What are you reading now?

[EnemyoftheStoat]

The conquest of Plassans was the point at which i gave up. LBH is the best one. They all follow a similar pattern and i got fed up with them in the end. The ones you list are the better ones , those not published by Penguin were missed for a reason. The low point is supposed to be the one set in a department store.

Au Bonheur des Dames goes to the top of my reading list then.

[Ian Thumwood]

Au Bonheur des Dames goes to the top of my reading list then.

You might also enjoy Viz.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

You might also enjoy Viz.

I had one look at Viz when it was first a thing, and that was enough, thank you.

[Lordgeous]

The late Humphrey Burton's autobiography 'In My Own Time'. A good read and a fascinating one - I love 'behind the scenes'-type books! A lot of nostalgia for a time when Music and the Arts appeared more important to the BBC than they do now. Lots of stories of course. A lovely one from that memorable broadcast when Stravinsky conducted his Firebird at the RFH with the Philharmonia. Apparently, though using a score, Stravinsky lost his place just before the wonderful horn entry at the start of the final section, indicating the entry to the player (Civil) a bar early. According to Burton the look of delight (and gratitude) on his face appeared when Alan ignored the cue and entered correctly. A historic occasion thankfully available on YouTube.

[smittims]

Coincidentally I was just listening to Dennis play that lovely solo on the 1956 Giulini recording.

[vinteuil]

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Jane Austen, Sanditon

I don't know why I had never got round to reading it before ; the acquisition of the Cambridge edition of the Later Manuscripts nudged me to getting into it

Only twelve chapters, the 'stub' of a possible novel : she never got around to re-writing what we have, let alone completing it - but there is some lovely stuff, and it's curiously modern in its interest in the marketing of a new 'experience', here the development of a sea-bathing resort

We can never know how she might have wanted the plot to develop - we can begin to guess at the baddies and the goodies and the lost inbetweeners ; she died four months after her writing of the last page

The Cambridge edition has useful notes (sometimes a bit heavy-handed), but is not as attractive to read as the old RW Chapman edition for Oxford

Glad to have read it - I think I shall now read the other 'Minor Works'

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[Ein Heldenleben]

The conquest of Plassans was the point at which i gave up. LBH is the best one. They all follow a similar pattern and i got fed up with them in the end. The ones you list are the better ones , those not published by Penguin were missed for a reason. The low point is supposed to be the one set in a department store.

I think Au Bonheur Des Dames is a superb book. One of the first to tackle the phenomenon of consumerism and probably the first ever about a department store and indeed middle class female shoplifting. Plus the whole theme of the small lower middle class trader being crushed by larger economic forces.
Read most of Rougon- Macquart and the best IMV is L’Assommoir.

Any Balzac fans out there ?

[vinteuil]

Any Balzac fans out there ?

... o yessssss!

[vinteuil]

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... with delight, and sadness - Julian Barnes : Departure(s)

As he says, (probably) his last book.

(Predictably) one of my favourite living writers.

For those of you who appreciate Julian Barnes - he's still got it

Memory, illness, death, friendship, love, failing memory, the covid years, France, Proust (in small doses... ), writing, contemporaries....

( ... perhaps I should add that it's very funny)

My wife asked me whether we read Julian Barnes because he is in so many ways our contemporary : do - will - the young read him?
I don't have an answer. But for me he is a constant delight...




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[french frank]

For those of you who appreciate Julian Barnes - he's still got it

Memory, illness, death, friendship, love, failing memory, the covid years, France, Proust (in small doses... ), writing, contemporaries....

( ... perhaps I should add that it's very funny)

I suppose I should give him another go <sigh> but I didn't get on at all with Flaubert's Parrot or A History of the World ...

[vinteuil]

I suppose I should give him another go <sigh> but I didn't get on at all with Flaubert's Parrot or A History of the World ...

... interesting : is it that you find him too much of a clever-clogs?


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[french frank]

... interesting : is it that you find him too much of a clever-clogs?
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N-n-no, not that. I don't think I had an opinion about him. The writing didn't engage my interest very much, any more than did Margaret Attwood or Kate Atkinson. Maybe I've just gone off novels? Or reading books? I ploughed through A Briefer History of Time and retained a definition of the Uncertainty Principle but as I thought that was self-evident I probably didn't understand it in the first place

[vinteuil]

Maybe I've just gone off novels? Or reading books?

... ah, that I recognize!

I was always amazed that my father, who had an extensive book collection (I hesitate to say 'library'), never seemed to read anything. He explained that 'in his youth' (father William... ) he had read a lot, and had now lost the appetite

And now I can say that 'in my youth' (father William...) I read voraciously - but now just dip in to things, from time to time

Mme v is at the beginning of Ford Madox Ford's 'Parade's End'. I wish her luck...


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[french frank]

Mme v is at the beginning of Ford Madox Ford's 'Parade's End'. I wish her luck...

Now that I did read with interest, albeit many years ago. Was it serialised on television at some point (not that I saw it)?

Just consulted the book shelves: No, not actually Parade's End but The Good Soldier (found between C Mackenzie and K Mansfield )

[vinteuil]

Now that I did read with interest, albeit many years ago. Was it serialised on television at some point (not that I saw it)?

Parade's End was serialised, with a very ill-suited (I thought : many critics admired his performance) Benedict Cumberbatch as Tietjens (curiously he couldn't deliver a believable upper-class accent) and a delicious Rebecca Hall as the egregious Sylvia

Just consulted the book shelves: No, not actually Parade's End but The Good Soldier (found between C Mackenzie and K Mansfield )

... I think he should probably be filed under H. Or possibly F. Don't think M really permissible

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Madox_Ford

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