My teacher says I'm breaking books at an eighth grade level: book thread

[elpollodiablo]

Also I'm reading this John Williams novel called The Man Who Cried I Am. Impressions after 150 pp are that it's pretty dull, but then again my tolerance at this point in grad school is fairly low for the cosmopolitan travelogue of liberal self-discovery that also serves as backdoor baby boomer fan service. At least this one was published too early to be cynically catering, I guess. I also enjoy the White Devil theme. A lot of the barnstorming racial politics stuff has lost much of its impact since '67 obviously, but the prose is also pretty uninteresting.

Man this thing is rough. Happily though I was able to put down 200pp of it since typing that because the thick description is so extraneous and the dialogue so wooden and declarative that you can literally sweep the page with your eyes once, identify the important few bits of information on the page, scan it and move on in about 45-60 seconds. I guess this is what speed reading is like; I typically average about 25-30pp an hour. It feels kind of disrespectful or at least a bit of a copout, but the thing is just so earnest and cliched the thought of close reading 400pp of it... ugh.

How could a man feel sad and angry at the same time?

"Would you let me make love to you if I were going to die and could complete that act just once before I did?"

"He was very much in demand. He went to many parties and came to know Jean-Paul--he had just published the second book of his Le Chemin de la Liberte--Simone, Albert, jean Françoise, André... We needed him then, with the war not long over and Dienbenphu still before us. We needed the confidence of someone who had taken more of a beating than we, generations and generations of beatings, and who could still see le chemin de la liberté.

The book also treats the aspiration to a career as a public intellectual as the only redemptive action possible in the world. It's weirdly conservative, despite all the fiery racial politics. Really specific to its time, I'd say.

[elpollodiablo]

Also the endless procession of faceless interchangeable women who alternately allow the author-character to rail against "bitches" and learn marginally useful things about himself, ala Philip Roth, John Updike, or one of those other boring fucks. To read this novel you'd think sex, especially "radical" sex, was just dull as shit.

[coldforge]

In my book, the author goes to sleep in an abandoned cottage in war-torn romania, and dreams that a dead horse that he saw lying on the side of the road drags itself to his bed!

[Greg Nog]

Reading about the death of John Christopher has made me want to reread the tripod books in a major way.

[mixed cats]

Reading about the death of John Christopher has made me want to reread the tripod books in a major way.

Just when I thought I could forget about ripping a tracking device out of my armpit..

[Nick Ink]

In my book, the author goes to sleep in an abandoned cottage in war-torn romania, and dreams that a dead horse that he saw lying on the side of the road drags itself to his bed!

This image reminds me of a book called 'The People's Act Of Love', by James Meek. It's set in Siberia, about 100 years ago, I think. It's a hard novel to talk about without spoiling the many surprises it has, but I can promise cottages, war-torn villages and dead horses.

[elpollodiablo]

Ha! That's funny; I almost posted nearly that exact thing. I read that one in NYC on your recommendation a couple of years ago. Quite liked it; I'd definitely like to check out some of his other novels.

[monkeypants]

Reading about the death of John Christopher has made me want to reread the tripod books in a major way.

I've been feeling the same way since I gave them to two of my nephews for xmas.  I never knew there was a prequel!

[elpollodiablo]

In the last 50 pages, The Man Who Cried I Am turns into a pretty decent European Cold War spy novel. Too bad about all the misogyny and lamentations to a diminished masculine libido in front of it.

[elpollodiablo]

Started Didion's Democracy today. I'm not as big on her style (or economy thereof) as I used to be; the short, declarative, verbless sentences wear on me after a while. But it sure do make for a breezy read yessir

[clare]

Have you ever read Always Coming Home, Jeb? It's on my reading list.

No, actually!

I have! I quite like it (not so keen on The Lathe of Heaven either) It's got a lot of the philosophy that she expanded in The Telling I think - I find them quite similar. I'd rather read The Telling, but I think I get more out of Always Coming Home (if that makes sense?) I love how she expands on social structure - how deeply thought out her societies are.

[clare]

Well, it was originally in Italian and since I don't think there's any Italian word that could be translated as 'weaty' I'm gonna go with the former.

Upon investigation: the original line is 'era il cavallo stramazzato', which actually just means 'it was the [collapsed/fallen] horse.' So it could be weaty! Because it's an insertion.

Tyop "weary"?

[coldforge]

I'd buy that.

[Anne the Man]

I found a PDF of The Ethical Slut. Have probably gone on about it before, but anyway. How-to guide for polyamory, but also really good for general sexual/intimate relationship stuff. Good chapters on dealing with jealousy, conflict etc.

[elpollodiablo]

In the past nine days, I've read:

EL Doctorow - The Book of Daniel
John A Williams - The Man Who Cried I Am
Joan Didion - Democracy
Tim O'Brien - In the Lake of the Woods
Giorgio Agamben - State of Exception

This is in addition to a bunch of grading. Babies can be a real productivity booster as long as you never leave the house except when absolutely necessary.

[edison]

Wow!

Being alone in Sicily or on the way to/from Sicily for the past six days, I read three and a half books, which is a bit less impressive but still something of a record for me:

Wesley Stace - Charles Jessold, Considered As A Murderer (thanks Alex! I really enjoyed it)
R.J. Ellory - A Quiet Belief In Angels
Vladimir Nabokov - Speak, Memory
Alexis Jenni - L'Art français de la guerre (halfway into that one)

I'm hoping to keep this up! Though I'm not having any babies 

[Babar]

You're in Sicily?? Go out and EAT! EAT!!!

[fishjim]

Babies can be a real productivity booster as long as you never leave the house except when absolutely necessary.

Yep. In my house, "Babies hurt your productivity" was the first fallacy to bite the dust.

[edison]

You're in Sicily?? Go out and EAT! EAT!!!

I'm back already! I ate and I ate and I ate, don't worry. I should probably stop eating for three days now to make up for all that I ate.

[fishjim]

x-post from fashion thread -

It really pisses me off that no one writing about the Occupy activism at the World Economic Forum - including the activists themselves - seems to see the irony in this annual symposium of capitalism taking place on Der Zauberberg.

MEMO TO MEME MAKERS: Occupy Magic Mountain, duh!

[alex]

Wesley Stace - Charles Jessold, Considered As A Murderer (thanks Alex! I really enjoyed it)

Glad to hear it! I was a bit worried, because I have in the meantime also read his first novel, Misfortune, and didn't care for it at all*, while recognising some shared traits with Jessold (mostly the somewhat whimsical, self-consciously witty and erudite style). It made me wonder whether perhaps Jessold was also a little lame and I just didn't realise it because I found the historical setting fascinating enough. It is probably a better book, regardless, though.

I did, however, groan a little at the moment that our fictional musical hero attended the same concert as a whole bunch of other fictional musical figures, including (note the effortless transition to the Thomas Mann discussion here and in the fashion thread!) Adrian Leverkuhn.

As for Mann, I was a huge fan when I was a pretentious teenager, and still have very fond memories of Zauberberg and especially Doktor Faustus. I periodically think of re-reading these two (or perhaps re-starting, and this time actually finishing, Buddenbrooks), but I'm also a little bit afraid that I might find that these books, which I identified with strongly at one point and which probably did influence the development of my tastes quite a bit, were, in fact, a load of pretentious crap.

* that said, it took exactly the length of a train trip between Vienna and Maastricht to read, and made for pretty good entertainment at that, so it's not all bad.

[fishjim]

As for Mann, I was a huge fan when I was a pretentious teenager, and still have very fond memories of Zauberberg and especially Doktor Faustus. I periodically think of re-reading these two (or perhaps re-starting, and this time actually finishing, Buddenbrooks), but I'm also a little bit afraid that I might find that these books, which I identified with strongly at one point and which probably did influence the development of my tastes quite a bit, were, in fact, a load of pretentious crap.

On the contrary. You realize you had damn fine taste for a teenager.

If someone asks what my favorite novel is - by any author -  I usually say it cycles from Doctor Faustus to Buddenbrooks to The Magic Mountain. It still does!

[alex]

I'm being somewhat facetious, of course; I certainly don't think they are crap. I'm afraid I might find them a little pretentious now. But maybe not. One day I'll find the time to find out.

I am definitely on record as listing Doctor Faustus as a favourite, by the way:

Favorite book: I feel obliged to say Homage to Catalonia, so as to not contradict my statement earlier today. And, you know, I could live with that. Other picks that I could definitely live with: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, Liquidation by Imre Kertesz, Doktor Faustus by Thomas Mann, countless others.

Zauberberg has never been a really serious contender for me, but I do love the gramophone scene a whole lot. Loved it when I was a pretentious teenager, love it even more now that studying the history of sound technologies is at least a sideline of what I do for a living.

[elpollodiablo]

I need to do at least two books a week for the next 25 weeks in order to honestly engage with everything on my reading list before my exams.

[peacocks]

hey did I tell you guys that I finished The Lathe of Heaven and I ended up liking it? Well, I did. I'm glad I didn't give up reading it because I think about it often.

Now I'm gonna reaaaaaaaaaadddddddddddddddddd some Virginia Woolf. I miss that lady. Orlando?