What are you reading?

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SomeInternetBloke
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by SomeInternetBloke » Sun Apr 18, 2021 12:06 am

"My favourite song from one of my favourite albums, Nena asking you to please, please let her be your pirate. So smooth and joyful, I have to listen to it three times if I listen once" - ashi

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Madrigal
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Madrigal » Sun Apr 18, 2021 1:08 am

East of Eden by Steinbeck, and it's so beautiful. I do remember liking Grapes of Wrath a few years ago (eh, a few? More like 2013 before I went to California xD), but I don't think I liked his writing as much as I do in this book. Maybe he just got better by the time he got around to writing this one.

I sometimes underline fiction when I find a part I really like, but it doesn't seem to make sense in this case since it's so constant.

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Re: What are you reading?

Post by djm » Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:04 pm

Madrigal wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 1:08 am
East of Eden by Steinbeck, and it's so beautiful. I do remember liking Grapes of Wrath a few years ago (eh, a few? More like 2013 before I went to California xD), but I don't think I liked his writing as much as I do in this book. Maybe he just got better by the time he got around to writing this one.

I sometimes underline fiction when I find a part I really like, but it doesn't seem to make sense in this case since it's so constant.
Steinbeck is one of my all time favourite authors, I read them all as a child and then again as an adult. East of Eden is his magnum opus. I find it sad that he effectively packed up writing after the criticism from peers when he won the Nobel Prize for literature (felt he was too lowbrow). Fast forwards to the present day and is a veritable literary titan compared to most recipients of the last decade.

The first time I worked in California I hired a car and drove to some of the places in his novels, Monterrey, Cannery Row etc. Also went to teh Steinbeck museum which I enjoyed. The Salinas valley where East of Eden is based is still the centre of the iceberg lettuce industry now, its a nice drive south of SF if you ever get chance.

You would probably enjoy the 'Russian Journal' he wrote after visiting the USSR. Quite interesting and brave of him considering McCarthyism.

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ashi
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by ashi » Mon Apr 19, 2021 12:18 am

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality

by Jane Ward

(a known lesbian)

djm
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by djm » Mon Apr 19, 2021 10:04 am

MoneyJungle wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 4:42 am
Life for Sale - Yukio Mishima. A Japanese copywriter capriciously attempts suicide, survives and sells his life in the classified ads. I haven’t read anything cool and edgy in a long time and I’m generally fond of 20th century Japanese novels (Silence by Endo is my favorite. Completely different book from this one but I promote it every chance I get). I’m not bullish on loving this book but it seems like a lot of stuff will at least happen. Inb4 someone cares about his politics because I don’t.
Good writer, the' Sea of Fertility' tetralogy is also excellent. If you have not read Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata it is well worth a go too.

Regards politics of authors, it is something people get very hung up on, but good writing is good writing.

One of my personal favourite writers is Knut Hansum, who once one the Nobel prize for literature but is now largely ignored in his native Norway. He was on the wrong side of politics there, siding with the Quisling government and the Nazis. However I see no trace of that in his books, which are all superb.

Another of my favourite writers is Martin Nexo, who wrote Pele the Conqueror. Nexo defected to East Germany and was an avowed communist. In this case his books are very political, with Pele the Conqueror being a bildungsroman focused largely on promoting socialism. Still a superb novel.

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Ferrus
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Ferrus » Mon Apr 19, 2021 2:11 pm

djm wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 10:04 am
Still a superb novel.
José Saramago and Louis-Ferdinand Céline are also good examples of this phenomenon also.

I am reading Marc Morris's A Great and Terrible King about Edward I.
Ex falso, quodlibet

djm
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by djm » Mon Apr 19, 2021 2:45 pm

Ferrus wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 2:11 pm
djm wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 10:04 am
Still a superb novel.
José Saramago and Louis-Ferdinand Céline are also good examples of this phenomenon also.

I am reading Marc Morris's A Great and Terrible King about Edward I.
Is Saramago controversial (will go and google it). Another favourite of mine.

I have a copy of 'Death with Interruptions' I got years ago. About a third of the way through it starts again and has about 100 pages missing (Obviously a mistake at the printers). I contacted the publisher and they did say they replace it if I mailed it back (untrusting so and sos), which I never got around to so have never managed to finish reading it.

Celine I am only familiar with through 'Journey to the End of Night' which was marvellous both in the scope and depth of its misanthropy and also in the writing.

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Ferrus
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Ferrus » Mon Apr 19, 2021 4:12 pm

djm wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 2:45 pm
Is Saramago controversial (will go and google it). Another favourite of mine.
I am pretty sure he was well known as a communist in Portugal.
Ex falso, quodlibet

djm
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by djm » Mon Apr 19, 2021 7:10 pm

Ferrus wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 4:12 pm
I am pretty sure he was well known as a communist in Portugal.
Fits the profile - Middle class former accountant with millions in the bank. Sock it to the man.

Love his books though. I suppose they are a form of magical realism in terms of content, but not in style. His weird lack of punctuation I find strangely pleasant also.

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last_caress
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by last_caress » Mon Apr 19, 2021 11:36 pm

Jumping between the Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor, Phule's Company by Robert Asprin and Skeleton Crew by Stephen King.

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