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So I got to the end of my mission to read every novel by John O'Hara in order. As an act, this was crap, with lots of waffles. It was interesting to see the development of his themes; for example, he works the same story around a couple of times before finally hitting it with 'From The Terrace'. As soon as that story is out the way (Pennsylvania, society, money, family history, sex), he quickly shifts to Broadway for the next novel. That was interesting.

Right now though, I've had to go back to the first O'Hara I read, a collection called 'The O'Hara Omnibus'. I'm skipping rereading 'Pal Joey', his Ring Lardner-ish baseball stories-told-through-letters (good, but not what I'm interested in right now) to 'Hope of Heaven', which will be followed by 'Sermons and Soda Water'. Both are short story collections, and already I'm back to where I love this guy's writing; he's a master of the short form.

The crapness was from the sheer relentlessness of hearing the same voice for so long - although it's a voice I love. And because the sore parts were laid very much bare. I should have broken it up with some other books but there wasn't much on my to-read pile which appealed.

I just read the C/NC on Henry Miller and tommydski put the case that Miller reveals an era and a society as it actually was. The same is true of O'Hara I think. He was absolutely relentless about Pennsylvania society, everyone in everything is from Gibbsville, PA, or somewhere near. Even the stories about Los Angeles involve main characters from PA. That's interesting, being so determined to so intimately describe a certain type. It was clearly his mission, and he succeeded. I know the way I think about that region will forever be burned by O'Hara's writing.

(I'll read something by someone else soon, I promise, if only so I can be more interesting in this thread!)

Just started reading 'The Human Zoo' by Desmond Morris. I feel a little odd about his stuff...well-written and entertaining, but it seems a little glib (am I using that term properly?)...and there are some pretty soft, sweeping generalizations discussed as if they were hard facts. Witty, though. Fitting fodder for people like myself who like grasping for reasons to feel superior to their own species...

rayj wrote

Fitting fodder for people like myself who like grasping for reasons to feel superior to their own species...

Reading Desmond Morris had the exact opposite effect on me. The Naked Ape made me see motivations and behaviors in myself that I hadn't acknowledged before. If anything, it made me feel for a brief moment, NORMAL.

I finally got to reading Michel Tournier's The Ogre, after my sister had been raving about it for years. A hundred pages in, and I still have no idea about where he's going, but I found there were some really interesting bits about bible exegesis. And shit.

It's all very gloomy and misogynist, but he wouldn't have been French without it.

Glenn W. Turner wrote:rayj wrote

Fitting fodder for people like myself who like grasping for reasons to feel superior to their own species...

Reading Desmond Morris had the exact opposite effect on me. The Naked Ape made me see motivations and behaviors in myself that I hadn't acknowledged before. If anything, it made me feel for a brief moment, NORMAL.

...well, yeah. That too. Or both. I mean, they are two sides of the same coin, right? I feel better, because now I have a language for it, and now it's conscious...and 'gee, look at all the people who don't have it placed up there in consciousness! What a bunch of fuckheads!' Of course they often are a bunch of fuckheads, but not necessarily for that reason...etc.

Just reread Candide for the 10th or 11th time.

So funny and weird and good.

Got to double it with Nat West's A Cool Million and wallow in this oddly appealing nihilism.

I highly recommend Don Carpenter to anyone who finds Raymond Carver too cheery and hopeful. Sadly, he killed himself in 1995 at the age of 64, pretty much unknown outside literary circles, leaving behind an devestating (and mostly out-of-print) body of work. You can get used copies cheap on Amazon, and public libraries sometimes have them. Also, he wrote the script to a very downbeat, gritty 1972 film called Payday starring Rip Torn

Some of his books that've slayed me are:

The Dispossesed
Turnaround
From A Distant Place
The True Life Story of Jody McGeegan

A Sorrow Beyond Dreams by Peter Handke, the Austrian dude who co-wrote Wings of Desire and plenty of novels and short stories i'd never even heard of. this is a novella about Handke's mother's suicide.

the other day i read the short story "Mac" by Harold Pinter.

just bought a copy of Faust. been reading the work of too many male authors though, so perhaps i'll put it aside until i read soemthing by Wolf or McCullers. (perhaps we should have a seperate thread, "Book Talk: Female Authors". i could use a few suggestions.

Eierdiebe wrote:(perhaps we should have a seperate thread, "Book Talk: Female Authors". i could use a few suggestions.

Nah, no need to separate! I like Brigid Brophy. She's in the vein of Francoise Sagan, but English, and without the penchant for sports cars. Perhaps a bit tougher, too, there's a good touch of grime in 'The King of a Rainy Country'. I ought to disclose I have a quote from her on my MySpace page (well, where else?):

Well, I think it's cool.

Stevie Smith is another Brit of a similar vein more of a poet, but her novel 'Novel on Yellow Paper' is sad and hilarious.

Daphne du Maurier? Wrote 'The Birds' short story, from whence came the film. 'The House on the Strand' is very good too.

I like Edith Wharton - the first few paragraphs of 'The Age of Innocence' were the unseen text in my A-Level Literature exam, and I went pretty much straight out and bought the whole book after that. And a while ago I read a book of short stories by Z Z Packer - 'Drinking Coffee Elsewhere'. I keep meaning to look for more by her.

I might as well finish up by giving full dues to Francoise Sagan. I think you have to be willing to buy into her writing - bohemian romance, set in France, can seem a bit, I dunno, simple? But it isn't. I'm too tired to tell it properly. There is a novel written while she was recovering from a broken leg, and every other chapter she breaks away from the story to criticise the character;s choices, wonder what she'll do with them next, and moan about being an invalid. It's great.

And how did she break her leg? Well, this is what I like about Francoise Sagan. In many of the Penguin paperbacks I have of hers, the biography includes the line - which I always read as a likeable boast:

"Her hobby is driving fast cars, of which she has five, and in 1957 she was involved in a bad road accident."

Two great "minimalist" female authors:
Amy Hempel
Mary Robison (read "Oh!" - it's very funny)