What are you currently reading? (part 2)

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linguoboy
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby linguoboy » 2017-08-04, 15:07

Yasna wrote:I also finished 沈黙, which was an absolute highlight of my reading year so far.

Maybe I need to give Endō another chance? Years ago I read Volcano (火山) and it was super dull. (Then again, as I recall, you're a fan of Inoue Yasushi, who I find even a duller writer than Endō.)

In any case, between your mention of this and the sharp sudden turn to absolutely autumnal weather, I've gotten it in my head to read another Tanizaki novel. I picked up Quicksand () a little while back and just read the first 30 pages on my commute into work. I wouldn't be surprised to have it finished by the end of the weekend.

Yasna wrote:Now I'm reading Independent People by Halldór Laxness.

Is this your first Laxness? As you can see from my posts here, I rather like him. I'll probably get to Independent people myself this winter.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Mikael » 2017-08-04, 18:15

Currently reading Masha Gessen and Joseph Huff-Hannon's Gay Propaganda, which is fabulous (and bilingual!). The Russian text is available for free here: http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/gay-propaganda/

:bounce:
*~

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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Yasna » 2017-08-05, 17:27

linguoboy wrote:Maybe I need to give Endō another chance? Years ago I read Volcano (火山) and it was super dull.

Yes, definitely. I was also bored by 火山, which I read back in the days when I would mine books from my university library's Japanese collection. I only decided to give Endo a second chance because a big Hollywood movie was made based on his novel.

In any case, between your mention of this and the sharp sudden turn to absolutely autumnal weather, I've gotten it in my head to read another Tanizaki novel. I picked up Quicksand () a little while back and just read the first 30 pages on my commute into work. I wouldn't be surprised to have it finished by the end of the weekend.

Looks interesting. I wonder what kind of reactions I would get from reading that in the subway.
Image

Is this your first Laxness? As you can see from my posts here, I rather like him. I'll probably get to Independent people myself this winter.

Yup, and I've been hooked from the first page, which relates the tale of an Irish sorcerer in the Icelandic chronicles.
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka

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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-08-05, 20:40

I've been toying a little bit with the idea of reading 狂人日記 by Lu Xun, courtesy of zhongwen.com, but it honestly doesn't really feel like the best way to improve my Chinese vocabulary right now. Yes, I know reading things is good for these kinds of purposes, but it just doesn't feel right for the moment. The vernacular diary entries are so much easier to read than the introduction in Classical Chinese, which also means they have less unfamiliar vocabulary, and I kind of want to just practice using unfamiliar vocabulary instead.

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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby linguoboy » 2017-08-14, 15:30

My ex lent me En finir avec Eddy Belleguele over the weekend and I've already started it. I can see why he's getting such love from the French literary establishment. It's an engrossing read, and the style is polished without being needlessly difficult.

Other than that, it's been all short stories: Fuentes still, plus Woodrell and a smattering of Italian authors (e.g. Calvino, Gadda) in a parallel text edition.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Luís » 2017-08-15, 14:28

linguoboy wrote:My ex lent me En finir avec Eddy Belleguele over the weekend and I've already started it. I can see why he's getting such love from the French literary establishment. It's an engrossing read, and the style is polished without being needlessly difficult.


I've been wanting to read that for a while now. Are you reading it in English or in French? I definitely want to try to read it in the original version when I have the time.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby linguoboy » 2017-08-15, 15:43

Luís wrote:
linguoboy wrote:My ex lent me En finir avec Eddy Belleguele over the weekend and I've already started it. I can see why he's getting such love from the French literary establishment. It's an engrossing read, and the style is polished without being needlessly difficult.

I've been wanting to read that for a while now. Are you reading it in English or in French? I definitely want to try to read it in the original version when I have the time.

French. (If I were reading it in English, I'd give the translated title and translator's name.)
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-08-16, 4:18

I've been trying to memorize two more quatrains from Mayura Sandesam (45-46). Maybe I'll also get back into my language books some more. (I've started doing that but just barely...).

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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Yasna » 2017-08-21, 21:30

I started reading Die Weimarer Republik: Krisenjahre Der Klassischen Moderne by Detlev Peukert, aus aktuellem Anlass...
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka

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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Dormouse559 » 2017-08-21, 22:49

linguoboy wrote:My ex lent me En finir avec Eddy Belleguele over the weekend and I've already started it. I can see why he's getting such love from the French literary establishment. It's an engrossing read, and the style is polished without being needlessly difficult.
I haven't read that book, but you remind me of a (French? Belgian?) review of it that I read a while ago. The reviewer's style was needlessly difficult, full of the strangest expressions. I felt better when I saw comments from presumably native French speakers questioning their writing. Anywho, I keep hearing good things about Eddy Bellegueule; maybe I'll try to get my hands on it.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby linguoboy » 2017-08-27, 15:09

I'm currently in an RPG that draws inspiration from the Cthulhu mythos and I thought I needed to do a bit more background research so I picked up a collection of Lovecraft short stories. Specifically, it's a collection of everything in his so-called "Dream Cycle". But reading it on the bus felt a bit like masturbating openly so I decided I needed to find something else for my commute and remembered that I'd recently bought China Miéville's The city and the city so I started reading that. So far, it's not grabbing me. I'm not a big fan of police procedurals, so unless the urban fantasy elements start coming to the fore, I may bounce off him again.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-01, 19:29

I've been trying to memorize the first 48 quatrains of Mayura Sandesam. At this point, it feels easy enough to learn new quatrains, but it's just really hard to try to recall all of the previous ones in addition to the new ones as the number of quatrains I learn grows. I tried practicing these quatrains as I always do before moving on to a new one only to realize after several hours that I'd accidentally skipped two quatrains altogether. :shock:

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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Yasna » 2017-09-10, 5:03

Ugh, I've been swamped with work lately so my reading has slowed to a snail's pace, basically just a few pages on the train here and there. I feel mentally malnourished.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-10, 22:23

I seem to have managed to memorize the first 48 quatrains. Yay! :)

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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Milly19 » 2017-09-19, 7:29

I am reading Arch of Triumph of Erich Maria Remarque. One of my favorite writers, every novel is a piece of Art, not an easy read though. Remarque has quite an impressive biography: found out that he liked old manors, collected antiques and spent his last years in his villa in Switzerland https://tranio.com/switzerland/adt/1628216/, which is for sale now. I would like to go to Switzerland and have a look at it at least...
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Osias » 2017-09-19, 14:53

Trying to find where I stopped "The Kite Runner". It was almost near the end.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-27, 3:42

50 quatrains down, 18 more to go, and then I'll be done with...Part One! Then there's still Part Two with 73 more quatrains.

I've gotten to the point where I can remember almost everything from these 50 quatrains except a small bit from quatrain #32 and a few parts between #41 and #50 (in particular, I'm finding most of quatrain #46 and part of #48 pretty hard to remember, and of course, due to relative lack of practice, I'm liable to have trouble remembering the latest ones I learned, #49-50).

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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby linguoboy » 2017-09-27, 19:55

Finished The city and the city, which was something of a disappointment. Intriguing setting, middling execution. It was police procedural with some slipstream elements rather than a science fantasy book featuring a detective, and I'm not a fan of police procedurals.

I started Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia, which appears to be straight-up historical fiction. I also finished the first half a manga by Gengoroh Tagame/田亀 源五郎 called 弟の夫 (My brother's husband in the English of Anne Ishii. He's well-known as an erotic artist and this is his first major foray into writing for a general audience. Quite an affecting storyline, though a comic artist I know complained about the staticness of his composition when compared to his other work.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Yasna » 2017-10-01, 17:53

I finished "Book 1" of Independent People, and I'll finish the rest in the winter. I also started 엄마를 부탁해 (Please Look After Mom) by Kyung-Sook Shin.
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka

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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Yasna » 2017-10-12, 6:27

I finished reading Die Weimarer Republik, which was amazing. It was so dense that it reminded me of a science or engineering textbook, but it was worth it. One aspect which stood out was the huge effort to reconstruct not just the sequences of events, but also the environments that common people and decision makers found themselves in, and to discourage the reader from judging these historical people and dynamics based on later information or insights that weren't available to them at the time. It's easy to view the Weimar period as one big shit show leading Germany straight towards Nazism, but there was nothing inevitable about it. The period produced a dizzying array of political movements, personal biographies, opportunities, and missed chances. The probability of escaping die deutsche Katastrophe only started to dwindle in the last few years and especially the last few months before the Machtergreifung.

We all know how that story ended, but it still weighed heavily on my spirits. I'm currently reading The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World by Ruchir Sharma, which is considerably more uplifting.
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka


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