What are you reading now?

[johnb]

Walden and The Master and Margarita? Just had to check you hadnt been raiding my bookshelves. Its a long time since I read either, but I remember being very unsettled by the latter. Its listed in my copy of "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" and at the current rate of progress I'm not going to make it: I've read maybe a quarter of them, I've heard of another quarter and the other half are beyond my ken. But The Master and Margarita is well worth the effort. Makes you very wary of black cats, though.

Your mention of "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" tweaked my curiosity. I vaguely recall having heard of it sometime in the past so I googled and found a list of the titles and authors here.

Often, when I visit a book shop, I rummage around in a somewhat desultory way and finally pick on a couple of volumes by an author I have read before or that have had good reviews. (Incidentally, I think there is a very strong case for a complete ban on any new novel being published for the next five years.) Anyway, I imported the list into Excel and did a simple formula to randomly choose books in the 2000s and 1900s categories - thinking that it would throw up novels that I would otherwise never have even thought of reading.

The first six random selections were:

Süskind, Patrick: The Pigeon
MacInnes, Colin: Absolute Beginners
Timm, Uwe: The Invention Of Curried Sausage
Lawrence, D.H.: Sons And Lovers
Sayers, Dorothy L.: Murder Must Advertise
Mishima, Yukio: The Sea Of Fertility

I'm intrigued by this selection and intend to order the novels today (apart from the Lawrence which I already have) and settle down to reading them over the weeks ahead.

(If anyone would like an Excel file of the list - let me know.)

[french frank]

(Incidentally, I think there is a very strong case for a complete ban on any new novel being published for the next five years.)

But, yes ... probably (it will take at least five years to me to rewrite My Novel).

There are very few contemporary novelists who are 'must reads' for me. And a couple who once were now seem to have had equivocal reviews and I prefer to delve back into the treasure chest of preceding centuries.

[umslopogaas]

johnb, I think the "1001 ..." series is a bit of an industry, I'm pretty sure there is a "1001 films you must see before you die" and probably a "1001 recipes you must eat before you die". But the "1001 books ..." is a bit of a challenge, I'm past sixty and there are still about 750 to go. And they cheat a bit, too: Marcel Proust's 'A la recherche ...' is down as just one book: OK, the different bits are all linked, but I reckon its seven books. And Anthony Powell's 'A dance to the music of time' is down as one book, but the description admits that in fact its twelve short novels.

You are braver than me, I tend now to stick to authors I know, which is why, having enjoyed 'The Name of the Rose', I had high hopes for 'The Prague Cemetery'. Of your list, I've never heard of Uwe Timm and only know of Mishima bcause he disembowelled himself. 'Absolute Beginners' I read long ago and no longer have a copy, all I can recall is that I enjoyed it. Sayers should be good period detective stuff, I'm only guessing but I bet it'll be country houses and bodies under the sofa. Dont know Suskind, and you can keep Lawrence, I'm sure I'm missing something, but I dont like his style.

[johnb]

umslopogaas,

I agree that these lists, even when compiled into a book as in this case, are to be taken with a very large pinch of salt or possibly disregarded altogether and I take your point about the Proust and Powell, which incidentally I read some years ago (the Powell, not the Proust). Nevertheless it is still interesting to glance through them.

In my case I am very aware that my reading has become more and more limited as the years have rolled by - in contrast to some decades ago when I used to read voraciously and reasonably widely, so this might be an interesting experiment in exploring books new to me.

I have a good idea what the Sayers is like (though, curiously, I have never read any of her novels) and I read the Lawrence about 40 years ago - but I have no idea at all what the other books that my random selection came up with are like.

Mentioning Umberto Eco has stimulated my curiosity about The Prague Cemetery. I read 'The Name of the Rose' some years ago and followed it with 'Foucault's Pendulum', both of which I enjoyed. However, I somehow couldn't 'get on' with the idea behind Baudolino and only ever read the first few pages before setting in the stack of books labelled 'might have another look ... sometime'.

Incidentally, in my early twenties I was transfixed by Lawrence Durrells 'Alexandria Quartet'. Recently I've been wondering about reading it again but fear that it would now be a great disappointment.

Now I must get back to that Henry Mankell that I am reading ...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

umsloppy, johnb, frenchie and anyone;

I've not yet read The Prague Cemetery (saving it for the Summer holidays), but I would urge anyone to read Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana - a superb novel, inventive plot and glorious celebration of reading, memory and courage.


(Incidentally, I don't think there's a country house or a body under any sofas in Murder Must Advertise - there is a fancy dress party at which drugs are freely available, I think I remember, and a good exposé of the advertising business. One of Sayer's better works.)

[umslopogaas]

#530, fhg, when reminiscing of bodies under the sofa and country houses, I was thinking (long ferret on the ancestral bookshelves) of Tom Stoppard's 'The Real Inspector Hound', which is a delightful laugh from beginning to end. As part of this spoof of the English Country House Mystery, it has a body lying under the sofa which resides centre stage (the sofa, but thereby also the body) throughout the whole play, it is dusted around by Mrs Drudge, and no-one who comes and goes (I'm pretty sure there's an Archie type who erupts through the french doors and demands 'anyone for tennis?) notices it.

Dark doings at Muldoon Manor. And the tide is rising, soon we will be cut off from the outside world ...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Telephone rings
Maid: Good morning! Lady Eleanor's residence, one morning in early Spring; can I help you?

... brilliant stuff!

[gurnemanz]

I Partridge is hilarious. (Book not tenor)

[vinteuil]

"Madame du Deffand's style reflects, perhaps even more completely than that of Voltaire himself, the common-sense of the eighteenth century. Its precision is absolute. It is like a line drawn in one stroke by a master, with the prompt exactitude of an unerring subtlety. There is no breadth in it - no sense of colour and the concrete mass of things. One cannot wonder, as one reads her, that she hardly regretted her blindness. What did she lose by it? Certainly not

The sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summer's rose;

for what did she care for such particulars when her eyes were at their clearest? Her perception was intellectual; and to the penetrating glances of her mental vision the objects of the sensual world were mere irrelevance. The kind of writing produced by such a quality of mind may seem thin and barren to those accustomed to the wealth and variety of the Romantic school. Yet it will repay attention. The vocabulary is very small; but every word is the right one; this old lady of high society, who had never given a thought to her style, who wrote - and spelt - by the light of nature, was a past mistress of that most difficult of literary accomplishments—" l'art de dire en un mot tout ce qu'un mot peut dire." The object of all art is to make suggestions. The romantic artist attains that end by using a multitude of different stimuli, by calling up image after image, recollection after recollection, until the reader's mind is filled and held by a vivid and palpable evocation; the classic works by the contrary method of a fine economy, and, ignoring everything but what is essential, trusts, by means of the exact propriety of his presentation, to produce the required effect. Madame du Deffand carries the classical ideal to its furthest point. She never strikes more than once, and she always hits the nail on the head. Such is her skill that she sometimes seems to beat the Romantics even on their own ground: her reticences make a deeper impression than all the dottings of their i's. The following passage from a letter to Walpole is characteristic:

'Nous eûmes une musique charmante, une dame qui joue de la harpe à merveille; elle me fit tant de plaisir que j'eus du regret que vous ne l'entendissiez pas; c'est un instrument admirable. Nous eûmes aussi un clavecin, mais quoiqu'il fût touché avec une grande perfection, ce n'est rien en comparaison de la harpe. Je fus fort triste toute la soirée; j'avais appris en partant que Mme de Luxembourg, qui était allée samedi à Montmorency pour y passer quinze jours, s'était trouvée si mal qu'on avait fait venir Tronchin, et qu'on l'avait ramenée le dimanche à huit heures du soir, qu'on lui croyait de l'eau dans la poitrine. L'ancienneté de la connaissance; une habitude qui a l'air de l'amitié; voir disparaître ceux avec qui l'on vit; un retour sur soi-même; sentir que l'on ne tient à rien, que tout fuit, que tout échappe, qu'on reste seule dans l'univers, et que malgré cela on craint de le quitter, voilà ce qui m'occupa pendant la musique.'

Here are no coloured words, no fine phrases only the most flat and ordinary expressions " un instrument admirable " —" une grande perfection "—" fort triste." Nothing is described; and yet how much is suggested! The whole scene is conjured up one does not know how; one's imagination is switched on to the right rails, as it were, by a look, by a gesture, and then left to run of itself. In the simple, faultless rhythm of that closing sentence, the trembling melancholy of the old harp seems to be lingering still."

[umslopogaas]

vinteuil (#534), that's a fine quote, but who said it?

Go on, embarrass me by telling me a source that I've actually read, but forgotten.

[vinteuil]

vinteuil (#534), that's a fine quote, but who said it?

.

Umslopogaas - it's Lytton Strachey : his review of Lettres de la Marquise du Deffand à Horace Walpole[1766-1780] , collected in the volume Books and Characters

[french frank]

O, calamity!

I've come to a complete halt with The Master and Margarita ever since the latter became a witch and rode around on a broomstick. I can't detach this from the world of Harry Potter. Why must I go on?

[umslopogaas]

#537 ff Er... if for no other reason, to unravel the plot. Actually I cant remember anything about 'The Master and Margarita', but its on my shelves and has obviously been read, so I must have read it (yes, I have friends who borrow books, and even occasionally return them, but none likely to have damaged the spine of an old paper-back like that).

"Why must I go on?" Well ... it is one of the '1001 books you must read before you die'. Go for it , its a lot easier than Proust. Amaze your friends with your erudition.

But be a bit careful, or you might find yourself suddenly short of friends. Reading is a dying art, I fear a time is coming when books will not be comprehended. And they contain history. And those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it, as some-one cleverer than me once said. These are very worrying thoughts, worried thoughts welcome.

[aeolium]

O, calamity!

I've come to a complete halt with The Master and Margarita ever since the latter became a witch and rode around on a broomstick. I can't detach this from the world of Harry Potter. Why must I go on?

IIRC it is Walpurgis night, and the novel is heavily influenced by Goethe's Faust which also features witches (Margarita = Gretchen). I haven't read it for a while but I know it seemed to make sense at the time (and I did carry on)

[vinteuil]

O, calamity!

I've come to a complete halt with The Master and Margarita ever since the latter became a witch and rode around on a broomstick. I can't detach this from the world of Harry Potter. Why must I go on?

... I think that at our age ( ) we are allowed to 'give up' on books that are not working for us. Especially when the book in question is a load of tosh