Books: Book(s) you are Currently Reading | Part II

[Ceremony]

Cormac McCarthy - The Crossing

Fairly sure it's the only book by my 2nd favourite author I've never read yet. About finished. And I get it, it's an American journey story. And in McCarthy style also know it'll end in some horrible yet satisfying way.

I reckon it'd be a lot better if I could read Spanish. As most conversations in the novel are in that, and the paragraph explanations are vague but enough you're supposed to get the gist of it all. I don't though, and not really digging using Google Translate 7 times a page.

Truthfully, I didn't like the other 2 books of the Border Trilogy by McCarthy. Took me years to even open this one because of it, and it's what I expected it to be.

How and/or why do you read the first and third books in a trilogy but not the second?

 

[GB]

Through a series of events too tedious to describe I ended up reading

I've now started

 

[Thucydides]

 

[Thucydides]

 

[Thucydides]

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Reading Ask the Dust (forgot it at my mother's for a while), A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick and The Catcher in the Rye all at the same time. Not ideal at all, but circumstances made it turn out that way. Hopefully I'll finish all three, although I've already read the latter a few times.

 

[Thucydides]

Ask the dust is a great book.

 

[donkshow]

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Ask the dust is a great book.

I've liked it so far as well, even if my reading of it's been pretty sporadic - I hope I'll be able to read the last half straight on - even if I think I expected a little more from Bukowski's favorite. Did you continue in with Journey to the End of the Night, by the way?

 

[Thucydides]

I've liked it so far as well, even if my reading of it's been pretty sporadic - I hope I'll be able to read the last half straight on - even if I think I expected a little more from Bukowski's favorite. Did you continue in with Journey to the End of the Night, by the way?

Hey - I ended up stopping around the 40% mark , it’s not that I didn’t like it, and have plans to finish it in a couple weeks, it’s just that it’s so bleak. If I had of read it when I was younger it would be one of my favourite books. The writing is great though, Celine could write .

You should check out Saul Bellow - Henderson the rain king . I finished it a year or more ago and it still pops into my brain from time to time. I think you’d really enjoy it.

 

[kihei]

Through a series of events too tedious to describe

Would make a great title for a novel. Got that post-modern vibe to it.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Hey - I ended up stopping around the 40% mark , it’s not that I didn’t like it, and have plans to finish it in a couple weeks, it’s just that it’s so bleak. If I had of read it when I was younger it would be one of my favourite books. The writing is great though, Celine could write .

You should check out Saul Bellow - Henderson the rain king . I finished it a year or more ago and it still pops into my brain from time to time. I think you’d really enjoy it.

Did you get to the boat and jungle episodes? I'd be interested in your take on em'. The boat chapter is my favorite, along with the final chapter set in an amusement park.

My only experience with Saul Bellows was this book called A Theft, which I thought was a piece of crap, but I remember your glowing review for Henderson the Rain King, so I'll keep it in my back pocket. I've only got a couple of pages left with Ask the Dust, though. I thought Fante's 1933 was a Bad Year was an incredibly cute work, if only a little banal, but Ask the Dust really sneaks up on the reader.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Through a series of events too tedious to describe I ended up reading

I've now started

How was Giovanni's Room?

 

[Thucydides]

Did you get to the boat and jungle episodes? I'd be interested in your take on em'. The boat chapter is my favorite, along with the final chapter set in an amusement park.

My only experience with Saul Bellows was this book called A Theft, which I thought was a piece of crap, but I remember your glowing review for Henderson the Rain King, so I'll keep it in my back pocket. I've only got a couple of pages left with Ask the Dust, though. I thought Fante's 1933 was a Bad Year was an incredibly cute work, if only a little banal, but Ask the Dust really sneaks up on the reader.

Are you talking about the boat ride to Africa where all the people on board hate him and want to kill him? I got to that part - I really enjoyed it. He was such an outsider, haha.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Are you talking about the boat ride to Africa where all the people on board hate him and want to kill him? I got to that part - I really enjoyed it. He was such an outsider, haha.

Yes, exactly! I loved it so much. The way he successfully confuses the entire boat with his rambling, patriotic speech as he's about to get slapped by an officer had me in a fit as did the line: " My simple ambition to breathe amongst these people almost cost me my life. "

 

[GB]

How was Giovanni's Room?

Very good; I wish I'd read it 20 years ago. It took me a lot longer to read than I expected, it has moments of melodrama that make it drag, and there is an early reveal that really kills a lot of dramatic tension in the premise of the book. That said it is an exceptionally thorough & good exploration of alienation when someone is failing to come to terms with themselves. Not just in terms of sexuality the narrator, David, goes through a broader struggle to accept himself.

I generally dislike when a book is praised for being good on the sentence level, but this book really is. This is one of my favourite quotes "Sometimes, in the days which are coming--God grant me the grace to live them-- in the glare of the grey morning, sour-mouthed, eyelids raw and red, hair tangled and damp from stormy sleep, facing, over coffee and cigarette smoke, last night's impenetrable, meaningless boy who will shortly rise and vanish like the smoke, I will see Giovanni again, as he was that night"

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Very good; I wish I'd read it 20 years ago. It took me a lot longer to read than I expected, it has moments of melodrama that make it drag, and there is an early reveal that really kills a lot of dramatic tension in the premise of the book. That said it is an exceptionally thorough & good exploration of alienation when someone is failing to come to terms with themselves. Not just in terms of sexuality the narrator, David, goes through a broader struggle to accept himself.

I generally dislike when a book is praised for being good on the sentence level, but this book really is. This is one of my favourite quotes "Sometimes, in the days which are coming--God grant me the grace to live them-- in the glare of the grey morning, sour-mouthed, eyelids raw and red, hair tangled and damp from stormy sleep, facing, over coffee and cigarette smoke, last night's impenetrable, meaningless boy who will shortly rise and vanish like the smoke, I will see Giovanni again, as he was that night"

Thanks a lot for this review. I'm curious though, what's so bad about a book being praised on a sentence level? I think that's pretty important, especially aesthetically.

 

[Thucydides]

 

[Thucydides]

 

[Thucydides]

 

[Chili]

 

[Babe Ruth]

Stossel combines historical perceptions of anxiety with contemporary understanding, and his own experiences suffering from chronic nerves. Some good quotes on anxiety, from historical figures, philosophers, & doctors.. but mostly just a straight forward accounting of his experience... It's an ok read.

 

[Thucydides]

 

[Thucydides]

 

[Spring in Fialta]