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What Are We Reading? 3 May 2021
Having failed to finish to firstof LJ Ross's DCI Ryan novels, but enjoyed the third, it set me to wishing that "My Books" had a not finished category!
Am amazed at how i've had such a long run of good reads, its either that as i get older i broaden my tolerance and expand my interests or either simply a lucky spell of rewarding readsi've never had long "duff" spells but have encountered many eagerly awaited novels that were a drag to read
Lord Jim was my last dissappointment in 2020
Mod
You can add your own 'DNF' shelf. Look for the 'add shelf' button on the 'My Books' page, left side, directly below the built-shelves.
Lljones wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Having failed to finish to first two of LJ Ross's DCI Ryan novels, but enjoyed the third, it set me to wishing that "My Books" had a not finished category!"You can add your ow..."
Thank Lisa, done.
scarletnoir wrote: "Sandya wrote: "The Widows of Malabar Hill. Sujata MasseyWhere do I start? This wonderful novel is set in 1920s Bombay. I was born in Bombay, Mahim to be precise, and it was fun to see Mahim on th..."
I have read a lot on the subject of India, since a great deal of good stuff has been published in the last 20+ years, here and in India. The author did her research. Further, there were lots of areas of familiarity even though I grew up in the UK-we were still in the Indian community and those expectations ruled my life. Plus many visits to India, including Bombay.
MK wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Sandya wrote: "The Widows of Malabar Hill. Sujata MasseyWhere do I start? This wonderful novel is set in 1920s Bombay. I was born in Bombay, Mahim to be precise, and it was fu..."
I don't know this series-I will look out for it! Thank you!
Andy wrote: "I’m in Ardnamurchan AB, and yes, last few days snow showers, and the storm on Monday brought plenty of snow, to about 300 metres. I see the Lake District Ski Club reopened for a few days, having a..."
Ar the midges you talk of like the nasty black flies that drive people in Maine crazy this time of year? They get between glasses and eyeballs and just under shirt collars.
Another good reason to live in western WA.
Do we have any Saramago fans in? I've noted The Elephant's Journey on Justine's list (which has a tempting length), and Mach's recommendations on the Justine page. Does anyone have a different favourite?
Paul wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Where we part company is over Barnes - I have enjoyed most of his novels"Barnes for me is an odd one. I read The Sense of an Ending and though it fantastic, but I've never be..."
You could try the outstanding memoir Levels of Life. His recent novel The Only Story is also very good - IMO, of course.
I think that I have very much enjoyed rather more than half of Barnes's novels, and been underwhelmed by about a quarter... so, not consistently good (for me), but a pretty good strike rate nevertheless.
Philippe Delerm's The Small Pleasures Of Life
was enjoyable to the very last chapter. Its 34 vignettes cover a wide range. To name some favourites: - (The magic of) The caleidoscope
- Shelling peas
- Going to the bakery early in the morning
- Reading on the beach
and, dare we dream of them (I do),
- Spontaneous invitations
Also, not surprisingly, really liked the one about
-The bibliobus
as a reliable, scheduled means of amazing discoveries.
As I wrote some time ago, I settled into a nice routine with this book: Every morning and every evening, I would read one of the vignettes. (Looking for a suitable replacement now - any suggestions?)
The short texts have a decelerating effect while sharpening the senses, and they also bring up memories: "Making a call from a public phone", for example... (The author has different memories, though, more positive ones - mine are mostly olfactory, and with regard to Britain, also of the small cards all over the phone booths, which I had not encountered before.)
All sorts.
In French, as discussed with scarletnoir, the title is La première gorgée de bière et autres plaisirs minuscules. The text that, for me, was most difficult to understand was the one on "Frou-frou sous les cornières" - lots and lots of terms relating to textiles, their accessoires as well as on furnishings... you might consider it training for a "materialist" (as Virginia Woolf put it, if I recall correctly) nineteenth-century novel, which I doubt I am up to yet.
True to its title (literally, "on the first sip of beer and other small pleasures"), the book might make you thirsty! But mostly for new or repeat experiences.
Many thanks to AuroraBorealis, who I am not sure is reading here, for the recommendation.
________________________
Also still enjoying Peter Carey's Theft: A Love Story, which I wrote about earlier this week. The plot thickens, as Sherlock Holmes (I think?) would say.
SydneyH wrote: "Do we have any Saramago fans in? I've noted The Elephant's Journey on Justine's list (which has a tempting length), and Mach's recommendations on the Justine page. Does anyone have a different favo..."i enjoyed the Saramago novel set in Lisbon during the Salazar times The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis but he is an awkward beast to read,immersion in the novel on my commute in 2002 worked but it wasnt an easy read
Sandya wrote: "MK wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Sandya wrote: "The Widows of Malabar Hill. Sujata MasseyWhere do I start? This wonderful novel is set in 1920s Bombay. I was born in Bombay, Mahim to be precise, an..."
Bombay, fascinating melting pot of cultures, sounds interesting, will make a note of that novel
I finished Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin a couple of days ago and I feel rather ambivalent regarding my opinion on this book. On the one hand the setting of the story - in Edinburgh - and how the author gives the city it's own character in the story, somewhat like Jekyll and Hyde was quite interesting. I also liked the main character police officer John Rebus, an outsider suffering from PTSD. Rankin had done a decent job in building his character and his backstory, but I felt the execution of the main plotline (investigation and resolution of abduction/murders young girls) of the story seemed rushed.
I will read more of the Rebus series though because I like his character. I also want to visit Edinburgh. I did quite a bit of looking at Google Maps/Streetview to see the various landmarks and streets referred to.
AB76 wrote: "The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis"Thanks, that was one of the two Machenbach mentioned (where is that scoundrel?).
SydneyH wrote: "AB76 wrote: "The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis"Thanks, that was one of the two Machenbach mentioned (where is that scoundrel?)."
i was wondering that, maybe e he is embracing the loosening of lockdown and getting out more? His reading seems to have slowed down, though he is on 73 books since Ersatz TLS began, i'm only on 48 and i thought i was reading a lot!
Paul wrote: "As for the over-hyped and lauded propaganda, that really, really goes both ways. I have no idea how Waugh got a place in the pantheon, because cripes..."I could argue that it's mostly a question of style - the right words at the right pace, good sound syntaxic structure, abundance of Gallicisms and Latinisms, a very ideosyncratic sense of humour (quite British, at once pince sans rire and verging on the scatological [e.g. Apthorpe's thunderbox]) - but there's more than that. Most people like to comment on his Catholicism and its influence on his fiction, and yet one can very well abstract oneself from the more religious aspects of his plots and take them for a sort of display of universal spiritual values and morals. If Brideshead were designed for a mostly Catholic audience it wouldn't have become so successful. And let's not forget that the Granada Television adaptation starring Jeremy Irons was a huge international hit in the early 80s. I don't think all the people who watched and liked it were very religious.
Anyway, I'm not one to shy away from a good piece of Catholic fiction, and Waugh does raise extremely interesting points in his novels (regardless of your personal set of beliefs).
Slawkenbergius wrote: "Paul wrote: "As for the over-hyped and lauded propaganda, that really, really goes both ways. I have no idea how Waugh got a place in the pantheon, because cripes..."I could argue that it's mostl..."
Its interesting that arguably two of the giants of post-war british fiction in the 1940s and 1950s were both catholic...Graham Greene and Waugh. I'm a huge fan of Graham Greene , i do find his catholic musing very interesting, likewise with Waugh
Greene was one of many authors i loathed for GCSE and A level but love now, Hardy is another one. I did The Comedians for a level english but while i could see it was less stuffy than a lot of the books on the syllabus, i hated the over-analysis and reverence from the staff, that as a 16-18yo iconoclast, i loathed. I think my next Greene will be that novel
Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I finished Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin a couple of days ago and I feel rather ambivalent regarding my opinion on this book. On the one hand the setting of the story - in Edinburgh - and how the..."I did suggest that this early work was some way from Rankin's best - the character, and various other protagonists, are given time to develop over the series. The Rebus novels became required reading for me, though - even the weaker ones. Great fun.
Let us know if you develop the taste, or if you bail out - all is down to individual preference in the end.
(BTW - the Oxford Bar - Rebus's watering hole - is a real place, which I visited - but of course - on my last visit. I was most disappointed, though, not to be roundly insulted by the barman - as happens to 'interlopers' in the books. Edinburgh also has one of my favourite pubs - the 'Gravediggers' - real name, the Athletic Arms - though it's a while since I've been there!)
AB76 wrote: "I'm a huge fan of Graham Greene , i do find his catholic musing very interesting, likewise with Waugh."I've only read two Greenes - The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair - and quite liked them; found both very thought-provoking although arguably not to everyone's taste. One of these days I might try one of his other novels (or maybe one 'entertainment').
The Praetorians by Jean Larteguy (1963)
continues to be an enthralling read covering the 1958 coup in Algiers, where army officers rebelled against the Fourth Republic and General De Gaulle returned to power, creating the Fifth Republic and the Presidential system that France has todayAlgiers is the heart of this novel, covering the last major political crisis of many that France suffered since 1789. A white walled, elegant metropolis of Parisian charm with Mediterreanan looks, its the dazzling symbol of the French Empire, over 400,000 people of which 35-40% were of French origins within the city
Larteguy writes well, though its far faster paced novel than the second in the triology("The Centurions") which opens in a VietMinh prison column after the french defeat in IndoChina. All the paratroops who populate this novel are present in the earlier one, though in chains and starving in the VietMinh camps....
The actual events of May 13th 1958 are superbly told, the masses of people flocking into the well spaced boulevards of the "outre mer", imagining a new regime and a way out of three years of violent and bloody conflict. On one side the deep blue sea, on the other the people....eventually this all went sour and De Gaulle faced another coup in 1961, which failed.
The real life character of one of those plotters Gen Raoul Salan is a key figure in this novel, nicknamed "The Tojun"for his overseas service and stern, reserved manner. Salan ended up running the french settler terrorist group called the OAS from 1961-63, before being arrested and was facing the firing squad, he was eventually sentenced to life in jail
Still got another 120 pages to read...
(Will add a few photos from Algeria 1958 to the photo section)
AB76 wrote: "Slawkenbergius wrote: "Paul wrote: "As for the over-hyped and lauded propaganda, that really, really goes both ways. I have no idea how Waugh got a place in the pantheon, because cripes..."I coul..."
Re-“The Diggers”, sadly, I believe it has yet to re-open, what with the current situation. As for the area near the Oxford Bar, I can recommend a bistro, Cafe Marlayne, though unsure if it has yet to throw open the doors once again.
Mod
I've only read two Greenes - The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair ..."
I went through quite the Greene phase some years ago; I've probably read 25-30 of his works. He's worth digging through, there are quite a few gooduns, including some of his entertainments.
And several decent movies based on his works have been made; my favorite is 1948's The Fallen Idol.
Slawkenbergius wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I'm a huge fan of Graham Greene , i do find his catholic musing very interesting, likewise with Waugh."I've only read two Greenes - The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair ..."
The Quiet American Is worth reading.
While you are here Captain, have you ever read Ted Hughes Crow Poems?
This is right up my alley as I am currently listening to part 25 of 35 of Tombland.https://www.theguardian.com/books/pic...
I also have 'Just So' stories waiting in the audio wings.
Lljones wrote: "Slawkenbergius wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I'm a huge fan of Graham Greene , i do find his catholic musing very interesting, likewise with Waugh."I've only read two Greenes - The Heart of the Matter and..."
i think the sheer breadth of his novels means he will always appeal through the ages. I must also read the End of the Affairanother one that was filmed
my favourites so far are The Heart of the Matter for its wartime african setting, small town politics and moral questions and The Ministry of Fear which i didnt expect to grip me as much as it did
Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I finished Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin a couple of days ago and I feel rather ambivalent regarding my opinion on this book. On the one hand the setting of the story - in Edinburgh - and how the..."You may have seen me mention this before but Quintin Jardine's Skinner series is set in Edinburgh. Skinner is a totally different sort of man than Rebus but you may like them. Best read in order if you can though, or you may get a bit confused!
Oh yes Scarletnoir, I did consider myself warned! Having started the Bosch series of books by Michael Connelly, there is a linear flow of character development and reference to plots from previous books in the series, which (in my view) were poorly explained and may be confusing to a reader who sporadically dips in.I think I will read further Rebus books, but I'll try and get from my local library, if it reopens. Gravediggers is a great name for a pub, I'm guessing a bit of a joke given the antics of Burke and Hare. Indeed, one might be in need of such a service if one frequents the establishment too often...
Mr Fuzzywuzz is cutting mini Fuzzywuzzes' hair. I've just heard the following exchange: "I'm not sure I can do that kind of cut", " Are you really sure you want to go that short", times two and "If I do this, you will accept responsibility if it goes wrong", I dread to thing what is going to come back from the kitchen.Due to the horrid cold and wet weather here this morning, I made a coffee and walnut cake. Sometimes I can be really stupid and not read all the details in the recipe - 'serves 16' was a glaring oversight on my part. There are only three of us here. Hmm.
Regarding matters of a bookish kind, I started two books: Explaining Humans by Dr Camilla Pang and Never Let my Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
CCCubbon wrote: "While you are here Captain, have you ever read Ted Hughes Crow Poems?"No, I haven't but I've seen it mentioned here and there. Do you recommend it?
(BTW, crows are my favourite animals, so I might be tempted to give that Hughes book a go)
AB76 wrote: "The Ministry of Fear which i didnt expect to grip me as much as it did"Never read it, but the adaptation directed by Fritz Lang (starring Ray Milland) is an absolute cracker - if you're into old-timey thrillers that is.
More great german language literature translated, NYRB have issued Motley Stones by the great Austrian master Adalabert Stifter. Stifter Adalbert 1805-1868I will am ordering it now...
Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Due to the horrid cold and wet weather here this morning, I made a coffee and walnut cake. Sometimes I can be really stupid and not read all the details in the recipe - 'serves 16' was a glaring oversight on my part. There are only three of us here. Hmm"I'm sure it will be ok cut into slices and frozen. How is the mini's hair? We are all dying to know!
Slawkenbergius wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "While you are here Captain, have you ever read Ted Hughes Crow Poems?"No, I haven't but I've seen it mentioned here and there. Do you recommend it?
(BTW, crows are my favourite ..."
I think it’s great. Taking it slowly, poem by poem. Crow is an anti-hero, having battles with God, violent, wicked, mesmerising, crow who doesn’t get things all his own way. It’s powerful , lots to think about. Favourite so far is Crow and the Birds. On to A Bedtime Story but needs more thought.
I forgot to mention Ministry of Fear by Greene. It’s pretty good but I remember thinking that the part where he goes down into the underground during the war did not ring true, that was my only critics.
Slawkenbergius wrote: "I might try one of his other novels (or maybe one 'entertainment')"Calling some of his better novels 'entertainments' was the silliest thing Greene could have done. The only difference is that the ones he considered serious were overtly engaged with Catholic themes. But Brighton Rock is a good mix of the two, The Quiet American is a big fan favourite, and I also liked The Ministry of Fear. For something a bit different, Our Man in Havana is an excellent satire.
giveusaclue wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I finished Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin a couple of days ago and I feel rather ambivalent regarding my opinion on this book. On the one hand the setting of the story - in Edinb..."“The Diggers”, as it’s known locally is located opposite a cemetery.
Slawkenbergius wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "While you are here Captain, have you ever read Ted Hughes Crow Poems?"No, I haven't but I've seen it mentioned here and there. Do you recommend it?
(BTW, crows are my favourite ..."
Right now the crow family that has its home in my neighbor's tree which hangs over my patio is NOT on my favorites list.
Perhaps, though, you would appreciate this book about their cousins - the raven
. It is full of the antics handed down over the ages in NW First Peoples stories.
Mod
No, I haven't but I've seen it mentioned here and there. Do you recommend it?
(BTW, ..."
One of the books I've set aside from my brother's shelves:
Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds
Lljones wrote: "MK wrote: "Slawkenbergius wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "While you are here Captain, have you ever read Ted Hughes Crow Poems?"No, I haven't but I've seen it mentioned here and there. Do you recommend ..."
And then there is this - http://www.prestonsingletary.com/blog...
Mod
Stunning. I'll have to try and visit before I leave Seattle.
giveusaclue wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Due to the horrid cold and wet weather here this morning, I made a coffee and walnut cake. Sometimes I can be really stupid and not read all the details in the recipe - 'serves 16..."The hair is very short, more of a hair 'don't', rather than 'do'. When asked if I liked it, I gave an honest, but brutal 'no'. However MiniFuzzywuzz seems happy enough, so that's the main thing.
I discussed this in a previous thread, but am looking forward to the Beeb’s adaptation of The Pursuit of Love at 9 tonight. Hope it lives up to expectations, it may prompt me to take Jessica Mitford’s Hons and Rebels down from my shelves.
Hermann Bahr's style
continues to enthrall me as he tours Berlin in the early 1890s interviewing various German men of influence about the anti-semitic situation in Imperial Germany.The next section moves to Paris, where the Jewish population was far smaller and more centered in one location (Paris). However the anti-semitic situation in France had been inflamed by the Deryfus affair and it will be interesting to compare the french interviewees with the German ones
What a find.....well done Rixdorf Editions...
I am interested in all the non-British colonial situations that started to unravel in the 1950s(The Belgian Congo, Indochina/Algeria and the Portugese Empire)I am interested in the british experience just as much but the literature and novels are far easier to find and obviously in english.
I have really struggled to find anything translated about the Belgian Congo minus a slim but excellent Leuven University collection of stories i read in December. A semi-pornographic short novel written in the 1970s was abandoned as it told me very little at all, cant remember the author
The French experience is better told with Camus,Malraux, Larteguy, Duras, Hougron and Memmi all covering different aspects of 20th century french colonialism with their novels, plus Fanon, Bourdieu and others considered it from a non-fiction angle
The Portugese situation in Angola and Mozambique is suprisngly well covered by non-fiction but mostly military. Fiction is also less rare than the Belgian Congo situation in translation, i recommend the debut novel by Lobo Antunes
. I also have novels by Vieira(Angola) and have just ordered The Return by CardosoItalian imperial studies are quite good, looking at Libya and Ethiopia. A rare but translated novel by an Eritrean writer, about the pacification of Libya is worth reading:
I will keep on hunting....for more
Alerting Barbara Pym fans. A positive review of Paula Byrne’s The Adventures of Miss Pym from Rachel Cooke in today’s Obs. I caught some of it in the R4 sterilisation recently, so am looking forward to reading it.
Lass wrote: "Alerting Barbara Pym fans. A positive review of Paula Byrne’s The Adventures of Miss Pym from Rachel Cooke in today’s Obs. I caught some of it in the R4 sterilisation recently, so am looking forwar..."Oh, dear god…serialisation? Proof read! Though perhaps it is a sterilised view?
AB76 wrote(144): However the anti-semitic situation in France had been inflamed by the Deryfus affair and it will be interesting to compare the french interviewees with the German onesThe Dreyfus affair only started after Bahr's book had been published.
It is worth reading up on it before you start the French interviews.
It shows how far off the mark his interviewees assessments/views of French antisemitism were.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus...
Lljones wrote: "One of the books I've set aside from my brother's shelves:"Cheers!
As to corvid-related works of fiction, there's John Crowley's latest that I'm thinking of reading
Slawkenbergius wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I'm a huge fan of Graham Greene , i do find his catholic musing very interesting, likewise with Waugh."I've only read two Greenes - The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair ..."
Interesting that you have only read those two - I'm fascinated by books in which characters play out their convictions (religious or atheistic) - or was, anyway, at a younger age... those two Greenes are amongst the ones I liked least, as being 'too Catholic' for my taste.
For some odd reason, the books I like best (written by believers) are those in which the atheistic characters (or the sceptics) are portrayed most powerfully and/or sympathetically: for Greene, A Burnt-Out Case and The Quiet American; for Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. Great writers know how to convincingly portray even views with which they disagree.
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Ersatz TLS
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The Small Pleasures of Life (other topics)
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As fascinating and rewarding as it can be to t..."
there are plenty of other sources i have looked at it, including the migration and movement of peoples in Imperial Germany, Hapsburg Empire and Imperial Russia from 1848 to 1900
Always fascinating, always learning