Summer Reading

originally posted by maureen:
ok, I'll throw my two cents in here (by the way, I agree with Jonathan's view of what good beach reading is - it must be fun, engaging, and by all means well-written).

"The World as I Found It" by Bruce Duffy - a fictional telling of the life of Wittgenstein, with a little Bertrand Russell thrown in on the side - alternately silly, intense, philosophical, action-packed, romantic, and thoughtful.

"Dr Criminale" by Malcolm Bradbury - a former writer for a London Sunday literary newspaper, fired for saying on camera what he (and others) really think of the Booker prizes, chases "a great thinker of the 20th century" from soiree to soiree in an effort to profile him for a tv series. If you liked the tone of the film "Cold Comfort Farm" you've got Bradbury (he wrote that script, albeit based on a 30s novel)

"Ten Days in the Hills" by Jane Smiley - her take on the Decameron, set in Hollywood just after the invasion of Iraq. Unbelievably readable and interesting, considering it's all talking, eating, and fucking.
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wonderful suggestions for all of us: I'm following up today! thanks much. Re "Ten Days": right, how could those activities possibly make for interesting summer reading?
 
Not recommended for summer reading. But since you asked, leisurely re-wading through A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Well, Scott Moncrieff by way of Terence Kilmartin. So, really Remembrance of Thing Past. Maybe I'll finish it when I get to the beach next month.

Or maybe not.
 
originally posted by Bob Semon:
NRNot recommended for summer reading. But since you asked, leisurely re-wading through A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Well, Scott Moncrieff by way of Terence Kilmartin. So, really Remembrance of Thing Past. Maybe I'll finish it when I get to the beach next month.

Or maybe not.
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No, really it's "In Search of Lost Time." That other title was chosen merely for its familiarity with an English-speaking audience.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Bob Semon:
NRNot recommended for summer reading. But since you asked, leisurely re-wading through A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Well, Scott Moncrieff by way of Terence Kilmartin. So, really Remembrance of Thing Past. Maybe I'll finish it when I get to the beach next month.

Or maybe not.
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No, really it's "In Search of Lost Time." That other title was chosen merely for its familiarity with an English-speaking audience.

Mark Lipton
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Don't get Sharon started. I agree with you. So do the most recent translations. Montcrief was an elegant translator, but not necessarily an accurate one. Kilmartin took care of a lot, though.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Lyle Fass:
I will check the others out. I live for dark. My favorite Hardy, by far, is Jude the Obscure. Thanks for the reccomendations. May I pick your brain again? Just read Sister Carrie by Dreiser and loved loved it. Where do I go from there?
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American fiction isn't my strong point. But I remember liking Dreiser's An American Tragedy as well. You might take a look at Frank Norris's McTeague. But I have to say that American Naturalism isn't what I like best. I much prefer Zola since I like it when they actually have some sense of prose and literary form, and Dreiser, for me, doesn't.

I agree with Cole about Mantel, who he turned me onto and about Infinite Jest being the best thing DFW did and a major achievement by any measure.
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I can see that on Dreiser. There is a sense that he is just telling you things. Zola is more prosaic for sure, but I think my translation is not doing it the justice it really deserves. Seems a bit disjointed.
 
originally posted by Lyle Fass:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Lyle Fass:
I will check the others out. I live for dark. My favorite Hardy, by far, is Jude the Obscure. Thanks for the reccomendations. May I pick your brain again? Just read Sister Carrie by Dreiser and loved loved it. Where do I go from there?
Click to expand...

American fiction isn't my strong point. But I remember liking Dreiser's An American Tragedy as well. You might take a look at Frank Norris's McTeague. But I have to say that American Naturalism isn't what I like best. I much prefer Zola since I like it when they actually have some sense of prose and literary form, and Dreiser, for me, doesn't.

I agree with Cole about Mantel, who he turned me onto and about Infinite Jest being the best thing DFW did and a major achievement by any measure.
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I can see that on Dreiser. There is a sense that he is just telling you things. Zola is more prosaic for sure, but I think my translation is not doing it the justice it really deserves. Seems a bit disjointed.
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Zola is more prosaic? Which one are you reading and in which translation?
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Lyle Fass:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Lyle Fass:
I will check the others out. I live for dark. My favorite Hardy, by far, is Jude the Obscure. Thanks for the reccomendations. May I pick your brain again? Just read Sister Carrie by Dreiser and loved loved it. Where do I go from there?
Click to expand...

American fiction isn't my strong point. But I remember liking Dreiser's An American Tragedy as well. You might take a look at Frank Norris's McTeague. But I have to say that American Naturalism isn't what I like best. I much prefer Zola since I like it when they actually have some sense of prose and literary form, and Dreiser, for me, doesn't.

I agree with Cole about Mantel, who he turned me onto and about Infinite Jest being the best thing DFW did and a major achievement by any measure.
Click to expand...

I can see that on Dreiser. There is a sense that he is just telling you things. Zola is more prosaic for sure, but I think my translation is not doing it the justice it really deserves. Seems a bit disjointed.
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Zola is more prosaic? Which one are you reading and in which translation?
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Germinal. Translated by Havelock Ellis.
 
My favorite book, by Adam Nicolson. Natural and human history of the Shiants, islands in the Outer Hebrides. Superb in every way. Also, something you'd actually want to read on summer vacation.

Seamanship, and Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History, also by him, are good.

But if you like water and islands and things Northern, read Sea Room.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by MLipton:
No, really it's "In Search of Lost Time." That other title was chosen merely for its familiarity with an English-speaking audience.
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Don't get Sharon started.
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Yes, let's not go through this again. Someone, please usher in a previous URL and quiet all this to'ing and fro'ing.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Zola is more prosaic? Which one are you reading and in which translation?
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Zola is overbearingly prosaic, though perhaps you're simply surprised that he should be moreso than the also very prosaic Dreiser?

I mean, Zola writes with his feet.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
No, really it's "In Search of Lost Time." That other title was chosen merely for its familiarity with an English-speaking audience.

Mark Lipton
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Yes, I know. I was politely deferring to the name printed on the cover. Translators do (re-)create. Usually a lesser thing. I make do per my own limitations.
 
I don't know the Ellis translation. And certainly no one will ever confuse Zola with Flaubert, or even Stendhal. Still, sticking to Germinal, the scene that Auerbach quotes from Part III, chapter 2, the last paragraphs of the novel, and numbers of others, are far better than most any other naturalism and do amount to a realist style. Even better is the whole narrative voice of L'Assommoir (although you have to be particularly careful with translations here, some of them cleaning it up, others adding vulgarities just to get in the spirit of the thing), not to mention descriptions of certain parties, particularly the wedding and the trip through the Louvre are wonderful.

Zola is not an elegant stylist nor should he have been. Dreiser just sucks. Crane is better than both of them.
 
We seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel, here, as far as comparisons go. Stendhal was an abominable stylist (maybe they've improved him in translation?). Sometimes Zola hits some kind of charm, but in my experience it's usually spackle one gets in his pages. But then again, I am a finicky reader; I often find Flaubert too dense and indigestible. He's the writerly version of Balzac's artist in Le Chef d'uvre inconnu, at times.

For realists/naturalists, you can't do much more awesome than Maupassant. Limpid and great and cruel. Except maybe Huysmans! That description of the Grnewald crucifixion.... Oh, and Jules Valls is a fine stylist. In fact, there are many one could cite instead.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Zola is not an elegant stylist nor should he have been.
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Can you say why?
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Sure. His point was to find a narrative expression of what the intersubjective world of his characters was. Think of how much he uses the free indirect in his writing. Obviously, L'Assommoir was the height of that experiment, but the mixture of the biologist looking in the microscope and the germ being looked at is what makes the novels work. If Maupassant, who I find OK but marred by an excessive moralism, wrote one of Zola's plots, instead of being tragedies of characters who don't understand what is happening to them, they would be flat, ironic contes.

But really, it just sounds as if you don't like 19th century realism. That's OK with me, but for recommendation purposes, the evaluation has to be taken accordingly.
 
I think our sensibilities must differ, but let's turn the tables and imagine Zola writing a Maupassant story, all the cutting distance gone. I agree that Zola makes good use of the style indirect libre, but so does a Pagnol, and you wouldn't quite call that immortal (at least I don't).

I disagree, anyway, with the flat, ironic conte image. Maupassant's tales are often suffused with place (they are very Normand, 'cept when they move to Paris); quite a broad range. Read (reread) "La Petite Roque"; if you don't cry...* I also like how he ties back in with early 19th century contes fantastiques, but in a more sardonic mode; there, it's justified and does nothing to cheapen the narrative. (Quite the reverse.)

I do like 19th century realism, and have just mentioned four French writers of it I greatly like: Balzac, Maupassant, Huysmans, Valls (OK, we skew decadent, but personne n'est parfait).

Though for Zola, I like the more lurid novels, such as Thrse Raquin.

*Which is of course a very "period" way to read something. "Comme son concierge" - Sartre
 
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