Recently finished books?
- Thread starter Mirabell
- Start date
I'll look into adding the flags to an extended smilies box.
abecedarian
Reader
OK, so here is what I read in June:
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[/SIZE]Donald Barthelme - Flying to America
Thomas Bernhard - Le naufrag? / Der Untergeher
Lutz Bassmann - Ha?kus de prison
Various - Lexique Nomade
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[/SIZE]William H. Gass - Test of time
Paul Verhaeghen - Omega Minor
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[/SIZE]Alexander Theroux - Laura Warholic
Yasunari Kawabata / Yukio Mishima - Correspondance
B.S. Johnson - Chalut / Trawl
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[/SIZE]Robert Coover - Noir
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Various - Lexique Nomade
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OK, so here is what I read in June:
[SIZE=-1][/SIZE]Donald Barthelme - Flying to America
Thomas Bernhard - Le naufrag? / Der Untergeher
Lutz Bassmann - Ha?kus de prison
Various - Lexique Nomade
[SIZE=-1][/SIZE]William H. Gass - Test of time
Paul Verhaeghen - Omega Minor
[SIZE=-1][/SIZE]Alexander Theroux - Laura Warholic
Yasunari Kawabata / Yukio Mishima - Correspondance
B.S. Johnson - Chalut / Trawl
[SIZE=-1][/SIZE]Robert Coover - Noir
Couple of words reviews for my homie Mirabell:
Barthelme -- fun and well constructed as any Barthelme, less good than the previously collected work.
Benrhard -- You know I prefer to remain silent and listen to the music.
Bassmann -- Background info: this is the pseudo of Antoine Volodine, a French writer in the process of acquiring more heteronyms than Pessoa. He actually created a school called "literature post-exotic". All its disciples are avatars of himself. Dark and unpleasantly funny. This is a 100 pages book, a narration entirely made of ha?kus. Not a fantastic book, but a great read nonetheless.
Gass -- I don't know if you've read any essay of his, this collection is like the rest: beautiful insights on the themes he is examining -- among which why some book do stand the test of time, and what is that test -- and marvelous writing.
Verhaeghen, you know all about already.
Theroux -- reactionary, non-pc to the max. If you're into that kind of humour, laughing out loud funny and Theroux is a master of the word. His main character made me think of Bellow in his grumpy phase (Sammler, Herzog). Maybe too long.
Kawabata / Mishima -- letters of a fanboy to his master. Fanboy later turns into master's equal.
Johnson -- A sort of Bernhardian version of good ole B.S. Beatifully desperate.
Coover -- His take on the Noir movies and lit. Vintage Coover, great fun. Not his best work. Published in French, not in English yet. Name of main character: Phil M. Noir. Fantastic pun, as you can see.
saliotthomas
Reader
The remain of the days-Kazuo Ishiguro
I guess most of you read it,(i though i did).I enjoyed it but not has much as i hoped i would.Somehow this all story of the hight standard in butlering left me a bit cold.It is very well writen and the atmosphere is charming but i kept try to figure out what hiden meaning laid out of my reach.The only thing i could get is the very similarity betwin this English decency and the Japanese sense of honor and unselfishness.Something that occured to me in earlier readings.
I shall try others of his books it might help me to see the bigger picture.
I guess most of you read it,(i though i did).I enjoyed it but not has much as i hoped i would.Somehow this all story of the hight standard in butlering left me a bit cold.It is very well writen and the atmosphere is charming but i kept try to figure out what hiden meaning laid out of my reach.The only thing i could get is the very similarity betwin this English decency and the Japanese sense of honor and unselfishness.Something that occured to me in earlier readings.
I shall try others of his books it might help me to see the bigger picture.
I've taken this post and made a new thread on the book.
What did you think? I recently won a galley of her next book The Flying Troutmans for filling out a survey for Random House. A Complicated Kindness has blipped across my radar a few times but I've ignored it as an aberration for no real reason.
Mirabell
Former Member
Irene Wilde
Reader
Sucked is rather strong...disappointing with an interesting perspective perhaps?
I do adore Leonard's "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" but I have to admit, Beautiful Losers isn't what I was hoping it would be.