books books books: the new reading thread

[nonotyet]

I just finished Little Stalker by Jennifer Belle and I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaated it. I read it because I remember liking her last one, but this one was so transparently autobiographical (am I the only person who reads protagonist descriptions and then looks at the book jacket author photo? maybe this is because I tend towards Tortured Lady Fiction or whatever) and also so transparently about Woody Allen and farcical without pulling off the comedy part that I couldn't enjoy it.
I also picked up Tramps Like Us, and I haven't started it yet but I would like to point out that I am so culturally bereft that when I first looked at it I thought it had something to do with the Hold Steady. (It is a memoir about living in Jersey.)
And because of something I watched last night, I got that one book about Saturday Night Live. I expect both of those to be better than the Jennifer Belle. They fucking better be.
 

[maggiego]

I am about to finish Cloud Atlas. You were all right. I heart you. Next, I will read Dallek's new Nixon book. Because it is August and high time I get my hate on.

Have I told you lately that I love Jerzy Kosinski?

[Greg Nog]

I just finished The Master and Margarita yesterday, and thank god I did, because it bored the crap out of me.

I just got a volume of the collected plays of Samuel Beckett, though, and I'm happily reading Waiting for Godot right now.  I'm finding it easiest to keep track of Vladimir and Estragon by seeing them played by myself and coldforge in my head.

Yay for Cloud Atlas!

[coldforge]

My first impulse was, 'ooh! Which one am I?', but then I remembered that I have absolutely no memory of what differentiates them, anyway.

[Greg Nog]

You are Estragon!  Not to be confused with Vladimir, who seems pretty similar in his role.  Also not to be confused with Eragon, who is a boy that rides a dragon.  He is also called Gogo, not be confused with the girl swinging the meteor hammer in Kill Bill, or the dodo bird from Tiny Toons.

[coldforge]

Estragon, also known as Joe, represents the impulsive, simplistic side of the two main characters, much in contrast to his companion Vladimir's careful intellectualism and verbosity.

fucking SLANDER

[Greg Nog]

Where the hell did you dig that up?  That's not how I see the characters at all!  In fact, I see them as being pretty interchangeable, depending on the requirements of the moment.  I'm sure that 1000 Beckett scholars probably have something to say about my reading being wrong, but then, 1000 Beckett scholars haven't met my METEOR HAMMER

guys I can't stop thinking about meteor hammers

[das kranke Tier]

guys I can't stop thinking about meteor hammers

While I'm not a physician, I see absolutely nothing wrong with this...

[joseph scott]

I am about to finish Cloud Atlas. You were all right. I heart you.

For an interesting pairing, you should read his first novel, Ghostwritten. It is almost like a rough draft of Cloud Atlas, except it shifts over geography rather than over time. Yet by the end I was still blown away.

[Trousers and Pat]

Gotta say I prefer beckett's novels, but Krapp's Last Tape is pretty fun.

I was just reading about the Junot Diaz book coming out: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
I hope my library gets it

[coldforge]

Where the hell did you dig that up?  That's not how I see the characters at all!  In fact, I see them as being pretty interchangeable, depending on the requirements of the moment.  I'm sure that 1000 Beckett scholars probably have something to say about my reading being wrong, but then, 1000 Beckett scholars haven't met my METEOR HAMMER

guys I can't stop thinking about meteor hammers

Wikipedia. Consensus says that Di-di is intellectual, verbal, optimistic, while Go-Go is earthy, intuitive, pessimistic.

[auto-da-fey]

Next, I will read Dallek's new Nixon book. Because it is August and high time I get my hate on.

Be sure to report back on this, I'm kind of interested in it. Dallek is pretty much king of the presidential scholars (aside from getting owned by Caro on the LBJ front, I guess), but I'm not sure I need to read a 750-pager about two loathesome bastards.

I had a friend who went to UCLA to do her dissertation under Dallek; it was the year he left for wherever it was he left for (Duke?). Boy was she ever not amused.

[Greg Nog]

Next, I will read Dallek's new Nixon book. Because it is August and high time I get my hate on.

Be sure to report back on this, I'm kind of interested in it. Dallek is pretty much king of the presidential scholars (aside from

I tried reading it, but every other page was just "EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE," written over and over again.

NO ONE SAW THAT ONE COMING.


coldie, I dunno, I guess consensus just needs to meet my meteor hammer.  Maybe I'll agree with the Wikipedians when I'm finished, but we'll see.

[Lindsay With An A]

I finished Sometimes A Great Notion last week and it was as great as you all said it would be. Perhaps even greater. I am planning on reading Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One on a plane tomorrow. It looks short.

[Lucy]

I'm reading Didion's "Where I Was From" now since I left "Brideshead Revisited" in Brian's car this weekend.

[moloko_plus]

I just finished The Master and Margarita yesterday, and thank god I did, because it bored the crap out of me.

you're weird.
I'm reading Sometimes A Great Notion right now! I'm in sync w/lptjers even when I can't ever sign on! wooo!

[mountmccabe]

Greg my main recommendation with Beckett is, well, I guess, much the same as with any plays: HEAR them.  Even if you just read them aloud (doing coldforge's voice for Estragon is optional) it'll add to it.  Man I love Beckett.  His plays are very slow.  His novels are slower, though.

I had to give up on Orlando by Virginia Woolf.  It's closer in style to Mrs. Dalloway (though it is even lighter in tone) than to the very dense glories of To the Lighthouse and The Waves.  If anyone has read this and can testify that it changes drastically after Orlando changes from a man to a woman I'll consider restarting.

But for now I've got Norwegian Wood by Murakami going and it is a much quicker, easier read.

[plainenglish]

I just finished The Master and Margarita yesterday, and thank god I did, because it bored the crap out of me.

you're weird.

I agree -- if something bores the crap out of me I have to throw it across the room.

I'm in the middle of The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis.  It's holding my attention but I try not to assess until I'm done and have read some other stuff to clear my brain pan.  Don't read the New Yorker review on Amazon for this book -- total spoiler. Rat Bastards.

[guanajuato]

for the last week i've been dipping into this historical fiction book. i'm not a big fan of that genre but this book is fucking ridiculous.

DUDES check out this author photo!



anyway, it's super awesome ... because it's like porno violence history set during the knights of saint john the baptists vs the ottomans battle on malta.

dude! this is IN the fucking PROLOGUE. some turks are raping the main character's mother when he is just a kid. they have just killed his little sister.

the first creature shuddered and whooped in a bestial spasm and the others cheered, and he rose to his feet and staggered back with his breeches around his knees. a second beast knelt to penetrate his other and the other three groped her thighs and breasts to arouse themselves for their turn. all but the second looked at mattias. they saw nothing but a wretched boy. from the direction of the village came the sound of hooves at the canter and this concerned them more, but the hooves concerned mattias not at all. the darkness rose within him and he felt free.

he plunged in.

after hammer and tongs the blade seemed delicate as paper, yet he punched it twice through the first devil's back as if his ribs were woven from straw. the creature sighed and his breeches snared his ankles and he dropped to his hands and knees with his arse in the air and stared at the ground between his elbows and panted like a heat-exhausted dog. mattias kicked him over in the dirt and plunged in.

the second creature grunted between his mother's splayed legs. he knew nothing was amiss until mattias scraped the cap from his skull and grabbed him by the hair and bent him backward. mattias saw a bewildered sense of injustice in his eyes, as of a child dragged unawares from a pot of jam, then he punched the blade through his upturned cheek and pulled it free and punched again and an eye popped forth and dangled from its socket by a string. working his arm with the rhythm of the forge he plowed the childlike face with bleeding slits, splashing the heel of his fist in the screaming mask as he stabbed the dagger through teeth and tongue and bones, and through the fluttering hands that the man flung up for protection.

off the fucking HOOK!

 

[Bannister]

Does anyone have words to say on behalf of Cormac McCarthy?  I'm thinking of taking on one of his novels, but I don't know where to start.  None of my friends have read him.

Anyone?

[lastclearchance]

Does anyone have words to say on behalf of Cormac McCarthy?  I'm thinking of taking on one of his novels, but I don't know where to start.  None of my friends have read him.

Start with the Road because it's his most recent and critically acclaimed (and I thought it was really good), or start with No Country for Old Men because it's another really good one that's was adapted by the Coen brothers (and I plan to read it next). Not really informed by my personal opinion since I've only read the Road, but there you go.

[Greg Nog]

So I've read the Road, Blood Meridian, and No Country for Old Men.  Of the three: The Road will probably allow you to have the most conversations with other folk (which I find fun), 'cause it just came out and it's pretty popular.  It's really really single-minded in its focus, though, so you may not dig that, especially if you're not particularly psyched about postapocalyptica to begin with.

You might want to go with No Country For Old Men if you're planning to see the movie, just so you get a chance to form thoughts about it yourself before getting all its images mediated by the Coen brothers.  That's pretty much why I read it recently, and I'm happy I did; I definitely have my own picture of what Chigurh looks like and acts like and whatnot, and it's definitely diffrent from Javier Bardem.  A possible turn-off, though, might be that the book's a bit essentialist about the role of women in civilization.  I just kinda shrugged that off when I read it (I admit I might have gotten seduced by McCarthy's exultation of conservative maleness, because I am a sucker that way), although a friend of mine got mighty pissed at that when she was reading the book.  So that could potentially rub you the wrong way.

If you're looking for a recommendation based on merit alone, though, I'd say go with Blood Meridian, because it is a god damned masterwork.  It covers a lot of the same basic themes as No Country For Old Men, but in a drier, creepier, more brutal way.  And the gender troubles are slightly less of an issue, since women are almost entirely absent from the book.  Also, I found it interesting that while there's a definite thread of "things used to be better in the old days" conservatism running throughout No Country For Old Men, Blood Meridian takes place in said old days, and it's a fucking nightmare in every way possible.  You should know, though, that the pace might take a little while to get used to; it's slow and could potentially be seen as a trifle plodding, but once you match your brain up to its speed, it feels kind of perfect.

---

On another note, I just finished Waiting for Godot, and I was going to read more Beckett-drama, but I think I think I might mix it up between other books, instead; I just started George Saunders's "In Persuasion Nation", and so far, I'm finding it hilarious.

[maggiego]

Greg, Have you read Pastoralia? It is excellent.

[Greg Nog]

I haven't!  The same friend who recommended In Persuasion Nation is reading Pastoralia now.  This is my first exposure to Saunders.  The man is a card, I tell you what.

[Bannister]

Pastoralia is really good!  I think it's a bit rougher than Persuasion Nation, but all the more rewarding.  George Saunders is a really interesting writer that explores off the beaten path in his own genre.

I love the story Sea Oak from Pastoralia.   Start with that one and you will know pretty quickly whether you'll want to read the rest of the book or not.