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Posted by Lale on 7/2/2002, 13:26:31
Having finished The War of the End of the World (which was no mean achievement) and waiting for my copy of "Waiting For My Cats To Die" from amazon.co.uk, I started reading this wonderful book:
The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi ~ Arthur Japin
I already found one delightful quotable quote in it: "I've had enough of the past. More of it keeps coming."
And, look at this "about the author" blurb on the dust jacket: "Arthur Japin is an actor, opera singer and writer. His research for The Two hearts of Kwasi Boachi took him through Europe, Asia and Africa; during one trip to Ghana, he was kidnapped and held for ransom before breaking away from his captors and making his escape. He lives in Amsterdam."
So, what are you reading these days?
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Posted by Anna van Gelderen on 7/2/2002, 18:40:52, in reply to "What are you reading now?"
Well, after the dizzying whirl of The War of the End of the World, with its violence and its host of characters, I longed for something quite the opposite. The well-ordered, sheltered, quietly civil world of Jane Austen for instance, where the worst that happens is a breach of manners. So I almost started to reread Pride and Prejudice. But then I realized there were so many other completely new books waiting to be read, that I took out Malcolm Bradbury's To the Hermitage instead. Unfortunately, unlike Vargas Llosa , Bradbury is not a first-rate writer. The humour is mostly insipid, with a sour undertone I don't care for and the ideas are interesting but don't come off - yet. The book has several hundreds of pages to improve fortunately. The good thing is that nothing much happens, that everybody is perfectly civilized and well- educated, and that so far the only violence has been on tv. Therefore: a fairly suitable book for getting my bearings again after The War of the End of the World.
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Posted by Chris Green on 7/2/2002, 18:43:54, in reply to "What are you reading now?"
I just finished Hemmingway's "Farewell to Arms" and have picked up Balzac's "Lost Illusions."
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Posted by A.J. on 7/2/2002, 22:38:57, in reply to "What are you reading now?"
I just finished Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" (my review should be posted on Amazon in a few days) and am about to start Shakespeare's Richard III and then Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited."
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Posted by Lale on 7/2/2002, 23:33:56, in reply to "Re: What are you reading now?"
You mentioned two authors who are at the top of my list. I want to read Brideshead Revisited because it keeps coming up at the quiz show Weakest Link. The other book I will read pretty soon is Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks.
This week's Newsweek has an article on Germany, titled "Burning Out? ~ Reversal of fortune: from wirtschaftswunder to wirtschaftsblunder. Germany is the new sick man of Europe."
There is a quote from Thomas Mann at the top: "The light of a star shines most brightly when it is on the way to being extinguished, or maybe it has already gone out."
The article starts with this paragraph: "In Thomas Mann's epic novel Buddenbrooks, a wellheeled family of German burghers slide into genteel decline. The first generation lays the foundation for a fortune, the second amasses it and the third squanders the family's riches on a life of leisure. their hardworking neighbors, meanwhile, grow steadily more prosperous. In the end, the impoverished, defeated scion of the once great family meets an untimely death."
(Don't worry, Germany is not going bankrupt just yet, the article, after this dramatic start, goes on to say that "Surely, Germany remains an economic giant. And every slump is followed sooner or later by an upturn. As for the literary parallels, no one expects Germany to reach the end of the line, Buddenbrooks style. Yet ..." )
In any case, I am intrigued. I will read Buddenbrooks.
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Posted by Dave on 8/2/2002, 2:47:48, in reply to "What are you reading now?"
Sounds like we are all reading a great diversity of books. Since "The War" I have read several books, and I don't know if this is some sort of reflection on myself or what, but they all seem to have been sort of "dark". First was Obasan by Joy Kogawa which is about the persecution of the Japanese in Canada during World War II. Then Margaret Atwood's "Surfacing" which was dark and mysterious. Then I read Conrad's Heart of Darkness. And presently I am reading a novel which I highly recommend to you all, it's Mercy Among The Children by David Adams Richards. But it too is dark... about a man who absolutely refuses to retalliate against those who are trying to destroy him. He's taken a vow of pacifism, and will not defend himself. The resulting story revolves around how his decisions negatively affect his family. (That is really oversimplifying it... but it's basicaly the gist). It is set in the remote Miramachi region of New Brunswick in Canada's Maritimes. This book shared the Giller Prize (which is Canada's BIGGIE) with Michael Ondaatje's "Anil's Ghost" in the year 2000.
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Posted by Guillermo Maynez on 9/2/2002, 21:35:30, in reply to "Re: What are you reading now?"
I recently finished a very interesting book called "And the Bible was right", by Werner Keller, a German archaeologist who wrote this bok in the 50's. It is the story of the archaeological discoveries that have partly revealed the historical foundations of the biblical stories. It has plenty of photos and is very interesting.
Currently I am reading a wonderful book, "Machiavelli's smile" which is simply machiavelli's biography, but the author, Maurizio Viroli, is very talented and the story is as compelling as a novel. Of course, it has much violence, as those times were, and my next book (before receiving my copy of February's book) will also be more peaceful.