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What are you reading these days?
Posted by Lale on 18/12/2001, 1:27:49
Maybe we can use this post to tell one another about the books we are currently reading. Because I am reading something spectacular right now and I have to tell you about it:
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery and Other Short Stories".
And just fabulous short stories they are. I haven't come to The Lottery yet (it is the last story in the book) but the ones I have read so far were all as good as or better than the stories of some of my favourite short story writers, such as Hemingway and J.D. Salinger.
So, what are you reading nowadays?
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Posted by Chris on 18/12/2001, 2:53:07, in reply to "What are you reading these days?"
I am reading William Faulkner's "Absalom! Absalom!" This is my third attempt at appreciating Faulkner; I am trying because, as a Yankee currently living in Mississippi, I want to get a feel for what makes Faulkner so famous and so beloved by his fellow Mississipians.
So far I'm liking Absalom. His stream-of-consciousness style and stark, rambling prose are a challenge - Faulkner is universally considered difficult to read - but it is proving the kind of challenging book that is rewarding and well worth the work.
As I said, this is his third novel I've read. I abhorred the vaunted "Sound and the Fury" (I found it impressive (from a stylistic perspective) but utterly uninteresting), but thoroughly enjoyed "As I Lay Dying," which I believe i reviewed on this website.
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Posted by Dave on 18/12/2001, 22:40:28, in reply to "What are you reading these days?"
Lale: As you know, I've been real sick lately. One would think that I had plenty of time to read therefore. Well, for some reason I did NOT in fact, read very much this past week. However, I did manage to finish a book of short stories... (ghost stories) by Robertson Davies, called High Spirits. I was less than impressed with this book, mostly because it just seems really dated, old-fashionedy... and just blah! Maybe I projected my own blahness onto it? I don't know. Whatever the case, I think it's safe to say that this is not a book I would recommend.
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Posted by Michael Sympson on 19/12/2001, 9:06:49, in reply to "What are you reading these days?"
I am going to take time out from the literature business and over X'mas retire for a rereading of Mommsen's "Roman History," Nabokov's "Bent Sinister," and Rabelais. Further up I posted a brief extract from the ending of Mommsen's third book. In a sense, it shows him at his opinionated worst - Mommsen always had strong feelings about all sorts of things.
The translation is mine. A reader, familiar with the English edition of Mommsen (there is only one) may notice a marked improvement. Not to toot my own horn, but the howlers of the standard edition fall so thick and fast on every blessed page, that merely enumerating them, in the words of Lady Thatcher, would get me into a snowstorm. Mommsen, the father of modern Roman historiography got a rough deal from his translators.
He would be the worst translated major author of all times, had not recently some unbelievably cheeky bogus entered the market as translations from the Persian poets Hafis and Saadi. The so called translators don't have a word of Farsi, but receive rave reviews from the duped public. It boggles your mind.
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Posted by Lale on 19/12/2001, 12:00:23, in reply to "Re: What are you reading these days?"
Only this excerpt is your translation or the whole book?
Michael !!! You always have strong feelings about all sorts of things. :-)
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Posted by Michael Sympson on 19/12/2001, 15:01:49, in reply to "Re: What are you reading these days?"
That's all I have translated - and ever will. What I brook in paragraphs is actually one long
paragraph and some of his sentences go over half a page - so thank you, but n, thanks.
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Posted by Lale on 29/12/2001, 13:22:32, in reply to "Re: What are you reading these days?"
Marvelous!!! I finished Amsterdam a few days ago and I am thrilled by it. Superb. I am
humbled with the originality of the author, I am made to feel insignificant in the face of such
creativity. I vote this one best book written in the last 10 years.
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Posted by Guillermo Maynez on 30/12/2001, 19:14:36, in reply to "Re: What are you reading these days?"
Well you all seem to be reading interesting things, except for Chris (hope you feel better now). I just finished reading the unabridged version of "The Iliad" and simply loved it. It is a pity that abridged versions erase the details about the fierce battles, which I found exciting and think I would have loved to read them when I was a kid. The Iliad is pure action, intrigues, treason and vanity. Wonderful.
Also, I read The Razor's Edge and liked it, as I have liked everything I've read by Maugham.
I also read John Keegan's "The First World War", and found it excellent (and, of course, disturbing as that terrible, stupid and useless war was).
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