What are you reading now?

[Joseph K]

I finished rereading Jack Kerouac's On the Road last night. I enjoyed it quite a bit, more so than the first time.

Now, I think I'll reread Terry Eagleton's Why Marx Was Right (I also have his small pamphlet on Marx which might accompany it). I finished the first part of Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution some time ago but the rest of it can wait.

[richardfinegold]

We Hardly Know Ourselves, by Fintan O’Toole, a social history of modern Ireland

[Bryn]

We Hardly Know Ourselves, by Fintan O’Toole, a social history of modern Ireland

Yet again, rereading Milligan's Puckoon.

[Pulcinella]

Yet again, rereading Milligan's Puckoon.

One wonders if any of our current crop of politicians has ever read anything about Ireland.
Puckoon would be a start!

[ChandlersFord]

Recently: The Reprieve, the second volume of Sartre’s Roads To Freedom.

I read this some years after struggling through the first volume, The Age Of Reason. The Reprieve made a lot more sense once I’d adjusted to the author’s impressionistic storytelling.

Henry James, Washington Square. I’d never read this before. Early James is certainly easier on the eye than later James!

Next up: Murakami’s 1Q84.

[muzzer]

I read Camus recently for the first time. Is amazing what you miss out. My French lit reading is scant.

I’m having a Muriel Spark time of it, prompted by a fine prog on Radio 4 last week. She’s so good and a real inspiration to anyone just to follow their nose for style. She shows you can do anything with the novel.

And she’s sent me off to Cardinal Newman and Cellini’s autobiography by way of heavier detour.

I also started today Broken Greek by the music journo Pete Paphides. His memoir. We’re a similar age and his childhood reference points are uncannily similar. I’m only 50 pages in but it’s letting me know a bit of confessional is ok from time to time, even if it’s cringe being reminded of some stuff.

There are books everywhere and they both help and hinder my attempts to write my own.

[gradus]

The Old Wives Tale, Arnold Bennett at his considerable best.

[french frank]

Just started Sherston's Progress by Siegfried Sassoon, third volume of the Sherston trilogy, a semi-autobiographical work. It reflects Sassoon's own experiences when he was sent to a 'War Hospital' to be treated for shell-shock after heroic service in the Army in World War One. In 1917, he had come under pacifist influence, and was critical of the Allied war effort whose aims he considered had changed as the war drew to a close. After being treated for illness, he refused to return to duty, was sent back to Britain and put under psychiatric treatment (posing as treatment for shell-shock as his views were embarrassing to the authorities).

I haven't read the two previous volumes as I thought this one might be the most interesting.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Just started Sherston's Progress by Siegfried Sassoon, third volume of the Sherston trilogy, a semi-autobiographical work. It reflects Sassoon's own experiences when he was sent to a 'War Hospital' to be treated for shell-shock after heroic service in the Army in World War One. In 1917, he had come under pacifist influence, and was critical of the Allied war effort whose aims he considered had changed as the war drew to a close. After being treated for illness, he refused to return to duty, was sent back to Britain and put under psychiatric treatment (posing as treatment for shell-shock as his views were embarrassing to the authorities).

I haven't read the two previous volumes as I thought this one might be the most interesting.

I think you might have made a mistake . I’ve read all three volumes many times. Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man is such a superb book it allows one to set aside one’s misgivings about this cruel sport. You need to read that to understand the poignancy of the opening of vol 2 . I won’t spoil this by giving the reasons why. In my view the quality of the writing has fallen off by vol 3. Volume one is of the greatest prose evocations of lost prewar rural England in the canon.
There’s also Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy - a magnificent fictional exploration of Sassoon’s life.

[Belgrove]

Terrence Davies’ recent film Benediction is a biography of Sassoon, starting with his hospital treatment, which is handled with great delicacy and where he meets Wilfred Owen. It’s an ineffably sad but beautifully made film with strong performances by Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi as the younger and older Sassoon, and Kate Phillips and Gemma Jones as his younger and older wife Hester Gatty.

[DracoM]

'Michael Innes'.

[french frank]

I think you might have made a mistake . I’ve read all three volumes many times. Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man is such a superb book it allows one to set aside one’s misgivings about this cruel sport. You need to read that to understand the poignancy of the opening of vol 2 . I won’t spoil this by giving the reasons why. In my view the quality of the writing has fallen off by vol 3. Volume one is of the greatest prose evocations of lost prewar rural England in the canon.

Damn! But the other two are on my shelves... I suppose I was thinking of the trilogy as more episodic than a coherent whole, and I went for the background that interested me. Happy to accept that the literary quality lies in the earlier volumes. He was certainly a very remarkable man.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Damn! But the other two are on my shelves... I suppose I was thinking of the trilogy as more episodic than a coherent whole, and I went for the background that interested me. Happy to accept that the literary quality lies in the earlier volumes. He was certainly a very remarkable man.

It is both episodic and a coherent whole. I think you need to have read vol 2 to understand what’s happening in vol 3. But I don’t want to say more as you might or might not be aware of Sassoon’s complex ( and gallant ) war history.

[french frank]

But I don’t want to say more as you might or might not be aware of Sassoon’s complex ( and gallant ) war history.

Not a lot but I did my homework on Wikipedia! He certainly seems to have principles which conflict with each other.

[french frank]

Just moved on (or back) to the first of the Sassoon trilogy: Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, a sort of Bildungsroman and an informed 'rewriting' of his own life experiences. It seems more 'fictional' than Sherston's Progress which I had taken to be pretty closely based on his own war service.