books, books, books

[Otis Westinghouse]

Sounds like a bit of a drag. (Boom boom.)

[pophead2k]

Ha!

[alexv]

I can't recall much talk around here about Naipul. I've read quite a bit of his stuff over the years. Not a huge fan, but some of his travel stuff, paticularly Among the Believers is outstanding. Having also read a lot of his former friend Theroux's stuff, I was also in on some of Naipul's nastier side. Because of Theroux's comments on him (in the book Sir Vidia's Shadow, and elsewhere, since Theroux is virtually obsessed with the man), as well as Naipul's own quotes it was clear a long time ago that the man was a bit of a shit. A Nobel Prize winning shit.

But now, comes his authorized biography, and the mind-boggling nastiness of the man is exposed for all to see, with express consent, and dare I say it, glee? Check out the NY Times Book Review main page review that came out today. The story he allows his biographer to tell is so bizarre as to be worthy of a novel. A novel only a nihilist would love.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/books ... ?ref=books

A better treatment can be found in the review listed below, from The New York Review of Books. Buruma, the reviewer and a friend of Naipul's, notes Naipul's breezy racism, and, more importantly for the story that is told in the biography, his being sexually molested as a child. The Times review, inexplicably, leaves all this out.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22062

There is an age-old argument about how much any of this matter when judging a work of art, or a great artist. Lots of great artists have been world-class shits, and so what. But, jeez, Naipul's story makes one feel dirty just reading it. The fact that his greatest books gain a lot of their merit because of the narrator's (Naipul) observations and take on the world around him, makes his character a part of the stories he tells--an integral part. We all knew that he was a curmudgeon, and took that into account. But the extent of his vile personality, which is revealed fully now, has to make one question why anyone should lend any credit to those observations. Picasso may have brutalized women, but in the end the merit behind the pictures had little to do with the character of the painter. Anyway, the debate is endless, but for me Naipul's stuff will never have the same resonance.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Indeed, the interviews I've read have only ever had the effect of making me steer well clear of the books.

[Who Shot Sam?]

Picked up Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union and Paul Auster's The Brooklyn Follies to read on vacation.

Finally finished the Chabon on my flight back from LA yesterday. Enormously entertaining. Yeah I know I need to find more time to read.

[johnfoyle]

Any recommendations for a short Christmas book? Not Dickens of that recent Grisham one.

[Otis Westinghouse]

The recent Roths have all been quite short! Or you could try Thomas Pynchon's late 60s knockabout number The Crying of Lot 49, by far his shortest. Or a Murukami novel for fun,

[johnfoyle]

Sorry for my lack of clarity - I meant a short book with a Christmas theme. I have , by the way, the new Roth book and am looking forward to it. Right now I'm reading the new Le Carre.

[Otis Westinghouse]

I see! The only thing that springs to mind is Jennifer Johnston's The Christmas Tree. Know her at all? Probably yes, as she's Irish. I did a modern Irish fiction course a few years ago that involved a book a week, and I read it then, but al that speed reading meant I remember very little of it. My occasional pencil scribblings indicate I finished it but I can recall very little, though I do recall thinking it was worth reading and well-written. Not exactly a jolly festive theme, the main protagonist awaits death, just as the festooned tree awaits Christmas Day, etc., Is it for your book group? An alternative idea is to watch Bergman's Fanny and Alexander on DVD which contains one of the most memorable film versions of Christmas ever. I can still hear the song the kids sing as they run around the house euphorically. I must get that DVD.

[johnfoyle]

The Jennifer Johnston book sounds perfect - thanks!

[mood swung]

Finished Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride last night and immediately started in on Bukowski's Women.

I like contrast.

[StrictTime]

I'm going to work through the Sillmarillion again over semester break. I am a fantastic nerd. Otherwise, reading Sense and Sensibility again. I have an unhealthy obsession with it, I swear. Also, I plan on re-visiting The Bell Jar once I get home.

...I need new books.

[mood swung]

Finished Women. Largely depressing with one or two flashes of brilliance. I'm wondering if his earlier stuff might be better or at least less depressing.

On to Grisham's true crime thing now. Of course, I do not remember the name.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Article on new fiction for 2009:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/de ... eases-2009

Roth goes well overboard by the sound of it (is he pining for a pit of full-on controversy?) and Amis sounds interesting too. But of course the thing that catches my eye is that, remarkably, hot on the heels of the immense tome Against The Day (yes, I'm still working my way through it... ), Thomas Pynchon has another on the way in August 2009, Inherent Vice. It's revisiting the late 60s and 70s California also to be found in The Crying of Lot 49 and Vineland, but this time as a noirish detective thriller! A mere 416 pages, a novella compared to ATD.

He's in his 70s now, so this is an impressive work-rate. I can't wait. Cover and details on pp. 28-29 here:

http://booksellers.dk.com/static/pdf/pe ... mmer09.pdf

[Who Shot Sam?]

About halfway through Paul Auster's The Brooklyn Follies at the moment. Really enjoying it. I can relate to this world.

[Otis Westinghouse]

My eldest lad is 16 in a week. Has a taste for literature, wants to do English A level, etc. What books should he read? He's been reading Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird and Less Than Zero (which led to me bringing MAIT in the car on our Old Trafford pilgrimage). His friend is a bookworm and loves Auster, so he's keen to try some of that.

Anyone care to give me a couple of recommendations that set their world alight at 16, or have heard of doing the same with someone else? I remember more what I read at 17-18, Kafka (he's read Metamorphosis), Lawrence - incessantly at 17 and then tired of him - then Joyce starting with A Portrait, but have fewer ideas for 16. I was thinking Camus Outside. Haven't been to The List, but plan to. Irving's Garp maybe?

Any recos welcome for birthday presents. Ta.

[Boy With A Problem]

Camus is an excellent suggestion. I got into Kerouac at about that age - On The Road - the Roth books (When She Was Good I recall being better than Columbus or Portnoy) - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas made a big impact (kind of non-fiction) and I think I read six or seven of the Vonnegut books around then too....and In Cold Blood has left an all time lasting impression and he'd enjoy One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Many thanks. My copies of On The Road and Cuckoo's Nest are there among the detritus somewhere, don't think he's read them yet, but In Cold Blood would be great (although one of the possible 6th form colleges he might go to said it was one of their set texts for English). Vonnegut could be a good one. Roth wouldn't have occurred to me, but I don't know When She Was Good, so might try that - and then I can read it after him!

[mood swung]

The Twilight series!!!


(seriously, I'd never heard of them until the movie came out)

A Rose for Emily was how they taught Faulkner when I was in high school.
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english ... lkner1.asp

Not that that has anything to do with anything!

List-wise, I've started Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa. Naturally, I heard Meryl Streep for the first few paragraphs (I had a farm in AhhhFRIcahh), but I think I'm over that part and now just hearing a very natural storyteller with kind of a peculiar, but lovely, cadence. And I've discovered a very serious flaw on said list: NO Eudora Welty.

[johnfoyle]

Anyone care to give me a couple of recommendations that set their world alight at 16

At 16 all I read was P.G. Wodehouse and books about the Kennedy ( primarily JFK) assasination . I knew every blade of grass on the grassy knoll and the Duchess Of Blandings' diet. It helped make me the balanced individual I am today.

Seriously, 1920's/30's Wodehouse is some of the most perfect writing ever, Summer Lightning and The Luck of the Bodkins being especially good.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Wodehouse cvould be fun. I've never read any of them and ALWAYS meant to (clearly I have an agenda with these presents...). I've also, disgracefull,y never read Faulkner. Read a lot about him, e.g. As I Lay Dying in narrative theory books etc.

Just like the Buzzcocks, wish I was 16 again!

[miss buenos aires]

Seriously, 1920's/30's Wodehouse is some of the most perfect writing ever, Summer Lightning and The Luck of the Bodkins being especially good.

Would it be too, too obnoxious of me to say that a creative writing professor once said that a story of mine reminded him of Wodehouse? Yes, probably, but I don't care.

Mood, I am making my own list as I read. For instance, I just read an excellent non-list book (take that, Otis) called Misfortune, suggested by pophead. It goes on the list instead of Unless, which was pretty bad.

Am currently reading Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, and I am not having as much fun as I feel like you're supposed to. Half of the stuff that seems like he means it to be funny just leaves me baffled.

[alexv]

MBA, your post is full of connections. That Misfortune book you like so much, is the author Wesley Stace (aka John Wesley Harding) who rocked out back in the day with EC's Thomas boys (and got the obligatory EC comparisons and the inevitable EC dis)? I am a big fan (of Harding, not Stace). And I see you not crazy for Sterne, but Wes, strangely enough, is a big fan , and in fact wrote an essay about him some time ago. Small world.

[johnfoyle]

Duchess Of Blandings'

I , of course , meant Empress of Blandings - but you all knew that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_of_Blandings

[Otis Westinghouse]

Not me.

I think I have A Sentimental Journey and looked briefly as a student, but of course when you're talking about Sterne, only Tristram SHandy is really worth focussing on. have you read that, MBA (list but non-list, goddamn you!)? If not, you must, you too would laugh. I've been meaning to re-read it for years. I laughed my way through it at the time and couldn't believe it was written in the 18th C. It seemed like a recent precursor to the magnificent Flann O'Brien.