What are you currently reading?

[AnotherSpin]

No. I am not going to eat insects, period.

One day the population will be told that they should eat insects. To save the planet, to reduce emissions, or because it is immoral to kill cows. And no one will be asked whether they are going to do it or not.

[AnotherSpin]

[Florestan]

One day the population will be told that they should eat insects. To save the planet, to reduce emissions, or because it is immoral to kill cows. And no one will be asked whether they are going to do it or not.

We'll see.

[AnotherSpin]

Short snippets from Kodo Sawaki Roshi with comments from Kosho Uchiyama and comments to comments from Shohaku Okumura represent three generations of Zen lineage.

[Mandryka]

Probably Faulkner's greatest. I can understand how confusing aspects of it must be to non-Americans. I'm not sure what to say to  you about comments like "Something big must have happened in 1865." That was the end of the US civil war, and the end of slavery--and of the "old south." That's a rather key point in all of Faulkner's work---and American history. Anyway, feel free to PM me if there is anything you feel I might be able to help with.

I'm quoting you rather than PMing just because maybe other people will have some ideas.

Rereading Absalom Absalom I now have the impression that one main strand of the novel is a sort of warning against miscegenation. Incest and bigamy are both forgivable (Faulkner's word is overpass) by love, but not miscegenation. Henry kills Bon in Shreve's story just because he's got a drop of black blood. And Jim Bond is a warning about what will happen to whites if they breed with blacks.

If that's right it's a problem because to me, now, here in London England, miscegenation just isn't a big deal. The strictures I'm attributing to Faulkner seem ill founded - we won't all become enfeebled if races mix. Faulkner is starting to seem hard to elevate to the universal, his ideas are too closely tied to the specific preoccupations of white America then.

But maybe it is all part of the American way of thinking still, maybe in the USA there is still taboo and anxiety about blacks and whites making children together, and so Americans can still "find themselves" in the book. But I can't (I also don't have a sister, so Quentin's problems about incest don't mean too much to me either!) 

Anyway, that's where I am with this elusive novel. (Rosa is interesting though, as is Clytie and Judith.)

[Karl Henning]

Started Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise at the beginning again after getting bored about half way through a year ago. This time I'm exploring some of the music referred to as I go so am progressing very slowly.

I look forward to your further report. I remember having a few quarrels with the book, but I read it long enough ago that I don't trust myself to recall them. 

[Karl Henning]

MOZART: The Reign of Love Jan Swafford (2020, Harper)
Anyone here read it? Found a 1st edition on my local bookstore sale table and flipped to Leopold imparting to the young Wolfgang that all men were essentially scoundrels and to be wary of them. And a bit further on that all of French music wasn't "worth a sou". Apparently, Wolfie's arrogance came honestly. The volume's bound to be entertaining if nothing else.

I need to read his Ives book.

[vers la flamme]

I need to read his Ives book.

As do I (and his Mozart and Beethoven bios). The Brahms was excellent.

Reading a few by Dickens, just finished Great Expectations, and have started Oliver Twist. Long overdue I reckon, given that so many of my favorite writers held Dickens in high regard. He seems to have been quite a dark kind of guy, someone who finds humor in extremely bleak situations. Very easy reading (in terms of style) especially for the time.

[AnotherSpin]

[ando]

I need to read his Ives book.

How many composer bios has this guy written? After his Mozart I fear the template going forward. 

[Karl Henning]

How many composer bios has this guy written? After his Mozart I fear the template going forward. 

Not sure. I believe Ives was his first. He may have found that a little controversy proved good for sales of his Brahms book. I don't say absolutely that I question his motives ....

[Bachtoven]

Very good so far.

[SimonNZ]

Possibly of interest to @Mandryka and others: just learned of this recent long essay in the New Yorker by Jill Lepore, an author I admire very much:

What Happened When the U.S. Failed to Prosecute an Insurrectionist Ex-President

...which is about Jefferson Davis immediately after the Civil War

Learned of this in a good interview on Preet Bharara's podcast which discusses the essay:

Amending History (with Jill Lepore)

and from that I also learn that she's got a new book out collecting her essays from the last ten years, which I will immediately order.

[ando]

This (free) tubi stream of a Dick Cavett episode featuring a very young Michael Crichton made me curious about his 1970 book, Five Patients (1970, Knopf); less for the topic than for his style of writing.

[Ganondorf]

Started recently to read the first volume of Ernest Newman's The Life of Richard Wagner. What a magnificent biography so far. Newman paints a painstaking picture of this deeply flawed yet brilliant man. Considering how old this biography is, some info may be old but still excellently written.

[Christo]

[vers la flamme]

Started recently to read the first volume of Ernest Newman's The Life of Richard Wagner. What a magnificent biography so far. Newman paints a painstaking picture of this deeply flawed yet brilliant man. Considering how old this biography is, some info may be old but still excellently written.

Damn, it's massive! I'd love to read a bio of Wagner, but wonder if there is a shorter, one-to-two volume bio of him out there.

On topic, having just finished three by Dickens in a row (Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Hard Times—all just brilliant) and having no more by that author in my collection at present, I've decided to pick up Moby-Dick again. I'm working my way through it slowly, but I can already tell, some 20% of the way through it, that it's a damn good one, and clearly a book that is about much more than the story of a vengeful whale hunt. Long overdue read, and I hope to finish it by the end of the year, though I'm only picking it up here and there.

[DavidW]

I requested Swafford's Brahms from my public library. 

[AnotherSpin]

[Ganondorf]

Damn, it's massive! I'd love to read a bio of Wagner, but wonder if there is a shorter, one-to-two volume bio of him out there.

On topic, having just finished three by Dickens in a row (Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Hard Times—all just brilliant) and having no more by that author in my collection at present, I've decided to pick up Moby-Dick again. I'm working my way through it slowly, but I can already tell, some 20% of the way through it, that it's a damn good one, and clearly a book that is about much more than the story of a vengeful whale hunt. Long overdue read, and I hope to finish it by the end of the year, though I'm only picking it up here and there.

I read in Finnish several years ago Barry Millinton's biography + work analysis of Wagner which has definitely less pages overall. I am however not 100 % sure if it was condensed translation or not.

My first Wagner biography was Derek Watson's but it is flawed in many respects. It doesn't even mention Schopenhauer's influence on Wagner, IIRC.