Now Reading Thread

[kmik]

Ah, that sounds cool, probably very Nietzschean... Are you familiar with the others? All are supposed to be very good (or, at least, uhm "first rate second rates")

[speed]

Originally Posted by kmik

Ah, that sounds cool, probably very Nietzschean... Are you familiar with the others? All are supposed to be very good (or, at least, uhm "first rate second rates")

Barthelme yes. I'm not a fan of Pynchon.

I began reading a most wonderful author today: Daniil Kharms. Truly, truly interesting writing. A collection of his works (from short stories, to aphorisms, poems, plays, one line stories) Today I Wrote Nothing was just translated into English this year. Anyway, he's a uniquely absurd futurist Soviet-era Russian writer. Sort of a cross between a Symbolist (Bely, BLok, etc), Gogol and Bulgakov, and say Beckett. Honestly, I've never read anything so wonderfully eccentric and unusual before in my life. He attempted in his poetry to create actual things with his words--to make his writing a reality. I think from a philosophical point of view, any fan of Wittegenstein or Heidegger would love him.

[apaintedredlove]

Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche.

[kmik]

What did you think of Barthelme?

I read:

Wuthering Heights - a bit depressing, but very well written. I was sure it was like Jane Austen
The Waves - amazing, but I have to re-read that; plus there were no characters as much as there were "impulses" and I was emotionally distant
Ford Madox Ford - The Good Soldier - Still in the beginning, but I don't really like the style... maybe it gets better later on

[Blowtus]

Just finished The Idiot by Dostoevsky and The Antichrist by Nietzsche. Have begun on Crime and Punishment.

[kmik]

Originally Posted by Blowtus

Just finished The Idiot by Dostoevsky and The Antichrist by Nietzsche. Have begun on Crime and Punishment.

How I envy you Reading this for the first time is so terrifying... A word of advice, though: the murder is not the focus of the story. This book is actually two novels put together, so don't dismiss the other things and just "wait for the action". And pay attention very, very closely to the murder scene because there's something that happens there that's really awesome but really subtle

Ah and another thing: does anybody know what are considered the best Tolstoy and Dostoevsky translations? (what does Bloom use )

[Blowtus]

The (very) brief look in to it I did left me with the impression the recent Pevear / Volokhonsky offerings were the most generally acclaimed.

[kmik]

Good to know. I read Maude for Tolstoy and I think they're the best, better than Garnett definitely. They received Tolstoy's approval. Dostoevsky's prose is pretty bad, anyway, so I think translators should take freedom in translating them but these guys are known as pedantic so I'm not sure. Plus it feels wrong to read something recommended by Oprah :x

[EyeballKid]

The Sandman, Volume 8: World's End by Neil Gaiman.

[kmik]

I started to read "The Magic Mountain" yesterday like 150 pages in but it seems like a very boring book. He explicitly states his themes and his symbolism is either embarrassingly obvious (he prefers his grandfather's portrait to his grandfather) or too cryptic, and the characters are carriers of ideologies rather than people. Anyone read it? Does it get better later on ?

[derek]

I think better later on is perhaps the wrong way to look at it. I'd thoroughly recommend reading the entire book and then seeing how you feel then.

It's a strange one, but I think you need to attempt to understand your criticisms as a required response to the text. The critical work on this is legion, so I'd say finsish the book, mull it over and maybe dip into some of the secondary literature afterwards.