What are you currently reading?

[Florestan]

First, you didn't read the book mentioned

What makes you believe I didn't?

each of the authors you named is unique in their own way. The same can be said about each of them. Osho believed that Gorky was one of them.

No, he believed that Gorki was the only one. Read again:

Gorky must be counted as the suprememost artist of the whole world. Particularly in The Mother he reaches to the highest peak of the art of writing. Nobody before and nobody after....

Nobody before and nobody after --- it doesn't get any clearer, and more absurd, than that. But by all means, feel free to agree with him.

[AnotherSpin]

What makes you believe I didn't?

No, he believed that Gorki was the only one. Read again:

Gorky must be counted as the suprememost artist of the whole world. Particularly in The Mother he reaches to the highest peak of the art of writing. Nobody before and nobody after....

Nobody before and nobody after --- it doesn't get any clearer, and more absurd, than that. But by all means, feel free to agree with him.

Of course, you may have read Gorky, as an adult, and not in your school's required reading programme. Maybe even in Russian.

Osho's words, which you are so excited about, mean that no one has written about what Gorky wrote in Mother. And that no one has written like Gorky either before or after him. The same can be said of a great many writers, and not necessarily the greatest. In Osho's book that I mentioned above, he talks about 168 different books by different authors. All these books are unique in Osho's opinion, and each one is unrivalled in its own sense. Nobody before and nobody after...

By the way, I'm finishing up Mother. An amazing book indeed. With every page it becomes clearer what Osho meant. I found it interesting to compare the original with two different English translations. The translations definitely do not convey Gorky's language, which is incredibly imaginative and symbolic. I wonder in which translation Osho was reading Mother. English, or one of the languages of India.

[Florestan]

Osho's words, which you are so excited about

Oh, I couldn't care less about Osho's opinions, they are hardly authoritative. I just commented on them at face value. I have no interest in pursuing the topic any further than that.

[AnotherSpin]

Oh, I couldn't care less about Osho's opinions, they are hardly authoritative. I just commented on them at face value. I have no interest in pursuing the topic any further than that.

No problem. I am just looking at information online about Gorky's publications in India. They say the novel Mother was the most popular foreign book in India in the 20th century. Apparently Osho was not the only one who liked Gorky.

[AnotherSpin]

[andolink]

Just started this yesterday - -

Albert Vigoleis Thelen: The Island of Second Sight

[Karl Henning]

My friend Peter lent me this long ago, and I'm finally reading it. It's much more interesting than my longstanding apparent neglect would suggest. @Cato should seek it at a local library.

[JBS]

Amazon has it if the library doesn't.
https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Chance-Love-American-Popular/dp/0806164352/

[SimonNZ]

Putting a couple of things aside to knock of this quickie:



Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making Of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska


and setting up yet another play of the album

[Karl Henning]

Putting a couple of things aside to knock of this quickie:



Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making Of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska


and setting up yet another play of the album

I do enjoy that album.

[Florestan]

[Artem]

Just started this yesterday - -

Albert Vigoleis Thelen: The Island of Second Sight

That's quite an undertaking. Good luck.

[andolink]

That's quite an undertaking. Good luck.

So far so good!

It's incredibly erudite, allusive ... and brilliantly witty.  I'll let you know what I think of it in a few months when I'm done.

[AnotherSpin]

Accessible selection from Kierkegaard

[AnotherSpin]

[AnotherSpin]

U.G.Krishnamurti is perhaps the most radical and least tolerant of all Indian teachers.

[AnotherSpin]

[Florestan]

Henri Herz - My Travels in America

A charming book which shows Herz was an urbane gentleman of cheerful disposition, possessing a fine sense of humour, amiable, sociable, generous, witty and cultured. The tons of scorn heaped on him by Schumann were completely undeserved.



The logical next step from The Great Pianists. 

[Mandryka]

Time to tackle a biggie.

Astonishing prose - Shakespearean - like « Out, out brief candle. » or « What a piece of work is man. »  Faulkner could turn a good phrase.

At first I thought - this is too gothic for me. But I'm completely seduced. I'm up to Chapter Five - Rosa talking to Quentin. Just amazing prose! Who cares whether it makes sense?  Not me! I really don't want to spoil the experience with close reading or philosophical analysis, I just want to enjoy the music of it, the poetry of it.

I kind of wish I knew a bit more about the context - American history and culture. Is there a sort of « American Studies for dummies » book?  Something important  obviously happened in 1865 . . .

[vers la flamme]

Time to tackle a biggie.

Astonishing prose - Shakespearean - like « Out, out brief candle. » or « What a piece of work is man. »  Faulkner could turn a good phrase.

At first I thought - this is too gothic for me. But I'm completely seduced. I'm up to Chapter Five - Rosa talking to Quentin. Just amazing prose! Who cares whether it makes sense?  Not me! I really don't want to spoil the experience with close reading or philosophical analysis, I just want to enjoy the music of it, the poetry of it.

I kind of wish I knew a bit more about the context - American history and culture. Is there a sort of « American Studies for dummies » book?  Something important  obviously happened in 1865 . . .

I need to get around to reading this too, though if The Sound & the Fury stumped me, I'm not sure how much I'll take away from it. However I've learned to stop thinking "I'll save this one for when I'm smarter" as I think I'm over the hump and only losing intelligence if anything