What are you reading now?

[Ian Thumwood]

French Frank

Reading the Amazon on line review of the book by Kate Sharam, are you suggesting Smittims wrote this review ? Can Smittims please confirm or deny? I am quite curious

Ian

[french frank]

Cum grano salis. Link 2 was the key.

Oh, yes. Says she was born in 1950. Her birth was predicted and registered (as Kathleen Furnivall) in advance back in 1948 in Cardiff. Who knew that, I wonder?

[french frank]

French Frank

Reading the Amazon on line review of the book by Kate Sharam, are you suggesting Smittims wrote this review ? Can Smittims please confirm or deny? I am quite curious

Ian

Just read it. So as a novel it is what it is, as they say, but it doesn't quite suggest a marvellous woman and an evil man if they're both equally 'orrible. I see where I went wrong: I searched novelist "Kate Sharam" and Google replied "Showing results for novelist "Kate Sharma" Search instead for novelist "Kate Sharam" but I'd already clicked on one of the Kate Sharma hits

[Historian]

....while I do have a couple of non fiction social histories on the go at the moment (on stall would be more accurate). I have recently finished the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant....(so should I decide to wage war in the seemingly always/endlessly wet and boggy terrain of the Southern States of USA, I shall be well boned up on the logistics of such a task) [a needless bracket, but then that is my style]....What I have done for some time is to take a waterproof pillow (improvised) down to the wooded streams and rivers hereabouts and just sit puffing on my vape; watching, not a lot excepting water passing by....The passage of leaves churning and hesitating is a joy of wonderful random....not much need for the socratic, nor Reid or Kinesic methods ....Today I saw a Kingfisher and a Goosander and hardly thought about ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬at all

Both the Grant memoirs and the stream/river watching seem excellent ways to spend your time 8th0.

As you probably know, Grant wrote the memoirs at tremendous speed after he had been diagnosed wit terminal throat cancer. His friend Mark Twain managed to negotiate a very favourable book deal which ensured that Grant's widow did very well out the huge sales.

[Petrushka]

I love the idea of Smittims doing his research for our benefit so that we need not have to unnecessarily plough through so much chick lit ourselves. I am sure that it is attricious but regret that no examples have been presented for our amusement. Like Frank, i am amused by this debate.

I wonder just how much of this is smut ? I was given a copy of 50 shades of grey as a secret santa present at work. All the women had read it and someone bought it more me as a wind up. I never opened the cover and ended up giving it to a female colleague who accepted it rather too readily. Her enthusiasm and keen interest for this gift gave me some pretty unpleasant images in my head to such an extent that I could not look her in the eye again.

I think there are sometimes things in books concerning woman that us blokes are pleased to remain ignorant about !

Fair play to Smittims for taking the plunge and saving the male contributers the job so that we can read about more niche topics such as Islamic art between 800 and 1700 AD.

Apologies to anyone here who enjoys erotic literature. Is there a point at which you become too old to read this stuff ..... a bit like middle aged blokes wearing replica football jerseys ?

I wouldn't myself categorise authors such as Elizabeth Jane Howard and Penelope Mortimer as chick lit, a term which, in any case, didn't appear until the early 1990s. They are both serious novelists using their own experiences, as most writers do, to tell a story and their books date from the 1960s and might be more meaningfully classified as semi-autobiographical. Whether one likes them or not is a matter of opinion.

I think the ultimate chick lit book, and the one that set the trend, was Bridget Jones' Diary.

Most of the women in the office where I worked eagerly purchased Fifty Shades of Grey but not many actually finished it. One who gave up told me that it was very badly written. Copies frequently appear on the local street bookstall.

Full disclosure: I've not read any of the books mentioned!

[Serial_Apologist]

....while I do have a couple of non fiction social histories on the go at the moment (on stall would be more accurate). I have recently finished the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant....(so should I decide to wage war in the seemingly always/endlessly wet and boggy terrain of the Southern States of USA, I shall be well boned up on the logistics of such a task) [a needless bracket, but then that is my style]....What I have done for some time is to take a waterproof pillow (improvised) down to the wooded streams and rivers hereabouts and just sit puffing on my vape; watching, not a lot excepting water passing by....The passage of leaves churning and hesitating is a joy of wonderful random....not much need for the socratic, nor Reid or Kinesic methods ....Today I saw a Kingfisher and a Goosander and hardly thought about ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬at all

These are the approaches I take to my "Zen walks", or "walking meditation" according to many committed practising Buddhists: to shut off the thinking process by paying the fullest possible attention to the ambient sounds, scents, physical sensations and visual impressions: treating external and internal states as one indivisible by indulging "actuality" as a sort of Gesamtwerk until (and if!) the sense of self and other dissolve into one - which usually happens for a few seconds at most, but longer, apparently, for someone more practised than me. If undertaken successfully ones walking pace can slow right down, any urgency to get to where one intended going likewise dissolved, leading to any sound etc becoming no more significant than any other - the way one imagines animals pay attention. Under other circumstances this state is associated with acute attention to potential danger. Value derives from allowing (rather than forcing) the mind to relax. Unlike yourself I find I can do this more easily when walking. The mind state so described eventually gives way to purposive thought when the body signals some need or urgency, such as a need to drink, eat or fatigue. This is also one way to deep listening to music though this tends to be focused on the music at the expense of peripheral phenomena - John Cage would disagree with this seeing intrinsic merit in allowing all sounds and sensations to percolate into attentive consciousness. The practice can be extended into everyday activities as spiritual practices - not, in Alan Watts's words, more or less, "thinking about God while peeling the potatoes, but rather fully engaging fully in peeling the potatoes". From personal experience the world would be a much more peaceful, harmonised place were these practices to become the norm rather than for instance using mobile phones or gaming consoles to fix the attention, which to Zen would constitute unhealthy narrowing of the field of attention rather than being all-inclusive. In terms of inner fulfilment and attunement it costs both the environment and the pocket little, and one can experience so much more than in overuse of everyday consciousness with its anxiety-provoking reminiscences and anticipations. Write stuff down that requires practical attention - time management - and put it to one side until needed.

Zen has a saying, "Blink when the lightning flashes and you miss It". Unfortunately the way life prioritises our immediate and longterm requirements vitiates this: under a different system technology would take care of much needless mentation activity. Capitalism encourages, nay urges perpetual dissatisfaction with the ordinary everyday, rendering the environment unsustainable and at the mercy of our overstimulated desires, which then need further stimulation.

[smittims]

A few responses to posts seen since I last visited this thread.

Sorry to disappoint you,Ian, but there was never any chance of my doing any research, either for my own or anyone else's amusement. For the umpteenth time, if you look at my post of 31 October (no. 3683) which I think is what started all this, you should see that , like many other people before me, I was simply expressing an opinion based on my experience. I suppose some people would be flattered at the attention it has received, but I don't go in for that sort of thing.

Yes, Petrushka, I agree . Howard and Mortimer are not 'chick-lit.' nor did I mean to imply that they were . My idea of chick -lit is

'Still bruised for a broken relationship, Rachel returns to the beautiful Cornish village where she grew up, and sets about restoring a lovely old tea room by the sea. But rugged , handsome local landowner Nick Tregennis seems to get in her way at every step. What is his interest in her? And can it lead to love?'

...in other words, very far from man-hating feminism.

And finally, ff , no, I have never writen any book reviews. Don't apologise for being boring: I am never bored; whatever else I suffer from , boredom and loneliness have never affected me. As to my opinion, well, without wanting to stray away from the question 'what are you reading?' :

I've always found novels interesting and revealing ;

I've always found women interesting, especially the way they differ from men;

I've noticed that an increase in ill-feeling between the sexes seems to have coincided with the growth of a new, assertive strain of feminism.

Since writers, I believe ,cannot avoid revealing their inner nature in their art, feminist novels might be one way (I'm sure there are others but I'm not a sociologist nor a psychologist) to grasp what is happening and how the problems might be resolved before they get worse. Men and women need to work together for the good of everyone , including the plant and animal population which I care about (not relevant to this thread) , and discord and hatred are getting in the way.

The Independent published an article 'nine things women wish men would understand'. I thinkit most unlikely they will publish a balancing article 'nine things men wish women would understand' but I think it woiuld help. I think feminists don't realise how much their words and actions are fomenting the anti-female resentment which is an increasingly ugly feature of the present day. We need more understanding all round, and a first step is to read and hear what the other side are saying.

[AuntDaisy]

Just read it. So as a novel it is what it is, as they say, but it doesn't quite suggest a marvellous woman and an evil man if they're both equally 'orrible. I see where I went wrong: I searched novelist "Kate Sharam" and Google replied "Showing results for novelist "Kate Sharma" Search instead for novelist "Kate Sharam" but I'd already clicked on one of the Kate Sharma hits

Google knows best!

[french frank]

smittims

A few points: firstly, if one expresses a personal opinion on a discussion forum, not only should one not be surprised, one should expect 'replies' which may be agreeing, disagreeing or requesting more information. To post an opinion, even possibly a contentious one, invites responses to which general politeness would urge a reply. That is a discussion.

A minor misattribution: It was Ian not me who suggested you had written a book review.

But I'm wondering whether - if moved to its own thread - the discussion might be broadened. I feel a bit constrained from doing justice to my own response to your last post by virtue of the fact that it would be a major diversion from the topic. I'm inclined to start a new thread but unless smittims agrees to contribute it would be purposeless.

[richardfinegold]

Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose. The story of the Lewis and Clark and also the story of how Thomas Jefferson negotiated the Louisiana Purchase

[AuntDaisy]

... A minor misattribution: It was Ian not me who suggested you had written a book review. ...

Anonymous' book review of Power Cut is quite a read in itself.

I can't decide whether this is an attempt at a highly moral tale along the lines of Durrenmatt's "The Visit" - a study of a group of apparently ordinary, even banal characters, none of whom, in the end, can rise above their own corrosive self-interest sufficiently to avert the triumph of evil - or simply a depressingly amoral story with nothing to recommend it whatsoever. It would be reassuring to suppose the former, except that the kitsch chick-fic packaging, the publisher's blurb and the turgid, expository prose do nothing to suggest that the author was attempting anything of the kind. The cover implies that this book is meant primarily to entertain. In this it does not succeed; but then neither does it edify.

Essentially, then, Power Cut is the story of two supremely unengaging suburbanites trapped in a wealthy but loveless marriage. David is a foul-mouthed philanderer. Jenny, his wife, is quite clearly a mild clinical depressive. Neither character has anything to recommend them to the reader at all, though if I were forced to choose, I think I'd go for David on the grounds that at least he has a job, does an honest day's work every day, and shows a vague interest in his wife, whereas the childless, thirty-something Jenny merely does a spot of gardening, attends her weekly aerobics class, shops, and bitches with her one-dimensional friend Suzanne over the odd glass of Chardonnay. But they're both essentially unprepossessing. Anyhow, regardless of her sinecure position, Jenny has made up her mind that she is somehow being maltreated, and the early chapters dwell at dreary length on the solipsistic amplification of her petty grievances.

Matters come to a head when David objects, correctly in my view, to Jenny feeding her pet cat on a kitchen surface where she is also preparing the evening steak. With a sweep of his arm he dashes the oddly ill-co-ordinated animal to the ground, where it suffers a mortal injury. Refusing to let the vet put the wretched creature out of its misery, Jenny then keeps a morbid vigil over its (presumably) lingering death for a few days, and then resolves to destroy her husband. This process then takes up the rest of the book, unleavened by poetry, humanity or wit.

I honestly cannot think of any reason why anyone should want to read this book. The only reason I have ploughed through it was because I was stuck in York station after a number of trains were cancelled due to bad weather, and there was quite simply nothing else to do. Even so, it is arguable that I'd have enjoyed myself more if I had just stared at the empty platform for an hour or so, something I kept doing in any event as I repeatedly slammed the book to my lap in exasperation at the low charisma and just general downright uselessness of every single character in it. If you like your light reading to introduce you to people you would want to meet or befriend, do yourself a favour and avoid this novel.

[vinteuil]

While giving my (French) garden its final trim of the year and trying to avoid clipping the increasingly large number of Orchis Militaris plants which start springing up at this time of year, I had a sudden memory that the first book of 'The Orchid Trilogy' is of course 'The Military Orchid' - which Brooke was determined to find in England. My brother - who knows his plants - told me that orchids produce plentiful seeds from the flowers which then get dispersed by the wind. That would explain why two plants ten years ago must now be almost 100. 'The Dog at Clamberdown', is an interesting, if, at times, slightly discursive (that Marcel Proust has much to answer for) meander through various incidents in Brooke's life, complete with a mention of 'Vinteuil' (not that the latter in forumista guise would necessarily approve of the context as in a discourse about a piano piece by John Ireland) . I've been alternating between it and the latest Alan Hollinghurst. Definite whispers of the former writer in the latter.

... after The Orchard Trilogy I am now two-thirds of the way thro' The Dog at Clambercrown. It very much re-visits all the same themes and parts of his life that form the Trilogy ; he is slightly more open about his sexuality (tho' I wd not go as far as the blurb on the panmacmillan/bello edn - "this neglected classic of gay literature".) It would have benefited from a sterner editor - there are longueurs that could have been trimmed. I did enjoy his lit crits of Joyce, Lawrence, Huxley - and I may need to disinter the Firbanks and early Huxleys that are lurking in boxes in the loft for a re-read.

I have even found some John Ireland CDs that I inherited ages ago : perhaps I should finally give them a chance...

.

[french frank]

I may need to disinter the Firbanks and early Huxleys that are lurking in boxes in the loft for a re-read.

I've read most of the Huxleys. Of Firbank I have only a Penguin Classics edition of what I would have described as novellas or long short stories. I'm surprised to see Valmouth, at just over 100pp, listed in Wikipedia as a 'major work'. Must be for its innovative qualities. Looking at the first few pages, it reads a bit like Evelyn Waugh.

[smittims]

Hi,ff re your post of 9.57, I'm interested to contribute to any thread I find interesting , but I cannot guarantee that I will be here , or even on-line, at any time. By that I just mean that I do have other things to do; it wouldn't be fair (just to take an extreme case) to say 'why can't he be bothered to reply?' when in fact I was busy helping someone in need. And of course I cannot promise to contribute to a thread if I haven't seen the thread itself and what is said on it and whether or not I think it's worth replying to.

I'm not sure what your thread would be about . Why not just start it and see? If its (just for example) about the wider problems of feminism I might have to take some time to reply, as I find it rather a big subject. If on the other hand it's about books I've not read and won't read , then I'm afraid it would not be reasonable to expect me to contribute at all! . .

[french frank]

Hi,ff re your post of 9.57, I'm interested to contribute to any thread I find interesting

My sense is that members would prefer to move back to the original topic: What are you reading now?