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http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/gb.gif Black Swan Green - David Mitchell ****0
waxwing
19-Jun-2010, 16:49
Jerusalem by Goncalo M. Tavares ***00
Although a novel of unique intensity, I'm not clear on the author's intentions, it seems to be a search for the grace of God, but I could be wrong. Sometimes I think I need to take a course on perception enhancement.
Learna, Andreyev's flirtation with the ideas of Bolshevism reminds me of that of Friedebert Tuglas, an Estonian several of whose stories I've translated, and who was born in the Russian Empire in 1886.
As a young man, after the suppression of the 1905 Revolution, Tuglas was an ardent Socialist. So ardent in fact, that he spent a month in prison, whereafter the Czarist secret police kept an eye on him. He was finally forced to flee abroad - and that was his education. Because he lived in Paris and Helsinki, on the ?land Isles, wandered through Italy, Spain and, later in life, the Maghreb.
But when the Soviets took over Estonia in the 1940s, this Social-Democratic man (he had never been right-wing, and had opposed autocratic rule in 1930s Estonia) was thanked for his loyalty to left-wing politics by being branded a "bourgeois nationalist" and forbidden from publishing any books.
So I'm not surprised that intelligent authors became disillusioned with the totalitarian trick that the fake democrats, the Bolsheviks (or Bolshevists, as we used to say in English), played on the Russian and other peoples. But, of course, Russia today, under Medvedev and Putin, is totally different, having learnt the lessons of history.
If I can still find the book, I think I'll buy an Andreyev book today.
Eric, I looked through some information about Friedebert Tuglas and it looked interesting so I am going to find some of his works.
Yes, history can make some lives similar as you write about.
I think that during any government there are always interesting writers and interesting people. I remember one day I started by chance to see a documentary film or to be more accurate - an interview with an elderly woman. But from the first moment I could not take my eyes off the TV. Then it turned out that she was the famous actress of Stalin's period who had an interesting life, outstanding charisma and childish eyes. I do not remember anybody who impressed me so much for last few years.
Eric, I hope you will like Andreyev's book.
Manuel76
21-Jun-2010, 16:38
Le spleen de Paris (Petits po?mes en prose)- Charles Baudelaire *****+
Wonderful 50 pieces dealing with very different subjects (woman, beauty, love, art, Devil, God, the city, travelling, women, cruelty...) and styles, some longer than others and more "important", but all of them written in the most exquisite prose. It's not only sublime, it's very entertaining too(sometimes really funny).
waxwing
21-Jun-2010, 23:59
Your Face Tomorrow: Poison, Shadow and Farewell Vol3 by Javier Marias *****
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/jp.gif The Broken Commandment - Tōson Shimazaki *****
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. I have picked this book up so many times when browsing the bookstore and always put it back, I finally bought it (mostly because I couldn't find anything else) and stuck it at the bottom of my 'to read' pile for several months so as you can see, I have been ambivalent about it from the beginning. And I continue to be ambivalent about it. I didn't hate it, there were passages that kept me interested but I still can't seem to muster any real enthusiasm about it. ***00
kpjayan
24-Jun-2010, 06:57
Mayra Montero - In the Palm of Darkness : Cuban born Puertorico based author, writing about Haiti.. US based herpetologist, coming over to Haiti mountains, in search of an endangered frog, being helped by a local guide. Alternating the narrative between the Scientist and the guide , one going through his domestic troubles and the other telling his life story of survival, violence, the underground society. Very exotic setting, but not delivered beyond that. Pretty weak,overall.**000+
Nam Le, The Boat (Australia) ***00
Mirabell
25-Jun-2010, 01:34
Two rereads
The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
Herzzeit: Briefwechsel, Ingeborg Bachmann / Paul Celan
second one in prep of a review, because its been translated into English now, first one in prep for the Sanderson wot book.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/dz.gif The Sirens of Baghdad - Yasmina Khadra *****
Manuel76
25-Jun-2010, 12:02
The Warden- Anthony Trollope ****0
Interesting but not really great victorian novel. The setting reminds Austen (without her genius) but the style is nearer the earlier Balzac.
Very thin plot (more suitable for a short novella) and very present narrator (which even indulges in art criticism), the characters leave us indifferent as they reach their crisis before our really getting interested in them.They are already positioned since the very first page so the interest is in the realistic analysis of a situation and Mr Harding (the warden) inner fight.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/us.gif The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne ****0
The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana - Umberto Eco
I'd got it into my head that I was going to hate this, for some reason, so it was a pleasant surprise that I very much enjoyed it, although I lost the plot a little towards the end.
Really pretty illustrations too.
Are his other works worth reading?
Clarissa
26-Jun-2010, 18:16
I enjoyed his Foucault's Pendulum and his The Name of the Rose.Most of my friends hated the former but loved the latter.
Mirabell
26-Jun-2010, 18:21
I enjoyed his Foucault's Pendulum and his The Name of the Rose.Most of my friends hated the former but loved the latter.
really? how can people hate pendulum? I think its my fav Eco
I have The Name Of The Rose, so I'll see how I get on with that one. His writing style reminded me of someone and I can't think who, it's going to bug me now until I remember...
Clarissa
26-Jun-2010, 18:24
really? how can people hate pendulum? I think its my fav Eco
I agree! I think they found it 'tough going'. They certainly looked at me askance when they saw that I was reading it. Either they had read the first 20 pages and abandoned it or they hadn't even read that far!
I think The Name of the Rose is very good novel. I really enjoyed reading it.
Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?--Harold Bloom ****0+
Rhyming Life and Death--Amos Oz ****0
Speech! Speech!--Geoffrey Hill ***00+
Finally finished this one, but have obviously been steadily rereading all the cantos before and after that fact. I'll probably like this poem a great deal more in a month or two when it's been cracked open a couple different ways, but right now it's like Hill parodying Hill to fascinatingly difficult lengths, and I think he says as much explicitly in one of the later passages.
The Tin Drum by G?nter Grass.
This is a grotesque with elements of symbolism, magic realism and philosophy novel. The story is written in a wonderful scrupulous style ( the description of cutting onions is wonderful; I wonder whether the original sounds as nice as its translation ? :)) with unexpected turns.
Now I am going to see the film adaptation of the novel.
****0
The Tin Drum by G?nter Grass.
This is a grotesque with elements of symbolism, magic realism and philosophy novel. The story is written in a wonderful scrupulous style ( the description of cutting onions is wonderful; I wonder whether the original sounds as nice as its translation ? :)) with unexpected turns.
Now I am going to see the film adaptation of the novel.
****0
I'm so glad you enjoyed it. Grotesque is a great word. I always hesitate to use it when talking about a book I love but it fits so perfectly. Now, are you going to read the other 2 in the trilogy?
And I'll be really curious what you think of the movie. There were some scenes that made me a little uncomfortable because the person who plays Oskar is a kid. The scene with he and Maria is fine in the book because Oskar is 16 but in the movie, he's look like he's about 10 and it's just weird. Other than that, it was a fairly decent adaptation. The movie stops before the novel did but what is there is well done...except for the child pornography bit. :p
I'm so glad you enjoyed it. Grotesque is a great word. I always hesitate to use it when talking about a book I love but it fits so perfectly.Yes, when I was writing "grotesque" I meant picturesque, a contrast of reality-irreality, truth and imagination ... in a word - grotesque :).
Now, are you going to read the other 2 in the trilogy?Today at last I have got the second book in the trilogy - Cat and Mouse, so I'm looking forward to reading it.
And I'll be really curious what you think of the movie. There were some scenes that made me a little uncomfortable because the person who plays Oskar is a kid. The scene with he and Maria is fine in the book because Oskar is 16 but in the movie, he's look like he's about 10 and it's just weird. Other than that, it was a fairly decent adaptation. The movie stops before the novel did but what is there is well done...except for the child pornography bit. :pI have already :) felt ... uncomfortable with the scenes you wrote about.
Chris Hedges, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, ***00
Basically one long argument that Pat Robertson and his ilk are far more than just a bunch of kooks - the . Interesting and for the most part well-argued, but tends to get caught up in its own rhetoric a little too often. Includes this article by Umberto Eco as a foreword:
Eco - "Eternal Fascism: 14 Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt" (http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html)
Stiffelio
30-Jun-2010, 04:59
Roberto Bola?o: Putas Asesinas (in English these stories are found in two collections, namely Last Evenings on Earth and The Return) ***00+
This is an uneven collection of 14 stories, first published in Spanish in 2000. Aside from a couple of inspired stories such as Last Evenings on Earth, Prefiguration of Lalo Cura and Dentist, the rest fall somewhat flat with respect to the rest of Bola?o's production. The autobiographical nature of the stories, the obsessive poet-name dropping and the depiction of losers in exile is not as well developed as in his novels. For some strange editorial reason, the English version of these stories was split into two books, which also include stories from Bola?o's previous, much better collection Llamadas Telef?nicas.
Antonio Tabucchi: Il Gioco del Rovescio (Letter from Casablanca) ****0+
This is a wonderful collection of stories, Tabucchi's earliest, first published in 1981 and re-edited in 1986 with 3 more stories. The title story in the Italian version, Il Gioco del Rovescio, which translates as The Backwards Game, is a masterpiece of misterious nuance and atmosphere. So are the wonderful Letter from Casablanca and Saturday Afternoons. The rest of the stories in the collection are also of very high quality. Challenging to read, not only is this collection 'ludic' literature at its best but these stories are loaded with (more than one) meaning and with poetry. Highly recommended.
Gon?alo M. Tavares: El Se?or Val?ry (no English translation yet) ***00
This young Portuguese writer has undertaken a literary project called 'Barrio', which means 'Neighborhood'. He has populated this Neighborhood with several authors and has written a sort of character semblance for each of them. He started off with Paul Val?ry and followed up with Brecht, Henri, Brecht, Juarroz and many others. It is perhaps a clever idea taken as a whole and if one could read them all compiled in a single book. As it is, however, the Val?ry book per se is unsubstantial, unless you are in the know of what Val?ry's traits were and can relate them to the snippets the Tavares writes. At a mere 80 pages, double space type, and sprinkled with na?ve illustrations, this little book can be read in a couple of hours. But, alas, the hardcover costs 11 Euros....a rip-off!
Am?lie Nothomb: M?taphysique des Tubes (The Character of Rain) ***00+
This was my first take at the much discussed Nothomb. This is an autobiographical novella told from the moment the protagonist is born until she turns 3. It's no doubt a curious point of view. I wasn't blow away but for the most part I enjoyed it. Nothomb is a clever writer with a peculiar sense of humor and I think I'll be tempted to read more of her. No great lieterature but pretty good nevertheless.
Evelio Rosero: Los Ej?rcitos (The Armies) ****0
This is a powerful, disturbing novel set in a small town in Colombia during the narco-guerrilla wars. It tells the story of an old man's descent into madness as he loses his wife and the town gets ravaged by guerrillas and paramilitaries. I was a bit put off at the beginning by an awkward prose but then the novel gets better and better until the shocking ending.
kpjayan
30-Jun-2010, 07:26
The Library of Shadows - Mikkel Birkegaard : Literary thriller. Conceptually good, but as a thriller, I thought it was charting the predictable lines. Not too convincing end. I wasn't particularly liked the style of writing, not sure if it is because of the translation ( I remember reading Harry praising the translation). Disclaimer: I am not a big reader of this genre.
The Body Artist--Don DeLillo ****0
The second DeLillo I've read, I liked it better than the first, but Pynchon and McCarthy still seem the better writers so far. Though I'm looking forward to White Noise or Mao II to be able to really judge before I try Underworld.
Though I'm looking forward to White Noise
I read it two or three years ago, and honestly I didn't like it. Maybe it was because I had to read it for school.
But I remember little of it, and that's not a good point!
The Body Artist--Don DeLillo ****0
The second DeLillo I've read, I liked it better than the first, but Pynchon and McCarthy still seem the better writers so far. Though I'm looking forward to White Noise or Mao II to be able to really judge before I try Underworld.
Which was the first?
I thought White Noise, Mao II and Underworld were all quite good, occasionally brilliant. In retrospect, I've a feeling White Noise is probably the best of them, though.
Which was the first?
I think I made what was an awkward choice for an introduction: Cosmopolis
Chris Cleave The other hand **000 +
A very strange reading experience!
The language is strange, like the words does not want to work together. You forgive this when you are reading the voice of main character as she is from Nigeria and her English is far from good, but the whole book, the other main character, a thirty something English woman???
The author has some good points and ideas but he doesnt do anything with them. They just sit there on the page and leave the reader in a vacuum waiting for some use to come of them, but nothing happens. Its like the author is making statements instead of telling us what is happening in the characters and what the news or action is doing to them. Ex: the author would write "she is angry", instead of "She throws the cup on the floor, runs out of the room, yells etc etc and then she remembers...which brought about a feeling of..." the list of what he could have done with the words is endless, but the author simply lets the statement stay all alone. And its rather annoying cause then the reader is left to wonder why on earth we are told this!
From the book: We are told that some files are found in a refugee camp where there are complaints about the high level of sanitary towels used. And in the back of the book, we are told as extra info that this was in fact true that it was written in the report. But we are not told what it does to the characters in the story and why this information is in the story in the first place. :confused:
I gave the book 2,5 stars soley due to the plot, certainly not the language!
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/gb.gif Cakes and Ale - W. Somerset Maugham ***00
Group Portrait with Lady ~ Heinrich B?ll ****0+
Mirabell
03-Jul-2010, 16:07
I think I made what was an awkward choice for an introduction: Cosmopolis
his worst novel, by far. and body artist, while I like it a lot, is extremely atypical of Delillo's work. weird choices.
Mirabell
04-Jul-2010, 23:23
The Carhullan Army, Sarah Hall. Ok.
Batman R.I.P., Grant Morrison, Tony S. Daniels et al. Huh. Whatta anticlimax.
Minetti, Thomas Bernhard
Vor dem Ruhestand, Thomas Bernhard
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/jp.gif A Dark Night's Passing - Naoya Shiga ***00
miercuri
05-Jul-2010, 14:34
Written on the Body - Jeanette Winterson ****0
I'm growing accustomed with her style, yet I can't really say I am smitten. I still liked The Passion a lot more, even though this one had some charming moments.
Daniel del Real
05-Jul-2010, 21:41
A triad of Spanish books
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/es.gif Miguel Delibes, La Hoja Roja (The Red Page) ****0+
Just confirming with every sentence he should've won the Nobel Prize. Amazing writer
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/es.gif Javier Marias, Cuando fui Mortal (When I was Mortal) **000
Definitely not at his best with short stories.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/es.gif Bernardo Atxaga, El Hijo del Acordeonista (The Accordionist's Son) **000
Very disappointed about this authors and his novel. It features interesting situations of the basque country and the people but it is very long and tedious in a lot of moments. I'm sure Obabakoak must be better.
Zorba the Greek - Nikos Kazantzakis ****0 - I really enjoyed this. Full of life and colour. Great central character and atmospheric depiction of Crete, brilliantly written.
A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel ***00 - Mantel is a gifted writer and manages to avoid the usual traps writers of historical novels fall into - she avoids being cliched or obvious or pedantic, you feel like the events she describes are fresh and alive. Writing in the present tense works well. Also her dialogue is great and the characterisation is powerful (especially Camille who has real charisma). However, it's too bitty overall for me, she doesn't make much effort to guide the reader through what is happening (especially problematic with three central characters and the complex goings on in revolutionary France). It seems a bit of a collage. It's long too (800+ pages).
Refus de Sejour
07-Jul-2010, 05:48
***00 1/2 The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories, edited by Theodore W. Goossens, various translators.
This book has left me with a long list of new names to follow up on, as well as reminding me to read more of writer's already familiar. The collection works chronologically, starting with Mori Ogai (1862-1922) and ending with Yoshimoto Banana (1964 -). 35 stories in all (one per author). The stand-outs, for me:
***00 Natsume Soseki - "The Third Night" (from his Ten Nights of Dream - not the chapter I would have picked, but still good)
***** Higuchi Ichiyo - "Separate Ways"
****0 Nagai Kafu - "The Peony Garden"
***00 Satomi Ton - "Blowfish"
***** Akutagawa Ryonosuke - "In a Grove" (source material for the film Rashomon)
***00 Miyazawa Kenji - "The Bears of Nametoko"
***** Ibuse Masuji - "Carp"
****0 Kajii Motojiro - "Lemon"
***** Hayashi Fumiko _ "The Accordion and the Fish Town"
****0 Hirabayashi Taiko - "Blind Chinese Soldiers"
***** Inoue Yasushi - "Passage to Fudaraku"
****0 Nakajima Atsushi - "The Expert"
***** Kojima Nobuo - "The Rifle"
***** Mishima Yukio - "Onnagata"
***00 Mukoda Kunkio - "Mr Carp
***00 Tsushima Yuko - "A Very Strange, Enchanted Boy"
***** Murakami Haruki - "The Elephant Vanishes"
The pick of the crop was Inoue's "Passage to Fudaraku," the chillingly fatalistic story of a Buddhist abbot who finds himself obliged to undertake a suicidal sea voyage (cast adrift alone in a small boat, and nailed into a wooden box to boot). The priest's inability to even mention his reservations, coupled with the assumption of all those around him that he is willing to embark, make for tragic reading. The passage I found most powerful:
By November he had lost all awareness of time. When he awoke he would call Seigen. "Isn't this the day for my voyage?" he would ask. Told that it was not, he would lift his head in apparent relief, and look upon the white sands of the garden. He would gaze at the bright green plantings and listen to the lapping of waves on the beach of Hama-no-miya, which was like an extension of the garden. Only recently had he begun to notice trees and the sound of waves. He perceived things which he had not in many years.
On one of those bright, clear autumn days, Konko asked again if it was not the day for his voyage.
"You will be leaving this afternoon at four," Seigen replied. Konko stood up and sat down again. His strength seemed to have been drained quite away. He was perfectly still, quite incapable of motion.
(trans. James T. Araki)
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/gb.gif The White Queen - Philippa Gregory ****0
Refus de Sejour
07-Jul-2010, 16:30
Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez - The Autumn of the Patriarch. *****
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Jts7L87kB_w/RpP5pNgj6oI/AAAAAAAAAnU/K01Mzurw79I/s400/TheAutumnOfThePatriarch.JPG
Stunning; just stunning. Vastly different from One Hundred Years of Solitude in style, exhausting yet exhilarating. The kind of book that truly seems to contain an entire other universe.
The highest honour Refus can bestow - 5 stars squared:
*****
*****
*****
*****
*****
Carl Frode Tiller "Encerclement" (English title)
I have never heard of this Norwegian author before, but Im so glad to have made his acquiantance! :)
The book is a story about a guy who lost his memory and therefore puts an add in the newspaper in hope of someone who once knew him would reply. 3 people reply and the books is their letters to him with stories of his life and how he affected them.
Carl Frode Tiller writes brilliantly about human relations and so intense at times that you hold your breath and cannot put the book down. It has made me think about relations and what we mean to other people and how they see us.
The novel won European Union Prize for Litterature 2009.
****0
While reading the book, I came across a French Artist named Sophie Calle. A few years back she found an adressbook and got several people from the book to come forward and tell about the guy who owed the adressebook. She published the stories in the French newspaper "Lib?ration" to make a portrait of this unknown owner of the adressbook. When the guy got hold of this news, he became very angry and didnt back off , before the newspaper published a nude photo of Sophie Calle. Maybe some of you have heard or read about this? Thomas?
She has an exhibition in Denmark right now about a loveletter which sounds rather interesting and I just might go and see it as she do have some interesting points.
In English about Sophie Calle and her latest exhibition:
SOPHIE CALLE ? Louisiana Contemporary - Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (http://www.louisiana.dk/uk/Menu/Exhibitions/Sophie+Calle)
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/hu.gif Kaddish for an Unborn Child - Imre Kert?sz ****0
Sir Gawain and the green Knight. ****0
It was my first romance, the first work concerning an arthurian legend and the second work of the Middle English period (the first being part of The Canterbury Tales). Reading the introduction I've realised as most of the readers would have had some expectations about this romance, as it shares some characteristics with other romances, such as the inevitable success of the knight in the quest he finds himself involved in, or the fact that King Arthur would not eat until someone tells him a good and entertaining story or until something unusual happens, and so on. But I think it's been better for me not to have this expectations, and everything's been a surprise for me.
In retrospective, I think I would have guessed something but the poem goes on so quickly and I read it so quickly that I couldn't even stop to think who was this guy or why does this lady do this.
I've found the plot really surprisingly entertaining: right from the beginning, you read that a green knight enters the hall where King Arthur and his knights are banqueting and proposes a game for the New Year: he will allow anyone to behead him with his axe on condition that he can return a stroke (ok, it's better than how I've been able to explain it here!).
Still, some parts were described in too full detail, like the arming of Gawain or some of the hunting scenes. But apart from that I've fully enjoyed this romance, and I would like to read Pearl (probably from the same author), but also some other work concerning arthurian legend. Has anybody read Le morte d'Arthur by Malory? Any advice?
Julio Cort?zar - Hopscotch
And it ends on a feedback loop. Of course it does. Beautiful. I'll have to mull this over.
Sirena, you gave the Kert?sz 4 out of 5 points. Could you say a little more about the book. I happened to have a copy of it in my hand literally yesterday, as I was half-thinking of reading it in Swedish translation (a language I know well) but also glancing now and again at the original Hungarian, as I have revived my interest in that language after a lapse of some twenty years. I didn't borrow that one, but another instead which deals with him as a teenage boy being sent to the concentration camp called "A Man Without a Destiny" or "Fatelessness" or similar ("Sorstalans?g" in Hungarian).
The Beautiful and Damned - F Scott Fitzgerald *****
I think Fitzgerald writes the most beautiful prose of any writer I've come across. Also a powerful story with good characterisations.
In America--Susan Sontag ****0+
Marcel Proust "In search of lost time" Swann's way II
I love Proust and shall start volume 3 immediately! :)
****0
Runaway by Alice Munro.
Interesting unexpected turns of events in Munro's abrupt style.
****0-
P.S. I am still thinking about this story.
Haruki Murakami, What I talk about when I talk about running (Japan) ***00
Light, pleasant, short read.
Haruki Murakami, What I talk about when I talk about running (Japan) ***00
Light, pleasant, short read.
Mirabell
09-Jul-2010, 15:06
Haruki Murakami, What I talk about when I talk about running (Japan) ***00
Light, pleasant, short read.
pleasant - not the word I'd connect with my forays into Murakami territory. Light, though, sounds about right.
kpjayan
09-Jul-2010, 15:20
Deep River - Shusaku Endo : Set in the holy city of Varanasi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varanasi) in India, 5 Japanese, of various past histories, is experiencing the personal cleansing of soul ( which the River Ganges (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Ganges) is known for, according to the Hindu belief). A fantastic, spiritual and personal tour through the Christian , Budhist and Hindu philosophy and way of life. My first read of Endo and it was awesome. ****0+
I love Proust and shall start volume 3 immediately! :)
****0
Proust is fantastic! Everyone mentions Kafka, Proust, and Joyce as "the big three", and I know Kundera prefers Kafka, Bloom hints at his predilection toward Joyce, but for me Proust is the favorite, he's just beautiful and lyrical and utterly massive and amazing, Swann's Way is one of only a few books I allow myself re-readings of.
Sirena, you gave the Kert?sz 4 out of 5 points. Could you say a little more about the book. I happened to have a copy of it in my hand literally yesterday, as I was half-thinking of reading it in Swedish translation (a language I know well) but also glancing now and again at the original Hungarian, as I have revived my interest in that language after a lapse of some twenty years. I didn't borrow that one, but another instead which deals with him as a teenage boy being sent to the concentration camp called "A Man Without a Destiny" or "Fatelessness" or similar ("Sorstalans?g" in Hungarian).
Kaddish for an Unborn Child by Imre Kert?sz, strictly speaking, doesn?t have a plot at all. The main character is a Hungarian novelist, a Holocaust survivor telling about his thoughts and emotions regarding his literary career, him being a Jew and a failed marriage with 15 years younger woman, who he refused to have a child with in a world which allows such dreadful (a Holocaust) things to happen.
The narrator, or Kert?sz, asks for us to stop talking that Auschwitz doesn?t have an explanation, that it?s a product of incomprehensible, to the human mind, forces, because, according to him, for the evil in the world, there?s always an explanation (gains, craving for power, satisfaction of impulses (paranoia, maniac depression, killing out of passion, masochism, megalomania, necrophilia or some sort of perversion). On the contrary, he thinks that the good is unexplainable.
Kert?sz states that those we regard as common criminals, however, from the moment they came to power, we start to worship, even when we cursed them at the same time. We go to the point of analyzing their deeds: ?in which cases they were objectively right and subjectively wrong and what we can objectively understand and subjectively can?t?, all because of the need to justify ourselves, as, more or less, the participants in a whole world scene.
He speaks of anti-Semitism as a matter of a person?s character: ?morality of desperation, craziness of those who despise themselves, vitality of those who?re decaying?.
At the end, after all his experiences, his attitude is that all he?s going to do and everything which will ever happen to him, will serve to him only as a mean in acquiring an understanding.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/pe.gif The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa ****0
Daniel del Real
10-Jul-2010, 18:06
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/uy.gif Mario Benedetti, La Tregua ****0
One of the sadest books I've ever bit with a great approach to a lonely man's life and a his relation with God.
Mirabell
10-Jul-2010, 18:11
The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
Proust is fantastic! Everyone mentions Kafka, Proust, and Joyce as "the big three", and I know Kundera prefers Kafka, Bloom hints at his predilection toward Joyce, but for me Proust is the favorite, he's just beautiful and lyrical and utterly massive and amazing, Swann's Way is one of only a few books I allow myself re-readings of.
I havent read Joyce yet.
Just started "In the shadow of young girls in Flower" - About Madame Swann, I believe the English title is.
I find Proust to be a good summer read actually, just taking my time enjoying his language, reading it slowly in the summer heat.
Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero (US) ****0
Re-read. Very different book from when I read it as a 20-year-old, but still a hell of a novel. Or whatever it qualifies as.
Stiffelio
11-Jul-2010, 01:31
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/uy.gif Mario Benedetti, La Tregua ****0
One of the sadest books I've ever bit with a great approach to a lonely man's life and a his relation with God.
It is indeed a very depressing book (atually, most of Benedetti is sad and depressive). There was a fine film made out of La Tregua back in 1974; it was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language picture.
P?r Lagerkvist: Barabbas: *****+
I am speechless--
L.
Clarissa
11-Jul-2010, 11:52
Ingeborg Bachmann - Kriegstagebuch **000 disappointing.
Mirabell
11-Jul-2010, 12:02
Ingeborg Bachmann - Kriegstagebuch **000 disappointing.
yes, yes it is.
P?r Lagerkvist: Barabbas: *****+
I am speechless--
L.
Really?
I have one of his books on my shelf but never gotten around to reading it. Believe its called "The eternal smile". I read that after "Barabbas", he received the Nobel prize. I take it you agree with him receiving it back then in 1951?
P?r Lagerkvist: Barabbas: *****+
I am speechless--
L.
Oh, that was a great book. I've really grown quite fond of Lagerkvist. I would recommend trying his The Dwarf next. :)
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/nl.gif The Assault - Harry Mulisch ***00
Daniel del Real
11-Jul-2010, 17:20
It is indeed a very depressing book (atually, most of Benedetti is sad and depressive). There was a fine film made out of La Tregua back in 1974; it was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language picture.
It's quite interesting that all the novels and short stories I've read from Benedetti are indeed very deppresive when his poetry has, in a high degree a lot of components that depict life in a much better way than his narrative: love, life, fraternity, etc.
In his short stories and in this novel as well he is a big critic of the bureaucracy and how a job can slowly destroy a person on the inside but at the same time can give a false and empty meaning to a life.
I really liked the novel and I find in Benedetti a very balanced writer. A great poet and a really good narrative writer also. Don't know why he's not more known worlwide.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/nl.gif The Assault - Harry Mulisch ***00
I'd love to hear some more thoughts on this. I love Mulisch's Siegfried and I've got The Assault in my TBR pile somewhere.
waxwing
11-Jul-2010, 19:02
Purge by Sofi Oksanen ***00
Good popular literature, I couldn't detect anything of more value than that, but it requires someone more qualified than me for a reliable opinion on that point. More or less a thriller, women besieged by Communist gangsters, then Capitalist gangsters, and at the center a non-descript old lady, a mini-Stalin, with her own private internment camp, meting out justice as she sees fit, in a grossly mixed-up and cruel world.
kpjayan
11-Jul-2010, 19:09
Purge by Sofi Oksanen ***00
Good popular literature, I couldn't detect anything of more value than that.
Oho, its on its way home, having ordered a copy last week, now that it is available in my country... Should I have waited for a week ?
Mirabell
12-Jul-2010, 00:40
Winter in the Blood, James Welch
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/fr.gif The Possibility of an Island - Michel Houellebecq ****0
e joseph
12-Jul-2010, 17:07
Oho, its on its way home, having ordered a copy last week, now that it is available in my country... Should I have waited for a week ?
I just finished Purge myself, and I found a little more to it than Waxwing. Calling it just a popular lit thriller sells it short in my book - it tackles life in Nazi occupied and communist Estonia and themes of victimhood as well. Bjorn's got a nice write up of it in the European section too, definitely worth your time checking out (the book and Bjorn's review). Enjoy it Jayan.
The Fatal Eggs and Other Soviet Satire compiled and translated by Mirra Ginsburg. It was a great collection of authors and I loved that there is a little biography of each author before their stories. They are short and sweet but they all contain information about the authors' fates, whether they were exiled, immigrated, 'out of favor', arrested, had their spirits crushed or if they bowed to the devil that was the Writers Union and churned out sub-standard work after promising starts. I was familiar with a few of the authors and had even read a few of the stories before but it did introduce a couple new authors I definitely want to check out, Valentin Katayev and Panteleymon Romanov. *****
I take it you agree with him receiving it back then in 1951?Hellz yeah! :D
Oh, that was a great book. I've really grown quite fond of Lagerkvist. I would recommend trying his The Dwarf next. :)Yes, I added The Dwarf and The Sibyl to my reading list.
L.
Sverigedemokraterna in p? bara skinnet, Pontus Mattsson (Sweden) ****0
It looks like we'll be one of the last countries in Europe to get an "immigrants BAD!" party into parliament in the upcoming election, and this book does a fine - and, from what I can tell, fair - job of both outlining where they come from, how they rose from a small group of violent neonazis to a serious contender, which issues they're pushing today and how they're doing it. It's interesting how parties that focus only on one single question can reduce everything to that one question, pathologically emphasising differences no matter how trivial and then shrouding reactions which are often fundamentally irrational in the guise of "honest debate", turning the vast majority into the persecuted minority for "daring to say what everyone thinks" - the fundamental logic error, that if truthsayers are criticized, it therefore follows that if they're criticizing you you must be telling the truth. As a study in populism and fearmongering, it's occasionally hilarious (they actually think they can get schoolkids to replace hip hop with folk dancing) but also fairly depressing. I'd have liked some more actual facts and figures on how well their arguments hold up, but fascinating.
The Canterbury Tales- Geoffrey Chaucer.
Ok, I haven't read the whole book, all the tales, but I've read almost 2/3 of them; moreover, I think I need a break from Middle English literature: now that my exams are over (!!) I will turn to some 18th and 19th century novels.
I've really enjoyed Chaucer, and I didn't expected it: I thought they were boring sermons, and instead some of the tales are great, and they weren't boring at all. Maybe someday I'll finish reading the tales...
P?r Lagerkvist: Barabbas: *****+
I am speechless--
L.
You know, I really wish you weren't speechless, I'd love to hear some more thoughts on this. I read it years ago and remember loving it, but I've since read some less than enthusiastic reviews and I'm starting to wonder if it was me or them who got it wrong.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/european-literature/21707-par-lagerkvist-barabbas.html
Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev ****0
I've really enjoyed ChaucerI bet The Miller's Tale was your favorite! :D
I thought they were boring sermonsWhatever led you to think that? :(
Too bad you don't want any more Middle English literature; or else I'd shoot a couple of suggestions your way, ;).
You know, I really wish you weren't speechless, I'd love to hear some more thoughts on this.Thanks, Bjorn, I didn't even know that we had a thread on it. I'm afraid if I try to formulate my thoughts about it at this point, the special "mystical" feeling I've been experiencing from reading it will evaporate. But now that I've read through all the comments I simply have to add my own, :rolleyes:.
I read it years ago and remember loving it, but I've since read some less than enthusiastic reviews and I'm starting to wonder if it was me or them who got it wrong.No. The book really IS great. It gave me the feeling of reading a highly spiritual work of religious mysticism, almost. In addition to which, it was almost scary how--given that it's set two thousand years ago--so much of it is actually about the human condition in the 20th (and by extension) 21st century--faithlessness, search for meaning, loneliness.
The most powerful bits, I thought, were the stoning of the hare-lipped girl in the beginning and Sahak's crucifixion towards the end. And, obviously, Barabbas's own lonely death at the end. I read it with shaking hands, but then again, I'm a Catholic, :p.
L.
The Fatal Eggs and Other Soviet Satire compiled and translated by Mirra Ginsburg. It was a great collection of authors and I loved that there is a little biography of each author before their stories. They are short and sweet but they all contain information about the authors' fates, whether they were exiled, immigrated, 'out of favor', arrested, had their spirits crushed or if they bowed to the devil that was the Writers Union and churned out sub-standard work after promising starts. I was familiar with a few of the authors and had even read a few of the stories before but it did introduce a couple new authors I definitely want to check out, Valentin Katayev and Panteleymon Romanov. *****
Sif, thank you for reminding their names. I should reread Lonely White Sail by Valentin Katayev.
Is there a story No cherry by Panteleymon Romanov in the collection? The begining of it amazes with its frankness.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka.
**000+
Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev ****0
Johnw, if you would like to read some other Turgenev's work I would highly recommend Asya and my favourite Bezhin Meadow and Singers ( I cannot stop and will add First love and Spring Water (?, the original title is "Вешние воды").
I wonder why his works were often marked only ***00. I guess maybe some translations are not proper. Turgenev's style is very beautiful.
I read "Barabbas" in my teens and thought it a good book. I read three or four shortish novels by the same author one after the other. But it is not one of my recently finished books.
As for the Lewycka, what I've read about does not really make me want to read it. Learna only gives it 2-plus out of five. What is it you don't like?
Bj?rn, I saw the Sverigedemokraterna book in the bookshop recently. You recommend it pretty highly. I hope you are open-minded enough to see the undemocratic tendencies in ultra-left-wing as well as ultra-right-wing parties. For instance, the hilarious one-issue joke party the Feministiskt Initiativ, whose nutty boss burnt 10,000 euros' worth of banknotes in an effort to liberate women:
Women of the world unite,
Burn your bras and join the fight.
You could burn your money too,
Then they'll put you in the zoo.
And V?nsterpartiet, the ex-Communists, who got rid of the word "communist" in their name (V?nsterpartiet Kommunisterna to V?nsterpartiet). So much for their faith in revolution. The sneaky cowards removed the word "communist" from their name because they too have fallen for the lure of image. But have they changed their spots? Can they form part of a bourgeois-style coalition government?
I bought a copy of Prolet?ren (the organ or the real, still extant, Swedish Communist Party) from a man on the street the other day. The paper's OK on smaller issues, and indeed on artificial fertilizers, but their use of buzzwords gets tiring: nyliberal, ?verklasspolitik, privatisering, eliten, motst?nd, and so on. And where the communists really get pathetic is when they still worship Cuba and hate the USA in an unthinking Pavlovian way. So there's a photo of Maradona standing next to Morales with the caption "I hate everything that comes from the USA. I hate it with the whole of my power." All power, no heart, eh? And a petition in Prolet?ren lectures us about the fact that the Iraqis have the right to the armed struggle. Maybe some Iraqis think they have a right to peace. And worst of all is the litany-petition on Gaza. But their article on corruption in Sverigedemokraterna in Sk?ne, and their fiddling with education subsidies, was interesting. But I've recently finished reading that issue now (Number 27, 2010).
*
As for my own book reading, I've not quite finished it, but I'm very satisfied with Eric de Kuyper's memoirs of youth, when he joined the art and film school in Brussels in the late 1950s. He's good at describing psychology, atmosphere, and motivation. Only 50 pages to go; but it is sweltering here in sub-tropical Uppsala, which slows the brain down. I think I'm going to an outdoor caf?-cum-pub soon for a cool beer.
Thanks, Bjorn, I didn't even know that we had a thread on it. I'm afraid if I try to formulate my thoughts about it at this point, the special "mystical" feeling I've been experiencing from reading it will evaporate. But now that I've read through all the comments I simply have to add my own, :rolleyes:.
No. The book really IS great. It gave me the feeling of reading a highly spiritual work of religious mysticism, almost. In addition to which, it was almost scary how--given that it's set two thousand years ago--so much of it is actually about the human condition in the 20th (and by extension) 21st century--faithlessness, search for meaning, loneliness.
The most powerful bits, I thought, were the stoning of the hare-lipped girl in the beginning and Sahak's crucifixion towards the end. And, obviously, Barabbas's own lonely death at the end. I read it with shaking hands, but then again, I'm a Catholic, :p.
L.
Thanks, Liam. I might have to pick up The Dwarf at some point and give Lagerkvist another spin.
I bet The Miller's Tale was your favorite! :D
One of the favourites, yes!
Whatever led you to think that? :(
Before starting reading the tales I thought that! When I studied Middle English Literature I read names like Lydgate, Gower, Langland, which sounded really boring to read. But I wager Chaucer is way better than them!
Too bad you don't want any more Middle English literature; or else I'd shoot a couple of suggestions your way, ;).
I don't want any more ME literature for now! If you have any suggestions please tell me! I would really appreciate it! I'll write them down and then read it in some time.
kpjayan
13-Jul-2010, 14:05
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka.
**000+
Absolutely..
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka.
**000Only 2 stars? I thought it was very good, well-written, amusing and true to the subject. Maybe I identified more than others because I and my sisters were going through the same problems with an old father, but if I were rating by stars, I'd give
3 1/2, at least.
I'd love to hear some more thoughts on this. I love Mulisch's Siegfried and I've got The Assault in my TBR pile somewhere.
The beginning of The Assault, published in 1982, sets in Haarlem, near Amsterdam, at the very end of the Second World War (1945), however, the War is still very present (Holland occupied, food and fuel are scarce ...). The main character, Anton Steenwijk, a 12-year-old boy was living with his parents and an older brother Peter, when suddenly, at night, the notorious Chief Inspector of Police, Fake Ploeg was murdered at the next door (they saw it through their windows) on his way home. Their neighbours, the Kortewegs, father and daughter, at whose house the assault occurred, drag quickly the body in front of the Seetnwijk?s house. Peter runs out into the night, to remove the body to the next door, however, Nazi arrives, rounds up Mr. and Mrs. Seetnwijk and shot them in retaliation with 20 other people. Peter flees, but is killed, later, as well. Their house is burned to the ground. The only survivor, who Nazi took away at first, but released later not knowing what to do with him, is little Anton...
I ?had a problem? with the character of Anton through whole novel. I expected Anton would be devastated to lose his parents and brother at such age, as most people would, however, no Anton, not at all. He just proceeds with his life as if nothing had happened. Later, when he gets older, it seems that he?d forget the whole thing long ago, if there weren?t others (Fake Ploeg, Jr., the Beumers, Cor Takes, Karin Korteweg ...) who keep reminding him of what happened and "surprisingly" were marked by the event for the rest of their lives and can't get over it. Nevertheless, Anton takes the situation completely impartial, as some journalist making an article about horrible things happened during the WWI, but nothing to do with him personally whatsoever. :rolleyes:
Sif, thank you for reminding their names. I should reread Lonely White Sail by Valentin Katayev.
I didn't realize he was the brother of Petrov of 'Ilf and Petrov'. I had read their Twelve Chairs and loved it. They also had a story in this collection, How The Soviet Robinson Was Written which was fabulous in it's absurdity.
Is there a story No cherry by Panteleymon Romanov in the collection? The begining of it amazes with its frankness.
No, that one wasn't in there. His stories were, About Cows, Inventory, which is among my favorites of this particular collection, Inefficiency, A Mistake and A Gift of God, which was another outstanding story. He had the most offerings except for perhaps Zoshchenko
Thanks, Liam. I might have to pick up The Dwarf at some point and give Lagerkvist another spin.
Oh, do! As much as I loved Barabbas, I loved The Dwarf more. And Liam, The Sibyl was quite something as well. I read a short story collection by Lagerkvist, The Marriage Feast, and was struck by how different those stories were from his novels. The novels are so heavy and dark and there was certainly a touch of that in a few of the stories but for the most part, they were of a much lighter tone.
Eric
As for the Lewycka, what I've read about does not really make me want to read it. Learna only gives it 2-plus out of five. What is it you don't like?
Kpjayan
Absolutely..
Lenz
**000Only 2 stars? I thought it was very good, well-written, amusing and true to the subject. Maybe I identified more than others because I and my sisters were going through the same problems with an old father, but if I were rating by stars, I'd give
3 1/2, at least. 2-plus which I gave to A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian do not mean that I did not like it at all. And, of course, Lenz, I agree with you that we react more to congenial topics( my genes woke up when I was reading about a war, that is why the ending, for me, deserves 3 stars or 3 with minus).
But on the other hand, Lewycka took on a trikish problem - to join tragedy with comedy. And although there is a balance between them and the tread of the story is built not bad I felt lack of general level. It is like the difference between wine in a cardboard container and in a bottle :). But that was my feeling when I was reading that book.
Clarissa
14-Jul-2010, 12:01
But on the other hand, Lewycka took on a trikish problem - to join tragedy with comedy. And although there is a balance between them and the tread of the story is built not bad I felt lack of general level. It is like the difference between wine in a cardboard container and in a bottle :). But that was my feeling when I was reading that book.
I agree. Well put (the difference in the wine containers!)
[QUOTE]I didn't realize he was the brother of Petrov of 'Ilf and Petrov'.
A wonderful family! If I am not mistaken, his sons are quite famous as well.
I had read their Twelve Chairs and loved it. They also had a story in this collection, How The Soviet Robinson Was Written which was fabulous in it's absurdity.
I read Twelve Chairs when I was at school but still remember some hilarious dialogues. Fairly recently I reread with pleasure How The Soviet Robinson Was Written. It is indeed "fabulous in it's absurdity" :).
No, that one wasn't in there. His stories were, About Cows, Inventory, which is among my favorites of this particular collection, Inefficiency, A Mistake and A Gift of God, which was another outstanding story.
I have just looked through some sites and found a lot of his stories but any of those that you had mentioned. But I will try to find them.
He had the most offerings except for perhaps Zoshchenko
Sif, is there a thread dedicated to Zoshchenko?
I agree. Well put (the difference in the wine containers!)
:) :) :)
It seems that I have a bad connection today.
Refus de Sejour
14-Jul-2010, 13:39
Yukio Mishima - Spring Snow. Trans. Michael Gallagher.***00, and a possible half.
Doomed love, the decay of the pre-WWI Japanese aristocracy into excessive elegance and refinement, and a fair dollop of Buddhist philosophy.
Mishima's books are insidious; they get under your skin, the restrained narrative progressing through increasingly haunting images to the hilarious climax.
Wait, did I say "hilarious"? I meant the exact opposite.
Spring Snow is the first of Mishima's final Sea of Fertility tetralogy (the name itself is a grim joke, referring as it does to an arid lunar desert). I'm going to cleanse my palate with a few unrelated books before tackling part two, Runaway Horses.
miercuri
15-Jul-2010, 03:43
The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst ****0(and a half, almost)
I found this very readable from the beginning, but as I made my way through it (in steady 100 page gulps) it really got under my skin. Hollinghurst seems big on style but he does it a very balanced way - masterful turn of phrase, yet disarmingly down-to-earth. The pacing is charmingly languorous, but has constant peaks in intensity and it just carries the reader along. It traces a fine line between mellowness and melancholy, I'm glad I read it in the summer. I also liked the fact that, for a panoramic novel, featuring a large number of prominent characters, it accounts for all of them in a manner that does them justice. And thanks to it, I am now more curious about Henry James.
I read names like Lydgate, Gower, Langland, which sounded really boring to read. But I wager Chaucer is way better than them!
Ah, see, I was going to recommend you Langland, LOL.
Yeah, Gower and Lydgate are a bit dry and boring, especially Gower who is also very moralistic. Chaucer is great because he is both moralistic and playful at the same time. Some of his tales, like The Knight's Tale, for instance, are very lofty and beautifully written, and some, like The Miller's Tale are bawdy and hilariously naughty.
Chaucer is as badwy as you get in medieval English literature, so I'm afraid if you're looking for something to beat that, you're out of luck, :(.
However, if you enjoy reading love poetry, be sure to check out Robert Henryson's The Testament of Cresseid (it a short narrative poem--25 or 30 pages in length), recently translated into modern English by Seamus Heaney.
On the other hand, if you're looking for something to beat Chaucer's nasty bits, take a look at the Old French fabliaux--you'll die laughing.
Cheers,
L
Sirena (#2593), Mulisch has always had to wrestle with the fact that he himself in real life is the son of a collaborator with the Nazis, and a Jew. So this may have coloured the narrative style of "The Assault". But I feel that there is maybe more subtlety in Simon Vestdijk's books on the effects of collaboration and resistance, i.e. "Pastoraal 1943" and "Bevrijdingsfeest". But as with so much other Vestdijk, these have hardly been translated into other languages, and certainly not into English.
No one has yet convinced me that I should rush out and buy the Lewycka.
As for wine containers, some of the best cheap Australian wines come in one-litre cartons with a plastic bag inside. When a friend first bought one for me, I turned my nose up at it. But since the wine inside was quite palatable, I've bought such wine since. The wines have silly names such as Aussie Flamingo Blush (ros?) and Aussie Great White (white). But Aussie wines are pretty good for the price.
Liam says he's a Catholic. Have you ever read anything by Simone Weil (the factory-worker mystic, not the politician of that name)? Or any other Christian mystics such as Hadewych, Catherine of Siena, Hildegard von Bingen, Ruusbroec, Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, and so on? Do you find that mysticism is a road to understanding Christianity, or are you more of the Thomas Aquinas school, with rationality leading to revelation? As for Chaucer, he is amusingly vulgar at times, as in "The Pardoner's Tale" and "The Wife of Bath's Tale" both of which we did at grammar school way back last century.
Ah, see, I was going to recommend you Langland, LOL.
Well, I only know he wrote (or he is said to have written) Piers Plowman, which sounded, to me, like The Pilgrim's Progress by Bunyan: so it can't be that bad! Did he write something else?
Yeah, Gower and Lydgate are a bit dry and boring, especially Gower who is also very moralistic. Chaucer is great because he is both moralistic and playful at the same time. Some of his tales, like The Knight's Tale, for instance, are very lofty and beautifully written, and some, like The Miller's Tale are bawdy and hilariously naughty.
Yes, The Knight's Tale is beautifully written, although sometimes it's too descriptive (a problem I found also with Sir Gawain).
However, if you enjoy reading love poetry, be sure to check out Robert Henryson's The Testament of Cresseid (it a short narrative poem--25 or 30 pages in length), recently translated into modern English by Seamus Heaney.
Sure, but first I should read Troilus and Criseyde by Chaucer, shouldn't I?
On the other hand, if you're looking for something to beat Chaucer's nasty bits, take a look at the Old French fabliaux--you'll die laughing.
Perfect! Some names...? Or titles anyway?
Thank you vey much Liam!:)
Johnw, if you would like to read some other Turgenev's work I would highly recommend Asya and my favourite Bezhin Meadow and Singers ( I cannot stop and will add First love and Spring Water (?, the original title is "Вешние воды").
I wonder why his works were often marked only ***00. I guess maybe some translations are not proper. Turgenev's style is very beautiful.
Thanks for the recommendations Learna, I'll definitely look into some of those soon!
His style is relatively plain (my translation was by Richard Hare - no idea how this compares to others) - if plain is the right word to use. The plot is simple and he's not at all wordy or involved in complex analysis of the characters (like maybe Dostoevsky). I liked this and felt it was down to earth and rang true. His characters are all interesting - for example Buzarov who I felt only antipathy towards at first but who had a certain amount of integrity, courage and some half-smothered human feeling so I felt far more sympathetic towards him in the end. And also Turgenev is even handed about the clash of ideals and shows up the inconsistencies and extremes of both. I was suprised by the ending - I had expected it to be tragic for some reason...
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/gb.gif Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ***00
Clarissa
15-Jul-2010, 17:08
Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan - Herzzeit (Briefwechsel)*****
Pity the poets...
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/gb.gif Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ***00
May I ask you why "just" three stars? I thought it would deserve at least four. I read the abridged version and I enjoyed it pretty much, although I know it's not the same thing.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/gb.gif Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ***00
Like Loki, I ask, "Why just three stars?" It's a thoroughly great novel and one of Dickens's least sentimental and least cluttered with unnecessary characters (but with a number of vividly memorable ones). As an attack on the English class system, it's one of the most powerful of the 19th c.. Even if you don't care for Dickens, you could give it 4 stars for the opening scene and for Miss Haversham!
Compare the David Lean film, otherwise wonderful, but with a happy ending.
Moll Flanders- Daniel Defoe ***00
I expected something more from this novel, having read Robinson Crusoe some years ago.
As for the negative aspects, I think the style was sometimes rather complex, which made it difficult to read. Then, the narrative was sometimes too episodic and complicate.
Yet, the best parts are those where Moll describes her state of mind, her anguish, and worries and, at the end, her repentance.
It remains a good novel, and I've enjoyed it quite much, although I think Defoe may do better! I would now read Roxana, but not now.
Thanks for the recommendations Learna, I'll definitely look into some of those soon!
His style is relatively plain (my translation was by Richard Hare - no idea how this compares to others) - if plain is the right word to use. The plot is simple and he's not at all wordy or involved in complex analysis of the characters (like maybe Dostoevsky). I liked this and felt it was down to earth and rang true. His characters are all interesting - for example Buzarov who I felt only antipathy towards at first but who had a certain amount of integrity, courage and some half-smothered human feeling so I felt far more sympathetic towards him in the end. And also Turgenev is even handed about the clash of ideals and shows up the inconsistencies and extremes of both. I was suprised by the ending - I had expected it to be tragic for some reason...
Johnw, I read Fathers and Sons in the original so unfortunately I can tell nothing about Richard Hare's translation.
His style is relatively plain - if plain is the right word to use. The plot is simple and he's not at all wordy or involved in complex analysis of the characters (like maybe Dostoevsky). I liked this and felt it was down to earth and rang true. Absolutely agree, his style looks plain, at first sight, but not one word is unnecessary or handpicked incorrectly; there is a stylist's gift behind such simplicity. It is like when we look at some professionals, for example, jugglers. All their hand manipulations seem lithesome but it is not all as easy as it sounds.
It is interesting that you compared Turgenev with Dostoevsky because they had been competitors in life and in literature. And they wrote diametrically as well. For example, In Fathers and Sons Turgenev brought up for discussion an eternal generation gap simply, pointing at it directly only in the title of the work allowing his readers to investigate it themselves. But Dostoevsky opened frankly such depth of nature which people are sometimes afraid to confess.
As for the works which I mentioned I would add a little.
Asya, First Love and Sping Water (?) are touching and sensuous short novels.
Bezhin Meadow and Singers - increadable description of nature, very smooth and beautiful.
I hope you will like them :).
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson *****
A re-read, still as exciting as ever, one of my favourite books.
As for the works which I mentioned I would add a little.
Asya, First Love and Sping Water (?) are touching and sensuous short novels.
Bezhin Meadow and Singers - increadable description of nature, very smooth and beautiful.
I hope you will like them :).
Thanks, I've put First Love on my to-read list for starters!
The Trickster of Seville and his Stone Guest--Tirso de Molina ***00+
Life is a Dream--Calderon de la Barca *****
Voices in the Night: The Prison Poems of Dietrich Bonhoeffer **000+
Bonhoeffer's poems were very inspirational and spiritual, and the commentary was amazingly insightful, but the poems were not of a very high quality, the man's life and his prose work seemed much more intriguing, so I got his book The Cost of Discipleship and I'm quite excited to see what he has to say about Christianity.
Here's a link to Bonhoeffer's Wiki page: Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonhoeffer)
A Treatise of Civil Power--Geoffrey Hill ****0
The most accessible of his works I've read, and quite short too.
May I ask you why "just" three stars? I thought it would deserve at least four. I read the abridged version and I enjoyed it pretty much, although I know it's not the same thing.
Like Loki, I ask, "Why just three stars?" It's a thoroughly great novel and one of Dickens's least sentimental and least cluttered with unnecessary characters (but with a number of vividly memorable ones). As an attack on the English class system, it's one of the most powerful of the 19th c.. Even if you don't care for Dickens, you could give it 4 stars for the opening scene and for Miss Haversham!
Compare the David Lean film, otherwise wonderful, but with a happy ending.
This is my fifth novel by Charles Dickens. So far I read Our Mutual Friend (one of my top 10 favourites), Bleak House (excellent), Martin Chuzzlewit (very good) and Oliver Twist (an average).
I have to admit that the idea of the plot is magnificent: an escaped convict who later proves to be a Pip’s benefactor, a mysterious Miss. Havisham, an older lady dressed in her wedding gown, living in the house in which everything reminds of her failed wedding (wedding cake still on the table and all the decorations around, all clocks in the house stopped at twenty minutes to nine, the exact moment when she had received the "farewell letter" from the bridegroom...) never to leave the house after the dreadful day when her “soon to be a husband”, left her abruptly.
However, I dislike almost all characters in the novel. Pip is an obnoxious wimp, Joe is plain stupid, Biddy is stiff and confined, Estella is an irritating little witch. Those who had a “potential” were Miss. Havisham, an old bat, until she got a “remorse attack” and become annoying and Bently Drummle, the Spider, as Dickens calls him, whose character, to my great sorrow, wasn’t elaborated at all.
The only one, who didn’t disappoint me, is Magwitch, a poor lad with almost no happiness in his miserable life, who endangers his own life to see that ungrateful prick Pip. :mad:
There’re some moments in the novel, which I find particularly annoying:
1. When Pip rejects Magwitch’s money. :confused:
2. When Orlick, out of hatred, tries to kill Pip.
3. Estella decides to marry Drummle just to make his life miserable. Stupid chick. I’m sorry Dickens didn’t find necessary to depicture their marriage. :( That would be a blast. :D
4. Estella’s change of character, when she at the very end of the novel becomes a goodie-goodie. (It seems that an act of remorse was very pretty popular in Dickens' works. :rolleyes:)
And this is just the main ones. :p
I don’t say that Great Expectations is a bad novel. Not in the least. It’s just that is sooooo average. In fact, it is, like Oliver Twist, a novel for children. I’m sure I’d have appreciated it more, if I had read it as a child. :)
Bonhoeffer's poems were very inspirational and spiritual, and the commentary was amazingly insightful, but the poems were not of a very high quality, the man's life and his prose work seemed much more intriguing, so I got his book The Cost of Discipleship and I'm quite excited to see what he has to say about Christianity.
Here's a link to Bonhoeffer's Wiki page: Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonhoeffer)
I have that one too...I inherited it when my Dad retired and cleaned out his library at work. I am surrounded by Lutheran pastors, my Dad, a cousin, a couple uncles, a brother, both Godfathers, seriously, surrounded (!) so Bonhoeffer is a name I've heard often but never took the time to read, much to my familiy's shame. :p I need to get on that.
Manuel76
17-Jul-2010, 15:53
Murder in the Cathedral- T.S. Eliot *****
A modern classic of poetic drama influenced by the greek revival in the 30’s. It’s difficult to know if it’s really a successful work (I don’t think it’s totally successful) but it’s definitely an important work and (because of Eliot turning his theatrical efforts after it in a different direction) one of a kind. The poetry is sometimes uninspired but always functional, most of the time is definitely sublime; the plot is senseless in a way but symbolic; the Chorus is sometimes directly stupid but other times recall the frightened commentaries of old greek chorus and carry out their function with dignity; Thomas is never a person but an allegory of Humanity placed in a crucial decision.
Very near the Eliot of Four Quartets (but Eliot’s sometimes discursive and swollen style is less adequate in his plays than in his poetry) , it’s a unique and important work. It remembers me the best Calderon de la Barca’s Autos Sacramentales (with a new, specially designed for the play, theatrical structure and deep catholic concerns).
It demands rereading (perhaps with a drastic change in my valoration of the play) and it’s almost impossible to imagine staged when read.
The Cocktail Party- T.S.Eliot *****
Eliot’s trying again to build a tradition of poetic modern theatre, this time starting from the comedy of manners Noel Coward’s style. But this comedy of manners becomes spattered with weird touches more and more annoying in the first act, changes radically in the second act into a mythological trial or medical visit (it reminded me a scene from Cocteau’s Orph?e) and ends with an ironic, detached and cynical third act. Four character’s love relationships are mysteriously directed by a triad of Guardians. They will have to find their destiny (or are they pushed into it?). It certainly seems more deep that it finally is. Eliot tries as always to hard to seem he’s talking about important things, but he not always does. And Eliot expresses himself much better in his poetry, but anyway a sublime play. As with Murder in the Cathedral there’re no characters but allegories or personifications of a destiny, but here remaining a naturalistic (and vaguely poetic) dialogue.
Sirena:
Pip is an obnoxious wimp,
True of most of Dickens' young "heroes" - I agree that the characters can be annoying, but in its form and detail, one of Dickens' best, which is saying something.
Tash Aw, Map Of The Invisible World (Malaysia) ***00
Stiffelio
18-Jul-2010, 07:38
Jos? Saramago: Memorial do Convento (Baltasar and Blimunda) ****0
Elective Affinities- Goethe ***00
I've just finished it, and I can't say I haven't liked it; still, the central part (not park!) was a little boring and probably it was not well linked with the rest of the plot. But the first part and the last one were amazing: I would have given the book at least four stars if it wasn't for the part in the middle.
I've found a lot of similarities with The Sorrows of Young Werther: the name Charlotte, the importance of nature, the diary (which I've hated here)... On the whole I would say I've liked it better than Werther.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/gb.gif Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell *****
Mirabell
18-Jul-2010, 19:23
Gyo, Junji Ito
Uzumaki, Junji Ito
kpjayan
19-Jul-2010, 06:37
Gyo, Junji Ito
Uzumaki, Junji Ito
.....Recommend or not ?
Mirabell
19-Jul-2010, 12:41
.....Recommend or not ?
weird. I was on a trip, nursing a hangover in a manga-lover's appt, and weirldy picked those to read and now I'm gone, I'm more puzzled than anything else. Gyo is certainly not as good as the other one. Or is it? I'll get back to you on that.
kpjayan
19-Jul-2010, 14:12
Thanks; Seen his name floating around this part of the world and was tempted to check out one..
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/pt.gif Blindness - Jos? Saramago *****
Clarissa
19-Jul-2010, 16:43
The High Road - Edna O'Brien***00
The Castle of Otranto- Horace Walpole ***00
Finally I've been able to read this gothic story, the first one as they say. It is considered relevant for the history of English literature, and for the gothic genre in particular, but it is not highly considered by most critics.
I've found it a good reading, enjoyable, with a lot of action (external and internal I would say) and without boring and useless description (Poe must have been proud of Walpole for this!).
Now I'll start Hogg's gothic novel; I'll probably like it better, but let's wait. :)
Mirabell
19-Jul-2010, 19:24
Thanks; Seen his name floating around this part of the world and was tempted to check out one..
it's really strange and not a little disturbing and very, very visceral. I mean, that man does not go in for subtlety.
mesnalty
19-Jul-2010, 22:41
Well, I spoke too soon when I said Chris Adrian's The Children's Hospital would be a 5-star book. It ended up being a 4-star book, because the second half didn't generally live up to the first half, and Adrian's humour sometimes undermines the serious aspects of the novel.
Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson ****0
Great adventure story and depiction of the Scottish highlands.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/rs.gif Grobnica za Borisa Davidoviča (A Tomb for Boris Davidovich) - Danilo Ki? ***00
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/de.gif Demian - Hermann Hesse ***00
Daniel del Real
21-Jul-2010, 03:20
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/pt.gif Jos? Saramago, O Caderno (The Notebook) ****0
It's always edifying to read Saramago's thoughts about the current events happening in the world. His inquisitive and wise voice sounds strong as a shout always claiming for justice. It's a fact that I'm already missing him.
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner- James Hogg *****
A great novel. It's generally said to be a gothic novel, but it's not just that: it's a study of the human mind. What I really liked about the Confessions was the "double narrative" and the mistery around "Gil-Martin". While I was reading it I found this novel similar to Poe's William Wilson: I think Poe approaches the theme of the doppelg?nger in a very similar way to Hogg's. Although there's an explanation for the name William Wilson in Poe's short story, he may have taken the name from the protagonist's teacher. I haven't checked thoroughly but I haven't found any confirmation of my little theory.
Still, an original and great novel. Ah, only one small defect: the Scottish dialogue! Was it really necessary?! Fortunately I had a glossary at the end of my book, but it was annoying.
Wells Tower - Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
David Sedaris - Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Rose Tremain - The Colonel's Daughter
Unhappy families all round, each in their own way.
Wells Tower, in his short stories, goes deeply into (mostly male) anger, stupidity and violence in America, then lightens the load (sort of) with a tale of Vikings talking like the modern men in the previous stories and behaving pretty much the same way. Solid, functional style contains these nervous lives.
Reading David Sedaris at the same time, in this strangely dark collection of ghastly family expos?s and self-punishing humour, made me get his scenes of comic horror mixed up with Tower's scenes of ordinary brutality.
Rose Tremain's collection of stories from the 1980s is admirable if a bit depressing, almost humourless - the first work of hers I've read, must catch up with the rest.
The Black Arrow - Robert Louis Stevenson ***00
A bit disappointing really. A decent (sort of)historical romance but not a patch on Treasure Island, Kidnapped or Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. To be fair this isn't aimed at adults, but the characters are very two-dimensional and the plot devices obvious. Still, it had a good pace to it was quite readable.
Stiffelio
23-Jul-2010, 05:08
Harry Mulisch: The Assault (De Aanslag) ****0
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/ru.gif Leo Tolstoy's
Short stories:
The Snowstorm ***00
Albert ***00
Three Deaths ****0
Father Sergius *****
Master and Man ****0
After the Ball ****0
Novella:
The Kreutzer Sonata *****
[http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/fr.gif/http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/dz.gif] The Stranger by Albert Camus: *****
And I usually can't stomach the Existentialists, :)...
L.
Mirabell
24-Jul-2010, 00:21
Angels & Demons, Dan Brown
Acacia, David Anthony Durham
Refus de Sejour
24-Jul-2010, 03:43
Angels & Demons, Dan Brown
Ouch. How are you bearing up? I suggest warm compresses and a dark, quiet room until the nausea passes.
kpjayan
24-Jul-2010, 12:36
Grown up Digital - Don Tapscott : Non Fiction
Confessions of a Thug - Philip Meadows Taylor (1839) : ***00 +
Daniel del Real
24-Jul-2010, 18:56
Ouch. How are you bearing up? I suggest warm compresses and a dark, quiet room until the nausea passes.
Don't be surprised. Despite reading really good books most of the times Marcel can appear with crappy books like that time to time. He was looking to read Twilight, don't know if he ever made it.
Daniel del Real
24-Jul-2010, 18:58
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/cl.gif Roberto Bola?o, Amberes (Antwerp) ***00
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/de.gif Hertha M?ller, Niederungen ***00
Despite reading really good books most of the times Marcel can appear with crappy books like that time to time.Yeah, and then he goes and writes great reviews about them, the bastard!!! :D:D:D
He was looking to read Twilight, don't know if he ever made it.Um, I think he... cracked under pressure, :p. It was the first volume that must have finished him off.
L.
waxwing
24-Jul-2010, 21:02
Amulet Roberto Bolano ***00
Consequences Penelope Lively ***00
We Have Always Lived in the Castle Shirley Jackson ****0
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/ru.gif Hadji Murat - Leo Tolstoy ****0
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/us.gif The Plot Against America - Philip Roth ***00
Daniel del Real
27-Jul-2010, 04:07
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/es.gif Juan Goytisolo, Se?as de Identidad (Marks of Identity) ****0
I really enjoyed the manner Goytisolo captures reality in Spain under Franquismo. His prose is beautifully written and it's an enormous contrast with the atrocities he is telling us. A difficult writer but it's all worth it when you find the streaming line of the narration.
Stiffelio
28-Jul-2010, 05:01
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-Five *****
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/us.gif SPQR I: The King's Gambit - John Maddox Roberts ***00
Stiffelio
30-Jul-2010, 07:25
Isma?l Kadar?: Tres Cantos F?nebres por Kosovo (Elegy for Kosovo) ***00
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/it.gif The Woman of Rome - Alberto Moravia *****
Daniel del Real
30-Jul-2010, 18:42
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-Five *****
It's been a while I've been looking to read Vonnegut but never been able to. I'll try to check out this one but if you can go further and talk why you like this book that much, it would be great.
Daniel del Real
30-Jul-2010, 18:54
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/nl.gif W.F. Hermans, Beyond Sleep ****0
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/fr.gif Raymond Queneau, Le Journal intime de Sally Mara **000
Stiffelio
31-Jul-2010, 05:34
It's been a while I've been looking to read Vonnegut but never been able to. I'll try to check out this one but if you can go further and talk why you like this book that much, it would be great.
I did make a brief comment here:
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/americas-literature/34310-kurt-vonnegut-slaughterhouse-five.html
Patrick Murtha
31-Jul-2010, 08:42
Here are most of the books I've completed within the past few months:
Fiction:
Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
George Orwell, Burmese Days
Rex Stout, Some Buried Caesar
James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
George Gissing, The Whirlpool
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
John O'Hara, The Farmers Hotel
Ellery Queen, Calamity Town
Sloan Wilson, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
Non-Fiction:
Marion L. Starkey, The Cherokee Nation
Dave Cullen, Columbine
Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking
Robert L. May, The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire
Richard Rayner, A Bright and Guilty Place
Andrew Smith, Moondust: In Search of the Men who Fell to Earth
John Hickman, News from the End of the Earth: A Portrait of Chile
Nick Reding, Methland
Kate Summerscale, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
Arika Okrent, In the Land of Invented Languages
No bad books in the bunch!
James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
What do you think of it? I read it some time ago, and I would like to know your opinion.
kpjayan
31-Jul-2010, 12:13
What do you think of it? I read it some time ago, and I would like to know your opinion.
..and if you both are positive, I will take it up soon..
Patrick Murtha
31-Jul-2010, 12:27
What do you think of it? I read it some time ago, and I would like to know your opinion.
I loved it. I thought it was an astounding book for its era (or any era), and one of the most interesting treatments of the Doppelganger theme that I have ever read.
Mirabell
31-Jul-2010, 12:56
I loved it. I thought it was an astounding book for its era (or any era), and one of the most interesting treatments of the Doppelganger theme that I have ever read.
we have a thread on it: http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/european-literature/12451-james-hogg-private-memoirs-confessions-justified-sinner.html
could I convince you to chime in there?
I loved it. I thought it was an astounding book for its era (or any era), and one of the most interesting treatments of the Doppelganger theme that I have ever read.
I totally agree. I've found that many that have read Hogg's Confessions have liked it.
Oh, and thanks for signalling the thread Mirabell.
Clarissa
02-Aug-2010, 10:59
The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa (transl. Margaret Jull Costa)****0
Not to be read in one go. Beautifully written, some outstanding passages but a bit repetitive.
The Gravedigger's Daughter - Joyce Carol Oates ***00+
A good read, something I am used to from Joyce Carol Oates, but it could have used better editing. The story holds water but her overuse of adjectives and adverbs gets a bit tiring. A number of repetitions, one or two sentences with words missing leaving the sentences meaningless.And hefty cuts wouldn't have been amiss either.
Stiffelio
03-Aug-2010, 05:08
The Gravedigger's Daughter - Joyce Carol Oates ***00+
A good read, something I am used to from Joyce Carol Oates, but it could have used better editing. The story holds water but her overuse of adjectives and adverbs gets a bit tiring. A number of repetitions, one or two sentences with words missing leaving the sentences meaningless.And hefty cuts wouldn't have been amiss either.
You are right: she needs severe editing in general. Problem is, she so prolific her editors probably don't have enough time to work on her before she turns in another chunk of fiction. She gets away with it because she sells.
kpjayan
03-Aug-2010, 11:56
The Body Artist - Don DeLillo : ***00 . Good concept, but not really making an impact.
The Consequences of Love - Sulaiman Addonia : ***00
Typical adolescent love story, but set in Saudi Arabia.Religious, social and authoritarian restrictions of men and women meeting and the couples attempt to risk everything for the sake of love. Some very beautiful passages, in an otherwise ordinary work of fiction by this Eritrian author.
The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa (transl. Margaret Jull Costa)****0
Not to be read in one go. Beautifully written, some outstanding passages but a bit repetitive.
I'm out in Pennsylvania working at a summer camp right now and one of the eight or nine books I brought along was A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems of Fernando Pessoa. I'll have finished the whole thing by the time I'm done. I read him every day, he's just such a superb poet, and Robert Zenith is a gifted translator. Hart Crane, Pessoa, and John Wheelwright are my candidates for most undeservedly neglected poets of the past century.
waxwing
05-Aug-2010, 23:27
Faithful Place by Tana French ****0
Ms. French has rapidly become my favorite contemporary mystery novelist.
Stoner by John Williams *****
The life of an ordinary man rendered extraordinary in the telling. Crystal clear prose.
Stiffelio
06-Aug-2010, 06:10
Kenzaburo O?:
Prize Stock (also known as The Catch) ****0+
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids ****0+
Two powerful early novels ('57 and '58). Prize Stock is actually a long story or a short novella; it won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize. Early on in his career O? already shows his amazing narrative skills. In both novels the protagonists are children in dramatic situations. The stories are told in obsessive detail and brutal realism, doused with symbolism and alusions to a mythical place/time in war-torn Japan and its effect on a secluded island community. O? is one of literature's living geniuses and everything he writes is worthy of being read.
Mirabell
06-Aug-2010, 13:04
Red Snake, Hideshi Hino (trans. R. Riebirsch)
I Kill Giants, Joe Kelly
Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness, Bryan Lee O'Malley
The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
Daniel del Real
08-Aug-2010, 19:59
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/hu.gif Sandor Marai, Embers *****+
Superb, absolutely astonishing. Great paused and evocative prose describing the intrincates ways of tormentous past times. One of the best books I've read this year so far.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/lb.gif Rabih Alameddine, I the Divine ****0
It started amibigous but in the middle it started to consolidate as a compact fiction describing the duality of Sarah between his Lebanese family and his life, mother and son, lived in the US. It shows in how many ways aun author can start writing a first chapter.
Cat and Mouse by G?nter Gras.
*****+
kpjayan
09-Aug-2010, 11:10
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/hu.gif Sandor Marai, Embers *****+
Superb, absolutely astonishing. Great paused and evocative prose describing the intrincates ways of tormentous past times. One of the best books I've read this year so far.
Precisely. I am yet to see someone who did not like this book.
Galatea92
09-Aug-2010, 12:51
Precisely. I am yet to see someone who did not like this book.
There's me. I hated it.
kpjayan
09-Aug-2010, 17:18
There's me. I hated it.
Nice to meet you Sir :). Will this be *0000 ---- on your rating ?
But seriously,what put you off so much ?
I didn't hate it but thought it silly and not the lost masterpiece it was touted as. The idea of the old ex-friend sitting still for an all-night lecture from a crazy old guy obsessed with the past seemed too absurd even to be ironic. The old house in the old forest with the old witch-like housekeeper was too much like folk tale to frighten children to be a setting for what was a fairly interesting story of private lives in an interesting historical period.
Cat and Mouse by G?nter Gras.
*****+
Oh, I'm so glad you liked it! Is Dog Years next...eventually?
Galatea92
10-Aug-2010, 08:57
Nice to meet you Sir :). Will this be *0000 ---- on your rating ?
But seriously,what put you off so much ?
My pleasure :). There were two things I hated about it:
1. The romantic tosh about the inseparable friends, which just seems to be there to make the betrayal more bitter. I just didn't believe in it. And Krisztina is just a cipher;
2. The ridiculous monologue that makes up most of the book. Lord Jim is bad enough, the way it strains credulity by making the plot hinge so much on a long conversation between Jim and the narrator; but Embers is even worse. More than half the novel is taken up with the General's monologue. I really don't understand why anyone would consider such an unbalanced structure in any way artistic. Virginia Woolf can make nothing happening immensely fascinating, but S?ndor Marai can't.
Back from vacation:
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/se.gif Vems islam? - Fazlhashemi, Mohammad ***00
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/de.gif The Reader - Schlink, Bernhard ***00
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/cz.gif The Unbearable Lightness Of Being - Kundera, Milan *****
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/se.gif Udda verklighet - Ormes, Nene ***00
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/gb.gif Marvel 1602 - Gaiman, Neil ****0
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/se.gif Iliaden: En cover - Iordanoglou, Dimitrios *0000
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/se.gif De fattiga i Lodz - Sem-Sandberg, Steve ****0
Also plowed through Faulkner's Benjamin Button (****0) and watched a really odd but excellent performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Good week.
Also plowed through Faulkner's Benjamin Button (****0)
I think you mean Fitzgerald's. It's a tale for today, don't you think so? The strange desire for eternal youth and the denial of death as a natural consequence of life drives so much of Western ideas of health.
I think you mean Fitzgerald's. It's a tale for today, don't you think so? The strange desire for eternal youth and the denial of death as a natural consequence of life drives so much of Western ideas of health.
Fitzgerald. D'oh. Of course. And excellent point.
Mirabell
10-Aug-2010, 16:24
Cat and Mouse by G?nter Gras.
*****+
ha! I knew you'd love it!
Daniel del Real
10-Aug-2010, 22:56
My pleasure :). There were two things I hated about it:
1. The romantic tosh about the inseparable friends, which just seems to be there to make the betrayal more bitter. I just didn't believe in it. And Krisztina is just a cipher;
2. The ridiculous monologue that makes up most of the book. Lord Jim is bad enough, the way it strains credulity by making the plot hinge so much on a long conversation between Jim and the narrator; but Embers is even worse. More than half the novel is taken up with the General's monologue. I really don't understand why anyone would consider such an unbalanced structure in any way artistic. Virginia Woolf can make nothing happening immensely fascinating, but S?ndor Marai can't.
This a really terrible approach lenz and you have towards this excellent novel. What makes it magnifique is two things: First the prose that as I quoted before it's just so smooth, flows with no difficulty at all, truly evocative of old times. And then the way ideas are depicted as clear as profound as the ones regarding memory, friendship and the way time pass by. How he keeps on remembering everything and keeping faith to have the final talk before he dies is just representative of how apparently insignificant is the will of an old man, who needed only to let himself talk and not listen to any answers. There resides the importance of the monologue and why it should be this way.
Victory - Joseph Conrad ****0
To Have and Have Not - Ernest Hemingway ***00
Sif: Oh, I'm so glad you liked it! Is Dog Years next...eventually?
Mirabell: ha! I knew you'd love it! Moreover, I was impressed :) - especially by the end - so I am looking forward to reading Dog Years.
Galatea92
11-Aug-2010, 13:22
This a really terrible approach lenz and you have towards this excellent novel. What makes it magnifique is two things: First the prose that as I quoted before it's just so smooth, flows with no difficulty at all, truly evocative of old times. And then the way ideas are depicted as clear as profound as the ones regarding memory, friendship and the way time pass by. How he keeps on remembering everything and keeping faith to have the final talk before he dies is just representative of how apparently insignificant is the will of an old man, who needed only to let himself talk and not listen to any answers. There resides the importance of the monologue and why it should be this way.
It's not an approach, it's just how we responded to the book. I don't expect anything in particular when I start a book - I'm willing to go wherever the author leads me, as long as he keeps it interesting. But I ended Embers thinking, 'I wish I hadn't bothered'.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/pe.gif The Bad Girl - Mario Vargas Llosa *****
Daniel del Real
11-Aug-2010, 23:26
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/pe.gif The Bad Girl - Mario Vargas Llosa *****
Come on, it's his worst novel!
kpjayan
12-Aug-2010, 06:26
Come on, it's his worst novel!
Absolutely..
Come on, it's his worst novel!
So far, I read The Way to Paradise (not thrilled) and The Feast of the Goat (very good).
This is obviously a case of individual differences in taste, because, as far as I can recall, you gave The Way to Paradise *****++.
Anyway, I The Bad Girl or Travesuras de la ni?a mala (I have to admit I like the original title more) is a wonderful story about a "sick relationship". I absolutely loved it and recommended it to everyone. :)
Btw, yesterday I borrowed Notebooks of Don Rigoberto.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/fr.gif Une Page d'amour - ?mile Zola ****0
waxwing
13-Aug-2010, 22:56
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon ****0
Most entertaining- sex, drugs, land development and rock-n-roll, and an ace gumshoe, er, gum-sandal (under the paving stones, the beach!) Doc Sportello. My favorite goofy name - Leonard Jermain Loosemeat aka El Drano. And for those fans of silly song lyrics, and I know they're legion, the first verse of one of the few known attempts at black surf music "Soul Gidget" by Meatball Flag----
Who's that strollin down the street,
Hi-heel flip-flops on her feet,
Always got a great big smile,
Never gets popped by Juv-o-nile--
Who is it? [Minor-seventh guitar fill]
Soul Gidget!
-
Finally I've finished Richardson's Clarissa.
I'll probably write some words of comment by and by.
kpjayan
15-Aug-2010, 15:31
Purge - Sofi Oksanan : ****0+. Very very good.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/it.gif The Conjugal Love - Alberto Moravia ****0
Daniel del Real
15-Aug-2010, 18:24
A bad week for endings in my readings.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/es.gif Miguel Delibes, The Rats (Las Ratas) ****0
A typical novel from Delibes where he describes with mastery the landscapes of the rural Castilla and the impoverished lifes of the countrymen during Franco's dictatorship. However the ending is very predictable and it ruins what it could be an almost perfect novel.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/ar.gif Rodrigo Fres?n, El Fondo del Cielo (The Bottom of the Sky) ***00
I can't understand how a novel that starts so good, dealing with very interesting ideas about science fiction, metaphysics and with a very entertaining prose can go that bad towards the ending. It feels like if somebody would've stolen the last fifty pages; it seems incomplete, choped, headless at the end. I want to think he is a very skilfull writer, simply not his best work.
Mirabell
16-Aug-2010, 01:50
Mouse Guard: Fall 1152, David Petersen
utterly charming and fascinating.
Alessandro Baricco, This story (Italy) ****0
Chee Soon Juan, Iron butterfly: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's dirty history (Singapore) ***00
Mirabell
16-Aug-2010, 23:34
Runaways: Pride & Joy, Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona
Vaughan continues to disappoint.
waxwing
16-Aug-2010, 23:55
The Three Fates by Linda Le **000
Witz by Joshua Cohen **000
Daniel del Real
17-Aug-2010, 21:59
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/es.gif Camilo Jos? Cela, Pabell?n de Reposo ***00
Mirabell
17-Aug-2010, 23:07
Whatever happened to the Caped Crusader?, Neil Gaiman, Adam Kubert et al.
Fray, Joss Whedon, Karl Moline et al.
Manuel76
18-Aug-2010, 21:44
The Wild Swans at Coole- William Butler Yeats ***00+
Unsatisfying poetry book by Yeats. Only a couple of poems really worth reading. Yeats is supposed to have written his best verses in his last years. Perhaps at 60 he wasn?t yet at his peak, but this volume is not great improvement over his previous Wandering of Oisin and other poems (the other volume I?ve read).
I wouldn?t think it is a mature work for any poet if it weren?t because Yeats keeps all the time repeating that he?s old. Some times extravagant, grotesque, poorly structured, the most enjoyable poem in the collection for me: An Irish Airman foresees his death.
The last part of the book is somewhat more focused but deals with a contrived and unnecessarily complex system which classifies personalities according with the phases of the moon. But at least Yeats almost forgot about elves, fairies and Irish heroes. That?s something.
Clarissa
18-Aug-2010, 21:49
Jeder stirbt f?r sich allein - Hans Fallada***+
Youth - Joseph Conrad ***** Evocative and bitter-sweet tale by an older narrator in part seeing through, in part still enchanted by, the memory of his idealistic youth.
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ***** Dark, hellish story of greed and madness. Incredible descriptions combined with ambiguous but seemingly profound meanings and insights into imperialism, 'civilisation' and the human mind/soul.
Both re-reads. Found them to be even better this time around.
Clarissa
19-Aug-2010, 15:22
Somewhere towards the end - Diana Athill***+
Somewhere towards the end - Diana Athill***+
I liked this very much - unsentimental but moving and thought provoking.
Aldous Huxley - Eyeless In Gaza
I thought this was absolutely amazing, probably my best read so far this year. Anyone else read it?
Mirabell
20-Aug-2010, 00:47
What Becomes, A. L. Kennedy
A Small Killing, Alan Moore and Oscar Zarate
both marvelous.
La B?te Humaine- Emile Zola ****0
A great novel, full of tension, love and beasts (though human).
Daniel del Real
20-Aug-2010, 23:56
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/at.gif Joseph Roth, Confession of a Murderer ****0+
What a great narrator Roth is! Elegant in his prose but at the same time simple and clear;sticking to the narrative line altogether with characters very well defined and rich.
Latest findigs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire have me fascinated :)(Marai and Roth)
As Putin bacame President of the USA: New Russian fairy tales by Dmitry Bykov.
Talented written political satire which based on fairy tales, classics, favourite films, etc. Hilarious but sometimes too sharp (at least, for me).
Bret Easton Ellis, Imperial Bedrooms (USA) ***00
Sequel to his debut Less Than Zero, which I'm not sure needed a sequel. Feels like a minor work.
Peeping Tom
23-Aug-2010, 03:13
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zaf?n. ***00+
I enjoyed this book, but it is not the literary masterpiece that some claim it to be.
Clarissa
23-Aug-2010, 07:22
That was exactly my reaction after reading Zafon's [I]The Book Thief[I]. This is why I have hesitated in buying The Shadow of the Wind. However, even if it is not a masterpiece, you seem to have enjoyed it. And one can't only read masterpieces!
miercuri
23-Aug-2010, 08:50
That was exactly my reaction after reading Zafon's The Book Thief. This is why I have hesitated in buying The Shadow of the Wind. However, even if it is not a masterpiece, you seem to have enjoyed it. And one can't only read masterpieces!
Are you refering to Markus Zusak's The Book Thief? :)
Clarissa
23-Aug-2010, 09:01
Yes! My mistake. :(
I have in fact also read The Shadow of the Wind. Guess I got them muddled up... Sorry about that!
kpjayan
23-Aug-2010, 16:16
Yalo by Elias Khoury : Wonderfully crafted book by this Lebanese writer. Revolving around a rape and robbery interrogation, he waves the story around Lebanon's troubled past and the historical and social turmoil of the accused and his family. ****0+
Clarissa
24-Aug-2010, 16:41
Netherland - Joseph O'Neill ***00
Blindness - Jos? Saramgo (transl. Giovanni Pontiero) *****+ (if that's possible. Outstanding. A masterpiece - and I measure my words.)
Daniel del Real
24-Aug-2010, 23:55
Blindness - Jos? Saramgo (transl. Giovanni Pontiero) *****+ (if that's possible. Outstanding. A masterpiece - and I measure my words.)
Yes, a true masterpiece. One of my all time favorite books.
kpjayan
28-Aug-2010, 04:13
Rice Without Rain - Minfong Ho : Based on the student uprising in Thailand and the farmers revolt against rent-collection. Very ordinary writing, unimpressive.*0000
Scott89119
28-Aug-2010, 07:09
The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk. An absolute masterpiece. *****
pesahson
28-Aug-2010, 08:13
The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk. An absolute masterpiece. *****
I've got it sitting on my bookshelf unread. Maybe I should get to reading it quicker.
Clarissa
28-Aug-2010, 08:36
Les c?libataires - Henry de Montherlant ****+
An amusing, sarcastic tale of the decadence of minor aristocrats after World War I. Superbly written. I had forgotten how beautiful the French language can be. An example of perfect style.Rarely found in today's publications.
Clarissa
28-Aug-2010, 17:27
A Week in December - Sebastian Faulks**+
Not a lasting chef d'oeuvre but a pleasant read.
Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte. ****0
Finished it yesternight, at one o' clock, a good hour to finish a novel that's said to be a gothic novel. Still, I don't think that's a 100% proper: there are some gothic elements (dreams, apparitions...) but it's not a gothic novel I reckon.
It would have been a ***** novel, if it hadn't been that the author decided to write a lot about Catherine (young Catherine) and Linton. Still, I liked the whole young Cathy-Hareton thing, although not so much as the (old) Cathy-Heathcliff relationship.
I also liked the structure of the novel, with its story within the story and the multiple narrators, which was sort of new at the time (1847). I read a comment once (on Amazon maybe) of a reader who complained about the structure, because he couldn't understand who was talking every time: with a little attention there are no problems about this.
What I didn't like (but this doesn't change my appretiation of the novel) was Joseph, the servant, or better, I dind't like his Yorkshire dialect: I mean, was it really necessary? I don't think it's easy to understand every single word. Anyway, his speeches are relatively short and non-relevant.
Karin Boye, Kallocain (Sweden) ****0
P?r Th?rn, Tidsstudiemannen (Sweden) ***00
Daniel del Real
30-Aug-2010, 22:37
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/co.gif Mario Mendonza, Los Hombres Invisibles (The Invisible Men) ****0
Talking about untranslated authors and novels, here is one that should be translated so the whole world can appreciate how good writer Mendoza is. This novel takes pieces of many novels like Jorge Amado in Gabriela Clove and Cinnamon, Jos? Eustacio Rivera in La Vor?gine and Vargas Llosa's El Paraiso en la Otra Esquina and blends it together to create one unique and original piece of fiction. For you people who can read Spanish please grab this novel which is also a ver rapid and entertaining read.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/misc/progress.gif
Mirabell
31-Aug-2010, 14:34
The Shadow Rising, Robert Jordan
The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan, C. Sarah Soh
Stiffelio
02-Sep-2010, 05:04
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/flags/co.gif Mario Mendonza, Los Hombres Invisibles (The Invisible Men) ****0
Talking about untranslated authors and novels, here is one that should be translated so the whole world can appreciate how good writer Mendoza is. This novel takes pieces of many novels like Jorge Amado in Gabriela Clove and Cinnamon, Jos? Eustacio Rivera in La Vor?gine and Vargas Llosa's El Paraiso en la Otra Esquina and blends it together to create one unique and original piece of fiction. For you people who can read Spanish please grab this novel which is also a ver rapid and entertaining read.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/misc/progress.gif
Sounds interesting. By the way his surname is spelled Mendoza.
Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad ****0
Hard going at times but undoubtedly worth it.
Peeping Tom
07-Sep-2010, 06:03
Monsieur Pain by Roberto Bola?o, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews. Not one of Bolano?s best. ***00
Dog Years by G?nter Grass.
I liked Grass's structure - the idea - to use history and politics on the background, like a hint.
****0
Adam Bede- George Eliot ***00+
P.G. Wodehouse: Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit.
This is the only one of the large series of Wooster & Jeeves novels I have ever read. It is a fairly lightweight comedy of errors with what I imagine to be a regular cast, in part. Amusing but not deep. Good to relax with.
What is, however, facinating from a language point of view is that Wodehouse larded this book with a kind of arch brand of English and the occasional reference to literature, that, I presume, is an imitation of that spoken by rich English people in maybe the 1920s. The slang was probably already dated when Wodehouse was writing the books. But there are still left over quite a few expressions that can be used today. The use of language is therefore very prominent and it makes you wonder how much of the humour is lost when the book is translated.
I also found out from the internet that the accusations of collaboration with the Nazis that hung over Wodehouse for the latter part of his life are mostly rubbish, blown up and exaggerated by the newspapers as, for instance, MI5 exonerated him. Wodehouse uncautiously made several radio broadcasts after just being released from captivity in Nazi Germany, but unlike those by traitor William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw") these were not anti-British propaganda.
Mirabell
07-Sep-2010, 21:49
February, Lisa Moore
waxwing
08-Sep-2010, 00:35
The Tanners by Robert Walser ****0
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen ****0
Cesar Vallejo: Selected Poetry ****0+ I really just wanted more
The Book of Evidence--John Banville ****0
Point Omega--Don DeLillo ****0+ The first of his novels I've really, really enjoyed, had me thinking and thinking still, very much like The Body Artist but vaster, deeper, better. Am waiting impatiently for Falling Man before embarking on DeLillo's early period, maybe starting with Great Jones Street.
Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitgerald ****0
Refus de Sejour
12-Sep-2010, 01:58
Wolves of the Crescent Moon - Yousef Al-Mohaimeed
Trans. Anthony Calderbank
****0
Mia Couto, The Mermaid's Other Foot (Mocambique) ****0
Peculiar, playful novel. Not quite the revelation that Sleepwalking Land was, but very good.
Falling Man--Don DeLillo ****0
Cinema Eden--Juan Goytisolo ****0
Svetlana Aleksievich, Voices From Chernobyl (Belarus) *****
Northanger Abbey- Jane Austen ****0
It's a pity that this novel is Austen's less known novel (at least according to what I know): I've really enjoyed it, from beginning to end. In particular the part in which Catherine stays at Northanger, in which Austen parodies the gothic novel. The latter is mentioned throughout the text, especially Radcliffe's The Misteries of Udolpho.
It's been very interesting those references to the shame Catherine felt because she read novels, and to Catherine's been the heroine of the novel.
Compared to Pride and Prejudice and to Emma, I've felt much more the presence of the narrator.
mesnalty
17-Sep-2010, 19:09
Northanger Abbey- Jane Austen ****0
It's a pity that this novel is Austen's less known novel (at least according to what I know): I've really enjoyed it, from beginning to end. In particular the part in which Catherine stays at Northanger, in which Austen parodies the gothic novel. The latter is mentioned throughout the text, especially Radcliffe's The Misteries of Udolpho.
It's been very interesting those references to the shame Catherine felt because she read novels, and to Catherine's been the heroine of the novel.
Compared to Pride and Prejudice and to Emma, I've felt much more the presence of the narrator.
Northanger Abbey is my favourite Austen novel, perhaps because it's the least typically Austen-like.
Heartstone - C J Sansom ****0
Great historical thriller, brilliantly researched and full of details of the experiences of ordinary people of the time which all makes it spring to life. Very hard to put down.
"The childrens book" by A.S. Byatt
Great book! Im so glad to get to know Byatt; she is a great storyteller with intelligence and depth.
****04,5
Great book! Im so glad to get to know Byatt; she is a great storyteller with intelligence and depth.
When I saw her speak, almost a year ago now, I was blown away, the woman is sharp, eloquent, and (I think most importantly) she's a zealot of literature, she berated everyone in the audience for not having read Browning's "The Ring and the Book".
When I saw her speak, almost a year ago now, I was blown away, the woman is sharp, eloquent, and (I think most importantly) she's a zealot of literature, she berated everyone in the audience for not having read Browning's "The Ring and the Book".
She is coming to Denmark this November and Im so looking forward to seeing/hearing her! I do not understand why nobody here, except from Liam, enjoys her books, do you have any idea why? (See the Byatt thread I started).
Clarissa
18-Sep-2010, 16:45
Her Booker Prize winner Possession is a magnificent book. She is such an intelligent writer!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/20/as-byatt-intellectual-women-strange
talinpink
18-Sep-2010, 23:25
I finished Northern Lights
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Her Booker Prize winner Possession is a magnificent book. She is such an intelligent writer!
AS Byatt says women who write intellectual books seen as unnatural | Books | The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/20/as-byatt-intellectual-women-strange)
Liam has also mentioned this book in the thread I made about Byatt. Reckon it will be my next Byatt book! :)
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