What are you reading?

[Real Real]

Re: Re:

[quote user="Faust"]

IMHO, Master and Margarita is the best book of the 20th Century. Thumbs up for The Road.
</p>[/quote]



Master and Margarita is great and raw, but I think Mann's Doctor Faustus is more accomplished. Both great books, anyways. I don't know Russian, though.



I finished McCarthy's Suttree a month or so ago (took a couple of passes to get through the first 150 pages, and then it took off), and it's now one of my favorites of his novels. It's more laid back and more comic than any of his other books that I've read, even if Suttree still hits on the same basic theme McCarthy's been working since Blood Meridian.

[Faust]

Re: Re:

I haven't read Doctor Faustus, to he honest, so can't judge [51]

[Real Real]

Re: Re:

Based on the taste you've shown in this thread, I think you'd like it. Have you read Magic Mountain, any of Mann's other stuff?



Ah - I read Perfume yesterday, too. Literate but very very entertaining book, it was a best seller a while ago, made into a movie a few years ago. Translated from German, set in 1700 France, about this orphan who emits no smell but has the world's most perfect sense of smell. He becomes a sort of monster. Really good, easy to blow through, I think SZ would like it.

[Faust]

Re: Re:



Perfume is awesome - it was a cult hit in Russia, never really made it in the English speaking world, I think (or maybe it did as you say for a little while). Too bad the film is so shitty.</p>

I've only read Death in Venice. My friend, who is a brilliant pianist, absolutely loves Dr. Faustus though.
</p>

[BECOMING-INTENSE]

Re: Re:



A danish translation of ...</p>

Berliner Kindheit um Neunzehnhundert Walter Benjamin</p>

[51]</p>

[maldoror]

Speaking of Genius



[quote user="Real Real"]

I finished McCarthy's Suttree a month or so ago (took a couple of passes to get through the first 150 pages, and then it took off), and it's now one of my favorites of his novels. It's more laid back and more comic than any of his other books that I've read, even if Suttree still hits on the same basic theme McCarthy's been working since Blood Meridian.[/quote]</p>

The prose in Suttree may be McCarthy's finest. It's one of those books that's just so well written it's more dismaying than inspiring, at least with regard to technique. Overall, I think Blood Meridian is a far greater variation on the theme, and probably the best book he will ever write, even if the language doesn't achieve the same poetic pinnacles of certain other books in his oevre (e.g., Suttree, The Crossing).</p>

On the subject of sickeningly good writing, I just finished reading Tree of Smoke. This text redefines "epic." (even if it's not as plain enjoyable as Jesus' Son) </p>

Currently dividing my time between:</p>

Alain Badiou - The Handbook of Inaesthetics</p>

&amp;</p>

W.G. Sebald - Austerlitz.</p>

The combination of the two is causing me to entirely rethink my thesis (for better or worse . . . )
</p>

[Faust]

Re: Speaking of Genius

How is Sebald? It was highly recommended to me.

[maldoror]

Re: Speaking of Genius



[quote user="Faust"]How is Sebald? It was highly recommended to me.
[/quote]</p>

A quiet revelation. Although he claims to write in the mold of Thomas Bernhard, his prose induce a hypnotic reading effect unlike anything else I know of. I previously read The Emigrants, which I thought was excellent. So far, it seems as though Austerlitz might be (even) better.
</p>

[JSebbe]

Re: Re:

[quote user="destroyed"]

Wow. This thread got huge!</p>

I am reading Norwegian Wood by Murakami. I am determined to like him but I am beginning to wonder if it is worth it (I have a few of his books under my belt). Mann's Magic Mountain keeps on being brought up in the novel (the protagonist is reading it) and the mere mention of that book makes me melt (I honestly have to stop reading and :le sigh:); shouldn't Murakami have that same effect?</p>

</p>

I expect I will keep reading more Murakami until I get it. (Having reached my quota of parenthetical asides, I will end this post here.)
</p>

[/quote]</p>

</p>

woaa, norwegian wood is one of me favorite books of all time! And Murakami beeing one of my top authors as well.
</p>

[klangspiel]

Re: Speaking of Genius



[quote user="maldoror"]Alain Badiou - The Handbook of Inaesthetics[/quote]</p>

i empathise wholeheartedly with the position proposed by this book. trying to negotiate the scylla</p>

of a pure romanticisation of an artwork and the charybdis of a distanced (but not necessarily disaffected) reflection.</p>

i just don't know how successful it is in achieving that position particularly if you desire
</p>

a pure "aesthetician"'s thought rather than one that is philosophical (in the sense that badiou understands the notion). </p>

on that note, i much prefer the tome that he wrote back in the late 80s. </p>

what is your thesis on?
</p>

[Faust]

Re: The Road



[quote user="Faust"]William Vollmann - Europe Central
[/quote]</p>

Ok, I gave up after 200 pages. After a while I started to feel that the author is more preoccupied with his erudition and his use of the English language rather than with the fact that he is writing a novel. Nor am I interested in reading a half-phony biography of Akhmatova and Shostakovich, even though I like the work of both. I started reading The White Guard by Bulgakov instead. Oh, and I ordered Austerlitz, The Blood Meridian, and Doctor Faustus thanks to you guys. [Y]</p>

[destroyed]

books



I LOVED Norwegian Wood by the time I reached the end. Morbidity plus boner city equals win!</p>

Have you read other Vollman, Faust? The Ice Shirt was incredible, I thought. And Butterfly Stories was nauseating and sexy at the same time.</p>

I am going to try Master &amp; Margarita next, perhaps...
</p>

[Faust]

Re: books

no, this is the first one.

[maldoror]

Re: Speaking of Genius

[quote user="klangspiel"]

[quote user="maldoror"]Alain Badiou - The Handbook of Inaesthetics[/quote]</p>

i empathise wholeheartedly with the position proposed by this book. trying to negotiate the scylla</p>

of a pure romanticisation of an artwork and the charybdis of a distanced (but not necessarily disaffected) reflection.</p>

i just don't know how successful it is in achieving that position particularly if you desire
</p>

a pure "aesthetician"'s thought rather than one that is philosophical (in the sense that badiou understands the notion). </p>

on that note, i much prefer the tome that he wrote back in the late 80s. </p>

what is your thesis on?
</p>

[/quote]</p>

the abstract of the abstract: my thesis is an aesthetic inquiry into the spatiality of uncanny experience. it focuses on a modeling of uncanny space by way of haunted space through the tension between derrida's specter (of history) and abraham's (psychological) phantom. The self-contained otherness of space ("self" here as self, i.e., yourself) leads into a discussion of minkowski's dark space and eventually caillois's legendary psychasthenia, which I really like, but may have to remove in the interest of concise cohesion.</p>

the sole object of the work was originally gregor schneider's totes haus ur, but I'm thinking now I might supplement it with Austerlitz in the interest of a more WWII-centered analysis of schneider's work. undecided about this direction and the tenability of its position.</p>

~~~
</p>

RE: Being and Event, I've read excerpts, but haven't plunged that deeply into the concepts. I have a friend who swears by it, but set theory is like porn for him. Being more math-phobic myself, and having only minimal set theory background, I'm worried I won't get that much out of it. Maybe I'm wrong?</p>

~~~
</p>

What's your background in critical theory? It's rare that I find other people who are into this stuff. Feel free to PM me if you think we're getting too off topic here . . .
</p>

[Real Real]

Re: What are you reading?

[quote user="Real Real"]William T. Vollmann - "You Bright and Risen Angels". I don't know if I'm going to finish this one. I'm not really feeling it so far.[/quote]



Same thing happened to me - I made it maybe 100 pages through the book.