What are you currently reading?

[Florestan]

Why does that appear to be a parasite upon The Da Vinci Code? (Not that one feels sorry for this host . . . .)

Frankly, I can't even remotely remember the plot. 

[Drasko]

Paul Heyse - Andrea Delfin
D'Annunzio - The Flame of Life
Barry Unsworth - Stone Virgin

Not a novel, but just as fascinating, if not more: Casanova's Memoirs, the relevant chapters.

Thank you! Of the three the Unsworth hasn't been translated to Serbian, will have to get it in English.

I've been meaning to read Casanova's Memoirs for some time, there is very nice ex-Yu edition in five volumes, but it's a large text and the time has proven bit difficult to find.

[kishnevi]

I have never read the novels, but Donna Leon has a book of essays out centred on living in Venice which is worth reading once.

Even better is Judith Martin's book about Venice.  Those who don't recognize her name will undoubtedly know her pen name: Miss Manners.

TD
Via Google Books, partly inspired by this discussion
Henry James, Italian Hours.  Not stories, but travel essays, the first of which is devoted to Venice.

ETA

[Drasko]

Even better is Judith Martin's book about Venice.  Those who don't recognize her name will undoubtedly know her pen name: Miss Manners.

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with her pen name but what I am familiar with is the subtitle of her book, which is paraphrase of a title of another obscure early 20th century novel set in Venice that I've been meaning to read - The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole by Frederick Rolfe.

Talking of essays on Venice my favorite book of essays (short lyrical ones in this case) is Watermark by Josif Brodsky.

[SimonNZ]

Talking of essays on Venice my favorite book of essays (short lyrical ones in this case) is Watermark by Josif Brodsky.

I was thinking of Brodsky's Watermark as I was reading this discussion, and heartily second its recommendation.

[Todd]

 


A couple short books that are timely now more than ever.  From the 1980s, Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit.  The brief essay, written by an actual philosopher, seeks nothing less than a "theoretical understanding of bullshit."  Complete with the use of words like "pleonastic" and references to Wittgenstein, its intellectual bona fides cannot be denied.  Ultimately, it is not wholly satisfying.

Much better is Edward Bernays' Propaganda from the 1920s.  This nephew of Freud and collaborator of Lippman and member of the Great War era Committee on Public Information writes in a clear, concise style, and some of what he writes could be written today.  For instance, one could just replace what constitutes new media, and the rest of his argument pertaining to dissemination of ideas and its impact holds, and the same could be true of various public associations, just throwing online echo chambers into the mix.  The PR man uses a neutral definition of propaganda and offers examples of how it can be used, how it is used, to direct public opinion.  He is brief and unsentimental and practical.  No less a personage than Noam Chomsky offers (sort of?) praise in a cover blurb.

[Drasko]

http://www.gq.com/story/cary-grant-on-style

Still perfectly applicable 50 years later.

[NikF]

http://www.gq.com/story/cary-grant-on-style

Still perfectly applicable 50 years later.

Yeah, and so much he refers to is about the fit and function. Good stuff.


Anyway...

Sparring with Hemingway: And Other Legends of the Fight Game by Budd Schulberg

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[NikF]

Selected Works - Cesare Pavese.

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[Ken B]

Some short stories by John O'Hara selected more or less at random.

[Drasko]

Yeah, and so much he refers to is about the fit and function. Good stuff.

Definitely. Though I have to admit to have sinned when it comes to function(ality), often in my younger days, but fit in men's clothes/style is absolutely paramount (as in location, location, location).

[NikF]

Definitely. Though I have to admit to have sinned when it comes to function(ality), often in my younger days, but fit in men's clothes/style is absolutely paramount (as in location, location, location).

I think we all have past fashion indiscretions...

Capote is yet another author I havent read all that much of, however I've a 'complete stories' collection somewhere, I think.

[Christo]

For the second time in my life (cause am supposed to write an essay on it); William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954). About 35 years ago this was the last of Golding's novels that I read (his last three were still to appear) and just like then, I think I literally prefer all of his other novels, especially the middle ones and the posthumously published The Double Tongue. How to explain the popularity of this early novel, actually his first one? 

[ritter]

Starting volume 1 of Hans Mayer's memoirs:

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A major figure in literary critique in Germany after WW2, and also soemone who had a passion for music (his books on Wagner are quite succesful), Mayer's oeuvre doesn't seem to travel well, and I have not seen any translations into English or Spanish. The career of a man who as a communist, a jew and a homosexual really had trouble in the dark years, to later become quite a prominent personalty in the Federal Republic, promises to be an interesting read.

[Mahlerian]

Just finished the second volume of Walsh's Stravinsky biography.  Walsh treats the many delicate issues surrounding these years with skill and tact.  He does not vilify Robert Craft, though he does show him as vulnerable, frustrating, occasionally sympathetic and sometimes infuriating.  Stravinsky's own creativity remained fully undiminished up until 1966, and if we have Craft to thank for even a portion of that artistic life, Walsh suggests, history will treat him far better than the composer's children, with whom he developed an acrimonious relationship before and after their father's death.  Above all, the book shows a respect for its subject that is not tainted by sanctimonious reverence, and Stravinsky emerges as a complex, deeply flawed individual, albeit one far more likable on a personal level than I had previously imagined.  Walsh clearly loves the composer and his music, and that love is infectious.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Re-visiting perhaps my favorite novel of all time.

[kishnevi]

Re-visiting perhaps my favorite novel of all time.

I need to revisit Hugo. Curious how the titles of his big two novels are treated.  Les Miserables is always presented with the French title untranslated  (or at least, I have yet to see a version which gives an English language equivalent), while Quasimodo is promoted to the status of title character even though in the original French, the cathedral itself is the title "character".

[Jaakko Keskinen]

I agree and even the closest human character to fit the role of the protagonist IMO fits more Frollo rather than Quasimodo.

[Spineur]

Re-visiting perhaps my favorite novel of all time.

Read it at 15.  Never again.  My favorite Victor Hugo is 93.  And then all the poetry. 

[Jaakko Keskinen]

"What would the throne of France be to me when I could rebuild the empire of the Orient?"