What are you currently reading? (part 2)

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

Postby linguoboy » 2020-03-30, 15:58

I feel like I should be getting much more reading done than I am. I did manage to get through Oliver Sacks' autobiography, On the move, which was a really good read. He had a nimble mind and was an incredibly prolific writer. The book discusses all of his major published works plus several more which never made it to press because of one mishap or another. It's sort of amazing to realise there are entire manuscripts of his out there which could yet be rediscovered and published posthumously.

I still haven't finished Un nos ola leuad, though the end is in view; I'm down to just about 40 pages. I think I'm averaging about 5/day, so that's another week of reading unless I have a sustained push in me. Sometimes the going feels easy and sometimes I stumble over words I have no excuse for not knowing. I have a feeling that narrative is about to take a turn for the worse.

I started El amor en los tiempos de cólera and quickly made it about a hundred pages in before stalling. I just don't have a lot of patience for these intense adolescent infatuations which pass for great romances. (Opera is lousy with them.) García Márquez has a terrific facility with language and a wicked sense of humour, so I still think it's worth reading, but maybe after I'm done with the Welsh.

As a palate-cleanser, I read Emma Donoghue's The wonder, which was enjoyable but felt pretty light compared to her Room. (Of course, nearly anything would have.) The ending is literally escapist, but maybe that's not such a terrible thing these times. I also have some short stories I've been reading in English, including a volume of Primo Levi's. A mixed bag, as you'd expect, but fine for falling asleep to.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Yasna » 2020-04-25, 22:19

I finished The Federalist Papers, which was eye-opening. The country had constitutional concerns that were at times radically different from those of today. For example, one of the biggest concerns was whether the US would in fact be too large to be successfully governed as a republic.

I'm now reading a collection of short stories with parallel text called Garde à vue/ In Gewahrsam to prepare me for reading La peste by Camus.

linguoboy wrote:I started El amor en los tiempos de cólera and quickly made it about a hundred pages in before stalling. I just don't have a lot of patience for these intense adolescent infatuations which pass for great romances. (Opera is lousy with them.) García Márquez has a terrific facility with language and a wicked sense of humour, so I still think it's worth reading, but maybe after I'm done with the Welsh.

That's on my pandemic reading list as well.
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 linguoboy » 2020-04-26, 1:39

Yasna wrote:
linguoboy wrote:I started El amor en los tiempos de cólera and quickly made it about a hundred pages in before stalling.

That's on my pandemic reading list as well.

JFYI, you'll have to read at least 150 pages before there's any mention of cholera.

I wish my concentration were better. I keep getting frustrated, setting it down, and picking up some lesser work that I can speed through much more easily. That's how I ended up reading two disappointing novels in the past week, Bharati Mukherjee's The holder of the world and Perihan Mağden's Ali and Ramazan.

The former felt like sort of a bait-and-switch. The blurb promises elements of scifi, but they're only nominal; what it really is a work of historical fiction, bordering on historical fantasy. (Nothing truly supernatural happens, but there are lots of contrivances, coincidences, and overblown descriptions. Not to mention that the principal setting is a completely invented Indian kingdom.) It reads strangely like fan fiction. The main character is an improbable heroine with connexions to both Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Mughals. I didn't hate it, but I didn't take any time to savour it either.

The latter I summed up as "breathless homophobic tragedy porn". Mağden says the inspiration came from "a line in the newspaper" and, honestly, for all the time she spends describing them and their situation, her characters don't register much more deeply than that. Despite all the grittiness (and named Istanbul locales), the narrative doesn't feel especially grounded in reality. You know from the start things are going to end badly and it's not all that interesting getting there. And the constant railing against "queers" probably accurately reflects mainstream Turkish homophobia and is consistent with the principals' fucked-up upbringing, but it gets pretty tiresome. I have a gay friend who loves to read who I've given some fairly mediocre titles and I wouldn't give him this.

On the plus side, I did finally finish Un nos ola leuad. After all that effort, the conclusion felt a bit disappointing, but I have no regrets about reading the book. In more than 30 years of studying the language, it's only the second Welsh-language novel I've read to the end, and the other one was abridged for learners. I'm keen to read some others but I'm taking a bit of a breather while I try to focus on the García Márquez.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby linguoboy » 2020-05-18, 20:20

García Márquez is still on hiatus. Turns out I'm just not that into descriptions of adolescent sexual experiences, even colourful and humourous ones.

I'm not sure where I got the notion to read Olga Tokarczuk, but I'm glad I did. I picked up the English translation of her 1998 novel Dom dzienny, dom nocny (House of day, house of night) at a booksale at work a few years ago and it's been collecting dust. But between her Nobel and a friend's recommendation (plus a short story I read in a collection), I thought it was worth giving her a shot. I wasn't wrong.

"Novel" is really an odd description of her work. There's no single unifying narrative to House, just a unifying narrator. More than that, it's the locale--Nowa Ruda in Upper Silesia and parts nearby--that gathers the different strands together. It's a loose weave and I'd probably have to read it a couple more times to really tease out the interrelationships. Her prose (at least in Lloyd-Jones' translation) really flows well and she has a wonderful imagination. I'm now really interested in reading her other books.

First, though, I've picked up Slumberland. Paul Beatty's gotten a lot of attention for The sellout, which won the Man Booker in 2016, but it's Slumberland, which is set in Berlin right around the time of my first visit there, that spoke to me more. The man can certainly write. Sometimes he gets a bit too carried away with his technical brilliance and I end up needing a bit of a break, but more often he sweeps me along. At times, it's difficult to tell where his savagely satirical descriptions give way to flights of fancy. Halfway through and I'm not sure yet where he's going, but it's an interesting ride.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby TheStrayCat » 2020-06-06, 13:46

I am reading Referendum for Murder by Mickey Polansky, which I bought at a street sale for a dollar a few months ago. It is easy to read and has a pretty exciting plot as for an apparently amateur author, but the amount of orthographic and punctuation errors I keep finding in the book is truly disappointing.

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

Postby Yasna » 2020-06-17, 20:33

I finished reading 黑暗森林 (The Dark Forest), which blew me away. The imagination and execution are as good as any I've ever seen. The first book in the series had a number of flaws, such as a plodding flashback to the cultural revolution, but I'm so glad I kept going with the series. Looking forward to reading the third part.

I'm now reading Geschichte der Ostsee: Handel und Kulturen by Michael North.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby aaakknu » 2020-07-22, 0:41

I just started reading Helen Keller’s “The World I Live In”, a book by a person who was deafblind about her experience.
Здайся на Господа у твоїх справах, і задуми твої здійсняться. (Приповідки 16, 3)
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby france-eesti » 2020-07-25, 10:42

Tolstoi's Childhood, Boyhood, Youth :D
I love it ! It's such a shame I cannot read Russian, I would love to read him in its original writing!
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Yasna » 2020-07-28, 0:25

I finished reading Geschichte der Ostsee: Handel und Kulturen, which I loved. The author had any easy time with me, since I'm fascinated by the Baltic Sea region. Now I'd like to read standalone books about Polish, Swedish, Danish, and Prussian history. This book pretty much satisfied my curiosity about the histories of Finland and the Baltic countries on the other hand.

Now I'm reading 第一女盗 (The First Female Thieves) by Yishi Fengliu to improve my Chinese.
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 Hoogstwaarschijnlijk » 2020-07-28, 11:24

I'm re-reading De dolle tweeling by Enid Blyton, St Clare in the orginel. It's awesome.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby linguoboy » 2020-07-31, 15:03

I'm sort of reading Erhöhter Blauanteil by Swiss author Bruno Steiger but the story isn't very engaging and he's too clever by half. In particular, he seems to have a big hard-on for Peter Handke and assumes you've read a lot more of his works than I have. I'm not sure why I'm even reading it except that I found it while I was repacking some books and it had the dust jacket stuffed inside as a bookmark so I started on it to see if I'd actually gotten that far in it before and to be honest I can't even tell. I really just should get back to El amor en los tiempos de cólera at long last.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Linguaphile » 2020-07-31, 17:22

I'm currently reading Lluvia de oro by Victor Villaseñor. A long (600-page) family saga that starts in Mexico during the Revolution and ends up in California. I'm about a quarter of the way through it. Despite the fact that so far it is not the slightest bit peaceful (and I don't anticipate that it will be), I'm finding it to be a relaxing read because it's nice to escape to some time and place other than my actual current one.
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

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

Postby Hoogstwaarschijnlijk » 2020-07-31, 18:10

linguoboy wrote:I'm sort of reading Erhöhter Blauanteil by Swiss author Bruno Steiger but the story isn't very engaging and he's too clever by half. In particular, he seems to have a big hard-on for Peter Handke and assumes you've read a lot more of his works than I have. I'm not sure why I'm even reading it except that I found it while I was repacking some books and it had the dust jacket stuffed inside as a bookmark so I started on it to see if I'd actually gotten that far in it before and to be honest I can't even tell. I really just should get back to El amor en los tiempos de cólera at long last.


You certainly should, that's such a great book!

It's so weird, I'm not particularly interested in South-America as a continent, I really wouldn't like to go there, but their literature! I loved the novel of Juan Gabriel Vásquez too, De vorm van ruïnes (it's really annoying but I can't find the original nor the English title anywhere...), fir example.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Linguaphile » 2020-07-31, 18:18

Hoogstwaarschijnlijk wrote:I loved the novel of Juan Gabriel Vásquez too, De vorm van ruïnes (it's really annoying but I can't find the original nor the English title anywhere...), for example.

(es) La forma de las ruinas
(en) The Shape of the Ruins
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

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

Postby linguoboy » 2020-07-31, 19:15

Linguaphile wrote:
Hoogstwaarschijnlijk wrote:I loved the novel of Juan Gabriel Vásquez too, De vorm van ruïnes (it's really annoying but I can't find the original nor the English title anywhere...), for example.

(es) La forma de las ruinas
(en) The Shape of the Ruins

I just edited the Dutch Wikipedia page to include it. The strange thing is that it was published in translation a year before De geliefden van Allerheiligen (Los amantes de Todos los Santos), which is the most recent title mentioned.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Hoogstwaarschijnlijk » 2020-08-01, 7:04

linguoboy wrote:
Linguaphile wrote:
Hoogstwaarschijnlijk wrote:I loved the novel of Juan Gabriel Vásquez too, De vorm van ruïnes (it's really annoying but I can't find the original nor the English title anywhere...), for example.

(es) La forma de las ruinas
(en) The Shape of the Ruins

I just edited the Dutch Wikipedia page to include it. The strange thing is that it was published in translation a year before De geliefden van Allerheiligen (Los amantes de Todos los Santos), which is the most recent title mentioned.


Great, thank you!
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby Yasna » 2020-08-21, 20:45

I finished reading the awful 第一女盗 (The First Female Thieves). Trope about Jews controlling the world? Check. Girl falling in love with the guy who raped her? Check. 99% predictable plot? Check.

Now I'm reading a collection of translated Russian short stories as well as the mystery novel 午後的克布藍士街 (Once an afternoon at Carbrans Street) by Sang Ye.
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 linguoboy » 2020-09-08, 18:36

I seem to keep starting books without ever finishing any. I did finally reach the end of Erhöhter Blauanteil, a pointless Swiss novel which I read to the end only because it was so short (a novella, really) that it seemed ridiculous to give up. It taught me some fun new words (e.g. unwirsch) and gave me some good practice unravelling Schachtelsätze, which I haven't done for a while, but ultimately I didn't really see what the author was doing besides indulging himself.

I immediately turned around and began reading Sarmada (سرمدة) by Syrian novelist Fadi Azzam (فادي عزام). It will be the first thing I've ever read from a Druze author.
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Re: What are you currently reading? (part 2)

Postby TheStrayCat » 2020-11-19, 4:25

Just finished The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan. Reading Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb right now.

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

Postby linguoboy » 2020-11-19, 16:01

Having learned nothing from my frustrations with Kivirähk, I've decided to tackle another Estonian novel in translation. This time it's Öös on asju by Mati Unt (English translation Things in the night by Eric Dickens). So far it's very meta and somewhat meandering. I'm reminded a bit of Olga Tokarczuk, except she's much defter at interweaving the various strands and more subtle in her philosophising. Unt's narrator feels like a character I've already met (the self-obsessed misanthropic writer who objectifies women) and disliked a couple dozen times by now. Will I finish it? Eh, probably; it's not hard to read and some of the passages describing nature are quite sensitively rendered.

(I finished Sarmada, by the way, and quite enjoyed it. The only other book I've read since then that I can really recommend is Han Kang's Human acts.)
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons


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