Yakoob on 24/9/2016 at 22:52
After wrapping up Doomsday book, I started on Pratchett's Mort. So far, excellent Pratchett goodness. I like the fact it takes place in a city named "Sto Lat" which means "Hundred Years" in Polish and and what we say to people on their birthday. Ironically fitting.
Pyrian on 24/9/2016 at 23:20
Do you still say that if they're turning 102? Lol.
Yakoob on 25/9/2016 at 06:32
Hmm. I guess we could try 200 years :p
qolelis on 25/9/2016 at 14:26
I finally got started this summer on Marcel Proust's monumental piece about things past. It's basically the very epitome of purple prose (or purple prose in a nutshell -- a very large and lusciously described nutshell, or "purple prose like hell, man"); if it had been written today, 50 percent or more would have been cut (condensed into like three books instead of seven), which I sometimes regret it weren't, because if I'm not in the right mood, each page is like an impenetrable wall of words, but, then again, if I am in the right mood, it can really be an enjoyable read, even humorous at times (I think I just read the earliest description of hipsters I've seen so far), and the wall of words becomes less of a wall and more of a lover's generous embrace to sink into, like a warm and welcoming respite from the woes of the modern world, but, even then, I have to sometimes reread a sentence after having gotten lost in exactly how the grasshopper sounds throughout the day, suddenly interrupted by how the clock tower was built and how it affected the young author, because said grasshopper happened to land on its base, and what was served for dinner the other day, how it was cooked, where the ingredients were bought, then a long clause about the cook's relationship with the author's grandmother, a catalog over the social ranking of everyone in town, and, finally, back to Monsieur Sauterelle again, who got tired of being neglected and had disappeared into the high grass surrounding the clock tower, because the handyman, who would otherwise keep everything in perfect order, had had to go into town and buy new shoes on the day normally scheduled for tending to the church garden's grass, green as the feathers of the parrot belonging to the sensuous marquise de Lorange, whose estate could be reached taking the path from the back of the garden instead of the one at the front, which instead lead to the small town, over which the clock tower could be seen as an exclamation mark after the sentence which was the town square, albeit not the same garden, mind you, in which the young author was often found in its most distant corner, reading one of his favourite novels, of which there were many, hidden away from the rest of the world -- all in just one sentence.
tl;dr: Madeleine cakes taste pretty good (I recently made some) and can make you remember stuff.
Thirith on 25/9/2016 at 15:08
I finished Salman Rushdie's latest, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, last week, and while it was a pleasant enough read with some very nice episodes, as a whole he's yet again written a novel that recalls his best without ever coming close to it. He used to tell a good story while commenting in interesting, startling ways on issues such as identity, migration, religion, fanaticism, but nowadays he seems to be repeating what he's already said without adding anything new.
Sulphur on 25/9/2016 at 18:39
I've read Midnight's Children and The Enchantress of Florence, and to be fair, I can't see if there's anything more he could say on those themes than he's explored already: there can only be embellishment and addition through slightly different perspectives. The issue may be that he only writes a certain kind of story, and he invariably does it very well, but it diminishes each time in the telling.
Red_Breast on 25/9/2016 at 22:01
Quote Posted by SubJeff
We.
I noticed earlier on iPlayer that 4 Extra recently repeated their drama of Yevgeny Zamyatin's We.
I listened to it when it first aired. A little search tells me that was in 2004.
It's in 2 episodes, an hour each, and on iPlayer for another 2 weeks.
Speaking of Orwell's 1984, Pacifica Archives have started putting their complete unabridged 1975 reading onto Soundcloud.
It will be 10 episodes, each one hour. Originally in 1975 it aired in 27 parts.
As for what I'm reading. A few on the go:
Les Klinger's annotated Sherlock Holmes with John le Carre intro
John le Carre's autiobio The Pigeon Tunnel
Richard Whittington Egan's The Definitive Casebook (Jack the Ripper) 2013 edition
--I read an earlier version of this. From 1975 I think. The author died this month, aged 91. A kinsman of Dick Whittington. Such rich prose and to pinch more from the Telegraph obituary - “one of the last surviving and most expert exponents of the broderie anglaise style of writing”.
(
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/09/19/richard-whittington-egan-expert-on-jack-the-ripper--obituary)
Thirith on 26/9/2016 at 08:21
Sulphur: I see what you're saying, although I don't entirely agree. Part of this is probably that I spent several years working on Rushdie; I wrote a dissertation on the four novels from Midnight's Children to The Moor's Last Sigh, which has solidified some of my opinions on Rushdie's development as a writer. (Doesn't mean my opinion is correct, just that it's firm.) The other is that I feel the diminishing returns issue is pretty harsh in this case: IMO he's saying less, he's saying it less interestingly and he's telling a worse tale while doing so. Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses are two of my favourite novels; his recent stuff doesn't just feel like lesser Rushdie to me, it feels (apart from some bits) like a lesser writer trying to imitate Rushdie.
Sulphur on 26/9/2016 at 08:38
And you may well be right, as I only have the two to go on from. It's impossible to get a physical copy of Satanic Verses here, and I'm not fond of reading entire novels on a screen. From my limited observation though, I think his obvious talent lies within the simultaneous deconstruction and re-mythologising of culture - Indian culture, specifically - though even in EoF, I couldn't help but notice a tired, almost resigned tone to it.
Thirith on 26/9/2016 at 09:09
Yeah, I'd definitely agree with you on the tired, resigned tone. He had that in The Moor's Last Sigh already, which is a sort of sequel/revision of Midnight's Children, but there it made a certain thematic sense: Midnight's Children, for all the horrible parts of history it described, had a sense (albeit an ambivalent one) of potential and hope, whereas The Moor's Last Sigh feels at times as if Rushdie was saying, "Yeah, I was wrong. There's little to no hope. India's screwed, at least for now, and I don't see this changing any time soon."
I think there's also another element: at least to me, his writing about India, Pakistan and London feels like it has something to say, whereas when he moved to the US he didn't really find anything particularly interesting or meaningful to say about the US. At least with Fury and Two Years... I very much felt that to be the case: his version of the United States feels flat and cartoony, almost as if he knew the US from (mediocre) TV and movies rather than from first-hand experience.
