jenks
thread death
It might just be me. You’re probably much better off trusting someone who reads more of this kind of stuff.
what are you reading now?
IdleRich
IdleRich
I'm not gonna rush to read it right now anyhow.
I just this second started a book I bought from the second hand shop here. It is called Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama - totally random buy based on the blurb etc
I seem to remember that David Peace wrote a detective novel set in Japan. If I'm thinking properly it was a really depressing novel about an obsessive detective searching for a serial killer in post war Japan. The setting was a sort of nightmare version of the Japan you normally see, everything in place but corrupted by the gloom of defeat combined with an almost universal and utterly crushing poverty. All the characters were starving and all the things were breaking and rotten. Anyway, Peace is a good writer and also I suspect something of an "expert on both Japan and police procedurals so I'm hoping he knows what he's on about here.
Something struck with some of the other blurb
Surely they can't both be true, anyway, I'm going in and I'll see which of them - if either - actually is.
I just this second started a book I bought from the second hand shop here. It is called Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama - totally random buy based on the blurb etc
I seem to remember that David Peace wrote a detective novel set in Japan. If I'm thinking properly it was a really depressing novel about an obsessive detective searching for a serial killer in post war Japan. The setting was a sort of nightmare version of the Japan you normally see, everything in place but corrupted by the gloom of defeat combined with an almost universal and utterly crushing poverty. All the characters were starving and all the things were breaking and rotten. Anyway, Peace is a good writer and also I suspect something of an "expert on both Japan and police procedurals so I'm hoping he knows what he's on about here.
Something struck with some of the other blurb
Surely they can't both be true, anyway, I'm going in and I'll see which of them - if either - actually is.
you
Well-known member
LaCava's I Fear My Pain Interests You did not get much better. The narrator, Margot, is uninteresting, uninterested in her own life, and cool with those around her. The french word ressasser is used 4, maybe 5, times. It felt pretentious and lazy. She fakes a bad essay to avoid going to Brown University (her family name is one of the campus auditoriums) and—oh! the woe!—is accepted. She indulges in that very teenage humblebrag of rebellion anecdotes, being expelled from schools etc, deliberately underachieving etc. Margot is the daughter of a famous actress and a rockstar. Being recognised is a worry. She also cannot feel physical pain. She is an actress. She fucks a director and recognises a South American author he is reading for his next film because she wrote a book review when she 'needed money'... yeah..... right..... There are terrible icy non-sequitur dialogues, like DeLillo except nothing is happening in the world, profundity folds into inanity. She gets into a strange man's pick up truck in rural Montana because 'it's more interesting than Benadryl'. Seriously? That glib. Later, when flirting she writes '—such opportune timing, Mr. Graves.' Retching at this nudge wink indelicacy. Please. She talks about her naked body (a lot), her thin legs (she wasn't eating), she talks about her clothes a lot, telling us about her lace underwear. Non-plussed, hun.
@jenks , I want you to read this.
Margot gets a taxi from the airport and comments on the driver:
'Either way, she was repelled by how ostentatious or debased I was, sitting there in her backseat. As if all of it was communicable through the space of the car. I was the city descending, with my clothes, systems, ideas. She didn't want to chat. But when she did it was as if she'd been holding it inside for too long.'
I persevered with this, but it still feels like a hollow gimmick.
@jenks , I want you to read this.
Margot gets a taxi from the airport and comments on the driver:
'Either way, she was repelled by how ostentatious or debased I was, sitting there in her backseat. As if all of it was communicable through the space of the car. I was the city descending, with my clothes, systems, ideas. She didn't want to chat. But when she did it was as if she'd been holding it inside for too long.'
I persevered with this, but it still feels like a hollow gimmick.
jenks
thread death
This sounds just like a whole bunch of this no affect kinda writing that’s getting knocked out at the moment - like Rachel Cusk and others, often straying into the auto fiction arena. Isobel Wohl’s recent novel springs to mind, along with Sara Baume. Unless that book is short @you i might well pass.
jenks
thread death
I just finished the Doloriad by Missouri Williams - a grim post apocalyptic novel about a bunch of interbred kids living a sort of violent Lord of the Flies life. Nasty, brutal and not really much plot. Again, writing far too much in admiration of itself. At least I’m enjoying my re-read of Proust.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
The other day I read something in which someone said it was one of the best three novels ever written and I thought I must read that and now the most intelligent man on dissensus says so too I suppose it's practically confirmed
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Just finished the winter's tale - is this one you've read and forgotten, luka? (the one with 'exit pursued by a bear')
Anyway, absolutely loved it. Very pleased I read it without knowing anything at all about it beforehand, I didn't see that ending coming for one, but the whole thing is very unconventional. I'd put it only a notch below Midsummer Night's Dream out of the comedies I've read so far, if you can call it that.
Anyway, absolutely loved it. Very pleased I read it without knowing anything at all about it beforehand, I didn't see that ending coming for one, but the whole thing is very unconventional. I'd put it only a notch below Midsummer Night's Dream out of the comedies I've read so far, if you can call it that.
jenks
thread death
It’s one of my very favourites- I like the deliberate two genre approach and the finale is very touching. I’ve seen it done a number of times on stage and it often makes me tearful.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
The ending is beautiful. I also just read measure for measure (another weird mix of genres but much more serious than WT) and I thought the final act of that was brilliant as well, how the Duke sets Angelo up. But despite the happy ending you come away quite unsettled by it all. I can see why it gets labelled a 'problem' play.
I reckon the Tempest is probably the one I need to read next after those two.
I reckon the Tempest is probably the one I need to read next after those two.
jenks
thread death
Once it gets moving the Tempest is very good - the first act does spend a lot of time filling in back story and can feel a bit draggy but after that it rips along. Caliban is a very interesting character and the masque stuff towards the end is quite bonkers. Do not watch the film version with Helen Mirren and Russell Brand - it’s genuinely abysmal.
i might read this next. I had the same experience with Anna Karenina, it's fucking incredible that anyone can write that well.
craner
Beast of Burden
Good insights on agriculture and land management.
craner
Beast of Burden
The shop has been in steep decline since June 2009.