Re: What are you reading?
111The last two I've finished are The Guns of August and The Sleepwalkers. Onto The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front.
Ballard frequently evoked excess, but always in his spare, dead way. I remember loving that book when I read it at university, and being very obnoxious to a guy who wrote an unenthusiastic review of it in one of the student papers, which I regret. Never saw him again until a gig a few years ago; I think he recognised me. He looked away, and I remembered what a complete knob I was. Onward!DaveA wrote: Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:49 pm Started Cocaine Nights a few days ago. Been reading it on and off, in between bits of baseball and music binging and whatnot. So far there's not much cocaine in it. Which is fine! Have never been into the stuff. But I expected a little more excess right out of the gate, with a title like that.
I find the prose rich in detail and the diction way above average. Where it might seem "spare" is in his somewhat detached tone. He immerses you into the world of appearances of a given milieu and then offers hints, increasingly, of "things not being quite right/as they seem." It's well treaded territory, but a Ballard offering along these lines is usually a yarn not quite like anyone else's.sparky wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:37 amBallard frequently evoked excess, but always in his spare, dead way.DaveA wrote: Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:49 pm Started Cocaine Nights a few days ago. Been reading it on and off, in between bits of baseball and music binging and whatnot. So far there's not much cocaine in it. Which is fine! Have never been into the stuff. But I expected a little more excess right out of the gate, with a title like that.
I eschewed emojis on this forum back when they emerged, and I still can't bring myself to use them here, despite using them regularly in personal communication now. Right here, I'd be torn between the straightforward smile and The Scream emojis.DaveA wrote:The tales do often get out of hand!
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