What are you reading now?

[french frank]

Not yet reading, but I was very impressed by reviews of Perhat Tursun's novel The Backstreets, the first Uyghur-language novel to be translated into English, and published last year. It seems to be a Kafkaesque stream-of-consciousness narrative, based on contemporary life in Urumqi. Perhat and the unnamed co-tranlator, also a Uyghur, have both since 'disappeared', and are probably in prison.

Book arrived in record time. Ordered yesterday, picked up today. Well done, small independent bookshop.

The novel is short - 136 pages - with a 20-page introduction, outlining the situation in Xinjiang. Also a 9-page section on 'Reading The Backstreets'. I get reports from the Free Tibet campaign with much the same story there, and recent news suggests the Russian treatment of Ukrainians is along the same lines. I have a feeling that once I start on the novel proper, I shall finish it in one session. Serious stuff, but I shall try to consider it as a work of literature rather than current affairs reportage

[Jonathan]

Started this afternoon on the plane to Crete, the 4th of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London books, Broken Homes. So far, very good and there are a couple of laugh out loud phrases 🙂

[kernelbogey]

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez. The 'author' is obliged to adopt the Great Dane of a friend who has died. Recommended.

[smittims]

Yes, I expect that would be quite absorbing. It may be a genre in novels and films, the 'unexpected (or unlooked for) relationship', like the film 'My Old Lady ' about a man who inherits a house in Paris only to find there is an immoveable old lady living in it.

I'm well into 'My Cousin Rachel' by Daphne Du Maurier. I never imagined I'd read one of her novels, but I was interested by the film with Rachel Weisz. It's a book where enough is left skilfully unsaid for you to form your own interpretation. One which I found ludicrous was the introduction by a present-day writer who tries to turn it into a 21st-century man-hating feminist rant. I'm finding it more subtle than that.

I'm having to rein in my nit-picking critical habit. A large, wealthy country house in Cornwall in the 1840s would be lit by oil lamps rather than candles, and the owners would go to London at least partly by rail. But there are some interesting words: 'pother' for 'unnecessary (or pretentuous ) fuss' which dates back to the 16th century but which Daphne probably found in Milton, and which may be the source of Alan Bennett's father's version, 'splother' (which does not appear in the OED).

[DracoM]

'From London Far' / Michael Innes

[vinteuil]

.
... a series of insomniac nights has caused me repeatedly at 3:00 am to dip in to one of my all-time favourite works, the collection of epigrams, miniature portraits, narratives, descriptions &c of Logan Pearsall Smith's All Trivia.

Hitherto I had not noticed the quote which opens book two of Trivia -

"Thou, Trivia, Goddess, aid my song,
Thro' spacious streets conduct thy bard along."
[Trivia : or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London. BY MR. GAY.]

- and consequently hadn't followed up the reference : but I find I have Gay's poem in vol 10 of Chalmers's English Poets, and have started reading it. It's really rather good -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivia_(poem)



.

[french frank]

The novel is short - 136 pages - with a 20-page introduction, outlining the situation in Xinjiang. Also a 9-page section on 'Reading The Backstreets'. I get reports from the Free Tibet campaign with much the same story there, and recent news suggests the Russian treatment of Ukrainians is along the same lines. I have a feeling that once I start on the novel proper, I shall finish it in one session. Serious stuff, but I shall try to consider it as a work of literature rather than current affairs reportage

I felt I ought to revisit Perhat Tursun's The Backstreets here again because of one thing that I got wrong. Far from finishing this short novel in one session, it took me quite a time. One thing I usually hate, but here makes sense, is that there are no individual chapters. As it's stylistically 'stream of consciousness' it would be inappropriately disruptive to break the narrative up into sections. If there is a narrative: not much happens. We get the narrator, grown-up and child relaying his thoughts and obsessions (such as numbers), sometimes with a dreamlike incoherence which is often quite funny, and themes which run through: the office, the desk drawer, the smiling boss, the house which might or might not provide somewhere to stay if he could find it. And buried in there somewhere is whatever it was that the CCP didn't like and for which, in part at least, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison. I shall start it again because I could see the possibilities which might provide an answer. Definitely not a page-turner.

[Mandryka]

Time to tackle a biggie. Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom.

Astonishing prose - Shakespearean - like "Out, out brief candle." or "What a piece of work is man." Faulkner could turn a good phrase.

At first I thought - this is too gothic for me. But I'm completely seduced. I'm up to Chapter Five - Rosa. Just amazing prose! Who cares whether it makes sense? Not me! I really don't want to spoil the experience with close reading or philosophical analysis, I just want to enjoy the music of it, the poetry of it.

[smittims]

I too am 'tackling a biggie', re-reading Middlemarch. For some reason I'm more aware of her feminist preaching this time round; I don't remember noticing it much the first time. It was toned down a good deal in the BBC TV version.

Apart from that I feel it could do with a re-write. It's a good story with interesting characters, but she enjoys herself too much with her clever allusive phrases which seem more for her amusement than the reader's satisfaction. And I can't agree with editor Rosemary Ashton's claim that when the novel was published in 1872-3 George Eliot was generally acknowledged to be the greatest living english novelist. She doesn't mention Anthony Trollope, who was much more popular and successful.

[DracoM]

'Politics on the Edge' / Rory Stewart autobiography.
No punches pulled......!!!

[kindofblue]

I too am 'tackling a biggie', re-reading Middlemarch. For some reason I'm more aware of her feminist preaching this time round; I don't remember noticing it much the first time. It was toned down a good deal in the BBC TV version.

Apart from that I feel it could do with a re-write. It's a good story with interesting characters, but she enjoys herself too much with her clever allusive phrases which seem more for her amusement than the reader's satisfaction. And I can't agree with editor Rosemary Ashton's claim that when the novel was published in 1872-3 George Eliot was generally acknowledged to be the greatest living english novelist. She doesn't mention Anthony Trollope, who was much more popular and successful.

I am completely comfortable with the 'feminist preaching'! At that time women were still many years away from having the vote and were unquestionably second-class ciitzens. This also explains Mary Ann Evans took on the nom de plume of George Eliot as women were only expected to produce light, non-controversial books. I find her depiction of rural England, blending commentary on politics, economics and religion, not to mention the central storyline to be wholly convincing. And it doesn't need a re-write!

[french frank]

I am completely comfortable with the 'feminist preaching'! At that time women were still many years away from having the vote and were unquestionably second-class ciitzens. This also explains Mary Ann Evans took on the nom de plume of George Eliot as women were only expected to produce light, non-controversial books. I find her depiction of rural England, blending commentary on politics, economics and religion, not to mention the central storyline to be wholly convincing. And it doesn't need a re-write!

Indeed. Remove the important bits? Isn't this what raises fiction to the level of literature?

The BBC's 25 Greatest Novels is an eccentric concoction, but at the top: "Middlemarch won this BBC Culture poll by a landslide: 42% of the critics polled included it in their lists..." No Trollope for smittims. In any case 'popular and successful' would see him eclipsed by Agatha Christie and JK Rowling!

[Belgrove]

'Politics on the Edge' / Rory Stewart autobiography.
No punches pulled......!!!

Good isn’t it!
Not so much an autobiography as a memoir and observation of his election to parliament and his time in it. The thumbnail sketches of his peers are beautifully crafted, funny, and often damning (George Osborne has the demeanour of ‘an eighteenth century French cardinal’). Although only a third in, it’s a depressing account of how the arcane procedures parliament and the quotidian politics that occurs within it are unfit for purpose. I don’t expect things to improve once he becomes a junior minister under Truss, and throughout Johnson’s premiership.

[kindofblue]

Indeed. Remove the important bits? Isn't this what raises fiction to the level of literature?

The BBC's 25 Greatest Novels is an eccentric concoction, but at the top: "Middlemarch won this BBC Culture poll by a landslide: 42% of the critics polled included it in their lists..." No Trollope for smittims. In any case 'popular and successful' would see him eclipsed by Agatha Christie and JK Rowling!

I'm with you here french frank. It's the greatest novel I've ever read in the English language, stunning. On a lighter note, but still Eliot-related, during the Black Lives Matter protests in the UK a few years ago this happened -

Defenders of a George Eliot statue had no idea what they were doing and I’m here for it. ‹ Literary Hub (lithub.com)

[JasonPalmer]

Good isn’t it!
Not so much an autobiography as a memoir and observation of his election to parliament and his time in it. The thumbnail sketches of his peers are beautifully crafted, funny, and often damning (George Osborne has the demeanour of ‘an eighteenth century French cardinal’). Although only a third in, it’s a depressing account of how the arcane procedures parliament and the quotidian politics that occurs within it are unfit for purpose. I don’t expect things to improve once he becomes a junior minister under Truss, and throughout Johnson’s premiership.

Prompted me to write the book details onto a note into my pocket for when i next passing my library, hopefully they can get it