Morbid Swither
Well-known member
So far the poetry has been superior to fiction I’ve read this year. Holub is five stars all the way!
Recently finished books?
- Thread starter Mirabell
- Start date
Morbid Swither
Well-known member
These three books seem to weigh quite a bit! Heavy stuff!
tiganeasca
Moderator
Very interesting list. I am particularly interested in your thoughts on--at least--the Zinoviev and the Florian.Hello, everyone!
It's been awhile since I have shared on the forum, but I've been stopping by periodically. So far in 2023, I've read about 20 books, which I thought I would share with you all. (Listed in the order in which I read them
?? Aleksandr Zinoviev - The Yawning Heights (novel/satire). Random House, 1979.
??Lee Hyemi - Unexpected Vanilla (erotic poetry). Tilted Axis, 2022.
??/??/??/??/??/etc. Various Authors - Elemental (anthology of literature on the subjects of climate catastrophe, geological time, and mythology). Two Lines Press, 2021.
?? Jonas Eika - After The Sun (short stories/experimental fiction). Riverhead Books, 2021.
?? Keorapetse Kgositsile - Collected Poems, 1969-2018 (poetry). University of Nebraska Press, 2023.
?? Enrique Lihn - The Dark Room & Other Poems (poetry). New Directions, 1997.
?? Nico Walker - Cherry (autobiographical novel). Knopf, 2018.
The PIP Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century, Vol. 1 - Edited by Douglas Messerli (poetry anthology). Green Integer, 2000.
Poets include: Rafael Alberti (Spain), Ingeborg Bachmann (Austria), Rubèn Dario (Nicaragua), Günter Eich (Germany), Gunnar Ekelöf (Sweden), J.V. Foix (Spain), Angel González (Spain), Jorge Guillén (Spain), Hagiwara Sakutarõ (Japan), Hayashi Fumiko (Japan), Figyes Karinthy (Hungary, Artur Lundkvist (Sweden), Jackson Mac Low (USA), Osip Mandelshtam (Russia), João Cabral de Melo Neto (Brazil), Henri Michaux (Belgium), O.V. de Milosz (Lithuania/France), Ágnes Nemes Nagy (Hungary), Amelia Rosselli (Italy), Rocco Scotellaro (Italy) andTakahashi Mutsuo (Japan)
?? Bachtyar Ali - The Last Pomegranate Tree (novel). Archipelago Books, 2023.
?? Jorie Graham - Sea Change (poetry). Ecco, 2008.
?? Adonis - The Pages of Day and Night (poetry). Marlboro Press, 2000.
?? Grace Krilanovich - The Orange Eats Creeps (experimental novel). Two Dollar Radio, 2010.
?? Miroslav Holub - Poems Before & After (poetry). Bloodaxe Books, 2006.
?? Various Authors - That We May Live (literary anthology of Chinese speculative fiction). Two Lines Press, 2020.
?? Jimmy Santiago Baca - Selected Poems of Jimmy Santiago Baca: Bilingual Edition (poetry). New Directions, 2009.
?? Marie-Claire Blais - A Season in the Life of Emmanuel (novel). FSG, 1980.
?? Mariana Enriquez - Our Share of Night (novel). Hogarth, 2023.
?? Marie-Claire Blais - Mad Shadows (novel). New Canadian Library, 1971.
?? Kevin Killian - Fascination: Memoirs (experimental/memoir). Semiotext(e), 2018.
?? Aimee Nezhukumatathil - Oceanic (poetry). Copper Canyon Press, 2018.
?? Filip Florian - Little Fingers (novel). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.
Morbid Swither
Well-known member
I really, really liked The Yawning Heights. Absolutely recommend. I really didn’t care for Little Fingers much at all though.
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
Within a Budding Grove: Volume Two of In Search of Lost Time--- Marcel Proust
This particular volume focuses on the narrator's adolescence and early 20s. It's a departure from the childhood's memories in the first volume, and focuses on bsession obsession and, finally, his indiferrence to Gilberte, his visits to Balbec with his grandmother, his didatisfaction with the church, his friendship with Elstir, the painter and Bloch, his friends from Combray, and, in particular, the encountering of the little band of teenage girls which consisted of Albertine Simonet and her friends: Andree, Rosamond and Gisele, his reflections on love as he falls in love with Albertine (though I would consider her behaviour towards the narrator as somewhat ambivalent), and despite her rejection, they still becomes close. This particular volume ends with image of the narrator first seeing the girls walking beside the sea.
What I find striking about this volume is the description of train journey to Balbec and how the stations are places almost to themselves: rhythm of the train, transition, fleeting moments of communion with strangers and also the part of the Narrator encountering the little band of teenage girls (in the shadows of young girls). I found the political discussions of the narrator's father friend, the diplomat Monsieur Norpois, somewhat boring. But all in all, a very impressive volume, though I still prefer Swann's Way, the earlier volume.
?? The Conservationist--- Nadine Gordimer
This brilliant novel is about Mehring, a white conservationist and capitalist, purchases a 400 acre farm for the purpose of tax benefits and also, as a form of escape from the sorrows of his life: his strained relationship with his liberal son Terry and separation from his ex-wife, who now stays in America, and his lovers and colleagues aren't even interested in him. A black dead body is found in his farm, but because it's 1970s South Africa, the epoch of apartheid, the police doesn't bother to investigate, and the body's buried in an improper manner. This body continues to haunt Mehring until flood brings the body back into the farm again. Without knowing the stranger, the body is giving a proper burial and there's hint that Mehring's own funeral would be less emotional than the stranger's burial.
This complex novel isn't easy to follow. I would put in this novel in terms of technique in the same level with Fuentes' Death of Artemio Cruz: the use of surreal imagery (orange sunlights for example), the first, second and third person pronouns are examples of techniques highlighted. Gordimer doesn't tell the story of Mehring in a Dickensian manner, instead she reveals Mehring's life in moments. This novel showed Gordimer's powers for linguistic experimentation in the vein of Doris Lessing (see Golden Notebook) and Virginia Woolf: a highlight from African modernism in fiction alongside The Interpreters, Thiefs and the Dogs, Beautyful One's are not Yet Born.
This particular volume focuses on the narrator's adolescence and early 20s. It's a departure from the childhood's memories in the first volume, and focuses on bsession obsession and, finally, his indiferrence to Gilberte, his visits to Balbec with his grandmother, his didatisfaction with the church, his friendship with Elstir, the painter and Bloch, his friends from Combray, and, in particular, the encountering of the little band of teenage girls which consisted of Albertine Simonet and her friends: Andree, Rosamond and Gisele, his reflections on love as he falls in love with Albertine (though I would consider her behaviour towards the narrator as somewhat ambivalent), and despite her rejection, they still becomes close. This particular volume ends with image of the narrator first seeing the girls walking beside the sea.
What I find striking about this volume is the description of train journey to Balbec and how the stations are places almost to themselves: rhythm of the train, transition, fleeting moments of communion with strangers and also the part of the Narrator encountering the little band of teenage girls (in the shadows of young girls). I found the political discussions of the narrator's father friend, the diplomat Monsieur Norpois, somewhat boring. But all in all, a very impressive volume, though I still prefer Swann's Way, the earlier volume.
?? The Conservationist--- Nadine Gordimer
This brilliant novel is about Mehring, a white conservationist and capitalist, purchases a 400 acre farm for the purpose of tax benefits and also, as a form of escape from the sorrows of his life: his strained relationship with his liberal son Terry and separation from his ex-wife, who now stays in America, and his lovers and colleagues aren't even interested in him. A black dead body is found in his farm, but because it's 1970s South Africa, the epoch of apartheid, the police doesn't bother to investigate, and the body's buried in an improper manner. This body continues to haunt Mehring until flood brings the body back into the farm again. Without knowing the stranger, the body is giving a proper burial and there's hint that Mehring's own funeral would be less emotional than the stranger's burial.
This complex novel isn't easy to follow. I would put in this novel in terms of technique in the same level with Fuentes' Death of Artemio Cruz: the use of surreal imagery (orange sunlights for example), the first, second and third person pronouns are examples of techniques highlighted. Gordimer doesn't tell the story of Mehring in a Dickensian manner, instead she reveals Mehring's life in moments. This novel showed Gordimer's powers for linguistic experimentation in the vein of Doris Lessing (see Golden Notebook) and Virginia Woolf: a highlight from African modernism in fiction alongside The Interpreters, Thiefs and the Dogs, Beautyful One's are not Yet Born.
Benny Profane
Well-known member
When you discover that the book you're reading has 1,300 pages and you, finally, finnished it and you're very happy for this feat (to face a door stopper book and to do this service, thinking you finnished it), but the English edition has 400 bonus pages with some drafts and unpublished chapters... ????
I'd like to offer you, my friends, my perceptions about The Man With Qualities today, but I can't do it yet.
I had to resort to the English Edition (borrowed from Internet Archive) to finnish it, so no perceptions at this time, because I'm in Kakania yet.
I'd like to offer you, my friends, my perceptions about The Man With Qualities today, but I can't do it yet.
I had to resort to the English Edition (borrowed from Internet Archive) to finnish it, so no perceptions at this time, because I'm in Kakania yet.
Last edited:
Benny Profane
Well-known member
The third book is the best volume of this saga, Ben. Of course, you will enjoy it.
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower is a beautiful book, but, in my humble opinion, Guermantes Way is better than the second volume.
Last edited:
?? Jozsef Lengyel - Acta Sactorum & Other Tales : Hungarian writer, funding member of Hungarian Communist Party, moved to Moscow, arrested and sent to Siberian Gulag in 1938. After 2nd word war, he was exiled to Siberia until his release in 1955. These stories are mostly inspired by the experience in the concentration camps. Lucid writing, clean and crisp prose style. Despite the subjest , they have no emotional baggage. What impresses you is the elegance in the sentences and paragraphs. This might not be the best of his works, but from what I read here, he is one writer I intend to explore more.
Some more info about this writer https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/lengyel-jozsef
?? Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees : The life of a woman ( coming of age story) in Nigeria post the sectarian war, living with her sexual identity and conflicts. As in any conservative society, this book too, deals with the issues of gender and sexual preferences, with the typical patriarchal approach. The book expands itself to the conflict-reconciliation issues starting from the 'Biafran War' to Young Girl's inner conflicts of her preference/love, family conflicts (parent-child and husband-wife ) with a lot of restraints. The language and writing aren't extra ordinary, but she makes the book a compelling one with the story and narration.
?? Pascal Quignard - The Silent Crossing : Some brilliant writings on Death, Murder, Suicide and Solitude. History, short notes, fables, tales , reflections, experiences - some poetic , some journal entries and stories. I haven't read much of Quignard, but liked this.
?? Jane Borges - Bombay Balchao : Came to me with some strong recommendations, lot of accolades since it's publication 2-3 years ago. Interesting story of a Catholic settlement of Goan's diaspora in Mumbai, their life, struggles, love affairs, death and deportation and the aging and decaying of the place and people. Pleasantly surprised of the experience. Debut novel, but really well written.
Some more info about this writer https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/lengyel-jozsef
?? Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees : The life of a woman ( coming of age story) in Nigeria post the sectarian war, living with her sexual identity and conflicts. As in any conservative society, this book too, deals with the issues of gender and sexual preferences, with the typical patriarchal approach. The book expands itself to the conflict-reconciliation issues starting from the 'Biafran War' to Young Girl's inner conflicts of her preference/love, family conflicts (parent-child and husband-wife ) with a lot of restraints. The language and writing aren't extra ordinary, but she makes the book a compelling one with the story and narration.
?? Pascal Quignard - The Silent Crossing : Some brilliant writings on Death, Murder, Suicide and Solitude. History, short notes, fables, tales , reflections, experiences - some poetic , some journal entries and stories. I haven't read much of Quignard, but liked this.
?? Jane Borges - Bombay Balchao : Came to me with some strong recommendations, lot of accolades since it's publication 2-3 years ago. Interesting story of a Catholic settlement of Goan's diaspora in Mumbai, their life, struggles, love affairs, death and deportation and the aging and decaying of the place and people. Pleasantly surprised of the experience. Debut novel, but really well written.
Liam
Administrator
This is SUCH a fascinating topic to me personally: small Catholic communities hanging on for dear life in distant places where they don't (essentially) belong. Though after a generation or two, I'm sure they develop a strong sense of belonging.
tiganeasca
Moderator
?? Ludwig Tieck, Tales from the Phantasus 
I continue to read lesser-known 19th century German authors because I have found that I enjoy writers from this place and time, though I usually prefer realist writers to romantic writers. Tieck falls clearly in the latter category and so I was surprised to enjoy some of his stories as much as I did. They are, I think, a bit melodramatic and “overdone,” but he is a wonderful storyteller. His stories reminded me of nothing so much as Grimms’ fairy tales turned into short stories. And it turns out that Tieck (1773-1853) and the Grimms were pretty much contemporaries. One of the stories, “The Fair-Haired Eckbert,” is often considered to be the start of German romanticism and all of the stories I read clearly fall into that mode: valuing emotion instead of intellect; emphasizing the beauties of nature and imagination and spiritual truth; and focusing on the hero, his passions and his inner struggles. To achieve this, Tieck relies on folk culture, the story of national/ethnic origins (often illustrated with medieval situations and circumstances) and a lot of the exotic, the mysterious, and the occult. For these reasons, I think, that the Grimms are a good comparison. Because Tieck is largely ignored today (at least in the USA), the only translation I could find was by the Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle (done in 1827!); fortunately, Carlyle’s translation is mostly quite good and reads surprisingly easily. It is dated, certainly, but less so than one might imagine. Recommended, but largely for those tempted by this kind of thing.
?? Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore [unfinished] [unfair to rate at this point]
I have only read one-third of this so far and have put it aside for a bit. I cannot recall reading a work that is so extraordinarily dense. I can usually only read several pages before I have to put the book down to digest what I’ve read. Nearly every sentence is weighed down with multiple levels of meaning and paragraphs can often be nearly incomprehensible and take much time to sort out. The story reminds me largely of Buzzati’s Tartar Steppe and Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians. I think that the translation I am reading (the only one I am aware of in English), by the late poet Richard Howard, is excellent. Still, there are more than a few words that I need to check in the dictionary and I have a feeling—without being able to substantiate it—that the translation is largely true to Gracq’s French. I just wish it were easier going. I offer these three sentences as a sample:
?? Stefan Zweig, Journey Into the Past+
According to the translator (Anthea Bell), this is a particularly Chekhovian novella. I can’t say, not having read enough Chekhov. As is true of much of his work (both short stories and novels), Zweig is fascinated by and brilliant at depicting psychological issues. The story is simple: Ludwig falls in love with his boss’s wife; she reciprocates his feelings. He is then unexpectedly sent by his boss to Mexico on a multi-year business project requiring enormous responsibility. Although they promise each other to consummate their relationship when he returns, WWI breaks out and by the time he returns home on a visit years later, he is now married and she is now a widow. Their mutual attraction remains as strong as ever but circumstances have changed enormouslty. What will happen? The summary sounds melodramatic, but I didn’t find the book to be so. Zweig is a gifted writer whose portrayal of the people and the situation is nuanced, insightful, and rings completely true.
?? Andrzej Szczypiorski, A Mass for Arras
Szczypiorski (1928-2000) was, among other things, a partisan in WWII who also took part in the Warsaw Uprising. He was arrested and imprisoned at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he survived until 1945. I mention that background by way of explaining my reaction to this book. The story is an allegory, a parable that explains how totalitarianism can arise. Three years after the plague kills a substantial number of local citizens in 1458, the town of Arras descends into a frenzy when a valuable horse dies after its owner is supposedly cursed by his Jewish neighbor. The Jews kills himself before a trial can take place but the townspeople proceed to rob, exile, and kill not only the local Jews but anyone who expresses sympathy for them, criticizes the new orthodoxy, or, finally, shows any “aberrant” behavior. I could not read this book without immediately thinking of Germany (and Italy) in the 1930s. Szczypiorski narrates this tale through the eyes of Jan, a Christian intellectual who participates in the mass hysteria only to find himself suspected of heresy. He recoils from his mentor, Father Albert, a proto-fascist demagogue, but when his other role model, David, Bishop of Utrecht, absolves all the citizens of their sins, Jan recognizes the horrifying consequences of unquestioning acceptance of authority. Beautifully told, terrifying in its reality, highly recommended.
?? Ngugi wa Thiong'o, A Grain of Wheat
I am happy to say that I have finally found the first book by Ngugi that I liked and that impressed me as a literary work. It is either the third or fourth book of his that I have read and I have always found his novels problematic, not only because the narratives seem strained or simplistic and his characters under- (or even un-) developed. He has always had an important message to convey but this is really the first novel of his that I have read that succeeds as a novel instead of a vehicle for his thoughts. The story concerns a group of villagers caught up in the Mau Mau rebellion and the British Emergency of 1952-60 in Kenya. Though he criticizes the British, Ngugi’s focus is Mugo, alone and alienated after returning to the village following his imprisonment and maltreatment by the British for his role in the uprising. Considered by nearly everyone to be a role model, he has a secret which is at the heart of the book. As Ngugi relates his story, other narratives about other villagers—none of whom is blameless—are unfolding. The story centers around a proverb: “That which bites you is in your own clothing.” No one is a hero, no one can escape his (or her) past or his acts—both on a personal level and on the larger political stage. Mugo is beautifully drawn, as are most of the other major characters and, for the first time in my experience of Ngugi’s book, I found myself believing that these were real people.
I continue to read lesser-known 19th century German authors because I have found that I enjoy writers from this place and time, though I usually prefer realist writers to romantic writers. Tieck falls clearly in the latter category and so I was surprised to enjoy some of his stories as much as I did. They are, I think, a bit melodramatic and “overdone,” but he is a wonderful storyteller. His stories reminded me of nothing so much as Grimms’ fairy tales turned into short stories. And it turns out that Tieck (1773-1853) and the Grimms were pretty much contemporaries. One of the stories, “The Fair-Haired Eckbert,” is often considered to be the start of German romanticism and all of the stories I read clearly fall into that mode: valuing emotion instead of intellect; emphasizing the beauties of nature and imagination and spiritual truth; and focusing on the hero, his passions and his inner struggles. To achieve this, Tieck relies on folk culture, the story of national/ethnic origins (often illustrated with medieval situations and circumstances) and a lot of the exotic, the mysterious, and the occult. For these reasons, I think, that the Grimms are a good comparison. Because Tieck is largely ignored today (at least in the USA), the only translation I could find was by the Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle (done in 1827!); fortunately, Carlyle’s translation is mostly quite good and reads surprisingly easily. It is dated, certainly, but less so than one might imagine. Recommended, but largely for those tempted by this kind of thing.
?? Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore [unfinished] [unfair to rate at this point]
I have only read one-third of this so far and have put it aside for a bit. I cannot recall reading a work that is so extraordinarily dense. I can usually only read several pages before I have to put the book down to digest what I’ve read. Nearly every sentence is weighed down with multiple levels of meaning and paragraphs can often be nearly incomprehensible and take much time to sort out. The story reminds me largely of Buzzati’s Tartar Steppe and Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians. I think that the translation I am reading (the only one I am aware of in English), by the late poet Richard Howard, is excellent. Still, there are more than a few words that I need to check in the dictionary and I have a feeling—without being able to substantiate it—that the translation is largely true to Gracq’s French. I just wish it were easier going. I offer these three sentences as a sample:
“They were rotting away at attention, the defenders of Orsenna [a city]. Just as I might have seen, emerging from its swamp, the patiently buttressed forest of pilings which propped up the city, here lay before my eyes, in isometric perspective, three centuries of the fatherland’s foundations. The bodies devoured by sand, one on top of the next in strict perpendicularity, drove into the earth, with repeated blows, their grove of vertical pillars. The city’s sinister genius, even in these extreme outposts, showed in the patient mutilation which, out of so many new and naively surrendered lives, by a merciless pruning, had formed this careful frame, this funereal housing.”
The whole paragraph (which is more of the same for another three or four sentences) contains one sustained, elaborate metaphor expressed in complex syntax. It works and is, in its way, a brilliant rendering, but it is also an enormous amount of work (for me, anyway) to go through it and unpack it. Taken all together, the book is a constant challenge, demanding culture. I expect to pick it back up again and finish it (some day), but as I hope I’ve successfully explained, it is a highly demanding work.?? Stefan Zweig, Journey Into the Past
+According to the translator (Anthea Bell), this is a particularly Chekhovian novella. I can’t say, not having read enough Chekhov. As is true of much of his work (both short stories and novels), Zweig is fascinated by and brilliant at depicting psychological issues. The story is simple: Ludwig falls in love with his boss’s wife; she reciprocates his feelings. He is then unexpectedly sent by his boss to Mexico on a multi-year business project requiring enormous responsibility. Although they promise each other to consummate their relationship when he returns, WWI breaks out and by the time he returns home on a visit years later, he is now married and she is now a widow. Their mutual attraction remains as strong as ever but circumstances have changed enormouslty. What will happen? The summary sounds melodramatic, but I didn’t find the book to be so. Zweig is a gifted writer whose portrayal of the people and the situation is nuanced, insightful, and rings completely true.
?? Andrzej Szczypiorski, A Mass for Arras
Szczypiorski (1928-2000) was, among other things, a partisan in WWII who also took part in the Warsaw Uprising. He was arrested and imprisoned at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he survived until 1945. I mention that background by way of explaining my reaction to this book. The story is an allegory, a parable that explains how totalitarianism can arise. Three years after the plague kills a substantial number of local citizens in 1458, the town of Arras descends into a frenzy when a valuable horse dies after its owner is supposedly cursed by his Jewish neighbor. The Jews kills himself before a trial can take place but the townspeople proceed to rob, exile, and kill not only the local Jews but anyone who expresses sympathy for them, criticizes the new orthodoxy, or, finally, shows any “aberrant” behavior. I could not read this book without immediately thinking of Germany (and Italy) in the 1930s. Szczypiorski narrates this tale through the eyes of Jan, a Christian intellectual who participates in the mass hysteria only to find himself suspected of heresy. He recoils from his mentor, Father Albert, a proto-fascist demagogue, but when his other role model, David, Bishop of Utrecht, absolves all the citizens of their sins, Jan recognizes the horrifying consequences of unquestioning acceptance of authority. Beautifully told, terrifying in its reality, highly recommended.
?? Ngugi wa Thiong'o, A Grain of Wheat
I am happy to say that I have finally found the first book by Ngugi that I liked and that impressed me as a literary work. It is either the third or fourth book of his that I have read and I have always found his novels problematic, not only because the narratives seem strained or simplistic and his characters under- (or even un-) developed. He has always had an important message to convey but this is really the first novel of his that I have read that succeeds as a novel instead of a vehicle for his thoughts. The story concerns a group of villagers caught up in the Mau Mau rebellion and the British Emergency of 1952-60 in Kenya. Though he criticizes the British, Ngugi’s focus is Mugo, alone and alienated after returning to the village following his imprisonment and maltreatment by the British for his role in the uprising. Considered by nearly everyone to be a role model, he has a secret which is at the heart of the book. As Ngugi relates his story, other narratives about other villagers—none of whom is blameless—are unfolding. The story centers around a proverb: “That which bites you is in your own clothing.” No one is a hero, no one can escape his (or her) past or his acts—both on a personal level and on the larger political stage. Mugo is beautifully drawn, as are most of the other major characters and, for the first time in my experience of Ngugi’s book, I found myself believing that these were real people.
Liam
Administrator
High praise indeed, when coming from you, my dear friend!
tiganeasca
Moderator
Aw shucks...I'm just a grumpy old man sitting at home reading, throwing darts at authors now and then.High praise indeed, when coming from you, my dear friend!
Leseratte
Well-known member
I don´t remember much anymore about “The Fair-Haired Eckbert” but there is a play by Tieck I like very much, "Puss in Boots", that is very funny and anticipates the metatheater of Luigi Pirandello and Brecht.?? Ludwig Tieck, Tales from the Phantasus
I continue to read lesser-known 19th century German authors because I have found that I enjoy writers from this place and time, though I usually prefer realist writers to romantic writers. Tieck falls clearly in the latter category and so I was surprised to enjoy some of his stories as much as I did. They are, I think, a bit melodramatic and “overdone,” but he is a wonderful storyteller. His stories reminded me of nothing so much as Grimms’ fairy tales turned into short stories. And it turns out that Tieck (1773-1853) and the Grimms were pretty much contemporaries. One of the stories, “The Fair-Haired Eckbert,” is often considered to be the start of German romanticism and all of the stories I read clearly fall into that mode: valuing emotion instead of intellect; emphasizing the beauties of nature and imagination and spiritual truth; and focusing on the hero, his passions and his inner struggles. To achieve this, Tieck relies on folk culture, the story of national/ethnic origins (often illustrated with medieval situations and circumstances) and a lot of the exotic, the mysterious, and the occult. For these reasons, I think, that the Grimms are a good comparison. Because Tieck is largely ignored today (at least in the USA), the only translation I could find was by the Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle (done in 1827!); fortunately, Carlyle’s translation is mostly quite good and reads surprisingly easily. It is dated, certainly, but less so than one might imagine. Recommended, but largely for those tempted by this kind of thing.
Leseratte
Well-known member
??Sofi Oksanen- Dog Park-
Dog Park is an interesting novel of suspense. It is above all plot, a mostly well construed sophisticated plot centered on the donation of eggs for human fertilization and the shifting destinies of Ukrainian people under the political background that ultimately led to the Russian Invasion that annexed the Krim. But although the author is Finish the story and the surroundings are more alive in the Ukrainian past. The novel is so recent, that one has the feeling that the story happened in our days.
I enjoyed the reading very much. For me it remains on the borderline of high entertainment and work of art.
Dog Park is an interesting novel of suspense. It is above all plot, a mostly well construed sophisticated plot centered on the donation of eggs for human fertilization and the shifting destinies of Ukrainian people under the political background that ultimately led to the Russian Invasion that annexed the Krim. But although the author is Finish the story and the surroundings are more alive in the Ukrainian past. The novel is so recent, that one has the feeling that the story happened in our days.
I enjoyed the reading very much. For me it remains on the borderline of high entertainment and work of art.
alik-vit
Reader
Odysseas Elytis, An Heroic And Funeral Chant For The Lieutenant Lost In Albania; To Axion Esti; The Sovereign Sun (maybe it's more like "The Sun archlightenant"); The Monogram; Diary of an Invisible April; The Elegies of Oxopetra (it's something like "The Elegies of Afterdeathstone"). (In annotated Russian translation).
Some works I reread, for some it was first time. "To Axion Esti" is monumental achievement and very impressive cosmology in the form of orthodox liturgy. But my favorite is "The Elegies of Oxopetra", collection of 14 long meditations on death and finality as a constant of life and worldview. On the whole, it seems he is poet of big form and collection, not separate poem. I'm not fan of sweeping waves of surrealistic verses, but here it was very convincing.
Some works I reread, for some it was first time. "To Axion Esti" is monumental achievement and very impressive cosmology in the form of orthodox liturgy. But my favorite is "The Elegies of Oxopetra", collection of 14 long meditations on death and finality as a constant of life and worldview. On the whole, it seems he is poet of big form and collection, not separate poem. I'm not fan of sweeping waves of surrealistic verses, but here it was very convincing.
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
If I should rank the collections of Elytis you listed, allk, I will rank: Monogram first, follow by Axion Esti, Elegies, Soverign Sun, Diary, Song Lieutenant. He's just amazing anytime I read. For me, the finest post-World War 2 European poet, with Transtromer probably giving him a run for his money. No weak collection of poems in Elytis oeuvre, from his first Orientation to Elegies, his last.
alik-vit
Reader
Can't say, I'm agree. "Sovereign Sun" looks a little bit problematic in its ethic. And about "Monogram" - when I read, how man in his seventies writes about "the twelve year old unformed breast /pointing to the future with it’s red crater", I have some problems with empathy.
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
?? Voss---- Patrick White
This famous novel, set in 1845, centers on two main characters: Johann Ulrich Voss, a German explorer who becomes interested in partaking (with assistance of small band of others) in an expedition crossing Australian continent and Laura Trevelyan a young, inexperienced orphan who just arrived New South Wales and living with her uncle, Mr Bonner who's patron of Voss's expedition and who falls in love with Voss. The rest of the novel moves between Voss's adventure and Laura's life at home.
White looks at Australian outback, which is symbolically the soul of the continent; Voss is portrayed as a Christ-like figure: Judd betrays Voss, Laura wash Voss's feet and other Christian parables, the heroes of this novel are mystics and idealists, and the novel mixes long passages of brilliant dialogue and interior monologue; evocation of landscape with metaphysical dimensions and expressionistic overtones (golden aureole of the sun for example). Voss is also depicted as God to some, a man of violence and devil to others, and Laura and Voss, towards the last four to five chapters, communicated through visions/dreams. It's a splendid dark and realistic novel, a brilliant novel of conflict of ideal and actual, with psychological paradoxes.
?? Savage Dectatives, Nazi Literature in Americas--- Roberto Bolano
Nazi Literature in Americas is a novel that's more of literary essays on different writers in Latin America. It's a bio dictionary on writers who flirted or espoused extreme right-wing ideologies in 20th Century, with descriptions of writer's works, in addition of epilogue (for monsters), though the imaginary writers are credibly situated in real literary world. Some of these writers lived a fulfilled life, some died young, some even died in Africa and other parts of the world. Very innovative work.
Savage Dectatives, on the other hand, is Bolano's other work I enjoyed the most. A very long novel divided into three sections: 1975, a year in the life of Juan Garcia Madero, a seventeen year old who becomes interested in a literary group Visceral Realists, founded by Arturo Belano, based on Bolano himself, and Ulisses Lima, his love life and abandonment of his studied written in a diary-like form, the second section, which spans twenty years (1976---1996), a polyphonic section narrated by nearly thirty characters from locations all over: Africa, middle east, North east and Europe and how they came in contact with Lima and Bolano, with each character having an opinion of the two, with the section ending with Lima serving his time in Isreali Prison and Belano challenging a literary critic to a silly sword fight on the beach, the third section, deals with Juan Garcia Madero, now a member of Visceral realist, and his search, alongside Belano and Lima, for Mexican poet Cesarea Tinajero while they are been chased by Alberto, a pimp and a corrupt Mexican police officer. The novel deals with Latin America poetry, rite of passage, split of ideal and reality, relations between life and poetry, and time and youth's experiences. I love how entertaining this novel is (one critic compares it to Mexican movie And Your Mama Too) and brilliant. Nearly 600 pages of pure entertainment and fun.
?? A Wave--- John Ashbery
A collection of 44 poems, a mixture of prose and poems written with long line and various forms, this collection was mixed feelings for me. Some poems I could make of, other poems just off. I think Ashbery is more interested in language than trying to create communication with the reader. I really felt this work was just verbose. I mean what's the essence of poetry without the reader trying to understand what you're writing? Among the poems I love (those I was able to understand), are So Many Lives, about love, A Fly, about passage of time, and Landscape (after Baudelaire), about artistic creation (I want a bed near the sky, a beautiful line I would interpret as trying to find artistic illumination), At North Farm, about trying to finding communication with someone, but for the rest, just incomprehensible.
Collected Poems--- St John Perse
Nearly 700 pages of brilliant, albeit boring, imagination. Please mastered the art of writing extremely long poems (which isn't my cup of tea) even from his very first volume Eloges. Some of the poems run as long as ten pages, which makes it very boring at times. Perse possesses brilliant metaphors and images, with themes ranging from childhood memories, to poems exploring civilization (Anabasis, his famous work, Chronicles), to nature as part of human consciousness (Sea-Marks, Birds, Wind), to exile and migration (Exile and Other Poems). No doubt, a brilliant poet but very tedious. More on Perse collected poems later.
This famous novel, set in 1845, centers on two main characters: Johann Ulrich Voss, a German explorer who becomes interested in partaking (with assistance of small band of others) in an expedition crossing Australian continent and Laura Trevelyan a young, inexperienced orphan who just arrived New South Wales and living with her uncle, Mr Bonner who's patron of Voss's expedition and who falls in love with Voss. The rest of the novel moves between Voss's adventure and Laura's life at home.
White looks at Australian outback, which is symbolically the soul of the continent; Voss is portrayed as a Christ-like figure: Judd betrays Voss, Laura wash Voss's feet and other Christian parables, the heroes of this novel are mystics and idealists, and the novel mixes long passages of brilliant dialogue and interior monologue; evocation of landscape with metaphysical dimensions and expressionistic overtones (golden aureole of the sun for example). Voss is also depicted as God to some, a man of violence and devil to others, and Laura and Voss, towards the last four to five chapters, communicated through visions/dreams. It's a splendid dark and realistic novel, a brilliant novel of conflict of ideal and actual, with psychological paradoxes.
?? Savage Dectatives, Nazi Literature in Americas--- Roberto Bolano
Nazi Literature in Americas is a novel that's more of literary essays on different writers in Latin America. It's a bio dictionary on writers who flirted or espoused extreme right-wing ideologies in 20th Century, with descriptions of writer's works, in addition of epilogue (for monsters), though the imaginary writers are credibly situated in real literary world. Some of these writers lived a fulfilled life, some died young, some even died in Africa and other parts of the world. Very innovative work.
Savage Dectatives, on the other hand, is Bolano's other work I enjoyed the most. A very long novel divided into three sections: 1975, a year in the life of Juan Garcia Madero, a seventeen year old who becomes interested in a literary group Visceral Realists, founded by Arturo Belano, based on Bolano himself, and Ulisses Lima, his love life and abandonment of his studied written in a diary-like form, the second section, which spans twenty years (1976---1996), a polyphonic section narrated by nearly thirty characters from locations all over: Africa, middle east, North east and Europe and how they came in contact with Lima and Bolano, with each character having an opinion of the two, with the section ending with Lima serving his time in Isreali Prison and Belano challenging a literary critic to a silly sword fight on the beach, the third section, deals with Juan Garcia Madero, now a member of Visceral realist, and his search, alongside Belano and Lima, for Mexican poet Cesarea Tinajero while they are been chased by Alberto, a pimp and a corrupt Mexican police officer. The novel deals with Latin America poetry, rite of passage, split of ideal and reality, relations between life and poetry, and time and youth's experiences. I love how entertaining this novel is (one critic compares it to Mexican movie And Your Mama Too) and brilliant. Nearly 600 pages of pure entertainment and fun.
?? A Wave--- John Ashbery
A collection of 44 poems, a mixture of prose and poems written with long line and various forms, this collection was mixed feelings for me. Some poems I could make of, other poems just off. I think Ashbery is more interested in language than trying to create communication with the reader. I really felt this work was just verbose. I mean what's the essence of poetry without the reader trying to understand what you're writing? Among the poems I love (those I was able to understand), are So Many Lives, about love, A Fly, about passage of time, and Landscape (after Baudelaire), about artistic creation (I want a bed near the sky, a beautiful line I would interpret as trying to find artistic illumination), At North Farm, about trying to finding communication with someone, but for the rest, just incomprehensible.
Collected Poems--- St John Perse
Nearly 700 pages of brilliant, albeit boring, imagination. Please mastered the art of writing extremely long poems (which isn't my cup of tea) even from his very first volume Eloges. Some of the poems run as long as ten pages, which makes it very boring at times. Perse possesses brilliant metaphors and images, with themes ranging from childhood memories, to poems exploring civilization (Anabasis, his famous work, Chronicles), to nature as part of human consciousness (Sea-Marks, Birds, Wind), to exile and migration (Exile and Other Poems). No doubt, a brilliant poet but very tedious. More on Perse collected poems later.
SpaceCadet
Quiet Reader
Not so recently finished, but here are my latest reads.
Dorothy Tse, Owlish (First published in Chinese, Taiwan, 2020).
As far as I know, this would be Dorothy Tse’s first novel. She’s otherwise have been known for her short stories, some of which have been translated to English. Let’s not beat around the bush: I have thoroughly enjoyed that novel. So much so that I found myself slowing down my reading pace in order to prolong the pleasure. It tells the story of Q, a 50 year old professor of literature who’s bland marriage and bland career and (more or less) bland life has slowly turned him into a sort of puppet, an empty lifeless shell of a man who’s acting his daily life rather than living it. When his hopes for change are eventually raised by a turn of events, Q soon finds himself confronted with social and political issues that have been building up over the years and are currently turning the city where he lives into some unexpectedly strange territory. Switching from fantasy to reality and vice versa, as well as using an amazingly creative imagery, Dorothy Tse thus provides a chillingly vivid portrait of what’s became of Hong Kong and it’s people 10 years after the UK handed it over to China.
Girish Karnad, Yayati.
Written in the early1960’s, when he was only 22 years old, this is the first play Girish Karnad wrote. He made the then unusual choice to write it in his native Kannada language, and as it turned out, this made him become one of the major literary voices both in this language and in his country. The play retells the story of King Yayati, a character who appears in the Mahabharata (an epic of ancient India in Hinduism). He is portrayed as a more or less ‘jouisseur’ type of man who enjoys the material aspects of life, and when he is faced with having to bear the consequences of his acts, after trying to escape his responsibilities, he eventually shows some wisdom. Adapted for modern audiences, the play is highly accessible and is a great way to approach a classic of Indian literature.
More ‘Breakfasts with Shakespeare’:
Much Ado About Nothing; a light and easy and well plotted comedy which explores the notions of honour and virtue.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, which provides us with a second helping of the hugely popular Falstaff (EDIT: he first appear in King Henry IV), a character who in this instance gets tricked by some witty minded ladies.
The Phoenix and the Turtle; a short poem which I thought would be easy to read but turned out to be a challenge for both my English and my understanding.
Dorothy Tse, Owlish (First published in Chinese, Taiwan, 2020).
As far as I know, this would be Dorothy Tse’s first novel. She’s otherwise have been known for her short stories, some of which have been translated to English. Let’s not beat around the bush: I have thoroughly enjoyed that novel. So much so that I found myself slowing down my reading pace in order to prolong the pleasure. It tells the story of Q, a 50 year old professor of literature who’s bland marriage and bland career and (more or less) bland life has slowly turned him into a sort of puppet, an empty lifeless shell of a man who’s acting his daily life rather than living it. When his hopes for change are eventually raised by a turn of events, Q soon finds himself confronted with social and political issues that have been building up over the years and are currently turning the city where he lives into some unexpectedly strange territory. Switching from fantasy to reality and vice versa, as well as using an amazingly creative imagery, Dorothy Tse thus provides a chillingly vivid portrait of what’s became of Hong Kong and it’s people 10 years after the UK handed it over to China.
Girish Karnad, Yayati.
Written in the early1960’s, when he was only 22 years old, this is the first play Girish Karnad wrote. He made the then unusual choice to write it in his native Kannada language, and as it turned out, this made him become one of the major literary voices both in this language and in his country. The play retells the story of King Yayati, a character who appears in the Mahabharata (an epic of ancient India in Hinduism). He is portrayed as a more or less ‘jouisseur’ type of man who enjoys the material aspects of life, and when he is faced with having to bear the consequences of his acts, after trying to escape his responsibilities, he eventually shows some wisdom. Adapted for modern audiences, the play is highly accessible and is a great way to approach a classic of Indian literature.
More ‘Breakfasts with Shakespeare’:
Much Ado About Nothing; a light and easy and well plotted comedy which explores the notions of honour and virtue.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, which provides us with a second helping of the hugely popular Falstaff (EDIT: he first appear in King Henry IV), a character who in this instance gets tricked by some witty minded ladies.
The Phoenix and the Turtle; a short poem which I thought would be easy to read but turned out to be a challenge for both my English and my understanding.
Last edited:
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
Five Best Books for the Quarter January--- March
?? Death of Artemio Cruz--- Fuentes
?? The Conservationist--- Gordimer
?? Voss---- White
?? Another Country--- James Baldwin
Swann's Way---- Marcel Proust
Very difficult to choose between Conservationist and Savage Dectatives, but I went for the former. A very strong quarter of reading for me.
?? Death of Artemio Cruz--- Fuentes
?? The Conservationist--- Gordimer
?? Voss---- White
?? Another Country--- James Baldwin
Swann's Way---- Marcel Proust
Very difficult to choose between Conservationist and Savage Dectatives, but I went for the former. A very strong quarter of reading for me.