I’m on the last few pages of Don DeLillo’s Libra and before that, Nabokov’s Pale Fire. They have both been quite excellent reads.
DeLillo is my favorite novelist. Modern – er, post-modern, I mean.
I’m reading Michael Frayn’s Democracy right now, taking a break from Arthur Miller.
Have you read White Noise? I read Underworld, Libra, and White Noise this year, with White Noise being my least favorite of the three. I seem to prefer when he runs the ideas he uses through more or less historical persons and places, rather than the apparent solipsism of of satirical works like White Noise. But even White Noise I found to be quite enjoyable up until the end, when I thought it lost its way.
CATCH-22 might be the great American novel. Really astonishing and very accessible once you get your bearings.
I’m kind of bouncing from book to book right now. I got most of the way through GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO until I just lost interest and was ready to move on. I’m now reading Christina Stead’s LETTY FOX: HER LUCK which I was enjoying but have pretty much lost the thread of. I’ll probably move on to something else.
I’m thinking some Dickens is in order. Maybe OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
Reading Walter Kirn’s Up In The Air because I’m interested in seeing the film.
Just finished Everything is Cinema:The Working Life of Jean Luc Godard
And occasionally bouncing to Dante’s Inferno.
Eiji Yoshikawa’s MUSASHI, enjoyed the film(1954) more.
McCarthy’s THE ROAD. The film opens next week. My bet- the book is better.
To Hank:
I’ve read them all save End Zone and Great Jones Street.
Mao II is my favorite; I think White Noise is his best writing, (possibly) second only to Underworld.
To each his/her own, as they say, I suppose.
But hey, you must read Ratner’s Star, it’s – in my opinion – his funniest, it also exhudes the obvious amount of research he did – as well as his clear interest in mathematics. Running Dog and The Names are great thrillers, but not his best. Cosmopolis is also pretty funny. And The Body Artist is a gem.
His screenplay for Game 6 is online, the movie stars Michael Keaton.
Read the screenplay, skip the movie…trust me.
Oh, and his three plays are – literally – genius.
Genius.
I am reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Yupp, and I’m enjoying it.
I watched Game 6 this summer. It definitely had the mark of being written by DeLillo, but other than that, I was not impressed. If it had a different director and different actors, I probably would have liked it. It was atrocious.
I’ve read most of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea today. Good book. I also bought Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
If you haven’t read BLOOD MERIDIAN — put everything else aside and do so.
100 Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Reading “Songlines” by Bruce Chatwin but I just finished “Outer Dark” by Cormac McCarthy. I would recommend anything by McCarthy, my favorite writer.
To Roscoe:
That book is incredible, McCarthy’s best, but have you read Suttree?
The Crossing is my favorite of his though.
To Hank:
Read The Sun Also Rises, and his short stories are exemplary.
I have yet to start on Roth…
Started SUTTREE, couldn’t get past the first page. Haven’t read THE CROSSING.
To Roscoe:
What was it? The condom line?
Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
Hey Roscoe it’s funny I just finished catch 22 and the concept of the deja vu and the out of order sequence did take awhile but on reflection it gets better. I am taking a class on Dickens and my favorite was bleak house.
Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard
I’ve read The Sun Also Rises before, but I do want to read it again.
To Hank:
Do you know Roth well?
Do you have recommendations?
“If you haven’t read BLOOD MERIDIAN — put everything else aside and do so.”
to R.S. Brown…
every Roth book you choose smashes Blood Meridian to pieces..NOT AN EXAGGERATION…
Gulliver’s Travels and Play It Again, Sam.
to Dimitris:
I find your comment appreciable but hardly believable.
I mean…really?
to Drew:
Read Allen’s collection of Three One-Act Plays
They’re all about infidelity.
Seriously – all of them – incredible.
One of them exhudes Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author
I have not read Roth yet. There’s a used bookstore I go to where I bought The Plot Against America before I bought American Pastoral, because as used bookstores can be, it is a bit poorly organized and I would have rather read American Pastoral before The Plot Against America. So, I bought American Pastoral and I’m ready to dig in soon, though I don’t quite know what book I’m going to dig into next (just finished The Old Man and the Sea — barring Moby Dick, which I do own but have not yet read, it must be the ultimate fishing story). I might check out a book from the library or read one of the many books I have right now which I have not yet read.
On the subject of Blood Meridian: I find that when I read books that have a significant amount of hype to them, I have difficulty separating what I think about them from what others have said about them. I read Blood Meridian this summer and I’m fairly sure I will have to read it again in order to know what my opinion is (same goes for Gravity’s Rainbow and Underworld and I’m sure I will feel the same about American Pastoral). There is, however, no doubt in my mind that The Road was nothing short of amazing.
Just finished Crime and Punishment, and now on to Middlesex
Oh, also, I’m going to have to disagree with the idea that any Roth will “smash Blood Meridian to pieces.” As I understand it, Roth has written thirty or more books, some of which range from not that good (though not on the scale of Stephanie Meyer or Dan Brown — Roth is Roth, after all) to great. McCarthy, on the other hand, has published sparingly in comparison. There is a certain virtue in the sparing amount that McCarthy has published: there is less of a chance that he will spread out his talent to far among his works.
>.I am reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Yupp, and I’m enjoying it.<<
I’m not sure even Ayn would find that an appropriate reaction.
@ Hank: I agree that The Road is amazing and my personal favorite of McCarthy’s but Blood Meridian would be next. I need to finish the rest of his work though.
to R.S. Brown…
uumm,yes,really…
and Henry Miller/Anais Nin (alone or together!) crush both McCarthy and Roth to smithereens!
JAEGER INKMAN
Currently reading Catch-22. Bloody hilarious with its depiction of the absurdity and unimportance of war.