books, books, books

miss buenos aires · Post by **miss buenos aires** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:59 am

Otis Westinghouse wrote:Eeeh, th'art good cunt.

Finally, someone who appreciates great literature!

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 7:41 pm

An interesting example of metonymy, and of Lawrence trying to reclaim and purify the old Anglo-Saxon words. It's an awful book though, isn't it?

pophead2k · Post by **pophead2k** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 7:43 pm

Just finished Wesley Stace's Misfortune. Loved it. Am halfway through John Irving's Until I Find You, but I'm not loving it much at all. I'm a huge Irving fan and this is the first one that feels like a chore.

miss buenos aires · Post by **miss buenos aires** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 9:03 pm

Otis Westinghouse wrote: It's an awful book though, isn't it?

I LIKED IT!

pout pout pout

sulk sulk sulk

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 5:00 pm

Well you could have a very good drunken game of 'let's see who can find the most outrageous line in the whole book'. If you compare it to the earlier classics like The Rainbow or Women in Love, it's pretty much lapsed into self-parody. I'd like to return to Sons and Lovers, was very taken with that as a 17 year-old, and think I'd enjoy it again now. Very vivid.

miss buenos aires · Post by **miss buenos aires** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 9:14 am

Now I'm reading "Dombey and Son" by the great Charles Dickens, whom I have no doubt that you will all pooh-pooh for being "sentimental" or "verbose" or "incapable" of "imagining" a "female character" with any "depth" or "complexity." Well, I love Dickens and I'm not afraid to say it!

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 9:21 am

I could use a good Dickens fix, and I haven't read that one. Maybe I will join you! I think Bleak House is about the most satisfying novel to read, ever. And I think there's a BBC series of it in the works?

miss buenos aires · Post by **miss buenos aires** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 9:25 am

Yay! I'm glad you agree, mug. You will love the first few pages--Dombey's whole character is just captured so exquisitely...

invisible Pole · Post by **invisible Pole** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:20 am

miss buenos aires wrote:Now I'm reading "Dombey and Son" by the great Charles Dickens, whom I have no doubt that you will all pooh-pooh for being "sentimental" or "verbose" or "incapable" of "imagining" a "female character" with any "depth" or "complexity." Well, I love Dickens and I'm not afraid to say it!

Well, I'm not afraid to say "The Pickwick Papers" is one of my all-time favourite books. Actually, it's high time I read it again !

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 2:46 pm

I love Dickens for his brilliant humour, humanity and extremeness. I would like nothing more than to spend a few months reading all of them back to back. Haven't been near Dombey nor Bleak, but have read and loved about 5 others.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 2:48 pm

miss buenos aires wrote:"verbose" or "incapable" of "imagining" a "female character" with any "depth" or "complexity."

Sounds like the standard accusation levelled at both Elvis Costello and Martin Amis, both of whom have significant things in common with Dickens.

pophead2k · Post by **pophead2k** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 5:51 pm

Just caught up to this Dickens discussion..... mark me down as a fanatic. If they had had a "Charles Dickens Fan Forum" in the 19th century, I'd have been a charter member. I tend to read two or three Dickens in a row, and the leave it be for a year or so. Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities are two of my all time favorite novels from any era. My most recent were the aforementioned Dombey and Son and before that, Bleak House. I probably preferred Bleak House, but they were both terrific. The Pickwick Papers is one of the funniest novels ever written.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 6:14 pm

Have always wanted to broach A Tale of Two Cities.

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 12:06 pm

Okay have picked up and started Dombey And Son. Oh how I needed this!

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 12:24 pm

Another Dicken's lover here! There is something to be said for melodrama, broad comedy and vivid characterization.

"Lady Chatterly" on the other hand, is a big wank -- and not in a good way. Was also irratitated by its luddite anti-semitism -- thought my next Dickens is "Oliver Twist" which I'm going to try and read before Roman Polanski's new film of it gets released this Fall.

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:00 pm

bobster wrote: my next Dickens is "Oliver Twist" which I'm going to try and read before Roman Polanski's new film of it gets released this Fall.

If it's anything like what he did with Tess of the D'Urbervilles.... oy. Actually I just don't like Polanski, period.

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:30 pm

I saw "Tess" in film school and...loved it! (Well, most of it.) Haven't read the book, though.

Sorry, bigtime Polanski fan here. (Well, maybe not "Knife in the Water" and "Fearless Vampire Killers" is pretty uneven....)

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:47 pm

Well, to be honest I haven't read the book either, and perhaps my beef is as much with the book as the film, I don't know. I saw it when it came out and felt I was being absolutely bludgeoned with symbolism-with-a-capitol-S; perhaps I was too fresh off a lit degree but it just seemed like over-obvious pap.

Also I saw Le Locataire while living in France, and all I remember was thinking "damn that's a beautiful apartment complex" and "is that it?". As evocatively weeping wallpaper goes I much prefer Barton Fink.

miss buenos aires · Post by **miss buenos aires** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 1:16 am

Mug, the book could be described as a little heavy on the Symbolism, but I loved it. Of course, I read it when I was sixteen, but I'm sure I would still love it, because I love Hardy, even though I thought the last few pages of my copy of "The Return of the Native" had gone missing, because he had actually gone ahead and left them happy.

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 9:58 am

Well, I'm more tolerant of that sort of thing in a long, pleasantly languorous novel than in a film, which is by necessity compressed. I was certainly at the height of my aesthetic snobbery at the time (it's so hard not to feel you know everything when you're $40K in debt due to your education) but I just recall the moment where some abstract word appears in orange paint on a wooden railing (can't recall what, but it was clearly The Meaning Of The Story) and thinking, Oh, this just takes the cake. We already got it half an hour ago, without having to have it literally spelled out for us. In orange!!

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 10:49 am

PS, am loving Dombey.

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:08 pm

Actually don't remember any symbolism at all in "Tess" -- that's the sort of thing I never look for in movies, and I'm irritated if I think I'm supposed to notice it much, so I grok your complaint in a way.

"La Locataire" = "The Tenant" I presume! I'm pretty sure it was an influence on "Barton Fink" (which I have mixed feelings about) but I prefer(ed) the Polanski take.

Actually, though, "The Tenant" is usually looked at as a sort of riff on "Rear Window". I love it -- though not anywhere near as much as "Rear Window"

Goody2Shoes · Post by **Goody2Shoes** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 12:52 pm

I'm reading Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato. One of the best things I've read in a long time.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:44 pm

Who is he, what/who is 'cacciato', and why is it so good? (I was wondering... )

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 11:38 pm

Read Peter Carey's excellent novel Bliss on the way home from Australia, then started in on his second novel, Illywhacker, which I am really enjoying so far. The first thing I read by him was True History of The Kelly Gang a few years ago, which I loved.