The Big Read

My first post in more than a year

2011-11-22T09:55:00.000-08:00

I was hesitating about returning to this blog, having lost my enthusiasm for it, but now I feel I can return. What have I been reading since the last time I posted? Well, I've taken to reading collections. I have completed since last week the entirety of the Pleiade collection published by Gallimard, and plan to keep up with their new publications once a year. I read all of The Great Books list, which was popular in the sixties. I also read Yale's English Monarch series, which I began as light relief but which proved much more politically minded than I expected. I read all the Harry Potters, just to see what the fuss was about. I embarked just this past week on a list of the Western canon, not the 100 book list set by Harold Bloom, but the massive 700 book list loom produced. As a result I am reading the best novel I've read in some time, His Daughter, by Yoram Kaniuk. I find myself back in Israel, after 20 year. It is very keenly observed.

I still regularly read The Economist, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and The Utne Reader. I still re-read some of my favorites for relaxation.

Mags, Cambridge History, Newman

2011-01-16T12:25:00.001-08:00

Since my last post I've read 4 issues of Eclectic Reading, two issues each of The Economist, The New Scientist, one issue each of Esquire, New York times Magazine, Chatelaine, The New Yorker, The Star, The Globe, The National Examiner, and The Examiner. I also read volumes 5,6 and 7 of the Cambridge New Modern History, and John Henry Cardinal Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua. I am now reading the Cambridge histories in philosophy, in particular the first, about Hellenistic philosophy. Certainly makes me realize I know nothing about Hellenistic philosophy in general, even I have read many ancient Greek philosophers.

Free-Thinkers, Best-Sellers, Fantasy

2011-01-03T04:33:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of The Economist, and an issue of The National Enquirer.

I have also read a volume of authors who wrote bestsellers in the XVIIIth century in France, and that was fascinating in itself. The most popular one was about the loves of nobles at the English court. I also read a collection of books from free-thinkers, about magic, about sexuality for women, etc. Two of them were written by the actual Cyrano de Bergerac, later immortalized in the rhyming play. Finally, I am reading the second volume of a collection of fantasy novels written by Germans in the XIXth century. That also is fascinating -- it gave rise to a whole current of literature that I knew about, having read many fantasy novels, but about whose roots I knew nothing. Who knew?

Reaux, Valery, Sade

2010-12-30T10:14:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of The New Yorker, The Economist, The New Scientist, and two issues of Eclectic Reading and The National Enquirer.

I've also read the complete works of Sade -- astounding how repetitious that gets. I also read Historiettes by Tallemand de Reaux: it was like the memoirs of Saint-Simon, except it was all anecdotes that were salacious or funny. I also read Paul Valery's notebooks.

Bernanos

2010-12-23T02:10:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read Hello Canada, two issues of GQ, The National Enquirer, The New Scientist, the Utne Reader, and Eclectic Reading. I also spent the day reading the essays of George Bernanos in the are of politics. I admired the style of his writing, fulsome and elegant, but not the content, which is very dated. He felt strong about war and France, of course, I mean, he died in 1949. I couldn't get much enthusiasm up for the next volume of Pleiade yesterday, but I am more motivated now...

Casanova, Andersen

2010-12-20T02:27:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of Eclectic Reading, an issue of Life and Style, an issue of Vogue, and an issue of Cook's Illustrated.

I finished the three volumes of Casanova's memoirs. It seems to me that he fell in love collectively with women. He is discrete as to the actual sex, except for remembering the place and the length of time they had -- from 1/2 an hour to 4, in most cases -- and it's really all about the flirting that got him to sex in the first place. The memoirs are surprisingly charming, but what a frivolous life, however famous he was for it! After that, I also read a collection of Italian Renaissance short stories. They were split between the moralistic and the bawdy or funny, but there were lots of both. Once can see the influence of the Decameron. I must be on 5 000 pages of what was once considered risque or erotic, and much as I hate to say it, I'm getting bored.

I am now reading the works of Hans Christian Andersen, about 175 children's stories, of which the most famous are The Princess and The Pea, and The Little Match Girl. I am also reading his autobiography, which is revealing of his writing process.

Bataille, Casanova

2010-12-17T02:30:00.001-08:00

Since my last post I've read an issue of Hello Canada, an issue of Vanity Fair, an issue of The Economist, three issues of I, two issues of The New Scientist, an issue of The Globe, an issue of The National Enquirer, and two issues of Eclectic Reading.

I also read the novels and stories of George Bataille, famous for writing erotic stories in France. This is still La Pleiade, and I have to tell you, to him erotic means dirty. I mean literally, the characters are forever slathered in mud, for example. In a few spots, the writing is extraordinary, but for the most part I yawned, disappointed, through it.

I have also started the memoirs of Casanova. Yes, written by him, in French, at the end of his life. The introductory essay refers to his 122 conquests. Someone counted? Anyway, they are so far quite charming. What an adventurous unusual life, however crabby he was at the end of it.

Sade, Voragine

2010-12-11T15:17:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read two issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of The New Scientist, an issue of The Globe, The National Enquirer, and an issue of People.

I've also read the first volume of the works of Sade. Yes, as in Marquis de. It's in La Pleiade and I can only say that 120 jours de Sodom et Gommorhe are a blueprint for any pornographer. The distinguished collection actually started with a long essay explaining why he deserved inclusion in the series. Well, he started pornography like Jane Austen started Harlequin romances. I had read some of his novels, and they are tame if titillating compared to that. I've also read La legende doree by Jean de Voragine. It's a martyrology with jewels falling from the skies and assorted other miraculous occurrences. It was, as you might imagine, a contrast. The saint and the sinner.

Greek and Roman Novels of Antiquity

2010-12-11T00:33:00.000-08:00

Since my last post,I've read two issues of Eclectic Reading and two issues The New Scientist.

More importantly I've been delighted to continue reading in La Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, in the final push about about 50 books before I'm left with just the playwrights. This week, I finished reading the great Tao writings. I had read the Ghita, the Koran, the Bible, but not fully in Tao. It was very revealing to read. I also read a collection of Greek and Latin novels from Antiquity, also about which I knew nothing. I had read Ovid and Homer and some history, but not this. The introductory essays warned of boredom, and it was a tough read, although not for someone who has plowed through 18th century English novels. What I mostly saw was, predictably, hugely influential early texts, the root of all novels in the West. It was fascinating.

French Middle Ages literature, Bonaparte, Arabic travel writing

2010-12-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of The Economist and an issue of The Globe.

I only teach the first week of December, and I take advantage of it every year to read much more. This year, I'm giving a big push in the French collection Bibliotheque de la Pleiade. I hope to have only a few volumes left to read at the close of the year.

Well, so far I've been reading the most extraordinary things. The first was the volume of Arabic travel writing, Voyageurs arabes. It was really something to read the accounts, written over 1000 years ago, of travel throughout the Middle East, China and India, even central Asia. One writer describes the Russians as the dirtiest people in the world -- not washing before eating or after sex, and compares them to wandering donkeys. I can only imagine what my European forbears must have seemed like to aristocrats from other, more advanced, cultures.

The next was Jeux et Sapience du Moyen Age. These were the earliest know plays in French, or what I would call middle French, it's so old. There was a book on hunting, and a travelogue through Jerusalem, and excerpts from a treasury, that is to say, an encyclopedia of the era. The plays are charming and simple, and what I took away the most was the fact that I no longer have anyone with whom to speak the old French, now that my uncle has died. Oh, I speak French a bit in my professional life, but not with the heavy accent and contractions and archaic grammar of my mother's generation.

Finally, I'm reading right now the Memorial de Sainte Helene, written by Napoleon Bonaparte's chamberlain. It is incredible to be reading first hand accounts of the great man as he endures imprisonment and reflects on his life.

Cambridge Medieval History, mags

2010-11-27T03:20:00.001-08:00

Since my last post, I've read two issues of The New Scientist, two issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of Hello Canada. I also read the last two volumes of the Cambridge Medieval History, and I now await the first two volumes.

Cambridge Medieval History, mags

2010-11-21T15:57:00.001-08:00

Since my last post I've read two issues of Eclectic Reading and The New Yorker, and one issue each of The New Scientist, Hello Canada, Vanity Fair, and The Economist.

I also read Volumes 3 and 4 of the New Cambridge Medieval History, which represents about2300 pages. It was really interesting, although I got lost in some of the details about ruling families. I was interested in the intimate connection between church and government, and the fact that the church provided all the educated people to conduct the business of government -- most of the people who could read and write were clergy, and this lasted, at least in Scotland, until late in the Renaissance. Wow.

I also ordered up my reading for the month of December, most of which I have teaching-free. I realized how much of the collection La pleiade I had read -- after this lot, there will be only 28 titles left. I have impressed myself.

Marquez, Latin America

2010-11-18T14:54:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read two issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of The New Yorker, and an issue of The Globe.

I also read Modern Culture of Latin America by Jean Franco. Her understanding of all the different national literature,including poetry, novels, short stories and plays is remarkable. I also read Latin American Culture and Modernity, which was disappointing in terms of the content, which focused on the treatment of Latin America in the social sciences. I also read a thematic history of Latin America, which provided me with more of the information I sought. I am at present reading Marquez' Love in the Time of Cholera. It is extremely vivid, and well-characterized, and the story is intriguing, but his work is here, as it is in his other novels, misogynist.

Cambridge Modern History, Johnston, Theriault, Hastings, Bellenger

2010-11-13T16:25:00.000-08:00

Since my last post I've read two issues of The Economist, an issue of The New Yorker, two issues of The New Scientist, an issue of National Geographic in French, an issue of British Vogue, an issue of Chatelaine. I've also read two volumes of the New Cambridge Modern History, Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnston, Cul-de-Sac by Yves Theriault, Aloha by Noelle Hastings, Methodes de lecture in the Que sais-je collection by Lionel Bellenger, and I've just started a French pastoral whose title I forget!

Cambridge History of Latin America

2010-11-01T02:57:00.000-07:00

I read the final volumes of this history, which brings me to 12. I also started the Cambridge History of Islam, which was also interesting. I learn new things, of course, but also it brings a perspective to my reading for years in history, and puts everything in the proper place.

I also read two Economists, two New Yorkers, three Eclectic Readings, two New Scientists, one Vanity Fair, one Rolling Stone, one Examiner, and one Hello Canada from last summer I found at the bottom of my trunk.

Rieff, de Waal, Cambridge History of Latin America

2010-10-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

I've read volumes 3 and 4 of the Cambridge History of Latin America. I am finding the answers to the questions I had, about why the countries had failed to develop their economies and political systems. There are a number of reasons, but two are the fact that the Spanish/Portuguese metropolis never developed passed a feudal political or economic system, so that at independence the many Latin American countries could hardly have moved beyond that point. Second, the Spanish and Portuguese states had no legitimate governments when independence was achieved by the colonies, so that it was the equivalent of the Belgians abandoning the Congo all of a sudden, leaving them with state apparatus that was completely inadequate to the tasks.

I also read David Rieff's cri du coeur, A Bed for the Night. This, and Alex De Waal's Famine Crimes, round out a half dozen books I've read about international aid. I have to say that these recent spate of books about international aid don't hold a candle to Waal's prescient, excellent, illuminating work. I have concluded that as international aid got to be Big Business, so to speak, a way of life, it became what the welfare state actually is in Canada -- a machine that benefits those that are employed by it, rather than the people intended to be helped. And so international aid organizations fall prey to politics, and claim more than they accomplish, and cater to the media, and make only the most marginal of differences. I believe all of it, I find it follows the pattern of most organizations originally created to help.

Terry, Dikotter, Cambridge History of Latin America

2010-10-23T03:52:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of Hello Canada, the Globe, Vanity Fair, GQ Style Guide, Urban Farmer, Utne Reader, and two issues each of the New Scientist, Eclectic Reading, and The Economist. I've read Dikotter's Mao's Great Famine, about the China famine, and Terry's Condemned to Repeat, about the problems in international aid. I have also read the first volume of the Cambridge History of Latin America, all 800 pages of it! Took a long time.

Garner, Carlyle, McFarquhar

2010-10-08T14:07:00.000-07:00

Since my last post I've read one issue of The New Yorker, one issue of The Globe, one issue of Hello Canada, one issue of The Economist, two issues of Eclectic Reading, and two issues of The New Scientist.

I also read the two latter volumes of McFarqhuar's Origins of the Cultural Revolution, in which I discovered not just the terrible, sad, wrong-headed decisions of the Communist leadership leading to the terrible famine death toll in China in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I also read a biography of Hugh Garner, another alcoholic writer, and a biography of Carlyle. I also finished Trevor Roper's Last Days of Hitler. The moment I found the most memorable in that book, apart from upper-class condemnation of Hitler's bourgeois habits -- a strange accusation given everything else there is to criticize about him -- was the fact that after Hitler's body was removed from the bunker, everyone immediately lit up. The smoking ban enforced in his lifetime was now, at last, at an end. Extraordinary picture it dredges up.

Becker, Sackville

2010-09-16T02:53:00.000-07:00

I've read 4 issues of Eclectic Reading, two issues of The New Scientist, one issue of Psychology Today, one issue of Cook's Illustrated, two issues of Men's Journal, two issues of The Economist, an issue of Vanity Fair, and an issue of The Globe. I also read three books: Knole and The Sackvilles, by Ricahrd Sackville, which was mildly entertaining, and then two literary biographies, which couldn't have made much of an impression because I can't remember who they were. Bully for me and my credibility as a reader. I'm now reading Hungry Ghosts, by Jasper Becker, about the 1960 famine in China, and it is if anything more devastating than reading about the Irish potato famine. Gosh.

Mirbeau, Moodie, Durrell

2010-09-04T05:24:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read three issues of Eclectic Reading, two issues of OK Magazine, two issues of The New Scientist, one issue of The Economist, and one issue of Hello Canada.

I also read an interminable biography of Octave Mirbeau, nearly 1000 pages, which I finished this week. There certainly was a lot of detail for a man know for a play, Les affaires sont les affaires, and a novel, Journal d'une femme de chambre. I also read a biography of Suzanne Moodie, an early Canadian writer. Her colonial experiences were so bad, I wonder she wrote at all, but she published quite a bit over time. And I also read a memoir by Laurence Durrell, which I found frankly insipid.

Lowry, Graves, Anderson, Nicolson

2010-08-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read OK Magazine, The Economist, The New Yorker, The Globe, The New Scientist, and Hello Canada.

I've also read Portrait of a Marriage by Nigel Nicolson, which struck me as exploitative. I have no doubt at some point he needed a best seller to save his publishing house, Weidenfeld Nicolson. But to outline the travails of two gay people married to each other, his own parents too, I don't know, it seems a bit much like an invasion of privacy, despite the fact that all the principals were dead by the time it came out. He sold the TV rights, too, I saw the mini-series years ago. Anyway, the famous story of Vita Sackville-West and her same-sex lovers, although the affair here is not with Virginia Woolf, but with Violet Trefusis. And Sir Harold Nicolson, a British diplomat and biographer of George V, famous for his bon mot: "All he did for forty years is kill animals and stick in stamps." Golly, what an epitaph.

I read a biography of Robert Graves, and of Malcolm Lowry, and let me tell you, my life seems a pinnacle of good judgment and stability compared to these two, Graves with his attempts at menage `a trois that publicly and painfully don't work out, and Malcolm Lowry with his alcoholism and his Walter Mitty complex. And then I read a biography of Sherwood Anderson, who died of peritonitis after swallowing a toothpick. How can you not know you are swallowing a toothpick, and stop yourself? Oh well.

McEwen, Wodehouse, Jewett, Graves

2010-08-10T03:01:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of Eclectic Reading, one of OK Magazine, and one of The Economist.

I also read a biography of Gwendolyn McEwen, which was very thin, and consisted of a list of her husbands and lovers. I also read a biography of P.G. Wodehouse. His hapless decision to broadcast from his Nazi imprisonment to the then neutral US was spectacularly dumb. I also read a biography, written by a relative, of the 19th century novelist Sarah Orne Jewett, now largely forgotten except for House Among the Pointed Firs. I'm now powering through a biography of Robert Graves, author and poet, best known for writing I, Claudius.

Thomson, Taylor, Heilbrunn, Pembroke

2010-08-09T03:17:00.000-07:00

I've read Caroline Heilbrunn's The Garnetts, about a literary family: one was head of the British Library, the next was a great editor in London, the third was a translator of Russian literature, and the fourth was a novelist. Sort of like the Polanyi intellectual family: a philosopher, an economist, a chemist. I have also read a great book by the AUTHOR Elizabeth Taylor, called Angel. It's about an eccentric young writer, and the protagonist she created is charming. I also read David Thomson's memoir of the love of his youth in Woodbrook -- I knew when he got to kiss his girl after a decade of puppy love it wasn't going to end well. She does die at the end, before they have a chance to be together. Finally I wrote a fairly thin biography of the Countess of Pembroke, who was a patron of literature and a writer herself. Hard to reconstruct what happens at such a distance. It's called Philip's Phoenix.

Joyce, de Quincey

2010-08-07T15:05:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue each of OK Magazine, The New Scientist, The Globe, the Examiner, the National Enquirer, and Eclectic Reading.

I've also read a biography of Thomas de Quincey, author of Confessions of an English Opium Eater, which made for very sad reading, and am now reading a biography of Norah Joyce, wife of James Joyce, by Brenda Maddox. It's excellent of course. But both of these books are endless tallies of debt and despair. The Joyce story, as you might expect, is leavened with sex. Golly. James Joyce fell in love because Norah gave him a hand job on their first date: not exactly what mothers taught their daughters when I was growing up. Now, it is clear that Norah gave James much of his material -- she wrote him letters full of sexual content, she talked about sex, she enjoyed sex, she had sex with him, and her surviving letters show a great debt he owed her for her stream-of-consciousness style. I had no idea, despite reading a biography of James Joyce. Puts much of Joyce in a new light, it seems to me.

Nesbit, O'Brien, Moore

2010-08-04T14:42:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've biographies of Evelyn Nesbit, the children's author, and Frances Moore, the first Canadian novelist, and Flann O'Brien, the Irish writer. Julia Briggs does a good job of Woman of Passion: for a children's writer, it's kind of wild to find out the author got married two months before her son was born in the 1890s. Reading this book also informed me on the life of Philip Marston, who went blind, lost his fiancee, mother, two sisters, two best friends, all his nieces and nephews, went dumb and died of tuberculosis by the time he was 36. Flann O'Brien was an alcoholic -- it was interesting to read about Ireland in the 1950s, when it was normal for men to be celibate. Frances Moore was a clergyman's daughter, then wife, and spent a few years in Canada and set one of her novels here. Biography by Lorraine McMullen.

Amis, Porter, Valles, Ouellette, Cazotte

2010-08-02T12:47:00.001-07:00

Today was a day of much reading, like my heyday earlier this year. I read Kingsley Amis's memoirs and a biography by Eric Jacobs of him. He impressed me little as a human being. The same, mind you, was true of his son Martin Amis. I also read Fernand Ouellette's Journal denoue. I found that he had listened to and read much of what I have listened to or read. He's a poet from Quebec, about 30 years older than myself. Maybe this means I'm a throwback. I also read Zimmerman's biography of Jules Valles, a French 19th century writer of whom I had never heard. His life was not that interesting -- the usual poverty and early death of a writer.In contrast,t he aristocratic Cazotte wrote one of the jewels of ancien regime France, and being an aristocrat, died on the scaffold. He had a Champagne vineyard, and his biography was written by, wait for it, Claude Taittinger.

Shelley, Bigsby, Porter, Verne

2010-07-27T02:37:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read two issues of The New Yorker, three issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of The Economist, an issue of The New Scientist, and an issue of The Globe.

I also read a biography of Mary Shelley which was about context and work rather than life. I was disappointed, but as the author pointed out, there are lots of other biographies out there.I then read a biography of Katherine Ann Porter. What was most interesting there was the fact that she mythologized her own life. It was already so tumultuous is seems pointless to gild the lily, but that is what she did. I also read a biography of Jules Verne, whose main characteristic was a bourgeois-class way of life. Finally, I read a wonderful discussion of the representation of the Holocaust in literature, by Christopher Bigsby. It was subtle, and thoughtful.

Ayn Rand, Katherine Mansfield

2010-07-26T03:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I spent the day reading Atlas Shrugged, and I liked it even less than The Fountainhead. Bad writing, bad character names, improbable plot twists, poor psychology of characters, poor philosophical content. It is still selling well, but I don't expect these books will survive much longer.

I also read a couple of Harlequins in French, because Tony picked up French books at random for me, and a book by Flaubert I had already read, and then I read a biography of Katherine Mansfield by Jeffrey Meyers which haunts me because of her sad, early death from tuberculosis. The thought of the hemorrhages, the constricted chest, the weight loss, the ineffectual cure, the exploitative charlatan treatments, all this in poverty. I also read an unintentionally hilarious novel, Unknown to History, by A Lady, about a fictional daughter of Mary Queen of Scots born during the English captivity. It was slight, but it was real researched. The edition I was holding was itself was 120 years old, and the book had been mentioned in my favorite biography of Mary, by Antonia Fraser.

Amery, Dryden, Atkins, Rand

2010-07-25T07:01:00.001-07:00

Since my last post I've read an issue of The Economist and The New Scientist, three issues of Eclectic Reading.

I've also read three collections of Jean Amery's essays, completing a reading of his works. I have concluded the poor soul suffered from depression, on top of having survived Gestapo torture and two concentration camps. I found his essay on suicide profoundly shocking, in the sense of a baring of a suicidal person's soul.

I have also read Atkin's four volumes on Sex and Literature. Two observations stand out. The first is that shame did not enter the description of sex until the reign of Elizabeth the First. The second (and talk about words I'd never thought I'd write) is that any sort of anal sex has been considered shocking or unusual since Antiquity. My vocabulary is expanded, of course, and you'd think it would be impossible for this topic to get boring, but after over 1400 pages, yes, it did lose my interest. At times, I got bored with the catalog of less common practices -- if I wanted kink, I'd read Krafft-Ebbing, and I deliberately don't. However, Atkins is without peer for wit and lack of stuffiness among academics, and it was refreshing and amusing to read his innumerable asides. I was interested to find that Lesbia was actually a older married woman who seduced Catullus, the only good love poet among the Romans. That is not what one associates with her name.

I then decided to read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, since it was mentioned by Eva Mendes in OK Magazine, my bible. It was as I expected: a long defence of artistic integrity vindicated in the end, but badly written, misogynist, and utilitarian towards the environment. That being said, I'm going to read Atlas Shrugged next.

Finally I read Dryden and His World, and it did go on forever.

Garnett, Boswell, Amery

2010-07-19T05:51:00.001-07:00

Since my last post I've read an issue each of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Psychology Today, Gentleman's Quarterly, Utne Reader, two issues each of The Economist, Hello Canada, The New Scientist, and OK Magazine, and four issues of Eclectic Reading.

I've also finished the biography of that boor, Boswell, and read the biography of Edward Garnett. Both were excellent, Garnett's was a little boring. I mean, the guy spent his life reading and discussing literature with very eminent people: Joseph Conrad, John Galsworthy to name only two. The biography was by George Jefferson.

I also read Amery's essays in At the Mind's Limit. They are really discouraging to read, since he is a pessimist and, I would say, a man whose hope was broken, broken by torture and Auschwitz, of course, but broken nonetheless. He remained a victim, however understandable that is. Primo Levi, for example, is quite different in tone.

Agee, Ocampo

2010-07-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read two issues of Eclectic Reading, one issue each of Vanity Fair, Hello Canada, The New Yorker, OK Magazine, and The Economist.

I also read a biography of James Agee, which focused far too much on his sexuality, and a biography of Victoria Ocampo, which was very interesting although not insightful. I have two volumes of Jean Amery's essays, but I'm wondering whether I should read them at this point in my life.

Galsworthy, Borges

2010-07-06T13:52:00.001-07:00

Since my last post I've read a biography of Jorge Luis Borges, and a biography of John Galsworthy.

The biography of Borges was written by Emir Monegal, a Urugayan personally acquainted with Borges. I found his biography more interesting for the asides on Argentine culture, than for the life itself, which was pretty uneventful. It made me realize that I don't yet get Latin America. I've read histories of it, read all of Borges, Llosa, Marquez, and the Latin American literary renaissance, about twenty books on the Maya, and I haven't figured out the place after spending almost a month there. I got East Asia quite quickly, I think, but then it is unified by Confucianism. Is Latin America not unified by Catholicism, which I know far better than Confucianism? Possibly it is less monolithic, as Southeast Asia is less monolithic than East Asia. Anyway, I loved the play. Just like in the US, no one thinks I'm pushy, in Latin America, no one thinks I'm Intense.

As for Galsworthy, it appears his writing was poisoned by success, fame and respectability. "An artist often flourishes in adversity, and his talent withers when there is nothing for him to kick against." Is it adversity itself that is essential, or the probing and examination that comes with it? Should I be thankful for my lack of recognition in the nonfiction sphere? I also read that Galsworthy's nature was to spoil and pamper his loved one, Ada. I certainly recognized the nature of my own partner there.

Jean de Beer on Montherlant

2010-07-05T09:17:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I read an issue of the Utne Reader.

I have also read de Beer's eponymous book on Montherlant. It's a fascinating experiment, where the publishers commissioned both a book on Montherlant, and then asked Montherlant himself to engage in a dialogue with the author examining his life. It was doomed from the start, of course, the French intellectual community is not so large, and anyway the dialogue was part of the objective of the series. But it was interesting to see de Beer at the top of the page, and Montherlant opining on his own life or work at the bottom. I couldn't have done it, myself.

Macdonald, Bode, Murat, Ehrman

2010-07-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of The New Yorker.

I read Ehrman's biography of Mme du Chatelet, which I found very interesting. A woman who translated and commented Newton -- helps that she was rich. Murat wrote a biography of a salonniere, Mme du Deffand, who went blind in her 40s. I have never heard of her, and it seems she suffered from depression her whole life. I also read a mediocre, trite biography of H.L. Mencken, by Carl Bode. Finally, I just finished a book on Monk Lewis by E. Macdonald. Everyone I read about, it seems, died young.

Marmontel, Harding

2010-07-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read two issues of The Economist, an issue of Eclectic Reading, and an issue of Hello Canada.

I read Marmontel's Memoires. I thought they were inadvertently funny about how everything, right down to the French Revolution, is about him, and how well Voltaire thought of him. I thought the most interesting part was his interactions with Voltaire, and all the catty things Voltaire said about Rousseau. Gotta love those literary feuds.

I also read, but didn't much like Tinkers by Paul Harding. It was written in reverse chronological order, which is uncommon, and the style was good, but it failed to engage me.

Mags, Maurois

2010-06-30T02:13:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read a LOT of magazines. I've read OK, Star, Globe, Hello Canada, Superior Outdoors, The New Yorker, The Economist, Vanity Fair, three issues of Eclectic Reading, and two issues of The New Scientist. That is all I can remember, there could be more.

I have also read the two volumes of Andre Maurois' admirably written memoirs. They were interesting for the vividness of detail, but an picture also emerges of a selfish man who was unwittingly cruel to both his first and second wives.

Heder, Icebergs

2010-06-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of The New Scientist and two issues of Eclectic Reading. I've also read two books on icebergs, one by a princess of Japan called Lullie the Iceberg, and by way of contrast Heder's great work on philology. I also read Monogram, G.B. Stern's memoirs of her life. I'm not reading as much this season given the kayaking and at the moment a houseguest.

Gilbert, Waller

2010-06-05T07:42:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention that I read Gilbert's Eat Pray Love and Waller's Bridges of Madison County. I enjoyed both, and found both easy reads. Waller wrote a fairy tale.

Seymour, Ahmed, Hoffman

2010-06-05T02:14:00.000-07:00

Since my last post I've read an issue of The New Yorker, Eclectic Reading and OK Magazine. I've also read Ahmed's Lords of Finance, a study of the banking crisis during before and during the Great Depression. It was very interesting. I also read The Dead Hand, by David Hoffman, which was good although I knew most of it already, it's about the arms race during the Cold War. And I read a book about Icebergs and Glaciers, by Simon Seymour.

Mags, Vico, and Icebergs

2010-06-03T02:03:00.001-07:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of The New Yorker, three issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of Vegetarian Times, an issue of The New Scientist, an issue of The Economist, two issues of Hello Canada and two issues of OK Magazine. I also read Vico's the First New Science, and to my surprise I agree with all his commentators -- he is very conservative. His emphasis on words put me in mind of the state of philosophy when Nietzsche came along. I also just read Wadham's Ice in the Ocean, as I'm getting ready for my paddle down Iceberg Alley in Newfoundland. I finished Writer's Chapbook.

Prahalad, NDaye, Ahamed

2010-05-23T03:52:00.000-07:00

Since my last post I've read an issue of The New Scientist, an issue of The New Yorker, an issue of The Economist and an issue of OK Magazine, along with three issues of Eclectic Reading.

I also read US-Mexico Military Relations, by G. Turbinville, Marie NDaye's Trois femmes puissantes, and C.K. Prahalad's New Era of Innovation. I saw Prahalad's book was actually just about how the market is now saturating so much that industry has to retool to suit a much finickier marketplace. NDaye's novel didn't capture me until the third part, about Khady Demba, and what the cover said about it was true: it captures in great detail and veracity every sensation of an impoverished woman whose life and health deteriorates quickly during a period of lawlessness in her country. I learned something of history in Turbinville's monograph. In any event, I'm onto Lords of Finance, by Liaquat Ahamed, about the central bankers in the 30's, and it is very interesting.

C.K. Prahalad, Berlin

2010-05-18T05:42:00.001-07:00

I've read two books by C.K. Prahalad. The first is interesting, Fortune at the Base of the Pyramid, about the economic potential of the poorest people. It certainly stands commercial ideas on their heads. The second was just an application of cooperative instead of competitive strategy, Future of Competition. Here I mostly noticed Prahalad's predilection for creating acronyms at the drop of a hat. I also read Willets' The Pinch, a fairly obvious book about the problem of baby-boomers mortgaging the future of their children with their government-funded entitlements. I had thought of that a long time ago, I imagine others had too. I read Isaiah Berlin's essays on Vico and Herder, ahead of reading Vico himself. I just started Vico's essay on knowledge.

Mags

2010-05-18T02:40:00.000-07:00

Since my last post I've read an issue of The Star, The Examiner, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, two issues of OK Magazine, and three issues of Eclectic Reading. Thought I'd write it down before I forgot.

Berlin

2010-05-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

I read Berlin's First and Last, which were his first and last pieces of writing. This was intellectually interesting, and the last piece, written for a Chinese audience unused to Western philosophy, was also interesting for a summary of his thought. I also read the Reith lectures, published under the titleCrooked Timber of Humanity, which was also a repetition of some earlier lectures. I also read Freedom and its Betrayal and The Proper Study of Mankind, another collection of lectures.

Berlin, Mazzieri, Muller

2010-05-08T14:07:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read three issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of The New Yorker, an issue of The Economist, an issue of OK Magazine, and an issue of The New Scientist.

I've also read Discours sur la tombe de l'idiot by Julie Mazzieri. The novel is a cut above murder mystery, and is written in a spare yet complete style. I also read The Passport by the Nobel winner Herta Muller. That was written so sparely I had to concentrate a lot to read it through. I liked it. I also am reading Isaiah Berlin, and I've read several of his lectures. The most interesting of these was the one about Tolstoy's philosophy of history, The fox and the Hedgehog. Finally, I understand that Greek metaphor. Also I am going to read Joseph de Maistre next, since he influenced Tolstoy so much, in tandem with Rousseau. I also read Two Concepts of Liberty, of which I quote:"One belief, more than any other, is responsible for the slaughter of individuals on the alters of the great historical ideas...This is the belief that somewhere, in the past, or in the future, in divine revelation or in the mind of an individual thinker, in the pronouncements of history or science, or in the simple heart of an uncorrupted good man, there is a final solution." p. 52. Now ain't that the truth? I had come to understand this, but he has put it far more pithily. I also read Magus of the North.

Greenberg, Vassanji, Pullinger

2010-05-03T06:07:00.000-07:00

Since my last post I've read four issues of The Economist.

I also am reading this year's literary prize winners, including Mistress of Nothing, by Kate Pullinger. It was a light read, and incorrect in some particulars, but I enjoyed it despite my nerdiness. I also read the great travelogue A Place Within, by by M.G. Sassanji, an ethnic Indian going to the country of his grandparents for the first time. He captured intimately the feeling of being in a foreign country. I also read the strident Manufacturing Depression, by Gary Greenberg, a sufferer's tour of the fallacies and inadequacies of treatments and models.

More Mags

2010-04-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

I've read the last of the books by Victor Hugo, an interminable travelogue about the Rhine -- over 400 pages! And I've read an issue of Majesty, three of Eclectic Reading, four of The New Yorker, and I'm now working on the first of three issues of The Economist. Some books have come in from Inter Library Loan, but I'm not sure I'll pick them up before I'm done!

Bunch of mags

2010-04-25T17:45:00.001-07:00

I've been traveling and returned yesterday. During my travels, I read two issues of The New Yorker and two issues of The Economist. I also started Martin Luther King's Strength to Love. Today I read an issue of Eclectic Reading, three issues of The New Scientist and three issues of OK Magazine. I also read The Enquirer and The Globe. I now have two issues of The New Yorker and three of The Economist to plow through, not to mention the interlibrary loans at the university library.

Montherlant, Hugo, Skloot

2010-03-29T03:37:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read a really big pile of magazines: 5 issues of Eclectic Reading, two issues of OK Magazine, two issues of The New Scientists, one issue of The Economist, one issue of The New Yorker, one issue of Psychology Today, one issue of the Pulitzer-nominated National Enquirer, and two issues of Hello Canada.

I've also ploughed through the complete works of Henry de Montherlant. I didn't find his work gripping, and none of his novels I found arresting, although his themes of indigenous people and colonialism were certainly ahead of his time. I have also read the first few volumes, of 16! of the complete works of Victor Hugo. I was not knowledgeable about his tragic life -- repeated exile, and the death of four of his five children -- but he certainly managed to write through it all. I'm on volume 7, the books of history he wrote, although I've already read Choses vues. I also read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebeccas Skloot, which I found not outside the process of exploitation and ethical murkiness of the original event, the removing of cells from a woman's body without her knowledge or consent several decades ago. The science reporter managed to insert herself into the story, which I can imagine was thin. I was uncomfortable with the whole thing.

Daudet, Hugo

2010-03-15T03:54:00.000-07:00

I read the novels of Alphonse Daudet, and I found him capable of creating scenes that are immortal, vivid and striking in their truth, but on the whole his novels fall below that level. I then moved on to reading some novels of Victor Hugo's youth, an Icelandic saga (what a choice with which to start what a career!), and another novel written in two weeks on a bet. I am going to read a biography so that I can follow the political writings a little better.

Maupassant, Daudet, Kirsch

2010-03-13T03:13:00.000-08:00

Since my last post I've read two issues of The Economist, two issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of The New Yorker, two issues of OK Magazine, an issue of Vanity Fair, an issue of Hello Canada, and two issues of The New Scientist. I completed reading the short stories of Guy de Maupassant, and I have concluded, without originality, that he is a master of the short form. Almost 2500 pages of short stories! What imagination. I have now moved on to reading Alphonse Daudet, also known for his short stories but now I'm reading his novels. Jack, in particular, opens with a marvelous scene of Second Empire France and a parvenue lying to get her son into an aristocratic Jesuit boarding school. Wonderful.

I've also read Irving Kirsch's Emperor's New Drugs, a provocative look at the effectiveness of anti-depressants. A quick read, not entirely persuasive but very revealing of the scholarly establishment.

Brantome, Manzoni, Cannetti, Chretien de Troyes

2010-03-08T02:41:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've finished Canetti's Crowds, which was interesting in that it used a concept and explored it in a variety of social settings. I also read Manzoni's Betrothed, which was an easy read but which was not very interesting. Then I read, almost inadvertently, the complete works of Chretien de Troyes, one of the great medieval writers, but translated into modern French. I hadn't realized that the story of Lancelot existed in French as well as English. I also read with interest the essays of Brantome on several historical figures (Mary Queen of Scots, Catherine de Medicis, Anne de Lorraine, Marguerite de Valois) about which I had read quite a bit. His contemporary's take on the various virtues or otherwise really was interesting. The French was not as old as Chretien, so I could read it relatively easily.

And, of course, I read some magazines: Eclectic Reading, The Economist, which included a mind-boggling report on information management, and The National Enquirer's learned report on the best and worst beach bods among entertainment celebrities. Quite a range.

Cannetti, Burgess, Buchner

2010-03-05T01:58:00.000-08:00

Since my last post I've read an issue of Eclectic Reading and an issue of The New Scientist. I've also read Complete Works of Thomas Paine. I liked them, in particular I liked reading the pamphlets he wrote during the Revolutionary War -- they had a great sense of excitement. I also read Buchner's Lenz, which did make much of an impression on me, and Anthony Burgess' Devil of a State. Who can read anything by Burgess and not think of Clockwork Orange? I didn't much care for Devil of a State, but I thought it made an interesting political statement about politics and colonialism and British imperialism. Finally, I started Elias Cannetti's book on crowd psychology, which I'm not sure I'll finish.

Mags, Gombrowicz

2010-02-28T02:34:00.001-08:00

I've read so many magazines since my last post! An issue of GQ, two issues of The New Scientist, two issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of Hello Canada, an issue of OK Magazine, an issue of The Economist, and an issue of The New Yorker.

I've also read four books by Witold Gombrowicz: the inevitable memoir, Polish Memories; a bunch of notes for a course in Philosophy in 6 hours and 15 minutes, undertaken at teh request of friends to prevent the author from committing suicide; a collection of short stories called Bacacay, one of which puts me in mind of A Modest Proposal; and a novel about voyeurism called Pornografia. Well, that was an interesting array of readings. Gombrowicz is unconventional in his use of material -- cannibalism in the aristocracy? But none of it is as novel to me as his admirers say.

Prawer Jhabvala, Donne, Cannetti

2010-02-22T04:41:00.001-08:00

Since my last post, I've read Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and Dust, excerpts from the sermons of John Donne, and Kafka's Other Trial, by Elias Cannetti. Donne was not as impressive as Bossuet, as far as sermons go. Prawer Jhabvala's novel was very good if conventional, about a white woman becoming a Nawab's mistress. I though Cannetti's book was elegantly written. All three books are very short.

The last of the Maya readings

2010-02-21T03:41:00.000-08:00

I've read four books since yesterday. I finished McKillop's Ancient Maya, I've looked at the lavishly illustrated The artifacts of Tikal by H. Moholy-Nagy. In this book I discovered that some small figures are nicknamed Charlie Chaplins. I also read Maya sculpture by M.G. Robertson. I was interested to read An album of Maya architecture by Tatiana Proskouriakoff, since Proskouriakoff made one of the important discoveries in deciphering some of the writing on Maya steles. I also read Maya political science by Prudence Rice. The only book left to read is The classic Maya, by Houston and Inomata, which as its title indicates, only focuses on a single period in Maya history. I will then have run out of books to read and will have to go to the library, which only opens at 11 am this morning! I shall have to find other things to occupy myself...Last night, I read The Book of Lists before falling asleep...

Verlaine, Aswany, Khoury, McKillop, Fitzsimmons

2010-02-19T03:45:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of Eclectic Reading, an issue of The New Yorker, and an issue of The Economist. I've also read Aswany's The Yacoubian Building, , and I'm now part of the way through Gate of the Sun, by Elias Khoury, which is more didactic than I hoped, and the prose works of Verlaine. I gave up on Gate of the Sun when a footnote gave an politically motivated description of what happened at Deir Yasin, including a very high estimate of casualties. Verlaine I found sad in his autobiographical writings. I also read Death and the Classic Ancient Mayan Kings, by James Fitzsimmons. I picked up McKillop's Ancient Maya, but haven't begun yet.

Maya, Contemporary Arab Fiction, Hibbert, Gorki

2010-02-14T02:24:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read one issue of Eclectic Reading, and one issue of Hello Canada. I've also read George IV by Christopher Hibbert, which I enjoyed. I read the 800-pager The Ancient Maya, by R. J. Sharer and L.P. Traxler. It was well-illustrated, and well structured, and I learned a lot. I also read the latest in my contemporary Arab novels, I'jaam, whose main interest was a play on words somewhere in the thirty- or forty-first pages. I also read Mayan worldviews at conquest, edited by L.G. Cecil and T.W. Pugh, and Ancient Maya Cityscapes by L.P. Villamil.

I also read four novels, a memoir, and several stories by Maxime Gorki. I confess to being disappointed, after being quite drawn to these works based on their description. I enjoy pastorals, or stories of struggle, but struggle by agricultural workers or serfs against the Czar don't usually end well. My other problem was that my view of all this was influenced by, you guessed it, Doctor Zhivago. Oh well.

Maya, Contemporary Arab Fiction

2010-02-12T05:14:00.000-08:00

Since my last post I've read an issue of Eclectic Reading, an issue of OK Magazine, and an issue of The New Scientist.

I've read an extraordinary picaresque novel written by an Arab Israeli,The secret life of Saeed, the ill-fated pessoptimist, by Imil Habibi. I also read a long novel about torture, Saddam City by Mahmoud Saeed. Finally I read a light novel called in translation Girls of Ryadh, by Alsanea Rajaa. None rose to the level of Naguib Mahfouz, but that is perhaps an unfair standard to use.

I've also started down my list of books about the Maya. First out of the starting block was The nature of an ancient Maya city by Thomas Guderjan, and Takeshi Inomata's Warfare and the fall of a fortified center, and Settlements and fortifications of Aguateca. I also read Stuart David's Palenque, which covers the history of the excavations; and the richly illustrated and very heavy Painting the Maya universe, by Dorie Reents-Budet and Joseph Ball. I also read Ancient Maya cityscapes by L.P. Villamil. I confess to being riveted by the pictures, since I am traveling to the ruins in April.

George IV, Gorky, Marcel Carne

2010-02-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

Since my last post I've read three issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of The New Yorker, and an issue of The New Scientist. I've also read Queen Caroline by Edward Parry, Prince of Pleasureby Saul David, E.A. Smith's George IV, J.B. Priestley's Prince of Pleasure and the Regency, and E.B. Turk's Child of Paradise. Nothing particularly stands out, but the fact that the Prince Regent was a great patron of the arts. I read a few short stories by Maxime Gorky, but I'll reserve my comments for when I've read the whole works.

Georgina Bedford, Monica Baldwin, William IV, Claude Simon, G.E. Lessing, Kafasani

2010-02-01T04:06:00.000-08:00

Since my last post I've read an issue of Eclectic Reading, an issue of Hello Canada, and an issue of The New Scientist.

I've also read two books about the film maker Marcel Carne, both eponymous. I was interested to learn that he had had many troubles in getting films made. I've read a biography of King William IV by Gore Allen that wasn't very good, and a biography of Georgina, Duchess of Bedford called Mistress of the Arts, by Rachel Trethewey, which was not as insightful as I hoped. It was more like a list of where she stayed and who she had over and what her extravagant lifestyle was like. I read a classic of Palestinian literature by Ghassan Kanafani, with an unforgettable short story about powerlessness, called Men in the Sun. It also gave me the opportunity to suspect some plagiarism in the New Yorker review article which led me to read it. I read some Claude Simon, but I don't like the nouveau roman inspired by Ulysses, and I don't think this fashion will last, even if he did get the Nobel Prize. Finally I read I Leap Over the Wall by Monica Baldwin. This is the story of her adapting to the world after being in a contemplative order from 1914 to 1941. It gave me a poor impression of this woman's ability to cope with life at all -- she said she stayed in the convent for 18 years after she knew she was in the wrong place -- and she certainly made some impractical decisions after that. I felt sorry for her. Finally, I read Laocoon by G.E. Lessing, an essay about literature and art.

Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Louis Aragon

2010-01-30T02:12:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read two issues of Eclectic Reading, two of OK Magazine, and an issue of The New Yorker.

I also read the complete works of Villiers de l'Isle Adam, the Edgar Allan Poe of French literature. I was struck by how effective his Night Gallery type stories were, how much they held my interest and how entertained I was. Some are poorly written -- the great title came with no money as his father spent millions before he was born, and though his parents always lived together his mother asked for the legal separation of their finances so he could blow the money she was to inherit, so he wrote for the rags -- but others are wonderful.

I then read two more novels and some short stories by Louis Aragon, whose last volume of complete works came late. His extremely long novel about the defeat of France, Les Communistes, is extraordinary. It is hard to read because it is burdened with lots of descriptions of military events best left to a historian,but like Life and Fate (Vassily Grossman, a great classic), it contains unforgettable moments: the announce of the defeat on the radio, where all the women instinctively take the hands of the men, who are bound to leave soon; the head doctor complaining about his field hospital, interrupted by a Stuka.

Alfred Jarry

2010-01-25T15:25:00.001-08:00

So I just read the pioneer of absurdist literature in French, Alfred Jarry, a lifelong prankster. He is most famous for his succes de scandale (because he used a slightly altered word in place of excrement), Ubu roi, when he was a schoolboy. I have had trouble knowing what to make of his work, of which only a part was published in his lifetime. As you might expect, he died young of tuberculosis in 1907 after considerable substance abuse. His editors, on receiving his manuscripts, often wrote back asking what they were expected to do with his work, and I feel I may share their puzzlement.

Louis Aragon

2010-01-24T16:14:00.000-08:00

Since my last post,I've read an issue of Majesty, my guilty pleasure, an issue of Eclectic Reading, an issue of The New Yorker, and an issue of Vanity Fair. I don't usually discuss my mag reading, but The New Yorker has a great article on the Obama administration and the news reporters, and Vanity Fair has a great article about Tiger Woods and his recent fall from grace. Reading between the lines, I came to understand that Tiger Woods had signed with excellent handlers who controlled his public image to the extent of giving hush money to his numerous sexual partners over the years. How sad for his family and for himself.

I have also read nearly all of Louis Aragon's novels. He was a surrealist and a communist who came to abandon both camps. He certainly has written a wide range of novels, but I liked Les Voyageurs de l'imperiale the best, even though his most read novel is Aurelien and his least, which I'm struggling through now, is Les Communistes, about how the communists in France held up during World War II. Hmm... it certainly gives me food for thought, as it opens with two Frenchmen trying to get a third out of the Spanish Civil War.

Hamsun, Boswell

2010-01-21T04:59:00.000-08:00

Since my last post I've read an issue of The New Scientist, and an issue of Eclectic reading. I've also read Frank Brady's biography of James Boswell, and then I have read Knut Hamsun: Dissenter and Dreamer by Ingar Sletten Kolloen. The Brady biography covered the latter years of Boswell's life, and followed a better written and more insightful first volume by Frederick Pottle. It was published in the 1960's, and according to the foreword an unfair collaboration was proposed by an authority on Boswell on a much less experienced person. The life of Knut Hamsun, which interested me since I have read his books and knew only that he had become a Fascist. Well, what a sorry character he was, and he treated his wife, who was condemned as a collaborator where he was acquitted on the basis of mental incapacity -- he went on to write a book, giving the lie to the verdict direct -- abominably, cutting her off without a penny when he was both rich and she was 67. Awful. His early years of hunger and poverty, his mentally ill mother, all led to write great classics and make a shipwreck of his life.

Queneau, Maupassant, Boswell

2010-01-19T02:16:00.001-08:00

Since my last post I've read an issue of The New Yorker, two issues of Eclectic Reading, and an issue of OK Magazine. I've also read the first half of James Boswell's biography, and I have discovered the wonderful novels of Guy de Maupassant. I particularly enjoyed Bel Ami, the story of a climber, of course, but I do like those. In all Maupassant's novels, there is a martyr -- a woman with a baby, someone dying of tuberculosis, etc. I also finally got to read the last volume of Raymond Queneau, including his experiments with the spoken word in print, which irritated me. However Zazie dans le metro is a famous novel, and I'm glad to have read it. I'm also reading the draft memoirs of a friend, Eleanor Albanese. These are at times so vivid that I feel I am there.

Apuleius, Dafoe, Walpole, Russian Symbolist Theatre

2010-01-16T14:56:00.000-08:00

Apuleius's Golden Ass is a picaresque novel that was written a long time ago, in Latin. It sounds a little flip to put it that way, but it is good. I also read good biographies of Daniel Dafoe, by Paula Backscheider, and Horace Walpole by Lewis Melville. Dafoe's life was the usual tumultuous mess. Walpole's life was comparatively comfortable -- certainly he never was imprisoned for bankruptcy. I also learned a great deal from Michael Green's Russian Symbolist Theatre. I have never heard of most of the writers, but the various texts and struggles for publication was excellent.

MacLennan, Le Guin, Davies, Gilgamesh, Book of the Dead

2010-01-13T08:22:00.000-08:00

Since my last post,I've read a biography of Hugh McLennan, an issue of OK magazine and an issue of Eclectic Reading.

I've started mixing in the greatest book list by Harold Bloom with my complete works, so right now I read Ursula Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, which was wonderfully written and imagined -- I really liked the unisex species' dialogue: "You are female? Permanently?". I also read the epic Gilgamesh, which I enjoyed since this is such a rare book, 1500 years or so before Homer wrote. Finally, I also read the Egyptian Book of the Dead, full of incantations to various deities. I also enjoyed this last book, because I had such a strong feeling of reading something completely foreign to me and to my form of spirituality.

I am now reading the complete stories of Lydia Davies, which have some successfully and interesting experimentation with form. I find she is a talented writer, but I wonder about the soul of her writing. Perhaps the form, short stories, does not communicate soul or themes well. Perhaps it's just too soon to tell.

MacLennan, Buchan, Queen Elizabeth

2010-01-10T13:53:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of the New Yorker, and an issue of Eclectic Reading. I also finished reading a biography of John Buchan, and I now regret complaining about the awful lives of writers. Buchan's life, except for frailty which saved him from World War I service, seems to me to have been charmed, and I found it irksome. I also plowed through 943 pages of the Queen Mother's official biography, which overall I enjoyed, except for the fact that my neck and leg hurt from craning and supporting the monster, respectively. I just started Cameron's life of MacLennan, and I look forward to it.

Brecht, Singer

2010-01-07T15:33:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read three issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of the National Enquirer, of Saveurs, of Chatelaine, and of The New Yorker.

I also finished my biography of Bertold Brecht and I'm now halfway through a biography of Isaac Bashevis Singer. The big news there is that he is a womanizer, and his many conquests have given him many fine characters for his stories.

Levi-Strauss, C.S. Lewis, Edgar Allan Poe, Antonin Artaud, I.A. Richards, Powys

2010-01-03T13:39:00.001-08:00

I finished up the biography of J.C. Powys -- did I really need to know about his struggle with constipation after giving up his bi-weekly enemas, and that when he resorted to using his fingers, that he wished he had clipped his nails? This is right up there with the discussions of anal fistulas that I read in a life of Samuel Becket. Although I will say this, I'm now really curious to read his Wolf Solent, all 900 pages of it, to see how this odd man who proclaimed his inability to have 'normal' sexual relations portrays the life force in his novel.

Anyway, what a sorry lot these writers are, Wyndham Lewis sabotaging his relations with his patrons, and Dostoevsky with his compulsive gambling and his epilepsy and his exile to Siberia, and Powys with his disclosed sexual peculiarities and the 'surgically deflowered' wife...And of course, I had to follow up all this with the life of Poe, whose dying wife could not relieve her tubercular chills with even a blanket, let alone a fire, because they were too poor. Mind you, Poe's nurse used to tranquilize him with bread soaked in gin, no one has a fighting chance with that. Antonin Artaud also died young of substance abuse, it's been a really happy little day.

C.S. Lewis' life, with his mother hang-up, seems comparatively tame compared to this. I must say I disliked the way in which Joy Gresham, Lewis' wife, is lambasted for her abrasiveness -- it's not just Wyndham Lewis who is a misogynist.

In this panoply, reading Levi-Strauss was a relief -- I really only liked his book about the cultural structures in both pre-industrial western and central American societies. His is justly famous for that.

Also, the life of I.A. Richards (by Russo), the promoter of Basic English, was also welcome relief.

Wyndham Lewis, Jean Toomer, John Cowper Powys

2010-01-03T04:43:00.000-08:00

Well, today is the last day of the holiday break, with my teaching starting up again tomorrow. So I'm going to read as much as I can. Since my last post, I read biographies of Wyndham Lewis (The Enemy by Jeffrey Meyers) and Jean Toomer, and started one of John Cowper Powys (by Morinne Krissdotter). I also have seven books (in one big omnibus) by Levi-Strauss to read before tomorrow. I have no engagements, so let's see what I can do with a marathon.

Giono, Beaumarchais, Forster

2010-01-01T04:51:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of the Examiner, the Globe, The Economist, and The New Scientist.

I've also read the last three volumes of short stories and novels by Jean Giono, including the great classic L'homme qui plantait des arbres. I found that spare and moving. The other novels were good, but were more of mixed bag in terms of my personal taste. However, it completes my reading of his complete works.

I've already finished reading the plays of Beaumarchais, I have only the two essays to read now. I most belatedly realised that Le Barbier de Seville and Le Mariage de Figaro feature all the same characters....Better late than never, I suppose.

I also read quite a superficial biography of E.M. Forster, which reported the family members on whom certain of his characters were based, and the trips he took and the jobs he held.

I now believe I will be able to get everything read that I wanted to this December break. I've only a collection of Levi-Strauss books to read for inter library loan, and perhaps fifteen literary biographies. On the other hand, I have two large bags full of books to return to the library sometime today, as I don't want to carry them in my backpack when classes begin again.

Hesse, Thoreau, Musset, Gide, Barney, Stowe, Huxley, Pope, Agee

2009-12-28T04:33:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've finished the biography of Hermann Hesse by Mileck, and I've read Lestringant's Musset, Pierre Lepage's Gide, Jean Chalon's Chere Natalie Barney, Hedrick's Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harding's Days of Henry Thoreau. I also read Bedford's life of Aldous Huxley, a biography of Alexander Pope, and a biography of james Agee.

I won't bore my few readers with everything I didn't know about this or that writer, that Aldous Huxley was visually impaired, to the point he learned Braille, that Thoreau's life was pretty mundane, that Musset died young, that Natalie Barney was independently wealthy. Bedford's biography petered out into quotations strung together, but I suppose we cannot be too harsh as the Huxley papers were lost in a brush fire at their home in California.

I suppose what I have now concluded is not just that writers must have examined their own life, but they also must have experienced very intense moments. This usually means pain and suffering. I have also concluded that they need to struggle for their art. When life is too easy, writing becomes difficult because there is no reason to try and survive. .

Hardy, Allen, Smart, Jonson, Miller, Hesse

2009-12-26T03:51:00.001-08:00

Since my last post, I've read biographies of: Thomas Hardy, with many critical comments to his wife despite the fact that he was repeatedly and constantly unfaithful; Elizabeth Smart, a Canadian writer of affluent background -- her life certainly doesn't resemble anyone else's life, at least none of anyone I know who was alive in the thirties, for example; Ben Jonson, about whom I knew very little; Henry Miller, who used his sex life to write, but in a much more direct way than many before him -- was this pornography?; and the memoirs of Walter Allen, a British writer I didn't previously know about, and whose reminiscences were not all that illuminating for me.

I'm now in the middle of a Herman Hesse biography. Overall, I'm starting to think that all writers are hard on the people around them, and suffer money problems. Not a novel conclusion, of course, but there it is.

Baudelaire, Heine

2009-12-23T07:37:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, apart from making lots of stuffed pasta for Christmas, I've read a biography called Baudelaire the Damned, by F. Hemmings. It would appear Baudelaire was perpetually in debt, and troubled his mother and stepfather. The book contained photographs of his mistresses, some of which were richly portrayed as Rubenesque. Such a nice change from current fashions. I also read a biography of Heinrich Heine, by Jeffrey Sammons, another writer, of socialist leanings this time, who was a trouble to the women in his life. If it's not money it's women, with these writers. Heine was an assimilated Jew of the Germany of XIXth, and I was interested in the fact that he didn't know until he was an adolescent. I was also interested, as I usually am, in the salonnieres of the period.

Wylie, Wilde, Boll, London, Symons, Carlyle, Seton, Woolf

2009-12-19T01:21:00.000-08:00

Since my last post I've read an issue of The Economist, The National Enquirer, The New Scientist, The New Yorker, and The Globe, two issues of OK Magazine, and three issues of Eclectic Reading.

I've also read Carlyle by Louis Cazamian, Carlyle by John Nichol, two catty volumes of Virginia Woolf's journal, although her depression must account for some of the comments; Elinor Wylie by Thomas A. Gray, which made me wonder why the biographer bothered if she was considered second-rate; Ernest Thompson Seton by Magdalene Redekop, about a Canadian writer I've never heard of; Mme du Châtelet by Esther Ehrman, a woman scientist; Heinrich Böll by Robert C. Conard; Oscar Wilde by Heasketh Pearson, which proved witty; Arthur Symons by Karl Beckson; and Jack London by Robert Baltrop.

Gladstone, Palmerston, Flaubert, Camus, Burney, Charrieres, Melbourne

2009-12-15T12:16:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read two issues of The Economist and OK Magazine, four of Eclectic Reading, and one of The National Enquirer.

As well I've read Herbert Lottman's biographies of Gustave Flaubert and Albert Camus -- English influenced by the French language; Isabelle de Charrieres by Raymond Trousson; and the six volumes of Fanny Burney's letters and journals. I didn't know Charrieres existed, so I've learned a good deal about her. About Burney, as with my reading of Woolf's diaries, I don't knwo enough to appreciate them fully, and they are not penetrating enough to hold my attention.

I've also read David Cecil's Melbourne, which was excellent, and Philip Magnus' Gladstone, also very good. Aristocrats writing about other aristocrats. I also read Denis Kay-Robinson's The First Mrs. Thomas Hardy. This was written to settle a controversy regarding Hardy that I know nothing about. I've now read a biography of Palmerston by Espley, to complete the quartet of biographies of Victorian prime ministers -- the positions Palmerston took were understandable for the period, but I found them hard to fathom. I've also read a biography of Bessie Head by Gillian Stead Allersen. This latter is written in good but slightly stilted English -- English influenced by Danish.

Ayme, Effand, Burney

2009-12-13T02:51:00.000-08:00

So I've read all of Marcel Ayme's novels. Some of them are truly excellent, although they are not know outside France: Travelingue, a tragedy ending in murder, Uranus, an immediate post-WWII novel, La Vouivre, a novel with a fantastical character who is the only remnant of Celtic culture in French myths. I loved them all, written with economy but a great precise vocabulary, characters that are interesting, plots whose ends I cannot predict.

I also read Benedetta Craveri's book on Mme d'Effand, a pre-revolutionary French salonniere. It was mildly interesting.

Finally, I started in on the six volumes of Fanny Burney's diaries. Like Virginia Woolf's, I don't know as much about their environment to recognize the people, as I did with Goncourt, say. The letters and diaries are chronological, so that I find it more challenging. On my nighttable for today: the works of Beaumarchais, best known for Noces de Figaro, and a biography of Gustave Flaubert.

Woolf, Burney

2009-12-11T11:30:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of OK Magazine. I expect to finish reading Marcel Ayme tomorrow.

I also read the second volume of Virginia Woolf's diary, which includes some pretty sharp comments about people, particularly women. Of course, a diary is not meant to be anything but honest. It also contains some despairing comments about her own writing, about being old and out of fashion, as well as recording some mundane reasons which nonetheless prevented her from writing on this day or that. It is when I read her 'fighting off the fidgets' that I feel the most compassion.

I also read a memoir of Fanny Burney, by Dodson. Being dresser to Queen Charlotte is quite an odd occupation for a talented writer. I will be reading Burney's diaries next. Finally, I am reading a biography of Christina Rossetti, by Jan Marsh.

Ayme, Franco, Queneaux, Behn

2009-12-11T05:06:00.001-08:00

Since my last post, I've read one issue of The Economist, The World in 2010, Vanity Fair, Utne Reader, National Examiner, The New Yorker, Eclectic Reading, Hello! Canada, and two issues of The New Scientist. I've also finished Raymond Queneau, although I'm waiting for the second volume of his novels. I also read a biography of Reconstructing Aphra by Angeline Goreau, that put me more in the picture of this writer. I also read, as well as a book about Veronica Franco, The Honest Courtesan, by Margaret Rosenthal.

I'm halfway through the second volume of Marcel Ayme. As has happened over and over again, I'm reading through novel after novel that don't come alive for me, and then suddenly I hit pure gold. Le vaurien is beautifully plotted and written, and the characters are vivid. I loved it. Same thing happened as I manfully plowed through his short stories: I just started reading one about a writer who kills off all his characters before the age of thirty -- I suspect he is referring to Roger Martin du Gard -- when one of the characters' wives walks into his study to plead for his life. Wonderful. Ayme is witty -- this collection of short stories all have characters called Martin in them: a writer, a schoolboy, a farmer...

Ayme, Woolf, Queneau, Gautier

2009-12-09T11:07:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read one issue of Eclectic Reading.

I have also read the complete works of Theophile Gautier, a Frenchman primarily remembered for his poetry. I grew up hearing my mother sing her own mother's favorite songs, which were Gautier poem's set to music. Well, damn. Two volumes later, I find that he was extremely maudlin by today's standards. He was a serial writer, but he was not the master of the feuilleton that Balzac was, or Dickens. He has novels set in foreign climes, which I can legitimately claim is Voltairian, seeing as I have read Voltaire and his works on China, for example, are not well informed. I've read the first (of 5) volume of Virginia Woolf's diaries, which so far are well-written but not remarkable. I read a book about the blue-stockings in 18th century England. I've read two of the three volumes of the complete works of Raymond Queneau. He was boring, until Les enfants du limon, which suddenly and unexpectedly experiments with form. These experiments probably merit him his place in literature, but these experiments are innocuous. They neither detract nor add more than a note of unexpectedness. I have ordered the third volume, as I have the last two volumes of Woolf, and now am reading Marcel Ayme, a great descriptor of IIIrd Republic France.

Sayers, Augustin, Turgenev, Behn, Cecil, Dostoievsky, Morrell, Hourani

2009-12-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read Hone's Dorothy L. Sayers, Saint Augustin's Catechese, polemique, philosophie; David Magarshack's Turgenev; Janet Todd's Secret Life of Aphra Behn, Albert Hourani's History of the Arab Peoples, Stephanie Seymour's Ottoline Morrell, Avrahm Yarmolinsky's Dostoevsky His Life and Art, and The Cecils by David Loades. For magazines, I've read two issues of Eclectic Reading, and one issue each of The New Yorker, The Economist, and OK Magazine.

I didn't even know who Dorothy Sayers was (a crime writer, among other things), so reading her life was a revelation. But I have two other books about her and I don't think I'll read them -- I think I have an idea of who she is. Saint Augustin was relaxing to read. It was a recent translation from the Latin, and given that I had read a lot of theology in the past, I could follow these texts from a Father of the Catholic Church. The writings were intended to be pastoral, anyway, so they are usually more accessible. I read Turgenev with interest, since I had read in the last couple of years the memoirs of Herzen, but the Dostoevsky biography was sad. He was imprisoned in Siberia for four years, he was an epileptic, he was a compulsive gambler, he was in debt...I guess it's easy now to see the genesis of Crime and Punishment and The Idiot...I was glad to read of Aphra Behn, I'd never heard of her, but I also thought this book ought to have been entitled The Possible Life of Aphra Behn, as the author uses historical context to speculate on what might have been. In the end, I found that a little disappointing.

Albert Hourani's book deserves its accolade as a classic. I found I learned more about the history of Arabs in the chapters covering the early, post-Prophet years than in the chapters of more recent times, but it was excellent. Finally, I read Ottoline Morrell and The Cecils for pleasure. The Morrell biography filled in a lot of gaps for me, as I had heard the name repeatedly as that of a great eccentric. turns out she was an impoverished member of a very rich family -- Mother failed to leave her as much money as her brothers. It must have been very difficult. I had read a review of The Cecils commenting on how great events were barely mentioned, but having read about the Tudors at great length, I liked a book focusing on the great secretary and his successor son.

Carroll, Michelet

2009-11-30T04:48:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read 3 issues of Eclectic Reading, and an issue each of OK Magazine, The New Yorker, The Economist, and The New Scientist.

I've also read a book by Stuart Carroll about the Guise ducal family of France, Martyrs and Murderers, and Michelet's 3000 page history of the French Revolution. Michelet was almost too long and too detailed, I had trouble with the forest for the trees. I was also struck by the similarities between it and the Russian Revolution, with the assassinations of Marat/Trostky, the massacres by troops in the capital, the extermination of the monarch's family, etc. As far as the Guises are concerned, I was particularly interested in the discussion of various historical interpretations of la Saint-Barthalemy, the massacre of protestants by their Catholic countrymen in France.

Giono, Gracq, Graves, Hamsun

2009-11-25T03:21:00.000-08:00

Since my last post I read three issues of Eclectic Reading.

I read both volumes of I, Claudius by Robert Graves. The first volume was more entertaining than the second, and I read it primarily comparing it to the trashy BBC series from the 1970's. I also read Knut Hamsun's Growth of the Soil, a Norwegian pastoral, complete with long-suffering men and women committing infanticide. I enjoy pastorals, but this was fairly ordinary. I then read the first three volumes of Giono's novels. There were occasional passages where Giono captured the exact feeling of being along in nature, the rythm, the peace. Then I tore through Julien Gracq, and it was quickly done since I had read his main novel already, Rivage des Syrtes. I confess I found him a little ordinary to be included in this distinguished series, La Pleiade, named after a constellation.

Giono, Himelstein, Shelden, Wilson, Kilcullen

2009-11-22T05:51:00.000-08:00

Since my last post,I've read an issue of Gentleman's Quarterly, OK Magazine, The New Scientist and Eclectic Reading.

I have also read the first three volumes of Jean Giono's novels, which are in chronological order, and his essays, journal, and short stories. I found his essays and journal of little interest, except for his pacifist essays and his impressions of the Liberation of France. He does break out into short plays and embryonic film scenarios, in the middle of essays, which shows a certain freedom about forms. I found his early novels and his short stories or novella also to be of little interest, but his latter novels are much more interesting, more gripping and more lively. I had to order the last 3 volumes of the complete novels from inter library loan, and I now look forward to reading them, as opposed to a chore.

I also read three biographies, two literary and one popular. I read a biography of George Orwell, by Michael Shelden, which I found both sad and interesting, and a biography of Siegfried Sassoon through the end of World War I, by Jean Moorcroft Wilson, which was incredibly detailed for his youth and somehow quite superficial for the crucial war years. I also read a biography of Smirnoff, the vodka maker, by Linda Himelstein, which was not very interesting because it was in a journalistic style.

Finally, I also read David Kilcullen's Accidental Guerrilla. This book, about a new kind of counterinsurgency and what to do about it, is going to be read by a lot of people. It is written in accessible language, and it proposes quite a simple change to the way of thinking about insurgency. I'm not sure it will make much difference, however. I have my own competing theory, that this about strong-side versus weak-side strategy, and if I am correct, then my criticism of Kilcullen is valid. However, the chances of my work attracting any attention at all, since I have no experience in military counterinsurgency, are very low.

Giono

2009-11-19T02:36:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read one issue of Hello Canada, OK Magazine, The New Yorker, The New Scientist, Vanity Fair, and The Economist.

Because I'm reading only complete works right now, my blog has slowed down, so I thought I'd give an update. I'm reading the novels of Jean Giono at the moment, in three volumes, and I'm working on volume 2. He is more bucolic than I realized. I've ordered about 13 complete works to see me through the December break.

Julien Green, Sunstein, Bottigheimer, Mackenzie

2009-11-12T19:17:00.000-08:00

I have completed reading the works of Julien Green. I have found that his diaries were fascinating and his writing there, so alive, was like learning French all over again. His novels and plays, however, I find his plots psychologically improbable and his characters curiously flat and lifeless. I suppose it is with good reason that his journal is considered his masterpiece.

I also read three essays -- a history of fairy tales by Bottigheimer, which was interesting for the sake of the preservation of culture through folkways; and Infotopia and Rumours by Cass Sunstein. These latter two books tread on ground I'd covered before. He seems to write books about topics that others have written about more, and in greater depth, a recapitulateur, we would say in French.

Finally I read Lewis McKenzie's Soldiers Make Me Look Good, his autobiography. I didn't much like it. It seemed to me a book written by someone who lost his professional status and never got over it, never quite found his place in the world.

James VI and I, Sunstein, Mantel, Crawford

2009-11-09T08:12:00.000-08:00

I read three biographies of James VI and I, because I had read several times that he was unlikeable. I read his biography by Antonia Fraser, David Mathew, and by David Wilson. I found that his manners were poor by the standards of the English court, and that he was some sort of bite problem that made him an ungracious eater, but so what? I also read a history of the end of smallpox, which was written by one of the workers in the trenches who insert himself too much into the story, and a book on Shop Craft as Soul Craft, by Matthew Crawford, which I found unconvincing since the author has given up the manual labor. I also read three of Cass Sunstein's works, Why groups go to extremes, Going to Extremes, and Worst-Case Scenarios. I was reading them to try and figure out what students do when they use the Internet, but these books were about a different topic. I also read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, which I didn't find enthralling.

Julien Green

2009-11-04T02:49:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of The Economist, two issues of The New Scientist, three issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of OK Magazine, and two issues of The New Yorker.

I've also finished reading the three volumes of Julien Green's journals, which were wonderful in every respect. I've now moved on to short stories and novels, and the characters are flat. He is indeed a better diarist than a novelist. I also read a Stephanie Plum novel by Janet Evanovich. I wasn't enthralled. Now I'm reading another murder mystery, using Internet stalking, and that managed to scare me. Can't remember the author off the top of my head.

Celine

2009-10-24T06:59:00.000-07:00

I have now read all of Celine's novels. I read that his contributions to literature influence Hemingway and many others, I assume from introducing the vernacular spoken word into literature. But I find that he influenced primarily the development of pulp fiction, much as Jane Austen gave rise to Harlequin romances. I also found Celine difficult to read, as I was not familiar with the vernacular of France in the 30s, 40s and 50s. He employed an interesting stratagem for his trilogy on World War II, which is supposed to be Celine at his best: he used a character called Celine, obviously himself, in all three. It was interesting from an structural standpoint, but was primarily effective in making me wonder how much was fiction, as he is known to have traveled to the places at the times described in the novels. I also read an issue of OK Magazine, an issue of The New Yorker, two issues of Eclectic Reading, two issues of The Economist, and an issue of The New Scientist since my last post.

I have now returned to the delights of Julien Green's journals.

Jules Renard

2009-10-16T09:54:00.000-07:00

I read his novels and short stories, and I understand the verdict of history on him, that he was the poet of the countryside, and also that he is like Mallarme in his experiments with structure. I think he is largely successful in his experiments, unlike Mallarme himself. I also read his journals, which are combined with his writer's notebook. It was harder to pick out the journal parts from the notebook part, but I did think it was interesting to read about the notes he took as time went by. I didn't read his plays.

Since my last post, I also read OK Magazine, an issue of Eclectic Reading, an issue of The New Yorker, and an issue of The New Scientist. I'm reading two issues of The Economist simultaneously.

Yourcenar, Vidal

2009-10-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

I read Myra Breckinridge first thing this morning, and I must say I was a little shocked at the content. In the introduction to the edition I was reading, Vidal mentioned a Russian publisher telling him Myra would never be published there, and I believe him. The sexual content is shocking...I've finished reading Yourcenar's memoirs and her essays, so I've completed the lot. I liked her memoirs, there's something unvarnished about them, and it's interesting to read about the French bourgeoisie. I also read an issue of Electic Reading, an issue of The New Yorker, and an issue of The New Scientist. Now I've figured out why I didn't read Dostoievsky's Adolescent -- it's unfinished, and I don't read unfinished works as a rule. I'm now diving into the journals of Jules Renard.

Yourcenar, Vonnegut, Paley, Bowles, Green, Pisan

2009-10-06T13:50:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of The Economist, an issue of Eclectic Reading, and an issue of OK Magazine.

I read Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and I really liked it, particularly at the start. I don't find that the tone was sustained, but daring enough in its way. I saw it as black picaresque, not science fiction. I also read three or four of Grace Paley's short stories in Little Disturbances of Man, but they didn't capture my interest. I read in one go Paul Bowles' Sheltering Sky, and while I found some passages wonderfully written, I found the story not entirely outside predictability or stereotype. It's an interesting travelogue plus kind of story. I plowed through Christine de Pisan's inventory of women in hagiography, myth and history with some interest, as I had never read anything of hers. I also sprinted through some short stories, novels and novellas by Marguerite Yourcenar, having read her memoirs, and the novel Memoires d'Hadrien previously. I didn't find they held my attention.

Ah, but I am continuing to read at a leisurely pace Julien Green's journals, and those I find are teaching me all over again the French language. It is a pleasure to read someone writing in a language other than his first, English, and someone who was entirely bilingual.

Tocqueville

2009-09-23T02:29:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of Hello Canada, two issues of OK Magazine, an issue of The New Yorker, three issues of Eclectic Reading, and two issues of The Economist. I also started reading more of Tocqueville -- his analysis of the United States really is outstanding. Some BBC reporter whose name I forget now said that Tocqueville wrote the best book ever written on the United States, and he was not just the reason I am reading Tocqueville, but he was also right. The second volume of De la democratie en Amerique is not only excellent even today, it is free of anti-Americanism, something quite rare now. I also read Tocqueville's memoirs.

Tocqueville, Bossuet

2009-09-20T11:43:00.001-07:00

Since my last post,I read an issue of Electic Reading, an issue of The New Yorker, an issue of Vanity Fair, and an issue of The New Scientist. I'm in the middle of an issue of The Economist. I also read My Memories of Six Reigns, by HH Princess Louise, which was bland in the extreme, the rest of Bossuet, sermons, panegyrics, and essays, and then the first part of Tocqueville's book on the US. There was nothing striking in any of this that I want to share.

La Bruyere, Bossuet, Diane Vreeland

2009-09-13T18:55:00.001-07:00

Since my last post I've read an issue of The New Scientist.

I also read the complete works of La Bruyere, which didn't make much of an impression on me, and the memoirs of Diane Vreeland, D.V., which were very badly written indeed.

I had the pleasure of reading the funeral orations of Bossuet, famous in French literature, and I found them extraordinary, and moving when I knew who the dead person was...I didn't always. My reading has slowed considerably as I ramp up to the teaching part of the year.

Solzhenitsyn, Jelinek

2009-09-06T16:35:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read two issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of The New Yorker, and an issue of The New Scientist. I also read two books by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Cancer Ward, depressing but impressive, and The First Circle, which I enjoyed less. Solzhenitsyn has the Russian eye for the telling detail, like Tolstoy, like Grossman. Both books were, of course, withering denunciations of the Soviet state.

I also read several of Elfriede Jelinek's novels. I had read Women as Lovers earlier, but now I've read The Piano Teacher, Lust, Greed, and Wonderful, Wonderful Time. They also are harshly truthful, and about realities of life that are in themselves harsh -- mental illness, sexuality as power, etc. This is not the idea of Austrian culture that I have had, possibly as a stereotype, until now.

Finally, I read Intellectual Character by Rittchard, which I enjoyed less than the gripping other teaching book, but was useful nonetheless.

Grab Bag

2009-08-30T04:08:00.001-07:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of Eclectic Reading, an issue of OK Magazine, an issue of The New Yorker, an issue of Hello Canada, and an issue of The New Scientist.

I also read Jose Saramago's Death with Interruptions, a gift from my spouse. As good as Saramago is, I found this to be following the same formula as Blindness -- start with an unusual premise, and go from there. OK, not that much of a formula. It's an easy read. I read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, which I found full of Polonius-like advice -- probably it's the other way around. I also read Locke's Second Treatise on Government, and I was surprise to see how little Locke I've read -- just that and the treatise on Human Understanding. Finally, I read Dazzle' em With Style by Robert Anholt, which was also full of advice that I found a little self-evident, but possibly not if I was a physics students and 24 years-old.

Kafka

2009-08-27T03:06:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've read an issue of Vanity Fair and cackled over the witty dissection of Larry King Live during June, with all the celebrity deaths; an issue of OK Magazine and an issue of Eclectic Reading.

I've finished off Kafka's diaries. It was much easier to read than I thought, although I admit that he was suffering and depressed throughout. I suppose that he suffered from severe untreated depression, to say nothing of the tuberculosis that killed him so young.

So in my nigh table are the complete works of Tocqueville and Sainte-Beuve, and my spouse Tony bought me Jose Saramago's latest.