What are you currently reading?

[Florestan]

Very nice looking edition, Andrei.

Yes, indeed. Part of a long series of universal literature classics.

[VonStupp]

The Man Who Loved Children (1940)
Christina Stead

I am not sure what to make of this book. A dysfunctional family (apparently originally Australian, but changed to Washington DC) led by a strange father figure who babbles in a made-up language with his children.

I didn't find their situation or interactions funny nor amusing, which I found mostly confusing and concerning. Perhaps some allusions to Uncle Sam as well?

VS

[aligreto]

Yes, indeed. Part of a long series of universal literature classics.

Must look very well displayed on a shelf.

[Florestan]

First time reading Thackeray's Vanity Fair, five chapters in. So, far, so good, I love the humorous style.

Rapidly approaching the end of volume one. It's just as much a page turner as The Buddenbrooks, which it even resembles a bit, although Mann's gentle humour is very different from Thackeray's mordant irony.

[aligreto]

Book: Hardy: Wessex Tales





This is a wonderful collection of short stories. The characterisations, the plots, the storytelling and the sense of place are always consistently excellent. Hardy was a wonderful storyteller and word painter.

[Florestan]

Book: Hardy: Wessex Tales





This is a wonderful collection of short stories. The characterisations, the plots, the storytelling and the sense of place are always consistently excellent. Hardy was a wonderful storyteller and word painter.

My favorite Hardy is Jude the Obscure.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Book: Hardy: Wessex Tales





This is a wonderful collection of short stories. The characterisations, the plots, the storytelling and the sense of place are always consistently excellent. Hardy was a wonderful storyteller and word painter.

Great, great book by the great author. The Withered Arm and other stories are excellent. All the characters are violently affected by the fate. I think A Changed Man and Other Tales (including famous Alicia's Diary) is great as well.

[Florestan]

Life's Little Ironies is also very good.

[aligreto]

It is good to see some love here for Hardy. He has long been a favourite author of mine.

Jude the Obscure was indeed a particularly fine work.

[Spotted Horses]

It is good to see some love here for Hardy. He has long been a favourite author of mine.

Jude the Obscure was indeed a particularly fine work.

My favorite, I think, is Return of the Native.

[SimonNZ]

Started:

[JBS]

It is good to see some love here for Hardy. He has long been a favourite author of mine.

Jude the Obscure was indeed a particularly fine work.

I've read four Hardy novels. Jude the Obscure and The Mayor of Casterbridge for school; Return of the Native and Far From the Madding Crowd later on.  I must admit none were a favorite of mine.

But he was also a major poet. His most famous poem is The Convergence of the Twain, dealing with the sinking of the Titanic.

I
            In a solitude of the sea
            Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

II
            Steel chambers, late the pyres
            Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III
            Over the mirrors meant
            To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls—grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV
            Jewels in joy designed
            To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V
            Dim moon-eyed fishes near
            Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" ...

VI
            Well: while was fashioning
            This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII
            Prepared a sinister mate
            For her—so gaily great—
A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

VIII
            And as the smart ship grew
            In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

IX
            Alien they seemed to be:
            No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history.

X
            Or sign that they were bent
            By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

XI
            Till the Spinner of the Years
            Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

[SimonNZ]

Not reading, but will be ordering:

Just stumbled on a Proust study I hadn't encountered before - an in a NYRB edition:



Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp
By Józef Czapski, Eric Karpeles

"It was because of Proust that I came to learn of the existence of the Polish painter and writer Józef Czapski. While a prisoner of war in the dark heart of Soviet Russia during the Second World War, this singular, cosmopolitan spirit devised a series of lectures on Proust and In Search of Lost Time as a vital counterpoint to the grim surroundings he and his fellow prisoners were forced to endure, offering them a context for addressing their lives and their bleak fates. Freezing, nearly starving, lice-ridden, Czapski mapped out Proust's cosmology in several pages of his journal that served to fuel his talks. Scheherazade-like, night after night, he slowly revealed the already-legendary French novelist's complex world of ideas and characters, giving voice to the life-enhancing magic great art bestows."

[Karl Henning]

I've Just finished reading David Ossman's Fighting Clowns of Hollywood With Laffs by The Firesign Theatre memoir. (I had started to read it before my stroke, and only picked it back up a couple of weeks ago. Eye-openingly enlightening and (as fully expected) superbly entertaining. Strongly recommended, especially if you need something to lift you out of the COVID-winding-down funk. Pairs well with Philip Proctor's Where's My Fortune Cookie?

[Karl Henning]

Re-reading this, at last. (I read it in fairly short order when I first purchased it. It is the same author whose poem "When" I recently set. Book available here, if you wish.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Dinosaur! (Knowledge Encyclopedias).
Fun read. Sexy illustrations.  Nice discussion about evolution.

[Spotted Horses]

Alice Munro, Dear Life



I have a great affinity for Munro's writing. I purchased a collection of her short stories, perhaps 10 years ago, and since reading them have been tracking down the individual volumes. These are stories without plot twists, gimmicks, just slices of life presented with grim honesty, often set in a Canada which feels like a backward hinterland about to bloom into multicultural prosperity. I think comparisons between Munro and Chekhov are appropriate.

[DavidW]

My favorite Hardy is Jude the Obscure.

Same!  Jude the Obscure is one of my favorite novels.

[DizzyD]

What seems to be a pretty good edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales:

[aligreto]

Kafka: Description of a Struggle & Other stories.





Anyone who has read Kafka is aware of his thought process but reading this collection of stories one is transported to almost another dimension. Here we enter a phantasmagorical world; an alternative reality.