What are you reading now?

[verismissimo]

Re-reading Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts. Deep joy.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The Rama omnibus - Arthur C. Clark/Gentry Lee. I've always found that science fiction fires the imagination, (even if they are still using video-tape in the 24th century ).

[Richard Tarleton]

Just finished "Brunelleshci's Dome" by Ross King, the story of the building of the dome on the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. It remains the largest masonry dome ever built, and was built without the use of wooden staging or scaffolding - rather depending on cunning stonework and brickwork to enable the masons to lay course after course curving ever inwards. All this against a background of war, plague, local politics and bitter personal rivalries, chiefly with Ghiberti, he of the doors. Brunelleschi solved nearly every technological challenge that came his way, including an ox hoist (with a 600 ft rope weighing over 1000 pounds) which in 12 years lifted 70 million pounds of marble, brick, stone and mortar from the floor to ever higher in the dome. Only a boat designed to ship marble upstream proved too cunning, depositing 100 tons of valuable Carrara marble on the bottom of the Arno.

Just started "Positive Linking", by Paul Ormerod. His "Why most things fail" should be read by now by every economist, politician, policy maker, sociologist, etc. if it hasn't already been, this looks every bit as good.

[amateur51]

Re-reading Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts. Deep joy.

What a good idea!

[umslopogaas]

#568 Pianorak. 'Buddenbrooks' is extremely funny? Blimey, I must try again, I must have missed something, as I recall Mann is one of the least funny authors on my shelves. Certainly 'Doctor Faustus' is about as black as fiction can be, and I dont recall getting many laughs out of 'The Magic Mountain' either.

Just re-read H.G. Wells' 'The Island of Doctor Moreau'. Any one of a sensitive disposition, or with a great fondness for warm cuddly animals, should NOT read this book.

[Sparafucile]

Afternoon all,
While in conversation with a colleague yesterday (on a Sunday, I know), she recommended to me "This Thing of Darkness" by the late Harry Thompson. Any of you come across it at all? From what delving I've done, it seems highly-regarded.

[Mandryka]

I'm 615 pages into my second attempt at reading A La Recherche du Temps Perdu.

Enjoyment, I have to say, is intermittent: part of the problem (for me) is the preciosity of the prose style (I'm reading the Scott Moncrieff translation, as revised by Kilmartin). Penguin has recently published a new translation, made by diverse hands: anyone familiar with this new one? If so, how does it compare with Scott Moncrieff?

Re: Buddenbrooks - I recall it as one of the most devastating books I've ever read, though that may have had something to do with my state of mind when i read it, ten years ago. It has got a few laughs, though, as I recall, mostly pivoting around the character of Herr Permanader. And Hanno Buddenbrook is the only child in all literature that I can actually warm to.

[Pianorak]

'Buddenbrooks' is extremely funny? . . .

Magic Mountain is decidedly not funny. Buddenbrooks is both funny (shouldn't have said extremely) and depressing. It's a real page turner, a very good read but great literature? As Mann's wife opined, without The Magic Mountain Mann would not have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his Buddenbrooks. However, the "fun" only emerges through Mann's subtle and not so subtle use of language which, however, may only come across in the original German. Commentators talk about the "decadence" in Buddenbrooks. Decline yes - but decadence? Plenty of narrow-mindedness, not to say stupidity, especially on the part of Tony Buddenbrooks-Gruenlich-Permaneder. Can't really think of a single sympathetic character; they are all flawed (like the rest of us?), some more than others.

[Mandryka]

Can't really think of a single sympathetic character; they are all flawed (like the rest of us?), some more than others.

STRONGLY diagree with you here, at least on your first point.

I actually found just about EVERY major character in the book sympathetic at some point (with the exception,maybe, of Grunlich): a lot of the time, your sympathies switch between the characters - at one moment, you are irritated by ,Toni for her vanity, then overwhelmed with compassion for her (at least, I was) when her marriages hit the rocks. The same goes for Thomas Jnr, whose great mistake insisting on a 'good' marriage for himself.

It's beyond me how anyone can find Hanno Buddenbrook unsympathetic.

[umslopogaas]

#577 Mandryka, I've been meaning to search out that new translation of Proust, but at present I only know him from the original Scott Moncrieff and then the revised version by Kilmartin. Its hard to imagine any improvement on the latter, but since my knowledge of French is minimal, I cant deny that there might be. I take off my hat in greatest respect to anyone who can sit down to translate three thousand pages of such elusive (blurb writer's word, but appropriate) prose. But 'preciosity'? Its true that Proust engages with the human condition in areas that invite pretentiousness, but by and large I think he avoids it. Proust is extraordinarily perceptive, it would have been hard to conceal anything from those dark eyes.

Have you read George Painter's biography? In some ways its more interesting than the novel, you get to learn about the real-life models for the fictional characters. There are wonderful descriptions of Comte Robert de Montesquiou, a lot of whose eccentricities went into Baron Charlus. What a character, you really couldnt make him up.

[Northender]

Currently reading 'The Sea Lady' by Margaret Drabble.

[Mandryka]

#577 Mandryka, I've been meaning to search out that new translation of Proust, but at present I only know him from the original Scott Moncrieff and then the revised version by Kilmartin. Its hard to imagine any improvement on the latter, but since my knowledge of French is minimal, I cant deny that there might be. I take off my hat in greatest respect to anyone who can sit down to translate three thousand pages of such elusive (blurb writer's word, but appropriate) prose. But 'preciosity'? Its true that Proust engages with the human condition in areas that invite pretentiousness, but by and large I think he avoids it. Proust is extraordinarily perceptive, it would have been hard to conceal anything from those dark eyes.

Have you read George Painter's biography? In some ways its more interesting than the novel, you get to learn about the real-life models for the fictional characters. There are wonderful descriptions of Comte Robert de Montesquiou, a lot of whose eccentricities went into Baron Charlus. What a character, you really couldnt make him up.

I would agree with you about Proust's perceptiveness.....I just find many of his similes over-elaborated and was wondering whether this was down to the translation? Kilmartin acknowledges in his introduction that many have found CKM's 'style' not true to Proust, though he (Kilmartin) personally thinks CKM got it near enough right

Will have a look for the Painter biog: sounds interesting.

[umslopogaas]

I hope Painter is still in print. Mine is a two volume paperback edition published by Peregrine (part of Penguin) in 1977. The original hardbacks came out in 1959 and 1965. its pretty long, the two vols. together run to about 750 pages, but then, so is Proust ...

[Beef Oven]

Theodore Dalrymple - Our Culture, What's Left Of It.

[verismissimo]

Painter is excellent. And so is Scott Moncrieff!