What did you read last month?

[Lencho of the Apes]

Sult “Hunger“ [translated by Ulrich Sonnenberg] (Anonymous / 1890 / Norway / Norwegian / German) ♥

By curious coincidence, this book turned up in my facebook feed today. What's 'anonymous' about it?

khh.jpg (49.16 KiB) Viewed 527 times

[wba]

Sult “Hunger“ [translated by Ulrich Sonnenberg] (Anonymous / 1890 / Norway / Norwegian / German) ♥

By curious coincidence, this book turned up in my facebook feed today. What's 'anonymous' about it?

khh.jpg

Wow, that looks cool!
It was published anonymously in 1890.

I finally read a translation of the 1890 version, and it made much more sense to me than the 1907 version, which I had read before. I hate it, when authors revise their texts (totally ok and interesting in itself), and after that the initial version gets ignored by publishers for decades (or sometimes centuries, or usually simply. forever). The worst is this curious obsession with definitive editions, often supervised by the author, which usually means the last version, changed by the author for the last time during his lifetime. I am so not interested in reading those versions.

[nrh]

june 2024
my life as edgar, dominique fabre
maigret & the killer, george simenon
stories of the true, jeyamohan
adam, s. hareesh

july
diary of a malayali madman, n. prabhakaran
sakina's kiss, vivek shanbhag
scavenger's son, t. sivasankara pillai
my grandad had an elephant, basheer
the execution of justice, friedrich durrenmat
snail on the slope, boris & arkady strugatsky
veniss underground, jeff vandermeer
maigret's childhood friend, george simenon

august
festival, cesar aira
game of worlds, cesar aira
the centauri device, m. john harrison
witchdame, kathleen sky
fever dream, samanta schweblin
complete works & other stories, augusto monterroso
red shift, alan garner
invisible yet enduring lilacs, gerald murnane
january, sara gallardo
dweepa, na. d'souza
moogavani pillangrovi, kesava reddy

[brian d]

had a lot of free time, obviously...

july
the stepford wives (ira levin) ****
the penultimate truth (philip k dick) **** getting into sci-fi, mostly thanks to ursula
chouette (claire oshetsky) ****
adua (igiaba scego) ***
what move the dead (t kingfisher) **** nice reworking of the fall of the house of usher
black leopard, red wolf (marlon james) ** this was the biggest disappointment, definitely not sure i was getting much out of it
what feasts at night (t kingfisher) ***
a maze of death (philip k dick) *** pkd can't write female characters very well, but the core ideas are interesting
b traven, an introduction (michael baumann) ***
martian time-slip (philip k dick) **** best of the pkd's on the list
game plan for a novel (gianna manzini) ***

august
tales from earthsea (ursula k le guin) ****
the elegy of lady fiammetta (giovanni boccaccio) **
the anarchist banker (fernando pessoa) ***
they shall have stars (james blish) ****
time out of joint (philip k dick)****
a life for the stars (james blish) ** written for teens, i think
wieland (charles brockden brown) *** overlong chapters, but a really good central premise
babel-17 (samuel r delany) **** ignoring the space opera parts, this is an interesting take on linguistics in sci-fi
empire star (samuel r delany) *** also written for teens, i think

[Lencho of the Apes]

Martian Time Slip's one of my favorite PKDs. You think you might tackle Dhalgren? I haven't read it since it came out, but I trust it would hold up as a big fat modernist mess. A fabulous big fat modernist mess. And there's Delany's notorious porn novel, which I wasn't able to finish...

[nrh]

black leopard, red wolf (marlon james) ** this was the biggest disappointment, definitely not sure i was getting much out of it

i remember this being something of a confounding book. it was funny that there was a huge publicity push, an hbo adaptation deal and "next game of thrones" talk and the actual novel is this very private, tortured thing full of masochistic sexual violence. i'm interested enough in the genre that i'll probably any serious attempt by a major author, but i have to admit that the idea of finishing the series is not exactly pleasant.

and it's amazing to think that delany was barely out of his teens when he wrote empire star...

[brian d]

Martian Time Slip's one of my favorite PKDs. You think you might tackle Dhalgren? I haven't read it since it came out, but I trust it would hold up as a big fat modernist mess. A fabulous big fat modernist mess. And there's Delany's notorious porn novel, which I wasn't able to finish...

i have several more pkd ready to go (valis, ubik, a skanner darkly). none of them have been disappointing so far. i do plan on giving dhalgren a read at some point, along with a few others by delany. if you're referring to hogg at the end, i don't know that i care enough to read it. i'd probably stick to the sci-fi.

black leopard, red wolf (marlon james) ** this was the biggest disappointment, definitely not sure i was getting much out of it

i remember this being something of a confounding book. it was funny that there was a huge publicity push, an hbo adaptation deal and "next game of thrones" talk and the actual novel is this very private, tortured thing full of masochistic sexual violence. i'm interested enough in the genre that i'll probably any serious attempt by a major author, but i have to admit that the idea of finishing the series is not exactly pleasant.

and it's amazing to think that delany was barely out of his teens when he wrote empire star...

it sounded so good in the store, but it was a struggle. some friends mentioned that the writing style wasn't working for them. i didn't find that an issue, but the meandering of the plot wasn't the easiest to work through. i'm glad to have read it, but i don't feel like reading the second (or potentially third) parts would really accomplish more than i got out of the first one.

[wba]

August 2024

The Ladies of Lyndon (Margaret Kennedy / 1923 / UK / English / English)
Störtebeker & Co. Die Blütezeite der Seeräuber in Nord- und Ostsee (Dieter Zimmerling / 1980 / West Germany / German / German)
Onkel Poppoff kann auf Bäume fliegen (Janosch / 1964 / West Germany / German / German) ♥
Ex-Wife (Anonymous [= Ursula Parrott] / 1929 / USA / English / English) ♥
Der Tag von Stralsund (Wilhelm Jensen / 1901 / Germany / German / German)

[nrh]

september
the wandering unicorn, manuel mujica lainez
maigret's patience, georges simenon
cyrion, tanith lee
palm of the hand stories, yasunari kawabata
the wood beyond the world, william morris
border district, gerald murnane

comics
isaac the pirate (vol 1 & 2 in the us edition), cristophe blain
tokyo these days vol 3, taiyo matsumoto

[brian d]

the possessed (witold gombrowicz) ***** i seem to have a thing for books that were written with the intention of being trashy (faulkner's sanctuary, melville's pierre...)
a scanner darkly (philip k dick) **
monday starts on saturday (arkady and boris strugatsky) *** not sure what to do with this one
ubik (philip k dick) ****
story of the stone 1: the golden days (cao xuequin) **
the hammer of god (arthur c clarke) ****
fiasco (stanisław lem) ***** would be 5 stars even if just for the first chapter, honestly
post-scarcity anarchism (murray bookchin) *** dated, but what he has to say about political parties is still important
maría (jorge isaacs) **
the honorary consul (graham greene) ** just a set-up for working through boring theological debates

[brian d]

border district, gerald murnane

have you read the plains? i've been tempted to track down a used copy because it doesn't seem to be in print anymore.

[nrh]

i read the plains and loved it, definitely a more conventional work of fiction than the other murnane i've read, which is all after his 20 year break break from publishing fiction. i'm pretty sure i got mine used for a few dollars, it's the relatively ugly "text classics" paperback

[wba]

September 2024

Der König der Täufer (Heinrich Schoene / 1886 / Germany / German / German)
Hart am Rande (Levin Schücking / 1887 / Germany / German / German)
The World of William Clissold. Books I and II (Herbert George Wells / 1926 / UK / English / English) ♥
„Einige Herren sagten etwas dazu“. Die Autorinnen der Gruppe 47 (Nicole Seifert / 2024 / Germany / German / German)
Knut Hamsun (Wolfgang Schneider / 2011 / Germany / German / German)
1922. Wunderjahr der Worte (Norbert Hummelt / 2022/ Germany / German / German)
The Evening and the Morning (Ken Follett / 2020 / UK / English / English)
Florentin. Erster Band (Anonymous [= Brendel Mendelssohn] / 1801 / Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation / German / German)
Hotel Amerika (Maria Leitner / 1930 / Germany / German / German)
Kim Basinger (Berndt Schulz / 1990 / Germany / German / German)

[brian d]

october:
earthman, come home (james blish) ***
the triumph of time (james blish) ***
trickery [several stories] (roald dahl) ***
the cyberiad (stanisław lem) **
the plains (gerald murnane) *** - it felt kind of like reading a terrence malick movie
los perros hambrientos (ciro alegría) ***
print culture and the formation of the anarchist movement in spain (james michael yeoman) ***
the diver's clothes lie empty (vendela vida) ****
casas viejas (ramón sender) ****
the amazon, land without history (euclides da cunha) ****
the stars, like dust (isaac asimov) **

[wba]

October 2024

Es steht geschrieben (Friedrich Dürrenmatt / 1947 / Switzerland / German / German)
Hotel du Lac (Anita Brookner / 1984 / UK / English / English)
The Heat (Garry Disher / 2015 / Australia / English / English)
Das vierte Tor (Ilse Aichinger / 1945 / Austria / German / German) ♥
Die Projektoren (Clemens Meyer / 2024 / Germany / German / German)

[nrh]

october 2024 -
the continuous katherine moretenhoe, d.g. compton
dead space: martyr, brian evenson
lord valentine's castle, robert silverberg
the comedy is finished, donald westlake
the wasp factor, iain banks
doctors wear scarlet, simon raven