SCFZ

Excellent month!

The sheltering sky - Bowles ♥
The dig - Jones
The 51 day war, ruin and resistance in Gaza - blumenthal
V for vendetta - Moore
Maqroll, three novellas - Mutis ♥
Politicide, Ariel sharon’s War against the Palestinians - Kimmerling
The turn of the screw - James
Uzumaki: spiral into horror - Ito ♥
The decline and fall of the Roman Empire, volume 2- Gibbon ♥

aphrodite (pierre louÿs) ***
desperate remedies (thomas hardy) **** [reread]
pavane for a dead princess (park min-gyu) ***
lolly willowes (sylvia townsend warner) *****
the blithedale romance (nathaniel hawthorne) **** [reread]
oliver twist (charles dickens) ***
the kremlin ball (curzio malaparte) **
mosquitoes (william faulkner) **
the gods will have blood (anatole france) ***
selected stories (lu xun) ***

i'm getting a bit sick of faulkner. just four more novels to go to have read them all, but not looking forward to the rest. sylvia townsend warner was a fun discovery, though. i'm excited to read more by her.

mesnalty wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 9:34 pm I just finished Ducks, Newburyport yesterday, and I loved it; the cumulative effect is really powerful. Excited for you to tackle the Tsing book, too!

Yes, though there have been rough patches in the middle. I find all the feline stuff a little contrived, actually, but now that it's working its way into the main text-body it's a lot more rewarding. Still, the style & meaning of those passages is lacklustre compared to the rest of the text. I am incredibly excited to tackle the Tsing too. We read one of her feminist mushroom write-ups for my 200-Level ANTH course last semester and it was astonishing. Just astonishing.

brian d wrote: ↑Sun Dec 01, 2019 4:27 am
lolly willowes (sylvia townsend warner) *****
the blithedale romance (nathaniel hawthorne) **** [reread]

two favorites.

november -

live flesh, ruth rendell
fatale, jean-patrick manchette
the sorcerer's house, gene wolfe
the prince in the scarlet robe, michael moorcock
essays one, lydia davis
prince with the silver hand, michael moorcock

now onto crime and punishment, which i have somehow never read before...

NOV (1)
nine stories (j. d. salinger) - 8/10

under the greenwood tree (thomas hardy) **** [reread]
white jacket (herman melville) **
the tenant of wildfell hall (anne brontë) **
the woman and the puppet (pierre louÿs) ***
the anatomy of melancholy, book 1 (robert burton) *****
frenchman's creek (daphne du maurier) ****
the fool and other moral tales (anne serre) ****
the road through the wall (shirley jackson) ****

all done with the novels of melville, but disappointed that i ended on a low note. i'm becoming convinced that shirley jackson is one of the best american novelists of the twentieth century, and it's really a shame that the haunting of hill house and the lottery overshadow everything else she did.

December 2019

Un Noel de Maigret “Weihnachten bei den Maigrets“ [translated by Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau, Bahar Avcilar] (Georges Simenon / 1951 / France / French / German) - 6.5/10
Quintett 1928 (Friedrich Eisenlohr / 1928 / Germany / German / German) - 7/10 ♥
Pyramids (Terry Pratchett / 1989 / UK / English / English) - 5.5/10
Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke (Rainer Maria Rilke / 1906 / Germany / German / German) - 8/10
Hunger nach Glück (Friedrich Eisenlohr / 1932 / Germany / German / German) - 8/10
Hemsöborna “Die Leute auf Hemsö” [Hans-Jürgen Hube] (August Strindberg / 1887 / Germany / Swedish / German) - 7/10 ♥
Helmut Käutner. Freiheitsträume und Zeitkritik (René Ruppert / 2018 / Germany / German / German) - 5.5/10
Fröken Julie “Fräulein Julie” [Peter Weiss] (August Strindberg / 1888 / Denmark / Swedish / German) - 6.5/10
Die Falle (Robert Gernhardt / 1966 / Germany / German / German) - 6.5/10
Waxworks (Ethel Lina White / 1930 / UK / English / English) - 7/10
In a Lonely Place (Dorothy B. Hughes / 1947 / USA / English / English) - 7.5/10 ♥
The End of Japanese Cinema. Industrial Genres, National Times, and Media Ecologies (Alexander Zahlten / 2017 / USA / English / English) - 7.5/10 ♥
Aragon: Projet d’histoire litteraire contemporaine “Louis Aragon. Projekt einer zeitgenössischen Literaturgeschichte. Essays” [translated by Lydia Babilas] (Marc Dachy [editor] / 1994 / France / French / German) - 7/10 ♥
The Saint (Victor Sawdon Pritchett / 1940 / UK / English / English) - 6.5/10
Transformation und Trance: Die Filme des Glauber Rocha als Arbeit am postkolonialen Gedächtnis (Peter Schulze / 2005 / Germany / German / German) - 7/10

January 2020 readings

• NFL Football: A History of America's New National Pastime (Richard C. Crepeau)
• Murder at the Vicarage (Agatha Christie)
• A Bird Watcher's Guide to Sparrows (Grace Vail)
• Football Made Simple: A Spectator's Guide (Dave Ominsky & P.J. Harari)
• The Triumphant Tale of the House Sparrow (Jan Thornhill)
• An Introduction to Karl Marx (Jon Elster)
• Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer (C.S. Lewis)
• The Bible: The Basics (John Barton)

Doing well so far: football, Miss Marple, sparrows, and religion.

the buried giant, kazuo ishiguro
the green knight, iris murdoch
the mad and the bad, jean-patrick manchette
city primeval

and started the charter house of parma, just made it to the battle of waterloo.

theory of the great game (rené daumal, et al) ***
the king in the golden mask (marcel schwob) ****
the songs of bilitis (pierre louÿs) **
a pair of blue eyes (thomas hardy) **** [reread]
witch grass (raymond queneau) **
why the child is cooking in the polenta (aglaya veteranyi) ****
the anatomy of melancholy, second part (robert burton) *****
heroes and villains (angela carter) ****
titu mir (mahasweta devi) ***

currently making my way through vico's new science (loving it) and sylvia townsend warner's the corner that held them (loving it as well).

Evelyn Library P.I. wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2020 8:13 pm January 2020 readings

• NFL Football: A History of America's New National Pastime (Richard C. Crepeau)
• Murder at the Vicarage (Agatha Christie)
• A Bird Watcher's Guide to Sparrows (Grace Vail)
• Football Made Simple: A Spectator's Guide (Dave Ominsky & P.J. Harari)
• The Triumphant Tale of the House Sparrow (Jan Thornhill)
• An Introduction to Karl Marx (Jon Elster)
• Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer (C.S. Lewis)
• The Bible: The Basics (John Barton)

Doing well so far: football, Miss Marple, sparrows, and religion.

are you a birder evelyn?? i have bushes full of house sparrows! it's fun to see more exotic species but all birds are interesting

rischka wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:09 am are you a birder evelyn?? i have bushes full of house sparrows! it's fun to see more exotic species but all birds are interesting

always loved birds, they're probably my favourite creatures. i definitely went through a birder phase as a child where i was good at identifying them and even made a few day trips to birder spots. i'm hoping to get modestly back into it now, just in my neighbourhood. it's mostly house sparrows 'round me, but they're plenty lovely. also see some blue jays, robins, cardinals, and the like.

yesterday, however, i saw a sharp-shinned hawk perched right outside my front window! it was creeping 'round our bird feeder and our bushes, hungry for house sparrows. i didn't think there were any sparrows in the bush, but after several passes through it the hawk made a leap into the bush and 4-5 sparrows flew out! they all got away unscathed, bless their feathers, and they still seem comfy 'round the feeder.

i've been birding from my yard for a few years now and i'm going to mexico at the end of the month on my first real birding adventure

oh awesome! i'd love to hear of your sightings from your birding adventure *bird emoji*

January 2020

Moso “Illusionen” [translated by Wolfgang Schamoni] (Ogai Mori / 1911 / Japan / Japanese / German) - 7/10
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle (Arthur Conan Doyle / 1892 / UK / English / English) - 6.5/10
Der Western-Film (Thomas Jeier / 1987 / West Germany / German / German) - 6/10
Der Auftrag oder Vom Beobachten des Beobachters der Beobachter. Novelle in 24 Sätzen. (Friedrich Dürrenmatt / 1986 / Switzerland / German / German) - 6.5/10
Curd Jürgens (Gregor Ball / 1985 / West Germany / German / German) - 6.5/10
Um sie weht der Hauch des Todes: der Italowestern – die Geschichte eines Genres. Zweite erweiterte Auflage (Studienkreis Film [editor] / 1999 / Germany / German / German) - 7.5/10 ♥
Kumo no ito “Der Faden der Spinne“ [translated by Jürgen Berndt] (Ryunosuke Akutagawa / 1918 / Japan / Japanese / German) - 7/10 ♥
Shisei “Tätowierung“ [translated by Heinz Brasch, Margarete Donath] (Junichiro Tanizaki / 1910 / Japan / Japanese / German) - 7/10
Han no hanzai “Das Verbrechen des Han“ [translated by Oscar Benl] (Shiga Naoya / 1913 / Japan / Japanese / German) - 5/10
?? “Ein Brief aus der Wüste“ [translated by Siegfried Schaarschmidt] (Yasushi Inoue / 19?? / Japan / Japanese / German) - 6.5/10
Shugen “Der Bergasket“ [translated by Siegfried Schaarschmidt] (Kenji Nakagami / 1974 / Japan / Japanese / German) - 5.5/10
Ame “Regen“ [translated by Margarete Donath] (Shotaro Yasuoka / 1963 / Japan / Japanese / German) - 6/10
Le Cercle des Mahe “Die Ferien des Monsieur Mahe“ [translated by Günter Seib] (Georges Simenon / 1946 / France / French / German) - 7/10 ♥
Hanns Heinz Ewers und der Phantastische Film (Reinhold Keiner / 1988 / West Germany / German / German) - 6.5/10
Parlour Tricks (Ralph Plummer / 1930 / UK / English / English) - 6.5/10

February 2020 readings

• The Tuesday Club Murders (Agatha Christie)
• Paracelsus: An Alchemical Life (Bruce T. Moran)
• An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory (Ernest Mandel)
• An Unusual Relationship: Evangelical Christians and Jews (Yaakov S. Ariel)
• A Letter Concerning Toleration (John Locke)

A solid month, though I hope to finish more in March.

James Hilton - Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1934) - 3.5/5
Ogai Mori - The Wild Geese (1911) - 2.5/5
Tetsuko Kuroyanagi - Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window (1981) - 4/5

the corner that held them (sylvia townsend warner) ***
saverio the cruel (roberto arlt) ****
new science (giambattista vico) *****
far from the madding crowd (thomas hardy) ***** [reread]
a king alone (jean giono) ***
the libertine (louis aragon) **
the bird’s nest (shirley jackson) ****
the story of the eye (georges bataille) **** [reread]
the libera me domine (robert pinget) ***

still not getting the giono hype, but this was the best of the three i've read. i read some of the vico a long time ago but really enjoyed going through the full work.

tragedy in three acts, agatha christie
the charterhouse of parma, stendhal

the christie is one of her oddest, treating the whodunnit as purely theatrical and with the main characters already fully cognizant of its laws and structures.

the stendhal is very strange and i think major. still can't quite figure out the overall structure but even just looked at as set piece after set piece (the waterloo section is the most famous but there are a half dozen nearly as good) it's a triumph. fabrizio might be dull at times but the duchess sanseverina is one of the great characters in 19th century fiction.

February 2020

The Two Gentlemen of Verona “Die beiden Veroneser“ [translated by Dorothea Tieck] (William Shakespeare / ca. 1590 / England? / English / German) - 7/10
Il compagno “Der Genosse“ [translated by Maja Pflug] (Cesare Pavese / 1947 / Italy / Italian / German) - 7/10 ♥
La Maison du juge “Maigret im Haus des Richters“ [translated by Thomas Bodmer] (Georges Simenon / 1942 / France / French / German) - 6.5/10
Herz über Bord (Lili Grün / 1933 / Austria / German / German) - 6.5/10
La luna e i falo “Der Mond und die Feuer“ [translated by Maja Pflug] (Cesare Pavese / 1950 / Italy / Italian / German) - 6.5/10
Estasi i verita “Ekstase und Wahrheit“ [translated by Suse Vetterlein] (Grazia Paganelli / 2010 / Germany / Italian / German) - 7/10
Die Tigerin. Eine absonderliche Liebesgeschichte (Walter Serner / 1925 / Germany / German / German) - 7.5/10
Die Rebellion (Joseph Roth / 1924 / Germany / German / German) - 6.5/10
Nerrantsoula [translated by Erna Redtenbacher, Hans Wolff] (Panait Istrati / 1927 / France / French / German) - 6.5/10
Die Dame im Strohhut (Max Krell / 1952 / West Germany / German / German) - 6.5/10
Die Schatzsucher von Venedig (Ruth Landshoff-Yorck / ca. 1933, 1950s / Germany, USA / German / German) - 6.5/10
Le temps d'un soupir “Nur einen Seufzer lang“ [translated by Margarete Bormann] (Anne Philipe / 1963 / France / French / German) - 6/10
La Chartreuse de Parme “Die Kartause von Parma“ [translated by Erwin Rieger] (Stendhal / 1839 / France / French / German) - 7.5/10 ♥

nrh wrote: ↑Sat Feb 29, 2020 7:08 pm
the stendhal is very strange and i think major. still can't quite figure out the overall structure but even just looked at as set piece after set piece (the waterloo section is the most famous but there are a half dozen nearly as good) it's a triumph. fabrizio might be dull at times but the duchess sanseverina is one of the great characters in 19th century fiction.

by chance I also read/finished The Charterhouse of Parma last month. Unfortunately I found it neither strange (very conventional, actually) nor major (a minor work, in my opinion). The only character I found fascinating and engaging was Fabrizio, a literary, "created" character, and whenever he appeared on the page the novel came alive as anything was suddenly possible. All others I found too predictable and often too clichéd (e.g. the duchess sanseverina), like they were all modeled on actual characters the author had known or met. Thus one always knew what they would do, how they would talk and how they would act, as they were pretty "true to life", so to speak.

Naive Fabrizio seemed mostly caught up in all those rather boring and conventional intrigues and traps, too often explicitly staged for him by his "loved ones" (most of the time by his overbearing aunt, at the end a bit by his small-minded, extremely dull love interest), so he usually (re)acted a bit like a deer trapped in the headlights. After all the melodrama in the novel (and this book is oozing melodrama!) Stendhals résumé seems to be that all those unhappy people were unable to lead a happy life, cause that's how the world turns and society is a bitch. Which is a bit meager in my opinion, but fitting for a fatalist, which Stendhal seems to have been through and through.

Maybe Fabrizio and his aunt could have enjoyed a deep love and a nice life together, but the aunt (who basically acted as his mother) always seemed to think "I'm too old, I'm too old, he's so young, he's so young" so nothing ever came of it. Too bad, cause the lad wouldn't have minded.

In my opinion, Stendhal should have either left out the character of Fabrizio completely - thus he might have created a pretty accurate portrait of human foibles during a particular place in time: France during the Bourbon Restauration after Napoleon [cause he sure ain't writing about Italy and Parma - at all], and in this way satisfied his "universalist" claim about the futility of life on earth (or rather the futility of life in the society of people).
Or he might have focused the novel completely on his fictitous hero, leaving the other characters as background on Fabrizio's journey. But then Fabrizio couldn't have ended up as a victim of the times, which Stendhal tries too hard to set him up as.
As it is, Fabrizio seems partly like a literary wish-fulfillment and partly like an autobiographical tragic hero, which contradicts itself and doesn't work, cause in my opinion he's clearly the avatar for Stendhal himself, which was a poor choice in the first place.

He also really should have published/written the third part of the novel as long and detailed as the first two parts, cause just tacking it on as he did with a dozen or so pages at the end is extremely lazy (I don't know, maybe his editor cancelled the planned third volume, and Stendhal had no choice).

EDIT: the famous analyses of the novel and "letter" to Stendhal by Balzac - which I also read - is at once admirable and laughable, as it's overlong and insubstantial, mostly revealing that Balzac isn't a literary theorist (who would have thought?). The forced analyses is rather unwitting and dull, exposing more or less the cluelessness of Balzac when confronted with the possible implications of this novel (after heaving read it three times and admitting at not having been an attentive reader the first time! ). But he also charms the reader a bit with his enthusiasm and big-eyed honesty. The generous, intelligent and concise reply by Stendhal on the other hand is a delight! I hope there's some more letters and correspondence by Stendhal to be read.

wba wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 11:58 am

nrh wrote: ↑Sat Feb 29, 2020 7:08 pm
the stendhal is very strange and i think major. still can't quite figure out the overall structure but even just looked at as set piece after set piece (the waterloo section is the most famous but there are a half dozen nearly as good) it's a triumph. fabrizio might be dull at times but the duchess sanseverina is one of the great characters in 19th century fiction.

by chance I also read/finished The Charterhouse of Parma last month. Unfortunately I found it neither strange (very conventional, actually) nor major (a minor work, in my opinion). The only character I found fascinating and engaging was Fabrizio, a literary, "created" character, and whenever he appeared on the page the novel came alive as anything was suddenly possible. All others I found too predictable and often too clichéd (e.g. the duchess sanseverina), like they were all modeled on actual characters the author had known or met. Thus one always knew what they would do, how they would talk and how they would act, as they were pretty "true to life", so to speak.

Naive Fabrizio seemed mostly caught up in all those rather boring and conventional intrigues and traps, too often explicitly staged for him by his "loved ones" (most of the time by his overbearing aunt, at the end a bit by his small-minded, extremely dull love interest), so he usually (re)acted a bit like a deer trapped in the headlights. After all the melodrama in the novel (and this book is oozing melodrama!) Stendhals résumé seems to be that all those unhappy people were unable to lead a happy life, cause that's how the world turns and society is a bitch. Which is a bit meager in my opinion, but fitting for a fatalist, which Stendhal seems to have been through and through.

Maybe Fabrizio and his aunt could have enjoyed a deep love and a nice life together, but the aunt (who basically acted as his mother) always seemed to think "I'm too old, I'm too old, he's so young, he's so young" so nothing ever came of it. Too bad, cause the lad wouldn't have minded.

In my opinion, Stendhal should have either left out the character of Fabrizio completely - thus he might have created a pretty accurate portrait of human foibles during a particular place in time: France during the Bourbon Restauration after Napoleon [cause he sure ain't writing about Italy and Parma - at all], and in this way satisfied his "universalist" claim about the futility of life on earth (or rather the futility of life in the society of people).
Or he might have focused the novel completely on his fictitous hero, leaving the other characters as background on Fabrizio's journey. But then Fabrizio couldn't have ended up as a victim of the times, which Stendhal tries too hard to set him up as.
As it is, Fabrizio seems partly like a literary wish-fulfillment and partly like an autobiographical tragic hero, which contradicts itself and doesn't work, cause in my opinion he's clearly the avatar for Stendhal himself, which was a poor choice in the first place.

He also really should have published/written the third part of the novel as long and detailed as the first two parts, cause just tacking it on as he did with a dozen or so pages at the end is extremely lazy (I don't know, maybe his editor cancelled the planned third volume, and Stendhal had no choice).

EDIT: the famous analyses of the novel and "letter" to Stendhal by Balzac - which I also read - is at once admirable and laughable, as it's overlong and insubstantial, mostly revealing that Balzac isn't a literary theorist (who would have thought?). The forced analyses is rather unwitting and dull, exposing more or less the cluelessness of Balzac when confronted with the possible implications of this novel (after heaving read it three times and admitting at not having been an attentive reader the first time! ). But he also charms the reader a bit with his enthusiasm and big-eyed honesty. The generous, intelligent and concise reply by Stendhal on the other hand is a delight! I hope there's some more letters and correspondence by Stendhal to be read.

Ok, after having read a pretty brilliant analyses of the novel where Fabrizio is placed as Orpheus/Eros, his aunt Gina as Aphrodite, Mosca as Mars/Apollon and Clelia as Psyche/Eurydike I have warmed a bit to the notion that the whole "realist" parts and tendencies which bothered me in the novel aren't neither that important nor that "realistic", and Stendhal might have been not so much interested in an accurate portrayal and criticism of his times (which a lot of the novel implies, imo), but more into a reinvention and actualization of mythological storytelling, which is more than fine with me. Seen in a different light, many a "determinist/fatalist" action might have simply been Stendhal staying true to his "sources". And obviously he had intended to do three volumes after all, and the somewhat simplistic and lifeless portrayal of Clelia wasn't initially intended as such. After having given the whole thing more thought, and seeing Stendhal and the novel as a modern classicist work, I have to revise my opinion, and agree with nrh that this is indeed a major achievement by Stendhal, and I'm very curious to read more stuff by him (and also some of the classicists he adored like Jean de La Fontaine, Corneille, Moliere, etc.)
And I really really really want to read La Fontaine's Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon (1669) which seems to have been one of the main points of reference for the Charterhouse.

i find any description of charterhouse as a realist novel kind of baffling - i understand it, perhaps, in the waterloo section, where the novel slows down to take in minute detail and a very modern feeling sense of confusion or disorientation. i kind of instinctively shy away from the sort of analysis you're talking about (though i haven't read it and it might be convincing!) but the novel does have an unworldly air to it. fabrizio always going up to those impossible towers, not just the prison but the two towers he climbs with father blanes.

and i don't know...yes the last dozen pages or so of wrap up seem almost comically rushed, but part of me wonders if this book, in particular, could ever end perfectly? it seems to breathe and expand as it goes on. i could very much see stendhal writing this, endlessly extending it, without losing inspiration for hundreds more pages. maybe it would be better off unfinished?

have been very quickly re-reading some of the gracq writing on stendhal (in the book published by pushkin press in english as reading writing). need to go back and read more carefully but several small observations i found helpful - that he breaks the book down into sections of differing tempo is one. that he notes that the relations between rich and poor are more like the kings and shepherds in a pastoral novel than a realist discussion of money and class is another.

and what the hell i'll just quote at length (all typos and transcription issues are mine) -

"in their reasoning, conversation, behavior, decisions, in the jauntiness of their spirit and manners, the real characters in the charterhouse (minor characters as well as major ones, l'abbe blanes as well as count mosca, ludovic as well as clelia, ferrante palla as well as the duchess) not only reveal themselves to be made of the same stuff - ideal italianness according to stendhal- but are members of a freemasonry in which a thousand things go without saying, where a secret language is spontaneously spoken without anything needing to be spelled out, all social distinctions left by the wayside. nothing is more typical of this point of view than the duchess's conversations with ludcovic after fabrice's escape, conversations in which rank creates no distance, they are immediately related through virtue. the others, the rassi, fabio conti, ascagne, barbone, raversi, boldly outlined and with no inner life, play traitors as summarily and as artlessly as in a novel by alexandre dumas. the charterhouse is the very singular and somewhat magical novel of a king's sons' aristocracy - princes or valets, millionaires or vagabonds, beggars or ministers - who recognize each other, gather, and band together as they meet on roads by chance and by accident, solely through the exercise of mutual tact. and contrary to what happens in the red and the black, the merit of each character lies less in his depth and his personal originality than in his intimate inclusion in this privileged egregore, successive examples of which charm us more by their organic kinship than their singularity. reading the charterhouse, i sometimes feel i am listening to an enchanting but unique musical theme, a "little phrase" like vinteuii's that is repeated inexhaustibly but in a different timbre each time by successive groups of instrument; and that's enough to give me pleasure.

because the moments of pure inner life, the lively stendhalian moments of tempests in a skull (so frequent in the red) where characters concetrate and gather, are almost nonexistent in the charterhouse, where, most often, reaction follows excitaton without any interval, and only passages of pure contemplation interrupt this allegro furioso with their long pauses. abandoned by the enraged tempo that the book communicates to them, destabilized by the slowing down of the narrative (the cohesive force that welds the characters of the charterhouse to the fictional body is tied to less its mass than to its velocity), what would it mean for us to see favrice married, mosca and the duchess disgraced and in retreat to naples? whereas we can very easily imagine mme de renal abandoned at verrieres. let's admit it: in order to read this wonderful book, a certain state of grace is required that cannot be retrieved at will; reopening it at certain pages, and until the supples swiftness of the writing woke me up, i thought i was reading dumas, a softer, sunnier dumas, a dumas who had fallen in love with his subject. because it is the climate of love that supports the book, but it is not really sanseverina's love for fabrice, or fabrice's love for clelia conti; it's the manifest love of the novelist for his novel, as for an eden revisited in dreams."

most likely doing grave disservice to the rest of the essay by excerpting...

yes, I also found it kind of impossible to imagine a "correct" ending to the novel, and I would probably agrree, that unfinished it could have actually worked better - similarly the endings of many a Dumas novel are kind of unsatisfying, when they never point to anything other than that the novel has to end at some point somehow.

The essay I mentioned actually satisfyingly gives an ending to the novel, a fascinating explanation and the rushed ending Stendhal chose (although Stendhal later wrote about wanting to write that third tome and flesh out Clelia even in the second, something he was reluctant to do / refrained from doing because of/by his publisher, who seemingly already found the second volume too long). But my english is a bit limited and I cannot translate all of it (the essay is 100+ pages long in itself). Basically it's about Stendhal's philosophical outlook, his belief system, etc. and how the characters can only been reborn enlessly if they die (at first), which also has to do with the way many myths were presented.

the change of tempi I found very irritating during the reading, as I am generally inclined to favor more information and long-winded explanations and descriptions, as well as repetitions if the writing is good (which it is in Stendhal). But then again it has its own charm and structures the reading in a way, like when you are supposed to relax, when you are supposed to read faster or slower, which sentences you might want to reread, etc. It's probably just a bit baffling when not used to Stendhal's stylistic manoevers (this was the first thing I've ever read by Stendhal).

The pastoral novel vibe (which I also partially had), would lead back to the idea of this text as a "classicist" work.

The gracq writing is quite beautiful, btw. Thanks for quoting it.

least weak month in a lil bit

MAR (3)

the enchantment (victoria benedictsson) - 9/10
play it as it lays (joan didion) - 10/10
a ghost at noon (alberto moravia) - 7/10

next month? next month i will fucking kill it

Mary Shelley - Transformation (+ other stories) - 2.5/5
Philip K. Dick - Eye in the Sky - 3/5
Jim Thompson - The Grifters - 3/5
Haruki Murakami - The Elephant Vanishes - 2/5
E.T.A. Hoffmann - The Sandman - 3/5

black renaissance: st orpheus breviary ii (miklós szentkuthy) ***
the anatomy of melancholy, third book (robert burton) *****
heart of a dog (mikhail bulgakov) ***
the ballad of the sad café (carson mccullers) ****
black no more (george schuyler) ****
the hand of ethelberta (thomas hardy) *** [reread]
the baphomet (pierre klossowski) *** [reread]
jerusalem: the emanation of the giant albion (william blake) ****

the people in the castle, joan aiken
the brothel in rosenstrasse, michael moorcock
carmen dog, carol emshwiller
the secret commonwealth, phillip pullman
trafalgar, angelica gorodischer
the great and secret show, clive barker
the beast in view, margaret millar
mischief, charlotte armstrong
the blunderer, patricia highsmith

nrh wrote: ↑Wed Apr 01, 2020 3:35 pm the blunderer, patricia highsmith

Thoughts? As some of y'all might know I'm a diehard Highsmith fan, based on the four I've read

bure wrote: ↑Wed Apr 01, 2020 3:50 pm Thoughts? As some of y'all might know I'm a diehard Highsmith fan, based on the four I've read

it's great! a really early one, with a wonderfully nasty hook and this feeling that you know where everything is going to end up in the most awful way. and just complete withering contempt for the social world she's describing. seema just finished suspension of mercy a little while ago which sounds like it revisits some of the ideas here.

blunderer is one of the books in that 2 volume library of america women suspense writers of the 40s (vol 1) and 50s (vol 2) set, which is where i read the armstrong and millar as well, both of which were terrific. last one left is the book that godard adapted for band a parte...