What are you reading now?

[Thropplenoggin]

George Eliot's Middlemarch, which follows on the heels of Woolf's superlative Mrs. Dalloway and Tomasi's equally rewarding The Leopard. Having been 'blocked' in reading and enjoying fiction for quite some years now, these three works have all provided literary epiphanies... Howard Jacobson has said that Middlemarch is lacking in wit, but so far I have found in it much deliciously wry observation.

[vinteuil]

George Eliot's Middlemarch...

... I used to think I was a Mr Casaubon. Sadly I now realize I'm really only a Mr Brooke.


.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

George Eliot's Middlemarch, which follows on the heels of Woolf's superlative Mrs. Dalloway and Tomasi's equally rewarding The Leopard. Having been 'blocked' in reading and enjoying fiction for quite some years now, these three works have all provided literary epiphanies... Howard Jacobson has said that Middlemarch is lacking in wit, but so far I have found in it much deliciously wry observation.

"Lacking in wit!???!!! What an idiotic comment!

Middlemarch is my favourite novel in English - that moment when Brooke goes to visit his tenants, fully expecting to be praised and thanked by them for his sound landlording skills - only to be rebuked by the scorn of the first one he encounters. AND, the magic way that their confrontation is mirrored by their two dogs ... absolute genius in her panoptic view of the larger and lesser details.

Jacobson - just Tom Sharpe with a Booker Prize.

[Thropplenoggin]

... I used to think I was a Mr Casaubon. Sadly I now realize I'm really only a Mr Brooke.


.

I'm sure you've said that somewhere on here before. QED.

[Thropplenoggin]

"Lacking in wit!???!!! What an idiotic comment!

Middlemarch is my favourite novel in English - that moment when Brooke goes to visit his tenants, fully expecting to be praised and thanked by them for his sound landlording skills - only to be rebuked by the scorn of the first one he encounters. AND, the magic way that their confrontation is mirrored by their two dogs ... absolute genius in her panoptic view of the larger and lesser details.

Jacobson - just Tom Sharpe with a Booker Prize.

Oof!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... I used to think I was a Mr Casaubon. Sadly I now realize I'm really only a Mr Brooke.

- I'm still in the Casaubon stage of self-deception. (Stevenson would have erased his "to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour" had he seen the forest of paper littering my home and life that is my study of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron.)

[Thropplenoggin]

Neither of you could be Casaubon given his distaste for music: "I never could look on it in the light of a recreation to have my ears teased with measured noises."

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Neither of you could be Casaubon given his distaste for music: "I never could look on it in the light of a recreation to have my ears teased with measured noises."

- an insight from Ms Evans into why someone with Casaubon's personality could never achieve great things.



(But I can't help feeling that "insight ... into" is awkward.)

[Conchis]

George Eliot's Middlemarch, which follows on the heels of Woolf's superlative Mrs. Dalloway and Tomasi's equally rewarding The Leopard. Having been 'blocked' in reading and enjoying fiction for quite some years now, these three works have all provided literary epiphanies... Howard Jacobson has said that Middlemarch is lacking in wit, but so far I have found in it much deliciously wry observation.

I've never read it. I can recall finding the first paragraph very off-putting, once.

Recently, I've re-read Carson McCullers' Reflections In A Golden Eye. What a stunner of an author C.M. was! Because the name 'Carson' is gender-neutral, I had no idea of the sex of the author when I first read the book (at the age of 16) and nothing in the style gave it away. I wish more authors were capable of a gender-neutral style!

[Bella Kemp]

Have just finished Our Mutual Friend after several weeks. So many times I was begging for all the characters to miraculously die and the book to end, but I slogged on. There are moments where Dickens presents us with his very best writing and there are hours where it's like being seated at dinner between the two dullest fellows in Christendom. Curiously, though, I look forward to a re-reading, when I'll know which parts I can safely skip without losing the thread and having to turn back several pages to catch up. I've now begun, with relief and great pleasure, the latest edition of The London Magazine: so wonderful to read an old-style literary magazine and spend time in its intelligent company.

[Arnold Bax]

Reading:

Anthony Powell:

Dance to the Music of Time

for the umpteenth time.

I know that it is long, but it just so compelling. I even considered ringing him up to tell him that I loved his novels (goodness knows where I managed to get his phone number from) but in the end I chickened out, fearing his putdown that 'I can see that you didn't go to Eton' and slammed the phone down. OK, he was an utter snob, but a brilliant author notwithstanding

[french frank]

I have bouts of Dickens-reading, and when I'm in the mood I enjoy it. Particularly Hard Times, Martin Chuzzlewit and Great Expectations. But I only have vague memories of any of them (except MC which I've completely forgotten). Currently reading Adam Watt, Marcel Proust, a compact update (corrective?) to Painter's 2 vol work, which was my previous background reading (many years ago).

[Conchis]

Reading:

Anthony Powell:

Dance to the Music of Time

for the umpteenth time.

I know that it is long, but it just so compelling. I even considered ringing him up to tell him that I loved his novels (goodness knows where I managed to get his phone number from) but in the end I chickened out, fearing his putdown that 'I can see that you didn't go to Eton' and slammed the phone down. OK, he was an utter snob, but a brilliant author notwithstanding

I read A Question Of Upbrining about four years ago: enjoyed it and resolved to read the rest but then things got in the way. I'm not sure I shall ever finish the cycle.

[Barbirollians]

A biography of Learie Constantine

[waldo]

Reading:

Anthony Powell:

Dance to the Music of Time

for the umpteenth time.

I know that it is long, but it just so compelling. I even considered ringing him up to tell him that I loved his novels (goodness knows where I managed to get his phone number from) but in the end I chickened out, fearing his putdown that 'I can see that you didn't go to Eton' and slammed the phone down. OK, he was an utter snob, but a brilliant author notwithstanding

I never seem to stop reading these. Truly miraculous prose and astounding characterisation. Surely among the great works of the century.

I used to have a volume with those brilliant cartoons my Mark Boxer (Marc) - a pity they aren't more available in one form or another.