What are you reading now?

[gingerjon]

I am now beKindled. I know I should boycott Amazon for all things tax-avoidy but ... well, let's just leave that there.

It is now loaded with Patrick Hamilton's Slaves of Solitude which I bought for a startlingly small amount. I'm about halfway through. It's not keeping me as entertained as Hangover Square did but the characters within it feel much more memorable.

[french frank]

I had to rely on what people chose for me from my own 'library'. But in the 4 weeks of hospitalisation, I revisited:

Waugh, A Handful of Dust - clever but enough's enough
Twain, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn - struck by how much more I enjoyed Tom Sawyer than Huck Finn this time
Trollope, A, Early Short Stories - quite enjoyable but like the novels there are some longueurs
Twain, The Innocents Abroad - I selected this myself on my 'home visit'. I have a soft spot for it because I read it while travelling inEurope, seeing much the same things, particularly in Italy (Pompeii, Naples). The traffic in Naples was as hair-raising as now, except that it was horse-drawn then. Funny but veering between genius and OTT facetiousness.

New:

David Bellos, Is that a Fish in your Ear? (H2G2 fans will recognise the allusion). All about the way translation of foreign works is tackled. Learned and funny.

[umslopogaas]

ff, thanks for reminding me about 'Is that a Fish in your Ear?', I bought a copy recently on the strength of a good review, but it got buried under a pile of other books and I forgot about it. I shall report back.

[verismissimo]

Armemis Cooper's recent biography of Patrick Leigh Fermor. A Christmas present. Excellent. Particularly interesting for the chapter covering what might have been Vol 3 of his walk to Constantinople.

[aeolium]

Twain, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn - struck by how much more I enjoyed Tom Sawyer than Huck Finn this time

That's amazing to me. I've never particularly wanted to reread Tom Sawyer after reading it the once, whereas Finn seems to me one of the great works of comic genius and always seems fresh when I come to it again. Twain can be rather hit and miss but his Autobiography is a wonderful read.

Partly prompted by the pre-Christmas R3 Napoleon season, I'm rereading War and Peace. On the non-fiction front, A History of Modern Africa by Richard Reid. The trilogy on empire by James/Jan Morris is beautifully written, but I wanted a more recent history which encompassed the C20.

[Mandryka]

I'm reading George Painter's biography of Proust. A necessary follow-up to my last year's consumption of the Novel.

[verismissimo]

I'm reading George Painter's biography of Proust. A necessary follow-up to my last year's consumption of the Novel.

Excellent stuff, Mandryka. So much better in the writing department than the later Tadie.

[vinteuil]

I'm reading George Painter's biography of Proust. A necessary follow-up to my last year's consumption of the Novel.

I enjoyed Painter, but I think it is to be read with discrimination - as I commented on these Boards last April -

... it is indeed a tour de force, and I remember enjoying it immensely back in the 1970s. The problem with it is that it sees A la recherche as an autobiography; he uses the book to interpret Proust's life, and he uses what he was able to find out about Proust's life to interpret the book. Very tempting, and it produces a satisfying read. But dangerous and unreliable - the book is not an autobiography, and you can't use it to fill out aspects of Proust's life for which there isn't other evidence - and equally you can't use what we know of Proust's life to 'explain' A la Recherche - whose importance is as a work of art - as Proust himself would say, the biography can get at the moi superficiel but not at the moi profond which is what, ultimately, A la Recherche is about.

If you're looking for a good (more recent, more reliable, more scholarly, very readable) biography of Proust I wd recommend Jean-Yves Tadié's 'Marcel Proust', available in French and English.

[Mandryka]

I enjoyed Painter, but I think it is to be read with discrimination - as I commented on these Boards last April -

Yes, I was warned about Painter's questionable veracity.....he does make some statements which it would be (I'd think) impossible to authenticate. I've got Celestine Albaret's memoirs to follow as a 'corrective'.

[umslopogaas]

Mandryka, what did you think of Albaret's book? I skimmed through it and though admittedly I didnt study it in detail, I didnt think it added anything much to Painter's very detailed account. i thought Painter did a very fine job, and if there is one criticism that might be made, it is that I get a sense that he didnt approve of Proust's sexual inclinations and this may have coloured his account.

(Apologies, I think I wrote about this previously on another thread), I recently read the biography of Anthony Burgess by Roger Lewis and that is another case of a biographer who clearly detests the person whose life he is revealing, to such an extent that you wonder why on earth he took the job - apart from needing the money, I suppose.

[amateur51]

Mandryka, what did you think of Albaret's book? I skimmed through it and though admittedly I didnt study it in detail, I didnt think it added anything much to Painter's very detailed account. i thought Painter did a very fine job, and if there is one criticism that might be made, it is that I get a sense that he didnt approve of Proust's sexual inclinations and this may have coloured his account.

Regarding your one criticism umslopogaas, I wonder if you have read Edmund White's admirably short contribution, which redresses Painter's deficiencies

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Proust-Edmund-White/dp/0753809184/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357816842&sr=1-3

[umslopogaas]

Thanks ams, I didnt know about that book. I see another visit to Waterstones is called for: this now means a train ride to Exeter, since they closed the local branch in Tiverton. No problem, I welcome any excuse to visit a bookshop.

[vinteuil]

Edmund White's admirably short contribution, which redresses Painter's deficiencies
]

... that, Ammy, is a large claim.

[Mandryka]

Regarding your one criticism umslopogaas, I wonder if you have read Edmund White's admirably short contribution, which redresses Painter's deficiencies

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Proust-Edmun...7816842&sr=1-3

I have the White book - I read it in 2000, shortly after its publication. It is the only thing by Edmund White I have ever read.

[Mandryka]

Mandryka, what did you think of Albaret's book? I skimmed through it and though admittedly I didnt study it in detail, I didnt think it added anything much to Painter's very detailed account. i thought Painter did a very fine job, and if there is one criticism that might be made, it is that I get a sense that he didnt approve of Proust's sexual inclinations and this may have coloured his account.

(Apologies, I think I wrote about this previously on another thread), I recently read the biography of Anthony Burgess by Roger Lewis and that is another case of a biographer who clearly detests the person whose life he is revealing, to such an extent that you wonder why on earth he took the job - apart from needing the money, I suppose.

I've not read Albaret yet....and am only in the early stages of Painter. So far, I don't get a sense of authorly disapproval of the subject's lifestyle, though things may change.

As for Edmund White.....from what I can gather, he is a homosexual proselytiser who tends to find in his subjects exactly what he set out to look for. As such, I took his (slight) volume on Proust with several pinches of salt.