What are you currently reading?

[Iota]

Successful Aging.

How are you finding it?

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

How are you finding it?

I just have read two chapters and they are less related to aging and superficial imo .  Hope it will get better and I will let you know. 

[Iota]

I just have read two chapters and they are less related to aging and superficial imo .  Hope it will get better and I will let you know. 

Thanks, I'd be interested to hear. (not that I'm ageing or anything ..  )

[NumberSix]

Finished a couple of days ago: Jules Verne - Le Tour du Monde en 80 Jours.

Was "80 Days" originally published in French?

[Papy Oli]

Was "80 Days" originally published in French?

First in French in 1872, English the following year.

[San Antone]

Someone on another forum mentioned John Cage. It reminded me of a book that's been on my Kindle wishlist for a while now, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists. I don't know much about the man, and the book looked interesting.

And what do ya know? It was on sale! So I bought it just now.

One of my favorite books about John Cage.  Enjoy!

[Papy Oli]

Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest

That was a hoot.

Also last night, Charles Dickens' first published story, A Dinner At Poplar Walk

[NumberSix]

Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest

That was a hoot.

A HANDBAG??!!

[JBS]

A HANDBAG??!!

I think it was supposed to be one of those hefty portmanteau things like the one Mary Poppins pulled everything out of.

At least that's how I pictured it in my head.

[NumberSix]

I think it was supposed to be one of those hefty portmanteau things like the one Mary Poppins pulled everything out of.

At least that's how I pictured it in my head.

Indeed. We think today of a purse when we hear that term. But back then, it was more of a suitcase - a bag with handles, as it were.

[JBS]

Indeed. We think today of a purse when we hear that term. But back then, it was more of a suitcase - a bag with handles, as it were.

I happen to have a volume of Wilde near at hand...the precise text is "a somewhat large, black leather hand-bag, with handles to it--an ordinary handbag in fact".

[SimonNZ]

Two more from the Baillie Gifford longlist (both of these two are also now on the shortlist):

Finished:




Taking a deep breath and starting:

[Papy Oli]

Having a first encounter with Flaubert.

Started l'éducation sentimentale.

Liking the flow of it so far.

[AnotherSpin]

Having a first encounter with Flaubert.

Started l'éducation sentimentale.

Liking the flow of it so far.

Is it true that he never used the same word twice on the same page? I read about it, but I can't verify it myself as I only have the Russian translations.

[Mandryka]

Having a first encounter with Flaubert.

Started l'éducation sentimentale.

Liking the flow of it so far.

One big difficulty I had with that is that I don't know much about the 1848 revolution. I gues it was an inspiration for Proust, in a way I prefer it to Proust -- less bourgeois.

I'm reading this -- it's really really hard!

Is it true that he never used the same word twice on the same page? I read about it, but I can't verify it myself as I only have the Russian translations.

I don't know about that, but I do know that he had enormous trouble writing it, and that he was extremely meticulous about style.

[AnotherSpin]

I don't know about that, but I do know that he had enormous trouble writing it, and that he was extremely meticulous about style.

I read about this trait of Flaubert's in an essay by Sergei Dovlatov, one of the finest, if not the very finest, masters of Russian-language prose from the last decades of the past century. Dovlatov's own texts were far from simple as well, despite the seemingly very accessible conversational style of his narration. For example, he never used words that started with the same letter in a single sentence. Very strange.

[Florestan]

Gogol - Taras Bulba (Romanian translation)

A beautifully written paean for the Cossack life and values. Never mind that those values are drunkenness, ignorance, misogyny, anti-semitism and brutality and that the life is one of perpetual violence and warfare. Never mind that Taras Bulba himself is, for all intent and purpose, a ruthless war criminal. All is done for the greater glory of the Russian soil and the Orthodox faith. And beside, such a great love as that burning in the Russian soul, no other people can have.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Gogol - Taras Bulba (Romanian translation)

A beautifully written paean for the Cossack life and values. Never mind that those values are drunkenness, ignorance, misogyny, anti-semitism and brutality and that the life is one of perpetual violence and warfare. Never mind that Taras Bulba himself is, for all intent and purpose, a ruthless war criminal. All is done for the greater glory of the Russian soil and the Orthodox faith. And beside, such a great love as that burning in the Russian soul, no other people can have.

English and Japanese versions of his short stories I have.

[Papy Oli]

Is it true that he never used the same word twice on the same page? I read about it, but I can't verify it myself as I only have the Russian translations.

I wouldn't know but a quick google search on the matter bring up some French articles/analysis that mention the fact he didn't tolerate such word repetitions in this way and would work and rework each section to that effect. One French site even had lengthy examples of such reworkings based on Flaubert's manuscripts.

I actually started with Education Sentimentale because I think it was our @Brian who had mentioned somewhere in a book thread that he had preferred Education over the usually touted Madame Bovary (at least as an entry point, maybe). my memory might fail me though. Still I am reading and enjoying it so far.

(I still have Proust's Du Côté de chez Swann on the go but I really need to be in the right mood to dive back into it    ) 

[Brian]

Wasn't me! Perhaps Mandryka?

-

Last night I had a bizarre dream about a GMG favorite book. I dreamed that I was entering the Buddenbrooks Tournament, an annual event where a group of people sits down and reads Buddenbrooks from start to finish without taking any breaks, and you have to finish in 32 hours to "win." I got myself a bottle of water and the reader next to me said, "Oh, you might regret that." I asked why, and he pointed out that until I finished reading the book, I wouldn't be allowed to use the bathroom. When I woke up, we were all sitting down at desks in a gymnasium, books at the ready, the host about to start the clock.