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BOOKS: What are you reading?

Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan (1967), the first book in his Gormenghast trilogy is written in beautiful, literary prose. But as a fantasy of eccentric ritual, exaggerated caste and peculiar ornaments, it felt a little like a book for the dedicated Anglophile. I don't think I'm moving on to the next books.

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zoltanspawn said:
Are you going to read the whole series? I stopped after book one. But I'm watching the silly TV show.
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Yeah, I have the whole series on my amazon fire. I haven’t finished the first book yet though. I am enjoying it. And have enjoyed the first two seasons of the show.
 
zoltanspawn said:
Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan (1967), the first book in his Gormenghast trilogy is written in beautiful, literary prose. But as a fantasy of eccentric ritual, exaggerated caste and peculiar ornaments, it felt a little like a book for the dedicated Anglophile. I don't think I'm moving on to the next books.

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I've heard that referred to as a classic. Is it really that bad?
 
I'm reading Carthage Must Be Destroyed, a history of the city starting with the cultural pressures clear back when the Phoenicians were known as the Philistines and engaged in trade with the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah after it. One item that was amazing is how the social pressures led to adoption of near-monotheism among the Phoenicians and the implied interplay between them and Israel; another is how the nature of imperialism in the Mediterranean shifted from the Greek city-state model where a major city dominated vassal cities and colonies to a far more territorial-based version partly due to Assyrian ambition driving a need for the Phoenician cities to more directly control trade colonies and their surrounding territory; the third is that the Phoenicians were so efficient in finding and mining silver as far afield as the British Isles and the west coast of Africa that it led to inflation bad enough to cause the Assyrians to just conquer Tyre, Sidon and the other Phoenician cities, which cast Carthage out on its own and set it on a course of empire that eventually led to conflict with Rome.

I'm regularly amazed by how significantly knowing the background can make history look entirely different!
 
Oh -- and for lighter reading at the same time, I'm speeding through L. E. Modessit's The Parafaith War, which provides an interesting take on (man-made) religion. I have a suspicion that the direction the book is going is going to be fun!
 
Kulindahr said:
I've heard that referred to as a classic. Is it really that bad?
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Oh no, it's not a bad book at all. As I say, Mervyn Peake made a great pleasure of his words, to such an extent even that I think it fairly merits being called a classic. All parts of it are beautiful to read, even little bits:

Swelter's eyes meet those of his enemy, and never has there held between four globes of gristle so sinister a hell of hatred. Had the flesh, the fibres, and the bones of the chef and those of Mr Flay been conjured away and away down that dark corridor leaving only their four eyes suspended in mid-air outside the Earl's door, then, surely, they must have reddened to the hue of Mars, reddened and smouldered, and at last broken into flame, so intense was their hatred - broken into flame and circled about one another in ever-narrowing gyres and in swifter and yet swifter flight until, merged into one sizzling globe of ire they must surely have fled, the four in one, leaving a trail of blood behind them in the cold grey air of the corridor, until, screaming as they fly beneath innumerable arches and down the endless passageways of Gormenghast, they found their eyeless bodies once again, and reentrenched themselves in startled sockets.
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It just wasn't to my personal taste. (And I would think about whom I recommended it to.) There are engaging conflicts, but its more a novel about the sort of tradition (the ritual, the caste) that a very proud or very obsequious Brit might like. The Earl climbs flights of stairs to put four goblets of wine on a pillow to fulfill his stately proscriptions; the scheming villain advances beyond the measure of his lowly station.

The BBC made a genuinely awful adaptation of it that I can't force my way through. It's on youtube if you want to give it a sniff.
 
MakeDigitalLove said:
Started reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
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I started reading this yesterday. I'm about half way through and absolutely terrified that it's going to break my heart.

It's the first I've read from McCarthy and he has such a strange prose. It felt very clumsy at first with lots of simple declarative statements and what feels like an overuse of conjunctions. He pulled the plastic tarp off the boy and folded it and carried it out to the cart and came back with their plates and some food. He spread the tarp they used for a table on the ground and laid everything out and he took the pistol from his belt and laid it on the cloth and then he just sat there watching the boy sleep.

It was quite jarring at first but I suppose it's also an efficient way of describing a series of actions without the pauses and the filler. I think it's starting to grow on me as I get further into reading the book but I'm still unsure as to whether I like it or not when compared to a more traditional writing style. I've noticed a lack of quotation marks during dialogue as well but haven't had any issue figuring out who is talking when. There are clarifications every now and then but they're mostly kept to a minimum. I quite like that I think.

Either way, I'm enjoying the book despite the fear of heartbreak.
 
Sorry, but it is rough. I felt very depleted after reading it but I’m absolutely glad I did. It took me a little while to get into it as well but once I got comfortable with it I got sucked in and read it in like 2-3 days. Would have been less if not for work.

The movie version is actually pretty good too but if you enjoy the book and want to see the movie I’d wait a bit before watching it to keep your emotions in check.

It is my first McCarthy book and I plan to read No Country For Old Men in the future.

Unfortunately took a little break from reading untintentionally, gonna have to dive back in soon. I’m getting the itch again.
 
McCarthy's prose is even weirder in his other books. I've also read Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West a violent grotesque.

I love art that drains me emotionally (at least periodically.) Jose Saramago's Blindness comes to mind. You guys should totally consider it, if you are okay with eccentric prose and rough reads. A plague of blindness strikes a city and the consequences unfold in exacting, brutal yet redemptive turns...
 
I got a little bit carried away reading the second half of it. I intended to get through just a bit more before bed but suddenly it's 2:30am and I finished the whole thing. I felt my heart sink a few times throughout but it never quite broke. I do think I'll wait a while before I watch the movie though, and I might read something a bit lighter in the meantime. The heart needs a break. :lol:

I made the mistake of watching Call Me by Your Name a day or two after reading it about a month ago. It wasn't the greatest novel of all time, but it was quite good and perhaps due to the timing of reading it and how I'd been feeling in general, the end of that book absolutely destroyed me. I remember holding back tears for the last few pages and completely breaking down as I read the last word. I wasn't affected in the same way by the movie, but the last scene got me and I can't hear Mystery of Love or Visions of Gideon without a reminder of how I felt that night reading those last words. Sufjan Stevens truly did an amazing job. Credits to André Aciman and Luca Guadagnino too, of course.

I gave myself a two book buffer between that and braving The Road, and I think I'll do the same before I read Blindness. It sounds interesting and I have a similar love for novels that drain me emotionally, even if I can't read them back to back.
 
I accidentally watched Grave of the Fireflies the day after I watched Dancer in the Dark. :cry:

:lol:
 
The complete romances of chretien de troyes
a history of the ancient near east
the golden chain
 
zoltanspawn said:
She begins to writhe, cackle, and cough out her laughter uncontrollably. Her eyes watering, she nearly poos. Bob spies what might be a dime-sized and expanding moisture blossom from her rear-end-center, signifying perhaps some minimal ass-piss.

:lol:

I'm not reading it, but the review is hilarious and this is where we talk about books.
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I read some entries yesterday from this book, holy hell it seems to be bloated with a guy that just learned a bunch of new words that he thinks sounds smart.
 
zoltanspawn said:
I accidentally watched Grave of the Fireflies the day after I watched Dancer in the Dark. :cry:

:lol:
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Grave of the Fireflies is on a list on mine where I possibly can’t watch again because it hits really hard. What an emotional roller coaster.

Another one is the Documentary Dear, Zachary. Incredibly heartbreaking and you’ll run out of tears by the end.
 
After much family sadness in January 2018, I have found a series of novels known as the Pennsylvania Dutch Mysteries by Tamar Myers. I find the books a fun and entertaining read before I go to sleep.....I love these characters. Miss Magdalena Yoder, baby!:)
 
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