What are you currently reading?

[VonStupp]

Per the LMYW thread, I realize I haven't read any Stephen King. I avoided him mainly because I heard his writing is dense and horror isn't really my scene.

My wife picked up a random assortment of used novels back when she was with child, so I am trying my hand at SK's The Gunslinger (1982/2003) and The Eyes of the Dragon (1984).

VS

 

[Spotted Horses]

Spoke to soon. Just look at this sentence.

If he had lived in Frenchman's Bend itself during that spring and summer, he would have known no more—a little lost village, nameless, without grace, forsaken, yet which wombed once by chance and accident one blind seed of the spendthrift Olympian ejaculation and did not even know it, without tumescence conceived, and bore—one bright brief summer, concentric, during which three fairly well-horsed buggies stood in steady rotation along a picket fence or spun along adjacent roads between the homes and the crossroads stores and the schoolhouses and churches where people gathered for pleasure or at least for escape, and then overnight and simultaneously were seen no more; then eccentric: buggies gone, vanished—a lean, loose-jointed, cotton-socked, shrewd, ruthless old man, the splendid girl with her beautiful masklike face, the froglike creature which barely reached her shoulder, cashing a check, buying a license, taking a train—a word, a single will to believe born of envy and old deathless regret, murmured from cabin to cabin above the washing pots and the sewing, from wagon to horseman in roads and lanes or from rider to halted plow in field furrows; the word, the dream and wish of all male under sun capable of harm—the young who only dreamed yet of the ruins they were still incapable of; the sick and the maimed sweating in sleepless beds, impotent for the harm they willed to do; the old, now-glandless earth-creeping, the very buds and blossoms, the garlands of whose yellowed triumphs had long fallen into the profitless dust, embalmed now and no more dead to the living world if they were sealed in buried vaults, behind the impregnable matronly calico of others' grandchildren's grandmothers—the word, with its implications of lost triumphs and defeats of unimaginable splendor—and which best: to have that word, that dream and hope for future, or to have had need to flee that word and dream, for past.

Hamlet is probably the most linear in it's story telling of the Snopes trilogy, but as you see, it's not schoolbook grammar. I find that these passages can be musical in a way, and it helps to read them out loud and listen to yourself.

I began reading "The Wings of The Dove" by Henry James recently.

I could not get past the first ten pages due to the unwieldy text and writing style.
This rarely happens with me but perhaps I will return to it again at some point in the future.

It may be interesting to compare Hanry James' uncoiling sentences to Faulkner's. The obtuse sentence construction is something that came in James' late works and I remember reading somewhere that it was related to his switching from writing out his work on paper to dictating them.

[Mandryka]

Hamlet is probably the most linear in it's story telling of the Snopes trilogy, but as you see, it's not schoolbook grammar. I find that these passages can be musical in a way, and it helps to read them out loud and listen to yourself.

Yes and there's the bizarre parable which comes shortly after that sentence. I look forward to continuing, while still not being very clear about what Faulkner's project is in this book. Whatever it is, it goes beyond a story well told.

Re reading it aloud, I find it helps to do that - with my Englishman's attempt at a Mississippi accent. You wouldn't want to hear it.

[aligreto]

That's about 9 more pages than I've ever managed.  I've tried his work a few times over the years, and I just don't get on with it at all, in fact I find it intensely irritating.  Yet I love Proust, so it's not that I have a problem with dense pages of convoluted paragraph-long sentences obsessively examining every minute aspect of inconsequential trivia in microscopic detail.   I think maybe the issue is that this kind of pointillist writing style puts you very much inside the consciousness of the writer, which in James's case I do not find a congenial place to be.  I don't want to see the world through his eyes.  For one thing, he comes across as the most frightful snob.  But then so does Proust.   So I guess I just plain don't like him, and leave it at that.

All of that is fair enough and I do understand where you are coming from with it all. Another one that I did not enjoy was The Portrait of a Lady for the reasons that you have pointed out.
I should point out, however, that I did enjoy other works by Henry James such as The Aspern Papers, The Spoils of Poynton, The Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller.

[aligreto]

It may be interesting to compare Hanry James' uncoiling sentences to Faulkner's. The obtuse sentence construction is something that came in James' late works and I remember reading somewhere that it was related to his switching from writing out his work on paper to dictating them.

The impact of the coincidental posting of the Faulkner passage was not lost on me. Faulkner is one to avoid for me then. 

Thank you for the very interesting comment regarding James' dictation.

[aligreto]

Have you read Edith Wharton e.g. The Age of Innocence?  I was put off her for years because of the James connection, wrongly supposing that meant their writing would be similar, and was astonished to discover (eventually) just how readable and appealing her work is - well crafted, with sharp observation and even a sense of humour.

No. I have not. Thank you for the recommendation and explanation.

[Mandryka]

The impact of the coincidental posting of the Faulkner passage was not lost on me. Faulkner is one to avoid for me then. 

Thank you for the very interesting comment regarding James' dictation.

Before giving up on late Henry James, let me urge you to try, if you can bring yourself, The Golden Bowl.

[aligreto]

Before giving up on late Henry James, let me urge you to try, if you can bring yourself, The Golden Bowl.

Thank you for the recommendation.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I, Fellini. Charlotte Chandler.

[Mandryka]

Spoke to soon. Just look at this sentence.

If he had lived in Frenchman's Bend itself during that spring and summer, he would have known no more—a little lost village, nameless, without grace, forsaken, yet which wombed once by chance and accident one blind seed of the spendthrift Olympian ejaculation and did not even know it, without tumescence conceived, and bore—one bright brief summer, concentric, during which three fairly well-horsed buggies stood in steady rotation along a picket fence or spun along adjacent roads between the homes and the crossroads stores and the schoolhouses and churches where people gathered for pleasure or at least for escape, and then overnight and simultaneously were seen no more; then eccentric: buggies gone, vanished—a lean, loose-jointed, cotton-socked, shrewd, ruthless old man, the splendid girl with her beautiful masklike face, the froglike creature which barely reached her shoulder, cashing a check, buying a license, taking a train—a word, a single will to believe born of envy and old deathless regret, murmured from cabin to cabin above the washing pots and the sewing, from wagon to horseman in roads and lanes or from rider to halted plow in field furrows; the word, the dream and wish of all male under sun capable of harm—the young who only dreamed yet of the ruins they were still incapable of; the sick and the maimed sweating in sleepless beds, impotent for the harm they willed to do; the old, now-glandless earth-creeping, the very buds and blossoms, the garlands of whose yellowed triumphs had long fallen into the profitless dust, embalmed now and no more dead to the living world if they were sealed in buried vaults, behind the impregnable matronly calico of others' grandchildren's grandmothers—the word, with its implications of lost triumphs and defeats of unimaginable splendor—and which best: to have that word, that dream and hope for future, or to have had need to flee that word and dream, for past.

I have now met Ike, and his love for a cow. This is the only novel I know with a highly poetic celebration of bestiality.

Then he would hear her, coming down the creekside in tthe mist. It would not be after one hour, two hours, three; the dawn would be empty, the moment and she would not be, then he would hear her and he would lie drenched in the wet grass, serene and one and indivisible in joy, listening to her approach. He would smell her; the whole mist reeked with her; the same malleate hands of mist which drew along his prone drenched flanks palped her pearled barrel too and shaped them both somewhere in immediate time, already married. He would not move. He would lie amid the waking instant of earth's teeming life, the motionless fronds of water-heavy grasses stooping into the mist before his face in black, fixed curves, along each parabola of which the marching drops held in minute magnification the dawn's rosy miniatures, smelling and even tasting the rich, slow, warm barn-reek milk-reek, the flowing immemorial female, hearing the slow planting and the plopping suck of each deliberate cloven mud-spreading hoof, invisible still in the mist loud with its hymeneal choristers.

Then he would see her; the bright thin horns of morning, of sun, would blow the mist away and reveal her, planted, blond, dew-pearled, standing in the parted water of the ford, blowing into the water the thick, warm, heavy, milk-laden breath; and lying in the drenched grasses, his eyes now blind with sun, he would wallow faintly from thigh to thigh, making a faint, thick, hoarse moaning sound. Because he cannot make one with her through the day's morning and noon and evening. It is not that he must return to work. There is no work, no travail, no muscular and spiritual reluctance to overcome, constantly war against; yesterday was not, tomorrow is not, today is merely a placid and virginal astonishment at the creeping ridge of dust and trash in front of the broom, at sheets coming smooth and taut at certain remembered motions of the hands—a routine grooved, irk-loss; a firm gentle compelling hand, a voice to hold and control him through joy out of kindness as a dog is taught and held.


When I first read it I thought he was looking at a woman, and the reference to the hoof had something to do with the devil -- Eula maybe. But no, I was innocent, I was not prepared for Faulkner's mindset,  it's a fking cow.

[JBS]

I have now met Ike, and his love for a cow. This is the only novel I know with a highly poetic celebration of bestiality.

Then he would hear her, coming down the creekside in tthe mist. It would not be after one hour, two hours, three; the dawn would be empty, the moment and she would not be, then he would hear her and he would lie drenched in the wet grass, serene and one and indivisible in joy, listening to her approach. He would smell her; the whole mist reeked with her; the same malleate hands of mist which drew along his prone drenched flanks palped her pearled barrel too and shaped them both somewhere in immediate time, already married. He would not move. He would lie amid the waking instant of earth's teeming life, the motionless fronds of water-heavy grasses stooping into the mist before his face in black, fixed curves, along each parabola of which the marching drops held in minute magnification the dawn's rosy miniatures, smelling and even tasting the rich, slow, warm barn-reek milk-reek, the flowing immemorial female, hearing the slow planting and the plopping suck of each deliberate cloven mud-spreading hoof, invisible still in the mist loud with its hymeneal choristers.

Then he would see her; the bright thin horns of morning, of sun, would blow the mist away and reveal her, planted, blond, dew-pearled, standing in the parted water of the ford, blowing into the water the thick, warm, heavy, milk-laden breath; and lying in the drenched grasses, his eyes now blind with sun, he would wallow faintly from thigh to thigh, making a faint, thick, hoarse moaning sound. Because he cannot make one with her through the day's morning and noon and evening. It is not that he must return to work. There is no work, no travail, no muscular and spiritual reluctance to overcome, constantly war against; yesterday was not, tomorrow is not, today is merely a placid and virginal astonishment at the creeping ridge of dust and trash in front of the broom, at sheets coming smooth and taut at certain remembered motions of the hands—a routine grooved, irk-loss; a firm gentle compelling hand, a voice to hold and control him through joy out of kindness as a dog is taught and held.


When I first read it I thought he was looking at a woman, and the reference to the hoof had something to do with the devil -- Eula maybe. But no, I was innocent, I was not prepared for Faulkner's mindset,  it's a fking cow.

Well, Kazantzakis ends The Last Temptation by having a character shift from raping a sheep to raping a woman in the middle of a paragraph.

[Mandryka]

Maybe it's just my urban prudishness which makes me so surprised. Presumably if you've been born and bred in farming then you're used to at least hearing of people enjoying bestiality. 

I've never read Kazantzakis, though I've frequently had it in mind to.

[JBS]

Maybe it's just my urban prudishness which makes me so surprised. Presumably if you've been born and bred in farming then you're used to at least hearing of people enjoying bestiality. 

I've never read Kazantzakis, though I've frequently had it in mind to.

I'm urban too--btw, I got a bit mixed up.  It's The Greek Passion that ends that way.

Do try Kazantzakis--but I have no idea what you'll think of him.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

The Library at Night. Alberto Manguel.



 

[Florestan]

Informative and well-written. It stresses and documents the important, decisive influence that Italian opera / vocal music had on the development of instrrumental music (sonatas, symphonies, concertos) --- a fact which is often downplayed in the Germanocentric history of music.

[Ganondorf]

Before giving up on late Henry James, let me urge you to try, if you can bring yourself, The Golden Bowl.

I have been meaning to read The Golden Bowl, having heard it is James's best. I actually checked a bit of it in library one day. Probably will borrow it the next time. Great expectations especially considering James had great influence on development of one of my favorite games of all time, Red Dead Redemption 2.

[Spotted Horses]

James Joyce, Faulkner, Henry James; interesting that incomprehensibility as a literary movement seemed to peak in the early to mid 20th century, then receded, leaving us with books that we can understand. Then came the incomprehensible movies, such as Mulholland Drive.

[Ganondorf]

Then again Orwell, Mann and Shaw write in very clear style. 

[Mandryka]

James Joyce, Faulkner, Henry James; interesting that incomprehensibility as a literary movement seemed to peak in the early to mid 20th century, then receded, leaving us with books that we can understand. Then came the incomprehensible movies, such as Mulholland Drive.

Since 1980 IMO. It's been all downhill in English literature since Worstward Ho! 

[Verena]

Maybe it's just my urban prudishness which makes me so surprised. Presumably if you've been born and bred in farming then you're used to at least hearing of people enjoying bestiality. 

I've never read Kazantzakis, though I've frequently had it in mind to.

I have now met Ike, and his love for a cow. This is the only novel I know with a highly poetic celebration of bestiality.

Then he would hear her, coming down the creekside in tthe mist. It would not be after one hour, two hours, three; the dawn would be empty, the moment and she would not be, then he would hear her and he would lie drenched in the wet grass, serene and one and indivisible in joy, listening to her approach. He would smell her; the whole mist reeked with her; the same malleate hands of mist which drew along his prone drenched flanks palped her pearled barrel too and shaped them both somewhere in immediate time, already married. He would not move. He would lie amid the waking instant of earth's teeming life, the motionless fronds of water-heavy grasses stooping into the mist before his face in black, fixed curves, along each parabola of which the marching drops held in minute magnification the dawn's rosy miniatures, smelling and even tasting the rich, slow, warm barn-reek milk-reek, the flowing immemorial female, hearing the slow planting and the plopping suck of each deliberate cloven mud-spreading hoof, invisible still in the mist loud with its hymeneal choristers.

Then he would see her; the bright thin horns of morning, of sun, would blow the mist away and reveal her, planted, blond, dew-pearled, standing in the parted water of the ford, blowing into the water the thick, warm, heavy, milk-laden breath; and lying in the drenched grasses, his eyes now blind with sun, he would wallow faintly from thigh to thigh, making a faint, thick, hoarse moaning sound. Because he cannot make one with her through the day's morning and noon and evening. It is not that he must return to work. There is no work, no travail, no muscular and spiritual reluctance to overcome, constantly war against; yesterday was not, tomorrow is not, today is merely a placid and virginal astonishment at the creeping ridge of dust and trash in front of the broom, at sheets coming smooth and taut at certain remembered motions of the hands—a routine grooved, irk-loss; a firm gentle compelling hand, a voice to hold and control him through joy out of kindness as a dog is taught and held.


When I first read it I thought he was looking at a woman, and the reference to the hoof had something to do with the devil -- Eula maybe. But no, I was innocent, I was not prepared for Faulkner's mindset,  it's a fking cow.

Hello Howard, I can't resist to chip in with a possibly completely irrelevant remark. But bestiality is the least word that comes to mind when I hear the word "cow".
Cows can be among the kindest souls on earth if treated well, very social and pretty intelligent; some sanctuaries have started offering "cow cuddling", it's like a therapy. If I had the money and physical fitness, I'd open a sanctuary for them. I once asked my dog veterinarian whether she is a "cat type" or a "dog type" and she told me if she could afford it, she'd prefer to have a cow. Today I know why.