What Are We Reading? 5 July 2021

[Bill]

Hushpuppy wrote: "I already had to google the author of Udolfo this evening due to my worsening memory..."

I've read four of Radcliffe's novels - I thought The Romance of the Forest the best - it has the well-judged proportions and pacing of a classical symphony. The Mysteries of Udolpho garners all the publicity, though, perhaps because Austen gave it such prominence. I found it more of a "loose, baggy monster" - frontloaded with too much travelogue and reaching a climax well before the novel actually ends.

[Robert]

AB76 wrote: "Blazing heat in the shires today, so its a linen shirt and long shorts (i wear shorts maybe twice a year)

thankfully an old house stays cool downstairs, bedroom is sealed off and dark, could hit 3..."

Sounds like a pleasant place, really. The Pacific Northwest has simmered down from "darned exhausting" to "humid." Things are expected to pick up next week.

[Robert]

Given recent discussion, I've posted a painting on the Cupid and Psyche story.

[AB76]

Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Blazing heat in the shires today, so its a linen shirt and long shorts (i wear shorts maybe twice a year)

thankfully an old house stays cool downstairs, bedroom is sealed off and dark..."

being tested right now! its day 4 of a heatwave and 4 to go. its 22c already and upstairs heat control is a losing battle...downstairs remains 19c. Nothing like in Pacific NW but unpleasent all the same, the sun at these latitudes can be relentless

[giveusaclue]

Anne wrote: "Bill wrote: "... though I will say I'm more likely to pick up a thriller by a woman author ."..."

I'm always on the lookout for good thriller recommendations (as opposed to crime/police procedural..."

Have a look at Adrian Magson's Harry Tate series, or Lucas Rocco series. Or Stephen Leather, although they get very samey after a few.

[Hushpuppy]

Bill wrote: "I've read four of Radcliffe's novels - I thought The Romance of the Forest the best - it has the well-judged proportions and pacing of a classical symphony."

Thanks a lot Swelter! I'm trying to read some of the more well-known classics atm (two Brontë so far, one more to go to have read at least one novel by each of them; Lady Susan to complete Austen), and a few of the Elizabeths/Penelopes/Barbara/Beryl/Jean/etc., but I might start to include some authors you, AB and Madame Max have mentioned later on.

[AB76]

Gunter Grass and his diary of 1990 From Germany to Germany is hit and miss.

After an early craze for his novels like "The Tin Drum", i found all the others, except for "Crabwalk" excruciatingly annoying and he remains for me maybe the most mannered writer of the last 60 years, unable to tell a simple tale or to dwell in a world that isnt bordering on the absurd

As expected his diaries are good and bad. Good on the situation in 1990, the DDR personalities and the sleepwalk into a united Germany, plundered by the neo-liberal West German system. Bad on everything to do with his fiction and his family, very unwoke flirting with young women and his obsession with drawing.

I might not finish it, am unsure, its not terrible but its good either, its somewhere in between

[Hushpuppy]

Anne wrote: "I'm always on the lookout for good thriller recommendations (as opposed to crime/police procedural sort of stuff)"

I'm never entirely clear on the definition of thriller, but it seems some people loosely use that term for The Collegians. I've actually really "enjoyed" it, if this can be the right term, but it appears to be very little known, despite it contributing to the legend of the Colleen Bawn. From encyclopaedia britannica:

Another important Catholic novelist of the period was John Banim’s associate Gerald Griffin, who was born just after the union and died a few years before the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. His novel The Collegians (1829) is one of the best-loved Irish national tales of the early 19th century. Based on a true story, it involves a dashing young Anglo-Irish landowner, Hardress Cregan, who elopes with a beautiful young Catholic peasant girl, Eily O’Connor.With the help of his crippled servant, he later murders her in order to marry a woman of his own class. The novel gained renewed fame when the Irish-born American playwright Dion Boucicault wrote a hugely popular dramatization of it, The Colleen Bawn (1860).So, a bit different perhaps to what you had in mind, but maybe of interest nonetheless...?

[Lass]

Those of you discussing Charles Dickens may have read Claire Tomalin’s excellent biography, and her The Invisible Woman, about C D and his relationship with Ellen ( Nelly) Ternan? C T’s biog of Mary Wollstonecraft is enlightening, too. I also have her memoir, A Life of My Own, a frank, and absorbing memoir.

[Fuzzywuzz]

I've just finished by Oyinkan Braithwaite.

A short and bittersweet tale revolving around two sisters and the murders that dominate their relationship. For me, this was a breath of fresh air and was the 'something different' I was looking for wrt crime fiction.

Themes such as loyalty, jealously and family dynamics were explored efficiently in this short novel.

I've been reading, with interest, the comments regarding biases when we, as readers select books. I'd like to think I'm not biased at all - when perusing bookshelves, especially when looking for something random, I would usually look at the cover first (or the title of the book if only the spine is visible), then read the blurb and if the story is enticing, I'll buy it, irrespective of who the author is.

But how many of my choices are really mine - bookstores (and libraries too) promote books as well as advertising that is all pervasive. This can be beneficial at times, I would like to read a broader range of book themes by a wider authorship. But is book promotion diverse enough, probably not.

Looking at the books I've read so far this year, 7 out of 24 are by female authors, There is one Japanese author, and one Nigerian-British. Did I seek out male, white authors intentionally? Not consciously, but the books I picked are in genres (that I read a lot of) typically written by white male authors.

I did however, seek out The Memory Police and My Sister the Serial Killer because firstly, I liked the idea of their stories and secondly, because I want to read stories by authors outside the UK and Ireland.

[Hushpuppy]

A lovely read in this terribly bleak day here in the UK:
A new start after 60: ‘I handed in my notice – and opened my dream bookshop’

(And nice post Fuzzywuzz!)

[scarletnoir]

CCCubbon wrote: "Different kind of reading this afternoon in that I have been making mint jelly to go with lamb dishes and had to find a recipe.
I didn’t realise before that the green colour in shop bought stuff is..."

My wife just today made a mint infusion from home-grown mint - I asked her why it was yellow and not green, and this is what she told me! We haven't tasted it yet...

[scarletnoir]

Hushpuppy wrote: "... in fact, I have nightmares of tackling those I used to know, and keep abjectly failing in those dreams)

I wonder how many of us still have occasional nightmares about exams - failing to find the correct location, turning up late, messing up? I certainly do, and so does my wife!

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "... in fact, I have nightmares of tackling those I used to know, and keep abjectly failing in those dreams)

I wonder how many of us still have occasional nightmares about exams -..."

its odd...not nightmares but i frequently get the feeling my finals are due in the next month and that strange tension as my mind tells me ("you graduated in 1999") but my dream mind tells me, you need to be ready for the exams in June

[scarletnoir]

Hushpuppy wrote: "Which one is it that you've read?"

The one I read was called 'Revenge', and was referred to in the post I responded to. Too many cliched situations and incredible behaviours for my taste, but maybe I'll have more luck with his other tales... glad to know it wasn't a problem for you, anyway!

It's clear that you survived your maths teacher (I'm delighted for you), but you should not have been put through that in the first place. I had to 'deal with' a very dominant teacher who bullied one of my daughters for quite a while - she would try to get off school, complain of feeling sick, and even did vomit on a few occasions... When I found out what was going on, I went to see her and told her that if she didn't desist, I'd make a formal complaint. When our second daughter was in her class a few years later, she was treated as a 'teacher's pet', though I'm not sure that was better!

[AB76]

Hushpuppy wrote: "A lovely read in this terribly bleak day here in the UK:
A new start after 60: ‘I handed in my notice – and opened my dream bookshop’

(And nice post Fuzzywuzz!)"

it is a bleak day, the virus runs wild and all restrictions gone, plus hot weather=nightmare

[scarletnoir]

Bill wrote: "My order from the NYRB Classics sale arrived today:
[bookcover:Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: Selected ..."

Nothing like a bit of light reading, is there, Bill? And these - at least, the first few, are indeed "nothing like light reading"!

I was intrigued by the Reck (never heard of him) described as a 'rock-ribbed reactionary' - whatever that is - in the blurb: Friedrich Reck might seem an unlikely rebel against Nazism. Not just a conservative but a rock-ribbed reactionary, he played the part of a landed gentleman, deplored democracy, and rejected the modern world outright. To Reck, the Nazis were ruthless revolutionaries in Gothic drag, and helpless as he was to counter the spell they had cast on the German people.... Although I'm not much in the mood for 'despair' at the moment, I very much look forward to your review of that one.

As for 'Lady Macbeth of Matensk', this was filmed recently as 'Lady Macbeth' with the setting moved to England, and well reviewed, though I haven't seen it.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lady...

[scarletnoir]

AB76 wrote: "i found 1984 one of the most relentlessly grim books i have ever read

Indeed - but once again (it seems to happen quite often!) I find myself on the other side of the fence to the 'received wisdom' with regard to Orwell... In my view, 1984 must have been an effective piece of propaganda when it was published (fair enough), but is not a very good or well-written novel. Once that period of detaching left-wing westerners from Soviet Russia had passed, the book lost its power to a large extent - though of course some ideas about state surveillance and control of the media remain relevant. It's too preachy for my taste, though.

(I preferred some of his reportage, and seem to recall Homage to Catalonia as being very good, though it's a long time since I read any Orwell.)

[Sandya]

Anne wrote: "Sandya wrote: "#18: The Grand Sophy. Georgette Heyer

After the dreariness of my last, Stone Cold Sober, saturated as it was with testosterone and swearing, I needed to read something civilized. I ..."


Thank you! I look forward to reading more. I hated Stone Cold Trouble. Just not my style or even my interests outside the Southall setting, which if anything, made it worse.

[Sandya]

Hushpuppy wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "For, whilst we tend to believe that very few women wrote novels until the C20th, in fact the proportion of women novel writers in the second half of the C19th was very high (gett..."

Women increasingly began writing novels in the 18th century because they were excluded from other types of writing-scholarly or political for example-by men. Novels were seen as not very serious so it was OK for women to fiddle about with them. They became very good at it, and successful, so men of course decided that THEY should "own" novel writing too-women simply aren't as good at novel writing either. What is wrong with men that they want to keep all the fun stuff to themselves and exclude women from everything? It is pretty sad.

[Sandya]

AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "... in fact, I have nightmares of tackling those I used to know, and keep abjectly failing in those dreams)

I wonder how many of us still have occasional nigh..."

I had, and occasionally still have, a recurring dream where I am flying bodily (no plane), say, over the Arctic, but I know that either I am late for my PhD exam or I haven't been to the H lab for 6 months and have neglected my research. A classic anxiety dream-the Arctic is a symbol of the coldness I felt, and I was tired of the drudgery of being a postdoc. In the end I left research. I just couldn't sustain my enthusiasm in the face of a system which demands far more than it returns for the effort one puts in.

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i found 1984 one of the most relentlessly grim books i have ever read

Indeed - but once again (it seems to happen quite often!) I find myself on the other side of the fence to the 'r..."

Homage to Catalonia is brilliant in the way it exposed the evils of communism and Stalins meddling in Barcelona. I have never seen Orwell as preachy, mainly cos a basketcase of useful idiots on the left in the late 30s to the late 40s were trumpeting the joys of communism and Orwell had seen through it all

I was a bit wary of his list of possible communists he compiled in WW2, there were many very cynical and disloyal communist traitors in Britain but compiling lists is not the way to expose them, though sadly many went on betraying the country for decades more

[AB76]

Sandya wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "For, whilst we tend to believe that very few women wrote novels until the C20th, in fact the proportion of women novel writers in the second half of the C19th w..."

it seems to be almost bred into the subconcious of many men and still is a problem, the almost casual lack of interest in female opinions, female sport, female problems and female writing.

Greer made a point that i thought was interesting that women are genuinely interested in men and what they do, men are a lot less interested in what women do and think

Of course its changing but it seems that have slowed since my school days but then i went to a diverse, co-ed public school(yes they do exist) where the girls ruled and so did women of colour. Maybe 20% of school was non-white, my prep class of 15 had 3 black pupils, two asian and one amerindian. Though this was a well-off generation of kids, from wealthy families

[Hushpuppy]

Sandya wrote: "I just couldn't sustain my enthusiasm in the face of a system which demands far more than it returns for the effort one puts in."

Well put.

[Hushpuppy]

Sandya wrote: "Novels were seen as not very serious so it was OK for women to fiddle about with them."

Yes, I've learned that since Natasha's post, thanks a lot! I mean, how dared they have fun AND be successful at it? Couldn't let that nonsense happen for too long...

[scarletnoir]

Machenbach wrote: "If you're male and under 35 and reading more than 5% of books by women then you're probably also getting your spectacles broken by the big boys and your head flushed down the toilet."

Not my experience, anyway... the time in my life when I read most books by women was between the ages of 12-16 (say) - as most of the leading detective writers were women (Christie, Sayers etc...). The only male writer in the genre I recall reading at that age is Simenon... and, believe me, no-one tried to stick my head down any toilet. It would have been very unwise of them to attempt it!
(My misogynistic age, such as it was, would have run from 8-9years old approximately.)

[Hushpuppy]

scarletnoir wrote: "As for 'Lady Macbeth of Matensk', this was filmed recently as 'Lady Macbeth' with the setting moved to England, and well reviewed, though I haven't seen it."

It is really rather good. Florence Pugh is excellent in it.

[Lljones]

Hi all. I was all set to post new weekly thread this morning, and then....stuff happened. (Nothing dire, just stuff).

So, new thread, a few weeks of literary birthdays tomorrow. In the meantime, I've been enjoying all the conversations over the last few days!

[Hushpuppy]

AB76 wrote: "it is a bleak day, the virus runs wild and all restrictions gone, plus hot weather=nightmare"

It is, on both counts - dreadful, dreadful day and hot too (I'm fanning myself as if I were in a Wharton novel). If I can point people at a post I've written on the Guardian, with data on (long) COVID, I'd urge you to read it. If you can't get through to it (there are thousands of them and sometimes it fails to find it), then I'll repost it here.

[Hushpuppy]

scarletnoir wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "Which one is it that you've read?"

The one I read was called 'Revenge', and was referred to in the post I responded to. Too many cliched situations and incredible behaviours..."

Yes, I thought it might be this one. Try Legends of the Fall, that shouldn't take too much of your time, and is more indicative of what you might encounter in the two novels I've mentioned.

I can totally recognise your daughter's behaviour, getting sick etc.! Well done for telling off her teacher - but as you say, over-compensating by making your other daughter a teacher's pet was not ideal either (I once asked a teacher not to be so obviously privileging me. I got what I asked for, and more, teehee! I was 12 and perhaps should have known better already, perhaps not.).

[scarletnoir]

Berkley wrote: "...Which, again, is not to say that Dickens didn't also have some effect on the work of Trollope and in fact on pretty much any and every English novelist that came after him, not to mention some that weren't English - Dostoevsky, for example.

I don't think you should overstate that case, as Dostoyevsky read a lot and according to Wikipedia, Dostoevsky was influenced by a wide variety of philosophers and authors including Pushkin, Gogol, Augustine, Shakespeare, Scott, Dickens, Balzac, Lermontov, Hugo, Poe, Plato, Cervantes, Herzen, Kant, Belinsky, Byron, Hegel, Schiller, Solovyov, Bakunin, Sand, Hoffmann, and Mickiewicz.!

[scarletnoir]

AB76 wrote: "Gunter Grass and his diary of 1990 From Germany to Germany is hit and miss.

After an early craze for his novels like "The Tin Drum", i found all the others, except for "Crabwalk" excruciatingly a..."

I floundered when I tried to read The Flounder, and didn't get very far. It put me off Grass, and as I didn't like the film of The Tin Drum either, I have not re-visited the author!

[scarletnoir]

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I've just finished by Oyinkan Braithwaite.

A short and bittersweet tale revolving around two sisters and the murders that dominate their relations..."

I, too, enjoyed this book a lot. My wife took longer to warm to the narrative voice, but was won over.

To my surprise, others have been quite dismissive about it. I found it a rattling good yarn, and as you say - intriguing about the family dynamics on display.

[MK]

Anne wrote: "Sandya wrote: "#18: The Grand Sophy. Georgette Heyer

After the dreariness of my last, Stone Cold Sober, saturated as it was with testosterone and swearing, I needed to read something civilized. I ..."

It's amazing what libraries have. I have just downloaded (audio) of Grand Sophy. Who knew?

[scarletnoir]

Hushpuppy wrote: "A lovely read in this terribly bleak day here in the UK:
A new start after 60: ‘I handed in my notice – and opened my dream bookshop’"

Thanks for posting that story - it is indeed lovely! This bit made me smile:

...although she dreamed of working in a bookshop, she hadn’t reckoned on selling her own books. “That took a bit of psychological talking-to,” she says.

Her first sale was hard. “I sort of held on to the book. I said: ‘You’ll enjoy this. I enjoyed it very much and it’s a little bit difficult to let it go.’ We had a laugh. And I did let it go.

[Hushpuppy]

scarletnoir wrote: "To my surprise, others have been quite dismissive about it [My Sister, The Serial Killer]. I found it a rattling good yarn, and as you say - intriguing about the family dynamics on display."

I remember Cardellina/Miri also loving it on TLS, and her finding it delightful.

[scarletnoir]

Hushpuppy wrote: "Try Legends of the Fall, that shouldn't take too much of your time, and is more indicative of what you might encounter in the two novels I've mentioned."

Thanks - I already have it, as it was one of three short novels (novellas?) in one volume I bought. Pity 'Revenge' was the first one out of the traps!

[Fuzzywuzz]

A nice day so far. I'm on holidays until Saturday, which is great. It's 18 degrees outside, with 77% humidity, according to the weather forcast, but it feels hotter and more humid than that. Mr fuzzywuzz and I have melted.

Today, I've been for a walk, gone for coffee (too hot to stay indoors, even with the AC on) and on to my local bookshop. So far, I've managed to avoid signing up for their loyalty card, but today I succumbed.

Books bought today, to the admonishment of Mr fuzzywuzz

[MK]

AB76 wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "AB76 wrote: "The Fall of Heaven by Andrew Scott Cooper The Fall of Heaven The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran by Andrew Scott Cooper covers the final days of Imperia..."

As I remember, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq is about the US's propensity for meddling in others business is various places. Iran was one where the US overthrew the elected government (1953) at least in part because the UK didn't want to share the proceeds of oil with either the elected Iranian government or the Iranian workers oil who lived in squalid conditions.

In other US hubris I counted that from the early 1900s to as late as 1954 the US military landed (and sometimes stayed a while) 22 times on Caribbean Islands and Central America. (I got this figure from a history of United Fruit.) No wonder we have an immigrant 'problem' as we set the stage for instability which continues.

[Hushpuppy]

scarletnoir wrote: "Thanks - I already have it, as it was one of three short novels (novellas?) in one volume I bought."

That's why I'm suggesting it! You already have it, and it's short-ish 😊.

(Yes, I liked the same passage as yours from that uplifting Guardian article - had visions of Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, having troubles giving away the cheque with all the money to a charity stall.)

[Hushpuppy]

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "A nice day so far. I'm on holidays until Saturday, which is great. It's 18 degrees outside, with 77% humidity, according to the weather forcast, but it feels hotter and more humid than that. Mr fuz..."

18 degrees, where the hell are you?!

I'd love to hear what you have to say about The Blind Assassin! And I've only read the one Emma Donoghue (The Wonder), and I've mentioned in the past that I loved it, until the ending which made me ultimately dislike it.

[AB76]

Hushpuppy wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "A nice day so far. I'm on holidays until Saturday, which is great. It's 18 degrees outside, with 77% humidity, according to the weather forcast, but it feels hotter and more humid..."

its 29c again here and the 6pm-8pm period is always worst as the house is stuffy upstairs and the air isnt cooling outdoors

The old folks day centre will be an oven tommorow and with the masks gone it will be a dangerous place too. (the centre is keeping masks in place but it shares with other users who wont have to wear masks...bonkers)

A terrible day for the UK, watching the govt's new policy on telling us how many cases or deaths will now occur, as if its acceptable is shocking. i am not celebrating this return to normal for one second

[AB76]

The Fall of Heaven about the last days of the Shah has started superbly, its a well written account, trying to analyse the Shah without all the cliches and post 1979 rumours being so overwhelming

The second half of the book, over 200 pages, covers 1978-79, in minute detail, the author compiling a huge timeline of almost every notable date and event from that year period

[Sandya]

MK wrote: "Anne wrote: "Sandya wrote: "#18: The Grand Sophy. Georgette Heyer

RE: "It's amazing what libraries have. I have just downloaded (audio) of Grand Sophy. Who knew?"

Wow!!

[Sandya]

AB76 wrote: "Sandya wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "For, whilst we tend to believe that very few women wrote novels until the C20th, in fact the proportion of women novel writers in the second half..."

RE: it seems to be almost bred into the subconcious of many men and still is a problem, the almost casual lack of interest in female opinions, female sport, female problems and female writing.

As a reader of memoirs and letters it always amuses me the bafflement of men at the success with women of Lord Granville Leveson-Gower. He was the English Ambassador to France in 1824 and married Lady Harriet Cavendish, a very bright and perceptive woman, and the younger daughter of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Women adored him-he was certainly very handsome, but his male contemporaries didn't seem to be able to figure out why. In fact he had 5-6 older sisters and was the youngest in the family-very well broken-in to feminine company. I find it amusing that male authors today describe him as a "stuffed shirt", but I don't think he was-I have an edition of his letters and he got along with clever women.

[AB76]

had to dump the Carafiglio novel, am loathe to leave the italian mindset behind but "The Cold Summer" was more about the mafia and its society than Bari and Puglia. I felt detached from the season it was in and the physical feel of the area

i am not interested in the violence and killing of the mafia as an honourable company of thieves and find it can be too easily glamourised....the style good, serious and dry but i wanted less mafia and more local flavour and cultural analysis

[Gpfr]

AB76 wrote: "had to dump the Carafiglio novel ..."

I haven't read The Cold Summer, but does Carafiglio really depict the mafia as "an honourable company of thieves"? I find that very surprising from the books of his I have read.
If scarletnoir's read this one, it'll be interesting to see what he thinks.

[Bill]

Related to this week's discussions: some time ago at a used book sale, I picked up Mothers of the Novel (with a cover reminiscent of my own avatar), which is subtitled "100 good women writers before Jane Austen". It covers the early figures mentioned here as well as a great many others (all, I believe, from Great Britain or Ireland and all writers in English).

[Fuzzywuzz]

Hushpuppy wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "A nice day so far. I'm on holidays until Saturday, which is great. It's 18 degrees outside, with 77% humidity, according to the weather forcast, but it feels hotter and more humid..."

I'm in Northern Ireland, near the North Coast, so it's cooler than the rest of the UK. Usually anything more than 15 degrees outside is tropically balmy in these parts. :)

I've started The Pull of The Stars - it's early days, but enjoyable so far. I read Room by Emma Donaghue a few years back, which was a great read, even if the story itself was quietly dispiriting.

[Fuzzywuzz]

AB76 wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "A nice day so far. I'm on holidays until Saturday, which is great. It's 18 degrees outside, with 77% humidity, according to the weather forcast, but it feels hot..."

Whatever the politicians decide in my part of the world, I'll keep on wearing masks and practicing social distancing.

I suppose I'm as close to 'Normality' in my life - small social circle, family far away etc. Reading, going out for walks and going to coffee shops fills quite a bit of my free time. Even then, I'll only go into coffee shops if they are quiet and avoid them at busy times.