What Are You Reading

[cooncatbob]

I've just started reading "The Fall of the House of Habsburg" it's about the ruling family of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
I'm a life long amateur military historian and I've recently begun reading and watching DVDs about WW1 but most sources are about either about the war in the west or east and gloss over Austria-Hungary, which is kinda strange since the trigger for the war was the assassination of the Arch-Duke by a Serbian radical.
Bob.

 

[Harp]

I've just started reading "The Fall of the House of Habsburg" it's about the ruling family of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
I'm a life long amateur military historian and I've recently begun reading and watching DVDs about WW1 but most sources are about either about the war in the west or east and gloss over Austria-Hungary, which is kinda strange since the trigger for the war was the assassination of the Arch-Duke by a Serbian radical.
Bob.

The Balkan proscenium is a flashpoint for Europe, and the Serb, Croat,
and Muslim rivalry dates back to the Ottoman Era. I'd like to read Fall
when you've finished it.

 

[Rafter]

I just finished reading
Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami.

There ought to be a name for the genre Murakami has invented, and it might be the "literary pyrotechno-thriller".

The plot here is so elaborate that about 100 pages, one-fourth of the book, elapse before its various elements begin to fit together, but Murakami's lightning prose more than sustains the reader. Embellished with witticisms, wordplay and allusions to such figures as Stendhal heroes and Lauren Bacall, the tale is set in a Tokyo of the near future.

Thanks to a wonderland of technology, an intelligence agent has had his brain implanted with a "profoundly personal drama" that allows him to "launder" and "shuffle" classified data, and all that he knows of the drama is its password, The End of the World. But after interference from a scientist and from the Semiotecs, a rival intelligence unit, the subconscious story is about to replace the agent's own perceptions of reality.

Intertwined with the agent's attempts to understand his plight are scenes from The End of the World. Murakami's ingenuity and inventiveness grabs you every step of the journey and doe not fail to intoxicate the reader.

 

[Jack Scorpion]

I just finished reading
Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami.

There ought to be a name for the genre Murakami has invented, and it might be the "literary pyrotechno-thriller".

The plot here is so elaborate that about 100 pages, one-fourth of the book, elapse before its various elements begin to fit together, but Murakami's lightning prose more than sustains the reader. Embellished with witticisms, wordplay and allusions to such figures as Stendhal heroes and Lauren Bacall, the tale is set in a Tokyo of the near future.

Thanks to a wonderland of technology, an intelligence agent has had his brain implanted with a "profoundly personal drama" that allows him to "launder" and "shuffle" classified data, and all that he knows of the drama is its password, The End of the World. But after interference from a scientist and from the Semiotecs, a rival intelligence unit, the subconscious story is about to replace the agent's own perceptions of reality.

Intertwined with the agent's attempts to understand his plight are scenes from The End of the World. Murakami's ingenuity and inventiveness grabs you every step of the journey and doe not fail to intoxicate the reader.

Been on my list for some time. Murakami is an institution.

 

[Jefferson Smith]

I just finished The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin' by Bill Zehme and I'm about to start on The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler.

 

[beaucaillou]

"Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West," Cormac McCarthy.
Cormac McCarthy pretty much starts and finishes modern literature these days (with some help from Ben Marcus, Gary Lutz, and Joan Didion) so I'm an elated, humbled, shaken, and transformed reader.

Rafter: Murakami has been urged toward me time and again, and you'd think I'd take that as the sign it is, yet I haven't. I'm extremely skeptical. As a writer I'll subconsciously adopt the nuances and habits of any given writer I happen to read that resonates with me, and I always think I'll disdain Murakami's nuances as mundane and therefore disdain my own work for that time. But you are a fan thus far? And would also recommend him?

 

[Harp]

Nobody's reading Mishima?

 

[RedPop4]

The Confession of Brother Haluin the Sixteenth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael and the Abbey of Saint Peter and St. Paul, Shrewsbury.

 

[Dr Doran]

"Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West," Cormac McCarthy.
Cormac McCarthy pretty much starts and finishes modern literature these days (with some help from Ben Marcus, Gary Lutz, and Joan Didion) so I'm an elated, humbled, shaken, and transformed reader.

Rafter: Murakami has been urged toward me time and again, and you'd think I'd take that as the sign it is, yet I haven't. I'm extremely skeptical. As a writer I'll subconsciously adopt the nuances and habits of any given writer I happen to read that resonates with me, and I always think I'll disdain Murakami's nuances as mundane and therefore disdain my own work for that time. But you are a fan thus far? And would also recommend him?

I am a huge fan of McCarthy, my good Beaucaillou. Have been for many many years. I am one of the only people I know who equally appreciated both Blood Meridian and All the Pretty Horses. I also loved Stonemason without which, I believe, McCarthy cannot be appreciated in his full glory (not to be too multiculturally Berkeley chic, but it is also the only work of his that has a black protagonist, which is at least somewhat interesting in its own right). In my opinion those three are the best of his works. I cannot say that I am a fan of The Road. Why? Because I have been a fan of post-apocalyptic literature as well as film since about 1980 and I did not think The Road was a standout in the genre if one takes that as a genre and judges The Road AGAINST that genre and not against the McCarthy's oeuvre by itself (in which case it may indeed stand well against e.g. Suttree which I have not yet read).
I have many many favorite parts of Blood Meridian and can quote some of it verbatim. I must contend that The Judge is one of the most remarkable characters in all of human literature and as a classicist I go back as far as Homer (and even to Gilgamesh).

 

[beaucaillou]

Doran, very interesting. I haven't read Stonemason, but now I'm supremely interested. McCarthy's work is at times astounding. He's such a melding of so many writers, but also always remains outside of everyone at the same time. Yet I can't help but conjure Twain, O'Connor, Faulkner, and especially Nick Cave.

And what are you reading right now?

 

[Dr Doran]

I am currently finishing off Amaryllis Night and Day by Russell Hoban and will start The Call of Cthulhu And Other Weird Stories by H.P Lovecraft afterwards.

Am a huge fan of Lovecraft ... please keep me posted on your reactions.

 

[Dr Doran]

Nobody's reading Mishima?

I have, indeed, read Yukio. If it is he who wrote The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea. I am not ready to write about him yet, though. My thoughts about it are still disorganized.

 

[Dr Doran]

Doran, very interesting. I haven't read Stonemason, but now I'm supremely interested. McCarthy's work is at times astounding. He's such a melding of so many writers, but also always remains outside of everyone at the same time. Yet I can't help but conjure Twain, O'Connor, Faulkner, and especially Nick Cave.

And what are you reading right now?

Thucydides, Thucydides, Thucydides. In Greek. A little Xenophon thrown in. In Greek. (I am studying for my PhD exams.)

 

[carebear]

Am a huge fan of Lovecraft ... please keep me posted on your reactions.

Yes, keep a journal of your descent into eldritch-fueled madness and gibbering despair...

 

[Harp]

I have, indeed, read Yukio. If it is he who wrote The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea. I am not ready to write about him yet, though. My thoughts about it are still disorganized.

Hai. Wakarimas, Doransama!
(In my wild reckless dumba.. youth, I was a Kyokushinkai stylist. My sensei
turned me on to Mishima. An extraordinarily interesting but deeply flawed
and troubled psyche.) Grab some warm saki and delve deeply inward;
Mishima is a memorable tragic writer, but one of Japanese Lit's best.

 

[jamespowers]

Thucydides, Thucydides, Thucydides. In Greek. A little Xenophon thrown in. In Greek. (I am studying for my PhD exams.)

History of the Peloponnesian War eh? Much to be learned from the account that still applies today.

Regards,

J

 

[Dr Doran]

Hai. Wakarimas, Doransama!
(In my wild reckless dumba.. youth, I was a Kyokushinkai stylist. My sensei
turned me on to Mishima. An extraordinarily interesting but deeply flawed
and troubled psyche.) Grab some warm saki and delve deeply inward;
Mishima is a memorable tragic writer, but one of Japanese Lit's best.

The fascist homosexual angle has always interested me ... although I am completely straight, I did enjoy reading Jean Genet. i am also a great lover of the musical ensembles Death in June and Current 93, who tie all these strings together in a glorious death rock/industrial/gothic soundscape of menace and sinister noise.

As to Mishima's language: I have not studied Japanese, alas. Only ancient Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and depressingly little German. Polish is next for my wife.

 

[Dr Doran]

Yes, keep a journal of your descent into eldritch-fueled madness and gibbering despair...

ONLY A SMALL BAND OF BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN STAND BETWEEN THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT AND THE UNUTTERABLE EVIL OF THE GREAT OLD ONES, WHOSE MINIONS PLOT THE RETURN AND RULE OF THEIR MIGHT LORD, GREAT CTHULHU.

iaaaa ... shub-nigurath ... the black goat of the wood with a thousand young .... nyarlathotep ... the abomination of abominations .... a huge, formless white polyplous thing with luminous eyes ... Mister Randy! Mister Randy! Wharbe ye? ... Haint she tuld ye to keep nigh the place in the arternoon an' git back afur dark?

(Luc Sante a few months ago wrote a marvelous Lovecraft piece in the New York Review of Books. He also wrote Evidence, a gruesome collection of NYPD Golden Era murder photography. A must-see is the 2006 film call of cthulhu which imitates silent films ...)

 

[Dr Doran]

History of the Peloponnesian War eh? Much to be learned from the account that still applies today.

Regards,

J

Hideously complex, utterly fascinating.

 

[HungaryTom]

Femme fatale

History of the Peloponnesian War eh? Much to be learned from the account that still applies today.

Regards,

J

I saw that thread too. I posted today there and mentioned the Trojan war....not by chance. I felt the tensions raising a few hours ago just like before a volcano erupts.

Than I went off to post at WWII.

Returning from there I saw all that war going on.

Too much beauty is very delicate: it started real life wars.

I can only say again: hats down to all the Ladies.

Regards

P.S. My fate took me already quite often to places where a few days/minutes hours later some kind of that thing happened.