Re: What are you reading?

621
In 2004 I came to Sussex, UK, as an aspiring interpreter, willing to work in the sphere of politics to assist understanding between the leaders of the world, obviously full of naiveté and boundless ambition. It seemed to me then that I could use my love of languages as contribution to address the unfairness and injustice in the world, and there was no shortage of those.

I was politically apathetic, defeated, in a state of self-imposed intellectual coma that I felt was necessary to survive the lawlessness and civic impotence I’d experienced growing up in Kuchma’s Ukraine. I saw miners on hunger strike in tents in central Kyiv being fenced off so a Christmas tree could be put up and their discomforting sight would not bring down the spirit of the festive crowd. I heard a university lecturer reply to my complaining about this with her approval of the city administration’s actions.

My uni friends and I were taken out of classes on a few occasions to take part in pro-president demonstrations by orders ‘from above’, our lecturers being asked to oversee us go. We didn’t go, we ‘got lost’ en route to the demos, then we got into trouble with our department and that was also later reflected in our grades. All state institutions were subject to such pressure and demands to show ‘loyalty’ or else . . .

Don't even know what the book is about yet but you have my attention!

(Ukraine and the Empire of Capital, Yuliya Yurchenko, 2018)
born to give

Re: What are you reading?

623
The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio. In English translation, the version in Project Gutenberg.

I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this one. I don't know if the dense prose is the translator's affectation or is somehow weirdly faithful to the source material, but the "Proem" that starts it all off is a 1,000-word single paragraph.
Last edited by Anonymous37 on Sun Aug 18, 2024 5:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Re: What are you reading?

624
Blindness by Jose Saramago. Where you follow a mysterious blindness epidemic that starts suddenly with a man at a stoplight and begins spreading through the optometrist he visits and other people in the office. The government response is brutal quarantine measures.

It feels like the most dour version of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He has a similar attitude towards punctuation as Cormac McCarthy. I haven't decided what that contributes to the narrative yet.

It's definitely captured my imagination. There's probably ample ways to read it as allegory but at 50 some pages I'm not there yet.

Re: What are you reading?

625
losthighway wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2024 8:21 am Blindness by Jose Saramago. Where you follow a mysterious blindness epidemic that starts suddenly with a man at a stoplight and begins spreading through the optometrist he visits and other people in the office. The government response is brutal quarantine measures.

It feels like the most dour version of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He has a similar attitude towards punctuation as Cormac McCarthy. I haven't decided what that contributes to the narrative yet.

It's definitely captured my imagination. There's probably ample ways to read it as allegory but at 50 some pages I'm not there yet.
I secured the rights to that for a movie adaptation, then was screwed at the last by a team who went on to make one of the worst adaptations you'll ever see.
at war with bellends

Re: What are you reading?

626
A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2024 8:27 am
losthighway wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2024 8:21 am Blindness by Jose Saramago. Where you follow a mysterious blindness epidemic that starts suddenly with a man at a stoplight and begins spreading through the optometrist he visits and other people in the office. The government response is brutal quarantine measures.

It feels like the most dour version of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He has a similar attitude towards punctuation as Cormac McCarthy. I haven't decided what that contributes to the narrative yet.

It's definitely captured my imagination. There's probably ample ways to read it as allegory but at 50 some pages I'm not there yet.
I secured the rights to that for a movie adaptation, then was screwed at the last by a team who went on to make one of the worst adaptations you'll ever see.
It is a great book, most if not all of the Saramago books I've read are allegorical, if not full on.

That movie fucking SUCKED. I had such high hopes being it was the City of God dude. They completely destroyed it.

The Chris Connelly book is pretty great. Those people got a lot done in a very short period of time.

Next is Ask the Dust by John Fante, whom I've only just learned about.
Records + CDs for sale
Perfume for sale

Re: What are you reading?

627
enframed wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2024 9:59 am
A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2024 8:27 am
losthighway wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2024 8:21 am Blindness by Jose Saramago. Where you follow a mysterious blindness epidemic that starts suddenly with a man at a stoplight and begins spreading through the optometrist he visits and other people in the office. The government response is brutal quarantine measures.

It feels like the most dour version of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He has a similar attitude towards punctuation as Cormac McCarthy. I haven't decided what that contributes to the narrative yet.

It's definitely captured my imagination. There's probably ample ways to read it as allegory but at 50 some pages I'm not there yet.
I secured the rights to that for a movie adaptation, then was screwed at the last by a team who went on to make one of the worst adaptations you'll ever see.
It is a great book, most if not all of the Saramago books I've read are allegorical, if not full on.

That movie fucking SUCKED. I had such high hopes being it was the City of God dude. They completely destroyed it.

The Chris Connelly book is pretty great. Those people got a lot done in a very short period of time.

Next is Ask the Dust by John Fante, whom I've only just learned about.
Whoa I didn't know there even was a film. What a shame, I'll steer clear!

I love John Fante. I feel like he kind of invented the Bukowski thing but without as much stunted manly handicap.

Re: What are you reading?

628
enframed wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2024 9:59 amNext is Ask the Dust by John Fante, whom I've only just learned about.
Oh man. I’m jealous you’re reading this for the first time. Really cool snapshot of LA in the 30s, with a Dostoyevskian bent.

Don’t skimp on his son Dan’s books. Brutal and unromanticized portrayals of alcoholism. That dude went through the wringer and lived to tell the tale. 86’d is a good place to start.

I just finished all of the William Gay books I can get from the library. Fans of Cormac McCarthy’s southern books need to read William Gay. They were contemporaries and knew each other early on, but WG didn’t start publishing until the late 90’s, when he was in his mid 50’s. He died in 2015, but left behind a huge body of unpublished work, as he’d been writing all of his life. Most of his stuff has been published posthumously, and things continue to trickle out.

Re: What are you reading?

630
I'm reading Sacha Lamb’s When the Angels Left the Old Country and it is a blend of folklore, fantasy, and Jewish culture. The story follows an angel and a demon, an unlikely pair, who leave their shtetl to journey to America in search of a missing girl. Their travels through the early 20th-century immigrant experience reveal the universal struggles of finding one's place in a new world.

Lamb’s writing is lyrical and rich, weaving together humor, heartache, and the timeless battle between good and evil. The characters are deeply endearing, especially the angel and demon, whose relationship challenges the boundaries of their nature and offers profound insights into the complexities of morality.

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