Reading thread

robinsongreen68 said:

how do IT dorks come to have read proust. hardly anyone i meet in the art world has read proust.
i actually went to a talk a while back by a world-renowned joyce expert who banged on for ages about repetition structures in finnegans wake, fine but at the end i tried to contrast proust as a set of repetitive iterations bounded by the horizonality of death (a la deleuze's proust and signs). the guy just sighed, said he'd tried proust, read a passage about milk boiling on a stove and just decided 'meh, this is too ocd for me'

Click to expand...

The first time I read Proust it was barely more than total gibberish to me. Last summer I read the (I think unjustly) celebrated George Painter biography of him, which gave me a pretty good framework with which to attack the work again. It requires a remarkable degree of concentration to read him, but if you've looked into some works in continental philosophy before, it is no harder than most of those I think.

I don't have kids though, and I'm certainly not an IT guy--so those things probably helped.

steveoffice said:

hahaha i would really like to read ulysses one day. it's one of those books i should've just taken a course on it back in college.

Click to expand...

It will be hard for you to dedicate the time and concentration to reading "Ulysses", if you have a child and a demanding job--but, if you can, it is highly rewarding. I think it's the greatest novel I've ever read, although I'm starting to think Proust may be overtaking him in my estimation. I became so obsessed with it that I actually went and lived in Dublin for a year.

The amount of references to subjects that nobody knows anything about in "Ulysses" requires at least a few good guidebooks to be read simultaneously, like the "Ulysses annotated" one, or "the bloomsday book."

I've picked up "Finnegan's wake" once in my life, and put it down after like 30 pages or something--having understood nothing of what I'd read.

The guys at @shopcanoeclub were recommending I read Ametora, and I think I finally will.

@GG Allin i've flicked through that painter biography but it seemed a bit dull on first glance. edmund white did a shorter one, and he's nearly always interesting.
is the painter biog the source of the rat story?

Recently picked up the "Gormenghast" trilogy. So far got 20 pages in, dont know what to expect (except escapism).

^It's great in a weird, dreamlike way, Peake uses the English language in a very unique way. His poetry, A Book of Nonsense, is also worth a read.

robinsongreen68 said:

@GG Allin i've flicked through that painter biography but it seemed a bit dull on first glance. edmund white did a shorter one, and he's nearly always interesting.
is the painter biog the source of the rat story?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure if Painter's biography was the origin of that strange story, but he definitely talks about it. It might be in his housekeeper Celeste Albaret's memoirs called "Monsieur Proust", which would've preceded Painter's book.

I agree with you on Painter's book not being that exciting, which is strange because it has a reputation for being a wonderful literary biography.

I'm awaiting in the mail a book called "Proust in Love", by a more recent biographer of his, which focuses on his love affairs.

One literary biography which I recently read which I found amazing was Richard Ellman's "Oscar Wilde." Have you looked at that one? It's worthwhile sticking to all the way to the end, because his description of Wilde's life in prison, and the pathetic position he was relegated to after he left it, is absolutely crushing.

Reread Ulysses a few weeks ago for the first time in 4-5 years, appreciated it much more than the last time

Currently reading Samuel Beckett, on the second of the trilogy (Malone meurt). Molloy was a little incomprehensible but with sublime turns of phrase.

Bought houellebecq’s latest last weekend, don’t know if I’ll interrupt the Beckett trilogy or wait till I’m done. My recent trip to Lebanon makes me want to reread Amin Malouf’s the rock of tanios, so much to read, so little time :/

Recent(ish) discovery: laszlo krasznahorkai. Quickly became my favourite author.

PS I’m an IT nerd who’s read Proust! (Well, the first volume). Sublime use of language, but a little too heavy on the long-winded descriptions for my tastes, turned me off continuing.

robinsongreen68 said:

how do IT dorks come to have read proust. hardly anyone i meet in the art world has read proust.
i actually went to a talk a while back by a world-renowned joyce expert who banged on for ages about repetition structures in finnegans wake, fine but at the end i tried to contrast proust as a set of repetitive iterations bounded by the horizonality of death (a la deleuze's proust and signs). the guy just sighed, said he'd tried proust, read a passage about milk boiling on a stove and just decided 'meh, this is too ocd for me'

Click to expand...

Art world secret: no one reads of has any culture beyond a masterly ability to manipulate surface signs and gleaned passages. This is why it works so well in conjunction with "elites" like public school boys and their 5 recycled Latin quotes.

Just starting Michael Cunningham’s Specimen Days, which at least sounds like it’s vastly different from the rest. I wonder what you guys think of him. I loved A Home at the End of the World, and The Hours seems like the answer to the question “what is a perfect novel?”.

just picked up Richard Ford's Wildlife after watching Paul Dano's adaptation. Stunning directorial debut from Dano, with his wife Zoe Kazan playing a big role in adapting the novel to a screenplay. The costume design was great and made me want to dress like the teenage protagonist, Joe. He sports a grey crewneck, 501's, and CT's for much of the film, which is set in 60's Montana.

the novel has been great so far, highly recommend.