What are you reading now?

[DracoM]

Reading currently Peter May's Hebrides trilogy eg The Blackhouse etc
Just into The Chessmen

[Mandryka]

Blood Meridian is one of the greatest works of American fiction, rendered in language of biblical weight and resonance. But as to ‘what’s it about’, I’m still unsure. I’ve read it several times, only having scratched its surface, let alone plumbed its depths. The writing of nature and the landscapes through which the Glanton gang pass is among the most stunningly beautiful I have read. It is totally nihilistic and deeply pessimistic about the human condition. Judge Holden, one of the most terrifying creations in literature, is not so much a force of nature, but Nature itself - utterly dispassionate to the fate of those whom he observes and manipulates into performing the most appalling atrocities. When recording the world into his book he says ‘In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon (the world) save by my dispensation’. The Kid is the only character to resist him, and to show some semblance of empathy for others, which is why the Judge targets him for destruction. By their final encounter, he is no longer The Kid, but The Man.

If you are interested, may I recommend Amy Hungerford’s two superb lectures, given at Yale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgyZ4ia25gg) which draw out the literary allusions (eg Moby Dick, inter alia), and the Gnosticism that underpins the book’s philosophy. As for what horror is revealed when the door of the jakes is opened, I am no longer certain, nor the meaning of the deeply symbolist epilogue. Perhaps another read is required.

Thanks for this reply - which I’ve only just seen. I’ve been reading quite a lot of McCarthy since I made that post - including All the Pretty Horses (which I didn’t like), The Road, and Sutree - I felt Sutree was too long maybe, but still I enjoyed it very much. The down and outs are so full of humanity! I’ve just today started on The Passenger.

Blood Meridian is a perplexing book, and I’ll certainly follow up your references. At some point I want to reread it taking note of the acts of kindness in the novel - they are there, I think, especially from The Kid - and even The Judge saves the imbecile. The Kid survives (at least, possibly, until his misadventure in the jakes) all the others apart from Holden die one way or another - so I guess one thing the novel is saying is that he’s (they're both?) doing something right.)

Lots of books have difficult endings - another one I never quite understood at the end is The Sound and the Fury!

[Mandryka]

Cormac McCarthy: The road

Not read it before, though I have read The Border Trilogy and Blood Meridian.
I haven't read No country for old men, for that matter.
(Peter Brookes' cartoon in yesterday's Times was absolutely brilliant: as an RIP for McCarthy the book cover he illustrated featured Biden and Trump!)

Just seen this too - I hope you and Belgrove don’t think I was snubbing you!

Blood Meridian is violent. When I was reading it, I was also following a City Lit course on The Iliad - the first time I’ve read the poem since trying (and failing) to translate a page of it at school. That’s an extraordinary coincidence because I think the two books have things in common. Blood Meridian helped me see something about Homer: that like Blood Meridian, The Iliad is (partly!) “about” death - the physicality - the blood and the pain - of death. There’s as much violence in The Iliad as there is in Blood Meridian.

I thought The Road was Ok, but it kind of didn’t have a great impact on me - apart from making me feel that it's touching the way the father finds such a strong raison d’être from just being with his son. But do try Sutree - I loved it actually.

[Mandryka]

Good musical joke in McCarthy's The Passenger -- which is a bit like a novel by David Lynch. I had to look up Betsy Ross, of course.

Martha Washington and Betsy Ross are sitting in front of the fire sewing the first flag and they're reminiscing about the old days and all the parties and dances and everything and Betsy says to Martha: Oh and do you remember the minuet? And Martha says Lord honey I cant hardly remember the ones I screwed.

[DracoM]

IMO, as a fan of McCarthy, his novels after The Road have been a colossal [and expensive for unexpecting me ] mistake!! VERY sad to say this.

[Belgrove]

Just seen this too - I hope you and Belgrove don’t think I was snubbing you!

Not at all Mandryka, I think I posted minutes before the old Board vanished into the aether.

Sutree is McCarthy’s most humorous book and has great charm. No Country For Old Men is remarkable. I saw the film before reading the book, and believed the enigmatic and strangely philosophical dialogue was a product of the Coen brothers quirky genius, but it’s almost verbatim from the novel. The existential assassin Chigurh is almost as terrifying and relentless as Judge Holden. I have The Passenger and Stellar Mars in the stack, but am presently still ploughing through the brick sized biography of Oppenheimer by Bird and Sherwin.

[Lordgeous]

Goodbye Russia: Rachmaninoff in Exile by Fiona Maddocks. Excellent read, well researched, as mentioned earlier. I feel I know the man and his music much better now.

OMG Spoiler warning: he dies at the end!!! (Long, touching report by his nurse)

[johncorrigan]

I thought it an excellent read. It was among the 45 strong book grab I did(the maximum allowed) just before the library went into Covid shutdown And I almost didn't even start reading it as I had picked up another Palin book as well, started reading it, disliked it, couldn't finish it and assumed Erebus would be similar.
There was a documentary (I think it may have been a repeat) on More4 about the search for HMS Erebus - "Hunt for the Arctic Ghost Ship" which made me think it would be worth reading the book again. The TV programme was one of these that has inserted reconstructed acting bits in - a format I dislike - which meant it was rather too long for the material in my opinion but interesting all the same. I could have done without seeing the 3 crew members that had been buried on a beach and preserved by the cold though - at least I assume that was real and not a reconstruction.

I also saw that programme again too, oddie. Had seen it before but great to watch again after reading Palin's book. One of the sites that Palin mentions in 'Erebus' is https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/
You can get some up-to-date news from the search sites around Erebus and Terror there.

[Joseph K]

I've pretty much finished reading Will Self's Why Read: Selected Writings 2001-2021, and, as I was expecting, I thoroughly enjoyed it; however, I guess I had forgotten the extent to which I really enjoy his writing, it almost doesn't matter what he's writing about, or that I don't agree with everything he writes. I really enjoy his colourful vocab and dry wit, it's often brilliant, and you experience a real perspective shift.

Earlier this afternoon I walked into town to pick up Yanis Varoufakis's Another Now from Waterstones, which I am really looking forward to reading!

[Serial_Apologist]

I've pretty much finished reading Will Self's Why Read: Selected Writings 2001-2021, and, as I was expecting, I thoroughly enjoyed it; however, I guess I had forgotten the extent to which I really enjoy his writing, it almost doesn't matter what he's writing about, or that I don't agree with everything he writes. I really enjoy his colourful vocab and dry wit, it's often brilliant, and you experience a real perspective shift.

Earlier this afternoon I walked into town to pick up Yanis Varoufakis's Another Now from Waterstones, which I am really looking forward to reading!

Will Self is sometimes choice for the 10-minute A Point of View, going out on R4 on Sunday mornings, a welcome antidote following immediately after Sunday Worship as my deadpan bathwater drains away down the plughole. Someone must be sleeping on the job in the programme planning department.

Must look up Yanis's book - thanks for the tip.

[Petrushka]

The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland. I'd read the astonishing story of Rudolf Vrba's successful escape from Auschwitz in another book some years ago but it's given here in much more detail. It's a thrilling, often harrowing book and I strongly recommend it.

[smittims]

I'm well into The Last Chronicle of Barset for the fourth time. Major Grantly has just arrived at Allington to propose to Grace Crawley. After that I've promised to read Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country.

[Joseph K]

Must look up Yanis's book - thanks for the tip.

Yes indeed - I'm 60 pages in and it's every bit as fascinating and wonderful as I'd hoped.

[johncorrigan]

I thought it an excellent read. It was among the 45 strong book grab I did(the maximum allowed) just before the library went into Covid shutdown And I almost didn't even start reading it as I had picked up another Palin book as well, started reading it, disliked it, couldn't finish it and assumed Erebus would be similar.
There was a documentary (I think it may have been a repeat) on More4 about the search for HMS Erebus - "Hunt for the Arctic Ghost Ship" which made me think it would be worth reading the book again. The TV programme was one of these that has inserted reconstructed acting bits in - a format I dislike - which meant it was rather too long for the material in my opinion but interesting all the same. I could have done without seeing the 3 crew members that had been buried on a beach and preserved by the cold though - at least I assume that was real and not a reconstruction.

I noticed that Franklyn was back in the news, oddoneout, and at the bottom of the piece on the BBC website there was recent film of the wreck of 'Erebus'' sister ship 'Terror' - I hadn't seen it before, though I knew they had found 'Terror' a while back.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-66620402

[oddoneout]

I have just finished reading Land Healer by Jake Fiennes, the general subject of which is the concept of regenerative farming. I found it a useful alternative take on the subject, having read Wilding by Isabella Tree, about the Knepp estate. Jake Fiennes comes at the process from a different angle, having been a gamekeeper for many years and now acting as Head of Conservation at Holkham in Norfolk. It answers/deals with the questions that many have about the balance between food production and the natural environment; the overall answer is that there need not be a conflict, and indeed regenerative/restorative farming can boost agricultural yields. The advantage of this book compared with Isabella Tree's is that he is an employee, so everything he does is in the context of responsibility to the estate owners and the economic constraints of the estate. Knepp is family land and although there is an income imperative they are coming from a rather different overall context and relationship, although as it happens Fiennes did work there earlier in his career.
I found Fiennes book not only interesting but also very heartening in terms of what is actually possible "in the real world". The figures for the increases in wildlife that he notes are cause for hope that all is not on an inevitable downward spiral. The difficulty is the implementation of change on those farms that are not in the fortunate position of Holkham (or Raveningham where he worked previously) in terms of management. Too many farms are investment portfolio items existing simply to produce as much income as possible and hang the consequences - difficult for the tenant farmers seeing the drawbacks and wanting change but not having the power to do so.
The book deals with lowland farming on two estates in eastern England; the huge "sporting" estates in upland areas are a whole different subject, although many of the same principles and methods could (and arguably should) apply.