What are you currently reading?

[Florestan]

Great story, many thanks! At the same time: I never met a living person, still alive or living, who actually read the complete Gulag Archipelago. Everybody, including myself, gave up their (multiple) attempts halfway part one. 

The Gulag Archipelago seems to remain one of those essential, but at the same time unreadable, neccessary classics. The reality behind is impressive enough. But how did you manage to read through this complete series by Solzhenytsin?? 

Well, I'm currently reading it, as the thread requires. I just started the first volume and am not even quarter-way through, but I am sure I will finish the whole series. The nightmarish reality he describes sounds familiar to me. Romanian communism has been very similar to the Russian one, and it could not be any other way because the only way Communism everywhere could stay in power is state terrorism.

But I am also sure that by the time I finish this book I will have finished some others --- if anything else, for my own sanity.

[Bu]

Have wanted to read this book for some time and was able to find it quite cheap at a local book store.  Am about 300 pages through the epic and think it a very good yarn; Sholokhov uses wonderful imagery and description (with some unflinching earthiness) to vividly depict the landscape and lives of a Don Cossacks family (the Melekhovs) from pre-revolutionary times, WWI, the Revolution and beyond.  Despite being so ambitious and sweeping, the story hasn't had too many lulls so far, and I feel that the final 200 pages should be as satisfactory as the previous ones I've read.  At least I hope so!

Its funny that Solzhenitsyn is mentioned above me; he claimed that Sholokhov plagiarized "Quite Flows the Don" but the evidence found so far doesn't corroborate that. 

[orbital]

Quite fun so far.

[Lethevich]

(in an older edition)

Very readable. It covers a lot of ground, and focuses on Europe to its very boundaries, including the various Turkish incursions. Little snippets of information are interestingly placed and informative - such as the reminder that Poland and Lithuania, while being on the border of Europe, were not marginal in their standing within Europe as a whole at that time.

[Florestan]

Little snippets of information are interestingly placed and informative - such as the reminder that Poland and Lithuania, while being on the border of Europe, were not marginal in their standing within Europe as a whole at that time.

Actually, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the largest European state of the time.

[Philoctetes]

Pessoa.
Quite.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Pessoa.
Quite.

Poetry?
Prose?

[Philoctetes]

Poetry?
Prose?

A bit of both, mostly prose though.
And to finish the unfinished, good.

[Christo]

The nightmarish reality he describes sounds familiar to me. Romanian communism has been very similar to the Russian one, and it could not be any other way because the only way Communism everywhere could stay in power is state terrorism.

I was aware of the similarities, as far as `awareness' can go with things unthinkable. I read about Bǎrǎgan and the Romanian Gulag, though, and met some victims.

Your review makes ma reconsider reading the Gulag Archipelago - I was only 18 with my first attempt, so maybe not yet ready ...

[Florestan]

Your review makes ma reconsider reading the Gulag Archipelago - I was only 18 with my first attempt, so maybe not yet ready ...

I think that, too.

[SonicMan46]

The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650-1815 (2004) by John Spitzer & Neal Zaslaw - just starting this fascinating tome - some comments HERE!

The mirror of human life: Reflections on Francois Couperin's Pieces de Clavecin (2002) by Jane Clark & Derek Connon; small book (just 100 pages or so); in three parts, the first two providing some historical comment on the period & Couperin's times; and the third a catalog of the movements in the Pieces de Clavecin w/ comments on many of the titles in trying to explain Couperin's portrayal of many of the people he knew - just one abbreviated example quoted below - wish that I really could understand the music & look at the explores to appreciate these associations - 

La Babet (First Book, 2nd Order) - Elisabeth Danneret, known as Babet...was pretty...and a sensational success...Presumably she lived up to the dubious of its members because Couperin used a dotted 6/8 rhythm to imply horse-riding, which in turn implied dubious morals...

- kind of like the 'double entendres' in the blues w/ 'ponies, horses, jockies, etc.' - 

 

[Lilas Pastia]

I had to stop halfway through. Bored me to death. 

Now reading:

Excellent, or at least that's my memory of it. But later attempts at more James proved not as rewarding. For some reason the fun of reading a James novel seems to be very elusive. I couldn't recapture the right mood. 

[mozartsneighbor]

A bit of both, mostly prose though.
And to finish the unfinished, good.

Hope your translation is by Richard Zenith. I am a native speaker of Portuguese and his translations really are better than those of others I have seen

[rockerreds]

Barbara Gowdy-Helpless

[Bu]

Good far, with insightful information and commentary into the subject that has been rewarding, but I find it lacking some color and literary polish. 

[Kullervo]

[Solitary Wanderer]

Wonderful insight [literally] into some amazing homes and lifestyles of various famous composers. In addition to the great phoros there's very interesting text on the domestic arrangments and histories of the various homes and their connections to the composer.

[Kullervo]

Is that Wagner's "humble" abode on the cover?

[Solitary Wanderer]

Is that Wagner's "humble" abode on the cover?

Hi Corey:

The cover shot is the home of Ole Bull 

[Brian]

What a great great great book. You'll have to tell me how the translation stacks up, if you're familiar with the work...