TonyH's Reading Connections 2011

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TonyH's Reading Connections 2011

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1tonikat
Redigeret: jan 12, 2014, 12:09 pm

I won't bother listing 2010's reading, here is the thread . But I will use this first post to list my 2011 finished titles as an index of sorts to the thread.

I also intend to use the thread to talk of some of the other reading I do that I do not finish or am in the process of reading, or short stories or articles or poems that are not a whole book - I had been avoiding doing so, in the hope it would help me focus on just finishing them, but why not have a change and see if it makes any difference?

And maybe I should remind myself of my intention - I'm not aiming to write reviews for the most part, but just to give my personal reaction: feelings and thoughts.

Currently reading:
Collected Stories of William Faulkner
Horse Latitudes, Paul Muldoon
Molloy by Samuel Beckett
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
The Odyssey translated by T. E. Shaw
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay by MIchael Chabon
Aspects of the Novel by E. M Forster
New islands by Maria Luisa Bombal
In Memoriam by Alfred Lord Tennyson
- ALL on HOLD at the moment.

Keats's Poetry and Prose Norton Critical edition.
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
John Keats by Robert Gittings
- Active

Completed in 2011:
1. Rain by Don Paterson (see message 11 and last year's thread; reread)
2. Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth (messages 2-3, 6-10, 12-19)
3. The Final Programme by Michael Moorcock (26)
4. The Writer's Voice by Al Alvarez (27)
5. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
6. The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam translated by Clarence Brown and W. S. Merwin.
7. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster
8. The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster
9. in by Andrew Waterhouse
10. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
11. Howards End by E. M. Forster (re-read)
12. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
13. Maurice by E. M. Forster
14. People are their own dreams by Sean Burn
15. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M., Forster (reread!)
16. The Story of John Keats by Robert Gittings and Jo Manton
17. Selected Poems, R. S. Thomas by R. S. Thomas
18. Introducing Foucault by Chris Horrocks & Zoran Jevtic
19. House of Holes by Nicholson Baker

2GCPLreader
jan 1, 2011, 10:59 am

hi Tony-- I'm a Roth fan and I can't wait to see what you say about Portnoy's Complaint. I loved his (smutty!) Sabbath's Theatre this year as well as the much gentler Indignation and Nemesis. -- Jenny

3tonikat
Redigeret: jan 1, 2011, 6:27 pm

Hi Jenny, thanks for my first reply. Portnoy's Complaint is my first Roth - I have The Human Stain too, since being one of the few people that enjoyed the movie (at least according to almost everyone that expresses an opinion of it in the media). I recently read a review of Saul Bellow's letters which included a comment he made to Roth that intrigues me -

"Still our diagrams are different, and the briefest description of the differences would be that you seem to have accepted the Freudian explanation: A writer is motivated by his desire for fame, money and sexual opportunities. Whereas I have never taken this trinity of motives seriously."

So, I started investigating this and thought Portnoy might be a good place to start, and it was sitting so wantonly on my shelf. (I take my hat off to your library useage btw.)

I like Wittgenstein's take on Freud (which Bellow reminds me of in what he says) and am looking forward to reading some Bellow next in this research, I need to get some though. I always liked the movie of Henderson the Rain King and have a feeling at some time I read some of Augie March, a very long time ago, but liked it too.

4janemarieprice
jan 1, 2011, 9:32 pm

How are you enjoying the Faulkner. He's one of my favorites. Looking forward to your thoughts.

5tonikat
jan 2, 2011, 7:10 am

I'm loving Faulkner, Jane. I posted a little in Le Salon du Southern Gothique yesterday.

6tomcatMurr
jan 2, 2011, 7:41 am

Bellow and Roth can in no way be compared. Bellow is a giant, Roth is an ant. A cockroach. A weasel.

7rebeccanyc
jan 2, 2011, 8:44 am

Murr, have you read American Pastoral? I agree that some of Roth's work (especially his recent novels) is slight and uninteresting, but AP is a wonderful,complex book (and Roth's masterpiece, in my opinion, although you probably think he has none).

8tonikat
Redigeret: jan 2, 2011, 9:14 am

tomcat - thats what I picked up from the review of Bellow's letters, and how I read that quote I quoted, it gives me very high hopes for reading Bellow. I don't mean to compare them -- I mean to find out the truth of that which I am picking up from others and from what Bellow wrote to Roth for myself, by my own reading.

I'm quite enjoying the Roth though - and I find now Portnoy's lover is The Monkey and if I remember right there is a Monkey in Midnight's Children too. I'm just under half way through, its a book that seems to have struck a vein of something and stays very true to that vein, to that voice. I was thinking there is a lot about anxiety to it - and Portnoy himself talks of how his voice is stuck in the adolescent, like its strangled - and sometimes I think about anxiety as being stuck in a reaction, like a more mobile version of those people with a mental illness that are frozen in one position, physcially, but this is emotional. I look forward to Bellow very much, when I get a copy of something, and reading from the dyanmic of someone not beholden to fame, money or sex but something else...

Rebecca - AP is noted.

9tomcatMurr
jan 2, 2011, 10:26 am

Rebecca, yes, I have. There's nothing wrong with Roth, don't get me wrong, but he just doesn't get to the heights of greatness that Bellow does. Bellow is in a totally different class: Melville, Pynchon, DFW. Roth is with Auster, Franzen. Competent, professional novelists. But not giants and with not really anything new or original to say, or a new way of saying it.

just my ha'penny.

Tony, i look forward to hearing your thoughts on Bellow. I recommend The Adventures of Augie March, and Humboldt's Gift.

10rebeccanyc
jan 2, 2011, 11:21 am

Well, not to hijack Tony's thread any more than I already have, but I certainly would not put Roth in the category of Auster (who I find unreadable) or Franzen (who I find irritating). But chaçun à son gout!

Haven't read Bellow in years, but you are now stimulating me to read something by him this year. Any recommendation for where to start?

11tonikat
Redigeret: jan 3, 2011, 7:05 am

The year is dead, long live the year.

I finished my first book of 2011 - a reread of my last book of 2010: Rain by Don Paterson.

This is just a wonderful book of poetry. I do not think there was a poem in it I do not like and mostly love. I am so glad to have reread it so soon after first reading, its enlivened my memory. It is lyrical, it is profound, it is playful, it is sad, it is happy, it is engaging. I'm looking forward to reading all his others now.

12urania1
jan 3, 2011, 10:48 pm

Roth is also a miserable excuse for a human being.

13rebeccanyc
jan 4, 2011, 7:10 am

That's true, but if we judged all artists of all kinds by their personal lives, we'd be in a sorry state.

14anthonywillard
Redigeret: jan 4, 2011, 9:23 pm

Bellow is a major writer, but I find his protagonists so irritating, spoiled, and self-absorbed that his novels enrage me. I read about half of them and then threw Mr. Sammler (Mr. Sammler's Planet) on the floor and never went back. One exception: Augie March (The Adventures of Augie March). Great growing up novel, great Chicago novel. I was just a kid when that came out but everybody probably thought this was the new Dreiser. Of the others that I finished, Herzog was probably the best. Seize the Day was OK too. Bellow strikes me as the Massenet of literature: he builds beautiful pedestals and doesn't put anything on them.

15tomcatMurr
jan 5, 2011, 10:15 am

The new Dreiser? hardly a complement to Bellow. Dreiser is one of the most incompetent writers of his generation that I can think of!

16anthonywillard
jan 5, 2011, 12:10 pm

15 : It's easy to say that now. Not so easy in the 1940's! Wasn't Mencken a big admirer of Dreiser? Mencken ruled!

Actually Bellow is not at all like Dreiser. But at the time Augie March came out Bellow was unknown. And Dreiser did write some (great, IMO) Chicago novels!

17tomcatMurr
jan 5, 2011, 8:53 pm

well, that's true I suppose. He certainly wrote about Chicago. I like Mencken too. But Dreiser really is awful.

I love Augie March. Fantastic book.

18tonikat
Redigeret: jan 9, 2011, 3:39 pm

I think I read some of Augie March once, for some reason I think fondly of him -- was it ever made for television or a film? I'm not sure why I think this unless its simply the influence of lots of people that have said the same to me. I'm looking forward to reading Bellow.

I know nothing of Roth's private life, so cannot agree nor disagree Urania.

I read a bit more of Portnoy - he is also somewhat self obsessed I'd say. At the moment, and I wonder if I am missing this (?), there isn't a lot said about the aftermath of his sexual adventures, except for a little about shame. Maybe there is not much to say and its self explanatory with this complaint of his, but I would like to know more of what he does with that shame and while feeling it, as well as the chain of new adventures/fantasies we get (so effectively).

Dreiser I have heard of but has not made it onto my list of people to read and on this hearsay doesn't threaten to.

19tonikat
jan 10, 2011, 5:02 pm

Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth

Very enjoyable -- but in some ways it seems one dimensional -- but then that's Portnoy, his stuckness, its unfair to see it as one dimensional. I could wonder how much that stuckness might have been a reflection of the therapy, of seeing his stuckness in the way its being interpreted and his own intrepretation of Freud - the therapy becoming a self fulfilling prophecy? I could also see the complaint being one to God over his humanness, his imperfection. It strikes me the key might not have been the punchline (I won't spoil it) but the fact that as he says the events in his life are not latent but real (which might in fact take Freud down a peg or two?) But whether its in agreement exactly with Freud or not, it clearly follows Bellow's take on Roth and the sexual -- I'll have to read more Roth to see if he moves from this sort of ground -- as I do like a view that might argue Freud and his ideas charm us. The point of the book was to explain how he was charmed - I'd have liked to know more of the ways he was not charmed, which may be what I was saying in my last post -- and how the charmed part interacts with that other part; I think there is more of this towards the end, but I am curious to know more.

It definitely reminds me very much of Midnight's Children -- in tone, in self analysis of his place in the world, in the getting lost in his own self analysis of the world with him at the centre, in some of its approach to childhood.

20tonikat
jan 20, 2011, 5:24 am

Some more reading done - two short stories for a class:

The conjurer made off with the dish by Naguib Mahfouz and Five-Twenty by Patrick White

Marvelous both and my first reading from both authors. At the end of the conjuror I wondered if I should be as worried for the boy as it suggested and whether I was more worried than necessary because I was reading as a westerner (I thought of my limited reading of Edward Said). My experience of reading the White was challenging, it dispirited me a bit as I read it, such limitation and confusion - but what a story.

Next week stories by Camus and Kenzaburo Oe.

I reread the first few pages of Molloy, I think I posted about it on what are you reading now -- wonderful. I think I said something about is it C or A and loved to then move ahead a bit further and see him say the same thing -- I love this writing....can it get better than to be reading the adventures of augie march and Molloy at the same time? Augie I am a handful of chapters in to too :)

21deebee1
jan 20, 2011, 6:14 am

seems like you're doing Nobel-prized authors in class now. i'm now reading Riders in the Chariot by P White -- his writing is indeed challenging and i find myself reaching for something less oppressive after several chapters. but brilliant writing it certainly is. did Mahfouz's and White's short stories interest you enough to seek out longer works of the authors?

i've not read Molloy, though i have the book. i watched Endgame in the theater last weekend, directed by Krystian Lupa, and i'm still thinking about it. this circularity that you give an example of is even better when acted out.

22tonikat
jan 23, 2011, 7:35 am

Hi deebee, thanks for your message. the Nobel thing is just a coincidence.

I've meant to read some White for a while, but then there are so many to read, he's not especially high on my list.

I have not seen Endgame. I have seen Krapp's Last tape and Godot. I'm not sure about the word circularity -- non linearity yes and a circling of things yes, circumlocution that may spiral deeper - but not a deliberate pattern, more a rambling...maybe my use of C and A suggested a neatness to it when you when mentioned circularity, a mathematics or algebra I do not like to the idea, I think, and not deliberate, just a rambling -- I still have a lot of reading to do, maybe I'll learn better, and maybe the quibble is just with myself and not in your word at all. I have read some of his short prose and think I like it more than the plays I have seen and in Godot's case have also read.

23tonikat
feb 20, 2011, 8:32 am

The short story course continued -- with some more Nobel winners to begin with:

Week 2 -- Albert Camus, 'The adulterous woman'; Kenzaburō Ōe, 'Aghwee the Sky Monster'
I loved both of these -- I read the outsider/stranger once by Camus and didn't love it and got stuck in Sisyphus too, thought there were parts I really loved, the description of the myth and how he saw Sisyphus. But I think he'd calcified in my imagination somewhat, until this, it was lovely -- on similar ground to The Sheltering Sky (I have only seen the film) but written before that book -- and wonderfully evocative of the place and the journey this woman makes and standing on those walls, something to remember vividly having never been there at all.
The Oe too was wonderful and again makes me want to read more by him - another journey towards wholeness perhaps, in part, but as I read it by a narrator that wasn't quite whole to start with and was angry.

Week 3 -- Luisa Valenzuela, 'Panther eyes'; Bobbie Ann Mason, 'Big Bertha stories'
The Valenzuela I disliked somehow to start with. I am not sure why - I like a lot of that sort of writing, but it is ruthless in destabilising you and the text (or the text and you). When we discussed it at some point I got it better - I thought of it as a shaggy dog story or a bad joke and realsied I liked it better when I thought of the writer poking me in a way with a certain smile on her face (her face? I have no idea how she looks!) and suddenly I forgave her for what had annoyed me. And I am, not even sure what it was that had annoyed me. there were many parts I loved, the idea of the panther -- lots and lots, all of which it was determined not to play out as you might expect, but I am not sure that was what it was that annoyed me, usually I don't mind that, it must just have been the way it did it. Maybe I just did not read it in the right mood, maybe now I have caught a mood I can read it in I should do so again.

Bobbie Ann Mason's story was terrific - very moving. I think even more so than the depiction of the veteran with what seemed post traumatic stress the broader sweep of communication between them, and I found her experience of the therapist (the rapist) and their lack of meeting the most moving part of all.

Week 4 -- Bharati Mukherjee, 'The management of grief'; Ama Ata Aidoo, 'Everything counts'
Two wonderful stories again - the first a personal journey with grief of someone being true to themselves and those they have lost to start to find meaning again, in the context of the journeys of others in other cultures, in the same, in different personal and cultural contexts -- and all very real.
the Aidoo -- I really misread this at first -- about who is wearing the wig. But when I got it it made it much simpler, though complicated enough! Personal journey in a post (?) colonial world. Everything does count - everywhere too.

Week 5 -- Jeanette Winterson, 'The green man'; Colum McCann, 'A basket full of wallpaper'
The Green man was very poetic, an idea that kept unfolding, very concentrated and written so well.
A basket full of wallpaper, the story of a young irish boy working with a Japanese man who stands aloof from the small irish community he's moved to. I saw the man as a monk of sorts who did not preach but lived well, showed but did not tell. Even his wallpapering of his house I didn't see as a strange thing, but maybe someone who just liked to see the changes in the light of patterns and shade, a luxury.

So, a bunch of stories I really enjoyed, well chosen. If you've read one and this makes any sense, or you don't agree at all (even better?) please leave me a message.

24zenomax
feb 20, 2011, 12:16 pm

Nice summaries Tony. I haven't really spent much time on short stories, but this thread and a couple of others make the case seem quite compelling.

I like the sound of Camus and Winterson in particular, although The Management of Grief seems like it might be something worth looking at too.

25tomcatMurr
feb 20, 2011, 10:20 pm

I want to read more White. My mother swears that Voss is her favourite all time novel. I have started it twice and never gone further than the first chapter. I know the fault is mine, and not the book's. I started it at the wrong time both times. Good to hear that others think highly of him as well.

tony, you must see Endgame asap. It's brilliant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMpNeJOOL4o&feature=related

26tonikat
Redigeret: feb 26, 2011, 10:56 am

thanks Zeno and tomcat, always good to hear from you.

Zeno - thanks, I'd highly recommend each and every one of those stories.

tomcat -- though having said that perhaps the White was my least favourite, very well written though, but very sad, not just in the end, but its whole picture.
I'll get to engame asap. So much to do so little time. Has anyone come up with a good word for being saturated with culture -- and has anyone written on the impossibility of choosing your way through what you read and do not (as you can't read it all), without feeling like you are missing something (vital-ish). I bet someone really important has that is totally unmissable in themself and whom I have no doubt totally neglected, or worse someone I love but have not read as much of as I just really should have, and I am going to look daft not knowing about their words on this!

Having said all that I finished a book!
The Final Programme by Michael Moorcock
Quite enjoyable-- compared to the other things I am reading it seems light, but this is why I finished it. I liked Jerry Cornelius, some interesting situations he gets into (more in the sex/gender line I mean than his more murderous way). My first Moorcock -- will read more, starting with the other JC books.

27tonikat
Redigeret: feb 27, 2011, 9:42 am

The Writer's Voice by Al Alvarez

A small well formed book of three essays - on Finding a voice, on listening (and reading) and then on the cult of personality and myth of the artist. The first two I enjoyed very much on finding a true voice and on reading and hearing that voice in an author. I can only wonder at the conclusion of the first chapter that the voice, after Coleridge's "aloofness", is something that is creatively detached from the writer i.e. its not simply a product of their immediate feelings. Part of me baulks at that -- almost an idea of a child playing with an insect. Or maybe I have just never written something so alive, maybe the insect just gathers its own life detached.
Then the final chapter I had the most difficulty with -- it seems against just letting it all go, to get the writing, he complains Anne Sexton puts bad poems next to good, he suggests the beats and the counter-culture are just that 'counter' culture. That writing a poem is not the same as simply exposing inner self, that something else, must happen, something about judgement and discernment I think. And seems horrifed at writers collapsing the written world into the real - Sylvia Plath and John Berryman following their argument -- which does seem terrible. Much of what he says I like. But I wonder about this judgement -- if I judged everything I'd never write a thing, certainly not poetry -- letting it go seems a part of the creative process to me, a necessary part, maybe the necessary part, being ready to do that...he makes me wonder about later helpful parts, that might shape, that are best not neglected, that might start to happen even whilst the thought is being born perhaps...but for me if I started off with them as a goal, everything might be stillborn. I've read him once, maybe I am misprepresenting him somewhat, he recognises voice so well. I can see he's given me food for thought, it can't hurt. I'll be thinking about it as I write and see what I learn.
Edit -- this is a serious book, yet written accessibly, engagingly. Responding to it might require as much thought, reading and effort as no doubt went into it - I am sure it'll be with me as I read and think and maybe write, hopefully for a long time.

28baswood
feb 27, 2011, 12:54 pm

The writer's voice, Al Alvarez thanks for your excellent review and the issues that the book raised for you. Interesting stuff and looks like another must read for me.

29tonikat
mar 5, 2011, 10:04 am

Thanks baswood. I think I am still chewing on what I have said above and that book - its left me more self conscious of what I write, along with something else thats happened, and I am not sure I like that.

I've been reading some selections from Seamus Heaney (from Opened Ground) for a class today and later in the month, and getting him better than I have in the past. And also reading some Osip Mandelstam this week, and about him, waiting for a volume on order as I write - I've loved what I have seen so far and also interested in his prose. I foudn this very handy website run by a translator who makes his translations available free http://www.poetryintranslation.com/index.html

30tonikat
mar 30, 2011, 1:48 pm

Read some further Heaney and attended part 2 of my class - its opened him up for me, or started to...lots more to read now.

But I see from my first post that I currenrly have the attention span of a gnat really -- not getting any further with most of the things in my currently reading list. Have started Blood Meridian and it is getting my attention whilst off work with bronchitis. So, hope to finish that.

31tonikat
apr 9, 2011, 10:36 am

I finished Blood Meridian. A thoroughly fantastic book. Violence can put me off, but not here. This violence did give me pause, but it honoured something, it had a poetry, as does the book, the landscape, the portrait of existence clinging to the earth. A searing book.

32fuzzy_patters
apr 9, 2011, 9:22 pm

Blood Meridian is one of my favorite books. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

33dchaikin
apr 10, 2011, 12:30 am

#30 - Tony, I read a poetry collection by Heaney last year, and it was beyond me. Anyway, very intrigued by your class.

34tonikat
Redigeret: apr 10, 2011, 7:34 am

Thanks fuzzy, its now a favourite of mine too.

Dan, which collection did you read? I don't know why I didn't get it earlier, he's great, and I can't see what my trouble was at all. I read selections, but want to read each collection now.

I'm continuing with my mandelstam selected. Some of the merwin/brown translations I prefer in the translations by kline in the link above, especially 'horses who neigh/whinney', but also several other turns of phrase kline comes up with.

35janemarieprice
apr 22, 2011, 12:50 pm

31/32 - Have you read much other McCarthy? I hated The Road but would like to try something else by him before i write him off completely.

36tonikat
apr 23, 2011, 10:07 am

Hi Jane -- I've read The Road, I liked it overall, the only bit I didn't was the cellar scene which reminded me of a zombie movie, not that I watch many of them. I found the Road quite uplifting in the end, think I wrote about it on an earlier thread, thats probably all I said. I found Blood Meridian to be better still though.

37tonikat
Redigeret: apr 30, 2011, 11:03 am

I've updated some of my current reads in post 1 as I am not getting anywhere at all with them and started some others - oh how I flit from book to book sometimes.

I'm continuing with Mandelstam's selected - am onto the section of 30's poems. Some don't do much for me -- but when they do, do I like him? Yes I do. 'He who finds a horsehoe' is probably my very favourite so far. Also love the prose 'conversation with Dante'.

I'm also moving slowly through T.E.Shaw (Lawrence's) prose translation of The Odyssey and enjoying it very much. oh to read the Greek -- reading it now partly inspired by seeing the film The Reader again on dvd -- which was even better than when I saw it first time. almost enough to have me stretch for an ancient greek primer again.

I also started the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay - but have stalled since the river escapalogy -- just when it was really grabbing me. But he mentioned 22.2 celsius as being cold and it is most defintely warm and its disrupted some confidence in the book. Its a glaring mistake and I like Chabon's books a lot. I'll get back to it after the Homer.

38janemarieprice
apr 30, 2011, 10:11 am

37 - I loved Kavalier and Clay and hope you get back to it. It really picks up around there.

39dchaikin
maj 1, 2011, 8:49 am

It's all relative...in Houston 22.2 (72f) is pleasantly cool. Definitely not warm. :)

40tonikat
maj 1, 2011, 11:29 am

Relative, yes things can be relative. But in this chapter its depicted as cold and its definitely not cold in the way depicted.

41tonikat
maj 3, 2011, 4:26 pm

Finished two short stories - Gogol, How the Two Ivan's came to Quarrel and Dostoyevsky 'A Gentele Spirit/Creature: a fantastic story' aka The Meek Girl from his Writer's Diary. Thoroughly excellent the both -- following on from what I just said on tomcat's Salon thread i can begin to imagine writing something like the Gogol but not Dostoyevsky really - perhaps the idea of weighing every thought I could start with, but his overall vision, his ability to seem whollly accurate in his observations so much of his view just seem mindblowing.
Two wonderful stories.

42ffortsa
Redigeret: maj 5, 2011, 1:17 pm

Oh this is a fine thread! I'm taking a little time off from the chatter in the 75 books group, which is nice, but I wanted more BOOK, and here it is!

I must find the short stories you mention. It's a form I like but haven't really studied since college (long, long ago), and thes sound rewarding.

You might want to look at the Robert Fagles translation of the Odyssey - I read through it out loud with a group last year - it really works on the aural/oral level. The characters come quite alive and the ironies and slyness shine.

thanks for sharing your reading with all of us.

43tonikat
maj 7, 2011, 12:17 pm

Hi Judy - I'm very glad you like it, there are a few more from the last few years if you check my profile (or maybe they'll spoil it). Its just right for me -- though I could do with reading a bit more I think.

I've heard of Fagle's version, I'll consider your recommendation - if its on audiobook I have a credit at audible I might try it on, provided I like the voice of the narrator (there is a certain narrator who seems to do classical things that always makes me think of I think it was a muppet show sketch about masterpiece theatre or something with alistair cookiemonster I think...and maybe I am mixing my memories but i associate it with a strange sort of accent, like an american trying to sound british - anyway annoys the heck out of me)

I love connecting to the idea of these gods being present now -- not in a heretical way, but thinking of moments wisdom is with me (all too rare) as being like some of those depicted, like a visitation on my experiencing, a way of talking about a mood and a clarity -- or same with love or speed of thought. I'm playing with this idea, but they also have room for saying they are talking literally too about the gods (not just soem possession of the mind). This is probably obvious and I guess people will have written about it -- but, despite having done some ancient history, I've never really read about the gods and myths, just picked up bits here and there. So, if anyone knows of people that have written on this please let me know. Its just prompting me to think freshly about such moods.

44tonikat
Redigeret: jun 2, 2011, 3:04 pm

I finally finished Selected poems of Osip Mandelstam, and liked these very much as i have probably said. They also came with the prose Conversation about Dante which I really enjoyed - it hit heights of appreciation I enjoyed, a poet appreciating Dante, wonderful, if I did get a bit dizzy at it at times, but wonderful energetic, engaging, synthetic (I'm not talking nylon). I started thinking of it as his conversation with Dante (the text). My favorite poem remains He who finds a horseshoe.

I've put the Odyssey down for no good reason.

I'm halfway through Where Angels Fear to Tread which is very enjoyable. Though I find the idea of living in such social confines as those he suggests very claustrophobic it reminds me of the power of social conventions, surely they will never go away?
I'm hoping to be joining a group reading all his novels this summer.

I'm also reading Selected Poems by R. S. Thomas which I am really connecting to. I saw a documentary about him last week, the man who went into the west (by his biographer), which made me look again, I think I half discovered him once before that made me buy the book, but now, wow, really like his writing. Lots of wonderful poems, a peasant, a marriage, children's song, the river, the final poem in the collection about catching poems, I forget its name right now -- many more and I am hardly into it.

45tonikat
jun 6, 2011, 4:58 pm

My summer of Forster has begun and its off to a good start. First meeting tonight and we looked at the first part or so of his short story The Story of a Panic -- and I finished it later -- and I like it very much. As we said in class he's a very agile story teller. Sometimes his tone prickles with me, but usually he has a reason. I'm impressed by the depth of his vision. How do you go about having such ideas to write about, such clarity. This short story was very amusing, not ha ha, but rewarding to read -- and to read that part slowly and carefully in a group, peeling at its layers, a rewarding evening.

I'm nearing the end of Where Angels Fear to Tread which has also been thoroughly enjoyable, thought provoking, surprising even when it shouldnt be surprising me, stimulating to living, wonderful

46tonikat
jun 11, 2011, 11:27 am

I finished Where Angels Fear to Tread. Very enjoyable, invigorating, writing.

When I got to the end I wondered how satisfying it would for an author to pull off the tricks he pulled off. And I wonder as a reader how it will seem as I reread.

47tomcatMurr
jul 6, 2011, 9:02 pm

Following your Forster read with interest, Tony. Angels is the only major Forster novel I have not read yet. I dread that moment when there are no longer any more Forster novels to read for the first time, so I keep putting it off lol.

He who finds a horseshoe was anthologised in the Penguin book of WW1 poetry. I"m glad you enjoyed Mandelstam.

48tonikat
Redigeret: jul 9, 2011, 12:20 pm

Always good to see you here tomcat. When I was 20ish I had the same feeling about Hemingway novels -- but as my experience and your recent postign of your 18 year old read suggests at my cuyrrent grnad old age i might as well have read them as I'd probably have forgotten I had by now and could read them all over again afresh, with maybe a curious sickly deja vue feeling at times, that might reconnect me to how it felt to actually have been young once, might be a kick.

Nowadays I'm not entirely over Hemingway, but have lots of room for E. M. F too. Which thought makes me wonder what they thought of each other not to mention each other's work.

Just today I finished The Longest Journey which in many ways I like. It read a bit like an early draft at times and it has some bits that I read kind of cross with him, but overall I like it with some parts I think I will think about for a long time. Apparently it was his own favourite. I'm going to desist from saying too much. I have said I would try to write something about WAFTT for my class, and maybe this one will come in to it too -- its something about how his characters seem to form an understanding of the world and of others, and others do the same, and somehow communication between the two and understanding and compromise and building realtionship that way isn't shown by him as a possibility, almost does not seem possible, I'm looking forward to reading his others to see if this changes. Maybe it's my counselling makes me see this so much, maybe some of those situations really are past people talking theere way through it -- but such talk and gaining common ground through talk seems curiously absent to me, from these two novels at least. Though much common ground is gained at times -- oh what am I saying? I'll try to work it out elsewhere and come back when I make more sense.

Thoroughly enjoyed Mandelstam and also generally learning a bit more of Russian poets, must get his work in full -- but now also must try more Pasternak and Akhmatova especially before some of the lesser known streams, lesser known to me anyway.

49tonikat
Redigeret: jul 10, 2011, 7:56 am

Just worked my way through the rest of in by Andrew Waterhouse, began it a while ago. An excellent collection of poems, serious but also able to be light and funny. Also intimate but engaged with the world especially the natural world. The 'in' poems are about being in hospital, I don't know if he ever was, but it would make sense to me that he had been and it resonated for me. His whole approach does in many ways and he lived locally and maybe my writing group tutor knew what she was doing when she suggested this collection to me. Its one I will read and reread. He won the Forward prize with it.

50ffortsa
jul 9, 2011, 2:17 pm

Thanks for the comments on IN. But I thought to let you know that your touchstone for it points somewhere else!

51tonikat
Redigeret: jul 10, 2011, 7:56 am

Thanks -- touchstones haven't been working for me and then when they were again I forgot how they can be wrong -- he's not listed as an alternate yet, so have left him in bold for now.

52tonikat
Redigeret: aug 20, 2011, 4:54 am

I never posted when I finished A Room with a View - a lovely book. Lucy's confusions so true. The search for a view by us all in a way. And some gratifying very direct communciation - I've found so often before he doesn't show hugely significant moments, or communication is indirect, or pointless as the people involved seem to have reached some place that cannot be touched. Anyway -- this may not make much sense without making my argument more fully, and that's what I am writing an essay on at present.

In the meantime I've also started Howards End (a reread) -- and I love it. I love his assertion of a direct link with nature or with something more, that can't be said, the goblins. Also started his Aspects of the novel and have a biography and a book of criticism I really should read if I am writing an essay.

Feel like I have much less time these days, or to feel like writing.

In poetry I'm still reading R. S. Thomas' selected and still loving it - slow progress every other night or so in bed usually and more at weekends. But I don't think I'd want to be going any faster. Now there's spiritual for you.
I'm reading a small volume of poems by someone I was fortunate to be in a writing group with and was leant their book by a teacher. Certainly am finding it easier to focus when at a class. Strange, used to find that with meditation, now not so much, maybe need to give myself more permission. Trying more might help too. Maybe a class gives you some things on a plate, purpose, direction.
Also bought Andrew Waterhouse's second volume '2nd', published posthumously.
Lots else, bits and pieces, some Neruda, some Milosz (new to me), some Heaney -- have to work through the complete In memoriam (Tennyson of course) as I hope to attend a class on it, got stuck half way before.

53baswood
aug 19, 2011, 5:29 pm

Howards End is a great novel to re-read. I have got A Room with a view also on my TBR pile. Superb stuff eh!

54Mr.Durick
aug 19, 2011, 7:34 pm

In by Andrew Waterhouse is represented by three copies on LibraryThing; I wonder why it won't touchstone. Once upon a time we could have forced it.

I think I'll go ask on 'bug collectors' and have someone tell me it is a known bug.

Robert

55tonikat
aug 28, 2011, 6:33 am

53 - yes it had been a very enjoyable re-read - if you've not read A Room with a View I am sure you will enjoy it (and if you have then you know you will I bet). It occurred to me it shares some themes with Howards End -- a sort of search for a view of life and a place in life -- and so it occurred to me he could have called Howards End 'A House with a Tree'.

54 - Yes Mr. D it is strange - did you ask? did you get an answer?

56tonikat
aug 28, 2011, 6:44 am

Finished my re-read of Howards End -- I think I enjoyed it even more than first time round.

One big difference I noticed was that first time I was quite offended by how he wrote about Leonard and the 'poor' but this time I was less so -- it seemed more ironic comment on the moneyed class view. Also I thought maybe just true in some ways. But even given this new look at it it can still seem quite foreign and quite harsh at times. I find it harsh that it kind of hints that authenticity cannot be attained by Leonard and maybe others like him -- and that with self education comes confusion. But maybe I am wrong to generalise too much as Leonard is a particular case.

Another difference was how I feel at the end - it feels like a sort of destinatation and contentment achieved -- yet thinking about it now I think I am more aware of the tragedy of it all. Leonard, Charles, Henry, Helen and then Margaret's marriage (am being careful not to give spoilers) no matter what she has gained - she has gained something of course. not sure I can say exactly but its like a comment on life happening and then living with consequences which is where there may be consolation? I don't know eaxctly what I am trying to say, you can probably tell. Just more aware of that tragic aspect than I remember the last time. But still I woulon't mind a house with such a tree myself, and their private income of course.

57tomcatMurr
aug 28, 2011, 11:01 am

LOLHA! great comment at the end there.

I love Forster with a passion. Enjoying your comments and reviews hugely.

58baswood
aug 28, 2011, 12:12 pm

#56 Hi TonyH. Enjoyed your comments on Howards End. I have just started reading Room with a view which I am taking slowly, because it is so enjoyable. I think I must have read it before or have seen the film so many times that I think I have read it before. I am really interested in the character of Emerson and am amusing myself by writing down what all other characters think of him. First thoughts after just the first chapter are of course the class divisions in English society and the humour, which both hit you with some force I think. The book was published in 1908 and so it is interesting to think what readers would have thought at the time. Perhaps they would have been horrified by the Emerson character and maybe felt a little discomforted by the humour.

Sorry for taking over your thread, I'll get back to my own.

59tonikat
Redigeret: aug 28, 2011, 12:28 pm

#58 - baswood - your comments, and others' are always welcome.

The film is very good I think. I love Denholm Elliot as Emerson. Yes class divisions. But also I think there was an important tradition of unconvenionality too and working class and lower middle class education and in religion, I forget the word but of dissent. Emerson makes me think of John Clare and Blake.

#57 -- I need to know what the HA means on LOL? I am so behind the times. I'm glad you're enjoying tomcat.

I'm trying to draft an essay mostly on WAFtT but also his next two books, all about relationship and communication between characters. One of those things I have loads of ideas for but the blank page is forboding -- just have to get my head down at some point and graft and draft to show the basics and read more and rewrite I suppose, just with work not getting very far. And maybe I am nervous, have not written an English essay since I was sixteen.

I have a bit of an idea that Forster used his novels as a way of developing his ideas and working out what he thought about the world and other people - sort of asking himself what sort of life someone who thinks such and such can have (e.g. from comments overheard in Italy for his Italian novels). But I need to read more of him to have more clue if thats fits for him. What I find he lacks a little is (surprisingly) discovering humanity in those that seem to lack it. As a counsellor I'd start by assuming it is there in all, but some of his characters never show it, at least not its better sides, they do show human weakness. This links a bit to authenticity.

60tonikat
aug 28, 2011, 4:53 pm

Maybe I am expecting rounder characters and more personal insight in everyone/ in all his characters and they just do not have it. In The Longest Journey I felt the lack of real conversations, of people putting emotions on the table for example and being honest and direct with each other, a lot fo the time. Maybe its also to do with the rules of his society. its not as though there were no conversations. And maybe my view is warped - as a therapist i get to see more of people's inner worlds than even now happens in the day to day. But it is interestign to me how much of the first three books is mad eup not of the communciation of emotion but on the deduction of it and action on the basis of that deduction.

61Mr.Durick
aug 29, 2011, 1:42 am

TonyH, I asked here and didn't get an official response. 'In' may be too common a word or one of those little words that searches ignore, or it may be a bug. You'll see in that thread that there's a workaround, but I don't like it.

Robert

62anthonywillard
sep 13, 2011, 11:04 am

Unfamiliar with Forster's novels other than movie versions, but curious if they comply with his precepts in Aspects of the Novel?

63tonikat
sep 15, 2011, 4:09 pm

Yes that's an interesting question. I've only read one chapter so far, so cannot begin to give an answer, yet.

64tonikat
sep 26, 2011, 5:32 pm

I just finished Maurice. Thoughts to follow - if I have any. I found the second half of the book deepened - or maybe thats just an impression having just read that int he last two days. Interesting to read him so clearly able to write from a sort of personal understanding too. Different in style too from the others in that it doesn't twist and turn and play in the same way. I really disliked Maurice at some points, but liked him better at the end. Looks like I had some thoughts, but very early ones.

This means my summer of Forster's novels is coming to a close, time well spent.

65tonikat
Redigeret: nov 30, 2011, 12:59 pm

Today read People are their own dreams by Sean Burn - came across it for a number of reasons - very different to the sort of thing I write, well in an immediately apparent sense - prose poems with forward slash punctuation. But underneath that loads of moments captured in poetry, often lyrical with a stream of these observations -- and I like that, its something I don't manage in my own writing, it gives me a sense of freedom and possibility and aliveness. It was a quick read but a satisfying one and I'll be revisiting it. Have another three of the Survivors Press mentoring process to read also. More to follow about all that, sometime. People are their own Dreams is a prose poem a day in a month in the spring of 2008, in itself a good diea to try that -- and I like his use of the personal and political.

I'm about a third of the way through House of Holes by Nicholson Baker -- I liked his The Anthologist so much I decided to go for this having completed my Forster quest and its a lovely book -- good natured in it's humour, fun. But its on hold, which may not be the right decision, as I am still trying to finish a bit of writing on Forster -- but life's so hectic at the moment I'm not gettign far with anything.

I'm still reading R. S. Thomas Selected Poems and love it but have stalled a bit on the selections from the mid to late 80's, their tone seemed to change a bit...but when I went back through them that seemed less apparent and I wondered what my problem was. Need to look again to see what was up, probably just me not getting it.

Also restarted In Memoriam By Alfred Lord Tennyson, making slow progress, got about half way the last time, but as the tutor we are looking at them with said "I defy anyone to read this fast". It would be ncie to get to the end on this journey this time.

66tonikat
nov 30, 2011, 1:25 pm

I've not been about, but have not been idle, though much is unfinished.

R. S. Thomas caught fire for me again - I'm not sure what it was made me struggle, perhaps they went through a spell of being more abstract...but even within that he was still hitting home. There were some longer poems in that period and also a sequence without titles, but I liked them too. Maybe for my reading, often last thing at night, they were asking too much. I still have a way to go with his selected (am at the early 90's now) but I found my way with him again and glad I have too and wonderful it is, not always easy, but great.

I had quite an interesting thought a while ago - these days I usually read lying on my back on my bed, book held aloft. It occurred to me that this may be one reason I have stalled on some bigger books, the effort involved e.g. in holding Infinite Jest, not to mention all the flipping back and forth to the notes. Need to try alternative positions. Not that I feel like trying IJ anymore at the moment.

Have not yet gone back to Tennyson.

I have just done another short story course - when I have some time I'll post on what we read.

I have just finished The Story of John Keats by Robert Gittings and Jo Manton. This was a children's version of Gittings' biography of Keats. I went to the library searching for the adult version and came away with this, which was fine, gave me a very nice (very quickly read) overview and lots of quotations from the work, putting it into context in his life and from his letters and still packed an emotional punch. I will go back for the adult version, which I am hoping has not been nicked. I also started my Norton Critical edition of Keats's Poetry and Prose and must be good and work my way through methodically this time. I have Andrew Motion's biography but was urged to try Gittings first.

There's been assorted other poetry. Read some Transtromer online. Stared Milosz's The Captive Mind and also Murnane's Barley Patch which seems excellent but between classes, one night working late, lots on at work and a holiday and the reading and writing I have done I have laid them aside for now. I'm realising, well perhaps I am passed realising and am putting the realisation into practice that I need to focus my reading, especially on poetry.

I haven't mentioned, but it seems relevant to me, the context of this years reading - I've also been lsitening to far more classical music this year and music in general.

67ffortsa
nov 30, 2011, 4:10 pm

I see you're reading Swann's Way these days, at least that's what it says on your profile. I'm reading Swann in Love for a f2f book club meeting next week; I have to slow down a lot to handle the long, complex sentence structure, but even so I'm enjoying its sometimes wicked mockery of character. I'd like to know what you think of it and the larger book when you get the chance.

68tonikat
nov 30, 2011, 4:16 pm

Ahh...my profile, I should change that then. I read the first part of Swann's way a year or two ago and never picked it back up. I liked it very much but cannot give an opinion on the whole book. You're much better follwing what I am fdoin on the first post of this thread - and even that is out of date, I'll get to work putting things right.

69ffortsa
nov 30, 2011, 7:30 pm

Aha - there's the list. Are you still reading the Odyssey? Any reason you particularly chose that translation? I ask after reading the Fagles translation out loud with some friends over the course of a year - quite wonderful to actually hear that text.

70tonikat
dec 1, 2011, 3:23 am

I'll pick it up again -- its a prose version. No particular reason other than I saw it in a 2nd hand shop and I needed a copy. I was enjoying it very much.

71tonikat
dec 17, 2011, 10:26 am

Finished R. S. Thomas's Selected Poems. Very satisfying. I look forward to slowly making my way through the whole collections.

I made the mistake of picking up Wolf Hall(crazy given all the others i want to finish) and am a hundred odd pages in, a good read, riveting I suppose, though I felt a bit manipulated by its beginning but this dynamic man she is presenting is interesting. No idea of him historically, another avenue to explore and learn.

I began Gittings' John Keats but am only a few pages in so far and for good measure also got his earlier volume The Living Year. and continue to make a little progress with my poetry and prose volume of Keats.

Hope to make progress with all these and also finish a few others in upcoming holidays.

72baswood
dec 17, 2011, 2:24 pm

enjoy your reading TonyH, you have some excellent books on the go.

73tonikat
dec 29, 2011, 1:46 pm

A conversation with a friend who is reading Foucault at the moment led me to read Introducing Foucault this afternoon. It was ok. Foucault is not new to me which may be why it was only ok, but it did refresh my memory and provided a biograhoical context as well. In the past I've read the Wittgenstein and Buddha/Buddhism titles in the same series which I remember enjoying more - it may be as those subjects were then newwer to me, it may also partly be their subjects, whilst I like Foucault in many ways he does not inspire me, or maybe that's not quite right, but there is something pessimistic about him maybe.

74tonikat
dec 31, 2011, 4:30 pm

Last night I finished Keats's Poems, 1817 (in Keats's Poetry and Prose). Loved it of course. Some slight unevenness at times and naiveté maybe in this first collection, but that was part of what I liked about it. Reading him and in order in this Norton critical edition is like following him develop and he's highly engaging. I loved many of these poems especially 'I stood tip-toe upon a little hill' and several of the sonnets especially iv (how many bards gild the lapses of time) x (to one who has been long in city pent) xi 'on first looking into Chapman's Homer' (of course) and 'Sleep and Poetry' but it's unfair to single those peaks out from so that are close to them - overall a great experience to read especially with the material in this edition. He has me eager to read Spenser (excuse me if I am repeating myself from elsewhere). and how brave some of it to share, he had a generosity of spirit it seems, made me reflect on that and also all my Keats reading has me reflect on how hard it is in modern day to have the kind of silence he so often talks about, I don't think that's just my problem but partly it is me also. It all leaves me wondering why it took me so long to read this, to be working my way through all his poems and of course many other poets (I do keep saying this at the moment too), like a bear that has suddenly discovered he really does like honey. (I've not counted this in this years haul, maybe I could, as it is part of the larger collection, but hey who cares).

Today I've finished House of Holes by Nicholson Baker - very well written, very funny, very warm, very healing I think in some way, with a depth of understanding that is not cold analysis but empathy. I read the first few chapters maybe 1/3 of the way through a few months ago and put it down until yesterday and have finished it fast, it can be read like that, maybe it was a book to savour too, rich in ideas and ease with itself and some nice turns of language and ideas. I read The Anthologist last year I think and I now have a high opinion of his writing and want to read more. I read a Guardian review that kind of dismissed this as porn, maybe it seems that way, maybe it is at one level, but there is something more to it too (though I did not enjoy the last few chapters quite as much) and when I say more its not anything directly that it is saying or arguing, it is about it's tone its forgiveness and humour and warmth as I say. Very enjoyable (maybe not everyone's cup of tea though, he says thinking of googling to see what the Vatican thinks of it for example, or the bible belt or others - so given my enthusiasm some of you may wish to have been warned)

So this year's reading is pretty much done - my lowest haul in numbers since journalling on librarything, but a very rewarding year of reading, very rich and there's a slew of short stories I have not added here and quite a few unfinished books, some of which I hope to complete early int he New year and so skewing next year's count right off (I may have said thta last year). I'm looking forward to developing this reading trek, it's paying off at the moment. Best wishes for the New Year.

75baswood
dec 31, 2011, 6:34 pm

I am a big fan of the Norton Critical Editions and your review of Keats's Poetry and Prose makes me want to rush out and buy this one.

Happy new year to you TonyH and I hope to catch up with you on club read 2012

76tomcatMurr
dec 31, 2011, 11:19 pm

I'm not a fan of Nicholson Baker at all. his book on the second world war was repulsive in conception and execution.

But. Great stuff on Keats, especially your observation about his relationship to silence. Didn't Keats have the most astonishing spiritual maturity for someone of his age? As you know, I revere his work and his memory.

all the best for 2012 Tony!

77tonikat
jan 1, 2012, 6:55 am

#75 - thanks for your comments Barry, that book is well worth it. I have 2 others i think but have now identified the on eon Shelley as a must have. He's not been as big a thing for me as Keats, but some reading last year piqued my interest further.

#76 - and to you tomcat, always nice to have you round. I remember some furore about that book by NB, have not read it myself - I am warned and should remember I am. But yes I remember your love of Keats, I am deep in reading of him at the moment, biography and all these poems and prose. Yes silence, and a silence conected to nature and also with other people present often and as you say a spiritual maturity, a most remarkable person.

all the best to you both for 2012.

78tonikat
jan 1, 2012, 8:45 am