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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

2005: What are you currently reading?

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19:02 / 06.10.05

Benway, re : Ulysses;

I suspect I ought to ignore my desire to look up every word I don't know or don't understand in context

When I finally finished it, it was on the 'Annotated Students' Edition' (I'm sure that was the wording on the spine but as I write it now all I can think is 'Edition for Annotated Students'), which was helpful on the old English and the references. It also kept me paying attention to what I was reading, because whenever I went 5 pages without looking anything up I knew the last 3 pages had consisted of me lolling my eyes over the page with brane entirely in neutral.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:08 / 06.10.05

I've just started Perdido Street Station again. After reading the Mieville short story collection Looking For Jake I suddenyl found myself in the mood.

02:23 / 07.10.05

Mistoffelees: I've said it to numerous people, and I think i've even posted it in this very thread. I'll say it again: The ending of System of the World makes everything worth it. It is one of the best payoffs in the history of historical fiction (hyperbole? maybe...) I don't mean a twist ending or anything. I mean it just feels perfect. It's a perfect ending considering the previous 2000 pages. Also, System of the World moves along a lot faster than the previous volumes. Stephenson's tendancy to confuse the reader by using confusing paragraphs and arcane references to character dissipates in the third volume. It reads like one of the better written thrillers out there. Keep at it, you won't regret it!

Blue Dream Butcher

15:18 / 08.10.05

I just finished reading Old School, by Tobias Wolff. It's a lucid, beautifully written exploration of the nature of writing, and what motivates people to write - kind of along the lines of "Dead Poets Society," but with more liberal guilt. Now I'm diving into Orson Scott Card's The Worthing Saga. So far it's great, but I'm not sure it'll top Ender's Game, as my friend claims.

Has anybody read Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren? It's been sitting on my desk for a few weeks and I've been thinking about tackling it next.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:51 / 08.10.05

I've read about half of Dhalgren- it was very good, but I'm easily distracted, and must finish it one day. According to Lilly Nowhere, it's one of the best books ever written, and from what I read of it she didn't seem to be far wrong with that.

01:56 / 09.10.05

I read somewhere that Dhalgren is the Ulysses of science fiction. I bought a used paperback of it from the eighties for like a buck and I still haven't gotten around to it.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

04:10 / 09.10.05

Mebbe we should do a Barbelith Book Club on Dhalgren, seeing as so many of us haven't got round to reading it yet, but intend to.

14:02 / 09.10.05

Update on 'Independent People'...make sure you don't buy one of the copies, which instead of having the final 50 pages, instead has the 50 pages you've just read repeated in their place due to a printing cock-up. As good as they were, and they were very good, once is enough.

Liable to cause a literary hissy fit, exacerbated by amazon telling you you should have spotted it before you started reading.

20:43 / 09.10.05

Amazon sold you a book with the last fifty pages missing and gave you attitude when you complained instead of apologising and supplying the goods as advertised?

22:20 / 09.10.05

still have 'ulysses' on the go - and benway et al, i am finding that reading a dozen or so pages at a trot while letting the odd word here or there pass by gives the sense of stream of consciousness, it puts you in the head of the character - and if you actually found yourself there, you'd only half-get thoughts and perceptions but the whole would still make sense. i think this is the best way to read it first. i intend to go back and study it later, but read it now...

also started a second franzen book 'the twenty seventh city' and am finding him almost as engrossing as with 'the corrections' but am only mebbe a sixth of the way through. again, it is broad and comprehensive, poetic and insightful, though a little over-prone to americanisms in the writing... but he is american!

i just finished javier marias' 'a heart so white'. read this book! the story of a spanish interpreter's family history rolling into his present. an intellectual and engaging story well told and wonderfully written (even if his research into prada shoes is somewhat lacking)

23:51 / 09.10.05

I just started The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans, and it is excellent. I love Evans' intimate raconteur style of prose; it flows very smoothly. But, oy, the ego. This kid has some balls on him, let me tell you.

08:39 / 10.10.05

[rot]

Yup Xoc, they did. Though they're now sending me a fresh one, which is nice. Had to point out that although i might be a stuck-in-a-rut traditionalist, i do tend to read books from start to finish, in order, so it was unlikely i'd have picked up the mistake until 50 cocking pages from the end. And as such, the return is in 'as read' condition. 95% read anyroad.

[endrot]

But it's a great book, and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Tryphena Absent

15:17 / 10.10.05

I enjoyed the Oxford Murders though it could have been longer (how rare!) and have now started to read Brass by Helen Walsh. I'm finding it a little weird, primarily the Liverpudlian elements of the novel- I am after all a purely Southern gal but at it's core the story is a familiar one, focusing on two friends who don't really gather what's going on with one another as one of them gets engaged.

It has some nice reference to designer labels in there as well.

17:52 / 10.10.05

I was in a small hostel in Sevilla? I think, and some one had left a copy of BRASS in the foyer. Written inside the front cover was "Warning, this is the worst book ever written", or something similar. So, I had to like, read it.
Thought it was kinda like, chick-lit meets trainspotting.

07:35 / 11.10.05

Have just finished and love lovey loved up loved Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin. Won't anyone come join me on the Kevin thread to conduct rigorous post mortem?????

Tryphena Absent

12:00 / 11.10.05

Chick-lit? Really? I'm reading it as a coming of age story with a female rather than male character. It's far too gritty and anti-romantic to be chick-lit.

11:53 / 12.10.05

I'm about halfway through Lunar Park, which so far I think is very, very beautiful, and possibly the best thing BEE (he stings, DO YOU SEE! He stings, and then nearly dies every time he gets published, and then he has to recuperate, and he does this for us,) has put out yet.

Given the timescale (I am 75,) this would possibly mean I'd blink out of existence if the deal got done, but I'd be pretty much ok with signing away ten years of my life to be able to write anything like as well as this.

I doubt it's going to win him any new fans - arguably, he's retrospectively humanising his work in the same way that William Burroughs did with Queer, or JG Ballard did with Empire Of The Sun and The Kindness Of Women, but, on the other hand, the absurdity of that notion seems to be pretty much hard-wired into the text - who is Bret Easton Ellis? Well you don't know, do you? Even he seems a little unsure. So I suppose, once again, as in Glamorama, this deeply moral author focuses his pitiless gaze on celebrity culture, it's just that in this case, the celebrity is himself.

I could go on about this for hours, and probably will do once I've finished, but suffice it to say that at £16.95 or whatever it is, you might well be thinking you can wait for the paperback. But I wouldn't, if I were you - Do you need that food? No! Do you need to pay the gas bill? To hell with that! What you need to do is rush out instantly and buy a copy of Lunar Park, which won't disappoint you, in the way that meals and electricity so often do.

With the exception of Sax, I'm not sure if there's any other living author who's such a good bet to still be read in a hundred years time, so even if you're *not* a fan of 'coke-snorting, cock-sucking zombies' etc, I still think it'd be worth getting hold of an early edition, even if all you're going to do with it is put it in teh safe, with all the other precious things.

The cover alone is very nice.

Recommended, in other words!!11!!!

15:48 / 12.10.05

Matt MMM - Robert Evans book, has the best last line.

JD - I has something similar happen to me with a book (um, some Summerset Maughm book I think), the shop refunded me because the book was out of print since I'd bought it - you should explain to amazon that some people don't like to flick through their books before reading them incase it spoilers some of the story, bunch o' cocks.

10:05 / 13.10.05

maenad, I've paid my 90p to reserve We Need To Talk About Kevin at the library, so should be joining the fray in a week or so! I'm reading Zelda Fitzgerald's Save Me The Waltz, which is not as bad as I thought it might be (based on the previous form of her short stories) but is, as the introduction points out, mainly for Fitzgerald household completists. The plot is rattling along just fine, but the writing pretty much loses it every time attempts are made at metaphor or similie -they start well and then another analogy or adjective is added and I lose the impression that she's actually in control of what she's writing. Still, I'm really enjoying her writing about the ballet, as that's an aspect of her life that I've read a bit about but never from her point of view (or maybe it's just because I fundamentally like reading ballet stories). Either way, the book is extremely articulate on what she got out of it, and for that at least I'm enjoying it.

Interested to hear people not hating the Robert Evans book. The Kid Stays In The Picture was the worst film I've seen and not walked out of, so I'm deeply suspicious of the book.

Tryphena Absent

12:19 / 14.10.05

I've moved on... Brass ended rather abruptly and was rather too full of inconsequential moments that meant nothing but were only descriptions. Annoying as it was really a mystery, though not an obvious one. I found the skipping between characters a little too muddled, very disconcerting to be a 19 year old girl and then a slightly older man and because they were always thinking about each other it became a little frustrating, as if you were in your friend's head and could feel their exasperation. Laid on with a trowel, la. It was Walsh's first book so I forgive her, books are tough to write.

Now I'm reading The Soloist by Mark Salzman. I find the main character a bit annoying, much like a real cellist who's failed to fulfil his potential but I'm only 84 pages in and I'm reading it to understand the psychology of a fictional character who's still trying to concertize. It hasn't been particularly helpful yet, primarily because main character has managed to have no obvious social life inbetween his failure to make it and now. But of course this could change... this is a bit like a familiar movie though, it's a generic book.

09:17 / 16.10.05

Am toddling through several books at the mo (like,er,4), which is always more exciting when they spill into each other and little Alice findes herself in Kafka's Trial etc..

Lights out for the territory, which is ace, even if Sinclair does get a bit preachy left at times. Psychogeography fascinates me, and have just got to the tour of Jeffrey Archer's place, hilarious..

also sucking on Tibor Fischer's Don't read this book if you're stupid, which is ace too; Met the guy at a reading this week, and his work is definitely enthused by the same dry detachment he displays in real life. Great guy.

Thirdly is Hangover square, which has a great sence of foreboding and madness-it's vaguely linked to my Diss. on nonsense writing, so am giving it a ride.

Finally, Am knee-deep in Greek tragedy at the mo, and wading through Girard's Violence and the sacred, which is v. wordy, but also refreshingly simple. Bleak stuff though, all about the nature of scapegoating etc

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:43 / 16.10.05

the tour of Jeffrey Archer's place, hilarious..

I think that section of Lights Out is one of the finest pieces of writing Iain Sinclair has ever produced. (Anyone read "Edge Of The Orison" yet? On my shopping list for payday it is, yes).

14:09 / 16.10.05

Bits of Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin on recommendation from a friend but haven't dipped into it (possibly it just hasn't engaged me) in any substantial or lasting way so far.
DFW's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men which I think he describes himself as a series of short belletristic pieces (left me reaching for the dictionary that one with little reference other than HP's Belletrix). Some pieces specifically: The Depressed Person, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Suicide as Sort of Present and On his Deathbed, Holding Your Hand, the Acclaimed New Young Off-Broadway Playwright's Father Begs a Boon, are both poundingly engaging and unpleasant. The unpresent questions and small clues as to the interviewers self in Hideous Men and the all too present question in Octet rattled in my mind for a quite a while. Also present are the usual DFW trademarks, of longwinded and intricate footnotes which drive you despairingly head first into the character's awful thought process and the narrative world of the reasonably short pieces. I also found enjoyable, while not so poundingly distressing, Church is Not Made with Hands and Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko.

D: I can't really give comparison to writing or thematic style not having overall knowledge of Iris Murdoch's oeuvre or indeed the cerebral/literary chomps to do so. Although for me at least A Severed Head was a wonder and would whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone. A coupling of the largely agenda filled characters and Martin's stilted POV made sure that only my seat's edge saw any use. I think it's significant to mention that the characters, although from a much shorter novel, occupy, in my mind, an almost aspirational pedestal where the pretty fucking amazing cast of a Secret History, among others, reside. I found myself deeply admiring the fierce loyalty of Georgie, the dark intensity of Honour or Palmer's insurmountable charisma despite their deeply flawed situations. Extremely good read.

Xoc Any further recommendations? I have The Black Prince and also The Sea, The Sea.

Tryphena Absent

10:57 / 18.10.05

Have finished The Soloist. It was interesting but not brilliant and it felt like it could have been if the main character's life hadn't revolved solely around a cello. I am now reading Strangers by Taichi Yamada (trans. Wayne Lammers), which is about a TV scriptwriter in Tokyo. The first few pages are really weird, a central theme appears to be loneliness/being alone. Good-o.

12:30 / 18.10.05

One of my guilty pleasures in life was my recent discovery of the Aubrey Maturin Master and Commander novels-- I am currently in the fifth-- by Patrick O'Brian. They are superb reads-- lots of details (I never understand the descriptions of the battles, but they have pace) and lots of good character. I was hugely surprised by their quality, having never heard of them until the film.

My previous read, The Idea of North, I highly recommend-- dense and filled with information, but beautifully and enthusiastically written.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

02:16 / 20.10.05

I've just finished After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell. A woman ends up in a coma after walking into traffic, the book then jumps around back and forth through her life and that of her mother and grandmother then eventually explains why she did it. While the story of the central character, Alice, and the man she is attracted to, John, is interesting, especially in relation to his newly-religious widower father, a lot of the stuff about Alice's mother and especially her grandmother, reads like filler.

Now I'm reading Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man by David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke. Mainly for giggles. In which we learn that Moore is an evil monster who has lied about everything, ever, and I expect the next revelation will be that his name isn't even Michael Moore. Because he's like that, you see. The fact that neither Hardy or Clarke seem bothered to pretend to be objective but are only concerned with doing unto Moore as they presumably feel he has done unto General Motors, the NRA, Bush, et al, means their indignation ends up coming out sounding rather fake and forced.

10:22 / 20.10.05

I've been on a pirate kick recently, just finished reading "Henry Martyn" by L. Neil Smith, which basically pirates in space. The setting is a little contrived with all the technology set up to enable space flight & combat to be extremely similar to historical pirates. It's also slightly marred by the guy's libertarian beliefs (a couple of rants about private property being foundation of liberty & a comment about state capitalism & fascism being broadly comparable) & some dodgy sexual politics (however that may be part of the pastiche). However in the main it's an entertaining little book.
To continue in that vein I'm reading Sabatini's "Captain Blood", which is available through Project Gutenburg. Only just started & haven't got to the pirating yet but it seems entertaining enough.
Postscript: Google reveals that L. Neil Smith is an extreme libertarian and very pro-gun (he says you can instantly judge a politician on whether he believes in any gun control whatsoever) so watch out.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

09:39 / 25.10.05

Finished off the anti-Michael Moore book, now onto Bigger Than Hitler, Better Than Christ by 'The Rik Mayal. Everything that Mayal has done in his career has either been very funny or self-indulgent bollocks. This is the most bollocky of self-indulgent bollocks. It's Mayall's supposed autobiography, as written by the character he's played through his career, someone with rampant narcism, who is constantly on that peak of hubris, who believe's he's an ultra-intelligent sexgod, with that undercurrent of self-loathing and a tendency to get kicked in the bollocks by life. Now that I've relaxed my own rules about finishing books that I start I may give this up.

The annoying thing is that a proper autobiography by Rik Mayall might actually be worth reading.

OJ

13:18 / 25.10.05

I'm reading Hotel World by Ali Smith and have just finished the first part. It's quite dense and poetic but the voice of narrator of the first section - a recently dead young woman - comes through very clearly. I've put it down for a few days as I could almost taste the soil in the grave - there's something very visceral about it that is slightly overwhelming. Or perhaps it is if every second thing you pick up or see that week is about death.

Just about to start dipping into Annie Proulx's Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories, which I have it on good authority employ more humour than the excellent, but bleak Heart Songs .

I'd be interested in discussing the Brokeback Mountain novella (not the film) by Annie Proulx if there's no separat thread about it as I have mixed feelings (perhaps misgivings) about it being elevated to the status of a "gay classic".

Tryphena Absent

14:55 / 25.10.05

Just quickly: Strangers was okay, a neat twist at the end, if you like spooky (not horrifying) Japanese films and want a book equivalent to those than it's probably a good one to pick up.

I am on page 30 of Someone I Loved by Anna Gavalda. It reminds me of the most stilted parts of my own writing style, so personally I'm finding it very interesting. It's not stunning though and I have a sneaking suspicion it may not get stunning, however I always like writing beginnings best- perhaps I'm making fiction all about me?

15:26 / 25.10.05

Currently reading High Five by Janet Evanovich. I don't like mystery novels, I really don't, but I really like these books. They have some sorta strange hypnotic effect on me.

Once I'm finished with this, I'm going to start Knife of Dreams . I hear stuff actually happens in this book. I'm not expecting much from this one though. Anymore it feels like the only reason I'm continuing to read this series is the same reason people stop and stare at car accidents.

15:31 / 25.10.05

I'm still on a memoir bender, so I read Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs last week. I think reading memoirs must be like reading blogs, in that the quality of the reading is superceded by how well you come to "like" the author. I know a lot of people love Sedaris, but I find him boring and flat. I love Burroughs, however. This collection is a bit disjointed and reads like excerpts from a journal - which it no doubt is - but by the end it hangs together thematically.

Next I read The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank (not a memoir, but possibly thinly-disguised fiction). The reason I picked it up is the same reason I wound up feeling irked by it. I thought I wanted to read about a woman's account of trying to figure out how to be in a relationship, but it turns out I didn't. It was too melodramatic, too depressing, and too fluffy all at once. It was depressing - though perhaps all too realistic - to read about a female character's romantic relationships being so all-consuming in her life that even her rather interesting and exciting career (fiction acquisitions) was drowned by "man troubles." Sigh.

Now satifying by craving for memoirs and that for canine subject matter at once with JR Ackerly's My Dog Tulip.

21:59 / 25.10.05

I can second Nina's recommendation of Strangers, that's one of the best things I've read this year.

I'd be interested in discussing the Brokeback Mountain novella (not the film) by Annie Proulx if there's no separat thread about it

OJ, there doesn't seem to have been a thread on any Annie Proulx books -Brokeback Mountain was discussed a bit here here (now that I look at that thread I see you were in fact clearly aware of its existence) but I think that a new thread would be interesting!

I had a look for Hotel World, but it's on loan in the library just now so might take a while to come back. Currently re-reading The Annotated Lolita on the train and trying to read the notes alongside it as well, and at home I'm reading a Robert McCrum's biography of PG Wodehouse, which works quite nicely as a guide to the places he used in his fiction. I'm only about 50 pages in though, so PGW has only just quit his lousy day job.

Tryphena Absent

22:59 / 25.10.05

Of all of the 17 and 40 pages of books I've read so far this year Strangers comes in third at the moment behind Rendezvous in Venice by Beaussant (first) and Madame by Antoni Libera (second). Conrad's Fate is in fourth position. Thinking about these books I realise that I like my fiction repressed and featuring silly men with no particular happiness in their life but not too whiny. And they all have the undercurrent of mystery behind them. Anyone know any modern novels like that?

I am rotting this thread. Whoops.

OJ

08:53 / 26.10.05

OJ, there doesn't seem to have been a thread on any Annie Proulx books -Brokeback Mountain was discussed a bit here here (now that I look at that thread I see you were in fact clearly aware of its existence) but I think that a new thread would be interesting!

Thanks for that - I'd actually forgotten about it as it only mentions Brokeback Mountain in passing. I'll see whether I can formulate my thoughts clearly enough for a whole thread later.

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