Originally posted by thehouseofdis
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Originally posted by todestrieb View Post^What did you expect from it? Not my favourite Perec by any margin. La Disparition (translated into the English as A Void) wins it for me by some stretch.
Nothing more than a Huysmans wannabe. And without the erudition, the panache, the danger, the elegance, and the intensity to match, prosaically and culturally speaking. If that's not bad enough, he wrote in the most retarded language known to mankind, English.
BTW, the Lermontov is a top read. Read it numerous times. Interestingly enough, I picked up a piece of Russian literature myself. A new translation of Andrey Platonov's The Foundation Pit.
"Amazon have an annoying way of jumbling together reviews of different translations. This is intended as a review of the NYRB CLassics edition of THE FOUNDATION PIT. I myself have translated this book twice - in 1994 for The Harvill Press, and in 2009, in collaboration with my wife Elizabeth and the American scholar Olga Meerson, for NYRB Classics. I wanted to retranslate 'The Foundation Pit' for two reasons. First, the original text was never published in Platonov's lifetime, and the first posthumous publications - on which our Harvill translation was based - are now known to have been severely bowdlerized. Our NYRB version is the only English translation of Platonov's definitive text. Second, Platonov is very hard to translate. In the early 1990s I was working in the dark. During the last 15 years, however, I have been regularly attending Platonov seminars and conferences in Moscow and Petersburg. One indication of how deeply many Russian writers and critics admire Platonov is the extent of their generosity to his translators; I now have a large list of people I can turn to for help. Above all, I have the good fortune to have as my closest collaborators - my wife, who shares my love of Platonov - and the brilliant American scholar, Olga Meerson. Olga was brought up in the Soviet Union, she was once a fine violinist, she has a profound knowledge of Russian Orthodoxy, and she has written an excellent book about Platonov. She has deepened my understanding of almost every sentence of 'Soul' and 'The Foundation Pit'. Platonov, by the way, is a wonderful writer. No other work of literature means so much to me that I have wanted to translate it TWICE!"
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I just finished reading "The Cinnamon Shops" (not sure of the english title) by Bruno Schulz. Completely incredible book, I have to buy the other one
Am about to start reading "Institute Benjamenta" by Robert Walser
I do have to thank the Quay Brothers for introducing me to all this litterature, it's opened avenues of litterature to explore...
re. Wilde: I like him well enough, although he is kind of a smartass. Ballad of Reading Gaol was fairly haunting though, probably becuse it was actually honestLast edited by galia; 08-24-2010, 10:51 AM.
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Point Omega - DeLillo goes Antonioni via Hitchcock (the other way around?) in this elegant sliver of a novel. Concise and appropriately fleeting in how it communicates the possible nothingness in an idea, not a word more or less. It's the kind of book that can only be conceived and completed at the point where there's nothing left to write
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Perhaps a bit slow on the uptake, but only just completed The Remains of the Day. beautiful not in plot but in the feeling of slightly regret-tinged nostalgia that starts coming through mid-way onwards. Mr. Stevens' voice took a little getting used to though.
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HashishLast edited by jgan85; 04-05-2011, 08:52 PM.
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I am going to finish Finding Time Again tomorrow. I've been reading In Search of Time incredibly slowly, punctuated with other stuff (I started the series last Labor Day).
I had a good rhythm going for most of that time (except for maybe during parts of Guermantes Way), reading most of it in 2-3 hour sessions on the weekend. Over the last month or so, it feels like been impossible for me to find more than an hour to do much of anything requiring concentration - but I've got this weekend entirely to myself.
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Real Real, I applaud you. I want my attention span back, too.Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde
StyleZeitgeist Magazine
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Just finished Thomas Bernhard - Korrektur (english title is correction), anybody familiar with the author? Was the second book in a row I read by him... Really a good read with a unique style. Strinking redundancy, quite long sentences which are like they've just written down from the mind. Can't tell about the english translations though.
Now reading Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra (in German, of course).
Maybe you guys can recommend me some good books, I am recently trying to approach some philosophical work, yet I still find it very hard to follow the thoughts of the "classics". Some advice to what to start with would be appreciated
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Patti Smith's Just Kids. Am not very acquainted with her music and other creative work, but enjoying this wistful memoir. There is a current of sadness running through these recollections...the romance and inspiration of artists' lives and communities captured within seems to be on a kind of edge, as if their lives are inevitably bound to some tragedy and suffering that has to come around the corner no matter what.
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The Hare with Amber eyes, by Edmund de Waal
I really think this book will interest a lot of SZ, I can't hlp but feel it really adheres to the SZ sentiments and interests..... De Waal traces a set of inherited netsuke back to his ancestor in Paris in the 19th century - J K Huysmans, Guy De Maupassant, Proust etc all feature in the mycelium of relations and threads of lives that he explores, his writing is sumptuous and tender - a real joy to read. The text is never flourishing, or indulgent or breathless, just beautiful, touching and concise.
The most SZ related aspect however is his appreciative, indulgent descriptions of things, he loves the textures, appearance, nature and soul of objects and antiques, De Waal's prose about woods and ivories are enchanting and his heightened appreciated of bibelots reminds me of the possibly stylezeitgeistian appreciation for a deep, dark linen or a fragile light cashmere in all of the clothes we love....
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