What are you reading now?

[DracoM]

Agreed. Dilution? or is it that there is more money in it for sponsors to include American writers etc?

Just re-read Robert Cormier's 'I am the Cheese'. Blimey, I thought it was a Young Adult book, but reading it now, it's a multi-layered, dark, genuinely scary novella set against all manner of unnamed surveillance authorities / intimidation and secrets that gradually batter a teen / YA into neurotic collapse. Economical, terse, less is more. Thought it was about Mafia once, - on re-reading, not at all sure they are the force being sketched in behind the scenes.

[Stanfordian]

'Franco Zefferelli - The Autobiography'

[Don Basilio]

Anthony Trollope's Ayala's Angel published the year before his death and I'm rather enjoying it. Trollope isn't in the same league as Dickens or George Eliot or even Thackeray, but he is not simplistic and a jolly good comfort read of a costume soap opera.

Note to self: This is neither are Barchester nor a Palliser novel and I must explore his other works not in those two famous series.

[vinteuil]

Anthony Trollope's Ayala's Angel published the year before his death and I'm rather enjoying it. Trollope isn't in the same league as Dickens or George Eliot or even Thackeray, but he is not simplistic and a jolly good comfort read of a costume soap opera.

Note to self: This is neither are Barchester nor a Palliser novel and I must explore his other works not in those two famous series.

... if you are looking for non-Barchester non-Palliser novels - I can very much recommend -

Cousin Henry
Dr Wortle's School
Orley Farm
He Knew He Was Right


and of course the magnificent The Way We Live Now

[Alain Maréchal]

Some of us would now find Trollope's <<The Fixed Period>> uncomfortable reading.

I am currently in a rereading phase, and at present it is Penelope Fitzgerald's novels. They are slim, but dense; she packs so much detail into so short a space, and by the use of allusion and adverbs she can give ten facts in one sentence. I had to read <<Innocence>> again immediately because I realised I had not been paying attention, and then discovered that I had, but the author had only hinted at what I needed to know. I recommend <<The Beginning of Spring>> (I recommend all of them, in fact).

Then I shall move on to Sebald, and I suppose, slightly reluctantly because the prospect is daunting, Proust for the third and perhaps last time. Groan.

Confession: when I finish a novel I read something humorous (Chevalier, Wodehouse) or crime (Simenon usually) as diversion.

Question: I can usually manage Dickens. I found <<Dombey and Son>> unreadable and gave up. Is it me?

[vinteuil]

Some of us would now find The Fixed Period uncomfortable reading.

... it is an odd work, isn't it? Surprizing to find such black humour.

As someone who is often in favour of euthanasia I found it an enjoyably robust read

[ ... and anyone who likes stories about cricket wd surely appreciate chapter 5. ]






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[Conchis]

Agreed. Dilution? or is it that there is more money in it for sponsors to include American writers etc?

Just re-read Robert Cormier's 'I am the Cheese'. Blimey, I thought it was a Young Adult book, but reading it now, it's a multi-layered, dark, genuinely scary novella set against all manner of unnamed surveillance authorities / intimidation and secrets that gradually batter a teen / YA into neurotic collapse. Economical, terse, less is more. Thought it was about Mafia once, - on re-reading, not at all sure they are the force being sketched in behind the scenes.

I was aware of it as a 'childrens' book' when I was a child but only got around to reading it in my early thirties. Properly speaking, a book for anyone over the age of ,say, twelve. The ending is devastating: I love the little coda, too..

[Alain Maréchal]

It is strange how one discovers writers. In connection with a recent anniversary I read a scholarly work on William's fortifications (bedtime reading, successfully sent me to sleep) and in particular Richborough, which I visited many years ago, and which is currently being re-evaluated. Mention was made of Rosemary Sutcliffe, and so I read her trilogy of novels on late Roman Britain. They were entertaining and clearly aimed at "young adults", probably teenage boys, although I assume today teenagers do not read what I did. Good "coming-of-age" works, in fact, and as historical novels well-researched, although now outdated by more recent discoveries. The first, and weakest, was made into "a major motion picture" a few years ago which has prompted republication.

"We are the Lantern Bearers my friend, for us to keep something burning, to carry what light we can forward into the darkness and the wind."
I did my best, but I have retired, and the opportunities of discussion with the young are fewer. This thread is all very well, but I hope we are all proselytizing for literature whenever we can.

[Sir Velo]

Question: I can usually manage Dickens. I found <<Dombey and Son>> unreadable and gave up. Is it me?

No. One of the worst. Exhibits the worst characteristics of Victorian maudlin sensibility.

The best are:

Bleak House
Great Expectations
Little Dorrit
David Copperfield
Pickwick Papers
Martin Chuzzlewit
Oliver Twist

[vinteuil]

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Question: I can usually manage Dickens. I found <<Dombey and Son>> unreadable and gave up. Is it me?

... as an undergraduate I read most of Dickens and enjoyed it. That was forty five years ago; in the intervening years I have occasionally dipped in, but find most of them unreadable now: if I wanted to read something from that period I wd nowadays turn to Thackeray or Trollope.

Then I shall move on to Sebald, and I suppose, slightly reluctantly because the prospect is daunting, Proust for the third and perhaps last time. Groan.

Confession: when I finish a novel I read something humorous (Chevalier, Wodehouse) or crime (Simenon usually) as diversion.

... excellent choices all. Especially Simenon.

[Alain Maréchal]

The best are:

Bleak House
Great Expectations
Little Dorrit
David Copperfield
Pickwick Papers
Martin Chuzzlewit
Oliver Twist

I have reread Hard Times regularly over the years. Everybody in it is vicious, savage, deluded, misguided, pious or wimpy. Just what I want in a Victorian Novel. (note to self; reread Balzac or attempt some unread ones).

[Alain Maréchal]

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Especially Simenon.

I read all the existing Maigrets when young, (he was a "local" writer for us) then the new ones when they appeared. I didn't find out about the Romans Dur until much later. I think <L'Homme qui regardait passer les trains> is a masterpiece,

[vinteuil]

I read all the existing Maigrets when young, (he was a "local" writer for us) then the new ones when they appeared. I didn't find out about the Romans Dur until much later. I think <L'Homme qui regardait passer les trains> is a masterpiece,

And La neige était sale and Au bout du Rouleau

[Don Basilio]

... magnificent The Way We Live Now

I read The Way We Live Now years ago and then I was unimpressed. The principal thing wrong with Melmotte was not so much he was a fraud as he was not British, which seemed to be repeatedly stressed.

Dickens manages the character of the fraudulent banker who is idolised and then kills himself so much more impressively in the figure of Mr Merdle in Little Dorrit. He is only one of a whole host of characters (including his ghastly wife) who are metaphorically or literally imprisoned. The one character free of the prison taint is Amy Dorrit herself, the one character actually born and brought up in prison. As a portrait of a young woman Amy is no doubt sentimentalised but as a symbolic figure she is the powerful centre of a great and complex novel.

PS What’s Trollope’s {Fixed Period}?

[vinteuil]

I do think the episode of Merdle's death is quite brilliantly done...

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fixed_Period