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[jazzbo]

Re-reading (though the first time I've read this in paperback)

 

 

[ejp626]

I'm supposed to be reading Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust, but I am putting that back a week.

Instead I am reading Elizabeth Jane Howard's After Julius.  The writing is quite good, though I am having trouble relating to many of the characters.  There are 5 main characters who all converge on a country house for a weekend, and each chapter is written from a different character's perspective.  It all feels a bit contrived.

[A Lark Ascending]

Fascinating account of the ad hoc imperialism of the first half of Victoria's reign up to 1861 (things got much more systematic in the latter part of her reign as powerful rivals emerged and communications improved to allow greater direction from London). The Afghan and Sikh wars, Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny and the the attack on China in the late 1850s. David tells the tale without making judgements about the imperialism except lightly in the concluding chapter. I'm just staggered that Britain has got anyone left talking to it in the rest of the world. The arrogance, brutality and downright theft is appalling. Down the years I remember several Tory spokespeople on education advocating a teaching of the British Empire to children emphasising how it was a 'good thing'. Unbelievable.  

[Leeway]

Enjoyed Hardy's The Return of the Native, but oddly could only read it in rather small segments, like a too rich dessert. 

Also read:

Vol. 4 in the Chronicles of Barsetshire.  Pretty enjoyable. Many of the Barset characters make an appearance in this one. 

[Brad]

9 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

Fascinating account of the ad hoc imperialism of the first half of Victoria's reign up to 1861 (things got much more systematic in the latter part of her reign as powerful rivals emerged and communications improved to allow greater direction from London). The Afghan and Sikh wars, Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny and the the attack on China in the late 1850s. David tells the tale without making judgements about the imperialism except lightly in the concluding chapter. I'm just staggered that Britain has got anyone left talking to it in the rest of the world. The arrogance, brutality and downright theft is appalling. Down the years I remember several Tory spokespeople on education advocating a teaching of the British Empire to children emphasising how it was a 'good thing'. Unbelievable.  

Queen Victoria's Little Wars is also a good read. 

[A Lark Ascending]

5 hours ago, Brad said:

Queen Victoria's Little Wars is also a good read. 

Thanks - I now have a big gap up to (and including) The Boer War. This seems to cover it - reviews are good on Amazon. 

[ejp626]

On 3/30/2016 at 11:48 AM, ejp626 said:

I'm supposed to be reading Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust, but I am putting that back a week.

Instead I am reading Elizabeth Jane Howard's After Julius.  The writing is quite good, though I am having trouble relating to many of the characters.  There are 5 main characters who all converge on a country house for a weekend, and each chapter is written from a different character's perspective.  It all feels a bit contrived.

I really did not like the main plot points of this book as they unfolded.  A few characters were amusing, particularly this ancient Major who turns up at a dinner party (not one of the main 5 characters), but on the whole After Julius is a book to avoid.

Starting Intruder in the Dust tonight.

The library has just come through with Achebe's No Longer at Ease and Highsmith's The Price of Salt (I expected this would take another couple of weeks), so those will be next.

[A Lark Ascending]

Another excellent Le Carre. What is extraordinary about his 60s books is that for most of their length they seem to deal with petty irritabilities within bureaucracies. Acts of daring do or violence are few and far between. This one cleverly has you trying to track down a supposed defector to the Soviet Union only to turn the tables in the last 50 pages and find the disappearance has a very different motivation. Lots of exploration of Germany's post-war identity crisis and Britain's troubles facing loss of world status. And a very topical sub-theme about Britain's angling to enter the 'Common Market'. 

Edited April 3, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[BillF]

20 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I really did not like the main plot points of this book as they unfolded.  A few characters were amusing, particularly this ancient Major who turns up at a dinner party (not one of the main 5 characters), but on the whole After Julius is a book to avoid.

Starting Intruder in the Dust tonight.

The library has just come through with Achebe's No Longer at Ease and Highsmith's The Price of Salt (I expected this would take another couple of weeks), so those will be next.

I also had my problems with Howard. The Beautiful Visit and Something in Disguise went down nicely, but I had to abandon Something in Disguise.

Faulkner can be daunting. I think in the age of modernism I was more prepared to put up with his stylistic difficulty. I don't think I would be now.

Sorry you've picked The Price of Salt. That and the also early Strangers on a Train are rightly famous because of the movie versions, but are written in a "talky" style which she later abandoned. I can confidently recommend any novel she wrote after that time, as I've read most. I'm currently on this:

[BillF]

1 hour ago, A Lark Ascending said:

Another excellent Le Carre. What is extraordinary about his 60s books is that for most of their length they seem to deal with petty irritabilities within bureaucracies. Acts of daring do or violence are few and far between. This one cleverly has you trying to track down a supposed defector to the Soviet Union only to turn the tables in the last 50 pages and find the disappearance has a very different motivation. Lots of exploration of Germany's post-war identity crisis and Britain's troubles facing loss of world status. And a very topical sub-theme about Britain's angling to enter the 'Common Market'. 

Yes, I found that one very readable.

[paul secor]

Ross Macdonald: The Doomsters

[GA Russell]

The Doomsters was the first of his that I read.  I enjoyed every one, but it wasn't too long before I forgot the plots of each because they seemed like the same book over and over!

[paul secor]

10 hours ago, GA Russell said:

The Doomsters was the first of his that I read.  I enjoyed every one, but it wasn't too long before I forgot the plots of each because they seemed like the same book over and over!

I'm working my way back rereading his novels from last to first. The Doomsters was the first disappointment - except for The Ferguson Affair, which was not a Lew Archer book. I shall see if the earlier novels are disappointments.

There's much to be said about "the same book over and over", but I still enjoy reading them for their different quirks.

[jazzbo]

Yes, I really enjoyed McDonald's books, may need to re-read some soon. I'm doing the same thing this year with Philip K. Dick, re-reading his science fiction and non-science fiction novels. I love these books! They have shaped my brain.

[ejp626]

On 4/3/2016 at 4:34 AM, BillF said:

 

Faulkner can be daunting. I think in the age of modernism I was more prepared to put up with his stylistic difficulty. I don't think I would be now.

 

Where I get annoyed with Faulkner is that it seems at times he is being deliberately obscure and going on for several sentences with just "he" or occasionally "she" and it is sometimes impossible to unpick which characters are being referred to, particularly when he also jumps around in time in the middle of the paragraph.  There is some moment in Intruder in the Dust where this uncle knows that his sister-in-law is going to be mad at him and then this triggers a bit where he is probably thinking about his own mother being disappointed in him and then coming around.  So I can sort of see how he is trying to link things up, stream-of-consciousness-wise, but I honestly don't think the book would have been less enjoyable if he had been just a bit clearer about what is actually going on.

The plot of Intruder in the Dust is quite interesting, but yes it is pretty challenging to read.  My favorite Faulkner is perhaps not surprisingly one of his last novels and it is written in a much clearer style -- it is The Reivers.

[A Lark Ascending]

100 pages into this and very impressed - does exactly what I want, telling the story in considerable detail but clearly. I read a couple of short bios back in the 1970s (Blaukopf and Kennedy, I think) and then the huge first volume of the La Grange bio c. 1980. By the time volume 2 and 3 emerged in translation 20+ years later I'd forgotten the first volume and they were too expensive anyway.  

Edited April 6, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[paul secor]

James Hanley: A Kingdom

A beautifully written book by one of my favorite authors

[ejp626]

I just wrapped up Highsmith's The Price of Salt.  I enjoyed it, though I do agree that it certainly doesn't succeed as a thriller.  I'm somewhat surprised that they turned it into a movie, and I wonder if they amped up the action during the road trip or not.

I just started Morley Callaghan's Such is My Beloved, which is about a young priest trying to reform two prostitutes.

After that, Molly Keane's final novel Queen Lear (now more commonly titled Loving and Giving).

[jazzbo]

[BillF]

1 hour ago, jazzbo said:

I really liked that one. Hope you do, too.

[jazzbo]

Yes, so far, it's very good.

[A Lark Ascending]

Only know the Tudors in outline so I've been working my way through them over the last few years. Edward VI's reign is normally passed over quickly, getting a mention for the swing to stronger Protestantism at best. Actually proved a period of considerable interest - the inevitable jockeying for power and influence with the expected falls from grace; fascinating social background of rural unrest tied in with enclosure; also interesting to see the stirrings of social conscience amongst some leaders, things I'd always associated with the mid-17thC.  And, I now know where Lady Jane Grey fits in! 

[jlhoots]

Timothy Hallinan: King Maybe

[HutchFan]

About 100 pages into this:

The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty – by Caroline Alexander 

Picked this book up because I greatly enjoyed Alexander's The Endurance.  Like that book, The Bounty is a very entertaining mixture of adventure and history. 

[Brad]

 

Just finished this.  It's a superb book, a memoir by a young American, Eleanor Perenyi, in the 1930s who falls in love with a poor Hungarian Baron and they move to the old family estate in what is now, as a result of the break up of Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia.  She settles into a rural life and her description of the people and the surrounding Ruthenian region are wonderful; you feel you're sharing it with her.  Eventually that life is shattered by WW II and she has to leave, never to return to Hungary.

Another winner from NYRB Classics.