which I have as a standalone, very short novella; I read it in an hour or so.

These plays remind me a bit of Beckett.

[Carlo Gesualdo]

The scriptures , prophecy of Michel DE Notre Dame,= Nostradamus, before he was a joke but all his prophet came true in the end boiling down to a real prophet a genuine one.

He predicted stuff , that actually happen great fire of London U.K, Hitlers, the fall of the Tsar, every bloody thing he predict came to life, how science explain this?

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

There are many short stories written by Mishima, but only few of them have been translated in English. The stories featured in Death in Midsummer are very good, imo. I haven't read Beckett, I will look for some of his works. In case the below is an article, including an interview, of Donald Keene.

https://medium.com/@oliverjia1014/the-story-of-donald-keene-the-american-who-became-japanese-6644898f56b0

[vers la flamme]

There are many short stories written by Mishima, but only few of them have been translated in English. The stories featured in Death in Midsummer are very good, imo. I haven't read Beckett, I will look for some of his works. In case the below is an article, including an interview, of Donald Keene.

https://medium.com/@oliverjia1014/the-story-of-donald-keene-the-american-who-became-japanese-6644898f56b0

That was a fascinating read! Thanks!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. David Eagleman. Fun book!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

That was a fascinating read! Thanks!

It seems to me that you read a lot of Keene translations!

[vers la flamme]

It seems to me that you read a lot of Keene translations!

I've read a handful and been impressed by all of them, with the obvious caveat that I don't know the Japanese originals. His translations (and introductions) of Dazai's two major novels were both very enjoyable reads. Seems he just died in 2019, aged 96.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I've read a handful and been impressed by all of them, with the obvious caveat that I don't know the Japanese originals. His translations (and introductions) of Dazai's two major novels were both very enjoyable reads. Seems he just died in 2019, aged 96.

Did you read Shayo?  I didn't know.

[vers la flamme]

Did you read Shayo?  I didn't know.

Yes, I read it in a single day back in May, I think I was away from the forum at the time. I really enjoyed it.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Utilitarianism. J. S. Mill.

[vers la flamme]

William Faulkner's The Unvanquished



Couldn't resist returning to Faulkner's work before long. This collection of very closely related (sequential) short stories, originally published separately, deal with the Civil War & its immediate aftermath from the perspective of one Bayard Sartoris, of a family that recurs in many of Faulkner's books, residents of the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. It's somewhat of a straightforward narrative, compared to both As I Lay Dying & Light in August, but does contain plenty of Faulkner's trademark "impressionistic" writing, which I enjoy greatly, but which does present problems when it comes to action sequences. Still, there are unforgettable moments: Bayard and his slave friend Ringo hiding under Granny's skirt after shooting a Yankee horse; Col. John Sartoris capturing with ease a huge Union regiment only to let them go free immediately afterward; the destruction of a bridge leaving an army of freed slaves on a northbound trek totally lost and wayward; Granny & Ab Snopes running a con stealing mules from Yankee regiments and selling them back for a profit. Excellent storytelling, even when it's not exactly easy to follow.

[SimonNZ]

half way into:

[JBS]

half way into:

I think I've read that, but possibly an earlier edition. She wrote three other books on daily life in London under Elizabeth, during the 18th century, and under Victoria.  I've read the one on the 18th century. If you like this one you'll probably like them all.

[SimonNZ]

That's the first one of hers I've read, but if and when I stumble across the others I'll certainly be grabbing them.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I, Fellini. Federico Fellini/Charlotte Chandler.

[steve ridgway]

Just finished Vol. 1 "Unity and Diversity of Life on Earth" of the 7 volume set of ebooks "E. O. Wilson's Life on Earth" from Apple Books on my iPad. A top quality textbook and absolutely free.

[vers la flamme]

Just started Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus



This is probably the oldest thing I've read this year, but I've been meaning to explore Elizabethan and Jacobean drama in some more depth (only read about 5 or 6 Shakespeare plays, and not sure I'm ready to take the deep dive into his work just yet, but I am fascinated by the era and style). So far, so good. Quite funny.