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Recently Read

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13:32 / 10.09.01

I don't seem to be reading much for fun these days - it's all review copies I've got to write about, which does take away some of the pleasure.

Anyway, currently half-finished:

All Families Are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland - well over the top family drama centred around a thalidomide astronaut and her HIV mother and brother, criminally-inclined other brother, mid-life crisis father etc. I'm getting a bit fed up of all the "twists" Coupland keeps hitting me with every time I turn over the page and the characters seem very cartoony.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. Only read about 50 pages. There are currently three narratives running together and it's quite confusing, but I'll probably stick with it.

The Dreadful Judgement by Neil Hanson - "factional" account of the Great Fire of London. Very well realised, although I feel his fictionalisation of some of the stuff leaves me wondering just how much he's made up. However, I did interview him and he reckons it's all kosher and researched.

My Favourite Year edited by Nick Hornby - a collection of football-related short stories. Which are largely more about relationships. A curate's egg.

Oh, and four issues of Razzle from 1983, which I keep by the toilet.

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:58 / 10.09.01

In various stages of reaidng the following:

Lanark by Alaistair Gray (snap, Soppylaces) - been wanting to read this for ages, and found a copy cheap in Spittalfields... It's very good, but I've had to pause because it's so darn depressing (so far). And if the obvious twist is meant to be a twist then it's a bit of an obvious one. But maybe it isn't.

White Noise by Don DeLillo, which is on pause because it's disturbing me how crap it is so far compared to Underworld. It smells like John Updike, which is bad.

Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Wintersen (sp?) - paused because I want to try and read it all on a beach when I'm on holiday next week. And basically I had to interrupt it for an extra reason which applies to all of the above: I've been too busy reading -

Count Zero (finished) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (almost there) by William Gibson. I'm a new convert to the church of Gibson - I haven't felt this way about a writer for a while, where each book I finish makes me want to read another one by them (it helps that these are part of a trilogy). Well-paced action, instantly memorable characters (often slightly cartoony or OTT, but that's part of the appeal), boundless imagination (lots of those crazy big ideas we love so much), and a strange tug of melancholy that crops up again and again. Also a very good, tight prose style which means that I, who am usually quite a slow reader, ahve been racing through these...

16:10 / 10.09.01

I strolled down to the local McBooks during lunch today, with a list of notes taken from this thread (thanks

). They had American Psycho - I loved the movie, so I started flipping through it. Found the scene where he's got the two prostitutes in his apartment.

Nnnyyaarrgh!

No thanks - I'll save it for another time when I don't feel like sleeping for a week. I don't mind a bit of the old ultraviolence, but goddamn!

I ended up getting Gravity's Rainbow. I was going to get The Crying of Lot 49, but they wanted $12 for it - a book that's about a centimeter thick! Barely a novella! Sheesh. Gravity's Rainbow is about five times as thick for less than half again the price - seemed a better deal. Need something that'll last more than a single sitting, y'know?

I'll share my opinions later on.

20:04 / 19.09.01

I've been re-reading Theodore Roszak's "Flicker" - third time around, it's becoming sort of a yearly ritual.

In the meantime, I gfinished Murakami's "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle". Actually a trilogy (or is it a novel in three parts) the book can be seen as a very low intensity thriller, or a surrealist wink at thrillers. Great reading, with some highly unusual images.

02:44 / 23.09.01

Can't claim that I've finished it, since I haven't, but... Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin. Hard to get through at times, but, goddamn... anyone who ever wondered just how smart he was, just read it. He makes brilliant deductions and arrives and fascinating conclusions every page or two. And he actually has a sense of humor, though that only appears once every couple of chapters...

Clavis

07:39 / 24.09.01

Just finished Heart of Darkness.

fucking hell.

07:44 / 24.09.01

I just finished Sylvere Lotringer's "Overexposed" - highly relevant to some on this board - about an experimental and extremely weird new (in the early 90s, when it was written) form of treatment for sex offenders, especially rapists and child molesters. It's nonfiction, based on extensive interviews with doctors, patients etc. The conversations between the postmodernist philosopher/semiotician Lotringer and the obsessively pragmatic Dr Sachs are hilarious. Definitely worth reading, although the introduction is a wank.

07:52 / 24.09.01

quote:Originally posted by Rizla Year Zero:
Just finished Heart of Darkness.

fucking hell.

Yeah, Dark isn't it.

Recently Read:-

'Stalking Fiona' by Nigel Williams. Very good thriller where everybody in the book appears to be guilty of something. Nice way of exploring the idea of "Do you really KNOW the people that you work with?"

"They Came From SW9" by Nigel Williams. Aliens and Spiritulist meetings in Wimbledon. A darkly comic coming of age story.

"Thingy Spell" Katherine Kerr. Reading these addictive celtic fantasty books.

"Earthly Powers" Anthony Burgess. No idea what it was about when I started it, about a quarter of the way through. Seems to be commentating on 20th Century history and it's attitudes to sex and art through the eyes of a homosexual writer who's about to provide the evidence for the canonisation of a dead pope. S'been very good so far.

07:52 / 24.09.01

in ten years time when you still haven't finished gravity's rainbow you'll go n get lot 49 finish it in one of the funnest afternoons of your life and realise i am right allalong

Tryphena Absent

12:42 / 24.09.01

I just read The Powerbook by Jeanette Winterson and I thought it was appalling! It's like chatting to your best friend and they just can't talk in sentences anymore.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:48 / 24.09.01

I have to say, I've found Gut Symmetries really hard work after an excellent start... She can obviously write really well, but something about the love triangle just leaves me cold.

13:03 / 24.09.01

Time by Stephen Baxter - anyone read it - quite good sci-fi, how can you beat supper intelligent space squid? no really? how?

The Return Of Rothkoid

14:24 / 24.09.01

Been in a bit of a reading lull after finishing The Illuminatus! Trilogy - which I thought was a bit crap. Hmm. But have been ploughing through Anne Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (thanks, Cavatina) as well as inhaling Bill Bryson's Down Under. The Radcliffe is great, if a little tiring at times, while the Bryson didn't really do anything for me. Not as personal as his other stuff, but annoyingly "look, I've got it all figured out" in places. Grr. A whole afternoon spent in limbo, frankly.

On the upside, the past week's seen me snag copies of the Peter Ackroyd biog. of London, the novel of 2001, an overview of the Ern Malley poetic bullshit affair, and a copy of Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth that I've been looking for for a while. All cheap, except the Ackroyd. S'good.

04:10 / 08.10.01

A Scanner Darkly - Phil Dick

I mentioned my feelings about this in the Valis thread. I'm glad I read it, but I didn't really enjoy it. Shed some light on Dick's more sf imagery, the stuff that catches on yr imagination for its plainness... aging martians trudging across the landscape smoking cigarettes. A moralizing tale that should have ended differently.

The Cyberiad - Stanislaw Lem

Industrial fables. Funnier than Douglas Adams and inadvertently illuminating some of Will Wrights innermost fantasies. Not as good as The Futurological Congress, which incidentally puts a lot of Dick to shame.

The Terrible Twos - Ishmael Reed

Proof of Genius. Written in 1982 and a better attack on American society than anything else I've seen. In fact, in a lot of ways a more accurate depiction of a future/present than anything Gibson ever did. Heavy text, tight story, pm gloss, intelligent analysis. If you remember Reagan's election, you should read this book.

The Return Of Rothkoid

07:33 / 08.10.01

Just finished Anne Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, as edited by one of our Barbeloid flock. Heavy going; only 600-odd pages, but they're incredibly dense, and are marked at times by some truly annoying character behaviour. But it all comes good in the last couple of chapters; gothic romance done right.

So, to counter the brain-furrowing that I've been getting from that, I'm buzzsawing through Arthur C Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Which seems...quaint.

04:51 / 09.10.01

quote:Originally posted by RiffRaff:

I ended up getting Gravity's Rainbow. I was going to get The Crying of Lot 49, but they wanted $12 for it - a book that's about a centimeter thick! Barely a novella! Sheesh. Gravity's Rainbow is about five times as thick for less than half again the price - seemed a better deal.

well if you divide it up and rate the cost by pages you'll actually read, you got the ripped-off ass end of the deal.

either that or im a retard, but V and 49 are two of my favorite books and after 5 tries, i think gravities rainbow officially beat the crap out of me.

04:53 / 09.10.01

quote:Originally posted by RiffRaff:
[qb]I just finished Sylvere Lotringer's "Overexposed"

it was interesting for what it was, but a big disappointment from him, i thought. i had him for a class on post-structuralist theory and he was goddamn head-expanding, and his company semiotext(e) is obviously so kickass -- but that book was so far below the usual psychedelic brain twisting i expect from him. im not even sure what other books he's actually written other then interviews..?

[ 09-10-2001: Message edited by: Mystery Gypt ]

The Return Of Rothkoid

11:20 / 09.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Mystery Gypt:
i think gravities rainbow officially beat the crap out of me.Ouch. I do agree, though, it's a difficult fucker. Especially in the badly-printed Vintage edition; yeuch.

Finished 2001: A Space Odyssey. Thought it was good - explains things a little more clearly than the movie, and is more of a defined story - but it does lose out a little in terms of being evocative and mysterious - the film is, the book isn't, really. As I said earlier, it seems kinda quaint to read how space is described from Clarke's perspective, but... good fun!

deletia

11:39 / 09.10.01

Finished Steven Poole, Trigger Happy - an examination of pleasure in computer gaming. Interesting - gave me an enormous desire to play more of these computer game things to better understand the thrill. Must go over to Jonesy's and nab her Playstation./

This means I can get back to the Magus, for which I think I am a bit too old - I keep getting sidetracked, mainly by those perilous little "Postmodern Encounters" books.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:31 / 11.10.01

Just finished rereading a bunch of Rosalind Krauss , generally ace art theory stuff, esp. The Optical Unconscious and essays from an exhibition catalogue for a show called 'Formless' at the Pompidou Centre, on Bataille, entropy and atrophy in modern art. V.cool.

Bit brain stretching for this tired old thing but thoroughly recommended.

16:40 / 11.10.01

Oh, God... errrm...

The Love of Stones by Tobias Hill - all about the Three Brethren, three balas rubies and a writing diamond, and very good indeed.

An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro - very obviously a fore-runner of The Remains of the Day, but I was interested by the picture of Japanese culture just after the war.

What the Butler Saw - very entertaining history of servants and the servant problem, by somebody Taylor.

Buggered if I can remember what else.

07:06 / 12.10.01

quote:Originally posted by The Flyboy:
White Noise by Don DeLillo, which is on pause because it's disturbing me how crap it is so far compared to Underworld. It smells like John Updike, which is bad.

So glad you said this.

White Noise is the only DeLillo book I've read and I've since wondered why on earth he receives such glowing praise from normally sane individuals. Decent DeLillo recommendations would be warmly welcomed.

Recent reads:

No Logo by Naomi Klein.

Finally. And, erm... wow. Enough and more than enough has been said about this book already, so very simply, for anyone who hasn't yet read it (due to extreme isolation or debilitating illness): it's a mandatory text for anyone interested in the basic concerns that inform Barbelith, buy it now.

My Legendary Girlfriend by Mike Gayle (the insipid, worthless piece of shit). Recommended to me by someone I have the greatest love and respect for.

We all make mistakes.

This book represents the final, totteringly banal, horribly inevitable conclusion of all those naval-gazing novels written by young, English males about their predictably patchy love lives. I still shudder at the thought of those interminably dull telephone conversations that represent (I can only assume) some kind of wooing process via a competition to produce the most dolorous, turgid 'insights'. Fuck this. I can't even raise the necessary energy in response to this book to spew venom. Three words of advice: don't fucking bother.

Well, that was cheery now, wasn't it?

14:53 / 12.10.01

quote:Originally posted by ephemerat:

This book represents the final, totteringly banal, horribly inevitable conclusion of all those naval-gazing novels written by young, English males about their predictably patchy love lives.

Funny that, given that it was one of the first books in that rancid genre - over before it began,anyone?

It is an appalling read, though. Even my old flatmate who likes Lisa Jewell thought it was shit.

I remembered what else, too: Fishing for Amber by Ciaran Carson. I liked it very much - a meditative take on Dutch culture in the Golden Age, Irish storytelling, and pretty much everything else you care to mention. Anyone know whether his poetry is any good?

18:25 / 12.10.01

Finished Flicker yet again.

Meanwhile, started Murakami's "Dance Dance Dance", which I found extremely significant; the fact that I can relate quite perfectly with the dropout protagonist is rather worrying.
And yet, the sense of unease living in a highly superficial society is all there, and I share it.

Next up, "London, the Biography".
Finally everything I need to get back ideally to my favourite town.

01:53 / 13.10.01

Let's see if I understand this correctly, this is an opportunity to recommend an authors works to others? Oh boy, am I glad I found this site. Okay first of all, John Kings works: The Football Factory; Headhunters and England away, are so excellently written, that they should be made mandatory reading in creative writing classes. Also The Dancers at the End of Time omnibus by Michael Moorcock is a gem of science fantasy. The Worm Oroubourus, the Mistess of mistresses and a Fish dinner in Memmison by E.R.Eddison are incredible insights into a different take on fantasy. anyway there's more but that should keep you busy for a day or two. Thanks for the thread.
Luci.

02:07 / 13.10.01

I too was beaten to near death by Pynchon's Rainbow, I tried reading it nearly twenty five years ago, and once again five years later and yet again, yes I'm a masochist, about eight years ago, I finally gave up, and passed it onto an unsuspecting friend who two years later tracked me down and tried to stab me, but only managed to beat me about the ears with the offending book. Haven't seen them since. A better read, and much funnier, is Venus on the Halfshell by Kilgore Trout, which is not only a laugh a line page turner,but only about 150 pages long. Damn!! I wish I had that tome now.

The Return Of Rothkoid

13:27 / 19.10.01

Bill Bryson: Notes From A Small Island. Stock Bryson, and better than his recent one on Australia. I read it because I was still recovering from Radcliffe Reading. My excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday. Finally got around to it, JtB! Enjoyable stuff; can see how something like The Prisoner would owe a lot to it. Ending was a bit - different - than I expected, though there are some rather predictable bits in the story. I should read more Chesterton, methinks...

Currently: Janet Malcolm's The Silent Woman: Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, an examination of the relationship of the two, and the actions of Hughes after her death. I've been meaning to reread this for ages, and the couple of pages I've read so far are shoring up my good opinion of it...

13:59 / 19.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Rothkoid:
I should read more Chesterton, methinks...

I’d recommend practically anything he’s written. The Napoleon of Notting Hill is another great novel, a good one to start after …Thursday.

I just finished The Exorcist which I thoroughly enjoyed (hadn’t read it before). I was struck by how warm-hearted it was. It’s full of compassion, generosity, loyalty, friendship, and humour. Plus the Jesuits get all the best lines – they booze and smoke their way through the novel with razor sharp wit and personal sacrifice beyond the call of duty (and they’re all scientists, psychologists and philosophers, for God’s sake): my kind of priests.

Plus there’s Kinderman, who rules.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:31 / 19.10.01

No Logo (Naomi Klein)- I think everything I wanted to say about it's been said already.

Captive State (George Monbiot)- on a smaller scale, but to a more intense degree...

House of Leaves (Marc Danieliwe... sorry, not too sure of the spelling and have lent the book to someone else)... indescribably good.

Comet In Moominland (Tove Jansson)- I read this on a regular basis. And it's always ACE. Now, more than ever.

16:20 / 22.10.01

This weekend I finished Lost by Gregory Maguire, whose every book I watch like a hawk for because Wicked is one of my favorite books ever, the sort of thing by which I gauge other people's opinions about books: if they love it, then they will get what I like and don't like. If they hate it, well, I don't think I've met anyone who hates it. Yet, anyway.

But Lost was a bit of a letdown. Maguire's two previous novels were retellings - or re-envisionings, more appropriately - of specific stories; the Wicked Witch of the West's perspective in one, and Cinderella in the next. Lost is a mishmash of literary and historical references, from Jack the Ripper to saints to Alice in Wonderland to Dickens, and in an odd connection, the main character suffers a similar fate, becoming a mishmash of traits and weaknesses. Things start to pull together in the final third but it's a hard book to fall in love with. I'd love, though, to hear what anyone else thinks of it, Maguire fans or not.

Flyboy: Have you read any other Winterson? Gut Symmetries was a troublesome one to get through, but The Passion and Written on the Body were both fantastic, and much more...what's the word I want to use? GS felt forced, while the others were just beautiful.

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