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July 21
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Steven
is currently reading:
L.A. Noir: The City as Character (Paperback)
by Alain Silver, James Ursini
bookshelves:
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Steven
gave
to:
The Fashion System (Paperback)
by Roland Barthes
bookshelves:
literary-theory
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Steven said:
"Using as his source French fashion magazines from 1958 and 1959, Barthes "reads" clothing to determine its system of meaning. "The magazine as a machine that makes fashion" (51) is indisputable now (and was it ever in doubt by tho...more
Using as his source French fashion magazines from 1958 and 1959, Barthes "reads" clothing to determine its system of meaning. "The magazine as a machine that makes fashion" (51) is indisputable now (and was it ever in doubt by those in the industry?), but in 1967 when this book was first published it had the whiff of revolution about it. Doesn't take very many pages before you're into doctoral-level semiology--but what would you expect from the founder of the study of signs? That makes this a highly specialized text and difficult reading for non-specialists. It does contain a neat refutation of one of Saussure's fundamental points--the arbitrariness of the sign (215) while at the same time pointing out that the Fashion sign is arbitrary because it is "exempt from time: Fashion does not evolve, it changes; its lexicon is new each year, like that of a language which always keeps the same system but suddenly and regularly changes the 'currency' of its words." (215). To get his point: What does "short skirt" mean this year?...less
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Steven
gave
to:
Parody (The New Critical Idiom)
by Simon Dentith
bookshelves:
literary-theory
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Steven said:
"Another excellent volume from Routledge's The New Critical Idiom series. Dentith provides a general overview of parody from ancient Greek drama through postmodernism. In the middle part of the book he spends considerable time on English poetry and bu...more
Another excellent volume from Routledge's The New Critical Idiom series. Dentith provides a general overview of parody from ancient Greek drama through postmodernism. In the middle part of the book he spends considerable time on English poetry and burlesque dramas, including many somewhat obscure examples, and it's not clear why he does this until the final chapter on postmodernism reveals that he has been sowing the seeds for counterexamples to Frederic Jameson's formulation of parody being the cultural dominant of our era with its attendant critique of late capitalism. The point of Dentith's analysis is to show that in earlier eras parody was as vibrant and had it's own corrective agenda. Our era doesn't have a lock on parody; it's just harder to recognize, from our current vantage point, the parody of earlier eras.
What I especially appreciated about Dentith's writing style is how rarely he uses footnotes--only 9 times in 189 pages! He liberally quotes examples and crossreferences them to the bibliography, but for his analyses he writes from his own knowledge rather than by stringing together paraphrases from other sources. it's great to just read straight through without constantly having to refer to footnotes.
The book has a solid glossary, bibliography, and index, which makes it a well-rounded introductory (and teachable) text on parody....less
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July 18
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Steven
gave
to:
Under the Volcano (Paperback)
by Malcolm Lowry
bookshelves:
novels
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Steven said:
"As with all the great modernist novels, of which this is certainly one, the reading experience is exceptionally difficult and apt to be frustrating on a casual read, yet richly rewarding to an immersive read. Lowry has made the immersive read even ha...more
As with all the great modernist novels, of which this is certainly one, the reading experience is exceptionally difficult and apt to be frustrating on a casual read, yet richly rewarding to an immersive read. Lowry has made the immersive read even harder to attain because the Consul--whose day-in-the-life (his last actually) this novel is about--is perfectamente borracho throughout the novel. So dipping into the passages portraying the Consul's conscious life is a slide into his slurry of mescal, too. The point of view, however, is not limited to the inebriated Consul. Lowry also dips into the minds and experiences of the Consul's friends and his wife and her lover (his half-brother), which allows the full tragic existence of the Consul to emerge. Rich in symbolism, lush concrete descriptions (Lowry's descriptive language is particularly worth studying), and the full-metal jacket of modernist technique for displaying consciousness via language on the page, Under the Volcano will certainly repay your effort if modernism is your thing.
I struggle with this book now simply because I can't read it without thinking about the movie and Albert Finney's oscar worthy performance.
(For its modernist technique I'd give this 5 stars, but as a read, too many books I'd place ahead of it, hence the 3 stars.)...less
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July 17
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Steven
is currently reading:
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic - Henri Bergson (Paperback)
by Henri Bergson
bookshelves:
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Steven
gave
to:
Resistance (Paperback)
by Barry Lopez
bookshelves:
short-stories
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my rating:
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Steven said:
"The literary conceit of this collection is that these stories are found texts, testimonies left behind by people fleeing from the long-reach of a Homeland Security-ish agency that is seeking them out in the other countries they have ex-patriated them...more
The literary conceit of this collection is that these stories are found texts, testimonies left behind by people fleeing from the long-reach of a Homeland Security-ish agency that is seeking them out in the other countries they have ex-patriated themselves to. My first and continuous thought as I read these narratives was audience--who is the audience for this book? Who is Lopez trying to reach? What does he hope they will do? Is he trying to inspire boomers who've lost their idealism to get back into the fight? To resist, as his characters do? So why not just write the non-fiction essay and publish it the Atlantic Monthly?
Lopez's beautiful writing on the natural world aside, this book fell flat for me because all the narratives are monologic--like one voice--and not simply because it is a chorus of ideas. Men and women, all from different backgrounds, different experiences, and different afflictions, yet it sounds as if each testimony was written by the same person, which it literally was, but the fictional conceit is that these were written by different people, and Lopez did not succeed in that effort. The experiences were unique in their descriptive detail, but not unique in the narrative voice doing the describing.
Received plenty of praise in the mainstream literary review rags, but I was disappointed....less
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July 15
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Steven
gave
to:
Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma (Paperback)
by Michael Peppiatt
bookshelves:
art,
francis-bacon
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my rating:
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Steven said:
"A former New York Times book of the year (for those who care about such accolades), and I'm all for books that focus on creative artists receiving such recognition (if only for the hope of audience spill over). Yes, you'll find all the juicy details ...more
A former New York Times book of the year (for those who care about such accolades), and I'm all for books that focus on creative artists receiving such recognition (if only for the hope of audience spill over). Yes, you'll find all the juicy details about Bacon's at times scandalous private life, all the more so given that Peppiatt was a close friend of Bacon's for thirty years and confided in him to an uncommon (or, perhaps, calculated) degree. But what really puts this book over the top for me is that Peppiatt (a former literary editor for le Monde and arts correspondent for The New York Times and the Financial Times, as well as editor and publisher of Art International) has considerable critical chops and puts them to use throughout this book to analyze Bacon's paintings and technique. Not just a biography, but a brilliant melding of biography and critical study....less
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Steven
gave
to:
Lust (Paperback)
by Susan Minot
bookshelves:
short-stories
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my rating:
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Steven said:
"Very New York City, very 1980's, and stylistically seems quite dated now. Most of these stories are about women who are entering into, meandering within, or exiting relationships. Seventy-five percent of the book is inane dialog; attempts to portray ...more
Very New York City, very 1980's, and stylistically seems quite dated now. Most of these stories are about women who are entering into, meandering within, or exiting relationships. Seventy-five percent of the book is inane dialog; attempts to portray the banality of dating. The final paragraphs usually sum up the banality in a attempt to validate the rest of the story. For the most part the strategy was boring, although I can appreciate the intent behind them. The title story "Lust," which leads off the book, is the only one that I've returned to to reread a few times. What impresses me about the story is how the constant shifting POV--from first to third to second and around again randomly, all by the same narrator, doesn't matter. Regardless the POV, it feels unified. A rare feat. Just wish the story didn't end with a stereotypical viewpoint about promiscuity; the too common sentiment at the end deflated what the rest of the story achieved....less
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July 14
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Steven
is currently reading:
Beckett and Zen: A Study of Dilemma in the Novels of Samuel Beckett (Wisdom East-West Book. Grey Series)
by Paul Foster
bookshelves:
currently-reading
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Steven
marked as to-read:
Alberto Giacometti in Postwar Paris (Hardcover)
by Michael Peppiatt
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
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