books, books, books

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Jack of All Parades
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

http://www.bryanappleyard.com/clive-james-de-profundis/

That profile article is sad news. Outside of Larkin, Heaney, James Fenton, Les Murray and maybe Peter Porter, the only contemporary English poet I have read with strong enjoyment and continuously. His is a muscular verse that takes no prisoner. He is a legitimate heir to the great line of satirists and moralists in English verse. To this day I take great delight in individual poems like "The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered", "Sack Artist", "What Happened to Auden" and "Sunday Morning Walk". I have always admired how his poems frequently mirror the same tautness as his essays. He has learned well from his eighteenth century masters. Having pulled off the shelf my copy of Opal Sunset Selected Poems 1958-2008, I have been actively engaged with his poetry. He has also led me back to an American counterpart, Richard Wilbur. It is fun to wrestle with both of them. Their formal, yet lithe, stanzas are a treat for the mind and heart. Sad news, indeed, that article.

I have enjoyed his own site:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... KslXibuBDA
A nice example of his verse and something that would put a smile on the face of Stephen Greenblatt:

Lucretius the Diver

Things worn out by the lapse of ages tend
Toward the reef, that motley wrecking crew
Of living polyps who, to get ahead,
Climb ruthlessly all over their own dead,
But facts like those Lucretius never knew:
He merely meant we can't long buck the trend
That winds up hard against a watershed.

Horace had godly names for every breeze.
Ovid himself was stiff with sacred stuff.
Virgil talked turkey just once, about bees.
Of ancient wits Lucretius alone,
Without recourse to supernatural guff,
Uncannily forecast the modern tone —
Viewing the world as miracle enough.

Imagine him in Scuba gear, instead
Of whatever kit a Roman poet wore —
To find his fruitful symbol for the grave
Not just inevitable but alive
Would surely suit him down to the sea floor.
Suspended before such a flower-bed
He'd bubble with delight beneath the wave.

The reef, a daughter, and the sea, its mother,
In a long, white-lipped rage with one another
Would shout above him as he hung in space
And saw his intuition had been right:
Under a windswept canopy of lace,
Even down there in that froth-filtered light,
The World of Things is clearly the one place —

Death lives, life dies, and no gods intervene.
It's all so obvious, would be his thought:
But then, it always was, at least to him,
And why the rest of them were quite so dim
On that point is perhaps a theme we ought
To tackle, realising it could mean
Our chances going in are pretty slim

Of drawing comfort from a Golden Age
So lethally haphazard no-one sane
Could contemplate the play of chance was all
There was to life. That took the featherbrain
Lucretius seemed to them, and not the sage
He seems to us, who flinch from his disdain
As he stares seaward at the restless wall

Of ruined waves, the spray that falls like rain.
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Re: books, books, books

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Just finished Destiny of the Republic, about the assassination of President Garfield. Fascinating history and interesting to read in the middle of our current political campaign. I have to think that had he survived the gunshot wound that killed him, Garfield would have gone on to become one of the truly great presidents. He was an incredibly learned man with a real passion for issues of equality. This is an amazing story, involving a mentally ill man and lifelong schemer (the assassin Guiteau), some nasty political opponents, such as New York senator Roscoe Conkling, a lot of quack doctors and even Alexander Graham Bell, who was convinced he could invent an instrument to locate the assassin's bullet in Garfield's body, and would have succeeded if not for the physician responsible for the President's care.

Highly recommended for those with a passion for American history.
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Picked up Kafka On The Shore again. Peculiar book.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Jack of All Parades wrote:That profile article is sad news. Outside of Larkin, Heaney, James Fenton, Les Murray and maybe Peter Porter, the only contemporary English poet I have read with strong enjoyment and continuously.
Whoa! Poets in the English language? Only Larkin and Fenton are English. Murray, Porter and James all Ozzies, of course. It's funny because for me Clive James is chiefly a brilliant TV critic and often amusing (though sometimes a little too predictable) TV presenter. His poetry isn't on my radar.

He's also significant as a local resident here in Cambridge. Only a few months ago I saw him in Sainsburys supermarket here in town with, I assume, his wife. I tried not to stare too much as I think it's the first time I've ever seen him round and about.

Hope he sticks around a while longer.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Otis Westinghouse wrote:
Jack of All Parades wrote: Whoa! Poets in the English language? Only Larkin and Fenton are English. Murray, Porter and James all Ozzies, of course.
I will never get that distinction. They are all masters of English verse to my ear and eye, Hell, have not James and Porter lived most of their lives In England? Silly me. I guess I thought if you wrote in English you are an English poet[ as opposed to American]. Does that make Eliot an English poet?

Otis, he is an excellent poet and has been writing for decades going back to the Fifties. Here is a link to poems in his selected volume-Opal Sunset:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Bczy85 ... in&f=false

If you want, explore and see if you do not agree. His "Valediction for Philip Larkin" is memorable.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

mood swung wrote:Picked up Kafka On The Shore again. Peculiar book.
You may be on the 'inside track' for this year's Nobel for Literature- at least according to English odds makers. Happy reading!
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Jack of All Parades wrote:I will never get that distinction. They are all masters of English verse to my ear and eye, Hell, have not James and Porter lived most of their lives In England? Silly me. I guess I thought if you wrote in English you are an English poet[ as opposed to American]. Does that make Eliot an English poet?
Definitely not! Although Eliot became 'naturalized British', he is "American (naturalized British)".

Clive James is an Ozzie through and through, to think of him as 'English' cos he's lived here for decades is perverse. Same with the others, Germaine Greer, or Peter Carey, NY resident.
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Re: books, books, books

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I have been reading voraciously of late but will keep most of that to myself- but this book Isaac Newton by James Gleick, a small but strong biography of the great thinker and scientist has been a revelation. It is a marvel of compression mixed with a most engaging prose style that makes difficult mathematical and scientific concepts and terms digestible for a layman like myself. I had never realized what an eccentric character he was- his disputes and fights with his peers, if there were really any of his equal, are toxic. It is a most engaging portrait of his genius and of his personality and his weaknesses as a human. Simply fascinating.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

There's a pub in Cambridge called The Isaac Newton. that's Cambridge for you. Sadly it's modern and dull. Not sure I've ever been in it. Should be ancient and with a good line in cider (for the apple link).
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Re: books, books, books

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Otis, I always have regretted that I never pursued a Kellet Fellowship to study at Cambridge. Have you ever given his statue at Trinity a rub? Such a strange and complex man. It also would seem from my reading that the apple story is made from whole cloth. Never happened. Makes for a nice narrative, however.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Can't say I have! Never even seen it, truth be told. I very rarely go anywhere near the inside of any of the colleges. Normally only when we hold work dos, and you may recall me recounting the incredible experience of attending (rather inappropriately, it turned out), Frank Kermode's memorial service in King's College Chapel.
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Otis no shame in wanting to pay respects to Sir Frank. Greatest critic, along with Christopher Ricks, for me in the last 50 years. I am constantly revisiting his work.

Been indulging in a science text while here in Boston/Brookline- "Periodic Tales-a cultural history of the elements, from arsenic to zinc" by Hugh Aldersey- Williams. I love these cultural/scientific books. Well written, it is a delicious romp through the centuries as elements are found- it is the "black of charcoal and coal, the white of calcium in chalk and marble and pearl, the intense blue of cobalt in glass and china slash boldly through place and time, geography and history"-I am having fun as I read about "the oxygen of publicity to the phosphorous in my pee" Engaging subject and yet another chance to make up for my deficiency in scientific understanding.
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Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Sounds like a nice companion piece to Primo Levi's The Periodic Table.

Definitely no shame re Kermode, just that my friend and I were expecting a packed college, but only the choirstalls area was occupied, a pretty compact gathering of people who knew him well, including several literary heavyweights. It was the first and probably last time that I took up the invitation to one of the hundreds of memorials I've had invitations to through the university, so thought 'why not?' On arrival, a colleague who knew him well and had published work of his asked 'Ah, so did you know Sir Frank, then?' The music was sublime.

The Seb Coe reference made me want to read some more Jonathan Coe! turned to the shelf and found a 2010 title called The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim. Curious because I had never heard of it, nor could my wife and I recall how it came to be there. Narrated by a sad loser (who shares my age of 48), it manages to be both very funny but filled with pathos too. Very readable, which is great as I'm doing some travelling this week.

It's a while since I read any Coe, and have yet to read The Rotters Club. Which are your favourites? What a Carve Up' is fabulous.
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I did not particularly enjoy the Maxwell Sim book- about half way through felt a major let down. Got disinterested very quickly.

My favorites probably mirror yours- The Winshaw Legacy and The Rotter's Club- both wickedly funny send ups of modern day England for my ears and eyes. I also am partial to The Closed Circle. But I also like House of Sleep-it showed he can tell a traditional story with some elan.

Would have loved to have attended the memorial for Sir Frank. He taught at Columbia for many years following my graduation but I would have tried to take a class with him. By all accounts a genuinely nice person who wore his immense learning lightly- but what a critical and original and open mind he had. I have always liked the quote from Philip Roth that Kermode was the only person he wanted reviewing his books- particularly after the praise he heaped on Sabbaths Theatre.
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Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Been reading Maxwell Sim on my (work) travels, and totally loving it. Fascinating mix of being very accessible and funny yet dealing with serious, dark stuff, and capturing the banality of much of modern (British) life without being banal. Have just read Alison's 'Folded Photograph' essay part.

So What A Carve Up is called The Winshaw Legacy in the US? Curious.
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That image of Mr. Sim all flacid on the bed in that spare room could well have contributed to my putting the book down and not going back- much like young Allison's reaction to the photo. Did like the notion of camping along Coniston Water-have always wanted to tramp around the Lake District. Have been re-reading Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals again of late and her words and the poetry of her brother have put the yen back into me to get there one day before I am too old to walk around. The descriptions in the Journals are exquisite and you see the situations she describes popping up regularly in the poems of that period.
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You never finished it? Insane! I finished it on an aeroplane this week, full of cold and sinusitis after three days of meetings and talking and feeling terrible. Was desperate to be home, so immersing myself in the last 50 pages, and then skim-reading parts of it again was perfect to hasten my return. I thought the whole book was very good. Not perfect, certainly some questions in my head and some things that convinced me less, but the overall thematic plotting and execution were great. Ending, hmm, well I can't comment if you ain't read it! A book that had me going back to earlier scenes in it many times to look for little details. The folded photograph and the flaccid member being one of them - something that hovers somewhat unresolved about that scene later on in the book. Ah well. Have now started The Rotters' Club.
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Pleased to see that Jim Holt's thought provoking "Why Does the World Exist?" made the 10 best list of books this year from the NY Times book editors. It is a witty and learned journey through all the implications of that question that I enjoyed reading when it first came out earlier this past spring. I have been pushing it on friends for months. John Updike's conversation with the author never leaves my head.

Disappointed that Louise Gluck's Collected Poems, just out this fall, did not make the cut. I have been wallowing in its expansive pages for over a month now. There is a quote from Ian McEwan in the 'By the Book' column in today's book review which speaks to why this collection resonates so with me-
" Do you read poetry?

We have many shelves of poetry at home, but still, it takes an effort to step out of the daily narrative of existence, draw that neglected cloak of stillness around you — and concentrate, if only for three or four minutes. Perhaps the greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist. I last felt that in relation to a poem while in the sitting room of Elizabeth Bishop’s old home in rural Brazil. I stood in a corner, apart from the general conversation, and read “Under the Window: Ouro Preto.” The street outside was once an obscure thoroughfare for donkeys and peasants. Bishop reports overheard lines as people pass by her window, including the beautifully noted “When my mother combs my hair it hurts.” That same street now is filled with thunderous traffic — it fairly shakes the house. When I finished the poem I found that my friends and our hosts had left the room. What is it precisely, that feeling of “returning” from a poem? Something is lighter, softer, larger — then it fades, but never completely."

There are just so many poems in this opus that call for that concentrated drawing over oneself of a 'cloak of stillness'- to in essence be annihilated for a brief period of time.

Here is the whole piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/books ... ?ref=books

Have not read the Zadie Smith novel that makes the list-"NW"- will try to pick it up in the new year-it sounds most promising- for now it is onto Julian Barnes's "The Sense of An Ending" which I just picked up for 25c at a local library used book store.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Great description of poetry's power. I confess I can relate to that sense far more with narrative, the moment when a book grabs you so much that the self-annihilation kicks in. Wonderful.

I read an Elizabeth Bishop poem when in Brazil last.

Nice appreciation of The Dead there.

Haven't read his last one Sweet Tooth, but will soon. Read almost all the others.
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Yesterday's events in Newton- just 45 miles east of me- have caused me to revisit my Montaigne and this from his Essays- "On Cruelty":

"I fancy virtue to be something else, and something more noble, than good nature, and the mere propension to goodness, that we are born into the world withal. Well-disposed and well-descended souls pursue, indeed, the same methods, and represent in their actions the same face that virtue itself does: but the word virtue imports, I know not what, more great and active than merely for a man to suffer himself, by a happy disposition, to be gently and quietly drawn to the rule of reason. He who, by a natural sweetness and facility, should despise injuries received, would doubtless do a very fine and laudable thing; but he who, provoked and nettled to the quick by an offence, should fortify himself with the arms of reason against the furious appetite of revenge, and after a great conflict, master his own passion, would certainly do a great deal more. The first would do well; the latter virtuously: one action might be called goodness, and the other virtue; for methinks, the very name of virtue presupposes difficulty and contention, and cannot be exercised without an opponent. 'Tis for this reason, perhaps, that we call God good, mighty, liberal and just; but we do not call Him virtuous, being that all His operations are natural and without endeavour."

Like Montaigne, I struggle with trying to make sense out of such an event. I hope that no further families are torn asunder or communities by such a seemingly senseless act of cruelty and violence. I know at heart though that such a wish is a vanity on my part. I despair that a real dialogue will ever be opened in my country concerning guns, violence and the second amendment. I despair that the 'heart' to do so will never exist.
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Re: books, books, books

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About time I got around to this one- The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes. Just pure pleasure all around. Its short length manages to encapsulate a life never fully lived- just filled with missed chances and mistrust and a cheap fear of engagement. It is about inwardness and social anxiety and its suffocating effect upon people in English society. Memory and its entanglement and misshaping over time has never been better portrayed for me as a reader. It is a sharply drawn tale regarding the consequences of a legacy and the deadening of a life. A very sad book.
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Re: books, books, books

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The best list from the daily NY Times Book critics for 2012 is out today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/books ... ?ref=books

Lovely to see Louise Gluck's Collected Poems on a list- have been lost in its treasures ever since it came out this fall. And a solid and very funny new poet is now in my consciousness- Michael Robbins with his first collection Alien vs. Predator: Poems. As the blurb says he knows his Philip Larkin and his skill at traditional poetic forms is breathtaking- I love his facility with rhyme and his wild infectious humor.

Here is the review earlier this year from the NY Times:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 9tofNzZrxw
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Re: books, books, books

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Christmas gift from Santa- Both Flesh and Not- by David Foster Wallace. Middling successful with some of his greatest essays like his title piece on Roger Federer and a piece on a novel I am now keen to read "The Empty Plenum: David Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress which does what a strong essay/review should do - make you want to seek out the book. But too many of them are half baked, seemingly dashed off to meet an obligation or the request of an editor. What I do like are the few that work up in gorgeous detail his love of words and, as well, the editor's idea to take pages from Wallace's personal computer and list at various parts of the book words and the definitions that Wallace gave to them. It is like being with a modern day Dr. Johnson. It is nice to read his brief appreciations of William Gass's Ommensetter's Luck, Dennis Johnson's Angels and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian- and I was taken at how he connected their attempts to deal with human loneliness. This book has made me realize how much I miss his distinctive voice on a regular basis. It is sad to think these are perhaps the last of his thoughts I will have. AO Scott gets it right with his back cover blurb:

"His voice.......Hyperarticulate, plaintive, self-mocking, diffident, overbearing, needy, ironical, almost pathologically self-aware.... it was something you instantly recognized even hearing it for the first time. It was- is- the voice in your head."
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This one is up next- to be published shortly- just about my favorite story writer these days. Here is a piece on him from this coming Sunday's NY Times Magazine- a good profile:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/magaz ... ar.html?hp

2013 is shaping up nicely as the Library of America is due to release on 2/7/13 the final two volumes of Philip Roth's Collected Works. This will be all the Novellas published in the last decade along with The Plot Against America and his novels that bring a close to Kepesh and Zuckerman.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Poor Deportee »

I don't know how it is that I never read Shirley Jackson's classic The Haunting of Hill House. But having finished it, white-knucked, last night, I can heartily recommend it. It goes FAR beyond potboiler haunted house tropes (although its command of these is admirable) and emerges as a most affecting, and unsettlingly skewed, character study - its protagonist Eleanor Vance being a creature both sympathetic and disturbing. Loaded with subtleties and ambiguities, the book's only flaw is its occasionally arch Edwardian dialogue; and even here, it's not clear whether this is a flaw (or a limitation of the prevailing norms of the time) or a deliberate technique for underscoring the odd relationships that prevail among the principal characters. A prime example of literary 'genre' fiction. Do yourself a favour, if you haven't read it, and give it a go.
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