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What are we reading? 25th October 2021
A Minutes Silence is a lovely short novelI feel Lenz has had less publicity in the english speaking world than Boll, Grass, Andersch or Koeppen but stands alongside them as a great writer. A lot of his novels and short stories are set on the North German coast
Berkley wrote: "Georg wrote: "The German Lesson by Siegfried Lenz
I feel this is a very inadequate, clumsy and incoherent review, but, what the heck...
On a windy day in April..."
"The German Lesson" is the only one i read so far. As far as I could find out only five of his books have been translated.
"The Heritage" (1978) sounds very promising.
CCCubbon wrote: "I liked this poem on PotW that whomightitbe posted , pasted it over on poems and now here for I have been trying to match words with the descriptionsPretty Words
Bookman, October 1921
Poets mak..."
Thanks for that beautiful poem, CCC.
AB76 wrote: "A Minutes Silence is a lovely short novelI feel Lenz has had less publicity in the english speaking world than Boll, Grass, Andersch or Koeppen but stands alongside them as a great writer. A lot ..."
Got that from the library yesterday.
Will read it this afternoon, sitting in the sun.
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "A Minutes Silence is a lovely short novelI feel Lenz has had less publicity in the english speaking world than Boll, Grass, Andersch or Koeppen but stands alongside them as a great w..."
will be interested to see what you think of it Georg
AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "A Minutes Silence is a lovely short novelI feel Lenz has had less publicity in the english speaking world than Boll, Grass, Andersch or Koeppen but stands alongside the..."
Hm. It is a bittersweet love story, well written. But I am not the right person to pass judgement. Because I find love stories that are nothing but love stories rather boring in general.
Perhaps another fleeting visit. After another brief interrugnum I'm picked up a book again (in fact, on an impulse, I felt compelled to go out and buy one yesterday afternoon) and have devoured the first quarter of "Berlin Alexanderplatz" across today.
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "A Minutes Silence is a lovely short novelI feel Lenz has had less publicity in the english speaking world than Boll, Grass, Andersch or Koeppen but stands ..."
well done for finishing it so quickly, question for you, who is your favourite German author?
AB76 wrote (180): well done for finishing it so quickly, question for you, who is your favourite German author?Well, it is only a novella of 120+ pages.
My favourite German author? W. G. Sebald.
Otherwise it comes down to some books (as opposed to authors) I love(d).
Off the top of my head:
"The Seventh Cross" by Anna Seghers
"All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque.
"The Life of My Mother" by Oskar Maria Graf
"The Treasure Chest" by Johann Peter Hebel
Will have to think about that a bit, there will be some more. None of them written by one of the German Nobel laureates though.
Edit: for favourite authors: Kurt Tucholsky (even before Sebald). And Karl Valentin, who is probably next to untranslateable
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote (180): well done for finishing it so quickly, question for you, who is your favourite German author?Well, it is only a novella of 120+ pages.
My favourite German author? W. G. Sebald...."
interesting thanks
i have read "Transit" Seghers, the seventh cross will be next
have you ever read Stefan heyms DDR classic "the architects"
Came across a website listing the #1 bestsellers in Germany from 1961 until now.Among the books from the triumvirate of German post-war authors there were four that made it to #1 for at least 26 weeks:
Siegfried Lenz: "The German Lesson": 37 weeks
Siegfried Lenz: "The Heritage": 29 weeks
Günther Grass: "The Flounder": 29 weeks
Heinrich Böll: "End of a Mission": 26 weeks
Grass's "The Tin Drum" is not included, it was published in 1959.
Bölls " Group Portrait with Lady" which netted him the Nobel Prize: 7 weeks.
After the Lenz I have started to re-read Bölls "Group Portrait with Lady". At page 80 I am already about to give it up. He summons a lot of witnesses to describe his heroine, Leni. Making her an object. I find his writing style dry, borderline tedious. And his frequent anachronisms , like "they lay together", or: "when she fared in the way of a woman" (aka having her period) are really getting on my tits (sorry).
To be fair: I liked some of his short stories.
Mod
I read quite a few of Böll's books decades ago; Billiards at Half-Past Nine was my favorite.
Georg wrote: "Came across a website listing the #1 bestsellers in Germany from 1961 until now.Among the books from the triumvirate of German post-war authors there were four that made it to #1 for at least 26 ..."
interesting, yet to read either Lenz's or Bolls "Group Portrait" will make a note of them
Lljones wrote: "Georg wrote: "Came across a website listing the #1 bestsellers in Germany from 1961 until now ..."I read quite a few of Böll's books decades ago; Billiards at Half-Past Nine was my f..."
thats a great novel, it was my first Boll, i read a few others equally as good and Bolls non-fiction travel book about Ireland
I think Wolfgang Koeppen may interest you LL, especially "The Hothouse" exploring post war German politics in Bonn, the hothouse of the title
Happy Halloween! I hope everyone has a lovely October.This month I mostly read horror/pulp fiction/sci-fi/comics type books. I think I needed a mental break.
- Apple Children of Eon volumes 1-3 by Ai Tanaka
- 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
- The Expanse 1: Leviathan Wakes by James S.A Corey
- Battle Royale (volume 1 of 2) by Koushun Takami
They were all gripping except for 'Salem's Lot, which I found turgid, meandering and unlikable. Apple Children is a comic I would never have read except a colleague lent it to me - it was an appealing mix of sweetness and darkness. Leviathan Wakes was swashbuckling and fun, I've been looking for a long-winded sci-fi or fantasy series to fill the Robin Hobb void and this may be a candidate because I've already bought the sequel.
Battle Royale is a funny one - I read it in English as a teenager, when I was the same age as the characters and I took it all very seriously and was very swept away by the heightened emotion of the thing. Now I'm twice the age of the characters and am reading it in Japanese and am appreciating the pitch black humour and the pulpy horror a lot more. The writing is pedestrian and repetitive. The book also comes to a screeching hault whenever we are forced to spend time with the main trio (I'm here for the teenage melodrama, not the endless earnest discussions about Bruce Springsteen and totalitarianism). Occasionally it's sexist, homophobic, daft. But...!! It's so gripping! So frightening! The viginettes where we spend a chapter or two with each doomed member of the class, getting inside their heads before they meet their (often gruesome) ends! And yes, it is (intentionally) melodramatic and pulpy, but out of the 500 pages of volume one (it is... long), I have to admit I cried twice. I chalked the first time down to PMS but the second time I had no excuse. So I guess a part of me is still that fifteen year old who took the book every seriously, even if I act like I'm above it all and enjoying it in a tongue and cheek way.
I'm starting Dune now. Saw the film today and had a great time! Yes it is bery self consciously serious and a bit silly, but that's what you want sometimes. Not everything needs to be arch.
Any thoughts on the various English versions of Rabelais? I'm looking at the Cohen and the Screech, the two most immediately obtainable for me at the moment. Screech looks more complete and better annotated but from a very brief and inadequate sampling I suspect that Cohen may read a little more smoothly, so at the moment I'm torn: leaning somewhat reluctantly towards Screech but fearing the Cohen might be its superior as far as the English prose style goes.
Miri wrote: "Happy Halloween! I hope everyone has a lovely October.This month I mostly read horror/pulp fiction/sci-fi/comics type books. I think I needed a mental break.
- Apple Children of Eon volumes 1-3 by Ai Tanaka
- 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
- The Expanse 1: Leviathan Wakes by James S.A Corey
- Battle Royale (volume 1 of 2) by Koushun Takami
..."
Is Apple Children of Eon available only in Japanese? I couldn't find anything by that title after a quick search.
Battle Royale I know only from seeing the movie years ago. I've thought about reading the manga or the novel but haven't felt quite motivated enough to invest the time.
I read a good number of Stehen King's books in the 80s and Salem's Lot was probably my favourite. I can see why some readers might not be too impressed with it, though, or with King's writing in general, for that matter.
The only thing about SL I remember really disliking at the time was the child protagonist - something I find many authors struggle with at the best of times, and was also, I thought, a bad decision for this particular book, which was meant to be King's tribute to Stoker's famous novel.
A friend of mine who's read the Expanse series has recommended it to me and also the tv series. For once, I might watch the tv show first, because I've put my contemporary SF reading on the back-burner for the time being, until I catch up with some of the older stuff I've missed along the way.
Georg wrote: ""The German Lesson" is the only one i read so far. As far as I could find out only five of his books have been translated."The Heritage" (1978) sounds very promising. ."
Thanks, it does sound interesting. Looking at the original publication date of The German Lesson (1960), I might move it up in my "to-read" list, since I've been reading a few things from the late 1950s lately.
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote (180): well done for finishing it so quickly, question for you, who is your favourite German author?Well, it is only a novella of 120+ pages.
My favourite German author? W. G. Sebald.
Otherwise it comes down to some books (as opposed to authors) I love(d).
Off the top of my head:
"The Seventh Cross" by Anna Seghers
"All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque.
"The Life of My Mother" by Oskar Maria Graf
"The Treasure Chest" by Johann Peter Hebel
Will have to think about that a bit, there will be some more. None of them written by one of the German Nobel laureates though.
Edit: for favourite authors: Kurt Tucholsky (even before Sebald). And Karl Valentin, who is probably next to untranslateable "
We had to read All Quiet on the Western Front in school (in what I assume was a simplified and probably abridged English version, as we were quite young) and I was fascinated by it - which for me as for many people wasn't always the case with assigned texts, no matter how good they might be in themselves. Strangely, I don't see it around here on the bookstore shelves, though I've picked up several other Remarque paperbacks (but haven't read them yet).
I enjoyed Hebel's Treasure Chest in the Penguin English version. I liked the little lessons he used to put at the end of some of the stories, e.g. "Remember: Never demean yourself for profit!" (hope I'm not mangling that, couldn't find it after a quick leaf-through of my copy ). Usually anything that smacks of didacticism or moral lecturing puts me off, but Hebel had a way of making it charming and impressively serious, an difficult combination. I might be due for a re-read of this soon.
I've heard of Seghers and Tucholsky, though I have yet to read anything. Valentin and Graf are new to me, will have to research them a little.
AB76 wrote: "A Minutes Silence is a lovely short novelI feel Lenz has had less publicity in the english speaking world than Boll, Grass, Andersch or Koeppen but stands alongside them as a great writer. A lot ..."
Hadn't heard about Koeppen or Andersch before, thanks for mentioning them. I've read only one of Böll's, The Train Was on Time, which I liked. Should be getting to Billiards sometime in the next few months, I hope.
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote (180): well done for finishing it so quickly, question for you, who is your favourite German author?Well, it is only a novella of 120+ pages.
My favourite German author? W. G. Sebald....
(also as a book) "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque."
The Remarque is excellent - I have read it twice, and have also seen the wonderful film adaptation by Lewis MIlestone twice at least.
Assuming his Wikipedia entry is accurate - and you have made it clear this is not always the case for Germans, at least - he had a remarkable life, choosing to go into exile when the Nazis came to power - but unfortunately, his sister was executed, in part - it seems - in his stead:
After a trial at the notorious "Volksgerichtshof" (Hitler's extra-constitutional "People's Court"), she was found guilty of "undermining morale" for stating that she considered the war lost. Court President Roland Freisler declared, "Ihr Bruder ist uns leider entwischt—Sie aber werden uns nicht entwischen" ("Your brother is unfortunately beyond our reach – you, however, will not escape us"). Scholz was beheaded on 16 December 1943.
He also had a lively romantic life: During the 1930s, Remarque had relationships with Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr, Mexican actress Dolores del Río and German actress Marlene Dietrich...Remarque married actress Paulette Goddard in 1958.
I don't often read biographies, but if there is a good one of Remarque it ought to be fascinating.
Adding my two-penn'orth to the German author conversation. My favourite is Boll, and particularly Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum, as well as many of his short stories.At the moment I'm reading an English translation of Beautiful Antonio by Italian writer Vitaliano Brancati, written in the 1930s. It's quite humorous, although the sentences are so long I occasionally forget how they started. Probably a feature of the original Italian style.
Miri wrote: "Happy Halloween! I hope everyone has a lovely October.This month I mostly read horror/pulp fiction/sci-fi/comics type books. I think I needed a mental break.
- Apple Children of Eon volumes 1-3 ..."
I've been reading a graphic novel, too; Jason Lutes' Berlin trilogy. The story begins with a brief 1918 section, immediately after Germany's defeat in the First World War, but most of the action is set in the late 1920s and the early Depression years. Journalist Kurt and his lover Margarethe, are continuing characters; so is Kurt's too-young-for-him girlfriend, artist Marthe Muller.
I was introduced to his work by the middle section, Berlin: City of Smoke, which I think has the best writing. It presents a Berlin with an energetic club and artistic life, overlaid by deep class and political divides. Kurt and Marthe move between these layers.
Much of the story is, oddly enough, a proletarian novel about the early Depression, told in graphic novel form. Lutes lays out different threads, in episodes usually about 3-5 pages long. Another of those books where I keep re-reading sequences.
@Berkley I think it might be - a colleague lent me her copies but I'd neber heard of it. The japanese title is 千年万年りんごの子 I would stay away from the BR manga. Nasty, ugly, very sexist. The book isn't perfect but much better than the comic.
I think my main problem with 'Salem's Lot is I hated everyone in it AND the baddies didn't scare me, so I couldn't root for the goodies and I couldn't ironically couldn't root for the baddies!
@Robert I had never heard of Jason Lutes - I'll check him out :-)
On Alfred Andersch:Andersch has become a highly controversial writer since Sebald published his essay about him.
He divorced his half-Jewish wife in 1943, bringing her in danger. Before the divorce was finalized he applied to become a member of the Reich Chamber for writers, stating he had already divorced his wife.
When he was an American PoW he wrote: "...Prevented from free writing up to now, my wife being a mongrel of Jewish descent (this bit is underlined in red), and my own detention in a German concentration camp for some time...." (allegedly Dachau in the early 30s, but no records corroborating this could be found and he didn't ever go into any detail in his writing).
This might be less problematic, had he not made Jews, and their prosecution, the main subject of his work.
In "Sansibar" Gregor, the ex-Communist (Andersch) saves Judith "a spoilt young girl from a rich Jewish backround", who has a most beautiful face, 'typical of her race' (he does indeed use the word 'Rassegesicht').
Some of his defenders interpret this as a sign of remorse. Personally I am in the camp of his attackers: dodgy and bigoted.
Uncontested are numerous untruths in his autobiographical works "Cherries of Freedom" and "The Father of a Murderer", they have been proven.
In the 70s so-called "left extremists would not be employed as civil servants. Often the suspicion was enough, it concerned, among others, mainly teachers.
Andersch wrote a (pretty bad) poem about this, comparing the state with the Nazi system, including concentration camps and torture. That, rightly imo, caused a shitstorm for trivialising the Holocaust.
Apart from that: his work has always had very mixed reviews.
I must admit that "Sansibar" was one of my favourite books when I was in my early 20s.
Berkley wrote(192): Usually anything that smacks of didacticism or moral lecturing puts me off, but Hebel had a way of making it charming and impressively seriousI would add that some of the stories are also hilariously funny.
It is a treasure chest indeed.
Not sure how his old-fashioned language can be translated. In the original it is an absolute delight to read (for me, at least).
Btw: "The German Lesson" was first published in 1968. I doubt it would have become such a bestseller had it been published in 1960.
The Hotel Years by Joseph Roth is a wonderful collection of short pieces he wrote between the wars for various newspapers.In the selection i just read he visits the "polish baku" aka the Galician oil town of Boryslav, where the oil boom is well under way in the Polish Republic. He visits Sarajevo and remembers where the war that changed life for so many began, its streets still attractive and ordered, life continues but for so many who fell in the Great War, it is all over.
Roth is a writer who seems defined by a homeland that had gone by the time he was a writer, born on the far edge of the empire, he only lived in it for 20 years but it dominated all his fiction and writings afterwords, like his friend Stefan Zweig
To whom it may concern - several people here and even some people no longer here (Alwynne? Sandya?), if I recall correctly: Many thanks for recommending Tove Jansson. Am going to get hold of her complete Copenhagen Trilogy, The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency. I read the first volume, Childhood, in one go the day before yesterday. The combination of bleak childhood experiences, salvaging a refuge from writing and books, and not least the knowledge that against many odds she would be able to make true her dream of becoming a writer proved a compelling read. Here is one example of a metaphor she extends in the course of the book. You can't get out of childhood, and it clings to you like a bad smell. You notice it in other children -- each childhood has its own smell. You don't recognize your own and sometimes you're afraid that it's worse than others'.You could argue, from what she writes, that Jansson's was pretty bad, yet there is no self-pity. She is very clear-eyed, lucid, and to the point.
In her own words:
I'm moved by poetry and lyrical prose, now as always -- but the things that are described leave me completely cold. I don't think very much of reality.She does a great job of creating her version of it in this memoir, though.
I would like to stress that hers is often a humorous narrative. (She is good at self-deprecation and seeing the funny side of weird events and dynamics - not the worst way of looking at one's past, in my opinion!)
Can readers who read and maybe even loved this book, too, please give a wave?
I should add that I read it in a beautiful German-language edition, which came out very recently:
.
I have this very annoying habit of stating what reading fodder I am going to read, then going off and reading other things. Spooky stories have been replaced by the following:So this is what I have read: Ian Rankin: 'Strip Jack' followed by 'The Black Book'. Strip Jack was a bit of silly nonsense really - the characters appeared almost comic-like and the plot was so-so. The Black Book was a much better read - a roller-coaster ride of a story and the characters were more believable.
Jon Rebus is the main investigative officer - there is an on-going development of events in his personal life as the stories progress. I'm not sure I like him as a person though - arrogant, selfish and quite dismissive of his junior officers at times.
Brain Rules for Aging Well by John Medina is basically a collection of healthy lifestyle choices with the added bonus of an evidence based approach (scientific studies were conducted, although some are of a small sample size) and explanations at psychological and physiological levels how the the aging processes affect neurological function. The section on memory problems was of particular interest to me.
I've just started reading 'The Kennedy Curse' by James Patterson, but it's too early on to give an opinion about it yet.
Regarding spooky stories, I'll probably end up reading them over Christmas.
A bit of workplace chat today revolved around things we do in our spare time. It amazes me how many people are surprised when I say I read. I'm surprised by how many adults I know that don't read.
Most of my work colleagues are degree educated yet seem perplexed by the idea of reading for pleasure (or even for the purpose to learn something new). I'd hate to see the look on one colleagues' face if I told him I have a 'Teach Yourself Calculus' on my shelf. So I deliberately 'toned-down' the scope of my reading pursuits to mostly crime capers. It's like being back in school being the nerdy bookish kid all over again.....
Mod
Can readers who read and maybe even loved this book, too, please give a wave?..."
I haven't read this one - but I think I will - but I loved The Summer Book.
from https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...
Love this newly discovered "INDEX TO TEARS. (Chokings, &c., not counted.)" relating to Henry MacKenzie's The Man of Feeling, which I remembered today - having read the book, in some disbelief at the proficiency at the main protagonist's tear ducts, many years ago.
Here's what brought off the remembrance, and a laugh: In a current seasonally-appropriate melancholy phase, I was inordinately cheered by a couple of passages in Roy Strong's Painting the Past: The Victorian Painter and British History, where he reflects on the abundant tearflow of heroines from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards, as a mark of distinction. (The lower classes were considered too unrefined for tears, these more elevated bodily fluids!)
it is hardly surprising that the rise in the cult of Mary Queen of Scots coincided with the arrival of this type of heroine [...]. Buckets of tears flowed from the eyes of Mary Queen of Scots, instantly winning her the applause of all her many biographers in the nineteenth century. She sobbed as she sailed away from France, she burst into tears when upbraided by John Knox, she wept every day after her marriage to Boswell, she wept when she abdicated, torrents flowed during her imprisonment [...]. Tears fell as she crossed from Scotland to England, they continued to flood down the years of imprisonment in England, and from the moment of the reading of the death warrant to her final execution we are afloat in an ocean of tears.I admit to feeling amused, not by what happened to this queen (if to quite an extent through her own fault, as Magrat memorably claimed!), but by Strong's impatience, which I share, with the passivity of this range of female protagonists depicted during the 1840s and 1850s, "whose passivity in the midst of their travails was such that they reached a hitherto unbelievable extreme of ignorance, innocence and often downright dimness."
Well, The Man of Feeling proves quite the fluid male forerunner there ... And Laurence Sterne, if somewhat self-satirizing, too!
(Hope there are not too many mistakes and typos in there, am a bit tired tonight. Currently reading Between You and I: A Little Book of Bad English - maybe it will help. As you bear witness to, there is room for improvement!)
Machenbach wrote: You've got your Toves in a twist there Shelfie:Aargs! Mange tak for untwisting the Toves, Mach.
Tove Jansson
Tove Ditlevsen
Both good.
A search here on GR reveals that you, Mach, Veufveuve and AB seem to have recommended the trilogy - high praise, then! And Bill posted a Warhol-style triptych image from the marketing of the trilogy.
Gpfr wrote:
I haven't read this one - but I think I will - but I loved The Summer Book.Sorry for the confusion! (See what comes of choosing buttons, tcha.) This Tove is on my TBR soonish list, too.
I bought the Childhood volume on "just passing" a bookshop on Saturday... as some others, ahem.
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Machenbach wrote: You've got your Toves in a twist there Shelfie:Tove Jansson
Tove Ditlevsen
Both good.Aargs! Mange tak for untwisting the Toves, Mach.
A search here on GR reveals that you, Mach,..."
Both Toves are worth a read Shelf, i think the Moomins were a fascinating creation by Jansson while Ditlvesen has mainly non-fiction in translation, though one novel is newly published by penguin
I have read parts 1 and 2 of the Copenhagen trilogy as i wanted to read some female autobiography and am interested in Scandinavian writing and thought. The style and the character in Ditlevsens writing is superb.
You may also enjoy the diaries of Astrid Lindgren, where she observes WW2 from Sweden:
Thank you for these recommendations, AB!Fuzzywuzz wrote:
A bit of workplace chat today revolved around things we do in our spare time. It amazes me how many people are surprised when I say I read. I'm surprised by how many adults I know that don't read.Ha, I know the feeling. It used to be the colleagues from another team I would be able to chat about books with, though it's changed a bit recently, especially with the colleague I am pleased to call Henry VIII having departed for other pastures, alas, temporarily.
Most of my work colleagues are degree educated yet seem perplexed by the idea of reading for pleasure (or even for the purpose to learn something new). I'd hate to see the look on one colleagues' face if I told him I have a 'Teach Yourself Calculus' on my shelf. So I deliberately 'toned-down' the scope of my reading pursuits to mostly crime capers. It's like being back in school being the nerdy bookish kid all over again.....
We are all nerds here, Fuzzy. And nobody in this place would tackle you in order to prevent you from entering book shops, I am sure! (That was such a great anecdote of yours.)
Re Johann Peter Hebel, The Treasure Chest, Georg wrote: "...Not sure how his old-fashioned language can be translated..."
I can definitely recommend a 1994 translation by John Hibberd, which I think is also the version used in the Penguin referred to by Berkley. Quite a lot of humor, as you say, some dark ones too. Great woodcut illustrations.
I can definitely recommend a 1994 translation by John Hibberd, which I think is also the version used in the Penguin referred to by Berkley. Quite a lot of humor, as you say, some dark ones too. Great woodcut illustrations.
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Machenbach wrote: You've got your Toves in a twist there Shelfie:Tove Jansson
Tove Ditlevsen
Both good.Aargs! Mange tak for untwisting the Toves, Mach.
A search here on GR reveals that you, Mach,..."
I haven't read either of them yet, though I intend to, so right now my favourite Tove is the actress who played Viktoria in the 2nd series of The Bridge.
Roth was part of a generation of writers who refer back to the fallen Austro-Hungarian empire. Polish writer and painter Bruno Schulz, who lived his whole life in Galicia, has the empire as a frame of reference. So does the Czech writer Bunhomel Hrabel. I am thinking of Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age, a 1964 novel by the Czechoslovak writer Bohumil Hrabal, and Bruno Schulz's Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass.
Fuzzywuzz wrote: "It amazes me how many people are surprised when I say I read. I'm surprised by how many adults I know that don't read."I wonder if this is a generational change? Both my parents read, I have read at least a little bit every day since childhood (last thing at night if not before, but usually there is quite a bit of 'before'). My wife reads, we brought up our daughters with books and reading - but I don't think they read a lot nowadays, apart from for work and online. Maybe most younger people only read online articles?
A ray of hope, though - the elder one has read the odd book in the last couple of years. Maybe she'll come back to it...
@Shelflife - I've only read 1 and 2 of The Copenhagen Trilogy (which I insist on regarding as auto fiction). I have 3 ... but in Danish, which I bravely/foolishly said I would attempt.Tove J I have loved since my childhood, first the Moomins, who are still adored, and later her adult fiction.
by Andrea Camilleri, trans. Stephen SartarelliA very late addition to the Inspector Montalbano series... and rather a strange one. The first half reads like a fairly typical tale, with Montalbano duelling with his Nemesis the Commissioner... and there are quite a few laughs to be had. The second comes across as an offcut from a James Bond movie, with lots of baddies and some rather nasty violence... indeed, this is the aspect which in tone diverges most from other books in the series. Whereas the murders can be grisly (note: not 'grizzly' as some illiterates have it nowadays - a 'grizzly' is a type of bear... sorry, these things annoy me!), usually they happen 'off screen', and we arrive with the police to consider the aftermath. In this instance, a couple of very unpleasant killings take place in real time.
Why is this? The author himself explains in an afterword that the story started as a film script; that project fell through, so he recycled his work as a Montalbano story. Fair enough, but it doesn't hang together particularly well, unfortunately. I did enjoy the first half, though.
A word for the translator: Stephen Sartarelli, as always, does an excellent job in most respects, though I have never liked the way in which he chooses to convey the Sicilian dialect/accent. An example, with the speaker being the comic cop Catarella:
"I wannit a tell yiz 'atta minnit ya left fer Montelusa yer cleanin' leddy Adelina called."
It may work for some people, but...
On the other hand, apart from the clarity of the rest of the text, Sartarelli provides useful endnotes to explain a number of both culinary and cultural references, for example:
"36 (he) raised his arm halfway as they did at Pontida: Pontida is the town in northern Italy where the far-right party, La Lega, periodically holds its summits."
This and other references would otherwise remain somewhat mysterious to the reader who does not know Italy well (including myself), so I have always been grateful to Sartarelli for his explanations and clarifications.
Mod
I wonder if this is a generational change? Both my parents..."
To a certain extent, no doubt, but there have always been a lot of people who don't read books.
My parents and older sisters read a lot, as I have always done. My ex-husband reads a lot of neswpapers and magazines, but not many books - his family didn't read much. My children both read. My grandsons (13 & 11) read a lot of manga and bandes dessinées, but they also read 'real' books.
Good news from my neighbours; wife headaches have finally gone and she is now testing negative (after two weeks), husband who has underlying health issues but had just had his booster jab said he only ever felt as if he had a head cold and was tired. So hopefully things will be back to normal for them very soon. Back the A Year in the Life of Medieval England; apparently if a cat was a good mouser in the 13th century it was worth more than a cow. In Ireland one that could both purr and catch mice was valued at the price of 3 cows but only one and a half it couldn't kill mice. A Welsh mouser was worth 4d!
Fuzzywuzz wroteI'd hate to see the look on one colleagues' face if I told him I have a 'Teach Yourself Calculus' on my shelf. So I deliberately 'toned-down' the scope of my reading pursuits to mostly crime capers. It's like being back in school being the nerdy bookish kid all over again.....
Have you read it and did it work for you?
I can remember almost despairing that I would ever truly get to grips with it, so many, if this do thats, until I worked out the underlying reasons for it all and then it becomes completely absorbing either working out how something is changing or building back up from what has changed to the beginning, it’s all there in calculus, wow!
Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I have this very annoying habit of stating what reading fodder I am going to read, then going off and reading other things. Spooky stories have been replaced by the following:So this is what I ha..."
Several days ago I mentioned that I watched John Connolly promote his new book online with The Mysterious Bookshop in NYC. (It's available on You Tube.) During the back and forth John Connolly said that if he were visiting someone for the first time and saw no books in sight, he would turn around, take his wine with him, and exit.
He certainly knows who he wants to associate with. (Oops a preposition at the end of the sentence. Horrors!)
scarletnoir wrote: " by Andrea Camilleri, trans. Stephen SartarelliA very late addition to the Inspector Montalbano series... and rather a strange one. The first half read..."
There are some authors I like to listen to, and Camillieri is one. Grover Gardner narrates and does an excellent job - rather like listening to an old friend.
Of course that usually means I have to wait awhile as audio is usually several month later arriving at the library .
PS - I don't know what I would do without the library - other than have to declare bankruptcy.
MK wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I have this very annoying habit of stating what reading fodder I am going to read, then going off and reading other things. Spooky stories have been replaced by the following:So..."
And a who instead of a with whom? Not sure on that one
Veufveuve wrote: "@Shelflife - I've only read 1 and 2 of The Copenhagen Trilogy (which I insist on regarding as auto fiction). I have 3 ... but in Danish, which I bravely/foolishly said I would attempt.Tove J I ha..."
The Moomins are just wonderful and childlhood favourites of mine
Trip to Waterstones to pick up:Second Hand Time by Svetlana Alexeivich and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellisson
I have read two of Alexeivichs works of oral history, both post WW2 and they were excellent, while i plan to attempt Invisble Man again after not finishing it a decade ago.
As for generational issues with reading, though i come from a very literate/reading family, i am the only reader among the four children but my 8yo neice seems to be taking up the reading mantle for the next generation, she is a total bookworm, always reading
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Books mentioned in this topic
Zofloya, or The Moor (other topics)The Big Sleep (other topics)
Travels with My Aunt (other topics)
Travels with My Aunt (other topics)
Singing The Sadness (other topics)
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Reginald Hill (other topics)Nadine Gordimer (other topics)
Diedrich Diederichsen (other topics)
Jackie Kay (other topics)
Jackie Collins (other topics)
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i think Canada has been much better working with the First Nations than the Aussies have been with the Aborigines but both countries are doing better than 50 years ago