What are you currently reading?

[SimonNZ]

That far too frequently quoted bit about the cake near the start also has a parallel in the final volume. But I don't think Proust had the whole structure mapped out at the time of writing book one (or rather: he had a structure, but massively and continually changed it as the work progressed and expanded). He had recurring preoccupations which he examined from various angles which gives an appearance to some facets of the book to deeper structures and intention which in a lot of cases might have been more improvisational and retro-fitted with callbacks to earlier moments.


TD: currently reading:



very Bill Bryson-y, which is fine by me

[Mandryka]

That far too frequently quoted bit about the cake near the start also has a parallel in the final volume. But I don't think Proust had the whole structure mapped out at the time of writing book one (or rather: he had a structure, but massively and continually changed it as the work progressed and expanded). He had recurring preoccupations which he examined from various angles which gives an appearance to some facets of the book to deeper structures and intention which in a lot of cases might have been more improvisational and retro-fitted with callbacks to earlier moments.

I just read the madeleine incident for the first time since the 1980s. What's remarkable about it is that it leads so smoothly into the second part of the book, it's a good segue. It also is well written, I mean, it made me put the book down, make a cup of tea and eat a bit of cake.

[Brian]

Finished War and Peace on Saturday. 18 days! The first half was substantially better than the second, and after the narrative climax at Borodino, there are probably 100 pages of material that are excess to the book's needs.

What's remarkable is that the first 700 pages have no fat whatsoever. They're all plot and all remarkable - insightful but gossipy, operatic but subtle, exciting but restrained. Like Powell & Pressburger in film ("Colonel Blimp"), Tolstoy has a surprising way of backing away at moments you'd expect to be climaxes - he tells stories like the duel sequence with sparse, minimalist detail, almost like a cross between Austen and Hemingway. His way with storytelling is continually surprising. There's also the remarkable late chapter which ends with an offhand, "oh yeah, also they freed Pierre."

I want to know more about how W&P was received at the time, because it is so bizarre to our sensibility now that Tolstoy includes rants, arguments, and citations on the practice of history at the time and the state of Napoleonic scholarship. Just as a random example, you wouldn't expect, say, James McBride to suddenly stop his novel and have a 15 page section of his own views on African American Studies departments at universities.

It is amusing to see the vivid characterization given to people like Dolokhov, Natasha, even Prince Vasily or old man Bolkonsky, contrasted with the utter contempt with which Tolstoy writes real historic figures like Napoleon, whose appearances are laughable.

Tolstoy's own views are so much his own fixation that, after Andrey dies, he nearly abandons the epic plot. Rather than tying together loose ends a la Dickens, Tolstoy seems not to care. People like Kuragin, Dolokhov, and Boris just straight up disappear. Hélène's fall is reported from offstage but not shown. Pierre's own transformation is narrated with detachment. Sonya and Denisov inexplicably do not get married. The book just kind of...ends. Given the epic grandeur of everything through Borodino, the chamber-music finale is quite strange.

It made me think of the ending of Middlemarch, which, besides not being followed by 40 pages of dense argument, manages to flawlessly encapsulate the story's message and its narrative drive at the same time.

I've been telling people two things about W&P. First, it is structured like those sales pitches where you get a free dinner, but you have to listen to a guy explain his get rich quick scheme. You think you're reading for the plot, which really is outstanding for 800 pages or so, but Tolstoy has a totally different agenda.

Second, I'll try to read it again in 15 years or so to see how it grows with age.

[aligreto]

Golding: The Paper Men





This is an interesting study of a man spiraling out of control into self destruction through total selfishness. It is an engaging story that is very well told.

[AlberichUndHagen]

[kitsune]

Really engaging terraforming saga -- goes deep into the various politics of the colonists, the ethics of even trying to terraform in the first place, the dangers of corporatism/global capitalism, and the really neat speculative technology of the near future (the year 2026; it was written in 1993).

[AlberichUndHagen]

there was a long discussion with St Loup about military strategy

Ironically, that was one of my favorite parts in Guermantes Way. I don't know why but it felt really interesting and St Loup is one of my favorite characters. Finished Guermantes way today. Soon will possibly begin Anna Karenina (although considering how my family matters seem to be going increasingly downhill, don't know if I am able to finish it, which would mark the second time I abandon reading this book, for same-ish reasons).

I will probably take at least a short break from Proust since while he is very rewarding writer, he also exhausts me a bit.

[aligreto]

Gogol: Dead Souls





This is, in essence, a look at Russia at a particular point in time. It is an interesting socio-economic commentary as it paints a very interesting picture, particularly of the class structure of the time. However, I found it to be a difficult read. The style is weighty and ponderous, with paragraphs sometimes extending to nearly two pages, and the linguistic style is archaic.
My main grievance with it, however, is that, in Part II, it is incomplete with the text being abandoned at random points throughout and the manuscript itself comes abruptly to an [inconclusive] end in mid sentence due to Gogol himself apparently destroying the document. I was not aware of this prior to reading it 

[Brian]

Who translated that edition of Dead Souls? I ask because I remember it being a pleasure, even fun to read.

[aligreto]

Who translated that edition of Dead Souls? I ask because I remember it being a pleasure, even fun to read.

That very thought did cross my mind but I did not mention it because, unbelievably, there is no actual credit for the translation.
Do not get me wrong; I did find the content amusing but the actual reading of it was a chore.

[Jo498]

It's been ages that I read "Dead Souls" and I was not as fond of it as of some other Russian 19th century books and the main plot element (the making up/blowing up of villages for some kind of fraud) is utterly strange for us nowadays but I don't remember it to be so disjointed. It is a fragment in a sense, though, I believe. As far as I recall it ends with some vision/simile of Russia as a troika or sth. like that? or is this another book and I am confused.

[Florestan]

Who translated that edition of Dead Souls? I ask because I remember it being a pleasure, even fun to read.

+ 1.

[AlberichUndHagen]

Started reading Anna Karenina today. 50 pages in already, let's see if I'm gonna beat Brian's reading pace with War and Peace with this book.  Most likely not and as long as Karenina is, it is still nothing compared to War and Peace which is one of the longest novels there is. And considering War and Peace is one of the few books I voluntarily quit reading would probably have an effect of slowing things down. Karenina, however, took me in instantly. I know there is still a long way to go but the beginning is very promising. I liked the sections that I read the first time too but not this much. I catched many of the nuances which is not the usual case with me when I'm reading Russian literature. In Dostoevsky there is so much happening between the lines what with many mindgames the characters have on each other yet don't say out loud. However, with Dostoevsky I usually notice the extent of them only much later. Here in Tolstoy it seemed much clearer. Maybe I'm simply having a better day.

[aligreto]

Hartley: The Go-Between





This has been one of the most engaging and engrossing books that I have read in many years. The writing style was so easy and melodious it sounded almost like music in my head.

[Christo]

Golding: The Paper Men





This is an interesting study of a man spiraling out of control into self destruction through total selfishness. It is an engaging story that is very well told.

Fully agreed, though I find his posthumously published The Double Tongue even more compelling (love all of his novels, each of them more than Lord of the Flies, the first one). 

[aligreto]

Fully agreed, though I find his posthumously published The Double Tongue even more compelling (love all of his novels, each of them more than Lord of the Flies, the first one). 

Thank you for that. I do not know The Double Tongue.

[Mandryka]

Just finished Du côté de chez Swann. Poor old Swann, I'd forgotten how much he suffered. And I'd forgotten how much humour there is (f.e. I remember laughing out loud when Swann knocks on the window of an appartement thinking that Odette and Forcheville  are in there up to some hanky panky, and it turns out to be the wrong appartement!) And I'd forgotten how much of a bitch Odette is.


How old do you think Swann is?


Now my real reason for posting is this. In the Scott Moncrieff edition there was a really useful index, this



Is there anything similar in French?

[SimonNZ]

How old do you think Swann is?

Gilberte is the same age as the narrator. Swann is probably in his early forties in the first book. And in his late twenties at the time of Swann In Love.

[Mandryka]

Yes that explains my confusion, which was caused by not thinking. The Swann of Un amour de Swann is younger than the Swann of Combray.

[ritter]

Than again, age is a variable "thing" throughout the whole Recherche .Charles Swann never comes through--to me, at least,  as a young man, not even in Un amour de Swann; he's "perennially middle-aged" IMO (akin to the age relationship one has with those one is close too, I'd say)...