What are you reading?

[Faust]

Re: What are you reading?

That sounds beautiful, but I can't help but wonder how nostalgia helps him realize the full experience of another life. Is he thinking along the lines of Proust here?

[dontbecruel]

Re: What are you reading?



Faust, I don't read the grammar here as meaning that nostalgia helps him understand other people. He only says that he is in a state of nostalgia when he tries to do this. I think "nostalgia" also means homesickness in Italian and here I think it refers to a lonesome, sentimental kind of reverie. I understand the lovely stanzas Laika quoted as meaning something like this:
"In a lonesome reverie, cut off from my fellow people, I make myself concentrate on the small details of life, try to understand everything. Eventually this allows me a window into other people's experience, but I wish I had a more natural compassion and real fellow-feeling for other individuals."
Excuse the literal, Empson-style paraphrase, but you know I like a bit of careful reading.
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[Faust]

Re: What are you reading?

Thanks, dbc - that makes sense. I guess the word "full" threw me off - how can one possibly realize the full experience? seems like wishful thinking no matter what one's state is.

[dontbecruel]

Re: What are you reading?



I think you're right though, when he says "fully" it implies that a complete sensation comes to him suddenly, in its entirety. This is a very Proustian idea.</p>

I'm reading Musil's "The Man Without Qualities":</p>

"There is something special about youthful friendships: they are like an egg that senses in its yolk its glorious future as a bird, even while it presents to the world only a rather expressionless egg shape... He tried to remember these conversations. It was like reaching on awakening for the last vasnishing, dreamlike thoughts of sleep. And he thought, in mild astonishment: When we were assertive in those days, the point was not to be right--it was to assert ourselves! A young man needs to shine, far more than he needs to see something in the light. He now felt the memory of the feeling of being young, that hovering on rays of light, as an aching loss."
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[Faust]

Re: What are you reading?

The whole thing? I've always wanted to read that book.

[hanajibu]

Re: What are you reading?

Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales" (recommended to me by our art director's father-in-law, since I was looking for 20th century Russian writers in translation) ? really stark/bleak stuff, written with the brevity of Chekhov.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>and completing Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" for the second time. I'm near the end where Hans meets Mynheer Peeperkorn so I read a chapter of this then a few of the stories from Shalamov's book.</DIV>

[Faust]

Re: What are you reading?

[quote user="hanajibu"]Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales" (recommended to me by our art director's father-in-law, since I was looking for 20th century Russian writers in translation) ? really stark/bleak stuff, written with the brevity of Chekhov.<div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div>and completing Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" for the second time. I'm near the end where Hans meets Mynheer Peeperkorn so I read a chapter of this then a few of the stories from Shalamov's book.</div>

[/quote]</p>

Read this. Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for the quality of translation.</p>

[hanajibu]

Re: What are you reading?

[quote user="Faust"]

Read this. Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for the quality of translation. </P>[/quote]<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Ha! I should have said, he recommended Erofeev as well (and Vassily Grossman), so I am on a search for these. Thanks!</DIV>

[Faust]

Re: What are you reading?

Ok, cool! BTW, not my personal recommendation, but as I've said a page or so back here, Summer in Baden-Baden is getting rave reviews everywhere.

[zamb]

Re: What are you reading?



Eternal Life?
life after death as a Medical, philosophical and theological problem- Hans Kung</p>

[laika]

Re: What are you reading?

[quote user="dontbecruel"]

I understand the lovely stanzas Laika quoted as meaning something like this:
"In a lonesome reverie, cut off from my fellow people, I make myself concentrate on the small details of life, try to understand everything. Eventually this allows me a window into other people's experience, but I wish I had a more natural compassion and real fellow-feeling for other individuals."
Excuse the literal, Empson-style paraphrase, but you know I like a bit of careful reading.
</p>

[/quote]</p>

I think that's exactly right; and incidentally, I first encountered that poem in an essay by John Berger, wherein he tries to relate the [lost] art of paying close attention to details to human compassion.
</p>

I like a bit of careful reading too. Lovely Musil passage, btw--emotional, vivid, yet perfectly exact and clear. And it reads especially nicely after Faust's mention of Proust, especially the comparison of "trying to remember," to awakening...that is very Proustian as well.
</p>

[Real Real]

Re: What are you reading?

-Walter Benjamin, Iluminations

-Baldessare Castiglione, Book of the Courtier



Just finished The Master and Margarita - terrific stuff.

[dontbecruel]

Re: What are you reading?



Yeah, Du côté de chez Swann, has the famous opening page which is actually the reverse of this - the imagination goes wandering as Marcel falls asleep. It was published in 1913 and I presume that Musil had read it before he embarked on his book because the kind of social satire he set out to write owes a great deal to Proust.</p>

I polished off another 100 pages of The Man WIthout... this afternoon while my son had a marathon cat-nap. It's very page-turning stuff. Not the hard slog I expected. I already have a pet-hate character plus a couple of allies in the book who are trying to bring about his downfall.
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[qnc.hst]

Re: What are you reading?

Currently barreling through Peter Carey's His Illegal Self... fairly enjoyable, very fast read...

[PCabrelli]

Re: What are you reading?



Reading a great pop novel: American Tabloid, James Elroy. Fantastic period (60s) detail. Check it out if you have the chance. </p>

Also impressing myself by reading some Nathaniel Hawthorne short stories.</p>

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Paolo</p>

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http://gentrystyle.com

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