What are you currently reading?

[Papy Oli]

I am not an avid reader and it can take me several months to finish a book. I usually dip in and out, times apart.

I certainly don't read novels.

Then I got offered this book earlier this year : Damon Galgut - The Promise (Booker Prize winner 2021)



It follows the story in 4 chapters only of a white land-owning South African family (the parents and 3 children), around the dying wish of the mother made in the 80's that the little side house used by their long-serving black domestic help, is to be given to her in full ownership. The "promise" accepted by the husband at time. The book follows the evolution of and the disputes over that promise, with the family (re)linking through a tragedy/loss every decade or so, all intertwined with the South African political background of each period.

I don't read novels. Yet, I read this one in pretty much 4 sittings only, with a few days break between each chapter. It did need such spacing. It is bleak, unrelenting, also feeling quite fast paced due a very particular yet highly descriptive narrative style. Not an easy read due to all the subject matters dealt with but a highly recommended one all the same. Not a book to love per se but one that keeps tugging at you all the way through and might stay with you for quite a while thereafter.

[André]

Thanks Olivier, this is one I'd like to read !

André

[aligreto]

I am not an avid reader and it can take me several months to finish a book. I usually dip in and out, times apart.

I certainly don't read novels.

Then I got offered this book earlier this year : Damon Galgut - The Promise (Booker Prize winner 2021)



It follows the story in 4 chapters only of a white land-owning South African family (the parents and 3 children), around the dying wish of the mother made in the 80's that the little side house used by their long-serving black domestic help, is to be given to her in full ownership. The "promise" accepted by the husband at time. The book follows the evolution of and the disputes over that promise, with the family (re)linking through a tragedy/loss every decade or so, all intertwined with the South African political background of each period.

I don't read novels. Yet, I read this one in pretty much 4 sittings only, with a few days break between each chapter. It did need such spacing. It is bleak, unrelenting, also feeling quite fast paced due a very particular yet highly descriptive narrative style. Not an easy read due to all the subject matters dealt with but a highly recommended one all the same. Not a book to love per se but one that keeps tugging at you all the way through and might stay with you for quite a while thereafter.

That is a very good summary for a non-reader, Olivier.

[Papy Oli]

See you in 2025 for my next book summary 

[aligreto]

See you in 2025 for my next book summary 

We can't wait that long! 

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Boris Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life.
Re-read. One of my political heroes along with Churchill and MLK. He wanted the new Russia to be a democratic and developed country.

[Florestan]

Boris Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life.
Re-read. One of my political heroes along with Churchill and MLK.

Question: What did he have in common with Churchill but not with MLK?   

[Florestan]

We can't wait that long! 

We are not even sure the world will last that long... 

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Question: What did he have in common with Churchill but not with MLK?   

Yeltsin and Churchill were white, caucasian. They were elected officials, and ultimately elected to the leader of the national govt.  unlike MLK, they were not womanizers. Though they had serious conflicts with the mainstream in national politics, they were not the public enemies of the government and authorities like mlk. Plus, they were not assassinated.

While Yeltsin surprisingly won reelection, Churchills party surprisingly "lost"  the post ww2 election and therefore wsc lost premiership.
All the three guys liked drinking.

[Florestan]

All the three guys liked drinking.

Well, that's what I had in mind --- I never knew MLK was a heavy drinker too. 

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Well, that's what I had in mind --- I never knew MLK was a heavy drinker too. 

Hitler didn't drink or eat meat. He didn't attract ladies either.

Anyway, Yeltsin is an extremely fascinating man.

[LKB]

Hitler didn't drink or eat meat. He didn't attract ladies either...

He ate lead, just not soon enough to save millions.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

He ate lead, just not soon enough to save millions.

[Valentino]

You make me think of that photo of the man in front of Brandenburger Tor with the board saying something like "Dear Mr. Putin. Why don't we skip to the part where you shoot yourself in a bunker?"

Reading Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness by Norman Lebrecht. Just as fun as the first time.
Sod DG.
A couple of recordings that I should get hold of too I see.

[Mandryka]

Totally weird. The ideas and values of the France of 200 years ago have about as much to do with my life now as the Greece of Homer. It doesn't work through story, it rather works through the tension caused by the interaction of alien life forms. Balzac is good at it, 400 pages and no boring bits. He's easy to read and there are some super passages of purple prose -- I mean, it's not Alexandrines but apart from that, the prose is sometimes as purple as Racine's verse. As I'm reading, I'm wondering what should I read next -- Pere Goriod, Peau de Chagrin, Illusions Perdues . . . ?

Without wishing to lower the tone of the forum, why on earth doesn't Felix just shag Henriette -- she'd be a lot better as a result -- and give her husband a good slapping?

There's also some bizarre gender stuff going on which I haven't got my head round. There's a point where Henriette says to Felix something like "you must be a woman!" . . . and Louis XVIII gives him a woman's nickname. Hmmmmm

[Florestan]

Totally weird. The ideas and values of the France of 200 years ago have about as much to do with my life now as the Greece of Homer. It doesn't work through story, it rather works through the tension caused by the interaction of alien life forms. Balzac is good at it, 400 pages and no boring bits. He's easy to read and there are some super passages of purple prose -- I mean, it's not Alexandrines but apart from that, the prose is sometimes as purple as Racine's verse.

I started it twice but neverr finished it. I found the prose too purple even for my taste and the action plodding. I might give it a thrid and final try.

As I'm reading, I'm wondering what should I read next -- Pere Goriod, Peau de Chagrin, Illusions Perdues . . . ?

Try Le colonel Chabert. You might find it to have a more modern flavour, if only because one of the main characters is an ambitious, succesful, rich and workaholic lawyer. 

Of the three you listed, I read the first two. Pere Goriot is a very good novel, La peau de Chagrin is a rather Hoffmannesque novella.

Without wishing to lower the tone of the forum, why on earth doesn't Felix just shag Henriette -- she'd be a lot better as a result -- and give her husband a good slapping?

Too introvert, too shy, too much a bourgeois nature as opposed to a passional one.

Compare Schumann and Clara (no shagging until marriage, obtained by years long legal battle) with Liszt and Marie d'Agoult ( lots of shagging, to hell with marriage). 

[Ganondorf]

I have a soft spot among Balzac's oeuvre for La fille aux yeux d'or which many people outright hate not only for the long intro and also the sadistic final scene. However I think it is really relatable and, for its time, handles lesbian themes with relatively large amount of compassion. The book in fact makes it quite clear that the main male character is a heartless cad. Also, the prose is superb (at least, in translation which I read since I don't know any French).

[Spotted Horses]

Boris Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life.
Re-read. One of my political heroes along with Churchill and MLK. He wanted the new Russia to be a democratic and developed country.

He also installed Putin, whose first official act as president was to cancel all ethics investigations of Yeltsin. Yeltsin facilitated the transfer of essentially the entire Soviet State economy to a small group of 'oligarchs' and was in power during the time when the FSB orchestrated the apartment bombings that were used as a justification for the second Chechen war. You might say he showed courage in preventing to putsch against Gorbachov, but once in power he was utterly corrupt, in my view.

[Mandryka]

I started it twice but neverr finished it. I found the prose too purple even for my taste and the action plodding. I might give it a thrid and final try.



Too introvert, too shy, too much a bourgeois nature as opposed to a passional one.

Ah you probably never got this far but he's definitely not introverted, shy or bourgeois. When he leaves Henriette to go to work for the king in Paris, he straight away meets an older English lady, she's in her thirties, kougar, beautiful,  and they fuck like rabbits, he makes it clear that her age and experience meant that she could show him all sorts of unusual ways to jouir .  She's called Lady Arabelle Dudley, Balzac paints her using all sorts of biblical allusions -- she's the devil, the serpent etc . I'm rather proud that she was English.

Balzac has some things to say about the English . . . he thinks he's got us nailed.

[Florestan]

Ah you probably never got this far but he's definitely not introverted, shy or bourgeois. When he leaves Henriette to go to work for the king in Paris, he straight away meets an older English lady, she's in her thirties, kougar, beautiful,  and they fuck like rabbits, he makes it clear that her age and experience meant that she could show him all sorts of unusual ways to jouir .  She's called Lady Arabelle Dudley, Balzac paints her using all sorts of biblical allusions -- she's the devil, the serpent etc . I'm rather proud that she was English.

Balzac has some things to say about the English . . . he thinks he's got us nailed.

Must definitely read it again, then.