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What are you reading these days?
What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.
What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.
A few days ago, I finished White Teeth by Zadie Smith. I really found a lot to love there. The backdoor introductions of core themes were satisfying and fun, the dialogue is the best I've read beside The Recognitions, and every character (with maybe one notable exception), even the least sympathetic of them, had a core of true, palpable goodness. The broad discussion of this book is odd, though. It's treated as an inheritor of the tradition of encyclopedic literature, and was the initial target of the term "Hysterical Realism," and neither label seems very accurate. It's a big book, sure, but nobody's calling Pillars of the Earth a descendent of Moby-Dick. It's interdisciplinary in its social critique, but at all times very centered on particular paradigms and issues which all metaphor traces back to, less meandering and grandiose in scope. None of that is bad, it allows for deeper exploration of characters and their relationships without resorting to formal experimentation, it's just a categorical issue. On the "Hysterical Realism" side, I struggle to see any "hysteria," it just seemed like a fairly typical work of postmodern literature. Certainly more grounded than many who didn't garner such attention.
I really fell in love with those kids, with Millat's dedication in spite of his petrifying insecurities, Irie's sincerity in the face of a deeply unhealthy family dynamic, even Magid's messiah complex (though that may have been the worst bit). The arrangements that defined their lives make no sense on a human level, they're all horribly flawed, but they're real enough that the resolution felt insufficient. Stretches of conversations and social events felt like people watching in urban England. The real England, not Oxbridge and royalty and empire.
I'm now around halfway through Djuna Barnes' Nightwood, which is dazzling in its sentence-by-sentence brilliance and complexity. The style goes too far in moments, like a reference to the floridity of flowers in the first chapter, but the skill on display deserves sheer acclaim. It's slow going, but every page promises plenty of juice for the squeeze.
I wish my memory were better, because all I can remember of that book is the heroic mouse. … or was it a rat?
Quiet by Susan Cain
This is a book that has helped me reflect on my introverted tendencies.
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
This is a fun book that my girlfriend recommended. There is a peculiar thing that the author does which is to stop using certain letters based on the progressive banning of letters of the English alphabet by a council within the diegesis. I’m curious how this book has been translated/localized in locales that use different languages/scripts because the premise doesn’t seem like it would carry over without a lot of effort.
I'm listening to "A Little Life" By Hanya Yanagihara and that's roughly a 26 hour long journey, so it's going to take me a couple of months. I'm halfway through and I can see why this is so acclaimed. The finesse and thoroughness of each story is impressive, moving and engaging. It feels like this could easily be ruined by a show on netflix - a movie would be insufficient. Anyways I highly recommend it.
It was perfect timing. The Godfather was playing at a theatre near me and The Offer was just starting... so I've decided to go on a bit of a Godfather kick. I'm finishing up Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli by Mark Seal later today or tomorrow. It's pretty much a compilation of all of the other books around the making of The Godfather and its awesome. The Offer definitely took some liberties, but it has a lot of the finer details mentioned in the book without making it obvious.
Great little book if you like the films.
I started a rewatch of the trilogy, but I'm doing the Complete Epic, which is all three films in chronological order. It comes in just under 10hrs. I stopped tonight just before the wedding and am considering remaking it using newer sources, which shouldn't be too difficult, since the other chronological cuts are only missing an hour or two (1h15m, I believe.)
After this I'm going to suffer through Michael Connelly's Void Moon, which is a mostly standalone novel in the Harry Bosch universe. It's regarded as his absolute worst book by a margin and I've always put it off. I'm not alone in avoiding it, but I figured I should just get it over with. I've started twice, but never stuck it through. He isn't great at writing women anyways, but he was even worse back then.
I've also added Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr series to my rotation. I love his Matthew Scudder novels, but they can be a little depressing at times. BR is lighter. He's a 'gentleman thief', which sounds corny, but the first book is good enough. Pulpier than the Scudder ones.
I recently finished Gods of Jade and Shadow and The Ten Thousand Doors of January.
Both were enjoyable adventures with decent world building. I personally found the former a little bit more interesting, if only for the nods to Mayan mythology, but both were a fun read at least.