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[ejp626]

Wrapping up Krzhizhanovsky's The Return of Munchausen (NYRB).

It's pretty droll, though this is a case where the allusions run deep, and it pays to read the notes at the end. 

It probably isn't a bad idea to have read Baron Munchausen previously.  There are a bunch of versions on-line.  This one, with illustrations by Gustave Dore, is pretty good - https://archive.org/details/adventuresBaron00Dore/page/v

[Brad]

46 minutes ago, ejp626 said:

Wrapping up Krzhizhanovsky's The Return of Munchausen (NYRB).

It's pretty droll, though this is a case where the allusions run deep, and it pays to read the notes at the end. 

It probably isn't a bad idea to have read Baron Munchausen previously.  There are a bunch of versions on-line.  This one, with illustrations by Gustave Dore, is pretty good - https://archive.org/details/adventuresBaron00Dore/page/v

I tried but couldn’t get into it. I may take your suggestion though. 

[ejp626]

3 hours ago, Brad said:

I tried but couldn’t get into it. I may take your suggestion though. 

It does start off pretty slow, and the first part is just explaining why the Baron has come back from the pages of his book.  Chapter 5 is probably the strongest where the Baron is doing a field report on conditions in the USSR.  The payoff is basically that the fantastical tales that the Baron spins are not actually any further removed from the truth than what was reported in Pravda on a daily basis.  That said, this is more of a clever tale and not a fully-fleshed out novel, but even in this it mirrors the original.

[kinuta]

This has been sitting on my tablet for ages so finally got round to it.

Uber underwhelming.

On 02/09/2019 at 10:53 PM, Brad said:

I just finished this and it's a terrific book and it's in part a history about the Jews of Zakho in Kurdistan, one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, and how they were exiled to Israel, a memoir (written by his son) of Yona Sabar, one of those Jews of Zakho, who progressed from boyhood in Zakho to exile in Jerusalem to a very respected Professor of Near Eastern Studies at UCLA and a rapprochement between Yona and his son, who never tried to understand him and wanted to ignore his Kurdish roots. 

Looks interesting. Will read.

[kinuta]

This is a surprise. Who would have imagined that Jessica Jones is a proper writer.

Worthwhile.

Edited September 4, 2019 by kinuta

[Matthew]

Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining by Shelly Rambo (what a name!). A very interesting book on trauma and ways to help people see both the death and life aspects of trauma in their lives, especially helpful if someone is counseling a person with a religious background. Heavy influence of Cathy Caruth throughout the book.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2019 by Matthew

[kinuta]

[T.D.]

[ejp626]

Decided to go ahead and reread Morrison's Sula after all...  (As mentioned above, my personal favorite is Song of Solomon, followed by Tar Baby.)

Starting in on Dawn Powell's major novels.  A Time to Be Born first, then the ones in the LOA volume Novels 1944-1962.  Really looking forward to The Locusts Have No King, which I'll probably get to by late Sept.  (Though now I see that I probably should read Turn, Magic Wheel prior to A Time to Be Born, since there are recurring characters.  Hmmm.)

Speaking of late Sept., Salman Rushie is on another reading tour (for Quichotte this time).  He's giving a reading in Toronto at the AGO on Sept. 30, and probably other major North American cities around that time.  I've generally heard good things about his last three novels, including Quichotte, so I'm looking forward to this reading.

Edited September 8, 2019 by ejp626

[kinuta]

[jlhoots]

Daniel Silva: The New Girl

[kinuta]

 

[Brad]

35 minutes ago, kinuta said:

 

Terrific book. 

[porcy62]

Joseph Conrad.

One of the nice surprise of getting older is that I can read again classic stuff I read in my youth with new eyes. And yes Conrad Dostoyevsky Stendhal Kafka Simenon   and friends are still far far away better than most of the contemporary novels I read in the last years. Not to mention Shakespeare and Homer. It’s really a pure joy.

Edited September 11, 2019 by porcy62

[ghost of miles]

Finished Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep, which is filled with brilliant writing that evokes the early 20th-century world of Jewish immigrants on New York City’s Lower East Side. The most dramatically compelling character to me is the young protagonist’s domineering, thwarted and abusive father, who throws a charge through any scene that features him. Roth was clearly under the spell of Ulysses when he wrote the book, and his exclamation-point-driven rendering of the protagonist’s thoughts can come to seem like a Joycean tic as the book progresses. Very glad I read it, but I’ll probably take a long pause before plunging into Mercy Of A Rude Stream. Turning now to another Depression-era NYC writer, Daniel Fuchs. I’ve had his Brooklyn trilogy for quite some time, but I’m starting with a posthumous collection of his essays and stories that draws on his experiences after moving to Hollywood in the late 1930s:

Edited September 12, 2019 by ghost of miles

[Larry Kart]

3 hours ago, porcy62 said:

Joseph Conrad.

One of the nice surprise of getting older is that I can read again classic stuff I read in my youth with new eyes. And yes Conrad Dostoyevsky Stendhal Kafka Simenon   and friends are still far far away better than most of the contemporary novels I read in the last years. Not to mention Shakespeare and Homer. It’s really a pure joy.

 Hey, I'm now reading Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Among many other things, Gibbon's often merciless wit still comes through loud and clear.

[Matthew]

What I Stand On: The Collected Essays of Wendell Berry 1969 - 2017. Nice collection that I'm slowly making my way through.

[ejp626]

Dawn Powell's Turn, Magic Wheel.  This is one of her earlier novels and perhaps her first pure satire.  I enjoyed it.  It sets me up to read A Time to Be Born, which I'll probably start towards the end of the week.

I'm about a quarter of the way through A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers.  This is one of the relatively rare cases where I saw the movie (starring Tom Hanks) first.  I can't even remember why I saw the movie in the first place, as I am not a huge Tom Hanks fan or anything.  The theme of the US losing its way, along with its manufacturing base, is pervasive in the novel, even more than in the movie.

I'm also reading some Loren Eiseley - first The Invisible Pyramid and now The Immense Journey.

[Larry Kart]

Dawn Powell is terrific and unique.

[ghost of miles]

2 hours ago, ejp626 said:

Dawn Powell's Turn, Magic Wheel.  This is one of her earlier novels and perhaps her first pure satire.  I enjoyed it.  It sets me up to read A Time to Be Born, which I'll probably start towards the end of the week.

I'll second Larry's opinion, though I've read only Turn, Magic Wheel myself.  I have both Library of America volumes as well as a copy of her published diaries and hope to settle in for more of her work sometime in the future.  Seems as if the LOAs comprise both her NYC-based and Ohio-based novels, correct?

[ejp626]

12 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

I'll second Larry's opinion, though I've read only Turn, Magic Wheel myself.  I have both Library of America volumes as well as a copy of her published diaries and hope to settle in for more of her work sometime in the future.  Seems as if the LOAs comprise both her NYC-based and Ohio-based novels, correct?

I think she actually wrote 15 novels, but the very, very early novels are all completely out of print.  A while back, she came back into vogue and the publisher that published her diaries and short stories also published 10 of her novels (the best of the bunch).  LOA reprints 9 of them, with only The Happy Island left out.  The Happy Island is set in New York, so you might want to see if your library has it if you enjoy your deeper dive into Powell.  It's also one of the first novels to feature homosexual characters without invoking "gay panic" (I mean leaving aside The Satyricon). 

[ghost of miles]

6 minutes ago, ejp626 said:

I think she actually wrote 15 novels, but the very, very early novels are all completely out of print.  A while back, she came back into vogue and the publisher that published her diaries and short stories also published 10 of her novels (the best of the bunch).  LOA reprints 9 of them, with only The Happy Island left out.  The Happy Island is set in New York, so you might want to see if your library has it if you enjoy your deeper dive into Powell.  It's also one of the first novels to feature homosexual characters without invoking "gay panic" (I mean leaving aside The Satyricon). 

Thanks much for the recommendation--I'll try to track down The Happy Island as well.

[HutchFan]

[jlhoots]

Colson Whitehead: Nickel Boys

[ghost of miles]

 for Nate Chinen's Playing Changes.

Beginning this on the heels of her amazing concert Monday night in Detroit: