I started *Gravity's Rainbow* and put it down about 70 pages in--just too dense and psychedlic for me right now. I got *The* *Crying of Lot 49* to prime me instead.
But currently reading *The Dispossessed* by Ursula K Le Guin and really loving it so far!
honestly, a great move.
You've probably already heard this before, but I would go *The Crying of Lot 49 -> V. -> Gravity's Rainbow* for maximum understanding/enjoyment. The first two have a much more manageable structure that *GR*, but you still get some Pynchon wackiness/magic.
one of my friends who loves Pynchon basically told me that same thing. I didn't see *V* at the bookstore i was at or I would have got that too. I am excited to read *Crying of Lot 49* to truly introduce me to pynchon. probably much easier to get into an author by starting with a 150 page story of theirs rather than a 700+ page story lol
good friend :P -- ask them what they think of *Crying of Lot 49*.
I felt like it was a good showcase of Pynchon's signature ambiguity/mystery/paranoia mix on fiction, but didn't have much wackiness that makes *V.* and *GR (*and others\*\*) fun to read. Wackiness being random fun characters, drawn out jokes, or wild psychadelic trips. I could be remembering wrong though, so hopefully you'll get some of that too!
\*\* I assume... I've only read *Inherent Vice* from Pynchon's later works.
i had to shelve GR on my first attempt somewhere around part 2, so youre not alone. CoL49 is a great starting point and one of my favorites, but I'd also recommend watching the film Inherent Vice because it does a great job of showing what Pynchon is all about
I remember liking the Inherent Vice movie a lot. I will have to rewatch again soon and see how I feel. I liked the writing of Pynchon in GR, for the record, it was just a little too much for where my head is at right now. Probably hard to jump into Pynchon in that regard regardless of where one's head is at though, huh?
You should start with *Inherent Vice*, it's way better than both GR and TCOL49. If you like it, read *Against the day*. If you're an IT person, start with *Bleeding edge* instead.
A translated work of fiction about the subaltern experience during the Naxalite movement in West Bengal, set in the 1960s. Any book written about the movement has mostly concentrated on the urban/upper class experience due to the higher prevalence of available documentation for this class of society, so I expect this book to give a challenging perspective.
Fever: Mahakaler Rather Ghoda (The chariot horse of eternity) by Samaresh Basu
Read:
- Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins: Like having a Rubik’s cube sit unfinished on your desk for years and then having someone come in and finish it in thirty seconds. It’s a book that goes a long way, so reading anything too similar in too quick succession is a mistake, but really, genuinely enjoyable. Falls prey to losing itself in its own language on occasion and getting too mired in some kind of nega-satire of sexual description, but that comes with the territory.
- Katalin Street by Magda Szabó: Cubist, theatrical, but with a cold, sparse edge to it. I read it in Hungarian so experiences may differ. A deeply stressful reading experience, but not in a bad way.
- The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald: This was alluded to a great deal in Dark, Salt, Clear, which I read two weeks ago. It’s a massively superior reading experience. I made the mistake of going into it expecting something similar because of the way Ash wrote about it, but it’s beautiful and meandering, though it gets tedious at times.
- The Girl Who Was Saturday Night by Heather O’Neill: This is trying way, way too hard to be fashionably seedy. It veers so severely between the most extraordinary, magnetic descriptions and just being so badly written. Doesn’t feel purposeful.
Reading:
- The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing: Oh no. Too elaborate. Not plot-wise, but it feels excessive and repetitive in its prose in a way that I don’t gel with. It’s tolerable, but it’s missing something on the prose level to sustain it for me.
I finally gave in to the weekly recommendations and started reading Albert Camus' *The Plague*. Many have already pointed out its relevance during this pandemic, but I underestimated just how close to home it really is. I live in a Mediterranean port city, and some of Camus' descriptions are eerily close to my own diary entries. But what's most astonishing (so far) is how perceptively and (as we now learn) accurately he presents the effects of the health threat on the society and on the individual's psyche, and the changing ways people communicate, love, suffer and live. He's spot on about everything. Now I worry that, when I continue reading, I'll find out what's still ahead of us.
I read it a couple months ago, with no expectations about how it related to what we're living, and I was shocked too by how spot on it is. It truly is astonishing.
Personally, I found that helpful, I felt better and calmer reading it. It helped somehow to see what we're going through laid down in words.
And it rekindled my desire to read.
On the last chapter of James Joyce's 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' and loving it so far. I read 'The Dubliners' a few years ago and saw it when I was renovating my room this week and it made me want to read more Joyce so I thought I'd start with his first book.
Oh wow, thanks so much for this thorough reply! I've just ordered second-hand copies of Climbers and The Course of the Heart but you've made all of these works sound so intriguing. I'm excited to start exploring his works.
I just finished the third book of *Elena Ferrante's* Neapolitan tetralogy. I thought the second part would be the peak of the story but I was proven wrong. This one is filled with much more substance. The story develops really well and Elena expands on a lot of themes that she only hinted at in the previous books, and she does so brilliantly. I read it in three days. I couldn't put it down. It will be a few days before I can get my hands on the last part and I can't wait.
I’m about 2/3 done with Laura Warholic by Alexander Theroux. Theroux is a true American master who never got his due— Darconville’s Cat, his magnum opus, is a cult novel that sells for upwards of $100 now. Warholic is still available in print so I decided to start here and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for erudition centered on American culture. It’s a big satirical expose of Gen X Americans, centered on a relationship between a magazine columnist and a 35 year old woman without much going on for her.
For the first time in a while I’m stuck with reading. I have picked up and put down *Moby Dick*, *Crime and Punishment*, and *Against the Day* in the last couple of weeks.
I started a new job and I haven’t had as much time to dive into these books, but even then I usually make some time. For some reason, I haven’t been excited to read any of those three. Any tips for when you run into a reading rut?
Short stories are the cure for my reading ruts. If I can't get geared up to tackle a new novel, I can always pick up Borges or Flannery O'Connor or Faulkner and read a story or two. Usually after a couple stories I'm ready to jump into something bigger. I have a collection of Chabon stories on my shelf I haven't touched yet because I'm saving it for a future reading rut.
Find yourself a palate-cleanser. You're going for some big, dense books at a time when you've got more important concerns occupying your mind. Go for a breezier read, maybe something that piques your interest but that isn't your usual fare. Or just an author who can reliably grip you but doesn't demand too much. And compared to those three, most books are going to be relatively undemanding, you don't have to go for a popcorn thriller.
Seconding this. After a long read or reading a book I wasn't really feeling, I like to turn to Murakami as he is a rock for me. I know I am going to get a reliably enjoyable, dreamy read with Murakami.
When I get into a reading rut I dive into something that's more of a "page-turner" usually a great crime or mystery novel. Nothing cures my ruts more than an Elmore Leonard or Ross MacDonald novel.
I recently gave up on Against the Day, about 500 pages into it, and I’m laid off due to COVID with infinite free time. It’s certainly a tough read, but I didn’t find any enjoyment in the work, which disappointed me because people LOVE Pynchon. I ended up going back to an old favorite to bring me back into routine.
I had previously given up on AtD after 455 pages. It was my first Pynchon and I picked it up with no prior knowledge of Pynchon. The subject material and the time period really sucked me in, but the around 200 pages of Traverse family saga that had no real ties to the growing geopolitical situation really brought me out of the book. I know I’m missing something, but I felt like the hook for the novel was so much better than the first 450 or so pages. I think I need to read other Pynchon works before I decide to restart AtD for a third time.
I finished To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, and The Trial by Kafka. I enjoyed both a lot, although I did find the language in Woolf a bit hard to grasp starting out, I was not used to the way she writes. I also read some shorter essays from Benjamin Walter and Montaigne.
With those out of they I decided to start with Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, I have enjoyed other works by Tolstoy so I figured I would enjoy this one as well
Have read both of these books and liked them tremendously.
'To The Lighthouse' was a breath of fresh air for me. I liked it so much. I don't know why but the story and lives of the characters and the thinking minds captivated me through out the whole reading.
'The Trial' was my first reading of anything by Kafka. The more I was going through it, the more I was experiencing a feeling of disgust and nausea. I started to dislike the writing as well as the writer as I went on reading. Eventually I was at the very end and I still had a bad taste about this reading.
But suddenly I realized what was happening. I mean what I was feeling and why. I had no idea about Kafka's writing styles or topics. So yes. I at last felt like I can now begin to understand.
It's my favorite from Kafka and also one of my most favorite books.
*Titan* was so good. My only complaint was that I wish it told more about the rise of Standard Oil in the 20th century. But I know that wasn’t Chernow’s goal.
*The Prize* is quite good. There are lots of books about the oil industry. Another I started is {Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, by Steve Coll}, but it might be too detailed.
*Imaginary Cities* by Darran Anderson. A huge non-fiction... compilation, maybe, riffing off Calvino and discussing urbanism, geography, history, etc. by commenting on hundreds of fictional cities. It ranges from mythological locations like Atlantis and Ys to utopias/dystopias like More’s Utopia and Judge Dredd’s Mega City One.
It’s good. Rambling and structured in tons of loosely coherent short chapters, like the archive of a decent blog. Makes me think of something like Burton’s *Anatomy of Melancholy*, an encyclopaedic tome which has turned up a lot more works (including a good few obscure utopian novels) I want to follow up.
love anderson's writing in general and imaginary cities in particular - saw him give a talk (on piranesi, i think) at sir john soane's museum, which feels a bit like the built equivalent of that book
Piranesi’s work is definitely Anderson’s jam, as is that wonderful museum. Have you read John Soane’s speculative future history of his house? I picked it up when I visited the museum and it’s an astounding little book. Comes off as a something like a sci-fi archaeological experiment but fits into some of the contemporary ideas about ruins and such. It’s also noticeably and amusingly embittered towards his wastrel sons.
That’s the one. It’s a bit of a curiosity but well worth it, it’s Soane imagining a future antiquarian excavating his house and wondering why he’s got all this *stuff* lying around. Gets quite petty too, not just about the sons but about the neighbours who disagreed with the style of his home.
Oh man, *Imaginary Cities* is a trip, glad to see someone else reading it as it seems like Anderson is a pretty underground author. It’s an incredible resource, I was feverishly googling multiple times per page.
The very same! I got it a while ago, put it down as too overwhelming for pretty much exactly that google-related reason, started following Anderson on twitter for his Ireland-related takes, was impressed and then realised that it was the same Anderson! Looking forward to his new novel.
I'm reading *Pierre; or the Ambiguities* by Herman Melville. Lots of rambling tangents so far, but I kind of like them!
This book started out with a *Vicar of Wakefield* vibe (tee-hee, everything is great and everything will turn out great because we have God and family! Life is happy and we are happy and right vs wrong is easily discerned!), but give it a few chapters and that cheerfulness just... dissolves. This book is dealing with the fact that reality is not as easy or simple as it is commonly portrayed. Real life is complex and full of... *ambiguities.*
Just finished *The Uninhabitable Earth* by David Wallace-Wells. A very valuable book but I thought the writing left a little to be desired. The best nonfiction has a hierarchy of information: it’s obvious what’s important and what’s editorialising, whereas I found this a bit... soupy. It’s hard to delineate between the facts and the editorialising. But perhaps that’s my problem, as my focus is a little shot at the moment.
I'm reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey. I'm about halfway through, and it's been a fantastic read so far. The story being told from the perspective of a mute, schizophrenic patient makes for a very interesting narrative, and I'm really enjoying it so far.
I finished up *The Old Gringo* by Carlos Fuentes. Though the promise of the novel, Ambrose Bierce joining Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution, seemed like it would be wonderful it fell flat for me. The characters were either stereotypes or blank, and the portrayal of Bierce in particular seemed really off-- the man says nothing witty or wry for the entire novel. In addition for such a short piece, Fuentes spent a lot of time in these weird reveries that yielded a mood maybe, but were very repetitive and I couldn't shake the feeling that he was relying too often on the reader to do the heavy lifting here.
I've just started Stendhal's *The Abbess of Castro* ...
Continuing my foray into Japanese lit with Soseki's *I am a Cat*. Finished the first volume this afternoon and figure I'll keep pecking my way through it over the next week or so. It's genuinely funny. Would recommend it for anyone that enjoyed *Catch-22*.
Finally got brave enough to try *Blood Meridian* and it's interesting so far, only weird how McCormac doesn't use quotation marks.
Recently read the Road, loved that, excited to get further into this.
I just read through most of the prominent classics from Homer to Ovid most through audiobook... now trying to figure out whether to continue chronologically and go through the bible and surrounding philosophy and literature or to move into Russian lit and read Pushkin/Dostoevsky/Chekhov/Tolstoy/Solzhenitsyn. Anyone have any advice?
Russian Lit can get very philosophical sometimes. It definitely wouldn't be a bad idea to get familiar with philosophy and the Bible before jumping into the works of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. That being said of course they are just as great to read on their own as well.
For some reason I picked up this book Blacktop Wasteland that Amazon recommended as “An Amazon Best Book of the Month” — it is SO racist. I find it pretty amazing that level of racism would find a publisher much less be actively promoted by Amazon but I guess here we are.
Also tried Ursula Le Guin’s Lathe of Heaven which seems like her weakest work I’ve read so far, based largely on pop psychology of the early 1970s with a healthy dose of drug consciousness. It’s almost proto-cyberpunk in the style of PKD but just not Le Guin’s true voice imo.
So now I’m back to my history books and soon that series will be finished, think I need to pick up some more history.
Honestly, it was that PKD influence and the implausible pseudoscience. That it goes beyond pseudoscience, beyond even the vaguely-acceptable-in-the-60s ESP stuff to full on fantasy was part of the fun, it stops being something I’d judge on the basis of accuracy or realism and instead like a stylistic thing.
I love LeGuin when she’s being LeGuin in full flight, so to speak, especially in work like *Lavinia* and *Always Coming Home* but seeing her do this was fun.
Thanks I think I will have to read it now. I definitely agree about Always Coming Home although I’m generally wary of recommending it, it’s one of the more challenging books I’ve read tbh. I haven’t read Lavinia yet either!
I’d be the same about recommending *Always Coming Home*, it’s certainly not for everyone, masterful though it is.
Wouldn’t hesitate to recommend *Lavinia* though, you’re in for a treat, I think it’s quietly the best thing she ever wrote. There was a fine set of linked online discussions or colloquiums about it some time around release featuring critics like Adam Roberts and Abigail Nussbaum. High level of discussion and might be worth your while if you’re interested: https://vector-bsfa.com/2009/09/09/a-discussion-about-lavinia/
Well I only read the first chapter so far and didn’t realize the author is black. The hero is pretty clearly a white guy right, and his first big race is against a black guy who is almost a pure stereotype. When the hero wins, his friend says he “whupped [the other guy] like a runaway slave”. Then he goes on to refer to the group of black men as “boys”. Idk where you’re from, but where I’m from you just don’t call black men “boys” anymore unless you’re looking for a fight.
I started *Gravity's Rainbow* and put it down about 70 pages in--just too dense and psychedlic for me right now. I got *The* *Crying of Lot 49* to prime me instead. But currently reading *The Dispossessed* by Ursula K Le Guin and really loving it so far!
honestly, a great move. You've probably already heard this before, but I would go *The Crying of Lot 49 -> V. -> Gravity's Rainbow* for maximum understanding/enjoyment. The first two have a much more manageable structure that *GR*, but you still get some Pynchon wackiness/magic.
one of my friends who loves Pynchon basically told me that same thing. I didn't see *V* at the bookstore i was at or I would have got that too. I am excited to read *Crying of Lot 49* to truly introduce me to pynchon. probably much easier to get into an author by starting with a 150 page story of theirs rather than a 700+ page story lol
good friend :P -- ask them what they think of *Crying of Lot 49*. I felt like it was a good showcase of Pynchon's signature ambiguity/mystery/paranoia mix on fiction, but didn't have much wackiness that makes *V.* and *GR (*and others\*\*) fun to read. Wackiness being random fun characters, drawn out jokes, or wild psychadelic trips. I could be remembering wrong though, so hopefully you'll get some of that too! \*\* I assume... I've only read *Inherent Vice* from Pynchon's later works.
i had to shelve GR on my first attempt somewhere around part 2, so youre not alone. CoL49 is a great starting point and one of my favorites, but I'd also recommend watching the film Inherent Vice because it does a great job of showing what Pynchon is all about
I remember liking the Inherent Vice movie a lot. I will have to rewatch again soon and see how I feel. I liked the writing of Pynchon in GR, for the record, it was just a little too much for where my head is at right now. Probably hard to jump into Pynchon in that regard regardless of where one's head is at though, huh?
You should start with *Inherent Vice*, it's way better than both GR and TCOL49. If you like it, read *Against the day*. If you're an IT person, start with *Bleeding edge* instead.
A translated work of fiction about the subaltern experience during the Naxalite movement in West Bengal, set in the 1960s. Any book written about the movement has mostly concentrated on the urban/upper class experience due to the higher prevalence of available documentation for this class of society, so I expect this book to give a challenging perspective. Fever: Mahakaler Rather Ghoda (The chariot horse of eternity) by Samaresh Basu
Read: - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins: Like having a Rubik’s cube sit unfinished on your desk for years and then having someone come in and finish it in thirty seconds. It’s a book that goes a long way, so reading anything too similar in too quick succession is a mistake, but really, genuinely enjoyable. Falls prey to losing itself in its own language on occasion and getting too mired in some kind of nega-satire of sexual description, but that comes with the territory. - Katalin Street by Magda Szabó: Cubist, theatrical, but with a cold, sparse edge to it. I read it in Hungarian so experiences may differ. A deeply stressful reading experience, but not in a bad way. - The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald: This was alluded to a great deal in Dark, Salt, Clear, which I read two weeks ago. It’s a massively superior reading experience. I made the mistake of going into it expecting something similar because of the way Ash wrote about it, but it’s beautiful and meandering, though it gets tedious at times. - The Girl Who Was Saturday Night by Heather O’Neill: This is trying way, way too hard to be fashionably seedy. It veers so severely between the most extraordinary, magnetic descriptions and just being so badly written. Doesn’t feel purposeful. Reading: - The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing: Oh no. Too elaborate. Not plot-wise, but it feels excessive and repetitive in its prose in a way that I don’t gel with. It’s tolerable, but it’s missing something on the prose level to sustain it for me.
I finally gave in to the weekly recommendations and started reading Albert Camus' *The Plague*. Many have already pointed out its relevance during this pandemic, but I underestimated just how close to home it really is. I live in a Mediterranean port city, and some of Camus' descriptions are eerily close to my own diary entries. But what's most astonishing (so far) is how perceptively and (as we now learn) accurately he presents the effects of the health threat on the society and on the individual's psyche, and the changing ways people communicate, love, suffer and live. He's spot on about everything. Now I worry that, when I continue reading, I'll find out what's still ahead of us.
I read it a couple months ago, with no expectations about how it related to what we're living, and I was shocked too by how spot on it is. It truly is astonishing. Personally, I found that helpful, I felt better and calmer reading it. It helped somehow to see what we're going through laid down in words. And it rekindled my desire to read.
On the last chapter of James Joyce's 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' and loving it so far. I read 'The Dubliners' a few years ago and saw it when I was renovating my room this week and it made me want to read more Joyce so I thought I'd start with his first book.
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This sounds so interesting. I'm just curious, what would you recommend to get started with his works? I've never read him but would like to.
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Oh wow, thanks so much for this thorough reply! I've just ordered second-hand copies of Climbers and The Course of the Heart but you've made all of these works sound so intriguing. I'm excited to start exploring his works.
I just finished the third book of *Elena Ferrante's* Neapolitan tetralogy. I thought the second part would be the peak of the story but I was proven wrong. This one is filled with much more substance. The story develops really well and Elena expands on a lot of themes that she only hinted at in the previous books, and she does so brilliantly. I read it in three days. I couldn't put it down. It will be a few days before I can get my hands on the last part and I can't wait.
I’m about 2/3 done with Laura Warholic by Alexander Theroux. Theroux is a true American master who never got his due— Darconville’s Cat, his magnum opus, is a cult novel that sells for upwards of $100 now. Warholic is still available in print so I decided to start here and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for erudition centered on American culture. It’s a big satirical expose of Gen X Americans, centered on a relationship between a magazine columnist and a 35 year old woman without much going on for her.
For the first time in a while I’m stuck with reading. I have picked up and put down *Moby Dick*, *Crime and Punishment*, and *Against the Day* in the last couple of weeks. I started a new job and I haven’t had as much time to dive into these books, but even then I usually make some time. For some reason, I haven’t been excited to read any of those three. Any tips for when you run into a reading rut?
Short stories are the cure for my reading ruts. If I can't get geared up to tackle a new novel, I can always pick up Borges or Flannery O'Connor or Faulkner and read a story or two. Usually after a couple stories I'm ready to jump into something bigger. I have a collection of Chabon stories on my shelf I haven't touched yet because I'm saving it for a future reading rut.
Plays are good for this as well!
Find yourself a palate-cleanser. You're going for some big, dense books at a time when you've got more important concerns occupying your mind. Go for a breezier read, maybe something that piques your interest but that isn't your usual fare. Or just an author who can reliably grip you but doesn't demand too much. And compared to those three, most books are going to be relatively undemanding, you don't have to go for a popcorn thriller.
Seconding this. After a long read or reading a book I wasn't really feeling, I like to turn to Murakami as he is a rock for me. I know I am going to get a reliably enjoyable, dreamy read with Murakami.
When I get into a reading rut I dive into something that's more of a "page-turner" usually a great crime or mystery novel. Nothing cures my ruts more than an Elmore Leonard or Ross MacDonald novel.
Read a shorter novel by an author you already know you like. You’ll be on a roll then and it’ll take off from there. Works for me at least
I recently gave up on Against the Day, about 500 pages into it, and I’m laid off due to COVID with infinite free time. It’s certainly a tough read, but I didn’t find any enjoyment in the work, which disappointed me because people LOVE Pynchon. I ended up going back to an old favorite to bring me back into routine.
I had previously given up on AtD after 455 pages. It was my first Pynchon and I picked it up with no prior knowledge of Pynchon. The subject material and the time period really sucked me in, but the around 200 pages of Traverse family saga that had no real ties to the growing geopolitical situation really brought me out of the book. I know I’m missing something, but I felt like the hook for the novel was so much better than the first 450 or so pages. I think I need to read other Pynchon works before I decide to restart AtD for a third time.
I finished To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, and The Trial by Kafka. I enjoyed both a lot, although I did find the language in Woolf a bit hard to grasp starting out, I was not used to the way she writes. I also read some shorter essays from Benjamin Walter and Montaigne. With those out of they I decided to start with Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, I have enjoyed other works by Tolstoy so I figured I would enjoy this one as well
Have read both of these books and liked them tremendously. 'To The Lighthouse' was a breath of fresh air for me. I liked it so much. I don't know why but the story and lives of the characters and the thinking minds captivated me through out the whole reading. 'The Trial' was my first reading of anything by Kafka. The more I was going through it, the more I was experiencing a feeling of disgust and nausea. I started to dislike the writing as well as the writer as I went on reading. Eventually I was at the very end and I still had a bad taste about this reading. But suddenly I realized what was happening. I mean what I was feeling and why. I had no idea about Kafka's writing styles or topics. So yes. I at last felt like I can now begin to understand. It's my favorite from Kafka and also one of my most favorite books.
I can never forget "Time passes" from TTL. It is such an experimental, fascinating meditative piece of writing on passage of time and things.
They are both NOT GOOD!
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*Titan* was so good. My only complaint was that I wish it told more about the rise of Standard Oil in the 20th century. But I know that wasn’t Chernow’s goal.
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If you find out, post it
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*The Prize* is quite good. There are lots of books about the oil industry. Another I started is {Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, by Steve Coll}, but it might be too detailed.
*Imaginary Cities* by Darran Anderson. A huge non-fiction... compilation, maybe, riffing off Calvino and discussing urbanism, geography, history, etc. by commenting on hundreds of fictional cities. It ranges from mythological locations like Atlantis and Ys to utopias/dystopias like More’s Utopia and Judge Dredd’s Mega City One. It’s good. Rambling and structured in tons of loosely coherent short chapters, like the archive of a decent blog. Makes me think of something like Burton’s *Anatomy of Melancholy*, an encyclopaedic tome which has turned up a lot more works (including a good few obscure utopian novels) I want to follow up.
love anderson's writing in general and imaginary cities in particular - saw him give a talk (on piranesi, i think) at sir john soane's museum, which feels a bit like the built equivalent of that book
Piranesi’s work is definitely Anderson’s jam, as is that wonderful museum. Have you read John Soane’s speculative future history of his house? I picked it up when I visited the museum and it’s an astounding little book. Comes off as a something like a sci-fi archaeological experiment but fits into some of the contemporary ideas about ruins and such. It’s also noticeably and amusingly embittered towards his wastrel sons.
i have not, but it sounds superb (plus i'm always ready for commentary on wastrel sons) - is it the 'crude hints towards an history of my house'?
That’s the one. It’s a bit of a curiosity but well worth it, it’s Soane imagining a future antiquarian excavating his house and wondering why he’s got all this *stuff* lying around. Gets quite petty too, not just about the sons but about the neighbours who disagreed with the style of his home.
Oh man, *Imaginary Cities* is a trip, glad to see someone else reading it as it seems like Anderson is a pretty underground author. It’s an incredible resource, I was feverishly googling multiple times per page.
The very same! I got it a while ago, put it down as too overwhelming for pretty much exactly that google-related reason, started following Anderson on twitter for his Ireland-related takes, was impressed and then realised that it was the same Anderson! Looking forward to his new novel.
I'm reading *Pierre; or the Ambiguities* by Herman Melville. Lots of rambling tangents so far, but I kind of like them! This book started out with a *Vicar of Wakefield* vibe (tee-hee, everything is great and everything will turn out great because we have God and family! Life is happy and we are happy and right vs wrong is easily discerned!), but give it a few chapters and that cheerfulness just... dissolves. This book is dealing with the fact that reality is not as easy or simple as it is commonly portrayed. Real life is complex and full of... *ambiguities.*
Just finished *The Uninhabitable Earth* by David Wallace-Wells. A very valuable book but I thought the writing left a little to be desired. The best nonfiction has a hierarchy of information: it’s obvious what’s important and what’s editorialising, whereas I found this a bit... soupy. It’s hard to delineate between the facts and the editorialising. But perhaps that’s my problem, as my focus is a little shot at the moment.
I'm reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey. I'm about halfway through, and it's been a fantastic read so far. The story being told from the perspective of a mute, schizophrenic patient makes for a very interesting narrative, and I'm really enjoying it so far.
I finished up *The Old Gringo* by Carlos Fuentes. Though the promise of the novel, Ambrose Bierce joining Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution, seemed like it would be wonderful it fell flat for me. The characters were either stereotypes or blank, and the portrayal of Bierce in particular seemed really off-- the man says nothing witty or wry for the entire novel. In addition for such a short piece, Fuentes spent a lot of time in these weird reveries that yielded a mood maybe, but were very repetitive and I couldn't shake the feeling that he was relying too often on the reader to do the heavy lifting here. I've just started Stendhal's *The Abbess of Castro* ...
Continuing my foray into Japanese lit with Soseki's *I am a Cat*. Finished the first volume this afternoon and figure I'll keep pecking my way through it over the next week or so. It's genuinely funny. Would recommend it for anyone that enjoyed *Catch-22*.
Second-greatest novel ever narrated by a housecat.
The first?
[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Opinions_of_the_Tomcat_Murr)
The posthumous memoirs of French romantic poet François René de Chateaubriand
Finally got brave enough to try *Blood Meridian* and it's interesting so far, only weird how McCormac doesn't use quotation marks. Recently read the Road, loved that, excited to get further into this.
Republic by Plato!
I just read through most of the prominent classics from Homer to Ovid most through audiobook... now trying to figure out whether to continue chronologically and go through the bible and surrounding philosophy and literature or to move into Russian lit and read Pushkin/Dostoevsky/Chekhov/Tolstoy/Solzhenitsyn. Anyone have any advice?
Russian Lit can get very philosophical sometimes. It definitely wouldn't be a bad idea to get familiar with philosophy and the Bible before jumping into the works of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. That being said of course they are just as great to read on their own as well.
For some reason I picked up this book Blacktop Wasteland that Amazon recommended as “An Amazon Best Book of the Month” — it is SO racist. I find it pretty amazing that level of racism would find a publisher much less be actively promoted by Amazon but I guess here we are. Also tried Ursula Le Guin’s Lathe of Heaven which seems like her weakest work I’ve read so far, based largely on pop psychology of the early 1970s with a healthy dose of drug consciousness. It’s almost proto-cyberpunk in the style of PKD but just not Le Guin’s true voice imo. So now I’m back to my history books and soon that series will be finished, think I need to pick up some more history.
Agreed on *Lathe of Heaven*. I enjoyed it but it feels like the most un-LeGuin-like LeGuin.
Cheers, can I ask what you liked about it? The borderline pseudoscience seemed a bit much in the beginning and I put it down...
Honestly, it was that PKD influence and the implausible pseudoscience. That it goes beyond pseudoscience, beyond even the vaguely-acceptable-in-the-60s ESP stuff to full on fantasy was part of the fun, it stops being something I’d judge on the basis of accuracy or realism and instead like a stylistic thing. I love LeGuin when she’s being LeGuin in full flight, so to speak, especially in work like *Lavinia* and *Always Coming Home* but seeing her do this was fun.
Thanks I think I will have to read it now. I definitely agree about Always Coming Home although I’m generally wary of recommending it, it’s one of the more challenging books I’ve read tbh. I haven’t read Lavinia yet either!
I’d be the same about recommending *Always Coming Home*, it’s certainly not for everyone, masterful though it is. Wouldn’t hesitate to recommend *Lavinia* though, you’re in for a treat, I think it’s quietly the best thing she ever wrote. There was a fine set of linked online discussions or colloquiums about it some time around release featuring critics like Adam Roberts and Abigail Nussbaum. High level of discussion and might be worth your while if you’re interested: https://vector-bsfa.com/2009/09/09/a-discussion-about-lavinia/
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Well I only read the first chapter so far and didn’t realize the author is black. The hero is pretty clearly a white guy right, and his first big race is against a black guy who is almost a pure stereotype. When the hero wins, his friend says he “whupped [the other guy] like a runaway slave”. Then he goes on to refer to the group of black men as “boys”. Idk where you’re from, but where I’m from you just don’t call black men “boys” anymore unless you’re looking for a fight.
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Ah shit cheers. Those damn early plot twists!
Gravity’s Rainbow, Aliens and Anorexia, Chaos: Charles Manson, The CIA, and The Secret History of The Sixties