| Author | Message | ||
     Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8446 Registered: 05-2005 |
Karin Slaughter - Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes. Just arrived in the post today. It's short, I'll finish it tonight. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8449 Registered: 05-2005 |
Now moving on to Slaughter's follow up, directly related, full novel, Pretty Girls. She's one of the best crime writers I've ever read. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1194 Registered: 04-2005 |
Anyone here ever read any James Ellroy ? I've been wading through "White Jazz" but are giving up ! Utterly impenetrable. Back to working my way through the novels of Iain Banks. I'm not sure that he was a truly brilliant writer, but he knew how to tell a good story and came across a genuinely nice person. His "Raw Spirit" book about visiting whisky distilleries is a very entertaining read. You could just imagine having bumped into him in a pub and him spinning these tales over a few pints. Sorely missed. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1219 Registered: 08-2004 |
I read Ellroy's 'The Big Nowhere' over 20 years ago. I must admit it took two goes but I got there. Mind you I've never attempted any of his other books. Like you say dense and quite grim. Currently reading Jeff Chang's 'Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History Of The Hip Hop Generation'. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8455 Registered: 05-2005 |
Andrew, I have not read James Ellroy, maybe because I always suspected he fell into the difficult read category. I had the same experience with Cormac McCarthy though. I tried to read All The Pretty Horses three times and never got beyond page 30. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 514 Registered: 08-2005 |
Re-reading some older (not that any of them are exactly new) Graham Greene novels, or 'entertainments'. First, Stamboul Train (1932) and now Our Man in Havana (1958). Shocked by the use of the N-word (a euphemism but I'm not going to write it in full) in the first sentence of the latter book! | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 515 Registered: 08-2005 |
And returning to Andrew's question, I'm a huge fan of James Ellroy; I have signed first editions from before the time he was famous in the UK (the first signing I went to there were about five fans, the last one a sellout 300. So the early books have dedications like 'Pus-packed penguins pound your pudenda'). I'm a big fan of his writing up until about White jazz, after which his increasing use of very short sentences made the quite hefty books very difficult going. He should go for the Dashiell Hammett-school of short, snappy novels written in beautiful, concise prose. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3875 Registered: 03-2005 |
I have to admire all of you who are managing to read proper books in this era. I have massive stacks of books purchased in the past four years or so that are still waiting to be read. I find myself patience and attention-span so fractured by computer use that it is taking me literally months to work through the modest-sized "Dusk of Dawn" by W.E.B. Dubois, an intermittently interesting early 20th century take on racism in the U.S.. And you don't want to know how long I'm taking on Gibbon. A friend of mine lent me a copy of "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova. This one I won't blame on my computer-addled brain. The friend didn't warn me it was yet another vampire epic. At page 79 I've ground to a halt, weary of its transparent manipulations to conjure suspense. I'm still trying to work out how to return it and be diplomatic. Perhaps I should just give him this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yLa8rir QMI | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1441 Registered: 10-2006 |
Liner notes – Loudon wainwright 3 The problem with being an autobiographical songwriter is that when you do get round to some autobiographical writing, there really isn’t much more to tell. This is more a scrapbook of writings, entertaining enough, as one might expect, rather than the real out & out prose work I’d have liked. It’s a little padded out with lyrics and some of his father’s articles from Life. The one aspect I thought might be addressed, but wasn’t, was how a ferociously shag-happy alpha-male comes to terms with a gay son, something which, even for normal mortals, is apparently not always that easy. Perhaps, as a rarely around father, the issue never really came up; or perhaps Rufus asked him to skip it. The message is, hey, I behaved abominably to a whole lot of people, especially women, but I got some marvellous songs out of it. He doesn’t go much into the musical side of things, which I probably wouldn’t have understood much of anyway, but he is a brilliantly understated guitarist with an incredible knack for melody; and even his least interesting songs often go to places other writers would never dream of. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1446 Registered: 10-2006 |
Reading the Quietus Baker’s Dozen feature is good bus-browsing stuff while the schoolgirls around me go through their morning makeup routine and discuss, in overwhelming detail, the boyfriend of whoever happens that day not to be on the bus. Stephen Merritt is pithy and witty but sticks very much to a “what fed my talent” mix, interesting, but it’s unlikely that I’ll be scratching around for a copy of Elsa Lanchester Sings Bawdy Cockney Songs. Laetia Sadier on the other hand offers an articulate and poetic overview of a bunch of things I’ve never heard of, if we exclude Smiths, Beck & Carmel, which makes me want to hear them very much indeed. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1464 Registered: 10-2006 |
Born to run – Bruce Springsteen An absorbing, highly enjoyable read, even for those like myself who hardly ever listen to his work. His favourite adjective turns out to be “hard” and he does tend to drop into capital letters and multiple exclamation marks, but it’s in general a well-written account of how he became who he is, with, as so often in rock biogs, childhood and the climb to fame being more interesting than fame itself. But with great responsibility and wealth there also came great depression, something one wouldn’t automatically connect to the exuberant and hyper-energetic Broos; although it often seems to be the case that people only realise they need analysis when they actually have the oodles of cash required to pay for it. After 600 exhausting pages, strangely enough, the first song I really wanted to listen to was German Farmhouse. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8632 Registered: 05-2005 |
That's a lovely synopsis and recommendation, Stuart. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3943 Registered: 03-2005 |
Maybe it's about getting what you want. Then you realize that's not what you need in life. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1470 Registered: 10-2006 |
The reviews for Knausgaard’s last autobiographical novel the End, my 60th birthday present to myself. “Masterpiece or literary circus act?” asks the Economist and I’m happy to go with masterpiece. The first instalment was one of those rare books that I immediately bought copies of to send to friends and I have to admit they were all rather grumpy about it. 600 pages of Norwegian introspection from a guy they’d never heard of? Really?? But six pages into volume one I felt I was launched into one of the century’s great epics and coming up to the End that’s still how I feel – a “narcissistic epic” as the Guardian calls it, but that’s something inherent in the whole idea for the sequence. The last book will finally get round to detailing some of the fallout of turning a ruthlessly unflinching eye on himself, his family, friends and marriage, together with various reflections on Hitler, Paul Celan, Utoya and whatever else happens to pass through his mind. Can’t wait. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3961 Registered: 03-2005 |
Stuart happy birthday! Your description of Knausgaard makes him sound like a 20th Century heterosexual Proust. Still laboring in the paper factory and dealing with nearly 20 years of internet erosion of my attention span, I find reading books to be surprisingly challenging. It took me months to work my way through Joan Didion's very modestly-scaled "Book of Common Prayer." I'm now moving fitfully through V.S. Naipaul's "A Turn in the South" which struck me as particularly timely. At least it's a more straightforward read than the Didion. Even the Skvorecky novel (Cowards) with its ripping-good-solipsistic-yarn qualities took me an embarrassingly long time to finish. Off to read about Knausgaard . . . . | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8659 Registered: 05-2005 |
The October edition of Mojo, which arrived in the post on the last day of August. And very good it is too.Nice feature on Dinosaur Jr albums, which makes me want to revisit them all. It's issue No 299. I wonder if they're doing anything special for No 300 next month? I'm pretty sure they did nothing special for the 250th issue four years ago, so probably not. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3964 Registered: 03-2005 |
"A Turn in the South" is proving to be quite an experience for this Californian. Naipaul was born in and grew up in Trinidad. His family was Indian. He spent his adulthood in the U.K. and traveling around the world. He was not white. He was not (our US version of) black. He was not christian. He was actually a great celebrant of human culture and particularly the aggregation of European culture. He was the perfect outsider to come to and observe the American south, with the minimum of axes to grind and even a little regional understanding--the Caribbean/tropical cultures. I am learning so much. The emotional toll is notable. I have to put the book down after maybe 20 to 30 pages each time, just to absorb what I am reading. This is dense with lessons about human nature. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1471 Registered: 10-2006 |
After several failed attempts to get into Mr Biswas, I was sent The Enigma of Arrival by a very insistant friend: at first the mantra like circular repetitiveness of its prose put me off, but, persisting, the book, based on the simple premise of Naipaul's buying a country cottage near Salisbury, eventually flowered into something powerful and deeply moving. A Turn in the South sounds like it's worth a try too. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1472 Registered: 10-2006 |
A wee taster: "I had tried almost from the beginning to make myself ready for this end. After the glory and surprise of the first spring on the riverbanks—the new reeds, the water clearing to crystal (“freshing out,” as I learned to say), but this water green and dark with olive-blue suggestions and with illusory depth where it reflected the thick, succulent growth on the banks, and especially below trees—after that first spring I would say: “At least I had a spring here.” And then I said: “At least I had a spring and summer here.” And: “At least I’ve had a year here.” And so it went on, as the years passed. Until time began to telescope, and experience itself began to change: the new season not truly new any more, bringing less of new experience than reminders of the old. One had begun to stack away the years, to count them, to take pleasure in the counting, accumulation." | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3967 Registered: 03-2005 |
Stuart, I won't claim any prose as layered and contemplative as that for "A Turn in the South." It's more the topic and Naipaul's innocent-babe's initial viewpoint that is working on me. I think of this as a book of reportage, probably a companion to de Tocqueville's early tome on the U.S.. The book is a sort of funhouse mirror for a person from California to read. On one hand I was raised in this race-conscious country and have had to struggle with unconscious racism throughout my entire adulthood. On the other hand, the "culture" of my part of the country is abandonment the past and reinvention. It isn't our thing to hang onto nostalgia for something that is gone. (We might want to reconsider that when examining our natural environment.) I envy your literary cultivation. I have the lawyer's aptitude for concrete and specific language. It's come in handy for song lyrics but I'd sure like to get beyond concrete and specific. Your quoted passage reminds me of when I came upon a passage at the beginning of a chapter in Kipling's "Kim" back in my 20s. I'd already coined my own adjective "Kiplingesque" for certain music as an insult for flashy shows of shallow cultural appropriation (like Paul Simon's "Graceland" and some of P.J. Harvey's "Hope Six Demolition Project" numbers and ALL of the dreadful white-guys-trying-to-do-reggae). I never expected such lyrical prose, but there it was. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8676 Registered: 05-2005 |
This brilliant love letter to libraries https://www.theguardian.com/books/galler y/2018/sep/06/neil-gaiman-and-chris-ridd ell-on-why-we-need-libraries-an-essay-in -pictures | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8714 Registered: 05-2005 |
Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter. I'm so glad I discovered her work. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1488 Registered: 10-2006 |
'Broadsword Calling Danny Boy' by Geoff Dyer Not the most difficult film to make fun of, perhaps, Where Eagles Dare, but Dyer does it brilliantly and with an enviable range of reference. With Christmas coming up and its almost inevitable reappearance on TV, the perfect stocking-filler for that male friend of a certain age who remembers thrilling to the non-stop Nazi-killing alongside his dad in the local flea-pit's cheap seats. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8738 Registered: 05-2005 |
Stuart, I misread that at first and thought "Danny Dyer's written a book?" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dy er | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1490 Registered: 10-2006 |
The first review I've read (courtesy Google translation) of the posthumous Bashung album: “There are works that, by nature, defy the critical eye. Their emotional charge, so strong, would almost make any attempt at analysis for sacrilege. This is obviously the case here: from this voice emerged from beyond the grave emanates a whirlwind of sensations that inevitably disturb listening. Bashung is back : on lyrics (sometimes music) by Arman Méliès, Joseph of Antwerp, Dominique A, Raphael, Doriand, Mickaël Furnon, Daniel Darc and Xavier Plumas, the song of Bashung is unfolding again. Not quite as we are used to it: the voice is less cohesive; it is even a little dry, abrupt, fragile. It is very sensitive on the first single, the very symbolic Immortals, which one prefers to hear by its author, Dominique A (and who reappropriated it after the refusal of Bashung). On other tracks, a complex Bashung is revealed to us, filled with an unexpected vulnerability.No more rock energy. Everything here is quietly done and encourages listening to texts: slow tempos, repetitive melodies, fine guitars that tend to folk or blues. Even the very rare choruses, as light as lace, serve the meaning, without seeking the effect. Edith Fambuena, in charge of additional arrangements chose sobriety, no doubt as a mark of respect. This stripping away gives the whole a perfume of authenticity, solemnity and melancholy. Even black, especially in the second half of the album, a little leaden. It is not of equal quality, and we understand that Bashung discarded some of these songs. We can spin through it a little faster, all the better to reach the beautiful finale, Nos âmes à l’abri, which gives back breath and clarity to the disc. A song both testamentary and reassuring, whose purpose is reminiscent of Immortals, cleverly placed at the opening, and which this time, and for good, closes the circle.” | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4008 Registered: 03-2005 |
What a great review! There's actual criticism and not just puffery. The writer dares to prefer Dom A's version of Immortals. I received notice late last week that my copy has been dispatched. Really looking forward to it. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1492 Registered: 10-2006 |
An interesting article on the complex mix of influences that made AB the unique thing he was: https://patkayharvey.wordpress.com/2017/ 02/15/alain-bashung-1947-2009/amp/?fbcli d=IwAR3RWmhaQqo1CDXAsU9NQsWoM2VaT7N6IZR0 114p7lU5EOPIIUX98ncU3Wg | ||
| peter ward Member Username: Peter_ward Post Number: 355 Registered: 06-2005 |
Some book recommendations from Robert Forster in here & I'm recommending "Fear Not" the debut volume of poetry by Stephen James Smith. http://www.brooklynvegan.com/the-go-betw eens-robert-forster-preps-new-lp-inferno -watch-a-video-tells-us-his-top-10-of-20 18/ | ||
| peter ward Member Username: Peter_ward Post Number: 356 Registered: 06-2005 |
For The Triffids fans on here, a great piece by the recently deceased David Cavanagh: https://web.archive.org/web/200608191514 28/http://home.tiscali.be/the.triffids/h ellofasummer.htm | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4038 Registered: 03-2005 |
Stuart, I totally missed your post above! I've just read the link, thank you. It's wonderful to have snippets of the textual substance provided and interesting how much of the general account matches up with my perceptions gleaned solely from the music. I can improve on Harvey's comments on "Osez, Josephine." It does not do the album justice to declare "Bashung recruited a bevy of the best accoustic guitarists in the business." Bashung traveled to Memphis to record the album. That's where he got his musicians. At Ardent Studios, the petri dish that generated Big Star. For me that was the clearest demonstration of the breathtaking reach to Bashung's musical erudition. Bashung knew his music. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8787 Registered: 05-2005 |
Thanks, Peter, that's dreadful news about David Cavanagh. I actually thought he was from Dublin, but I see from reports that he was from Belfast. He was a terrific writer. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8789 Registered: 05-2005 |
Randy, you really must read the Triffids piece Peter linked to above. It’s phenomenally moving. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4040 Registered: 03-2005 |
I did read Peter's link Padraig. I thought it a brilliant window into the era and sent the link off to a friend in London who I am trying to contaminate with my musical tastes. I accompanied it with a series of emails providing nine selections from The Triffids' career and (inevitably because it's me doing this) some blah blah blah. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1528 Registered: 10-2006 |
An e-mail from my music-mad mate in Inverness with a couple of links attached:"Since you love the GBs, you might enjoy this good article about them... plus an excellent one about Microdisney, too." Articles, of course, written by... | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8816 Registered: 05-2005 |
GBs one only “good”? Damned by faint praise, damned if you don’t. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1529 Registered: 10-2006 |
Sorry Padraig, I was paraphrasing there: what he actually wrote was "stupendously brilliant". But he was always more of a MicroD fan anyway. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8817 Registered: 05-2005 |
Stuart and Andrew, I’m in Glasgow for a couple of nights. I’ll say hello to your old stomping grounds. Actually, I’m not sure you lived here, Stuart, but I’m pretty sure Andrew did. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1530 Registered: 10-2006 |
I was just an occasional visitor, either to the Citizens, the most terrifyingly located theatre ever, or the Burrell museum or for a curry. My best trip was a beautifully organised school event accompanying a huge group of Italian teenagers around the sights on the same day as the annual Orange parade. I told the kids, if anyone happened to ask, to say they were Italian-speaking Protestants from a Swiss canton. But I really never got the hang of the city. I still think that, when they get round to rebuilding the Art School again, they should do it in Edinburgh. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8818 Registered: 05-2005 |
Great solution to the sectarian issue, Stuart. Controversial thoughts on the Art School. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1267 Registered: 08-2004 |
Alan Partridge - Nomad Worryingly funny | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1269 Registered: 04-2005 |
Pádraig, Hope that you are having a good time ! As a teenager I grew up in the leafy southside of the city. Wonderful place and great people. Moved to Edinburgh after studying...I love both cities, but Glasgow feels like a "real" city. A friend's father once expressed the opinion that for the "ideal" city, you needed to move the population of Glasgow through to Edinburgh. | ||
| Burgers Member Username: Burgers Post Number: 100 Registered: 05-2005 |
I would hope that the next time the Art School catches fire they make sure that Muriel Gray is inside. And then just let it go. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1270 Registered: 04-2005 |
You are extremely tiresome Mr/Mrs Burgers. Not to say pretty offensive. Do you have a very sad life by any chance ? | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4065 Registered: 03-2005 |
Keep it up and you'll see the United Republics of Ireland and Scotland make their bow in Brussels and Strasbourg. My only experience of Glasgow was a desperately short day trip on the train from Edinburgh. I visited beautiful Kelvingrove but got to the museum too late to do much other than visit the cafe. I will be back. Padraig, looking forward to your report. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1549 Registered: 10-2006 |
An irritatingly dismissive review of Inferno on Amazon, by a Paul Kelly fan – the only Oz artist he says he holds to be of worth - who then proceeds to dismiss RF’s life & work as a whole: he can, apparently, neither sing, nor write songs. While things plainly written to annoy are usually best ignored, this still annoyed me, but was also saddening: so much fine music simply finger-snapped away (not to mention all the rest of Australian music that the writer scorns investigation of). But, as I say – though I would quite like to chuck an egg at the chap’s car – best ignored. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4100 Registered: 03-2005 |
I just went off to read it, thinking "I'm not as nice as Stuart--I'll disembowel him!" But he starts out by admitting he has no familiarity with the Go-Betweens or Robert Forster. That pretty much says it all. He doesn't even claim to be a Paul Kelly fan; he simply identifies Kelly as the only exception to his general dismissal of Australian music. He's like the negative Yelp reviewer for a popular restaurant. I remember playing some of Grant McLennan's solo songs to my oldest brother. He simply thought the music was bland. I can't do anything with that. People have different tastes. I personally loathe flashy singers with a lot of "vocal fry" or shoutiness but for somebody used to that, the people I love the most will always seem "lifeless" as the guy on Amazon asserts. | ||
| Fred Tadrowski Member Username: Ftadrowski Post Number: 99 Registered: 03-2015 |
Party Piece by Grant McLennan The short story is only two pages long but it is nice to discover something new from Grant. It is located in the anthology "Big Night Out" from 2002. Brisbane writer Nick Earls, one of the editors of it, asked Grant to write the piece. I only paid a dollar for a used copy on the World Wide Web. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1293 Registered: 04-2005 |
Review by Andrew Stafford in the Guardian of the Chills documentary...sounds great https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/ju n/14/the-chills-review-martin-phillipps- triumph-and-tragedy-told-with-extraordin ary-candour | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1570 Registered: 10-2006 |
If it’s true that my Google feed and Facebook page are cunningly manipulated by a roomful of cold-eyed teenage hackers in Omsk, then their main missions at the moment seem to be to get me to buy the new Springsteen album and stimulate an interest in defunct railway lines. Well, the former is a definite possibility, even though I haven’t bought anything for myself by Bruce since Born to Run: when the only slightly glum negative review is from the Financial Times, you can be sure something is a winner, and his harkening back to the glory days of Webb and Campbell is a real enticement. Where the railway thing comes from, I’ve no idea, except that I do occasionally while away time plotting unlikely train trips on International Journey Planner (Rome to Helsinki, say) just to see what they look like. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4174 Registered: 03-2005 |
Kathleen and Frank by Christopher Isherwood This is Isherwood's memoir of his parents' love affair and marriage told through their letters, Kathleen's copious diary and Christopher's almost detached commentary. So far--I'm about one third way through--it's a magnificent portrait of life for the genteel middle class at the peak of the British Empire as well as a slow unfolding of romance between two persons who could have easily never married anyone at all and only did so in their mid-30s. Frank died in WWI. One of things I find endearing is the extent to which the Frank Isherwood revealed in his letters reveals an aesthete with a refreshing seam of self-deprecation. He is unburdened by macho posturing. In a way reading his letters is like listening to Eamonn Davis of underrated 80s Irish band Hey Paulette or perhaps Huw Bucknell (who recorded as Spanish Amanda). Sometimes you want to grab him and shake some sense into him but mostly you're totally disarmed by him. In retrospect it can't be surprising that he sired one of the best--if not THE very best--gay novelist of the 20th Century. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1571 Registered: 10-2006 |
I like the Catholic Herald's review quote about this book: "There emerge from this book three remarkable characters, two highly edifying, one a writer of compelling talent." Compelling, but not, one must assume, edifying. I went through a big Isherwood & Auden phase at university, neither of whom, as one tutor noted with some asperity, was on my official reading list. There's a relationship I'd like to see dealt with by some ambitous writer and director. I never read K & F, though, so it's good to be reminded of it. It also reminded me that a similar book, Vikram Seth's Two Lives, remains unread on my shelves. Have you read the latter's Suitable Boy, Randy? It's a monster of a book, but now you're retired... | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4175 Registered: 03-2005 |
1500 pages Stuart! Four pounds of hardcover tome. There seem to be a LOT of used copies available in large numbers; a popular choice for university literature classes? It sounds really interesting though. I know f-all about India aside from a handful of obvious British imperial depictions. The partition in particular interests me. It goes onto my mental list. Two days ago I visited our still-extant local bookstore and asked them to order a hardcover copy of Vasily Grossman's "Stalingrad." It took some doing to convince them that there is such a thing. The US publisher has only released a paperback version. That will be half the length of "Suitable Boy." But then I may turn to "Life and Fate" and the two together will amount to a similar undertaking. Scanning my last post I see I wrote "revealed in his letters reveals . . . ." Ugh. Less than six months out and dementia already setting in. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1573 Registered: 10-2006 |
It does look like a small mountain, but it's amazingly enjoyable to read. Never a dull moment. The sequel has been promised for a while but is giving poor VS a lot of sleepless nights. My dad was in India during the war, impossible though it is to imagine him in such an unScottish locale. Fortunately, he was allergic to high temperatures and kept fainting all over the place, so they had to send him up to Kashmir where he spent most of his time skiing, adopting local dogs and developing a passion for the fieriest of curries. The happiest time of his life was the impression he gave. Life and Fate is another unread tome eyeing me gloomily from my shelves! Kathleen and Frank, meanwhile, is on order. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 8942 Registered: 05-2005 |
Randy, Stuart, you're making me feel like a sub-literate half-wit. |