What are you currently reading?

[Drasko]

Before I begin Book 2 of Proust ...

Book 2, Within a Budding Grove, is probably my favorite of the seven.

Next to last Spirou and Fantasio episode:

[Ken B]

Pope is one of the first authors I've read where I feel I need to be wearing a monocle.

I'm not sure I understand the comment but I found it oddly funny!
Pope is incredibly brilliant -- that couplet above is some sort of pinnacle in the English language -- and often funny but I find him too bloodless to read in large amounts. I'll take Milton or Donne or Blake.

[kishnevi]

I'm not sure I understand the comment but I found it oddly funny!
Pope is incredibly brilliant -- that couplet above is some sort of pinnacle in the English language -- and often funny but I find him too bloodless to read in large amounts. I'll take Milton or Donne or Blake.

I might call the Dunciad many things, including obscene and cruel, but not "bloodless".

[Ken B]

Pope's just not for me. The rhyming was driving me batty. I will say that I did enjoy reading about him and definitely value his ends (just not his means).

Milton.

[Lisztianwagner]

Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche contra Wagner by Friedrich Nietzsche.

[Henk]

Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche contra Wagner by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Curious about your opinion. Not the easiests texts by Nietzsche.

[Mookalafalas]

Not the easiest texts by Nietzsche.

Now that's saying something

Still on my hard-boiled binge. Reread Maltese Falcon today. First read it about 25 years ago. That is a gem.  Probably the best of all of them.  Tight controlled, and with terrific momentum.   I've seen the movie a million times, and it is a testament to the quality of Hammett's dialogue just how much of it made it into the film.  Houston really kept it close. 

[Ken B]

Now that's saying something

Still on my hard-boiled binge. Reread Maltese Falcon today. First read it about 25 years ago. That is a gem.  Probably the best of all of them.  Tight controlled, and with terrific momentum.   I've seen the movie a million times, and it is a testament to the quality of Hammett's dialogue just how much of it made it into the film.  Houston really kept it close.

Yep. Hammett never characterizes or explains, just describes. No "he said angrily" or inner monologue or what he thought, etc. One of the reasons why he films so well. And he trimmed and trimmed. No fat.

You'd like Eric Ambler, assuming you haven't read him already.

[Mookalafalas]

Yep. Hammett never characterizes or explains, just describes. No "he said angrily" or inner monologue or what he thought, etc. One of the reasons why he films so well. And he trimmed and trimmed. No fat.

You'd like Eric Ambler, assuming you haven't read him already.

I haven't, Ken. Thanks. I've been wishing there was somewhere new to turn to.

  For the last few years I've mainly been reading biographies and history (tons of presidential bios, preferably 3 or more volumes).  Then I sort of stopped reading.  It's nice to have my head back in a book

[Ken B]

I haven't, Ken. Thanks. I've been wishing there was somewhere new to turn to.

  For the last few years I've mainly been reading biographies and history (tons of presidential bios, preferably 3 or more volumes).  Then I sort of stopped reading.  It's nice to have my head back in a book

I like Dimitrios best. Several variant titles all the same book. Lots of splendid books though.

[Lisztianwagner]

Curious about your opinion. Not the easiests texts by Nietzsche.

I'll write it after finishing. I think there aren't easy texts by Nietzsche; when you deal with his books, you need to have carefully read comments and introductions and know the matter well to understand what Nietzsche is talking about.

[Ken B]

Hey Al

If you ate looking specifically for private eye books
Ross Macdonald -- anything from the 60s. I like The Chill especially. Earlier books are different.
James Crumley -- his early three books from the 70s, eg The Last Good Kiss
These are great.

And for something a bit odd, Paul Auster's NY trilogy

[Mookalafalas]

Hey Al

If you ate looking specifically for private eye books
Ross Macdonald -- anything from the 60s. I like The Chill especially. Earlier books are different.
James Crumley -- his early three books from the 70s, eg The Last Good Kiss
These are great.

And for something a bit odd, Paul Auster's NY trilogy

Thanks again, Ken.  I've only read the Paul Auster.  I haven't heard the name Ross Macdonald in years, and have never heard of Crumley, but will have a look-see

[Wakefield]

I'm not sure I understand the comment but I found it oddly funny!
Pope is incredibly brilliant -- that couplet above is some sort of pinnacle in the English language -- and often funny but I find him too bloodless to read in large amounts. I'll take Milton or Donne or Blake.

The first time I was interested in Pope was when I read this from the Spoon River Anthology:

89. Mrs. George Reece

TO this generation I would say:   
Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.   
It may serve a turn in your life.   
My husband had nothing to do   
With the fall of the bank—he was only cashier.            5
The wreck was due to the president, Thomas Rhodes,   
And his vain, unscrupulous son.   
Yet my husband was sent to prison,   
And I was left with the children,   
To feed and clothe and school them.     10
And I did it, and sent them forth   
Into the world all clean and strong,   
And all through the wisdom of Pope, the poet:   
“Act well your part, there all the honor lies."   


[Drasko]

Just finished this, and I'm in awe. Absolutely love it! Now have to get everything else this woman wrote, unfortunately that's not much: two novels and one other collection of stories.

[Mookalafalas]

Just finished this, and I'm in awe. Absolutely love it! Now have to get everything else this woman wrote, unfortunately that's not much: two novels and one other collection of stories.

  Yeah, O'connor is amazing, and so weirdly brutal. For some reason I've been thinking about several of her stories recently. The darkest ones just imprint themselves on your mind forever (I haven't read any of the stuff in 25 years, I think). Unfortunately, the two novels are closer to novellas in length.  If you haven't, you might also want to try Carson McCullers.  Even less prolific, and less dark, less quirky, but very powerful with the same weird "southern gothic" sensibility (Ballad of the Sad Cafe, for example). 

[stingo]

I'm three chapters into Ulysses by James Joyce.

[Drasko]

  Yeah, O'connor is amazing, and so weirdly brutal. For some reason I've been thinking about several of her stories recently. The darkest ones just imprint themselves on your mind forever (I haven't read any of the stuff in 25 years, I think). Unfortunately, the two novels are closer to novellas in length.  If you haven't, you might also want to try Carson McCullers.  Even less prolific, and less dark, less quirky, but very powerful with the same weird "southern gothic" sensibility (Ballad of the Sad Cafe, for example).

Thanks for mentioning McCullers. I was familiar with the name but never read anything. Though I've seen the movie John Huston made from her novel Reflections in a Golden Eye which I did like. Interestingly Huston also made a movie from Flannery O'Connor's novel Wise Blood as well, which I really loved (that was the way I first heard of O'Connor). O'Connor and McCullers apparently couldn't stand one another. I sure will try some McCullers writing.

[Brian]

Carson McCullers is extraordinary. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a beautiful, fascinating, and sad novel, and the novella (The Member of the Wedding, I think?) is especially surreal, funny, and heartbreaking. It actually made me uncomfortable. That one follows a teenage girl so madly in love with the wedding party that she thinks she can follow them on their honeymoon.

[ritter]

I bought this about a year ago in Brussels, and have finally got around to reading it...It's a collection of studies of the role some musicians played during those dark years (e.g. Honegger, Poulenc, Messiaen...). Not an indispensable read by any means...