[Joepicalli]

Another recent read that left me speechless  "Stoner" written in the late sixties (but not what you'd think from the title and the times). A quiet reflection on an average life, in an average place, struggling to achieve and maintain mediocrity.
A bit like my climbing career really.   

[andy popp]

Me too. Didn't get far with Midnight's Children either. Evidently not cut out for classic contemporary lit.

I love both Midnight's Children and 100 Years...

Quick question, to see if a theory of mine holds: have any of you guys who disliked these novels been to a non-western country? (I'm thinking more than a quick business trip or working on a Nigerian oil rig...)

I've spent about 2 months in India? Not a lot really. I'm not sure what difference it would make. 100 Years can't really be anything like anywhere in South America, can it. I was glad I wasn't the only way not getting it.

[andy popp]

Another recent read that left me speechless  "Stoner" written in the late sixties (but not what you'd think from the title and the times). A quiet reflection on an average life, in an average place, struggling to achieve and maintain mediocrity.
A bit like my climbing career really.

I enjoyed Stoner too. I wasn't sure at first but it grew to a pretty crushing ending. Have you read the other rereleased one (Buffalo's Crossing?). The best thing I've read recently is Charlotte Bronte's Shirley - a very powerful masterpiece.

[Muenchener]

Me too. Didn't get far with Midnight's Children either. Evidently not cut out for classic contemporary lit.

I love both Midnight's Children and 100 Years...

Quick question, to see if a theory of mine holds: have any of you guys who disliked these novels been to a non-western country? (I'm thinking more than a quick business trip or working on a Nigerian oil rig...)

Been to India half a dozen times, longest stay five months. Love the place. Like lots of contemporary Indian English-language literature actually, e.g. Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Chandra. But not Rushdie.

[seankenny]

Well that's my theory of appreciating magical realism out of the window then!  MIdnight's Children uses lots of Bollywood tropes - the swapped around children, good brother/evil brother, etc, coupled with a feeling or mood that I find hard to explain but which, for example, is very common in Indian music but not so much in Western music. I'm not sure that without much contact with that world that the story would really make too much sense. Anyhow, Shame is better

As for 100 Years, can S America really be like that? Clearly not. Can people in South America explain their home like that? I'm guessing some can, as Marquez said he nabbed the stories from his grandmother. The girl who was so pure she made every man fall in love with her and who eventually was blown away whilst doing the washing? Well maybe, or maybe she got pregnant and they dumped the body off in the jungle and that's the story they told their kids.

White Tiger was a bit plodding and I found the narrators voice was a bit off.

[andy popp]

I just read the passage about Remedios the Beautiful levitating away last night. My question was rhetorical really.  I get (presume) it's meant to be allegorical but find it banal.

I've not read Rushdie. In fact I can come up with a long list of people I 'should' but haven't read; Mario Vargas Llosa, Don Delillo, Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, John Updike, Martin Amis, Joseph Heller, Gunter Grass. I've decided that basically life is too short.

[andy popp]

Back on track, a superb book I read last week is Henri Barbusse Under Fire - a French first world war novel written by a combatant and published to acclaim and controversy in 1916. A beautifully written (make sure you read the Robin Buss translation) novel mixing in equal parts horror and humanity. Very highly recommended. I should read All Quiet on the Western Front next.

[Muenchener]

I've not read Rushdie. In fact I can come up with a long list of people I 'should' but haven't read ... Don Delillo,

I fought my way through Underworld on the recommendation of a friend whose opinion I respected, desperately hoping the whole way that something I could give a shit about was going to happen at some point. Spoiler Alert: it didn't.

[the_dom]

I've not read Rushdie. In fact I can come up with a long list of people I 'should' but haven't read ... Don Delillo,

I fought my way through Underworld on the recommendation of a friend whose opinion I respected, desperately hoping the whole way that something I could give a shit about was going to happen at some point. Spoiler Alert: it didn't.

Likewise.

[the_dom]

I just read the passage about Remedios the Beautiful levitating away last night. My question was rhetorical really.  I get (presume) it's meant to be allegorical but find it banal.

I loved Garcia Marquez, Murakami and their ilk when I was younger. I think that, as I've gotten older, my cynicism has grown and limited my ability to appreciate magic realism, to the point where I will refuse to read almost anything with a magic realist bent.

[seankenny]

This is the bit where I struggle to use the forum software.

[seankenny]

I just read the passage about Remedios the Beautiful levitating away last night. My question was rhetorical really.  I get (presume) it's meant to be allegorical but find it banal.

I loved Garcia Marquez, Murakami and their ilk when I was younger. I think that, as I've gotten older, my cynicism has grown and limited my ability to appreciate magic realism, to the point where I will refuse to read almost anything with a magic realist bent.

An aunt of mine has gone through something similar, but more extreme: originally an avid reader of fiction, by the time she retired she'd sworn off all make-believe and has only ever touched non-fiction.

So read all those story books now, whilst you still can. Don't save them for when you have the time.

[Muenchener]

Couple  of good WW II memoirs I've read recently:

Cyril Joly: Take These Men. Lightly fictionalised memoir of a British tank commander in the desert. Two years of going up against the Afrika Korps with consistently inferior hardware and often not spectacularly competent leadership. Chaos, fatigue, keeping going.

Geoffrey Brooke: Alarm Starboard! If this were fiction people would say it was too implausible. Regular RN officer. Torpedoed twice as a lieutenant on battleships, second time with the ship sunk (Prince of Wales). Makes it back to Singapore: invaded by Japanese. Escapes on freighter; shipwrecked on desert island. Eventually makes it to Sumatra; crosses Indian Ocean from there to Ceylon on small wooden fishing boat. Eventually back to Pacific on carrier; standing on flight deck a few yards from a kamikaze hit. Survives. Etc.

[Rocksteady]

I just read the passage about Remedios the Beautiful levitating away last night. My question was rhetorical really.  I get (presume) it's meant to be allegorical but find it banal.

I've not read Rushdie. In fact I can come up with a long list of people I 'should' but haven't read; Mario Vargas Llosa, Don Delillo, Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, John Updike, Martin Amis, Joseph Heller, Gunter Grass. I've decided that basically life is too short.

Yes, I read 100 Years of Solitude and found it pretty irritating. I thought some of the writing was beautiful but the whole thing seemed pointless to me. Maybe that was the point - but then that's a waste of my time.

Rushdie's books I find more engaging: liked Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses (the former more than the latter) but better I thought was Shalimar the Clown - less magic and more real, quite a beautifully sad story.

I'm on and off reading Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time'. Absolutely loving it but have given up trying to read it as 7 volumes in one go. The first 2 volumes took me longer to read than any other 5 books I've read recently and I fancied a change. I won't give up, just dip in and out more - the choice of words, the observation in it, the way the characters are built are all magnificent. A real treat.

Also reading more of the Aubrey-Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian. Just can't get enough of them, so good.

[Joepicalli]

Two very different books I've rated recently: "The Girl with all the Gifts" by M. R. Carey. A Zombie novel with a difference and a real world science twist (look up "cordyceps"). The other is a book called "Stoner" which is simply the story of a man who becomes a literature teacher in a Missouri University, lives a slightly sad uneventful life dies and is forgotten. The writing is of such a high order though, that this ordinary life is rendered into a beautiful meditation on our brief and often wasted time here (on earth I mean, not on UKB, obviously, all time spent on UKB is part of those treasured, hallowed events that we put in our mental "special place" along side the birth of a child and flashing 8c).

[Fultonius]

I'm just back from 3 weeks offshore in Malaysia, so I have been doing a bit of reading - mainly catching up on classics.

First off: Madame Bovary The newest translation by Lydia Davis. I guess there's not really much to be said that hasn't been said before, in a much more eloquent way than I will muster. Outstanding, moving and still very relevant to modern day life and love. I can see why it's called a "classic". One day I'll maybe be able to read the original.

Second: 1984 Interesting one this one. I have not previously read this, or anything fictional by Orwell. I've read a few of his essays in "Inside the Whale" which I actually prefer.  I don't think he's much cop as a story teller, but it was an interesting read in terms of seeing how the word has panned out compared with some of his themes. Is Animal Farm better?

Third: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. Brilliant! It's tale about two peoples lives (A Japanese Canadian woman and a Japanese teenage girl) who are linked by the diary of the girl.  Really thought provoking, interesting, and ultimately heart warming. It explores relationships, suicide, ageing and culture. My  mum gave me it to read and said - don't read it too fast. In fact, the book almost hints not to read more than a chapter at a time and I would agree.

Fourth: Trainspotting I've seen the film a few times but never read the book before. I'm sure it's a challenge for non-sots to read, but I think it's much better than the film in many ways. I sometimes find it hard to figure out who the main character is at any point though...

[slackline]

Is Animal Farm better?

All Orwell books are equal, but some are more equal than others.

[Falling Down]

John Burnside "I put a spell on you" As a poet and novelist Burnside has a real mastery of words and language.  This is part memoir part digressive essay on the nature of love, attraction and glamour in the old, magical, sense of the word.  It starts with his move from Cowdenbeath to Corby and the first stirrings of attraction for the opposite sex, set to the Nina Simone cover that provides the title and ongoing theme of the book.  There's a lot in here and it stands up to close reading.  Really good.

[SA Chris]

Fourth: Trainspotting I've seen the film a few times but never read the book before. I'm sure it's a challenge for non-sots to read, but I think it's much better than the film in many ways. I sometimes find it hard to figure out who the main character is at any point though...

In the book there isn't really one. Mark Renton is portrayed as the main charcter in the film, but I don't think there really is one in the book. I just finished Skagheads the prequel to Trainspotting, and thought it was a better book, worth checking out if you want a long read.

[Fultonius]

I'll check it out, cheers.

I was more meaning that I wasn't even sure who the current character was at any time. Sometimes it took me a couple of pages to work out who was narrating.

[SA Chris]

I think that's deliberate, He does it a lot in Skagheads too.

[andy popp]

Is Animal Farm better?

All Orwell books are equal, but some are more equal than others.

I much, much prefer his 'realist' fiction,  especially 'Coming Up for Air,' which is really worth reading.  Burmese Days and Keep the Aspidistra Flying are also good.

[DaveC]

Continuing to plow through my never-shrinking pile of stuff to read, I've polished off around 25 books this year so far. Christopher Clark's 'The Sleepwalkers' has been a highlight, as Andy P stated a while back, it is a fabulous work of narrative history no matter what you think of his conclusions. Also enjoyed 'The Ghost of Freedom,  A History of the Caucasus' by Charles King, another excellent piece of narrative history about a part of the world I really new fuck-all about beforehand. Followed this up by reading the same writer's equally fine history of the city of Odessa, as it turns out, a relevant read in the light of recent events in those parts.
In a very different vein was 'The Triumph of Human Empire' by Rosalind Williams, an interesting book looking at the influence of 19th-century progress on the writings of three famous authors of the time, Jules Verne, William Morris and Robert Louis Stevenson. (Andy, if you haven't come across this, you might find it interesting.)
The latest title to fall was 'Facing the Other Way" music journo Martin Aston's story of the rise of seminal indie record label 4AD from the start of the eighties up to the late nineties when founder Ivo Watts-Russell sold up and vanished into the New Mexico desert. If you're a fan of this labels product you'll love it, if not, well, maybe not so much...

[fried]

I'd been waiting for the 4AD book to come out, thanks for jogging my memory.

And any recommendations for books on the French resistance....

[SA Chris]

Is Animal Farm better?

All Orwell books are equal, but some are more equal than others.

I much, much prefer his 'realist' fiction,  especially 'Coming Up for Air,' which is really worth reading.  Burmese Days and Keep the Aspidistra Flying are also good.

And if you want to really appreciate what you have, read Down and Out in Paris and London.