What are you reading?

[Fade to Black]

The two Saul Bellow books I've read (Humboldt's Gift and Herzog) are great companions, read them as I did in my current state of quarterlife existential angst and confusion. Not sure if I'd classify them as the lightest of literary possibilities though.

Finished Pale Fire today, the book is structurally quite brilliant in its narrative symmetry, in that everything that came before starts coming into focus as the end gets nearer while opening up a newer horizon of questions after the book is closed. Very complex reading experience though, will have to take some time off from the heavyweights after that.

[nictan]

The two Saul Bellow books I've read (Humboldt's Gift and Herzog) are great companions, read them as I did in my current state of quarterlife existential angst and confusion. Not sure if I'd classify them as the lightest of literary possibilities though.

Finished Pale Fire today, the book is structurally quite brilliant in its narrative symmetry, in that everything that came before starts coming into focus as the end gets nearer while opening up a newer horizon of questions after the book is closed. Very complex reading experience though, will have to take some time off from the heavyweights after that.

thank you for putting it into words. i couldn't quite grasp it.

and thanks, they dont exactly have to be really light readings, but just not something too complex, that i fall asleep before i grasp anything.

i'll try out Humboldt's Gift and Herzog. not sure if the library has them though. how thick are they thought?

are those that you mentioned novels, (as in stories)? or more of 'insight reading', if you get what i mean

[Fade to Black]

They are novels. How thick...hmm I'd say they're midsized reads, in the 300-400 pager range. Should be good to last you a full week per book.

[nictan]

thanks will definitely check them out next week.

other suggestions will be much appreciated as well

[klangspiel]

in spite of the title, the book is hardly vampiric, nor about vampires.
more broadly, using the publisher's description, it's "a mixture of theoretical treatise and breathless poetic prose, personal confession and scientific investigation". more specifically, i see it as a poetic soliloquy of the internal tensions that exist within the author's own deliberation of and extension on a problem / tenet inherent to "surrealism", i.e., the "surrealist object". engaging stuff. one for the masses.

the book is quite a classic, albeit one that has languished in obscurity for a number of decades now. this english translation, which i believe is the first, is lovingly rendered and presented. comes complete with original photos by luca of his "objects" interspersed throughout the book.

sidenote: why do I always feel closest to the craziest and most depressing women artists ? her, diane arbus...

if you're heading in that direction, may i suggest nelly sachs and unica zürn? it's interesting to note that sachs and bachmann have something intimately in common during their respective lives: a certain paul celan. zürn is more widely known as a visual artist, chiefly through her drawings, but she's an amazing writer as well.

SPELEOLOGIE

André Frédérique, Histoires blanches.

this is truly wonderful.
please post more here.

As a 16th century Sufi poet once said, "eccentricity in itself does not exist, only what we have yet to know and understand".

that must be your neighbour from pakistan, ahmed, yea?
sagely fella that one. i hear he's been on some heavy medication lately.
bloke's gone celestial.

[Mail-Moth]

Haha, nice to see that sad clown gain a bit more recognition ! For a sad clown he was.

My contribution. André Frédérique was quite talented for family nightmares.

EN VISITE

Mon père m'amène dans des réunions savantes pour me montrer. Faisant remarquer à l'assistance que je ne me lave pas, il a beau se gendarmer, rien ne peut me tirer de ma crasse. Et il se bouche le nez ostensiblement dans ma direction. Je me trouble. Ma confusion est extrême. Les mots que je veux dire pour expliquer s'étranglent dans ma gorge. Il en tire argument pour justifier la honte que j'ai de ma malpropreté.
Si je réussis à m'isoler dans un coin sur une chaise pour digérer l'affront, il revient à la charge accompagné d'un troupeau de savants qui font cercle autour de moi et tire de sa poche une loupe pour l'examen des lentes et des productions qui envahissent ma chevelure. Sous mes revers il paraît ramener au bout de ses ongles de gros insectes qu'il rejette au loin avec dégout.
Comme chacun se récrie devant ma saleté, il feint soudain l'indulgence, sort de son gilet un pulvérisateur et me vaporise pour me rendre service. Puis il entraîne tout son monde avec lui pour me laisser ruminer à mon aise. Je les entends chuchoter longuement dans les couloirs. Le vide s'est fait autour de moi.
Après un long temps pendant lequel j'ai dormi un domestique vient me frapper l'épaule. "La fête est terminée", dit-il.

As for this one, I'd say it's quite fitting here, on this website.

INTIMITE

Derrière la plaque de plomb, il y a une plaque d'acier. Derrière la plaque d'acier, une plaque de bois (souple). Derrière celle-ci, une plaque de feutre, puis une plaque de liège, une de matière plastique inconnue, ensuite trois draps. Après trois draps, un rouleau de soierie qu'il faut dévider, des ficelles croisées enduites de poix, cinq tours de dentelle à petit point, une feuille de papier brouillard, une de papier bulle huilée qui laisse deviner la robe par transparence. La robe ôtée, les dessous enlevés (et ma femme est frileuse) la voilà en petite chemise.
Pour qu'elle la retire, ah ! non, je préfère renoncer. Tous les soirs, même cérémonial. Ces coquetteries qui m'exaspèrent devant le miroir, des heures durant. Ces voiles qui tombent, jusqu'au dernier, qui ne cède pas. Qu'y a-t-il derrière ? parfois je me mets à chercher parmi tous les voiles quelque chose qui rappelle une odeur humaine. Rien. Même pas de tiédeur.
Sous l'armure qu'ils m'ont donnée, où les beaux parents ont-ils caché l'épouse ? Toujours chercher.

Tonight, about to reread some poems from Pierre Morhange's La Vie est unique. This one too is worth discovering.

EPIGRAMME

Encore mal dormi cette nuit
A cause du bal d'en face
Et à cause de ma vie.

(Very approximative translation :

Didn't sleep well tonight, once more
Because of the bal across the street
And because of my life.)

[galia]

if you're heading in that direction, may i suggest nelly sachs and unica zürn? it's interesting to note that sachs and bachmann have something intimately in common during their respective lives: a certain paul celan. zürn is more widely known as a visual artist, chiefly through her drawings, but she's an amazing writer as well.

Thanks for the advice, I wrote it down and will check it out. It's always good to engage in stuff that makes you feel suicidal

[TheNotoriousT]

Have just finished "Sexus" for the fifth time. "Plexus" is up next and it won't be the last time.
Everybody should read the "The Rosy Crucifixion" at least once IMO!

[Nemesis_4]

Currently reading the Count of Monte Cristo (by none other than Alexandre Dumas) and loving every page of it

- And Dumas obviously has a great body of work, but any recommendations what to read next of his?

[Faust]

/\ Are you American? Not trying to belittle you - just curious. Americans seem not to know who Dumas is, one of the more mind-boggling culture differences I've encountered.

Anyway, The Three Musketeers, of course :-) And the sequel, Twenty Years After. There is also another sequel, Ten Years After (I think in English they break it up into three different books), but it's incredibly long and overwrought. Also, Queen Margot. Can't vouch for the translations of the titles, I've read them all in Russian when I was like 12-13.

[Nemesis_4]

/\ Are you American? Not trying to belittle you - just curious. Americans seem not to know who Dumas is, one of the more mind-boggling culture differences I've encountered.

Anyway, The Three Musketeers, of course :-) And the sequel, Twenty Years After. There is also another sequel, Ten Years After (I think in English they break it up into three different books), but it's incredibly long and overwrought. Also, Queen Margot. Can't vouch for the translations of the titles, I've read them all in Russian when I was like 12-13.

Haha, yes I am American, and actually I was just browsing through the "Classics" book section at Borders a little while ago and came across "The Count of Monte Cristo" and I just kind of took a chance on it, and I absolutely love Dumas' writing style

- I'm actually quite embarrassed that I haven't heard of Dumas before considering he wrote as you said the "The Three Musketeers" haha

[TadaoAndo]

Recently been reading philosophy by Hakim Bey and poetry by Mahmoud Darwish.

[TadaoAndo]

And a really great little book called 'The Autobiography of Red' by Anne Carson.

[Faust]

You two should form an "obscure cult French books" club. What the fuck is this stuff, really?

[Mail-Moth]

It's litterature adressing to itself. Some precious and suffocating microcosmos - as exciting, dangerous and vain as being slowly strangled by a young girl in rubber gloves, laying on the brownish sofa of a modern boudoir.

(Yes, yes, even Jabes.)