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Moxysox wrote:
"Ok, class me as intrigued. You could try Alain Robbe-Grilles' 'The Erasers'. I'll say na more aboot it...more " |
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bookshelves: currently-reading, fiction---1900-1970
I have been looking out Ambler's books for a while: Second-Hand bookshops, take your bow!
He covers similar fictional territory to Alan Furst's pre1945 espionage books, but without Furst's literary overlay.
What you get is a good solid story line, from the main character's view. The element of thrillerdom lies there: we only see what the limited view of the character sees. In the precipitous times of late 1930's europe, this can take you on quite a rollercoaster ride of threat and mystery. ]]>
Ok, I thought. let's see what all the fuss is about.
And, do you know, I am really enjoying it. It's such a warmly written book; the main character is so (goofy?) likeable and ordinary. There are no melodramatics.
And the setting is so unusual, too. This is Twin Peaks country, without David Lynch on a sugar jag.
Don't think I'd watch the film, though: that is not the Bella I imagine at all.
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bookshelves: history
The Dissolution of the monastries: a close look at the history and dissolution of Durham monastery, 1535/6.
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bookshelves: arts
Duchamp was not as enamoured of machines as most of his contemporaries: Machines are great producers of waste, and the refuse they leave increases in geometric proportion to their productive capacity.
How prescient. A lone voice, that now sounds... too loud.
What is also particularly interesting is how Duchamp's thinking on art/anti art, on readymades, prefigures Baudrillard's ideas on The Simulacra.
Altogether a fascinating book: Paz has created a piece of art out of art.
Stimulating. ]]>
bookshelves: currently-reading, ideas
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by James Joyce
To have a reader or not to have a reader? I suppose it all hinges on whether you have a classical education or not: I don't and found a reader essential. Anyone before, what, 1960s did have access to a classical ed. and I should think found access to the work easier.
I have tried reading this book and found it very dull to begin with.
It's like with old masters, paintings: we can all appreciate a bit of their substance by looking at them without a painter's education. With that ed we would be viewing the paintings and knowing what we saw.
Joyce did expect his readers to be intelligent, well-read, widely read and knowledgable.
m ]]>
bookshelves: fiction---contemp, ideas, norwegian, translations
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