What're you reading right now?

[Irritable1]

Thought it might be fun to discuss off-site reading. I'm changing my diet to include more "standard" reading.  I've indulged in too much paperback pulp over the last year and need to train my literary eye a bit.

 

Finishing up: Tiger Heron, by my old prof Robin Becker.  Spare, lovely meditations on aging.

 

Currently stalled in: Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It by Jennifer Michael Hecht.  It's a discussion of how to form an ethical standard for suicide prevention that's not anchored in religion. I got a bit bored by the classical grounding but am going back.  

 

Listening to: Death at the Bar, by awesome Ngaio Marsh.  British Golden Age-style mystery. Cyanide in a Devon hamlet! I have Audible, but I only use my monthly credit and make it last the whole month by only listening when I'm cooking or exercising.

 

Blasted through: a Clara Benson mystery I forget. These were discovered in an attic by the author's descendants and they're cleanly written, with no real impossibilities beyond the standard ones for the genre, but they're a bit dull.

 

Edit---Was completely shattered by: The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me: Two Plays by Larry Kramer. The Normal Heart is being released on HBO Memorial Day weekend. I knew I wasn't going to have the emotional whatnot to watch, so I read the play instead.

 

How about you?

Edited May 14, 2014 by Irritable1

[Andy78]

I read Stephen King's It at least five times a year (it's become a kind of blankey), and one of the Sherlock Holmes stories every now and then.

 

Though I'm currently reading Christian Jacq's Ramses series which is a five book dramatisation chronicling the life of Pharaoh Ramses II from childhood through to death.  It includes historical factual events such as the battle of Kadesh, and dramatisations of encounters with Helen of Troy, Homer and descendants of Akhenaten.  The series revolves around his closest friends and his family and how he copes with political intrigue, assassination attempts and threats of war.  Although it is a historical dramatisation, Christian Jacq is a highly respected Egyptologist and uses his background to craft a brilliant story.

[Slytherin]

I am reading " the hunger games trilogy" I read two books on my vacation and now I borrowed the third book from a friend   I like them   

[Irritable1]

I cried like a baby throughout the last two. That thing with the pearl! 

[Slytherin]

Yes  I am reading them in Swedish but I must read the English version too 

[Irritable1]

If you need emotional support check out markreads.net. He's got a chapter-by-chapter review of the whole series and it's pretty hilarious to read his reactions. The only thing is they're in reverse order, so watch out for that if you're worried about spoilers.

[Slytherin]

Thanks! It's okay, I usually read the last chapter first in books

[Andy78]

I usually read the last chapter first in books

 

I thought I was the only one who was crazy enough to do that

[Irritable1]

I do it too!

 

So how does It function as a blankie?

[Slytherin]

I thought I was the only one who was crazy enough to do that

THANK YOU ANDY    now we are two   An you too Irritable now we are three 

Edited May 14, 2014 by slytherin

[Andy78]

So how does It function as a blankie?

 

I take It with me everywhere I go.  I've had the same copy of the book for the past 25 years and I just don't feel right if I don't have it with me.

 

When I go away it's the first that I make sure gets packed, even if I'm only going away for a weekend it goes in my overnight bag.

[Irritable1]

 An you too Irritable now we are three

 

 

OMG I got into so much trouble for that at the GRRM forum (A Song of Ice and Fire). I don't post there any more 

 

 

I take It with me everywhere I go.  I've had the same copy of the book for the past 25 years and I just don't feel right if I don't have it with me.

 

When I go away it's the first that I make sure gets packed, even if I'm only going away for a weekend it goes in my overnight bag.

 

 

But, but, the content? Ok, I'll admit, I'm actually scared to read it. Tommyknockers just about did me in.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Irritable1

[Former Member]

What to read, what to read. I just finished Harold Bloom's "How to Read and Why", which is probably anathema to most of us on this site. Basically he says, only read the greatest tomes. Life is short! Then he tells you what's great, and don't argue with him!

 

I've always felt the urge to "take my medicine" and read classics. So I'm working my way up to Montaigne's "Complete Essays". Which can be tasted in discrete bites and nibbles. His recent biographer, Sarah Bakewell, got me enthused by looking at life through this work.

That was "How to Live, A Life of Montaigne".

 

I'll read anything by Graham Robb. So when he wrote a speculative book about the proto-scientific brilliance of the Celts, I couldn't resist. With most popular fiction, I just wait for the film. Because life really is short. And I'm a slow reader.

[W_L]

Just finished Michael Lewis' The Big Short (Makes me want to finish my story "the big Squeeze", I started my story before he published, too)

 

I like the book's approach to a complex subject like collateralize debt obligation and credit default swaps down to the bad mortgage products of commercial lenders. Out of all the books out there, I would say it is the easiest book to read on the subject of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. I understand the subject a bit better than most readers, but I still like the interesting history of credit derivative development.

 

Right now, I am reading his next book "Flash Boys", it is actually something I am quite intrigued and have learned a bit from. In essence, I don't think I can ever really invest money in the Stock Market again if what he has said is true about front runners and stock manipulation by the new electronic systems of high frequency traders. I never imagined that 12 milliseconds ()a millisecond is 1/1000th of a second) was so important,  even so little advantage can give high frequency traders advanced knowledge of the entire market ahead of other buyers and sellers. Technology has made actual trading an IT game rather than a human experience.

[Irritable1]

 I just finished Harold Bloom's "How to Read and Why", which is probably anathema to most of us on this site. 

 

Eugene, I got this out of the library tonight, on impulse. I'm on p23 and starting to twitch a little bit...

[Former Member]

Irritable,

 

You're probably twitching because Mr. Bloom is a mighty, pompous twit. Spoiler, if you can't stand it anymore... everything in modern literature goes back to Shakespeare, and among his works, 'Hamlet' reigns supreme. No ifs, ands, or whate'ers. But I'm used to those curmudgeons, and wanted to have a traditional look at literature. The twitching, if it's just irritation at a writer's message, can be a good thing. If we are pricked, do we not vent?

 

What I get from his little guide is an acknowledgement that classical literature is a thicket for modern readers, and that it's worth the hard slog. I need that encouragement. Which brings up my own theory of literature. There are two kinds of writing. The first comes to me on a  lovely platter with scones and tea, while I plump up my bed pillows. It finds me right where I am. The other type makes me get up, put on a hair shirt, wander through swamps and up inconvenient mountains, and as I stare off the precipice with hollowed eyes (from being up all night reading), I see that the view is incomparably exquisite. I've made as much effort as the writer, by leaving my comfy bed of assumptions, and meeting her at some half-way point. The writer may have compromised to find me, too. If not, if it's not been an effort for both of us, I'm stuck where I've always been, and she's talking to God or Goddess.

 

Twitch on!   

[Irritable1]

 

Which brings up my own theory of literature. There are two kinds of writing. The first comes to me on a  lovely platter with scones and tea, while I plump up my bed pillows. It finds me right where I am. The other type makes me get up, put on a hair shirt, wander through swamps and up inconvenient mountains, and as I stare off the precipice with hollowed eyes (from being up all night reading), I see that the view is incomparably exquisite. I've made as much effort as the writer, by leaving my comfy bed of assumptions, and meeting her at some half-way point. The writer may have compromised to find me, too. If not, if it's not been an effort for both of us, I'm stuck where I've always been, and she's talking to God or Goddess.

 

 

Well, that's given me the impetus to continue, thanks!  And I could definitely use some lessons in Shakespeare appreciation. 

 

But OMG, Mr. Bloom's authorial persona is... not very warm   Maybe that's just his schtick.

 

You know who does a fantastic Intro to Macbeth? My favorite Ngaio Marsh, in Light Thickens.   It's a murder mystery set in a production of Macbeth, written by a stage professional who adores Macbeth.  Definitely a "breakfast in bed," but so great!

[Former Member]

 

Well, that's given me the impetus to continue, thanks!  And I could definitely use some lessons in Shakespeare appreciation. 

 

But OMG, Mr. Bloom's authorial persona is... not very warm   Maybe that's just his schtick.

 

You know who does a fantastic Intro to Macbeth? My favorite Ngaio Marsh, in Light Thickens.   It's a murder mystery set in a production of Macbeth, written by a stage professional who adores Macbeth.  Definitely a "breakfast in bed," but so great!

 

Thanks for the tip! And to confess, I love all breakfasts in bed. British ones are especially yummy. I remember Marsh's "Inspector Alleyn" series on the telly. Yes, Shakespeare is a real riddle-fest for me. As for Bloom, if he got a reader to pick up one his essential classics, despite his pontificating, he would claim a great victory. So someday, I'd like to read Cervantes, who never even heard of Shakespeare, according to Bloom.

[Irritable1]

Thanks for the tip! And to confess, I love all breakfasts in bed. British ones are especially yummy. I remember Marsh's "Inspector Alleyn" series on the telly. Yes, Shakespeare is a real riddle-fest for me. As for Bloom, if he got a reader to pick up one his essential classics, despite his pontificating, he would claim a great victory. So someday, I'd like to read Cervantes, who never even heard of Shakespeare, according to Bloom.

 

Hey, I read a chapter of Don Quixote once! You know what it is for me---when they're that old, and in translation at that, it's really hard to pick up any emotional affect from the words. I start to feel like I'm just either not getting the joke, or not crying in the right places, or both.

 

I wouldn't recommend Ngaio Marsh unreservedly, as she has some issues, especially in the later books.  But in Light Thickens I get the impression she's too happy with her Macbeth to waste much energy on anything else. And that makes me happy.

[Former Member]

Hey, I read a chapter of Don Quixote once! You know what it is for me---when they're that old, and in translation at that, it's really hard to pick up any emotional affect from the words. I start to feel like I'm just either not getting the joke, or not crying in the right places, or both.

 

I wouldn't recommend Ngaio Marsh unreservedly, as she has some issues, especially in the later books.  But in Light Thickens I get the impression she's too happy with her Macbeth to waste much energy on anything else. And that makes me happy.

 

I agree about the frustration of reading old classics. And either seeing the joke and not laughing, or missing it entirely. But I'm obsessed with the idea that I shouldn't be restricted by having been arbitrarily dumped in one place, in one time. And writers are obsessed with being read after they're gone... long gone! So, for example, I decided to read a novel by Sir Walter Scott. Even decades after his death, Twain was lamenting how Scott had ruined civilization and insidiously wormed his romantic notions into the minds of the masses, to no good effect. When Scott presented a "hilarious" character who would frequently exclaim "prodigious!", I knew my yawn should have instead been a knee slap and roar of laugher. As it would have been in his day. There should be an editorial footnote, instructing "huge guffaw here."

 

Scott was unbelievably popular and influential in his day, as compared to Jane Austen. Now she's left him in the dust of history, and all her books been made into films. And those wonderful productions show me how weak my imagination is. So at least I can see these works aren't just tortuous exercises that some professor or know-all critic has devised for me.  

[Irritable1]

All my Victorian writers go on and on about Scott and how fantastic his work is and how easy it is to get sucked into one of novels, and right out of the stern business of being a Victorian woman, making the shirts and teaching the children. When you say this:

 

But I'm obsessed with the idea that I shouldn't be restricted by having been arbitrarily dumped in one place, in one time.

 

 

I totally agree, and when I'm reading old books I try to sort of bootstrap my way into the emotional reality of the book by comparing our own emotional reality with that of the characters, at the main points we have in common--birth of children, death of loved ones, and so on.  For example, and at the risk of being morbid, I'll say that the treatment of the death of a child is something that hasn't really changed in literature as far back as I've read--it's never described as anything but the most shattering blow, something that rocks the self and destroys hope. Which gives you an idea of how incredibly stressful life must've been before antibiotics (whatever nasty cracks Harold Bloom makes about "historicism").

 

But between those nodes where emotion seems pretty much identical between 1700 and 2014, there's all these spaces where I feel like there's meaning, but I can't get to it because the context is lost.  So I guess that's where Mr. Bloom comes in 

[Former Member]

 

 

 

I totally agree, and when I'm reading old books I try to sort of bootstrap my way into the emotional reality of the book by comparing our own emotional reality with that of the characters, at the main points we have in common--birth of children, death of loved ones, and so on.  For example, and at the risk of being morbid, I'll say that the treatment of the death of a child is something that hasn't really changed in literature as far back as I've read--it's never described as anything but the most shattering blow, something that rocks the self and destroys hope. Which gives you an idea of how incredibly stressful life must've been before antibiotics (whatever nasty cracks Harold Bloom makes about "historicism").

 

 

Since you mentioned death, is that issue the defining reason why "happy endings" are now sentimental and lowbrow, while in Victorian times they were essential in buoying up humanity? In our time, is there just too much fulfillment, satisfaction and all-around smugness to allow a "happily ever after" plot scenario? I also wonder about religion, along those lines. Can't hope noticing it's particularly salient in the lives of the old, the sickly, and the impoverished... (plus Americans, but that's another story). I'm waiting for the old pendulum to swing back, and for artists to find joy and beauty in the world, and shock the nihilist public! Someone earned the right to a lovely ending for their novel; someone earned the right to have a constructive morality for their life; someone deserved to bash the icons and smash the altar. But the rest of us are probably just pretending... 

[Irritable1]

Since you mentioned death, is that issue the defining reason why "happy endings" are now sentimental and lowbrow, while in Victorian times they were essential in buoying up humanity? In our time, is there just too much fulfillment, satisfaction and all-around smugness to allow a "happily ever after" plot scenario? I also woJust don't forget the lesson we learned last summer about feeding pumps and swimming.nder about religion, along those lines. Can't hope noticing it's particularly salient in the lives of the old, the sickly, and the impoverished... (plus Americans, but that's another story). I'm waiting for the old pendulum to swing back, and for artists to find joy and beauty in the world, and shock the nihilist public! Someone earned the right to a lovely ending for their novel; someone earned the right to have a constructive morality for their life; someone deserved to bash the icons and smash the altar. But the rest of us are probably just pretending.

Aw, and we were getting along so well ;-). I have to object to that characterization of the classics.... I mean they are overflowing with unhappy endings, unless you stick pretty closely to Dickens and Austen. And even the "greater" Dickens works are pretty ambiguous, I mean look at Great Expectations and Oliver Twist.

And I'd say that The Destiny of Me (one of the Larry Kramer plays I read last month) is a happy ending thats "earned" as strenuously as by any Dickens hero.

 

Or am I not understanding you?

 

 

Edit: although that's actually a terrible counter example because Larry Kramer knows death better than most people in the western world at this point.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Irritable1

[Former Member]

Aw, and we were getting along so well ;-). I have to object to that characterization of the classics.... I mean they are overflowing with unhappy endings, unless you stick pretty closely to Dickens and Austen. And even the "greater" Dickens works are pretty ambiguous, I mean look at Great Expectations and Oliver Twist.

And I'd say that The Destiny of Me (one of the Larry Kramer plays I read last month) is a happy ending thats "earned" as strenuously as by any Dickens hero.

 

Or am I not understanding you?

 

 

Edit: although that's actually a terrible counter example because Larry Kramer knows death better than most people in the western world at this point.

 

Yup. I'm thinking about Austen, and Dickens, and Scott. Villains can get the chop. But letting our main character/heroine fall over the cliff and into the abyss, followed by "The End"? That wouldn't start until the late 19th century, for the most part. Anyone as pessimistic as Melville would have to find popularity after death. Then Hardy and Eliot were messing with the sunny ending too. I was thinking that AIDS presented an exception, but in America most people saw it as a peripheral phenomenon. Not me, of course. And so I don't revel in murder, mayhem, and amorality, just for the heck of it. I'd like to read contemporary literature which acknowledges all of that, but doesn't seek critical approval by dragging the story and reader to the darkest places and denies me a way to return. Practically speaking, what's the use of such writing? I'm still sticking to my thesis, that only people in comfortable, affluent societies can stomach reading novels, etc. which offer no hope of a better world. So I'm getting into my romantic time-machine and taking off...   

[Andrew Todd]

I've always been a 'binge' reader. I'll go months, or even years, without reading a good book and then I'll go on a tear and just devour a number of them. Right now, things are so crazy, I'm in a dry spell. When I have a few minutes I'm working on 'The Fault In Our Stars' trying to finish it before the movie. I'm anal like that, I have to read it before I see how bad they mess it up on screen.  When i was a kid (many, many...MANY moons ago) I was the biggest Stephen King addict, but I haven't read him in a long time...though I do have 'Doctor Sleep' on my kindle and hope to re-read 'The Shining' first and then the new book. For the last ten years or so, my default 'safety blanket' book has been 'A Density of Souls' Christopher Rice's first book. I've read it over and over so many times since it was first published. One of my favorites.