What are we reading? 25/03/2024

[AB76]

Russell wrote: "AB76 wrote: "... no its me who is leading you astray! just dug out my 3 volumes and they end with death of King Billy
..."

I wonder if you were thinking of the magnificently Macaulay-esque A Histo..."

Maybe i had read Trevelyan many years earlier, good point

the 3 volumes of Macauley i read were my grandfathers, found in his bookshelves after he died and as it covered my favourite period in history from the 1640s to 1688(plus a few years), i was enthralled by it and to i found its importance was not just in terms of history but also general culture, literature etc.

Quite unique really and nothing like it has been written since for depth and length.

If only he had covered 100 or so more years...

[AB76]

Enjoying my reading of 150 pages of non-fiction by Edgar Allan Poe, in the back of an old Penguin edition that i read in my teens. I avoided the n-f back then but am loving it now

His appreciation of the short-story, his dissection of the style of Hawthorne and invaluable references to yank authors who are not familiar like Drake, Halleck, Simms, Webber are among the highlights so far,

[Bill]

From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Last week I asked about readers here who have read Marcel Proust. This week I’m wondering about Stephen King. Are there any fans here?

I ask because this week the NY Times Book Review has devoted its front page as well as an hour+ podcast (lately these podcasts have been running around 30-40 minutes) to “50 Years of Stephen King”.

Book Review editor Gilbert Cruz who hosts the podcasts claims to have read all of King’s books, which I found more horrifying to contemplate than anything I’ve encountered in King’s fiction.

Unlike Proust, I have read some King, 6 books, 2 of them nonfiction (Danse Macabre and On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft). I wouldn’t say the books were bad, nor did I find them particularly good. The best thing I’ve read was the memoir in On Writing of King’s near fatal accident and the lengthy hospitalization that followed; this was also by some measure much scarier than any of his fictional horror.

After what I have read, I really can’t imagine being eager to read much more of his oeuvre, let alone everything he’s written. The one relatively late work I read 11/22/63 reinforced my idea that publishers don’t spend much time or effort editing writers that have proven to be sure-fire bestsellers; I found the novel exceptionally baggy and meandering.

[Gpfr]

Bill wrote: "From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Last week I asked about readers here who have read Marcel Proust. This week I’m wondering about Stephen King. Are there any fans here? ..."

I've only read The Shining which someone gave me many years ago. I found it OK, no more than that, better than the film which I thought wasn't true to the book in that you didn't get a build-up from normal to horror, plunging straight into weirdness, but I've never been tempted to read anything else by him.

[[deleted user]]

Gpfr wrote: "Bill wrote: "From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Last week I asked about readers here who have read Marcel Proust. This week I’m wondering about Stephen King. Are there any fans here? ..."

I've only read The Shining..."

I also have read only one, years ago, and I can't now even remember what it was. It was all right, but not especially gripping or frightening. I'm happy to leave him to those who enjoy his work.

[Robert]

AB76 wrote: "Enjoying my reading of 150 pages of non-fiction by Edgar Allan Poe, in the back of an old Penguin edition that i read in my teens. I avoided the n-f back then but am loving it now

His appreciation..."

Sounds intriguing. Poe is considered one of leading critics of American writing in his day, alongside his own contributions as a short story writer and poet.

[Robert]

Gpfr wrote: "Bill wrote: "From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Last week I asked about readers here who have read Marcel Proust. This week I’m wondering about Stephen King. Are there any fans here? ..."

I've o..."

I've read King's Salem's Lot, and skimmed parts of The Stand, without becoming a fan. His book On Writing, on the other hand, I've enjoyed.

[Robert]

AB76 wrote: "Solidarity: Poland 1980-81 by Alain Touraine is shedding important light on the nature of the movement and its place in the 1980s movements.

In his sociological study of the movement, Touraine mak..."

Very interesting. Though Solidarity's intelligent tactics avoided a Warsaw Pact invasion, it couldn't hold off an internal military coup.

[Robert]

AB76 wrote: "Vagabond Voices have supplied some great novels, baltic literature especially and they used to have an interesting newsletter by its editor but since he started to go all conspiracy theory on the U..."

It feels like 24-hour news must carry a load of lies to fill out the true stories.

[CCCubbon]

I am still reading The Hunter by Tana French at night - tension building quite masterfully. Don’t want it to end!
Suggest best to read the earlier book set in the village first which introduces most of the characters - The Searcher

[Gpfr]

I'll close this thread at the end of the afternoon — about 8 hours from now.

[Robert]

Thanks for the update.

[Berkley]

I read several Stephen King books back in the late 1970s and early 80s: Salem's Lot, The Stand, The Dead Zone, the first Dark Tower book (The Gunslinger), ... The Shining I didn't read until years after seeing the movie, so it's the movie that made the bigger impression on me - I just saw it again about a year ago and it still feels like a great piece of film-making to me, though of course the shock value is gone.

I've always maintained an interest in genre and popular fiction, so I expect I'll get back to King at some point, though my genre reading lately has been aimed more at crime and science fiction.

Is he a great prose stylist? Of course not. I haven't read his essay, On Writing, but my guess is that he might see himself as a sort of anti-stylist, making his prose a transparent window onto whatever he's trying to communicate to the reader. I think that's naive, since attempting not to have a style is also a style, but I think it's an attitude shared by many American genre writers, consciously or not - I see it in much of the American science fiction I read, for example. Less so in crime fiction, since so many writers there are trying to imitate the style of Hammett or of Chandler.

[Robert]

Berkley wrote: "I read several Stephen King books back in the 1980s: Salem's Lot, The Stand, The Dead Zone, the first Dark Tower book (The Gunslinger), ... The Shining I didn't read until years after seeing the mo..."

King's book treats writing as a craft. Language offers many tools; hard work is needed to master each one. While I'm not a King fan, he does have a real skill with short clear scenes of action.

[Berkley]

I forgot to say anything about the individual books:

Salem's Lot: this was probably my favourite. I remember it as one of the better modern vampire stories I've read. Some good set-pieces and some well-drawn characters. Maybe fizzled a bit at the end.

The Stand: I like post-apocalyptic scenarios so this was up my alley as well. Once again, perhaps a bit of a let-down at the very end. An interesting comparison is another post-apocalyptic novel from around the same time, Lucifer's Hammer, by SF writers Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle.

The Dead Zone: the main thing I remember is how the crazy presidential candidate now seems like a fore-telling of Trump. I've seen the movie of this one too, but that aspect I recall only from the book.

The Gunslinger: the first of a series the rest of which I never have read, so apparently I didn't feel compelled to continue, though as far as I recall I didn't think it was too bad.

[Paul]

Bill wrote: "From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Last week I asked about readers here who have read Marcel Proust. This week I’m wondering about Stephen King. Are there any fans here?

I ask because this week ..."


Well, I suspect that most of the contributors here were not of the generation that was conquered by Stephen King. I read dozens of his books, the vast majority prior to turning 25, most of which came out in my adolescence. Since then I've read one or two but I don't seek him out anymore as I've become saturated. You get the sense that you've read the book before, despite not having ever seen it. His habit of weaving a large township and a connected underworld of sinisterness at first is entrancing , but eventually tends to feel like sameness.

I'm not against reading him again, but there isn't any rush either. I had the same saturation-effect with Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, JRR Tolkien, Alexandre Dumas... most authors that I read compulsively during my teenage years.

Which is why I now limit myself to reading one book per author per year

[AB76]

Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Enjoying my reading of 150 pages of non-fiction by Edgar Allan Poe, in the back of an old Penguin edition that i read in my teens. I avoided the n-f back then but am loving it now

His..."

best thing it was a chance find, in my parents bookshelves. i had forgotten i had that volume, otherwise i still would be unaware of his non-fiction

[AB76]

Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Solidarity: Poland 1980-81 by Alain Touraine is shedding important light on the nature of the movement and its place in the 1980s movements.

In his sociological study of the movement,..."

yes, thats brewing as i read. the regime constantly used provocations throughout the 1980-81 period to topple solidarity but found solidarity were well disciplined, they talked with nationalists and more right wing dissedents but never let them into the solidarity camp. Once the provocations failed and solidarity started to expand their aims, the party had only one option, a military crackdown

Walesa had a tricky job keeping things focused, all kinds of factions within the solidarity camp, plus the differences in approach of the miners and the dockworkers. However, unity of purpose was well maintained.

I read Czech communist Zdenek Mlynars "Nightfrost in Prague" ,about 1968, where he outlines similar aims to solidarity under Dubcek where the aim was reform of the socialist reality not a total rebellion, people in the west sometimes miss these point about 1956, 68 and 80-81. Mlynar was at uni in Moscow with Gorby, his reforming ideas were radical within the Eastern Bloc but still well within a left wing socialist ideal

[scarletnoir]

Robert wrote: "The War of Jenkins' Ear ..."

Definitely my favourite name of a war, ever... I had to laugh the first time I came across this. I know next to nothing about it... I did read, somewhere, a long time ago that the 'ear' was a pretext, but express no opinion on that.

[scarletnoir]

AB76 wrote: "Gaza is a less nuanced conflict and is starting to look like a disaster for the IDF in propaganda terms, let alone humanitarian ones but the fake news is just nauseating..."

I haven't read these 'theories', but can imagine... (I am not on Tik Tok or Twitter). I just wish they'd call a halt... the retaliation was justified... for a while... but it's gone way beyond that now.

[scarletnoir]

Bill wrote: "From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Last week I asked about readers here who have read Marcel Proust. This week I’m wondering about Stephen King. Are there any fans here? ..."
I have never read any King... horror isn't my 'thing' at all.

I have seen a couple of films based on his books, but again - as they were 'horror' I thought they were effective enough (I was scared) I didn't feel like watching more, or the same films for a second time! (And those were a long time ago.)

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Gaza is a less nuanced conflict and is starting to look like a disaster for the IDF in propaganda terms, let alone humanitarian ones but the fake news is just nauseating..."

I haven't..."

sadly war suits the ageing joke Netanyahu, it keeps him in power and one thing he craves is power and his own survival. I cant see any easy end to this without him being removed from all decision making. he has been a huge shadow of shame for 25 years, i cant remember a single thing he has done that improved Israel