Books read since last post: 6 (almost)
Dee Brown, Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Nick Cohen, What's Left?
J.M. Coetzee, The Life and times of Michael K
H. Hesse, Siddhartha
P. Leigh Fermor, The violins of St Jacques
C. Thubron, The Shadow of the Silk Road
Unlike Andrew, I am not missing Marcel and could so with a somewhat longer Proust break. In particular I could do with reading a cluster of books about China I have acquired. But in any case, I had intended to be hitting the S&G road by now, but am still stuck in Iran with Mr Thubron. The book is excellent (much better than In Siberia), but is taking a little longer to read than I had anticipated when I picked it up on Tuesday. Still, we travel to Liverpool tonight which should give me time to polish it off.
In other reading, Siddhartha was predictably a bit rubbish and Coetzee brilliant (I would recommend this book of his many times over). The others contained flaws: Leigh Fermor let down by a silly end, Cohen by sloppy logic, and Brown - the best of the three - couldn't quite make up its mind if it was a lament or a history - nonetheless should be read.
Sodom tonight.
Friday 29 February 2008
Thursday 28 February 2008
Sodom Eve (or Gomorrah Tomorrah)
Days Reading Proust: 109 (16, 64, 29)
Page: 1 S&G (nominal)
Pages Read Since Last Post: 0
Books Read Since Last Post: 8 and a bit
The Emigrants, W. G. Sebald;
The Genie in the Bottle, Hugh Montgomery;
Kiss in the Hotel Joseph Conrad and Other Stories, Howard Norman;
Atomised, Michele Houllebecq;
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho;
Death and the Penguin, Andrei Kurkov;
Here is New York, E.B.White;
No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy;
some of Eating for England, Nigel Slater
April may (officially) be the cruellest month, but February has been my first Proust-free month since we started this venture, and I tell you what, I'm missing the old bugger.
I have, nevertheless, had a productive month reading-wise, albeit with no consistency in quality. The low-point of the month with the wishy-washy, pseudo-mystic, badly written tripe that was The Alchemist. This book has sold > 60 million copies worldwide, which suggests that it might even be more widely read than Proust... heaven forbid! Atomised wasn't much better - the first 100 pages grabbed my attention, but the novelty of literary porn soon wore off when I realised that Houllebecq didn't have the first clue about science and was waffling like an undergraduate who hasn't done the reading.
The Emigrants was an enjoyable, semi-factual set of stories about displacement, which neatly tie together in the last section. I will read more Sebald. The other book of short stories I read this month: Kiss in the Hotel Joseph Conrad was a purchase of a few years back from a secondhand bookshop, largely on strength of its title (although it turned out to have nothing to do with Gene Simmons and his popular music outfit). It was OK, nothing special, couple of nice stories but none of them especially profound. The title remains the best thing about it.
No Country for Old Men, which I finished last night, was gripping and at times horrifically so. Sadly it was let down by a weak ending, and I'm still not sure about the author's use of narrative breaks during key events to relate the outcome through character's experience of the aftermath - maybe genius, maybe just confusing. I like McCarthy, as readers of earlier posts will note. The Road was excellent and I plan to read the rest of his oeuvre, but I do wish he'd use punctuation - we have it for a reason. Death and the Penguin was also good fun. Relentlessly black humour and, to this date, the only book I have ever read which juxtaposes the Ukranian mafia with Antarctic birdlife.
The real highlight of the month was E.B. (Charlotte's Web) White's short essay, Here is New York. I bought it from a stall outside the Met on my first visit there in 2002, promptly shelved it and forgot about it until I sorted out my books after moving in December. It is nostalgic and overly sentimental, and as such is a complete delight. It takes no more than about 20 minutes to read and copies should be handed out to everyone waiting in those tedious lines to have their passport inspected at JFK. Like any great travel writing, it is very much of its time and is largely out of date by the time it enters the canon. White tells us of people giving that once popular suicide spot the Empire State Building a wide berth because of falling bodies, brass bands in Central Park being accompanied by the horn of the Queen Mary, smokestacks in the Bowery and the plans for building the UN that were to turn NY into the capital of the world. There were more glorious images and glimpses of the recent past in this book than nearly all the others I have read this month put together.
By contrast, The Genie in the Bottle, was a bleak look at our near future. The book, which is a key part of Project Genie, is intended to educate schoolkids about global warming, and the author, a friend and research collaborator of mine, wants to give every child in the UK aged 7-11 a free copy. This is important stuff - spread the word!
Still, my one and only Proust reference of the month came from Eating for England, where Nige points out the differences between the petite French madeleine "delicately ridged like a scallop shell" and the English madeleine "a dumpy castle made out of sponge, doused in raspberry jam and sprinkled with dessicated coconut [which] then gets a cherry on top, and if it's really lucky, wings of livid green angelica." He concludes, "It's a case of Proust versus Billy Bunter".
So, tomorrow we start again. The novelty of being halfway through has worn off and I'm itching to restart. We have, optimistically, been considering possible future projects, including Anthony Powell's 12 volume Dance to the Music of Time. We may, of course, be getting ahead of ourselves here - I had a crisis with volume 2, Will struggled a little to start volume 3 and former-Proustanaut Alexis seems to have given up reading altogether. Only Elliot has progressed unhindered and has already finished S&G to boot - contracting pneumonia must surely constitute cheating. Robert Proust, who edited the final 3 volumes after his brother's death, certainly saw it as an advantage, "The sad thing is that people have to be very ill or have a broken leg in order to have the opportunity to read In Search of Lost Time." Do I feel a cold coming on?
Page: 1 S&G (nominal)
Pages Read Since Last Post: 0
Books Read Since Last Post: 8 and a bit
The Emigrants, W. G. Sebald;
The Genie in the Bottle, Hugh Montgomery;
Kiss in the Hotel Joseph Conrad and Other Stories, Howard Norman;
Atomised, Michele Houllebecq;
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho;
Death and the Penguin, Andrei Kurkov;
Here is New York, E.B.White;
No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy;
some of Eating for England, Nigel Slater
April may (officially) be the cruellest month, but February has been my first Proust-free month since we started this venture, and I tell you what, I'm missing the old bugger.
I have, nevertheless, had a productive month reading-wise, albeit with no consistency in quality. The low-point of the month with the wishy-washy, pseudo-mystic, badly written tripe that was The Alchemist. This book has sold > 60 million copies worldwide, which suggests that it might even be more widely read than Proust... heaven forbid! Atomised wasn't much better - the first 100 pages grabbed my attention, but the novelty of literary porn soon wore off when I realised that Houllebecq didn't have the first clue about science and was waffling like an undergraduate who hasn't done the reading.
The Emigrants was an enjoyable, semi-factual set of stories about displacement, which neatly tie together in the last section. I will read more Sebald. The other book of short stories I read this month: Kiss in the Hotel Joseph Conrad was a purchase of a few years back from a secondhand bookshop, largely on strength of its title (although it turned out to have nothing to do with Gene Simmons and his popular music outfit). It was OK, nothing special, couple of nice stories but none of them especially profound. The title remains the best thing about it.
No Country for Old Men, which I finished last night, was gripping and at times horrifically so. Sadly it was let down by a weak ending, and I'm still not sure about the author's use of narrative breaks during key events to relate the outcome through character's experience of the aftermath - maybe genius, maybe just confusing. I like McCarthy, as readers of earlier posts will note. The Road was excellent and I plan to read the rest of his oeuvre, but I do wish he'd use punctuation - we have it for a reason. Death and the Penguin was also good fun. Relentlessly black humour and, to this date, the only book I have ever read which juxtaposes the Ukranian mafia with Antarctic birdlife.
The real highlight of the month was E.B. (Charlotte's Web) White's short essay, Here is New York. I bought it from a stall outside the Met on my first visit there in 2002, promptly shelved it and forgot about it until I sorted out my books after moving in December. It is nostalgic and overly sentimental, and as such is a complete delight. It takes no more than about 20 minutes to read and copies should be handed out to everyone waiting in those tedious lines to have their passport inspected at JFK. Like any great travel writing, it is very much of its time and is largely out of date by the time it enters the canon. White tells us of people giving that once popular suicide spot the Empire State Building a wide berth because of falling bodies, brass bands in Central Park being accompanied by the horn of the Queen Mary, smokestacks in the Bowery and the plans for building the UN that were to turn NY into the capital of the world. There were more glorious images and glimpses of the recent past in this book than nearly all the others I have read this month put together.
By contrast, The Genie in the Bottle, was a bleak look at our near future. The book, which is a key part of Project Genie, is intended to educate schoolkids about global warming, and the author, a friend and research collaborator of mine, wants to give every child in the UK aged 7-11 a free copy. This is important stuff - spread the word!
Still, my one and only Proust reference of the month came from Eating for England, where Nige points out the differences between the petite French madeleine "delicately ridged like a scallop shell" and the English madeleine "a dumpy castle made out of sponge, doused in raspberry jam and sprinkled with dessicated coconut [which] then gets a cherry on top, and if it's really lucky, wings of livid green angelica." He concludes, "It's a case of Proust versus Billy Bunter".
So, tomorrow we start again. The novelty of being halfway through has worn off and I'm itching to restart. We have, optimistically, been considering possible future projects, including Anthony Powell's 12 volume Dance to the Music of Time. We may, of course, be getting ahead of ourselves here - I had a crisis with volume 2, Will struggled a little to start volume 3 and former-Proustanaut Alexis seems to have given up reading altogether. Only Elliot has progressed unhindered and has already finished S&G to boot - contracting pneumonia must surely constitute cheating. Robert Proust, who edited the final 3 volumes after his brother's death, certainly saw it as an advantage, "The sad thing is that people have to be very ill or have a broken leg in order to have the opportunity to read In Search of Lost Time." Do I feel a cold coming on?
Friday 15 February 2008
Statistics
I'm listening to the cricket and they calculating run rates (we may be about to lose, though not as abjectly as last time).
It is also occuring to me that in the general free for all that is now the Proustathon, we have not really caclulated days. In fact only Andrew and I have been doing this. Given that some of us are chronically anal, this won't do. I suggest we recommence. Simple scoring rules: count the days reading Proust continuously between start of each volume and completion. The start is deemed to be either when you start or when we all decide to do so. The inital post on this here.
I have reconstructed the leaderboard based on some dodgy assumptions about Elliot
Elliot: 4 vols, 93 days (15,37, 24,17)
Will: 3 vols, 74 (23,7,44)
Andrew: 3 vols, 109 (16,64,29)
Alexis: 2 vols, 112 (19, 48,45*)
Elliot, I may have overstated your days, I have basically worked from continuous reading of Proust between your 30 days ish on 30th Dec to final completion of vol 4 on the 10th Feb (Sunday last).
Interestingly, my previous assumption that we would get to completion by 100 days has already proved woefully optimistic. Similarly, my assumption that we would be finishing vol 6 by June now looks only realistic for Elliot.
Apologies for anality, but would you all expect any less. I'll keep updating.
It is also occuring to me that in the general free for all that is now the Proustathon, we have not really caclulated days. In fact only Andrew and I have been doing this. Given that some of us are chronically anal, this won't do. I suggest we recommence. Simple scoring rules: count the days reading Proust continuously between start of each volume and completion. The start is deemed to be either when you start or when we all decide to do so. The inital post on this here.
I have reconstructed the leaderboard based on some dodgy assumptions about Elliot
Elliot: 4 vols, 93 days (15,37, 24,17)
Will: 3 vols, 74 (23,7,44)
Andrew: 3 vols, 109 (16,64,29)
Alexis: 2 vols, 112 (19, 48,45*)
Elliot, I may have overstated your days, I have basically worked from continuous reading of Proust between your 30 days ish on 30th Dec to final completion of vol 4 on the 10th Feb (Sunday last).
Interestingly, my previous assumption that we would get to completion by 100 days has already proved woefully optimistic. Similarly, my assumption that we would be finishing vol 6 by June now looks only realistic for Elliot.
Apologies for anality, but would you all expect any less. I'll keep updating.
Wednesday 13 February 2008
A year of reading Proust
Page: 691
Pages read since last post: 389
Days reading Proust: 74 (23,7,44)
Other books read: 0
Books about Proust bought in charity shops: 1 (P.Rose, A Year of reading Proust)
I have finally finished this. It feels as if it has lagged tremendously, but it hasn't been that long. Anyway, I enjoyed this very much. There is a real feeling of plot, though not quite as tight and fast moving as we were promised in early volumes. Still, this does feel to me the first volume that we can say is more than a string of vignettes, and I am grateful for that.
I don't have much to add to the comments from others, except to point that the interminable salon scenes remain for me fascinating and good fun, and it is worth noting (for you that are thinking about this) that many of the aristocracy are made up. Some of the references are true true. The princes of Ligne for example are famous (and there was a rather good book about one of them that I read recently). Similarly the house of Parma and the issues around the Napoleon nobility against the Bourbon are also historically as well as literarily fascinating.
In the light of Alexis' total failure to read and / or post and Elliot's massive lead, I think there is no real need to wait too long. I intend to start on the 29th after I have read all the short books outstanding in my life.
Roll on Sodom and Gomorrah.
Pages read since last post: 389
Days reading Proust: 74 (23,7,44)
Other books read: 0
Books about Proust bought in charity shops: 1 (P.Rose, A Year of reading Proust)
I have finally finished this. It feels as if it has lagged tremendously, but it hasn't been that long. Anyway, I enjoyed this very much. There is a real feeling of plot, though not quite as tight and fast moving as we were promised in early volumes. Still, this does feel to me the first volume that we can say is more than a string of vignettes, and I am grateful for that.
I don't have much to add to the comments from others, except to point that the interminable salon scenes remain for me fascinating and good fun, and it is worth noting (for you that are thinking about this) that many of the aristocracy are made up. Some of the references are true true. The princes of Ligne for example are famous (and there was a rather good book about one of them that I read recently). Similarly the house of Parma and the issues around the Napoleon nobility against the Bourbon are also historically as well as literarily fascinating.
In the light of Alexis' total failure to read and / or post and Elliot's massive lead, I think there is no real need to wait too long. I intend to start on the 29th after I have read all the short books outstanding in my life.
Roll on Sodom and Gomorrah.
Tuesday 5 February 2008
Pour L'Amour Des Chiens
Page: 302
Pages read since last post: 216
Days reading Proust: 66* (23,7,36*)
References to Proust found in the new Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band CD: 2
Books read in January: 3 (Gibbon, vols 1 & 2, I am Legend)
This is the fewest books read in a month since records began (August 2005). I am appalled at my own laziness.
Anyway, I have finally gotten on with this. And I must confess I really don't see how you can all be finding the salon scenes dull. This one really is fab, though I grant a bit long (hardly a unique comment in this novel). I'm also loving the historical conext and the prince of Borodine really makes one think about the strange survival of the Napoleonic and Bourbon French nobility side by side. It would make a fascinating book. And the Dreyfusard controversy is always interesting. I'm reading J'Accuse next (which at this rate will be March) - at least it's short.
On a lighter note, the new Bonzo Dog Doo-dah band album has two references to Proust, in Hawkeye the Gnu (where a Moose eats a copy in the library), and Salmon Proust (which adds to the collection of related recipes in other texts).
I have now broken the back of Gibbon and can look forward to volume 3, which, rather impressively, is the only one that is directly relevant to my doctorate.
Pages read since last post: 216
Days reading Proust: 66* (23,7,36*)
References to Proust found in the new Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band CD: 2
Books read in January: 3 (Gibbon, vols 1 & 2, I am Legend)
This is the fewest books read in a month since records began (August 2005). I am appalled at my own laziness.
Anyway, I have finally gotten on with this. And I must confess I really don't see how you can all be finding the salon scenes dull. This one really is fab, though I grant a bit long (hardly a unique comment in this novel). I'm also loving the historical conext and the prince of Borodine really makes one think about the strange survival of the Napoleonic and Bourbon French nobility side by side. It would make a fascinating book. And the Dreyfusard controversy is always interesting. I'm reading J'Accuse next (which at this rate will be March) - at least it's short.
On a lighter note, the new Bonzo Dog Doo-dah band album has two references to Proust, in Hawkeye the Gnu (where a Moose eats a copy in the library), and Salmon Proust (which adds to the collection of related recipes in other texts).
I have now broken the back of Gibbon and can look forward to volume 3, which, rather impressively, is the only one that is directly relevant to my doctorate.
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