Have you ever read Vol. 7 of In Search of Lost Time? Best "rumination" on the topics you described that I've seen.

I've stayed away from Proust. Perhaps I shouldn't have. Do you have a particular translation to recommend?

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The most recent U.K. Penguin translation. I think never published in the U.S. but many American libraries bought copies and you can find them in excellent condition at reasonable prices on Amazon.

yeah, it was really well written and great biography

RIP Philip Roth

Personally was never a huge fan

Blasted through this in a couple of days recently after listening to the Casefile podcast series on Silk Road. It was a fun read. Ulbricht is an interesting character and the SR case is compelling for all kinds of reasons. Good cat and mouse chase towards the end of the investigation too. I hope the full story on Variety Jones comes out one day.

Well this was interesting...(see my last post)

Finished Shogun by James Clavell. Huge novel but very much worth the time. I loved pretty much everything to do with Japanese & English culture clashes, especially when the filter of Blackthorne and Mariko's love story is applied. Clavell's definitely heavy on his amount of dialogue, and I did have trouble following some subplots (the omniscient perspective doesn't help in that regard), but the history of Japan and the intricacies of their social structures are endlessly fascinating. Ending left me wanting a bit, though.

I loved King Rat, but never continued on with the Asian Saga novels for some reason. Are you reading them all or just Shogun?

Just Shogun for the time being. Too many other books lined up at the moment. Definitely not opposed to it, though.

Noble House has the same type of non-ending as Shogun iirc, but I'm still glad I read both. I tried Taipan too but never could get into that one.

I'm about halfway through Journey to the End of the Night. Man, this Celine's got my head spinning. I never knew what I was missing. The prose is absolutely electric, unlike anything I've experienced.



Speaking of audiobooks... this one is perfect for the format: no annoying plot to follow, first person all the way, the aforementioned brilliant style, quick and clever metaphors, and David Colacci's a great narrator. The audio format also allowed for it to dawn on me far later than it should have that there's barely any dialogue -- Celine's able to create such a rich dialectic texture without it.

The infamous Celine...can one separate the artist from the man? Perhaps...he’d be celebrated in some circles today in America. I read Journey when I was young...today, knowing what I know...no

Mr. Nut and Mr. Blue and Mr. K;

I read Shogun long ago but still remember I liked it. So much so that I read King Rat which I thought was a better novel. Wasn't there a mini TV Series made of Shogun? Can't recall for sure and I ain't going to look it up. That's for you younger bucks to do.

The Bent Pin, by Florence King. I've read a number of her other books and enjoyed them all. The above is a compilation of columns Miss King wrote for National Review. Miss King is a very well read and intelligent and witty woman (and knows much about old movies) and skewers left and right and the middle. Deservedly so. I've always wanted to have sex with her but I think she is dead now and I'm too old to shovel her out of the grave and consummate my deviant wish. If only; we all lament at being too late to the party.

Reading The Bent Pin bolsters my opinion of women, perhaps they are not all the subspecies I've always suspected. But just perhaps. The Rolling Stones may still be correct. Some Girls and all that.

I've read Journey twice and think Celine's writing is hilarious, just awesome. I don't really care if he wasn't a Boy Scout irl.

I don't think it's only his real life outpourings that bother readers of Journey...there are enough wince-inducing instances of racism in the book itself.

I'd find similar sentiments written today unreadable for that reason, but it's a remarkable book whose prejudices should be seen in the light of historical context.

One of the best parts of the experience in reading Celine is realizing that even though his way of rendering thoughts into metaphors rings true with me, it's clear that he let his talent for reductionism take root too deeply in his psyche (seems to be the case in the story as well as in real life). He seems to lack the moral hook to snag his shirt sleeve and whisper in his ear that there are others who can see patterns in things and suss out meanings from them -- shock! -- just like him, and that some of those people are the ones he is so willing to reduce into symbols and stereotypes (or anti-stereotypes).


It's pretty awesome that we can so clearly see the path evolution took away from his ideas and point out his shortcomings. It means that we've learned something.

I’m not so sure we’ve learned anything. It’s long been an argument whether biography should inform a work of art. As a teenager i loved Wagner’s music (partially as I got to perform the opening solo of Ride of the Valkyrie). When I expressed my admiration to the music director he told me Wagner was one of the most evil men who had ever lived. Eventually I read a biography and learned what he was. Years after I realized there was another level to his evil...influence (Nazi). Celine is in this category as opposed to the Weinstein’s, the Louis CK’s. Celine’s fascist/racist bedrock has been influential in ways beyond my casual knowledge of the French. Steve Bannon has often cited several French nationalist/anti-Semite/ fascists as the bedrock of his philosophy (such as it is). These French writers were strongly influenced by Celine. Terrible things are happening in the world at present. Celine, long dead, is a part of it.

I disagree vehemently with that, but I'm not gonna politard this book thread up arguing about it.

Tyvm

Let's try to remember that books can't be held responsible for the people who read them.

I haven't reported for a while so here are some books I have recently read or am reading:
Shopgirl by Steve Martin - interesting
In the Distance by Hernan Diaz - boring
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow - got him the Nobel Prize
and
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner - upper middle-class over-achiever researches social tourism and writes.

Well, that's tons of hard work reduced to a few trite phrases.

Dictator Robert Harris...the third book in his Roman trilogy. The last 15 years of Cicero’s life as reported by his slave Tio. The author incorporates Cicero’s writing in plain English. Most of the characters are real though they seamlessly move with the fictitious. Tio was real and his influence in the modern world lives on in his invention of shorthand. The tumultuous times recounted are of the end of the five hundred year Republic precipitated by the harnessing and weaponizing of the rabble. The modern parallel is striking.
Years ago I read Harris’ Fatherland an alternate history in which it is 1964 and the Third Reich is preparing for Hitler’s 75 birthday. A very good read. It’s up there with Philip Roth ‘Plot’ and Philip K Dick’s The Man in the High Castle Curious that they all depart from the same nexus

I've got a slew of classics lined up, so you guys had better get used to me saying all kinds of stupid **** about them!


Read one yesterday -- True Grit by Charles Portis. Good book, nothing dumb to say about it.


Also started Paradise Lost on audio. I've got to start listening to more poetry, as this is awesome.

I love Portis...particularly Gringos
Milton is what stopped me in grad school...no audio back then except for my cassette of Dylan Thomas which is what I used to play at high volume in the DQ. Never got me laid