What are you currently reading?

[Elgarian]

An old favourite, and the best historical novel I've ever read, set in late C17th London and later Lancashire.

[CD]

A great book.

Yes it was — I look forward to reading more.

Since I last posted I read Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler and have started:

[CD]

[Scarpia]

Yes it was — I look forward to reading more.

Since I last posted I read Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler and have started:

Read both of those recently, but neither made a very strong impression on me.

[Scarpia]

Now that is a book the really stretches the English language to it's limits.

[CD]

Read both of those recently, but neither made a very strong impression on me.

More or less the same here. The Bulgakov was pretty good but I think Canetti's Auto-da-Fé pulled off more successfully the mixture of reality and fantasy and is much more logically coherent within the confines of the world created by the author.

[MN Dave]

Fanfare magazine. It's fun to read the letters section with all the fighting going on. I also like the jazz section. Oh, and the reviews. Not always so hot on the articles in the front.

[MN Dave]

I started THE MARBLE FAUN by Hawthorne. So far, ugh...doubt I'll finish it.

[karlhenning]

Fanfare magazine. It's fun to read the letters section with all the fighting going on.

Yes, nothing quite like a good classical music catfight.

I started THE MARBLE FAUN by Hawthorne. So far, ugh...doubt I'll finish it.

Aw, man, I love Hawthorne!

[MN Dave]

Yes, nothing quite like a good classical music catfight.

Aw, man, I love Hawthorne!

Well, this one isn't considered a classic, is it?

[karlhenning]

Well, this one isn't considered a classic, is it?

I can't think why not.  For its day, it was a sort of genre-bender.

I need to revisit it, though;  I don't carry such strong impressions of it, as I do for, say, The Blithedale Romance (my very favorite).

[MN Dave]

I can't think why not.  For its day, it was a sort of genre-bender.

I need to revisit it, though;  I don't carry such strong impressions of it, as I do for, say, The Blithedale Romance (my very favorite).

Sometimes I think I should stick to post-Hemingway fiction.

[karlhenning]

Sometimes I think I should stick to post-Hemingway fiction.

I understand! There are large stretches when I have a comparable feeling viz. music (not that Hemingway composed . . . .)

[MN Dave]

I understand! There are large stretches when I have a comparable feeling viz. music (not that Hemingway composed . . . .)

Though I haven't been in much of a mood for fiction at all lately.

[Scarpia]

I think my favorite Hawthorne is "The House of the Seven Gables."  I read the Faun long ago, have only vague recollections of it. 

[karlhenning]

Seven Gables is great, I have no quarrel with it.  Blithedale has the marginally higher claim to my affection . . . I had hardly ever heard of it, before I read it.

[The new erato]

I've just started !In Wurope" by Gert Mak. Seems promising.

[Scarpia]

Seven Gables is great, I have no quarrel with it.  Blithedale has the marginally higher claim to my affection . . . I had hardly ever heard of it, before I read it.

From The House of the Seven Gables by Hawthorne

The Organ Grinder

With his quick professional eye he took note of the two faces watching him from the arched window, and, opening his instrument, began to scatter its melodies abroad. He had a monkey on his shoulder, dressed in a Highland plaid; and, to complete the sum of splendid attractions wherewith he presented himself to the public, there was a company of little figures, whose sphere and habitation was in the mahogany case of his organ, and whose principle of life was the music which the Italian made it his business to grind out. In all their variety of occupation,—the cobbler, the blacksmith, the soldier, the lady with her fan, the toper with his bottle, the milk-maid sitting by her cow—this fortunate little society might truly be said to enjoy a harmonious existence, and to make life literally a dance. The Italian turned a crank; and, behold! every one of these small individuals started into the most curious vivacity. The cobbler wrought upon a shoe; the blacksmith hammered his iron, the soldier waved his glittering blade; the lady raised a tiny breeze with her fan; the jolly toper swigged lustily at his bottle; a scholar opened his book with eager thirst for knowledge, and turned his head to and fro along the page; the milkmaid energetically drained her cow; and a miser counted gold into his strong-box,—all at the same turning of a crank. Yes; and, moved by the self-same impulse, a lover saluted his mistress on her lips! Possibly some cynic, at once merry and bitter, had desired to signify, in this pantomimic scene, that we mortals, whatever our business or amusement,—however serious, however trifling,—all dance to one identical tune, and, in spite of our ridiculous activity, bring nothing finally to pass. For the most remarkable aspect of the affair was, that, at the cessation of the music, everybody was petrified at once, from the most extravagant life into a dead torpor. Neither was the cobbler's shoe finished, nor the blacksmith's iron shaped out; nor was there a drop less of brandy in the toper's bottle, nor a drop more of milk in the milkmaid's pail, nor one additional coin in the miser's strong-box, nor was the scholar a page deeper in his book. All were precisely in the same condition as before they made themselves so ridiculous by their haste to toil, to enjoy, to accumulate gold, and to become wise. Saddest of all, moreover, the lover was none the happier for the maiden's granted kiss! But, rather than swallow this last too acrid ingredient, we reject the whole moral of the show.

[Ten thumbs]

Lovers of fantasy should read this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=qkYEAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Phantasmion&cd=4#v=onepage&q=&f=false

It is interesting to compare this early example of the genre with today's offerings. Although it is entitled 'a fairy tale' it is beautifully written and clearly not intended for children. It is a pity that Sara's second effort in this style remains only in fragments due to her death. Curiously, as you have been discussing Hawthorne, this concerns an eponymous woman called Hawithorn.

[MN Dave]