What are you currently reading?

[Florestan]

OTOH the Bishop at the beginning is as close to a real saint as anyone in modern literature, and Jean Valjean overall also is a bit of a (more fleshed out) saint.

I should some time re-read this. It was the first "real" literature I ever read (in translation, of course) at about 12 (not really having asked for my parent's consent, I "borrowed" it from their shelves), I had become interested because a few years earlier my mother had read it and recounted a summarized, bowdlerized version to me and my siblings. I vaguely remember that when I first read it I was a bit disappointed at the relative lack of "escape from the galleys" action episodes and I certainly missed a lot of the historical and other background. I re-read once but probably still a teenager or in my early 20s. I am not sure if I have the patience nowadays although I expect it to be a much faster read than most 19th/early 20th century Russians or Germans.

When it comes to Hugo, I have a soft spot for The Toilers of the Sea. It's written on a more intimate and human scale, the plot is easier to follow and has little, if any, of the moralizing, pseudo-philosophical stuff one encounters so often in his lengthier novels. A deeply touching love story set in the Channel Islands.  If you don't know it yet, give it a try.

[Mandryka]

OTOH the Bishop at the beginning is as close to a real saint as anyone in modern literature, and Jean Valjean overall also is a bit of a (more fleshed out) saint.

I should some time re-read this. It was the first "real" literature I ever read (in translation, of course) at about 12 (not really having asked for my parent's consent, I "borrowed" it from their shelves), I had become interested because a few years earlier my mother had read it and recounted a summarized, bowdlerized version to me and my siblings. I vaguely remember that when I first read it I was a bit disappointed at the relative lack of "escape from the galleys" action episodes and I certainly missed a lot of the historical and other background. I re-read once but probably still a teenager or in my early 20s. I am not sure if I have the patience nowadays although I expect it to be a much faster read than most 19th/early 20th century Russians or Germans.

Monseigneur Bienvenu is amazing, especially his interview with the bloke who was responsible for sending people to the guillotine in the 1792 revolution.
It's unbelievably easy to read in French, It'll take me less than a fortnight to read the whole thing.

But -- I think it's uneven. The book called Marius was hard going for me. I'm just about a third of the way through L'idylle rue Plumet et l'épopée rue Saint-Denis

He says some mad things about Paris. At one point he says that the kids sleeping rough there, though they appear to be rogues on the outside, are pure internally, in their souls . . . and this is something to do with the quality of the air in the city. What would Durkheim have said about that?

Hard to know what to make of Cosette and indeed Jean Valjean's relationship with her. The innocence of the writing -- not the slightest whiff of Freud -- is slightly disconcerting.  We are really dealing with someone pre-Modernity in a way with Hugo. In some sense of modernity.

I know someone (in my family)  who is not entirely unlike La Thenardier 

[Ganondorf]

In French the tone of voice is extraordinary - ton mat. No judgement, no irony, he's like: this is how it is. Quite a far cry from Mme Bovary. I've just finished Part 1.

Old comment but what you said was very interesting - because I thought Madame Bovary has also been considered extremely objective storytelling to the point that Flaubert was sued over not judging Emma Bovary and her love affair. Or was Flaubert's irony and judgement too subtle for the critics and readers of his time? Or not even that subtle but the thorough double standards of the time still persisted? Or did I misunderstand your comment?

[Mandryka]

Old comment but what you said was very interesting - because I thought Madame Bovary has also been considered extremely objective storytelling to the point that Flaubert was sued over not judging Emma Bovary and her love affair. Or was Flaubert's irony and judgement too subtle for the critics and readers of his time? Or not even that subtle but the thorough double standards of the time still persisted? Or did I misunderstand your comment?

I didn't sense irony in Education Sentimentale, and that respect seemed so different from Bovary. What I sensed was tremendous disillusion, and an impulse to tell the world how it is, warts and all . To be honest I abandoned it, I will go back to it or pick up Salammbo soon.

So here's an example of something. When Charles Bovary completely messes up the surgery on that patient's leg, Emma just looks at him and thinks, basically, "What a loser!" I found that scene shocking and almost funny at the same time. The bathos was funny -- we're all set up to feel sorry for Charles's plight, and she can feel no pity, she just sees her husband's mediocrity.

I didn't come across anything like that in the first part of Education Sentimentale.

I also found Education Sentimentale a bit annoying at the level of plot. Part of it is the episodic nature of a bildungsroman. And part of it is the strange nature of the love at first sight which seems to drive the plot -- a bit like Marius seeing Cosette and falling in love!

[aligreto]

Pasternak: The Last Summer





This is a novella which tells the story of Serezha who, whilst visiting his elder sister, revisits the memories of the summer of 1914. He then worked as a tutor to a wealthy family which gave him both the time and opportunity to have much free time and this allowed him to engage in exploring various relationships with different women. This edition of the book appears to me to be badly translated. It all feels very disjointed and fragmented. There is no overall cohesion. It tried hard to be poetic but it failed badly. I found it to be a difficult and laborious read for such a short work.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Panzer Leader, General Heinz Guderian.

[Mandryka]

When it comes to Hugo, I have a soft spot for The Toilers of the Sea. It's written on a more intimate and human scale, the plot is easier to follow and has little, if any, of the moralizing, pseudo-philosophical stuff one encounters so often in his lengthier novels. A deeply touching love story set in the Channel Islands.  If you don't know it yet, give it a try.

(I'm just about to start the last part)

How could anyone fail to just love Gavroche? The elephant . .  la mouche du coche in the barricade . . . the gun which isn't loaded  . . . the songs  . . .

And Marius -- the change from suicidal tendencies to extraordinary courage on entering the barricade is a real great literary moment.

The whole account of the barricade, the way he sets out the context in the Corinth cabaret bar, is just brilliantly done I think.

I admit that I can do without Valjean, Javere, Les Thenardier and Cosette though.

It would be interesting to read a feminist critique of this book.

[Ganondorf]

To be perfectly honest, at times I find Marius a bit tiresome. And naturally Hugo falls on the typical cliche of the Time: If Marius cannot have Cosette, he emotionally starts to blackmail her by claiming to commit suicide. I dont know if this is a French thing but I especially seem to run into this kind of obsessive love in French literature.

Javert is my favorite character in the book. His background is a psychologically convincing reason for his harsh way to fight crime. I especially like the part at the end of the first volume when he comes to arrest Valjean at Fantine's deathbed and Hugo describes Javert's terrifying joy at having finally cornered Valjean. The language Hugo uses when describing all this is the absolute highest point of this amazing book.

[Mandryka]

Javert is my favorite character in the book. His background is a psychologically convincing reason for his harsh way to fight crime. I especially like the part at the end of the first volume when he comes to arrest Valjean at Fantine's deathbed and Hugo describes Javert's terrifying joy at having finally cornered Valjean. The language Hugo uses when describing all this is the absolute highest point of this amazing book.

I can't remember the details but there's something about the way Javert laughs.

Javert is a bit like Captain Ahab maybe. I can't remember about his background -- maybe it's in Bk 5.

Marius is annoying in the book called Marius, it's in the chapter called Marius entre dans l'ombre (Bk 4 chap 13) that he starts to become splendid.

(Other things which stay in my mind which I'll mention: the description of the garden in the house on Rue Plumet; the cart carrying prisoners on the way to the labour camp which Jean and Cosette encounter on a walk outside Paris somewhere.)

But Hugo is the best character, the narrator. The humanity and compassion of the man somehow radiates through the prose all through the 1600 pages.

[vers la flamme]

Y'all are making me excited to read Les Misérables, which I probably won't do for another 5 years or so.

[SonicMan46]

Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy (2020) by David Zucchino - winner of 2020 Pulitzer Prize. Just half way through this book about a North Carolina coastal city that pre-Covid, we visit usually twice a year (i.e. Wrightsville Beach) - but in November 1898, Wilmington was the largest city in the state with a 56% black population well integrated into the city's activities, politics, and businesses; as described below (first paragraph of a long Wiki article), a white coup took over the elected government of the city, forcing prominent blacks to leave the town, and resulting in an indefinite number of black deaths (estimates as high as the low hundreds).  A Memorial has been built in Wilmington which we visited in October 2019 (unfortunately, our last trip to the city - hope to return soon) - the additional pics are my own w/ Susan in one.  Dave

The Wilmington insurrection of 1898, also known as the Wilmington massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington coup of 1898, was a riot and insurrection carried out by white supremacists in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States, on Thursday, November 10, 1898. The white press in Wilmington originally described the event as a race riot caused by black people, as the white press typically did when faced with news of race massacres. Since the late 20th century and further study, the insurrection has been characterized as a coup d'état, the violent overthrow of a duly elected government, by a group of white supremacists. (Source)

 

 

[SimonNZ]

2/3 way through:

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Giordano Bruno: De La Causa, Principio, e Uno (Cause, Principle and Unity).

[aligreto]

Hardy: Under the Greenwood Tree





I started to read this recently, got up to about page 50 or so and then I decided to abandon it, something I have rarely done with books. I simply could not take any more of the minute detail of the various characters' every movement and conversation. There is no plot, merely a series of character and situational observations.

[Mandryka]

Having tried again and failed again to get into L'Education Sentimentale, I'm giving Flaubert one last chance.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Hardy: Under the Greenwood Tree





I started to read this recently, got up to about page 50 or so and then I decided to abandon it, something I have rarely done with books. I simply could not take any more of the minute detail of the various characters' every movement and conversation. There is no plot, merely a series of character and situational observations.

I didn't know this work. I am surprised to hear that Hardy wrote a boring work. Perhaps he just experimented with a new style?

[Daverz]

I didn't know this work. I am surprised to hear that Hardy wrote a boring work. Perhaps he just experimented with a new style?

It's a very early novel, before even Far from the Madding Crowd.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

The Wine of Wisdom: The Life, Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyam. Mehdi Aminrazavi

[Mandryka]

Having tried again and failed again to get into L'Education Sentimentale, I'm giving Flaubert one last chance.

Decided that Flaubert is not for me right now so am just about to finish this, which reminds me of a David Lynch film. It touches on something which I think is really interesting - our relationship in the present to the traces of our own past. Haunting and ungraspable half-memories. And the diegesis is interesting too, because the narrator's act of writing is an important strand in the text itself.

I've got his latest, Chevreuse, lined up for later.

[Artem]

I've read a few Modiano's books. I enjoyed reading them, but I don't remember a single thing about them.