What are you reading now?

[vinteuil]

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Arthur Hugh Clough : Amours de Voyage


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[Jonathan]

I've got some new books today as it's my birthday: Jasper Fforde's Early Riser, Ben Aaranovitch's short stories from The River's of London series - The Farthest Station and The Left handed booksellers of London by Garth Nix. Should keep me busy for a while!

[eighthobstruction]

....I too just got several packets:

John Dos Passos - Manhatton Transfer

Nafida Mohamed - the Orchard of Lost Souls

Jack Kerouac - the Town and the City

[muzzer]

I am part way through the first of the two volume biography of Alfred North Whitehead by Victor Lowe. I feel Whitehead’s thinking is going to absorb me for some time to come, and be of great comfort.

[Richard Barrett]

I was very keen on Ishiguro some years ago and bought all his new ones - then stopped before Never Let Me Go as I thought the title was a bit soppy

Might be time to revisit The Unconsoled which I found tougher than some of his earlier works.

The title of Never Let Me Go is intentionally soppy for reasons that become clear on reading it, but the book is not at all soppy. For me The Unconsoled is far and away the best thing he's written though, it's so very original and the character of Ryder's little son is one of the most real and endearing creations in contemporary literature.

[french frank]

The title of Never Let Me Go is intentionally soppy for reasons that become clear on reading it, but the book is not at all soppy. For me The Unconsoled is far and away the best thing he's written though, it's so very original and the character of Ryder's little son is one of the most real and endearing creations in contemporary literature.

I did blush about that - and thanks for the tip-off. The Unconsoled, now down from the bookshelf, is certainly the most original, but I enjoyed A Pale View of Hills and An Artist of the Floating World. I was late 'getting into' Ishiguro for a similarly blush-making reason - I thought because The Remains of the Day had been very popular/blockbusting as a film, he would be just another 'popular novelist' whose themes wouldn't appeal to me; in fact I started with that novel (having overcome my resistance) and was impressed - never saw the film. When We Were Orphans was the last one I bought, so it looks as if I have three to catch up on now - plus the short story collection.

[Pulcinella]

She, by Rider Haggard.
It features so often in the Times cryptic crossword that I thought that it really was time I gave it a go, especially as the Kindle download was free.

[Ein Heldenleben]

The title of Never Let Me Go is intentionally soppy for reasons that become clear on reading it, but the book is not at all soppy. For me The Unconsoled is far and away the best thing he's written though, it's so very original and the character of Ryder's little son is one of the most real and endearing creations in contemporary literature.

Good to see another fan of The Unconsoled - the one novel that even dyed in the wool Kaz fans never seem to get. Apart from anything else it captures the meaninglessness of life as a touring internationally famous concert pianist ( although I’ve always quite fancied the idea ) .The champion luggage juggling bellboy - still has me laughing. I did find The Buried Giant a bit of a struggle though...

[vinteuil]

She, by Rider Haggard.
It features so often in the Times cryptic crossword that I thought that it really was time I gave it a go, especially as the Kindle download was free.

... and I hope you raised a glass for Umslopogaas, one time denizen of this forum



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[Katzelmacher]

Currently: Thomas Mann, Lotte in Weimar. Good, but self-indulgent. And I don’t know nearly enough about Goethe to get maximum benefit.

[Bryn]

Following jlw's recommendation, Gault's The New Bruckner, which was delivered this afternoon. Just dipping in, so far. Interesting comments on the failure of famed conductors such as Karajan, Klemperer et al to observe the composer's quite specific instructions in, for instance, the 8th.

[french frank]

Good to see another fan of The Unconsoled - the one novel that even dyed in the wool Kaz fans never seem to get. Apart from anything else it captures the meaninglessness of life as a touring internationally famous concert pianist ( although I’ve always quite fancied the idea ) .The champion luggage juggling bellboy - still has me laughing. I did find The Buried Giant a bit of a struggle though...

Finished The Unconsoled. I'd forgotten how funny it was. Not as in 'it's a funny book' but in those detailed inventions reaching the depths/heights of absurdity, all treated completely seriously by the characters as 'reality'. Interesting that Ishiguro says all his novels are about the same thing, just different characters and contexts. Not sure that I could crystallise what that 'thing' is but memories, dreams, distorted time … He also appeared to confirm something which I didn't altogether follow when I saw other critics suggest it: here that different characters are aspects of the same person: Boris as child Ryder, Stephan as young Ryder, Brodsky as old Ryder. Not sure that that adds to my appreciation of the work as a whole.

It's the flashes of memory and dream woven together so as to create an absurd reality, yet still powerfully capturing the anxieties and frustrations of existence and painfulness of unsatisfactory relationships. Compulsive.

[Bella Kemp]

Am very much enjoying The Everyman anthology of London Stories. Dipping into a short story collection is one of life's great pleasures.

[LMcD]

Currently (re)reading Alan Bennett's 'Untold Stories'. He REALLY doesn't like Classic FM, does he?

[Joseph K]

Well, what a terrible book Huxley's Island is! I was going to wait until I actually finished it but things reached an apogee of awfulness in chapter 12; I distinctly recall from one of the essays prefacing Brave New World that Huxley abandoned promulgating eugenics after the war because of its association with the Nazis, hence my surprise to find it appearing in chapter 12 of Island. And then there's the god-awful Malthusianism that lazily rears its ugly head passim this egregious tome. I get that it's a philosophical novel and thus can't be judged by the criteria of a standard novel but I think it fails just as philosophy too (and in its terribly jejune analysis of Hitler and Stalin). To be honest, my main motivation for reading it was that I'd read that the final chapter is basically a trip report based on a trip Huxley had had that was even better than that documented in The Doors of Perception... I'll get there eventually, but I doubt I'll read anything else by Huxley - I just don't think he's that good, and certainly nothing to redeem some of the extremely distasteful (to me) aspects of his ideas/philosophy.