Reading the 20th Century discussion
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Welcome to The Midnight Bell (a virtual pub and general discussion thread) (2024)
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I'm not going away as have too much work/family responsibilities stuff to do but am planning some self-indulgent reading. Hoping to get to Woolf and Plath journals and some switch-off reading starting with our next buddies of Celia Fremlin and Patricia Highsmith.
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I'm about to start an in depth read of Simone De Beauvoir in an on line reading group . I have not read any of her novels before so am intrigued. I have a long term buddy reader and we've just started Ismail Kadare / The Three Arched Bridge and I've a clutch of short novels from my library to keep me stimulated . I'm continuing my Irish Big House Theme , having read several Elizabeth Bowen novels in the last few weeks ..next up is Langrishe , Go Down by Aiden Higgins . Has anyone read it ?
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I think Susan and I have read all the Bowen novels as buddies so there will be threads if you fancy posting.
I also mean to read more Kadare after his A Dictator Calls which I read earlier this year.
Great choices, Hester!
I am 'doing' the 20 Books of Summer challenge hosted by book blogger Cathy Brown @cathy746books on X/IG. Aim is to read 20 unread books on TBR between June 1 to August 31. So far have only had one disappointment My Cousin Rachel, which was a reread. Loved it as a teenager, found it unsatisfying an adult. Keeping one eye on what may end up on the Booker longlist announced on Tuesday (although with some leaks already). May pick up a couple. Plus there is WIT month, and have a couple of possibilities.
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I also want to read some spy books. Specifically Every Spy a Traitor and A Spy Alone
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I hadn't read any good crime novels for a while hence my recent The God of the Woods.
Women authors are doing fascinating things with the horror genre so this has been something creeping up (ha!) on my reading list.
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The horror genre is not really to my taste however this is an extremely effective and powerful film.
It reminded me of Roman Polanski’s classic horror films, Repulsion, and The Tenant.
The mother and son are brilliantly convincing as both, especially the mother, spirals out of control and into a psychic breakdown
I tried to maintain an air of detachment throughout to avoid being too freaked out but it’s hard not to get drawn in
Recommended if you don't mind being terrified
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Perhaps it would be fun to nominate a Halloween buddy read?
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Thanks, just downloaded his first from the library.
My current off-duty read is The Diabolical Bones, a mystery investigated by no other but the Bronte sisters! It's fun and a bit silly but also quite dark and follows the first in the series The Vanished Bride - definitely a guilty pleasure.
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Ooh yes, great idea - so much to choose from, either a classic or one of the recent reinventions of the genre.
Sonia wrote: "I am 'doing' the 20 Books of Summer challenge hosted by book blogger Cathy Brown @cathy746books on X/IG. Aim is to read 20 unread books on TBR between June 1 to August 31. So far have only had one ..."Oh, how nice. I'm doing the challenge too. One outright disappointment and one so-so read as of now, but I have plenty more left of my 20 including some WIT picks.
Nigeyb wrote: "Talking of women and horror, I watched The Babadook (2014) dir by Jennifer Kent, the other day and which is currently on iPlayerThe horror genre is not really to my taste however this is an extr..."
I enjoyed that one too, I can't cope with torture porn type horror as it's too close to things that might actually happen/have happened. But films like The Babadook based on supernatural creatures work because I know they're not actually likely to be hiding under the bed!
Roman Clodia wrote: "It's been pretty quiet on here recently... Does anyone have any special reading plans for the summer? I'm not going away as have too much work/family responsibilities stuff to do but am planning ..."
I haven't got a plan yet but now I think I should make one! I still have Covid so my summer arrangements are a bit up in the air, feeling better than I did but still very washed out and muscles aching. This strain seems to be very long lasting and quite a pain.
Phrodrick wrote: "At the risk of this becoming a discussion of a vast number of topics, an on going thread in the Left/Right divide is:Is America a nation Under God? And therefore religious (God's) law is always su..."
Eisenhower is responsible for the "under God" clause. So I don't actually consider it a valid clause.
To be clear, I am not advocating a personally held position. My statements on this topic is not a "side" that I have taken. I am well aware that the phase, as a part of the Pledge of Allegiance, is an add on.The question is central to a lot of the politics and attitude towards the law.
Many will say that all American law is or originally was derived from the Bible. (not true, but not the point). Further those of this opinion tends to regard any non-God based law as itself not a valid law.
The sitting Speaker of the House is in favor of the US declaring itself a Christian Nation , and adding or withhold legal protections limited to declared Christians.
Roman Clodia wrote: "Oh, the assassinations. JFK, Martin Luther King, now Bobby Kennedy - what a time to live through!"I still remember my mother running outside yelling "They've killed another" when the news came that Bobby Kennedy had died. She was no fan of the Kennedys (her political views were fairly right for the era--but note that by now the whole country has shifted considerably to the right from the 1960's), but she was horrified by assassinations.
Phrodrick wrote: "Kirsten wrote: "Jan C wrote: "Roman Clodia wrote: "Jan C wrote: "Only moderates can get elected"I would have said the same only that doesn't explain Trump.
Interesting to see how we and France ..."
Heather Cox Richardson, the superb historian of American politics, has been writing regularly for several years about how all these "conservative" threads actually stretch back through the Movement Conservatives (who helped elevate Reagan) to the ideas of Southern slave-owning oligarchs in the 1850's. I have found it helpful, though alarming, to see how the root ideas keep gaining support, which results in a crisis in which many thousands suffer (even die) needlessly in the process of restoring an "of the people" democracy. Writing nearly a week after Harris consolidated the support necessary to win the nomination, and in light of the huge wave of popular support for her, I am feeling a little encouraged that we might be able swinging back toward democracy from the authoritarian (and often unabashedly neo-fascist) ideas that have been in the ascendant in the Republican party of the last decade or more. I'm still worried about what the the members of the MAGA cult will do when they realize they are not on a smooth, straight path to power.
As a wee boy from a working class background (my father was a miner), we holidayed several times in Southport. And I have visited on a couple of occasions since. Like all of us, I am heartbroken at the horror that unfolded recently with the awful attack on children at a ‘holiday club’. And tonight, I am sickened that a grieving community is now subjected to right wing protest and violence.
Stephen wrote: "As a wee boy from a working class background (my father was a miner), we holidayed several times in Southport. And I have visited on a couple of occasions since. Like all of us, I am heartbroken at..."I agree Stephen incredibly depressing scenes...
G wrote: "Phrodrick wrote: "Kirsten wrote: "Jan C wrote: "Roman Clodia wrote: "Jan C wrote: "Only moderates can get elected"I would have said the same only that doesn't explain Trump.
Interesting to see ..."
They are falling back on racist attacks. Yesterday (?) Trump was talking to the black journalists (Natl. Assoc Black Journalists - NABJ) and saying that Harris has been insisting that she is Indian, and, thus, couldn't be black. And now she wants to be black. I think she is of Indian-Caribbean descent. The "white man" still wants to define people and show they are "lesser". And so it begins. Of course, he started off by insulting the three black female journalists doing the questioning.
A long 97 days.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentis...
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On Babitz:
Los Angeles in the 1960s and 70s was the pop culture capital of the world—a movie factory, a music factory, a dream factory. Eve Babitz was the ultimate factory girl, a pure product of LA.
The goddaughter of Igor Stravinsky and a graduate of Hollywood High, Babitz posed in 1963, at age twenty, playing chess with the French artist Marcel Duchamp. She was naked; he was not. The photograph, cheesecake with a Dadaist twist, made her an instant icon of art and sex. Babitz spent the rest of the decade rocking and rolling on the Sunset Strip, honing her notoriety. There were the album covers she designed: for Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds, to name but a few. There were the men she seduced: Jim Morrison, Ed Ruscha, Harrison Ford, to name but a very few.
Then, at nearly thirty, her It girl days numbered, Babitz was discovered—as a writer—by Joan Didion. She would go on to produce seven books, usually billed as novels or short story collections, always autobiographies and confessionals.
Here's the nude chess photo which became the front cover of Didion's Play It as It Lays which we read here:
I'm intrigued!
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I read Slow Days and Fast Company a couple of years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it . Excellent writing , very funny and louche .
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Roman Clodia wrote: "Has anyone read Eve Babitz? I ask because I'd only vaguely heard of her as a party girl in 1960s-80s LA and then saw that there's a new book coming out about her and Joan Didion: [bo..."I mainly know her as "the nude on the stairs" from the '60s. I read an article by her years ago in Esquire. I think she either had a connection with Jim Morrison or he wrote a song about her.
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Unbelievably, it's been a decade since Wolf Hall was shown - must check if it's back on iPlayer in preparation.
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Season Four of Slow Horses is out soon too.
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Just imagine, Hilary Mantel was writing a novel about P&P when she died. A novel we will now never read...
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For anyone in the US, I hear it will air after the first of the year here. I recently re-read Wolf Hall, and plan to re-read the second book and finally get to the third in time to enjoy the series. Nigeyb, this is one of those rare times when I enjoyed the adaptation almost as much as the books, so highly recommended. Mark Rylance couldn't be more perfect, in my opinion.
Have I missed them or are there threads set up for the Christie books we are reading this month? I am just starting The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - I can’t believe I don’t recognise the story, I must have read it before. I’ll probably have a flash of recognition sooner or later.
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www.goodreads.com/topic/show/22857660...
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I wasn't initially sure about Mark Rylance as Cromwell but he does a good job in winning me over. I was so impressed by Damian Lewis' Henry though.
Roman Clodia wrote: "Here's the thread for Roger Ackroyd - there is one for Third Girl too: www.goodreads.com/topic/show/22857660..."
Great, thanks.
Susan wrote: "I will have to re-watch.Just imagine, Hilary Mantel was writing a novel about P&P when she died. A novel we will now never read..."
She didn't have an assistant or anyone who would finish it? A literary executor? Of course, that might depend on how far she was into it.
Probably a good thing that Sue Grafton was at the end of the alphabet when she died.
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I would imagine that Hilary Mantel would have had to, at least, completed her first draft if it were to be released.
Reading the 20th Century
Books mentioned in this topic
Middlemarch (other topics)The Sea, the Sea (other topics)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (other topics)
My Name Is Red (other topics)
The Accursed (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Toni Morrison (other topics)Henry James (other topics)
Dorothy M. Richardson (other topics)
Warsan Shire (other topics)
Virginia Woolf (other topics)
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It comes highly recommended but I've been warned not to read any reviews as they're full of spoilers.