Darwin8u’s Comments (group member since May 22, 2013)

Darwin8u’s comments from the Completists' Club group.

Mike wrote: "I've read all of CM's novels, telaplays, and plays, at least as of today. Lucky enough to have read some more than once. Up for discussion of any, although an informed discussion may require reread..."

Thanks Mike for the list.

Updated, now that I've finished (9/22/2013).


Novels
The Orchard Keeper
Outer Dark
Child of God
Suttree
Blood Meridian
All the Pretty Horses
The Crossing
Cities of the Plain
No Country for Old Men
The Road
The Passenger (forthcoming)

Short fiction
Wake for Susan
A Drowning Incident

Screenplays
The Gardener's Son
The Counselor (forthcoming)

Plays
The Stonemason
The Sunset Limited

The Honourable Schoolboy owes a lot to Conrad.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/21...

M.C. wrote: "@Darwin8u

I saw you started a forum for Conrad. I am rereading some Conrad to prepare for a reread of a A Burnt-Out Case. Throughout In Search of a Character Greene waffles back and forth on his i..."

It is interesting that you note the influence Conrad had on Greene, because I was telling someone how there are parts of le Carre's canon that are heavily influenced by Conrad (the Honourable Schoolboy) and others that are heavily influenced by Greene (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy).

But I like the definitive nature of the strike through. The check seems neat, but also too pedantic.

I guess I rushed so fast I missed a vowel. I like the sound of my tongue saying:

1. Rush sounds right.
2. More certain today than then that Frolic is next.

For two close buy very different reasons.

1. Stamboul Train/Orient Express
2. Brighton Rock
3. The Confidential Agent
4. The Power and the Glory
5. The Heart of the Matter
6. The Third Man
7. The End of the Affair
8. The Quiet American
9. Our Man in Havana
10. The Comedians
11. The Human Factor
12. The Tenth Man
13. The Captain and the Enemy

Again, one of those authors where I feel like I've crested a hill and still have a mountain left to climb.

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "I reallyreally intend to turn to Frolic in June."

I might just join you. I've got 'The Rush for Scond Place' sitting on my desk behind me at work mocking me every morning, so I might read that first.

Mala wrote: "Thank you for creating this thread. Conrad is one of my fav writers & looking at that list,I'm feeling so despondent now–it's a looong way to completion!"

Yeah, there might be more too. I love Conrad, but I look at this and wonder do I really want too read every Ford Maddox Ford co-project..?

I've read 10 and have (it appears) 7 to go.

1. Hear the Wind Sing
2. Pinball, 1973

A Wild Sheep Chase
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Norwegian Wood
Dance Dance Dance

3. South of the Border, West of the Sun
4. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
5. Sputnik Sweetheart

Kafka on the Shore
After Dark

6. 1Q84

Short Stories:
The Elephant Vanishes
After the quake
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Nonfiction:
7. Underground
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

MJ wrote: "All of Dickens's novels, or the whole published poobah? I hope to complete the Bill Gass canon this year."

MJ, I think I'm going to be/am intellectually lazier than Carla. I will "aim" for all his novels/stories this year ... but I already see myself distracted by finishing Proust's ISoLT ... but I'm not sure my marriage is up for me reading all his essays too in 2013.

One thing about this Group/Club is you quickly establish just how far the goal is. I thought I was doing good with Conrad:

Almayer's Folly
Heart of Darkness
Lord Jim
Typhoon
Nostromo
The Secret Agent
Under Western Eyes
Victory

"The Secret Sharer"

And then I looked at what I had left. It is the same with Nabokov and Greene. Just because I've read a lot of their popular works, doesn't mean I'm even close to being a completist with some of my favorite writers.

Novels:

Almayer's Folly (1895)
An Outcast of the Islands (1896)
The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897)
Heart of Darkness (1899)
Lord Jim (1900)
The Inheritors (with Ford Madox Ford) (1901)
Typhoon (1902, begun 1899)
The End of the Tether (written in 1902; collected in Youth, a Narrative and Two Other Stories, 1902)
Romance (with Ford Madox Ford, 1903)
Nostromo (1904)
The Secret Agent (1907)
Under Western Eyes (1911)
Chance (1913)
Victory (1915)
The Shadow-Line (1917)
The Arrow of Gold: A Story Between Two Notes (1919)
The Rescue (1920)
The Nature of a Crime (1923, with Ford Madox Ford)
The Rover (1923)
Suspense: A Napoleonic Novel (1925; unfinished, published posthumously)

Stories:

"The Black Mate": written, according to Conrad, in 1886; may be counted as his opus double zero; published 1908; posthumously collected in Tales of Hearsay, 1925.
"The Idiots": Conrad's truly first short story, which may be counted as his opus zero; written during his honeymoon (3.1896), published in The Savoy periodical, 1896, and collected in Tales of Unrest, 1898.
"The Lagoon": composed 1896; published in Cornhill Magazine, 1897; collected in Tales of Unrest, 1898: "It is the first short story I ever wrote."
"An Outpost of Progress": written 1896; published in Cosmopolis, 1897, and collected in Tales of Unrest, 1898: "My next [second] effort in short-story writing"; it shows numerous thematic affinities with Heart of Darkness; in 1906, Conrad described it as his "best story".
"The Return": completed early 1897, while writing "Karain"; never published in magazine form; collected in Tales of Unrest, 1898: "[A]ny kind word about 'The Return' (and there have been such words said at different times) awakens in me the liveliest gratitude, for I know how much the writing of that fantasy has cost me in sheer toil, in temper, and in disillusion." Conrad, who suffered while writing this psychological chef-d'oeuvre of introspection, once remarked: "I hate it."
"Karain: A Memory": written February–April 1897; published November 1897 in Blackwood's Magazine and collected in Tales of Unrest, 1898: "my third short story in... order of time".
"Youth": written 1898; collected in Youth, a Narrative, and Two Other Stories, 1902
"Falk": novella / story, written early 1901; collected only in Typhoon and Other Stories, 1903
"Amy Foster": composed 1901; published in the Illustrated London News, December 1901, and collected in Typhoon and Other Stories, 1903.
"To-morrow": written early 1902; serialized in Pall Mall Magazine, 1902, and collected in Typhoon and Other Stories, 1903
"Gaspar Ruiz": written after Nostromo in 1904–5; published in The Strand Magazine, 1906, and collected in A Set of Six, 1908 (UK), 1915 (US). This story was the only piece of Conrad's fiction ever adapted by the author for cinema, as Gaspar the Strong Man, 1920.
"An Anarchist": written late 1905; serialized in Harper's Magazine, 1906; collected in A Set of Six, 1908 (UK), 1915 (US)
"The Informer": written before January 1906; published, December 1906, in Harper's Magazine, and collected in A Set of Six, 1908 (UK), 1915 (US)
"The Brute": written early 1906; published in The Daily Chronicle, December 1906; collected in A Set of Six, 1908 (UK), 1915 (US)
"The Duel: A Military Story": serialized in the UK in Pall Mall Magazine, early 1908, and later that year in the US as "The Point of Honor", in the periodical Forum; collected in A Set of Six in 1908 and published by Garden City Publishing in 1924. Joseph Fouché makes a cameo appearance.
"Il Conde" (i.e., "Conte" [count]): appeared in Cassell's Magazine (UK), 1908, and Hampton's (US), 1909; collected in A Set of Six, 1908 (UK), 1915 (US)
"The Secret Sharer": written December 1909; published in Harper's Magazine, 1910, and collected in ’Twixt Land and Sea, 1912
"Prince Roman": written 1910, published 1911 in the Oxford and Cambridge Review; posthumously collected in Tales of Hearsay, 1925; based on the story of Prince Roman Sanguszko of Poland (1800–81)
"A Smile of Fortune": a long story, almost a novella, written in mid-1910; published in London Magazine, February 1911; collected in ’Twixt Land and Sea, 1912
"Freya of the Seven Isles": a near-novella, written late 1910–early 1911; published in Metropolitan Magazine and London Magazine, early 1912 and July 1912, respectively; collected in ’Twixt Land and Sea, 1912
"The Partner": written 1911; published in Within the Tides, 1915
"The Inn of the Two Witches": written 1913; published in Within the Tides, 1915
"Because of the Dollars": written 1914; published in Within the Tides, 1915
"The Planter of Malata": written 1914; published in Within the Tides, 1915
"The Warrior's Soul": written late 1915–early 1916; published in Land and Water, March 1917; collected in Tales of Hearsay, 1925
"The Tale": Conrad's only story about World War I; written 1916, first published 1917 in The Strand Magazine; posthumously collected in Tales of Hearsay, 1925

Essays:

The Mirror of the Sea, 1906
A Personal Record (also published as Some Reminiscences), 1912
The First News, 1918
The Lesson of the Collision: A monograph upon the loss of the "Empress of Ireland", 1919
The Polish Question, 1919
The Shock of War, 1919
Notes on Life and Letters, 1921
Notes on My Books, 1921
Last Essays, edited by Richard Curle, 1926
The Congo Diary and Other Uncollected Pieces, edited by Zdzisław Najder, 1978


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C...

DFW Books left in the Que:

Novels (Done)
The Broom of the System
Infinite Jest
The Pale King

Short story collections (One left)
Girl with Curious Hair
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Oblivion: Stories
Uncollected Fiction (Dec 2013)

Non-fiction (Three Left)
Signifying Rappers
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity
Consider the Lobster (2005)
This is Water
Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will
Both Flesh and Not

Interviews
Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace
Conversations with David Foster Wallace
The Last Interview and Other Conversations

Secondary Materials
Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace

Patty wrote: "I still think Sutree is his second best novel."

And a close close second.

Just finished all of David Mitchell. My ranking of his novels:


1. Cloud Atlas (5*)
2. Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (5*)
3. Black Swan Green (5*)
4. Ghostwritten (4*)
5. number9dream (3*)

Just finished all of David Mitchell. My ranking:


1. Cloud Atlas
2. Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
3. Black Swan Green
4. Ghostwritten
5. number9dream

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Nathan "N.R." wrote: "I've got CG and Frolic pending..."

I've got JR and Recognitions in the bag, just carving out a time for CG and Frolic, Agape Agape, Letters and Essays. I guess I could just save the words and say, I've done the big two and just need to get down to business with the rest.

Con McVeety wrote: "Con McVeety wrote: "Anyone read or have heard of Thomas Pynchon's "A Journey Into the Mind of Watts" if not here's a link

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncolle...""

Yeah, I once took several of his assorted essays, etc., and bound them in college (at the same time I bound J.D. Salinger's Hapworth 16, 1924 from the New Yorker).

I've got it somewhere in a box. We might need to include Pynchon's linear notes... but ‘Yowzah!’ that is like chasing a jazzy harmonica down a toilet hole for sure.

Nick wrote: "I only have Vineland left to read in order to become a Pynchon completist, and as it is sitting on my shelf waiting to be read, I could accomplish completion this year. But I'll be setting out upon..."

I have V, Vineland and 1/2 of Slow Learner, and Wanda Tinasky letters (insurance against the chance that he wrote them).

I've noticed with DFW and Pynchon, I've a tendency to read them in reverse chronological order (almost).