[Literature] Currently Reading (discussion)

[Chuckman]

The latter Frodo and Sam sections are the best parts in the books. Lots of lived experience there.

[caragnafog dog]

I haven't read a McCarthy novel in a while. I miss those neverending sentences and that archaic vocabulary. I don't think I've ever read anything like the descriptions of nature in Blood Meridian.

Anyway, I read Titus Andronicus for the first time yesterday. A combination of extreme violence, rape and a comically evil black protagonist makes this rather unpopular when held against the Bard's other tragedies but I think it can stand up to most of them, King Lear and Hamlet excepted. It follows the Revenge Drama formula quite well, and even if the reader knows the outcome beforehand the climax is riveting. There's a moment when Titus, overwhelmed by grief, can do nothing but laugh. That and the monologue that follows are, taken together, the greatest dramatic moments in the play, in my opinion.

[Blue Monday]

All up I've only read three McCarthy books - Blood Meridian, The Road and No Country for Old Men - but he's probably one of my very favourite authors based on style alone. His sentence structure is so simple and basic, yet it's imbued with such an invisible profound gravitas that it always packs a punch. Here's an example from a page I just read, from the infamous opening chapter:

He is not big but he has big wrists, big hands. His shoulders are set close. The child's face is curiously untouched behind the scars, the eyes oddly innocent. They fight with fists, with feet, with bottles or knives. All races, all breeds. Men whose speech sounds like the grunting of apes. Men from lands so far and queer that standing over them where they lie bleeding in the mud he feels mankind itself vindicated.

The content's not pretty stuff but it sticks with you. The same could be said of the writing except there's always a stark, solemn beauty to McCarthy's works. I really need to get around to reading more of his stuff one day. Not really any day soon, but one day.

[Joy Evangelion]

Camus

I plan on reading a Camus novel soon. I've read The Stranger but nothing else by him, so whaddya recommend, doggie?

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Been working on this tome for the last few days;

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which is appropriate as I just hung this up in my bedroom;

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Just started Book 2, so obviously I've barely scratched the surface, but a few preliminary thoughts regardless.

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*This is the first work of Murakami's I've read which isn't in the first person, and I can't say I prefer him writing in this style, but because of the alternating stories, I'd say it works pretty well. Though I find his sentences to be a little too minimalist or straightforward than I prefer from my fiction. I would compare it to Hemingway but I haven't read any of his work anytime recently, so I won't.
*Speaking of the switching between Aomame and Tengo, I'd say for the time being I'm enjoying both sections equally. Though I like Aomame a tad bit more than Tengo, I find the idea of the rewriting and publishing of Air Chrysalis and everything that's been going on with it to be a lot of fun to read. The world's and histories Murakami creates in his works are infinitely interesting to me. I'm not in love with his prose but his imagination is really awe inspiring(a la Fuka-Eri, I guess, lulz).
*The idea of time and history being elastic is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, and I was glad to see it in this work. Like, could you imagine if somehow you just went through your life on Earth but somehow missed a really notorious news story?

I'd say more on the novel, but I'll save that for future posts.

[Merridian]

I plan on reading a Camus novel soon. I've read The Stranger but nothing else by him, so whaddya recommend, doggie?

THE PLAGUE

[caragnafog dog]

I won't contradict merri because there is no wrong place to start with Camus, he only has 3 novels of note (there is one that was published posthumously). The Fall is the shortest and most dense in philosophy but The Plague has a better narrative and perhaps covers a broader range of ideas. The Stranger you will either love or hate but it's too short and compelling to not read eventually.

[Joy Evangelion]

he only has 3 novels of note

Damn, somewhere during my life I forgot this fact, shows what the hell I know about French lit. Definitely shoulda looked him up on wikipedia before I asked the question. Thanks anyways, I'll pick em both up next time I hit up da bookstore.

[Atropos]

Currently reading Little, Big by John Crowley. I see a lot of ideas he would later use in Ægypt in utero, so to speak—the "Art of Memory", in particular. I also find it amusing that, while Pierce Moffett's physical appearance is an inversion of Crowley's, Smoky Barnable as described is almost identical to the author. Makes me wonder if it's an intentional inversion.

Other things of note:
-Not sure if Santa Claus actually exists or not. Certainly seems like it, the way that scene is framed.
-I can't stop imagining the Noisy Bridge Rod and Gun Club as SEELE. "Can we trust Ariel Hawksquill?" "This is not in accordance with the Tale."
-Crowley apparently has an interest in characters with atypical educations—I can't think of a single character in his books who went to public school. Everyone is homeschooled or goes to a Catholic school of horrors.

[Joy Evangelion]

Finished 1Q84 this afternoon. Not my favorite Murakami novel, but I had a lot of fun reading it anyways; even though it's pretty long it never felt like a chore to read it. Really reminded me of Wind-Up Bird, so for the Murakami fans here that dug that book, I definitely recommend.

Some thoughts;

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* I don't tend to study works, or concern myself with analyzing them too much on my first read/watch through(I had enough of that shit in high school and college to last me my life) so I'm not splitting the atom with this post or anything. Still though, I don't get butthurt when a work makes someone think, or withholds answers, and so the moments in 1Q84 that did that didn't ruin my day or anything. I'm sure there will be a few moments in the next week or so in which I think back to a certain part of the novel and think "the hell was up with that"
*Although I think the book could have been a bit shorter, I loved that Tengo and Aomame don't get together until the last couple of chapters since it allows the reader to actually feel something when they're finally reunited, like, I know I didn't wait twenty years for them to get together, but I did just read 1100 pages. Very glad Murakami didn't reunite them at page 700 and then have them TAKE DOWN Sakigake together.
*Great characters, which is only to be expected from the author, all of whom I enjoyed as literary characters. I even found myself feeling something for old Ushikawa, though I found his chapters to be a just a bit tedious at times, since the reader was usually a few steps ahead of him.
*When it was all over, I definitely preferred Aomame(though she's not the kind of girl I'd want to date ) over Tengo, though my favorite sections of the novel were the various times Tengo went to "the cat town" to see his old man. "You are nothing."

Reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man next since I wasn't able to buy any Camus. Never read it before, so I'm pretty excited to see what James Joyce's deal was.

[Blue Monday]

He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.

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Finished up my reread of Blood Meridian, only serving to cement it further as one of my favourite novels of all-time. I'll hopefully move on to The Return of the King by the end of the week now, although no promises as I have quite a hefty back catalogue of comics to work through as well.

[caragnafog dog]

Suttree is my favorite Cormac McCarthy novel but I don't think my first reading of BM did it justice. The epilogue, if nothing else, warrants more thought than I gave it.

[Blue Monday]

To this day the epilogue still manages to perplex the fuck out of me. I've read a whole bunch of differing interpretations but they've never really manage to make it clearer to me. It's obviously allegorical, but whatever. I haven't read Suttree or any of the older McCarthy works, however, to me, Blood Meridian is transcendent. It's a sanguinary monolith. A nightmarish fever-dream of biblical proportions whose language is the stuff of myth. Basically it's Apocalypse Now as a western, only if Kurtz (in this instance the judge) were self-aware to the fact that he's a character in a story, and puts literal stock in the expression "To reach heaven by violence":

This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one's will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god.

[caragnafog dog]

The Judge was certainly terrifying. For all his knowledge and phantom-like traits, though, even he could say nothing before the sky in the open desert. I want to reread that passage. I want to reread it all with Kurtz in mind, because iI hear that comparison a lot from others who have read it.

[Blue Monday]

Kind of makes me want to read Moby-Dick as I've always seen others draw similarities and stuff between the two, i.e. the journeying format with heavy, vivid descriptions on the sparse environments and a lot of symbolism, metaphor and what-not. At least that's the impression I've gotten - I know next to nothing about that book.

[caragnafog dog]

That's essentially correct, though of course those similarities don't run that deep. The Whale and Ahab represent things markedly different from The Judge and Glanton and The Kid, and Ishmael's role further complicates such a comparison. It is, in my juvenile and ever-changing opinion, the foremost prose tragedy and the best book I've ever read though. Of any novel I need to reread Moby-Dick tops the list, despite having only finished it a few months ago. There was a lot to digest.

[Joy Evangelion]

I haven't read Blood Meridian yet, but I can attest to the greatness of Moby-Dick, Blue. As I said a few months ago, I have nothing but wonderful memories of reading it for a class a few years ago, and I know some of the geekier students in the class shared similar sentiments with me. It might not be the flashiest novel every written, but it's a work that'll keep ya thinking about it for a long time after you've put it down. I'm due for a rereading, for sure.

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Finished A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man and all I have to say is, "Thank the lord that it's all over." I enjoyed the structure of the first chapter, and the prose was well written and all that throughout, but I could never quite get myself into the story. I appreciated the sections toward the middle of the book in which Stephen struggles with his soul and its damnation, as I've felt similar feelings, but at the same time I just couldn't connect with the protagonist on a level that made me want to read his life story. I understand why he said the things he said, and why he turned his back on the things he turned his back on, but I just couldn't help the fact that I found him to be an ass. I had similar feelings while reading Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, which is also pretty highly regarded, so I'm basically just assuming that there isn't something wrong with the work, but with me.

Next up for me is Billy Faulkner's Pylon, which, judging by the cover I of the version I have, is about airplanes. I'm sure it'll be fantastic.

[Blue Monday]

Joy, you'll be quite pleased to hear that after I finish The Return of the King I'm going to read my first ever Faulkner; The Reivers.




I went back and read the posts on Moby-Dick as well. I'll definitely be making a point of picking it up some time soon.

[Guy Nacks]

I went back and read the posts on Moby-Dick as well. I'll definitely be making a point of picking it up some time soon.

Moby's Dick isn't for everyone. I, for one, was bored nearly to tears by it's downright snailian pace and those goddamn whaling chapters. It also seems to take fuckin' forever before Ishmael even gets on Ahab's boat. The only exciting part is the actual whale chase and if you go into it expecting that to be a big portion of the book, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

If you want a great nautically themed book from the 19th century with philosophical musings and such, pick up 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea instead, but that's just my recommendation.

[caragnafog dog]

Portrait is remarkable in that Joyce doesn't romanticize his younger self. I appreciated it for that and really loved the narrative structure, but at no point are we supposed to like Stephen or even feel that he's moving in the right direction.

I really enjoyed the miscellaneous and whaling chapters of Moby-Dick, in part due to Ishmael nearly always concluding them with a philosophical flourish. But Cetology, to take an infamous example, is pretty hilarious. It's this tortured taxonomy based on the quatro/folio/quatro system, but it's contradictory and makes no sense. He says some things are whales that clearly aren't, says some whales are not whales that clearly are, and offers as evidence the testimony of what some jerkoff shipmate of his has told him. He can't even tell you what a "whale" is. Moby-Dick is about scale, and how vast the whale is, and the parts of nature unknown to man. Ishmael presuming to knowledge of the scale he lays out in Cetology in hubris. He tells you literally everything he knows, but information isn't understanding. Taken thematically with the rest of the novel it's pretty dark but I found it quite funny in isolation.

[Joy Evangelion]

^Unfortunately sometimes when I'm reading a novel I'll get pretty salty at one or more characters early on, and then my mind will sort of classify the book as unreadable, so the act of reading then becomes incredibly hard, i.e. instead of just manning up and finishing the book I'll clean my coffee machine or something, only strengthening the feelings of dread I associate with the book, which is, after all, just a book. When I read The Cider House Rules a few years back I hated everything about it and treated reading a page like it was going to the dentist. Maybe I'm just a crappy reader/writer of literature, though my worthless English degree would say different.

The Reivers....Moby-Dick

Very nice, though The Reivers is one of the few novels of his I haven't gotten to yet. Since it was his last, I suppose I'll finish it after I'm through with all of his other novels, which I should be doing this year. Hope ya enjoy it.

And re: Moby-Dick, there's a lot of sweet editions out there, like Norton's critical edition and illustrated versions and the like so it might be wise to do some research before buying a copy. The one I read was an Easton Press copy that weighed, like, five pounds, and made me look like a fool when I read it in public.