What are you currently reading?

[The new erato]

I am curious how you accidentally visited a place!

I was driving through a beautiful Slovenian  valley looking at vineyards, passed a nearly unnoticeable border post and were in Italy/Goritza before I even had noticed I were in Italy. Turned around and went back after 100 meters as I really were aiming for Kroatia. My shortest Italian holiday ever.....

[Artem]

I read a number of Jacques Le Goof's books at university. Somehow I've never seen that one before. Is it a posthumous roundup of uncollected pieces?

The publication in French dated 2005 and 2008. It has an author's preface. So, probably just a later book.

[Artem]

You might find this of interest regarding Wojnarowicz
http://counterlightsrantsandblather1.blogspot.com/2009/10/passion-of-david-wojnarowicz.html

http://counterlightsrantsandblather1.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-second-wojnarowicz-series-in-its.html

Thank you. I'll check it out.

[Brian]

Got really disappointed when I saw that his name is not in fact Jacques Le Goof.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Kobo Abe, The Face of Another



So far, so good. A scientist, whose face is disfigured with keloids after an experiment gone horribly wrong, endeavors to create a new face for himself; insanity ensues. (I think: I'm not very far into the book yet.)

Takemitsu made the music for the movie version.

https://youtu.be/vUilkXF8VIA

[Ganondorf]

About 80 pages left in Joseph. Jacob just met Joseph for the first time after all those years and I liked the recalling imagery of glittering, in the first passage, many hundred pages earlier caused by Joseph's coat when arriving to his brothers, in this one, by Joseph's arrival in chariots, this time with happy results rather than tragic.

[SimonNZ]

Started:

[Daverz]

I read a number of Jacques Le Goof's books

I'm expecting the literary equivalent of Jacques Tati.

[SimonNZ]

Ah, I actually posted that.

My first instinct is to blame autocorrect which creates far more problems than it solves, but on the other hand I know I'm capable of lazy typing without proofreading.

Apologies to the memory of a historian I much admire. Insult and schoolyard name calling were unintended.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Talking To Myself, an autobiography of Chris Jagger, a brother of Mick Jagger, looks very interesting. An article about him is below.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/mick-jaggers-brother-chris-past-24906842

[Artem]

Lova Aira. This is another great novella with a detective/crime kind of twist.

[aligreto]

Galbraith: Troubled Blood





What I do know is that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the real life aspects of it: the plot, the characters, the sense of place and the excellence of the conversational element in the book. It was all really very well written. The book is 900+ pages but it never felt like it, except when I was trying to hold it late at night!
What I did not know, until I finished the book, was that Robert Galbraith and JK Rowling are one and the same person.

[vers la flamme]

Just started, around midnight last night, Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire



I cannot remember who in this thread brought this book to my attention, but whoever you are, thank you. I don't know what to make of it so far. I find the "commentator" Kinbote utterly irritating, but the poem itself is vividly written and fascinating.

[aligreto]

Hamsun: Victoria





This is a story about Love. It is not a happy one however. It is quite dark. The writing style is quite terse and lean which seems to enhance the bleakness of the tale.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Lost Victories. Field Marshal Erich von Manstein.

[SimonNZ]

Just started, around midnight last night, Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire



I cannot remember who in this thread brought this book to my attention, but whoever you are, thank you. I don't know what to make of it so far. I find the "commentator" Kinbote utterly irritating, but the poem itself is vividly written and fascinating.

2/3 way through a second reading of Pale Fire

And feeling the same way I did when first read in my late teens: the poem itself is astonishingly beautiful and its a pity Nabokov didn't write more poetry, and the unreliable biographer/critic stuff is often good parody - but the seemingly endless "Land of Zembla" stuff kills my enjoyment and turns what should have been fun into a slog. No doubt the Zembla story all works on some higher level of meaning if I was willing to read numerous interpretations, but now as before I don't see why I should bother.

TD: still going with the book on Thatcher's Britain, but in the meantime finished this:

[Artem]

Was it your first Didion?

[SimonNZ]

Was it your first Didion?

No, I've read most of her nonfiction prior to that one. Just last year I read Miami for the first time, and I've been thinking I'd like to read it again soon - it caught me off guard and deeply impressed me. The first two famous essay collections I've read a couple of times now.

Never tried the novels, though.

You're familiar with her work? What are your favorites?

[Artem]

I only read The Year of Magical Thinking a few years ago, but it didn't make me pursue her other work at that time. I wouldn't mind reading something else by her though.

[SimonNZ]

I can tell you that it's not at all typical of her nonfiction and highly recommend at the very least her collections Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album as a more representative introduction to her work and style.