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Books
Oct 9, 2022 11:58:28 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Oct 9, 2022 11:58:28 GMT
I stumbled across this review of a new (May 2022) collection of essays by my favorite writer, Isaac Bashevis Singer, most of them previously unpublished in English. The review itself, by Adam Kirsch for The Nation, is pretty good. It captures something that always leaps out at me when I read Singer's more realistic fiction, which is his distrust of and dislike for vehement political ideologies, whatever they may be. Kirsch writes:
And:
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Oct 31, 2022 22:49:38 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Oct 31, 2022 22:49:38 GMT
I happened upon a novel in a "Little Free Library" in my neighborhood (to my great pleasure, our neighborhood is loaded with them) that turned out to be quite good: "World Made By Hand," by James Howard Kunstler (2008).
While I'd never heard of it or him, it was apparently pretty well received at the time. It's a dystopian novel set in upstate New York maybe a decade or two after things collapse. Something I really like about it is, Kunstler sets the novel not in the collapse, but a while after it, when things have more or less settled into a kind of semi-normalcy. (I'm guessing it's something like 2025 or so. Perhaps I could be more specific by reviewing the book, but it's not that important for the plot.) And he doesn't even focus on precisely what happened. We know there was Islamic terrorism involved, which makes more sense when you consider the time the book was written, and then some kind of larger wars and domestic intrigue/terrorism. But we don't really know more than that.
Instead, it focuses on a small city made smaller after wars and disease, with the nuts and bolts of life in that postmodern world. It doesn't quite fit into any of the obvious cliches: everything is perfect in this new, pastoral utopia; or some post-nuclear war hellscape as an object lesson against "The American Way;" or any such things. The relationships between characters are simply dealing with one another in relatively believable ways in a unique situation.
I couldn't put it down, and was glad to learn it's actually the first book in what has become a series. I've just ordered the second book.
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Books
Nov 6, 2022 1:39:16 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Nov 6, 2022 1:39:16 GMT
I've finished the second book of that ^ series, and things have taken surprising turns. Anyway, like the first, it was first and foremost eminently readable. These things aren't high literature, but they're really good stories well told. Today I ordered the final two books in the series. Having just finished Orwell's "Burmese Days," which is heavy stuff indeed with its wrestling with colonialism and racism, the page-turner nature of these books is really fun. (Which is odd to say, them being dystopian apocalypses and all...)
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Nov 13, 2022 15:15:03 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Nov 13, 2022 15:15:03 GMT
And now I've finished the fourth and final book of that ^ series. A 4-book series in just over two weeks, that's pretty fast for me. (Each book was probably 275-300 pages, too.) It speaks to the interesting plot and page-turner quality of the writing. But I have to admit, the fourth book had one plot twist and one character (or rather character of one group) that I found pretty clumsy and a little off-putting, not worthy of the series up to then.
Still, overall, an enjoyable bunch of books, James Howard Kunstler's A World Made By Hand books.
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Books
Dec 23, 2022 21:04:30 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Dec 23, 2022 21:04:30 GMT
A friend recommended Polish author Olga Tokarczuk's novel "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead." I'd never heard of it nor her, but he highly recommended it and I ordered it last weekend on the spot. It arrived the other day, and today I'm really plowing (no pun intended) through it.
The plot as I understand it so far is a bit strange, and frankly doesn't sound appealing. But as is so often true of great fiction, the plot honestly doesn't have to be something that immediately strikes you as ground-breaking, or even interesting. It's the total package of plot, characters, style, even the technical side of writing. (It's like music. It might be the lyrics you love, but a dopey set of lyrics can still be part of a masterpiece.)
One thing that has thrown me is her bizarre, seemingly random capitalization. (Or at least the translator's ... I can't say whether she did it in the original, though I'd assume so. To insert it would be even more bizarre, and egregious for a translator.) It reminds me of poor writers I deal with all the time, people who don't understand the difference between proper nouns and common ones, and so they seem to Capitalize and Words that for some Reason strike them as Important...you know what I mean? But I haven't quite seen a sure pattern, either. Regardless...
I've just googled Tokarczuk, and am already sufficiently interested to check out her other work.
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Dec 23, 2022 22:25:56 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Dec 23, 2022 22:25:56 GMT
One thing that has thrown me is her bizarre, seemingly random capitalization. (Or at least the translator's ... I can't say whether she did it in the original, though I'd assume so. To insert it would be even more bizarre, and egregious for a translator.) It reminds me of poor writers I deal with all the time, people who don't understand the difference between proper nouns and common ones, and so they seem to Capitalize and Words that for some Reason strike them as Important...you know what I mean? But I haven't quite seen a sure pattern, either. Regardless... I think I've got it! One running theme through the novel is the narrator's friend's obsession with translating William Blake. The narrator just quoted a section from one of his letters, and it includes some strange capitalizations like that, which as I said, is a kind of old-fashioned thing to do. Just to be sure, I looked up some of Blake's letters online and he did indeed write that way, capitalizing words we wouldn't anymore. So I strongly suspect she's doing it with that in mind.
Why? That, I still don't know...and it took me about 135 pages to figure out that much.
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Dec 24, 2022 9:48:59 GMT
Post by jk on Dec 24, 2022 9:48:59 GMT
One thing that has thrown me is her bizarre, seemingly random capitalization. (Or at least the translator's ... I can't say whether she did it in the original, though I'd assume so. To insert it would be even more bizarre, and egregious for a translator.) It reminds me of poor writers I deal with all the time, people who don't understand the difference between proper nouns and common ones, and so they seem to Capitalize and Words that for some Reason strike them as Important...you know what I mean? But I haven't quite seen a sure pattern, either. Regardless... I think I've got it! One running theme through the novel is the narrator's friend's obsession with translating William Blake. The narrator just quoted a section from one of his letters, and it includes some strange capitalizations like that, which as I said, is a kind of old-fashioned thing to do. Just to be sure, I looked up some of Blake's letters online and he did indeed write that way, capitalizing words we wouldn't anymore. So I strongly suspect she's doing it with that in mind.
Why? That, I still don't know...and it took me about 135 pages to figure out that much.
Interesting. I looked around (I had to!) and found these passages relevant: "Certain words are capitalized in her sentences highlighting when she's defining these terms for her philosophical systems of thought." [ Source] "Like Blake himself, the narrator writes her supposed story with certain words appearing in capital letters, including Animals, Anger, Ailments, Little Girls, Night, Soul and Mankind, among others. By writing them in capital letters, these words immediately have a powerful effect on some psychological level, making them and, therefore, their place in the story/the world much more important and significant. These words also drive the story forward and are more meaningful in the context than it is evident at the first glance." [ Source]
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Dec 24, 2022 13:10:34 GMT
jk likes this
Post by Kapitan on Dec 24, 2022 13:10:34 GMT
I think I've got it! One running theme through the novel is the narrator's friend's obsession with translating William Blake. The narrator just quoted a section from one of his letters, and it includes some strange capitalizations like that, which as I said, is a kind of old-fashioned thing to do. Just to be sure, I looked up some of Blake's letters online and he did indeed write that way, capitalizing words we wouldn't anymore. So I strongly suspect she's doing it with that in mind.
Why? That, I still don't know...and it took me about 135 pages to figure out that much.
Interesting. I looked around (I had to!) and found these passages relevant: "Certain words are capitalized in her sentences highlighting when she's defining these terms for her philosophical systems of thought." [ Source] "Like Blake himself, the narrator writes her supposed story with certain words appearing in capital letters, including Animals, Anger, Ailments, Little Girls, Night, Soul and Mankind, among others. By writing them in capital letters, these words immediately have a powerful effect on some psychological level, making them and, therefore, their place in the story/the world much more important and significant. These words also drive the story forward and are more meaningful in the context than it is evident at the first glance." [ Source] i.e, I nailed it!
I respect her creativity, but I have to admit I have terrible associations with that practice. When I see it in modern writing, it tends to be from very uncomfortable writers who just don't know the standard rules. In a lesser novel, I'd probably have just quit reading. But she's very engaging, and made me want to hang in there, to buy into her world.
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Jan 19, 2023 23:02:50 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Jan 19, 2023 23:02:50 GMT
Question for the readers of the board: once you've begun a book, if you don't like it, do you finish it anyway, or quit? How long do you give it?
I used to be a stickler for finishing, but not anymore. That said, I struggle with quitting, often thinking just a bit more of a chance might make all the difference, especially if it's someone I've read and liked before.
It's relevant because I'm about 100 pages in to Louise Erdrich's The Painted Drum. Not counting this, I've read about 4 1/2 of her books, with the half being one I (clearly) didn't really like. But the others, I liked quite a bit. And now this one, I'm just indifferent to. It's not that I dislike it; I just don't like it, either. Often I can't wait for some reading at the end of the workday or on a weekend, but this book, I just barely care. So I might quit. (In fact, this afternoon I started cheating on it by beginning Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.)
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Post by jk on Jan 25, 2023 13:56:08 GMT
Question for the readers of the board: once you've begun a book, if you don't like it, do you finish it anyway, or quit? How long do you give it? I used to finish every novel I started reading. The sad fact now is that I no longer read novels, just the occasional music book, and even then I tend to dip in from all sides. Reader's block is no fun at all, folks. Did I understand that sentence? Will I forget what I've just read if I turn the page? Curiously, I used to read massive tomes by Pynchon, twice in the case of Gravity's Rainbow, and pretty well everything by Kafka, D.H. Lawrence and my favourite author, J.P. Donleavy. I don't know if that answers your question.
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Jan 25, 2023 14:04:25 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Jan 25, 2023 14:04:25 GMT
Curiously, I used to read massive tomes by Pynchon, twice in the case of Gravity's RainbowFunny, because even in my "I WILL finish this!" days, the only Pynchon I ever finished was The Crying of Lot 49 (of which I remember nothing), I never finished Joyce's Ulysses after two or three false starts; and while I'm a big fan of Tolstoy in general and have read most everything else, I never finished War & Peace. Some novels were just too long for what I considered their lack of engaging qualities. I did move on to Diaz, btw. And 2/3 through it, I thought it was a slow starter but has become quite funny as I've gone on. Though the fact that probably 15% of it is in Spanish slang, I admit it's slower going than it ought to be for me. My high school Spanish is far behind me and never sunk in that much; my Latin from college helps, but is an imperfect help and is also far behind; and so I end up either figuring it out from context or using Google Translate ... which I suspect might be blushing as it tells me what Diaz's characters are saying!
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Jan 25, 2023 14:14:50 GMT
Post by jk on Jan 25, 2023 14:14:50 GMT
Curiously, I used to read massive tomes by Pynchon, twice in the case of Gravity's RainbowFunny, because even in my "I WILL finish this!" days, the only Pynchon I ever finished was The Crying of Lot 49 (of which I remember nothing), I never finished Joyce's Ulysses after two or three false starts; and while I'm a big fan of Tolstoy in general and have read most everything else, I never finished War & Peace. Some novels were just too long for what I considered their lack of engaging qualities. Ah, now that's another I've read from cover to cover. ( Finnegan's Wake is another matter entirely.) As for War and Peace, I'd rather watch the filmed version with Paul Dano! So I'm envious of you -- and of my wife, who simply devours books!
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Jan 25, 2023 14:36:18 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Jan 25, 2023 14:36:18 GMT
I liked Joyce's Dubliners short stories and his Portrait of an Artist..., but Ulysses was just too much for me. Bluntly, I didn't understand what was happening. I was committed to finishing it, but on the second or third try, realizing that yet again, I didn't actually follow, I decided I was literally wasting my time. I wanted to be one of those people who has read it, who gets it, who can speak intelligently about it. But ... nope. As a certain band once sang, "that's not me."
Off the top of my head, I really think only two "big books" would crack my list of favorites: The Brothers Karamazov and Anna Karenina. As I feel with a lot of music, most other very-long novels struck me as in need of some editing, including others by those writers. And many of my favorites are much more digestible, things like Camus's The Stranger, or Cather's My Antonia, or IB Singer's Shosha, or Hamsun's Hunger and Pan.
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Feb 19, 2023 18:34:47 GMT
jk likes this
Post by Kapitan on Feb 19, 2023 18:34:47 GMT
As I mentioned in the classical music thread, I've been reading Halldor Laxness's novel Independent People. Written around the middle of the last century, it takes place in rural Iceland about half a century before that, the story of a new landowner starting his farm on land said to be cursed since ancient times.
On one hand, it's hilarious. The stubborn farmer refuses any and all help or advice, often acting against his own best interests in the name of showing that he's an independent man, beholden to no one. And he (and the narrator) is full of sayings I find quite funny, like his boast about the farms' wealth, "we lack neither dung nor donuts." (Doing some reverse engineering, I wonder if the Icelandic original was "kukur" nor "kleinur.")
On the other, it's really sad in its portrayal of impoverished farmers' lives at that time. They are living in conditions somewhat similar to the early Midwestern settlers, in dugout, one-room homes, sharing spaces with animals, eating nothing but rotten dried fish and rye bread, each owning one set of clothing, wholly uneducated, everyone always sick to some extent, more babies stillborn than born alive, etc. A person can't help but be thankful for the changes in society. It's also a pretty powerful rejoinder to the romantic, false ideas of idyllic, simpler times.
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Mar 9, 2023 16:22:07 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Mar 9, 2023 16:22:07 GMT
It may be in poor taste to quote myself, but the below is relevant to my current reading situation. I stumbled across this review of a new (May 2022) collection of essays by my favorite writer, Isaac Bashevis Singer, most of them previously unpublished in English. The review itself, by Adam Kirsch for The Nation, is pretty good. It captures something that always leaps out at me when I read Singer's more realistic fiction, which is his distrust of and dislike for vehement political ideologies, whatever they may be. Kirsch writes: And: Last weekend I picked up a used copy of a novel whose front-cover blurb indicates it's the first great novel of Soviet Russia, F.V. Gladkov's Cement (1925) . The novel is set in a village whose former employer, a cement factory, has been decommissioned and looted. Our protagonist is a war hero returning to this, his hometown, to find the situation dire. Everything above from Singer rings true as I read it. The novel, at least in the first 70 pages or so, is as dreary and dead as its title. It is clumsily overloaded with propaganda, each character more ardent a communist than the last, all criticisms of every character aimed at those not doing their part for the soviets, everyone quick to remind everyone else of his status as a free citizen (which is the status that inspires him to live just about as unfree as is possible ... one wonders how many readers felt the disconnect at that point). Apart from a total lack of literary skill, nothing seems to ruin good fiction quite like propaganda. When the ideology or objective/diktat takes precedence over the story or the characters, it loses its reason for existence. It may as well be an operational manual, a party platform, or an employee handbook. Because it sure isn't literature anymore. (In fact, according to Gladkov's wiki entry, he rewrote parts of the novel multiple times "to suit contemporary political concerns and to fit with the Socialist Realist aesthetic established in 1932." Delightful... A part of me wants to finish the book, just to know it, to see how it all plays out. But it's really not enjoyable. For his sake, I like to think Mr. Gladkov had more talent and was just doing what he had to do to survive under Lenin and Stalin. (Based on the little of his autobiography I've seen, one wonders.)
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