What are you currently reading?

[vers la flamme]

I've been contemplating reading Cormac McCarthy. What works should I start with? Is he a good writer (reading some other sites it seems his work is much revered). I first heard about McCarthy in Noah Caldwell-Gervais' excellent Red Dead retrospective. I assume Cormac is not related to Senator Joseph McCarthy?

He's a long-time favorite of mine, but I can see why he does not work for everyone. I started with The Road many years ago, and just reread it in the winter. It's very accessible with spare prose and a fast pace. The most difficult, ambitious, and generally acclaimed is Blood Meridian, but it's extremely violent which may turn some off. It took me three tries to finally get through it all, but it is very good. A good middle ground I'd say is his Border Trilogy which begins with All the Pretty Horses. That trilogy contains probably his most beautiful prose, especially in The Crossing.

[DavidW]

I loved The Road.  A friend of mine grilled me on The Passage due to the hardcore Physics.  I want to read Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men just haven't gotten around to it yet.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Midnight in Siberia.

[ritter]

Starting William Faulkner's Knight's Gambit.



This will be my first approach to this author. Quite excited!

Well, I really enjoyed the collection of short stories Knight's Gambit, particularly the last piece (with the same title) that is really a novella. Am tempted to tackle one of Faulkner's novels soon. But which? 

For the time being, though, starting this:



Caroline Potter's book focuses on the influence of the French cultural milieu and, most particularly, surrealism on the young Boulez in the 1940s. Looks like an interesting and fresh approach, and possibly a very worthwhile one, as most books on the composer stress the serial and "cerebral" sides of his creative process.

[San Antone]

Pietr the Latvian
by Georges Simenon



It is the first novel to feature Inspector Jules Maigret who would later appear in more than a hundred stories by Simenon and who has become a legendary figure in the annals of detective fiction.

[Karl Henning]

Well, I really enjoyed the collection of short stories Knight's Gambit, particularly the last piece (with the same title) that is really a novella. Am tempted to tackle one of Faulkner's novels soon. But which? 

I remember enjoying Light in August. 

[Papy Oli]

Enjoying some more short stories:

W.W. Jacobs - The Monkey's Paw
James Joyce - Araby (from The Dubliners)
Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis

I have definitely understood the meaning of Kafkaesque with the latter     

[Mandryka]

But which? 

Absalom Absalom, even though it's a prequel to Sound and Fury.   Both are peaks, Absalom Absalom more modern, more challenging.

[Mandryka]

Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis

For me it's very unsatisfactory.  For example, all that stuff about the sister and the violin and the lodgers, what's that about? And the father's transformation from a slob into a bank employee. And all the references to food, Gregor's hunger. Maybe a lot is lost in translation.

[San Antone]

Well, I really enjoyed the collection of short stories Knight's Gambit, particularly the last piece (with the same title) that is really a novella. Am tempted to tackle one of Faulkner's novels soon. But which? 

I remember enjoying Light in August.

Absalom Absalom, even though it's a prequel to Sound and Fury.  Both are peaks, Absalom Absalom more modern, more challenging.

All good suggestions, especially Light in August, although the other two mentioned are some of Faulkner's more difficult reads and might not be best for someone just getting familiar with Faulkner. 

I'd suggest As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, or The Hamlet as some of Faulkner's best writing but also not as dense or impenetrable as Absalom or Sound & Fury.

I love Faulkner, but recognize his books can be challenging, and one need proceed carefully so as to avoid being put off before you can get acclimated to his style.

  

[ritter]

I remember enjoying Light in August.

Absalom Absalom, even though it's a prequel to Sound and Fury.  Both are peaks, Absalom Absalom more modern, more challenging.

All good suggestions, especially Light in August, although the other two mentioned are some of Faulkner's more difficult reads and might not be best for someone just getting familiar with Faulkner. 

I'd suggest As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, or The Hamlet as some of Faulkner's best writing but also not as dense or impenetrable as Absalom or Sound & Fury.

I love Faulkner, but recognize his books can be challenging, and one need proceed carefully so as to avoid being put off before you can get acclimated to his style.

  

Thanks all for your suggestions!

A bookseller here in Madrid had a very affordable copy of the LoA edition of "Novels 1930-1935", which includes As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, Light in August, and Pylon, so I've reserved it and will pick it up this week. As I Lay Dying looks particularly intriguing and alluring... Let's see 

[Brian]

As I Lay Dying was my introduction to the author, since it was assigned to me in school at age 15. Age 15 is much too young for it! But your plan sounds very good.

[Mandryka]

As I Lay Dying looks particularly intriguing and alluring... Let's see 

I'll be interested to see what you make of the mother!

Light In August is quite harrowing actually, child abuse and identity crises and such like.

[Ganondorf]

Finished today Faustus. What an ending! Leverkuhn's final speech was brilliant in its shocking improprieties and the reactions were priceless. Mann is absolutely the Master in these kind of tragicomical outcomes. This reminds me of Dickens: in Little Dorrit Mr. Dorrit has a stroke and starts talking to his audience about debtors prison where he spent much of his life and which he had desperately tried to conceal after becoming rich. I think Dickens would have had a stroke himself if he read what Leverkuhn says here, though.

[vers la flamme]

First Faulkner I ever read (in full... this was preceded by several abortive attempts at other novels of his) was As I Lay Dying, which is still my favorite, followed very closely by Light in August. I think you could do no better than to get that Library of America volume, Ritter. Sanctuary is a freaky ass book! I read it last fall and still don't know what to make of it. Writing-wise, it is not one of his more difficult books; but the subject matter is extremely violent and disturbing. I have not read Pylon, but I really want to. I believe it's one of his few novels not set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. But I think I ought to get to Absalom first.

[Mandryka]

The Faulkner nobody ever talks about is A Fable.

[San Antone]

The Faulkner nobody ever talks about is A Fable.

His last book; the only one I haven't read yet; and not a book I am drawn to, from what I've read about it.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Charles Nodier.

[Papy Oli]

Started Wuthering Heights.

[vers la flamme]

Started Wuthering Heights.

An incredible book! I just reread it last winter, and think I might reread it again this winter.

Just finished Zola's Thérèse Raquin. I was absolutely blown away by this one, too... much more of a psychological thriller, with none of the socio-economic examinations of Germinal, but not really the worse for it. I loved all of the characters, even the incredibly screwed-up ones... Zola continues to quickly grow in my estimation. Very happy to have given him a shot after thinking he wouldn't be for me. My embargo against French literature has come to an end...

My copy of Raquin featured an excellent translation by Robin Buss, who did the translation of The Count of Monte Cristo which I read and loved so much earlier in the year, and this one was also very good. Going to read his translation of L'Assommoir very soon.