What are you reading now?

[amateur51]

... that, Ammy, is a large claim.

Thanks for pointing this out vints.

I meant to write "which redresses Painter's deficiencies that you have identified regarding Proust's sexuality" - how's that?

[amateur51]

I've not read Albaret yet....and am only in the early stages of Painter. So far, I don't get a sense of authorly disapproval of the subject's lifestyle, though things may change.

As for Edmund White.....from what I can gather, he is a homosexual proselytiser who tends to find in his subjects exactly what he set out to look for. As such, I took his (slight) volume on Proust with several pinches of salt.

I am certain that Mr White must be a-shaking in his boots, Mandy

[Mandryka]

Glacing over Whitey-boy's slim, not to say filigree, volume, I noticed that he repeats the canarde about the rat being tortured with hatpins. This story is apocryphal but it is typical of White's lurid sensibilities to attempt to keep it in currency.

The other thing White seems to forget - or, more likely,to wilfully ignore - is that Proust was very much a closeted homosexual, who went to considerable lengths to keep his sexuality a secret: fear of what his mother might think was certainly a factor early on (she was scandalised by a photograph taken of him with his arm around another man). Since reading the book, I've pondered the significance of the fact that the only major male character who is not in any way homosexual is the narrator (aka: Marcel). Yet little things like facts don't hinder White in his determination to turn MP into another boy in the band.....

Incidentally, there is a hilarious fictional episode about a heterosexual attempt to seduce Proust in Roald Dahl's My Uncle Oswald, surely one of the funniest books ever written.

[amateur51]

Glacing over Whitey-boy's slim, not to say filigree, volume,

For a committed heterosexual you do seem to be obsessed with the size of a chap's output, Mandy!

Which said, leads me ineluctably to Ernest Hemingway - have you ever (or has anyone else ever) referred to Ernesto as a proselytising heterosexual?

No, I thought not

[Mandryka]

Which said, leads me ineluctably to Ernest Hemingway - have you ever (or has anyone else ever) referred to Ernesto as a proselytising heterosexual?

No, I thought not

I believe he had something to hide. Maybe that was the reason he shot himself?

[Barbirollians]

I have been battling away with Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels . Some wonderful characters but no surprise that it was John Major's favourite reading. Far too much tedious political stuff and no inconvenient poor people in the novels .

[vinteuil]

... yes, I like Trollope but wdn't put the Palliser novels in the top choices. My favourites are the 'psychological' ones, often with people in ambiguous situations - such as 'Cousin Henry', 'Dr Wortle's School'.

[Richard Tarleton]

I believe he had something to hide. Maybe that was the reason he shot himself?

At the risk of returning to Hemingway for a moment - pace M. Vinteuil - see ##670 et seq. - the cause seemed largely to do with despair at his deteriorating physical condition, coupled with depression. Also suicide ran in the family.


From Wrongipedia :

During his final years, Hemingway's behavior was similar to his father's before he himself committed suicide;[144] his father may have had the genetic disease hemochromatosis, in which the inability to metabolize iron culminates in mental and physical deterioration.[145] Medical records made available in 1991 confirm that Hemingway's hemochromatosis had been diagnosed in early 1961.[146] His sister Ursula and his brother Leicester also committed suicide.[147] Added to Hemingway's physical ailments was the additional problem that he had been a heavy drinker for most of his life.[106]

The photo of him in swimming trunks on the beach in Málaga in 1959 looks like the body of a much older man.

Sorry, back to Trollope.....

[Thropplenoggin]

The German Genius: Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution and the Twentieth Century by Peter Watson, a birthday gift.

992 pages.

120 pages in and we've just got to von Goethe. A nice overview with lots of names new to me, but one of those books so stuffed with fascinating information that its all rather overwhelming and none of it seems to be retained. Perhaps my approach is wrong. I expect one could happily dip into it, rather like an encyclopaedia, rather than read it in linear/chronological fashion.

A link for those interested.

[Karafan]

The all new *And what are you reading at the moment?* thread

I am very much enjoying M. Owen Lee's 'Wagner and the Wonder of Art: An Introduction to "Die Meistersinger" '. Having said that it is atop a huge and teetering pile with the Lucas biography of Reggie Goodall next down and umpteen books on the JFK assassination below that. O! for more hours in a day!

What are you reading?

[Thropplenoggin]

A timely new thread, Karafan.

I am wading through The German Genius: Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution and the Twentieth Century by Peter Watson. It's a massive survey of German thought in all spheres from Bach's death to the modern era. Over-stuffed with information, it's best read in chunks.

I have the Shostakovich: A Life Remembered by Elizabeth Wilson on order and Alexander Baron's WW2 novel, There's No Home popped through my door today.

I also have my eye on a Brahms biography (my latest musical discovery) by Jan Swafford (Vintage). Does anyone know if this is any good?

[Mr Pee]

I am wading through The German Genius: Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution and the Twentieth Century by Peter Watson. It's a massive survey of German thought in all spheres from Bach's death to the modern era. Over-stuffed with information, it's best read in chunks.

Crikey. Sounds a laugh a minute.

I'm reading Vanished Years by Rupert Everett.

[Ferretfancy]

Crikey. Sounds a laugh a minute.

I'm reading Vanished Years by Rupert Everett.

I plan to read that, but it's his second slice of autobiograph, isn't it ? Should I look for the first volume?

After a series of Elmore Leonard's, I'm currently reading The Big Screen by David Thomson. It's a fascinating look at the way moving images have changed the way we view the World.

[Mr Pee]

I plan to read that, but it's his second slice of autobiograph, isn't it ? Should I look for the first volume?

It is his second slice- I enjoyed the first volume (Red Carpets and other Banana Skins) so much that I really wanted to read the second. They're both tremendously entertaining.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

So what's wrong with this thread?