What are you reading now?

[Don Basilio]

Robertson Davies is wonderful, I'd agree. I've just re-read The Rebel Angels, the first of the Cornish trilogy. Excellent.

[Pianorak]

Robertson Davies is wonderful, I'd agree. . .

I too would agree. Would also recommend "What's Bred in the Bone" which I re-read recently. Now slumming it with Dr Faustus by Thomas Mann.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've almost finished reading the Rama omnibus by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee. The two authors worked collaboratively, but the work is badly edited, so that the ACC sections are written in Queen's English and the GL bits are in American (hence spellings like "neighborhood" and phrases such as "go get" and "different than") The lack of consistency makes it appear like the J and E documents that made up so much of the Old Testament. Other give-aways are ACC promoting as sense of wonder and GL seemingly more interested in writing about sex.
However, despite these niggles, I've been unable to put this collection of 4 books down for several weeks.

[gingerjon]

I have now finished Moby Dick.

One day I may recover and be able to tell you what I thought of it.

To calm myself I am now reading the latest Rebus.

[Globaltruth]

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne.

it is clearly written for people who suffer from attention deficit syndrome. I spend as much time in the back of the book musing over the notes as I do reading the main work. Sterne does not bother with settings, or plot come to that – and his characters have to sketch themselves in rather than be strongly drawn. Who would have imagined a male midwife called Dr Slop? Well, LS of course.

Also introduced me to the word Aposiopesis: the sudden breaking off in mid-course.

[Thropplenoggin]

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne.

it is clearly written for people who suffer from attention deficit syndrome. I spend as much time in the back of the book musing over the notes as I do reading the main work. Sterne does not bother with settings, or plot come to that – and his characters have to sketch themselves in rather than be strongly drawn. Who would have imagined a male midwife called Dr Slop? Well, LS of course.

Also introduced me to the word Aposiopesis: the sudden breaking off in mid-course.

One I've long pondered reading...do let us know how you find it once you finish.

As for me, I picked up Mann's Doctor Faustus after a three-month hiatus. Yes, it's brilliantly written, but it's also perhaps too brilliant. My brain can barely keep up with its ideas, archaisms and metaphors...Mephistopheles has appeared, so I must be half-way through. Like a good Beckettian: I can't go on, I'll go on... Not as rapturous a read as The Magic Mountain, whose philosophical longuers I relished (its many political debates seem "simples" (to quote Bryn) in comparison to DF.)

[umslopogaas]

#634 gingerjon. Yes, 'Moby Dick' is a bit overwhelming, isnt it? I started to read it quite recently, having long regarded it as one of those heavyweight classics that everyone has on the shelf but no-one actually reads. But it isnt, its compulsive. The style is very readable, the chapters are short and towards the end the plot is very exciting. I was up until two in the morning to finish it. By the end I felt a bit sorry for captain Ahab, though he is clearly bonkers.

And Globaltruth, I started 'Tristram Shandy' once, but soon abandoned it. I will try again.

Sitting in the get on with it pile are several books by Umberto Eco. I very much enjoyed 'The Name of the Rose' and want to try some more.

[gingerjon]

#634 gingerjon. Yes, 'Moby Dick' is a bit overwhelming, isnt it? I started to read it quite recently, having long regarded it as one of those heavyweight classics that everyone has on the shelf but no-one actually reads. But it isnt, its compulsive. The style is very readable, the chapters are short and towards the end the plot is very exciting. I was up until two in the morning to finish it. By the end I felt a bit sorry for captain Ahab, though he is clearly bonkers.

I thought I'd got it sussed - especially as very broadly everyone knows how it ends - but I was not prepared for the finale, nor for the questions that reading would throw up regarding the characters and actions at the start that are seemingly unimportant by the end.

[keithbraidwood2]

Death is now my neighbour by Colin Dexter (one of the Inspector Morse novels)
The Complete Plays of Christopher Marlowe
A Test of Time by David Rohl (in which Rohl propses a new chronology of Ancient Egypt tying up with biblical references and evidence)
Aristotle's Ethics
The Canterbury Tales

Fortunately I have a ready supply of bookmarks.

[verismissimo]

Fortunately I have a ready supply of bookmarks.

Essential equipment, keith.

[Pianorak]

. . .
As for me, I picked up Mann's Doctor Faustus after a three-month hiatus. Yes, it's brilliantly written, but it's also perhaps too brilliant. My brain can barely keep up with its ideas, archaisms and metaphors...Mephistopheles has appeared . . .

I'm now on page 322 and M is about to appear - something to look forward to?

[keithbraidwood2]

Essential equipment, keith.

Ah, so true. And a decent, if bonded, leather one too with the 'tasseled' end. Surprisingly difficult to get now.

[umslopogaas]

#645 Thropplenoggin, 'Doctor Faustus', are you sure you know what you've taken on? That is a VERY dangerous book. It is dense, complicated, seemingly endless, but when Mephistopheles finally arrives to take over control of Leverkuhn, you'll certainly know it. I can smell the sulphur even now.

O, Th., DONT open that book!

OK, but dont say I didnt warn you. You think you are in control, but you will find too late that you are not. Mephistopheles has his hands on the levers, and ... NO, STOP!! ...

[Globaltruth]

Moby Dick - based on a true story. Is this widely known/believed?

Or perhaps it was just me that became mildly obsessed with this? The facts, just give me the facts...

Here's a link to Wikipedia which (for once?) seems to be reporting pretty much what the journals of the time reported.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship)

The story became a cause celebre at the time - extensively reported in the London Times and in other broadsheets of the time, with the usual exaggeration for effect - although it is an amazing story. I found some of these source materials, probably in the British Library if I remember correctly.

As part of the my investigations (which was a few years ago now) I actually found an online forum up there in Nantucket where there were some descendants of the whalers who actually confirmed that they had been told this too - and also mentioned that whales attacking boats was not an isolated incident...

Queequeeg was totally Melville's invention though...


I used aspects of the story for a piece of fiction that I wrote based on Owen Chase's return to his home.


More than happy to report back on Tristram Shandy by the way - it is truly absorbing; not sure I understand why yet...
(and don't get me started on Jaws...)

[Belgrove]

Nathaniel Philbrick's book `In the Heart of the Sea' relates the fate of the whaleship Essex and her crew which was sunk by a sperm whale in the mid-Pacific, and reputedly inspired Melville. The few survivors suffered greatly following the sinking. The book graphically illuminates the importance of the whaling industry at that time. Philip Hoare's book `Leviathan' also mentions the Essex if my memory serves well, in addition to providing an eclectic miscellany of things cetaceous.