What Are You Reading

[Harp]

I think, Stendhal could have wanted to give a warning for what burning egoism and class-war mentality (especially Julien) could bring you to, in the end.

A realist to the core. Balzac admired his style. Have you read The Charterhouse of Parma?
If so, did you like it? I always meant to go back to Stendhal for this one particular title.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Have you read The Charterhouse of Parma?

Nope, but I will surely do, anytime in the future.

At the moment, I don't know, what I will read next. But I will definitely avoid the contemporary stuff, I'm experienced with, like all these novels with 200 pages, bloated to 400 pages.

 

[Harp]

Nope, but I will surely do, anytime in the future.

At the moment, I don't know, what I will read next. But I will definitely avoid the contemporary stuff, I'm experienced with, like all these novels with 200 pages, bloated to 400 pages.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is always a good bet for brevity's sake.

 

[Eyeofsauron]

I just finished the Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien. This is really for hardcore nerds only as it really isn't a novel, but a collection of stories put together. If you've seen the movie, or better, read the Lord of the Rings, then this will give some context to some of the story. I've read it several times and have gotten something new each time.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

 

[Harp]

John le Carre's memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel. His erudite tone and pin point accuracy across subject
sets a standard seldom seen among others of the genre.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Started (translated) "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Letters - A selection" (1964), by Henschelverlag Berlin (GDR), today.

Starts in December 1769

 

[Trenchfriend]

Oh my, young Mozart is so arrogant, combined with austrian sarkasm.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Delicious, just delicious...

 

[Trenchfriend]

Oops, I forgot one book.

In March, I read S. K. Tremayne "The Fire Child" (2016). It was okay, halfway thrilling, but in the end a 200 pages-story, bloated to 400 pages.

 

[ChiTownScion]

An Honest Writer: The Life and Times of James T. Farrell , by Robert K. Landers (2004).


I fell in love with the works of Farrell when I was working construction during that summer between high school and college. I began, of course, devouring the Studs Lonigan trilogy (Young Lonigan, The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan, Judgement Day), and I continued my undergrad years, Farrell's short stories and the five books of the Danny O' Neill series. Studs and his 58th Street pals were the incarnations of many guys I knew in real life: he had the whole Irish American ethnic dynamic down to a science.

Landers plumbs the depths of Farrell's turbulent childhood and names names as to the real life inspirational sources of fictional characters, but he also deals with Farrell's personal political odyssey from Trotskyite to democratic socialist. There's also detail as to his marital troubles and conflicts with publishers. Definitely, all I needed or wanted to know about the man is here.

 

[Harp]

An Honest Writer: The Life and Times of James T. Farrell , by Robert K. Landers (2004).


I fell in love with the works of Farrell... Studs and his 58th Street pals were the incarnations of many guys I knew in real life: he had the whole Irish American ethnic dynamic down to a science.[/QUOTE

I hail 81st Marshfield and Farrell rings true with Studs and set.
__________

Dovetailing the Kavanaugh imbroglio is RL Hasen's incisive yet ideological lapsed The Justice of Contradictions;
another toss from bleacher section academe, its predictable direction proves an inherently flawed study of the late Antonin Scalia.

 

[1967Cougar390]

I started reading the Federalist Papers last night. In today’s political climate it’s a great view into the complexities of a constitutional government. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published great theories outlining and paving the way for the United States Constitution. I’m enjoying it and I look forward to reading more this evening.

Steven

 

[ChiTownScion]

I had an English prof in college who told me that she had attended a conference where Farrell was a speaker: described him as pathetic, "..like an over the hill boxer trying to still give it a go in the ring and getting beaten mercilessly." As I read about his difficulties with publishers later in his life, I found out that much of the tension came out of an inability to fulfill obligations on advances. I was upset with Bill Watterson when he discontinues Calvin and Hobbes, but I can appreciate that sometimes, no matter how gifted the artist, the muse has departed. Now I'm glad that Watterson knew when to leave the party.

The writer who still tries to keep things going when there is no longer anything as spellbinding there, well, it's just sad to witness. Farrell was brilliant, talented, and perceptive as to what was on his landscape, and he inspired other writers as well: Terkel, Hamill, Dos Passos, Mailer, Schlesinger, and others. As much as he tried to distance himself from Studs later on, the sad fact is that he could never outdo his earlier works. And sadly, the very realism of Studs that made Farrell famous (and in some circles, infamous) is now cause for him being overlooked.

 

[Harp]

I had an English prof in college who told me that she had attended a conference where Farrell was a speaker: described him as pathetic, "..like an over the hill boxer trying to still give it a go in the ring and getting beaten mercilessly."

Algren and Ellison immediately come to mind. Algren though was his own worst enemy in so many ways.
________________

I started reading the Federalist Papers last night. In today’s political climate it’s a great view into the complexities of a constitutional government. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published great theories outlining and paving the way for the United States Constitution. I’m enjoying it and I look forward to reading more this evening.

Steven

Hamilton's Federalist remarks on the judiciary: #78-83 are among his finest.

 

[Fading Fast]

I started reading the Federalist Papers last night. In today’s political climate it’s a great view into the complexities of a constitutional government. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published great theories outlining and paving the way for the United States Constitution. I’m enjoying it and I look forward to reading more this evening.

Steven

I've done the same - it is amazing how relevant those writing are to today's environment. Sometimes it feels as if they were writing to our specific events.

 

[Fading Fast]

"On Chesil Beach" by Ian McEwan

I bought this book after seeing its movie as I assumed there'd be more character background and story depth to the okay-but-thin-overall movie - I was wrong. The book and movie are all but the same as both leave you somewhat engaged but disappointed.

The basic story, set in late '50s England, is of a young couple - kids just out of college and both awkward in their own way - who meet, fall in love, plan to marry, wait to consummate their marriage (yes, some did that back then) and, then, the wheels come off the bus (told in excruciatingly minute detail) right at the, um, critical moment.

Their family background, upbringing and life experiences provide some explanation - and a notorious one is hinted at in the book and movie - but ultimately, you have to form your own opinion as to why, in particular, this already broken girl froze completely and then fled on her wedding night.

Both the book and movie took too long to get to that point and then sped too fast to the finish - or I'm wrong and that was all the story the author wanted to tell. The movie director seems to have agreed with me as he built out more of the after-things-went-oh-so-horribly-wrong part of the story showing how these two built separate lives with the long shadow of a terrible night and early annulled marriage haunting them.

Unfortunately, the book rushes through that part of the story leaving the movie director not much to work with nor us much additional information to glean from the book. Oh well, it was a beautifully filmed movie, an engaging-in-places story and a quick read as a book, so not much lost and something gained. I still feel there was more there than McEwan wanted or was willing to tell.

 

[Bushman]

Uncle Tom's Cabin as a substitute for my assigned reading.

 

[Harp]

...as a substitute for my assigned reading.

?what were you assigned? just campus curious.

Chicago Sun Times this dawn at Starbucks waiting for the Rock Island. Looks like the Astros might repeat.

 

[Bushman]

?what were you assigned? just campus curious.

Chicago Sun Times this dawn at Starbucks waiting for the Rock Island. Looks like the Astros might repeat.

The choices were either The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, or some other book that I can't remember the title of at the moment. But our professor gave us the choice of reading a book of our choice upon her approval, and I already owned Uncle Tom's Cabin and had been planning on reading it.

 

[Harp]

... our professor gave us the choice of reading a book of our choice upon her approval...

I found Solomon Northrup's Twelve Years a Slave (1853) a classic in American letters.