What are you currently reading?

[Florestan]

Sounds extremely healthy to me! But I am wondering just how much time you spend doing everything else in life 

What everything else? And what life?      

[Jo498]

Just a few stories here and there, but they always blow me away...:



Currently, I'm feeling like maybe I ought to slow my roll with reading; somehow, I've read something like 30 books since New Year's Eve, and those include titans like War & Peace, Moby Dick, and The Count of Monte Cristo. This can't be healthy.

As long as you don't think Peter Besuchov was wrongly imprisoned in the Chateau d'If, or Captain Ahab fighting against Napoleon it shouldn't be unhealthy...

[Mandryka]

@AnotherSpin I think if you do a degree in Literature that's the sort of pace you go at. I didn't study literature but I remember friends saying things like two weeks for the complete DH Lawrence, one week for the Shakespeare histories, one week for Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads etc

[Florestan]

@AnotherSpin I think if you do a degree in Literature that's the sort of pace you go at. I didn't study literature but I remember friends saying things like two weeks for the complete DH Lawrence, one week for the Shakespeare histories, one week for Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads etc

This isntantly reminded me of William Hazlitt's On the Ignorance of the Learned:

If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespear (sic!). If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning we may only study his commentators.

[AnotherSpin]

@AnotherSpin I think if you do a degree in Literature that's the sort of pace you go at. I didn't study literature but I remember friends saying things like two weeks for the complete DH Lawrence, one week for the Shakespeare histories, one week for Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads etc

I think you're referring to @vers la flamme, who reportedly read 30 books since the New Year, including War and Peace. My rate is much lower, less than a dozen books during the same.

At night, during the air raids, I find it difficult to sleep, could either watch the air defence tg channel or read books. I'm usually occupied with the latter.

[AnotherSpin]

This isntantly reminded me of William Hazlitt's On the Ignorance of the Learned:

If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespear (sic!). If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning we may only study his commentators.

Fortunately, I don't need to get a degree in literature. A degree in history at a fairly early age caused me to lose interest in history.

[Florestan]

Fortunately, I don't need to get a degree in literature. A degree in history at a fairly early age caused me to lose interest in history.

I often get the impression that for many dons and critics literature is just a pretext to show off their knowledge and wit and proficiency at intellectual games but they actually couldn't care less for the books they comment upon and for the flesh-and-blood human beings which wrote them or to whom they are addressed. Conversely, many laymen engage with books simply out of love for literature and on a more personal level.

[vers la flamme]

In defense of my sanity, the majority of those books were very short, and/or rereads. However, I am in graduate school for something entirely unrelated to literature

[SimonNZ]

Picking away at these two Dylan books:



also picking away at this anthology of boxing journalism from the last hundred years:

[vers la flamme]

Picking away at these two Dylan books:



also picking away at this anthology of boxing journalism from the last hundred years:

I read both of those Dylan books a few years back, one right after the other, I think. Good reads!

[ritter]

Just finished Ricardo Baroja's Gente del 98 (People of '98)

     

Ricardo (1871-1953) was the elder brother of famed novelist Pío Baroja. He never achieved the literary reputation of his brother, but was a respected figure in the Spanish cultural world in the first half of the 20th century (and had success as a painter, particularly for his "Hispano-expressionistic" prints).

Gente del 98 is a collection of cameos on the people (some today regarded as classics, others almost completely forgotten) and the general atmosphere of the Spanish "generation of 98". It was originally published in serial form in a newspaper in 1935. It is a delightful read, at times ironic, at others nostalgic, and sometimes hilarious. Really enjoyed it (and it exceeded my expectations).

Now starting Cesare Pavese's La Luna e i falò (The Moon and the Bonfires).



In my late teens, I really enjoyed Pavese's collection of three short novellas La bella estate —The Beautiful Summer— (the last one of which, Tra donne sole —Women on Their Own— served as the basis for Michelangelo Antonioni's early film Le amiche).

I see the @Florestan and I briefly discussed this book (Pavese's last novel) here on GMG some fiver years ago, but only now have I come around to read it. It deals with the return of the narrator to his home region after spending the WW2 years as an emigrant in America, and all the changes he notices. The start is very promising. Let's see...

[Spotted Horses]

I thought the last two books of Odysseus' revenge were complete overkill  Especially after he kills Antinous, when Eurymachus stands up and says "we'll pay you back with interest and leave you alone forever", and Odysseus basically says no and slaughters them all, some of them not even putting up a fight. I suppose this reflects a kind of morality that is now lost—no one seemed to mind his slayings other than the parents of the victims—but it was kind of jarring. And then at the very end, when Laertes shoots an arrow through the heart of one of the bereaved fathers, that was quite jarring. In fact, the last book kind of made no sense, so I'm not surprised that some seem to agree that it was a later addition. I mean Ithaca is at the brink of what could prove to be a lengthy civil war and Athena steps in and all is peaceful again? Is this one of the early examples of "deus ex machina" to rush the ending?

Can't wait to read the Iliad; I think it was you, or someone here, who brought it up last year when we were discussing Blood Meridian in this thread, and my interest was piqued back then.

Thanks for your thoughts on Plato. I've heard similar thoughts about the Nicomachean Ethics too. I will try and get to that before too long, too.

I think the most interesting thing in Homer is the view of he mores of an ancient society. Not so much the philosophical beliefs about what is ethical, but the way people behaved and considered it expected to behave. In the Iliad I remember a scene where Odysseus sneaks into the enemy camp and slaughters people as they sleep. And Homer revels in Odysseus' courage and resourcefulness. Not that it wouldn't happen in fiction today, but it wouldn't be something to boast of. The other remarkable thing in the Iliad is haw anatomically explicit the violence is. Lots of livers, and bladders, and rib cages, and hip joints, etc. Not the generic gore of a modern day action movie.

[Mandryka]

The death of Hector, with Achilles and his friends gloating, sticks in my mind as particularly nasty. From about line 350


https://classics.domains.skidmore.edu/lit-campus-only/primary/translations/Homer%20Il%2022%20Fagles.pdf


And not a man came forward who did not stab his body,
glancing toward a comrade, laughing: "Ah, look here  -
how much softer he is to handle now, this Hector,
than when he gutted our ships with roaring fire!"


Of course, he only dies because he's been tricked by a god, so there's a lot to think about even today besides the gore - the human condition in a universe of powerful and often hostile forces.

[Florestan]

Now starting Cesare Pavese's La Luna e i falò (The Moon and the Bonfires).



In my late teens, I really enjoyed Pavese's collection of three short novellas La bella estate —The Beautiful Summer— (the last one of which, Tra donne sole —Women on Their Own— served as the basis for Michelangelo Antonioni's early film Le amiche).

I see the @Florestan and I briefly discussed this book (Pavese's last novel) here on GMG some fiver years ago.

Did we? Blimey, I don't remember nothing (sic!)...

[ritter]

Did we? Blimey, I don't remember nothing (sic!)...

Ecco qui: https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,68.msg1196878.html#msg1196878

[Florestan]

Ecco qui: https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,68.msg1196878.html#msg1196878

Grazie mille!

I know what I'll be reading next week!

[steve ridgway]

I finished Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise, found it a generally enjoyable and informative read made more absorbing by the focus on key individuals, often treated as contrasting pairs. The big stories at the start however gradually tailed off until it all became very fragmented and patchy towards the end. So it was a fair representation of the century in which grand ideas of progress and historical development were pushed to breaking point and ultimately abandoned. There were a lot of interesting thoughts and music to explore, but not necessarily in a linear sequence, and I will most likely re-read certain chapters in isolation in future, have found some of the older music as worthwhile, particularly in the context of its time and place, as the newer. A key quote for me is "Messiaen felt that God was present everywhere and in all sound. Therefore, there was no need for the new to supersede the old: God's creation gathered magnificence as it opened up in space and time." Although that still has an implication of forward movement and I would prefer the viewpoint of standing outside of time looking in.

[AnotherSpin]

I finished Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise, found it a generally enjoyable and informative read made more absorbing by the focus on key individuals, often treated as contrasting pairs. The big stories at the start however gradually tailed off until it all became very fragmented and patchy towards the end. So it was a fair representation of the century in which grand ideas of progress and historical development were pushed to breaking point and ultimately abandoned. There were a lot of interesting thoughts and music to explore, but not necessarily in a linear sequence, and I will most likely re-read certain chapters in isolation in future, have found some of the older music as worthwhile, particularly in the context of its time and place, as the newer. A key quote for me is "Messiaen felt that God was present everywhere and in all sound. Therefore, there was no need for the new to supersede the old: God's creation gathered magnificence as it opened up in space and time." Although that still has an implication of forward movement and I would prefer the viewpoint of standing outside of time looking in.

All the more so since new is often inferior to old.

[Jo498]

That Ross book shows that it's based on columns and articles that were uneven in quality and very diverse in depth.
I think I never finished it and found some things rather annoying/superficial but it's decent for what it is and  gives a reasonable "grand tour" of 20th century music.

[San Antone]

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner