What are you currently reading?

[San Antone]

Bought this today in paperback.
Her translation of the Iliad is coming out next month.

Read some long passages at random: reads rather fast and down to earth, and much of it manages to be good English poetry as well a good translation of poetry originally written in a foreign language.

Interesting.  I have collected translations of classics texts, including these two.  I have four of each, Fagles is my favorite.  I have bought it after reading an interview with her aboout it.

[JBS]

Interesting.  I have collected translations of classics texts, including these two.  I have four of each, Pinsky is my favorite.  I might buy hers, but only if it is not a "woke" translation.

The introduction includes discussion of how the poem reflects (or possibly idealizes) the position of women in Greece c 800 BCE, but the translation itself seems pretty straightforward, with nothing not already present in the text of Homer.

[Irons]

I really like it, but Jamaica Inn is my favorite by Du Maurier.  Rebecca was the inspiration for the re-emergence of gothic lit which eventually led to the birth of modern horror.  There are many knock offs of Rebecca.  I don't think that it is a masterpiece though, but definitely influential and an enjoyable read.

Thanks. Read and enjoyed Jamaica Inn many years ago.

[vandermolen]

Picked up a copy of Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier as a potential read on an upcoming break. Good or not?

I love it! My daughter has just read it as well. The 'Manderley Ball' sequence still sends shivers down my spine. Mrs Danvers is one of my favourite literary inventions:

[San Antone]

The introduction includes discussion of how the poem reflects (or possibly idealizes) the position of women in Greece c 800 BCE, but the translation itself seems pretty straightforward, with nothing not already present in the text of Homer.

I edited that post; Fagles is my favorite,.  I got Pinsky (he has done an excellent Divine Comedy) mixed up with Fagles. 

I ordered the Kindle format (and pre-ordered the Iliad) and began reading the Introduction.  So far, I am impressed with her writing style, and scholarship - and look forward to the translation, which just judging from the excerpts I've read so far, it appears to be excellent.

Thanks for the heads up. 

[Irons]

I love it! My daughter has just read it as well. The 'Manderley Ball' sequence still sends shivers down my spine. Mrs Danvers is one of my favourite literary inventions:

I'm definitely in now.

[Brian]

Going to England in 5 weeks, so starting a run of historical and classic English literature!

Emma (Jane Austen)
The Long View (Elizabeth Jane Howard)
The Giant O'Brien (Hilary Mantel)
The Corner That Held Them (Sylvia Townsend Warner)
The Slaves of Solitude (Patrick Hamilton)
Adam Bede (George Eliot)
The Go-Between (L.P. Hartley)

If I finish it all, I'll switch to a few eclectic works of English non-fiction:

Hons and Rebels (Jessica Mitford)
James Acaster's Classic Scrapes (James Acaster)
Londoners (Craig Taylor)

Progress update so far here. On Patrick Hamilton now. I will check the local library for Irons' recommendation this week. I may also, by ditching the Eliot or saving it for the flight, create time for Mrs. Dalloway and some Trollope.

The only real "miss" was EJ Howard; it is a type of oppressive all-knowing narrator who cannot resist commenting on everyone's inner life which has now gone out of fashion. Totally overwritten I thought.

The Warner was a darn-near mesmerizing epic of ordinary life, political squabbles, and secrets at a medieval convent (the character Sir Ralph is one of the most memorable I have seen this year). Emma moved a little down my list of Austen favorites, but not much (from maybe #1 to maybe #3). The Mantel was quite interesting and gritty, though affected by her self-conscious style; the Mitford is an alarming, lucid, hilarious, sad look at life in the upper classes. I also squeezed in an extra bit of light reading from the 20s, Elizabeth von Arnim's The Enchanted April, which is a sort of proto-Wodehouse light comedy with endearing humor.

[Iota]

Am very sad to have finished this, best book I've read in a long while. Scathingly self-mocking, clever, funny, refreshingly honest and just so good to read.

[Florestan]

Am very sad to have finished this, best book I've read in a long while. Scathingly self-mocking, clever, funny, refreshingly honest and just so good to read.

Does Madrid play a role in the action?

TD



Wiiliam Trevor - Reading Turgenev

A sad love story (is there any other kind in the whole history of literature, I wonder?) told with gentle humour and melancholy. I liked it.

[Iota]

Does Madrid play a role in the action?

Yes, though not a big part. The Atocha Station attack is certainly covered, and the narrator gets involved in crowds in the streets trying to find out what has happened, his Spanish friends are very affected by it too, but although a big event, it is not quite as climactic a moment in the novel as the title might suggest.

[LKB]

Interesting.  I have collected translations of classics texts, including these two.  I have four of each, Fagles is my favorite.  I have bought it after reading an interview with her aboout it.

I became acquainted with Fagles' edition in 1983. The Illiad was a pleasure to read ( despite Homer being infatuated with a certain metaphor for the dawn ). The Odyssey seemed a bit tedious, and l probably didn't give it a fair shake back then. Perhaps this new translation will yield a more compatible product.

[vers la flamme]

I became acquainted with Fagles' edition in 1983. The Illiad was a pleasure to read ( despite Homer being infatuated with a certain metaphor for the dawn ). The Odyssey seemed a bit tedious, and l probably didn't give it a fair shake back then. Perhaps this new translation will yield a more compatible product.

What's the metaphor?

I have yet to read any of Homer, but the Fagles translations are the ones I was looking at. I think I'll get around to them soon.

[Lisztianwagner]

What's the metaphor?

I have yet to read any of Homer, but the Fagles translations are the ones I was looking at. I think I'll get around to them soon.

Rododaktulos Eos, rosy-fingered dawn; Homer often uses this evocative metaphor both in Illiad and Odyssey.

[LKB]

Rododaktulos Eos, rosy-fingered dawn; Homer often uses this evocative metaphor both in Illiad and Odyssey.

Some twenty times, just in The Illiad. 

[Lisztianwagner]

Some twenty times, just in The Illiad. 

I agree, it is extremely common. Anyway it perfectly and beautifully evokes the imagine of the sun rising at the beginning of the day; also, it doesn't become very surprising how often the epithet appears if we consider that it was poetry sung by heart by ancient Greek poets, who indeed used recurring forms for that reason.

[atardecer]

Yes Homer's poetry has certain stock phrases that seem to be structural much like certain parts in classical music sonata form. I remember another repeated one from The Odyssey regarding the meal and enjoying the 'good things placed before them' or something along those lines. I haven't read Homer in quite some time, I was acquainted with his work in college, and enjoyed it, but for me the literature I liked most from that class were the collected works in The Poetic Edda which I've read again since college and plan to reread again soon.

I have that Fagles translation of The Odyssey it is the same one from my class, I may reread that again soon too.

[ritter]

Just finished Cyril Connolly's essay The Modern Movement, included in this collection, which I bought in Scotland last month:



I had read Connolly's Enemies of Promise (also included in this volume) and The Unquiet Grave many years ago, and remember enjoying both books very much. The essay I have now read (from 1965) is a short overview of modernism in literature, but also a kind of eulogy, as the movement —it can be called a movement, despite its myriad, diverging manifestations— was definitely over when the essay was published. It acknowledges its limitations: Connolly only covers English and French language authors, claiming that he will not comment in works he cannot read in the original. Still, the fact that the only Spanish name he mentions as one he could have included in his survey is Lorca indicates that he perhaps wasn't really that knowledgeable about or interested in "foreign" literature (lots of Russians and Germans, and a couple of Italians, are mentioned en passant).

On the other hand, the essay is a very effective and lucid guide to what it does cover, and its list of 100 important books is rather useful (even if at times it reads like a literary equivalent to those "What to see in 24 hours in City X" tourist guides). Some paragraphs are beautifully written.

The above has led me to start one of the books mentioned in Connolly's list, André Gide's L'Immoraliste. I had been meaning to read it for quite some time, but kept postponing it for no particular reason.



As always, reading this in the lavish Pléiade edition is an immense pleasure...

[Florestan]

[Spotted Horses]

Yes Homer's poetry has certain stock phrases that seem to be structural much like certain parts in classical music sonata form. I remember another repeated one from The Odyssey regarding the meal and enjoying the 'good things placed before them' or something along those lines. I haven't read Homer in quite some time, I was acquainted with his work in college, and enjoyed it, but for me the literature I liked most from that class were the collected works in The Poetic Edda which I've read again since college and plan to reread again soon.

I have that Fagles translation of The Odyssey it is the same one from my class, I may reread that again soon too.

When I studied Homer the explanation given for this was the the texts come from an oral tradition, not written down but semi-improvised by the performer, and the stock formulations were effectively the mortar the held the bricks together.

[Spotted Horses]

Long ago I used to devour "classic" books and I recently stumbled one which in my mind was outstanding, "Of Human Bondage," by W. Somerset Maugham. Tried re-reading it and quickly got bogged down. Gave up after about 10% read. I am amazed I had the patience to read this stuff.

Picked up with "The Fraud," by one of my favorite contemporary authors, Zadie Smith.