What are you currently reading?

[Karl Henning]

Can be a little bit tough at times, but ultimately found it a rewarding and engrossing read. Pevear & Volokhonsky translation.

Here are my comments copied and pasted from another discussion forum:

• The vivid and realistic dreams and nightmares in the book. A lot of novels depict dreams terribly: either the dreams make too much sense, or they form too "perfect" a narrative, or they just happen to nail all the major plot themes right on the nose. There are a lot of really great dream sequences in this book, particularly the disturbing one near the very end when Svidrigailov gets a room in the super nasty hotel by the river.
• Raskolnikov, Marmeladov, Svidrigailov, Razumikhin, Zamyotov, Lebezyatnikov, the surname-less Porfiry Petrovich... there are some great names in this novel. (And with relevant meanings.)
• Man, I love Razumikhin. He disproves the trope that a stereotypical "good guy" can't also be fascinating. I love when he starts to crack under drink and says a bunch of stuff that mortifies his sober self, and love the gradations in his gradual realization that Raskolnikov is guilty. On top of everything else, isn't it interesting that a close study of violence and murder and self-destruction etc., also has a, like, top ten Character You'd Like to Hang Out With.
• Once I started fantasizing about a really good modern-day Paul Thomas Anderson movie adaptation, I couldn't stop fixating on the idea of Porfiry Petrovich being cast as a woman instead. Not sure who yet. Lauren Lapkus? But gosh, I love Porfiry Petrovich, and his spiritual grandson, Columbo.
• Svidrigailov's departure really, really stunned me. And I had read the book once already.
• It was awfully hard keeping track, at times, of who knew who back in the countryside, and which peripheral characters to trust and distrust, although the answer is really "distrust all males except PP and Razumikhin". I think.
• Speaking of which, is it at all a problem that the major women - Sonya, Dunya, Lizaveta, and maybe to a lesser degree Raskolnikov's mom (though apparently not the old lady who gets axed) - are all sweet, loving, redeeming, and heart-of-gold-ish?
  

Thanks for the color;  and glad you engaged with it!

On the last point: don't expect a 19^th-c. Russian to write like someone from our era!

[bwv 1080]

Who's reading?

Donal Donnelly and its the 1984 edition of the book

[stingo]

Finished The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell. Took me a bit to get into it, but I ended up liking it. I'm not sure I'd rush into the sequel right away, but I will probably end up returning at some point.

Started Queen of the Big Time by Adriana Trigiani for the book club to which I belong.

[asin]B000FC1RU0[/asin]

[Brian]

How does this work, I wonder, when it's translated? How much of this beauty is the author's, and how much is the translator's?

That is a darn good question. In this case, the prose is so striking that I've stopped to wonder about author/translator at least 6 or 7 times. Like a line about a dead person whose mouth is hanging open, and "the sand and the wind are saying something to each other in his mouth." Did the translator luck into that image, that perfect phrase "saying something," that rhythm? How true is this? I really wanna know.

[mn dave]

That is a darn good question. In this case, the prose is so striking that I've stopped to wonder about author/translator at least 6 or 7 times. Like a line about a dead person whose mouth is hanging open, and "the sand and the wind are saying something to each other in his mouth." Did the translator luck into that image, that perfect phrase "saying something," that rhythm? How true is this? I really wanna know.

I guess you'd have to read all the translations. Or learn Russian.

[milk]

[mn dave]

Great book!

[milk]

Great book!

Vaudeville is so totally forgotten, is it not? But there's like a million stories to tell. What a wild, crazy, time it seemed. People just got by by wits and chutzpa. Mother Minnie Marx seems like a lunatic, dragging her kids around the country and yelling about the mortgage from offstage if they got dangerously off script. I haven't gotten into the hollywood years yet. I'm still reading about their vaudeville escapades. I think it's a pretty unimaginable world in many ways. And those were some street-wise guys. Has anyone here every played pinochle?

[Karl Henning]

Paul Cienniwa's By Heart: A Treatise on the Art of Memorizing Music in manuscript (I've been invited to proof it).  Thumbnail:  Paul started as a piano major (and therefore, memorizing the music), but when he switched to harpsichord, he entered a culture in which it was expected he would not memorize.  Years later, he decided to go back to memorization, and finds that both his musicianship, and the performance & presentation of the music, improve enormously.  Naturally, we're great friends, and I read it hearing him speaking aloud, practically;  but I find it an engaging and endearing read.  It is, in fact, a book that anyone, musician or not, would derive intellectual and spiritual benefit from the reading.

[milk]

Paul Cienniwa's By Heart: A Treatise on the Art of Memorizing Music in manuscript (I've been invited to proof it).  Thumbnail:  Paul started as a piano major (and therefore, memorizing the music), but when he switched to harpsichord, he entered a culture in which it was expected he would not memorize.  Years later, he decided to go back to memorization, and finds that both his musicianship, and the performance & presentation of the music, improve enormously.  Naturally, we're great friends, and I read it hearing him speaking aloud, practically;  but I find it an engaging and endearing read.  It is, in fact, a book that anyone, musician or not, would derive intellectual and spiritual benefit from the reading.

This is something I've always wondered about but thought it was maybe a silly question. At the two Jorge Demus concerts I went to I noticed he goes entirely from memory - whether Bach or Chopin. But at the other concerts I've been there's always sheet music. Why do some memorize and others don't? My friend's wife is an avant garde pianist but she always uses sheet music I think. I'm curious what goes into this.  I guess maybe one might need sheet music depending on the music? I wonder if avant garde-ish music is harder to memorize.

[Karl Henning]

From the time of Liszt, a pianist playing from memory became the norm.  Detractors considered it "showing off," but (in part) if your eye is not a slave to tracking the page, you gain more capacity for focus and attention to the music.  (Tangentially, as a clarinetist, I never play from memory, but perhaps for a single-line instrument player, that focus and attention is easier to achieve, even while reading from the page.)  In the relatively recent Early Music subculture (possibly as an allergic reaction to the Romantic Liszt example), it has been the norm to play from music.

In playing new music, however (especially ensemble music), pianists do typically play from the page.

[milk]

From the time of Liszt, a pianist playing from memory became the norm.  Detractors considered it "showing off," but (in part) if your eye is not a slave to tracking the page, you gain more capacity for focus and attention to the music.  (Tangentially, as a clarinetist, I never play from memory, but perhaps for a single-line instrument player, that focus and attention is easier to achieve, even while reading from the page.)  In the relatively recent Early Music subculture (possibly as an allergic reaction to the Romantic Liszt example), it has been the norm to play from music.

In playing new music, however (especially ensemble music), pianists do typically play from the page.

I see. Thanks.
I saw Angela Hewitt play the Goldbergs. She also played from memory. But she must know the music backwards and forwards anyway.

[North Star]

Paul Cienniwa's By Heart: A Treatise on the Art of Memorizing Music in manuscript (I've been invited to proof it).  Thumbnail:  Paul started as a piano major (and therefore, memorizing the music), but when he switched to harpsichord, he entered a culture in which it was expected he would not memorize.  Years later, he decided to go back to memorization, and finds that both his musicianship, and the performance & presentation of the music, improve enormously.  Naturally, we're great friends, and I read it hearing him speaking aloud, practically;  but I find it an engaging and endearing read.  It is, in fact, a book that anyone, musician or not, would derive intellectual and spiritual benefit from the reading.

That must be an interesting read indeed!
In the days before Liszt & others, when Beethoven's Piano Sonatas & other established classics gained and the proportion of new music in concerts began to decrease, and this no doubt played a part in pianists playing from memory. I agree that the advantages of memorization must be huge, as they force one to know the music on a much deeper level.
(Paavali Jumppanen played the Brahms 2nd PC here in Oulu from memory last season, and very well, too.)

[Jo498]

I think Marmeladovs wife (Sonya's mom/stepmom?) is quite colorful and not as idealized as Dunya or Sonya.
There are more colorful women (actually often quite dark/grey characters) in other Dostoevsky novels: Nastassya Filipovna in "Idiot", Lisa? in "Demons", Grushenka in "Brothers Karamazov". Not to forget the Granny in "The gambler"

[stingo]

I found a price tracker for Kindle books if anyone's interested.

[Karl Henning]

I found a price tracker for Kindle books if anyone's interested.

Thanks!

[Brian]

Thanks!

Got "As I Lay Dying" for $2.50!

[Ken B]

[Florestan]

Just finished Tom Knox - The Genesis Secret. Kind of Dan Brown-ish, with three major differences: (1) much better written, literary speaking; (2) much more accurate historical facts and data, thus making the speculation more plausible; and (3) much more macabre. 

Now reading



Julius Evola - The Mistery of The Grail. Fascinating.

[Mookalafalas]

  Just read M.T. Anderson's "Feed", mostly on an airplane coming home from vacation.  I suppose it's dystopian sci-fi, but the weird thing about it is that it's so recognizable from what I was seeing around me in airports and on the plane (everyone constantly "plugged in" while being fed information coated in advertising).  It was creepy.  It's a fast read, and more valuable as a possible--and surprisingly convincing--vision of the near future rather than for any remarkable story (this is the author's intention, I believe).  I got it for $1 at a book store.  Recommended.