Member: berthirsch

Thanks for the inquiry. I got two books that are changing my life from a downsizing friend who just lost her husband. I finally into science.

Bill Bryson
A Short istory of Nearly Everything,
complemented by the Big Bang

Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos
which I did not understand at all...only got definitins of things I should understand
public library discard

Last chance thrift store

Star Guide by Kweeos

I am also reading a high school world history textbook to help my granddaughter...last niggt amazing take on exploration...Colubus and all that...who would have thought Ming dyasty going on the silver standard affected silver miners in Japan and Bolvia, trading in the Phillipines,and farmers prices in China.

Thanks for asking

posted by carterchristian1 at 1:50 pm (EST) on Nov 16, 2009

Hello Jose (knowthyself):

My husband, Zeera (Zee) Charnoe, and I joined librarything a few days ago.
I've been reading the posts you made at the Humanities group topics (altered states)
and I've enjoyed reading your home page at librarything.

I've only catalogued 200 of about 4,000 books and journals we have.
We share many similar books and authors.

I am helped by everything Zee has ever written or spoken.
His source of inspiration offers purpose and hope for the soul.
I have had the pleasure of being his student, partner and assistant for 21+ years.
Zee has taught and studied gnosis, gnostic writings, Huna, Zen, Zen meditation, Tibetan Buddhism, hypnosis,
and a wide range of subjects and disciplines.
He was a physics professor of optics and acoustics, in Denmark.
He has been the CEO of numerous organizations dedicated
to environmental products and services (Life Essential Systems).

There are tens of thousands of pages
of short writings and short books at his website:
http://ecophysics.org

There are four actual books there,
with numerous more writings and books in process:

1. What Life Is and What Life Is For

2. Anaclysm

3. The Soul of a Poet-Philosopher
(poetry and short stories)

4. Language, Literacy and Intelligence:
Made For Each Other ! ? (1986 thesis) (draft)

There are also hundreds of audio recordings
of lectures, meditations and hypnosis scripts,
that are available on DVD's,
and are played (and archived) at a webcast:
ANACLYSM radio program
www.blogtalkradio.com

We live a very quiet, secluded life,
surrounded by plants and books.
We very much like to exchange
with others of like mind,
who seek to connect to a greater scheme.

Zee continues to write.
I would be happy to e-mail you current writings, as they become available,
if you are interested.

Thank you for your attention.
Kind regards,

Jennifer Gray Charnoe (ecohealth2003)
Zee Charnoe (ZeeCharnoe)

posted by ecohealth2003 at 7:40 pm (EST) on Nov 15, 2009

Try again:

http://news10now.com/cny-news-1013-conte...

posted by lriley at 5:01 pm (EST) on Oct 27, 2009

Bert-Complete Review says Herta Muller wins tomorrow:

http://www.complete-review.com/new/new.h...

posted by lriley at 5:15 pm (EST) on Oct 7, 2009

berthirsch,

No problem! Simply go to the "Edit Profile" section. From here you will be able to change your home location. To change your address for the member giveaways, simply visit http://www.librarything.com/er/profile to change your address. I hope this helps but please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with!

Cheers,
Dan

posted by LibThingDan at 2:14 pm (EST) on Oct 7, 2009

I'm assuming you mean the Vasquez book? Yeah--it looks fascinating. I started a book by Jaan Kross-an Estonian writer the other day called 'the Czar's Madman'--and it's very good but the Vasquez book came in the meantime and then Marias's After the battle--and I think I wouldn't having started them instead.

There's another novel by an Iraqi Shimon Ballas called 'Outcast' which is interesting. The book is narrated by a character named Haroun Soussan--a jewish convert to Islam and it covers a period going back into the 30's into the Saddam Hussein years where he's a civil engineer and a historian of a book called The Jews and history. I'm not very far into that either but I like the measured tone of the narration.

posted by lriley at 1:45 pm (EST) on Oct 7, 2009

Bert--Here's a link to Juan Gabriel Vasquez's'--The Informers:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/new...

posted by lriley at 11:12 am (EST) on Oct 6, 2009

Bert--yahoo speculating it might be Amos Oz:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091002/stag...

posted by lriley at 2:59 pm (EST) on Oct 4, 2009

Bert--a poster here-- emily_morine. I just put her in my favorite libraries. Check out her review for 2666. Her other reviews are fantastic as well.

posted by lriley at 11:39 pm (EST) on Oct 3, 2009

I just read the Fifties was checking out the other reviews. I very much agree with you about this author. Sounds like you have a really interesting life. Surprised we don't share more books.

posted by carterchristian1 at 9:36 am (EST) on Sep 3, 2009

I just read the Fifties was checking out the other reviews. I very much agree with you about this author. Sounds like you have a really interesting life. Surprised we don't share more books.

posted by carterchristian1 at 9:36 am (EST) on Sep 3, 2009

Hi,
Just letting you know that I have posted my review of 'Hope Abandoned' on my Club Read thread. My thread is here. I will also post a slightly edited one on the book's profile page.
Andy

posted by depressaholic at 12:49 pm (EST) on Sep 2, 2009

If you read martini for the courtroom drama, I'd say no. If you are slightly compulsive about reading everything from favorite authors, like I am, then yes. The Cuban Missile Crisis plays some part in the plot. I remember those times pretty vividly, but it's not really enough of a hook. Hope that helps.

posted by etrainer at 7:02 pm (EST) on Aug 29, 2009

Thank you for telling me about Argentine Group. I will have a look tomorrow when I have more time on my hands. Regards. Valerie

posted by englishrose60 at 1:38 pm (EST) on Aug 26, 2009

Anyway I can be too self-centered on our own thing and I shouldn't be such a knucklehead. It sounds like Logan is off to a great start. It's a tough job market and if he's already landed a good job then he's off to a great start. A lot these days has to do with personality--people who come off well--have energy and self confidence. Your trips with him to BA probably help a lot as well--travel is useful, it excercises the mind--expands outlooks. It's something hopefully Tara does.

We went online today and picked up some of her books for her Modern Jewish History course: There are 7 altogether for that course. We ordered 4: Out of Egypt--(memoir)--Aciman, The bread givers (novel)--Yezierka, The jew in the modern world (history)--Mendes Flohr and In the land of Israel by the world famous Amos Oz. The other 3 are History of the jews in modern times--Gartner, Holocaust--Niewyk and Between the Yeshiva world--Shapiro.

posted by lriley at 11:37 pm (EST) on Aug 15, 2009

Good to hear from you Bert. She just heard back from her English roommate. She's 21 and only coming over for one year. She's a little disappointed about that but I told her that you can find out a lot about someone in a year and if they hit it off--she may have someone to visit there some day. Anyway as for her courses I have a mind to read up on some of what she'll be taking as well but we'll see.

Anyway what I'm reading right now--including Cultural Amnesia--about two thirds through that--a lot of stuff about the holocaust also about Stalin's mass murder sprees. Reading Marcus Zusak's 'The Book thief' which is nominally slotted as Young Adult fiction but I think that's a misnomer. It kind of bears a relationship to Gunter Grass's Tin Drum. It's very good. Also I'm re-reading J. M. Coetzee's Foe and have started on Martin Estrada's (a New York City born Puerto Rican poet)--Rebellion is the circle of a lover's hands. It's been a while since I've been reading four books at once. To be honest Coetzee (a favorite of mine) is the one in the bunch I'm struggling a little with.

Heading in a Latin American direction we have three that I hope to get to in the next month or so. An Argentine crime novelist Sergio Bizzio's 'Rage' which is being made into a movie starring Guillermo del Toro. A Mexican crime writer Enrique Serna--'Fear of Animals' and Vargas Llosa's Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter which jumps up the list after reading MVL's bio in Cultural Amnesia.

I'll have to look up 'Twenty fragments of a ravenous youth'--John's got me looking up Vollmann's 'Hotel Europe' as well.

posted by lriley at 1:27 pm (EST) on Aug 15, 2009

Much appreciated Bert. Hopefully 'Adam' shows up around here. The description of social awkwardness, obsessions etc. in the article pretty much fit. We took Justin on his first college trip about 3 weeks ago to Alfred U. which is very strong on Mathematics and the Sciences which is his greatest strengths and what he seems to like the most. In a week or so he should be getting his learner's permit. We've put it off a little but we should have a lot more one on one time this year with his sister off to college.

Reading 'Cultural Amnesia' by a Clive James--a 100+ biographical synopses of figures mostly from the 20th century. Some more obscure than others. A number of victims of Hitler's and Stalin's regimes. Also a number of literary figures including--Kafka, Proust, Camus, Borges, Sabato, Vargas Llosa, Celan, Akhmatova, Mailer, Freud, Gombrowicz, Thomas Mann, Paz, Rilke, Sartre, Saramago, Zweig. Jazz musicians, politicians, actors, historians, dictators, nazi sympathizers. It's very interesting and if you find the time you might want to look and see.

Also finished Le Clezio's newly translated Desert.

posted by lriley at 9:13 am (EST) on Aug 4, 2009

Bert--don't know if you're interested. Just reviewed a crime novel 'The Psalm Killer' set in Northern Ireland during the troubles and which I liked a lot.

posted by lriley at 12:35 pm (EST) on Jul 4, 2009

Bert--Lush life was my first Richard Price and I liked it quite a lot. A very realistically drawn crime thriller. I've read one other Price since then. I think it was titled Samaritan. Not quite as good but he's a very good writer. The closest thing to Lush Life at least since than that's a bit like him IMO is Arnaldur Indridason's Silence of the Grave.

Anyway that one guy in club read--Kidzdoc completely blows me out of the water with the pace he has. The other thing is I steal a bit of time here and there at work--not enough so that it gets in the way of what I need to do but not everyone will have the same freedom. Of course I'm getting up at 1115 pm to go to work at 1230 am to get out at 9 am and they're pretty crappy hours and since those changes anyway I probably average 5-6 hours a sleep a day which isn't that good. FWIW it's a good living though.

posted by lriley at 11:30 pm (EST) on Jun 12, 2009

Picked up Yasmina Reza's play today--The god of carnage which is currently on Broadway with Gandolfini in one of the lead roles. If we do manage to get to NYC this year--at the moment it doesn't seem all that likely that's the one I'd like to go and see.

posted by lriley at 1:17 pm (EST) on Jun 11, 2009

Justin has a lot of smarts. He can go places if he wants to drive himself--but he's going to have to begin to open up more. It's difficult. The most important thing no matter how high he reaches or not is that he'll be able to take care of himself. That's the main goal at least as I see it.

Anyway you're own son (I kind of remember his name as Logan(?) seems to be right on target and that's what I'm really hoping for with my own.

Any plans for Buenos Aires in the future? I picked up this very interesting looking novel by a Peruvian writer Santiago Roncagliolo titled Red April. I think I'm going to be starting it tonight. It's a noir mystery with a serial killer--and the background is the Fujimori regime of government corruption, Shining path terrorists and right wing death squads. The Argentine writers I've read recently are Cesar Aira and Alicia Borinsky. Both books were pretty good but I have an idea they were not their best and I think I'll be getting back in the near future.

Just snagged as well a book from LT's early reviewers--The spiders of Allah by one James Hider--a non fiction looking into middle eastern fundamentalism--that looks pretty interesting as well. Hope it shows up soon.

posted by lriley at 5:31 pm (EST) on May 28, 2009

On that there is a seminar he's going to in the next couple weeks at Elmira College--the speakers are all kids who have had similar types of problems and have gone on to get degrees. Of course--it will help if he pays attention. The thing with him sometimes I think things are almost too easy. The brain is a very curious thing. For him if he takes something in--it stays. It's like he has a photographic memory. He also can do complicated multiplications in his head very quickly. I actually used to do that. I haven't kept in practice. Anyway he doesn't have to study hard to do pretty well--the problems come when he starts blowing things off and loses the thread of where a class is going. A lot of it comes with what he would describe as 'personal issues'. He does not like giving anyone anything he considers information about himself. When he sets his mind on a course--he is stubborn. From the social aspect it might be the best thing possible--his living away--then again it might not work at all but I'm inclined to find out. He needs to emerge.

Anyway his interests are really in mathematics and sciences and those are things he does very well in. He also is excellent at art--particularly drawing--I think architect but he'll smirk at that. He doesn't really think much of that. He does not take art seriously. Alfred U. is about an hour or two west of here and that might be a good school for him. Ithaca College he has some interest in. An offshoot of Syracuse University--through Suny (Syracuse is not actually a Suny school) offers a degree in forestry--which he seems to be enthusiastic about. Whatever he choose and wherever he goes we are going to be looking at the kind of support those schools can offer him. I think if he can get through a first year away and passes his classes he'll be on his way--but that first year is going to be so important for his psyche and for ours. Anyway that is pretty much my thoughts at this point in time. There may be a few more schools we look at but he will undoubtedly be in state as well--within in a couple hours anyway.

posted by lriley at 2:04 pm (EST) on May 21, 2009

Bert--sounds really wonderful. I'd be excited as well. I don't know if I expect all that out of Tara--she is going in undeclared and will have to figure out what she wants to major in within the next couple years. 99% sure it will be in liberal arts. A lot of her friends are going to Syracuse and a lot of her class is going to Ithaca College--a lot of music related stuff. That was her No. 2 choice. Suny Binghamton's campus seems much more diverse in some respects. Lots of NYC area students there as well. Anyway hopefully everything turns out well as it did for your son. Next year will be a bigger challenge in a way with Justin--not sure he'll be able to handle living away from home and keeping on top of his work. He is really smart--got a 31 out of 36 on his ACT which would make him eligible for just about any school in the country but he has a difficult time keeping motivated and is really obsessive when it comes to his game systems--obsessiveness runs in the family I'm afraid and the Asperger's thing doesn't make it any easier. The other thing is he's very introverted and tries to blow off any project he thinks devles into personal issues.

posted by lriley at 2:08 pm (EST) on May 20, 2009

Bert--I really liked it as well. One small section kind of didn't ring true for me--other than that though it's a great book.

posted by lriley at 1:00 pm (EST) on May 1, 2009

One of the factors Bert that decided her on Binghamton over Ithaca was the campus at Binghamton was much more diverse. Anyway she's heading in the direction of liberal arts in something or other.

posted by lriley at 9:42 am (EST) on Apr 29, 2009

To add to today's other post Bert--I have reviewed Parra's After-dinner declarations--a book that includes a couple interesting fragments about Borges. I'll give you one:

Once on Montevideo Avenue

A young journalist believes he recognizes Borges
Pardon me sir, Are you Borges?
And the venerable old man replied
Some of the time...

On another occasion someone rang his apartment bell
It's a man of about 30 years of age
He's told by Norman Thomas di Giovanni
Who in those days was his secretary

How so? replied Borges
Are there still people 30 years old?

That was Borges

One time someone approached him
While he was strolling through the Florida quarter

Excuse me Mr. Borges
Could I ask you a question?

You already have!
Responded the venerable old man
And hurried away

posted by lriley at 4:17 pm (EST) on Apr 16, 2009

You must be pretty excited about graduation day Bert. My wife and I have done a lot of the scouting and legwork on all this--that seems to be typical from what we hear from other parents. For us the money it would take for her to go to Hobart or Ithaca College keeping in mind that Justin follows next year--is a lot but there's this idea in the back of my head that sometimes you get what you pay for and her academic achievements through High School are pretty impressive--so if it costs another $5-7K per year then we'll find a way. So if she wants to go that way that's fine. The two Suny schools will be a little bit cheaper but they are quality places (at least from the ratings) as well. So it's fingers are crossed time.

Anyway--I read Englander's Argentine novel right after it came out and he went straight into my favorites list here. Great book. I think you would like Montalban's book. He was a very literate crime novelist--he had a quirky private detective name of Pepe Carvalho--an ex-con, ex-communist, ex-CIA--and was quite the gourmand--lots of recipes with quite a bit of detail--this one being set in Argentina you might find some local dishes.

posted by lriley at 3:10 pm (EST) on Apr 16, 2009

Liked Lush life a lot--there was only just one little bit that kind of was a little whacky. Other than that an excellent crime novel.

On Aira--probably I'll start that in the next week or so. Just finished an Argentine writer today--Mean woman--Alicia Borinsky. It was interesting. A kind of strange book in a way--it draws a bit on the Peron era and a bit on the military dictatorship era. She has a quirky way of putting things which is often quite amusing.

Speaking of Argentina some more--ever read Manuel Vazquez Montalban's Buenos Aires Quintet?

Anyway to Tara's college sweepstakes contest. Her second visit to Hobart she didn't care for much. That is the most high falutin' one of them all and probably the one I preferred most because I think it would challenge her the most--more in a social than an academic sense though--many of Hobart's kids are prep and private school kids who may be ahead a bit on academics but I don't think that will be that big of a problem. We went back to Suny Geneseo yesterday (very high marks in Kiplinger's and US News etc) and she liked that a lot better. Tomorrow Mae (I work) takes her to Suny Binghamton and on Saturday back to Ithaca College. After that she makes her decision.

posted by lriley at 4:37 pm (EST) on Apr 15, 2009

It's been almost a month Bert since I checked in. Picked up my first Cesar Aira book today. Ghosts.

Anyway Tara is still undecided on what school. She revisited Hobart on Sunday. Off to Suny Geneseo this coming tuesday the 14th, Suny Binghamton on the 16th and Ithaca College on the 18th. She has until May 1.

posted by lriley at 4:22 pm (EST) on Apr 8, 2009

Hi,

Was wondering if you'd be interested in reviewing my new novel and posting your comments here as well as a few other book-related sites. Saw you liked Paris Trout, and I thought you might like my novel since it's also southern and a bit dark. I could e-mail you the novel in an e-book format if you'd like. Let me know if you're interested. Here's a link to a summary in case you're interested:

http://christophertusa.com/blog/?page_id...

Thanks,

Chris

posted by cmtusa at 9:17 am (EST) on Mar 20, 2009

Bert--I see you've been back in Argentina--literally speaking. I really liked Sultry Moon as well. A bit offbeat--in some respects it reminded me very much of Arlt. Truthfully I think Sabato's other two novels On heroes and tombs and The angel of darkness are superior to The Tunnel--quite a bit longer too. You should check them out.

Beautiful day.

posted by lriley at 3:22 pm (EST) on Mar 15, 2009

Bert--when you do get around to it No great mischief is a great book. It won the Irish Impac award which as I'm sure you know is a huge book award.

SUNY Binghamton is a great school no doubt about it and I wouldn't mind seeing her go there at all. I really liked our campus visit there. I did not make the trip to SUNY Geneseo but it ranks on the same level and I have a sneaking suspicion that if push comes to shove she likes Geneseo a little better. That's just my impression though. If I were to guess though it will be either Geneseo or Hobart with Suny Binghamton and Ithaca College the next two. If I were to root for one in particular it would be Hobart which would be a bit more expensive but all in all I think it would be the one she would benefit the most from. Whatever she does choose they're all very good ones.

posted by lriley at 5:28 pm (EST) on Mar 8, 2009

Bert--I didn't send you The tunnel--that must have been someone else. It must have been someone else. Sent you No great mischief recently though.

No decisions yet on the college front. She hasn't heard back from SUNY Binghamton yet but all the other schools--Hobart, Keuka College, Ithaca College, SUNY Geneseo and SUNY Oswego have accepted her.

Other than that things are quiet. The Rangers beat Boston today. I liked Renney a lot but the new coach Tortorella seems to be getting a much better effort out of them. This would be a team that I could go watch live. Not the February version. It's too late now though--there is always next year.

Reading two books now--Assia Djebar's Fantasia and Karen Connelly's The Lizard cage. Not very far into either but so far they're both very good. Djebar's novel set in her native Algeria segues between the present and the historical nature of France's role in that nation. Connelly's novel is set in present day Burma (Myanmar) is about the military dictatorship.

posted by lriley at 3:48 pm (EST) on Mar 8, 2009

Hi Bert,

I just posted The Moldavian Pimp on BookMooch and noticed that you had it wishlisted there. I'm reading it now and have it reserved for you if you want it. You'll just need to go there to select it, and I can have it in the mail to you in about a week.
I'm reading it for the Argentine Reading Globally theme. The book is small, but great!! More about it later on the group thread. If you don't want it, I'll just remove your name from the reservation list and send it along to someone else.

http://www.bookmooch.com/m/detail/184343...

Best,

SqueakyChu

posted by SqueakyChu at 10:44 pm (EST) on Mar 1, 2009

By the way I've been thinking the first thing we should do after we retire (maybe in 7 years) is finally use our passports for something other than going to Canada--and Argentina might be a good place to start--though Ireland, Greece, Italy, Spain and France all would be great too.

posted by lriley at 4:45 pm (EST) on Feb 18, 2009

Bert--See you've joined the Club Read 2009 group. Best thread there so far IMO was about musical interests.

Anyway I got the two Roth books today--Everyman and Indignation. They look good.

posted by lriley at 2:28 pm (EST) on Jan 26, 2009

NYC looks like a no go for this year Bert--though we discussed today coming in April maybe a night or two and just do a play and not a game. Noticed Gandolfini is in one, noticed as well that Waiting for Godot with Nathan Lane upcoming, noticed Susan Sarandon in something as well.

We've been not too ostenatious since the economy started tanking (not that I think we ever were)--it's not necessarily just prices etc.--it's the downsizing going on--loss of jobs which seems to be effecting everything, and the college thing that is keeping us a bit more scrupulous. So it has a bit to do with the timing as well. I think both of us are safe as far as our jobs are concerned though the atmosphere coming from the above is much nastier than it has been.

2666 is brilliant and it's under 900 pages--as in 898. I'm about 300 pages in and if anything it's even better than the Savage Detectives. I just bought the 3 volume set of 2666 as well because the hardcover is just a bit too bulky to take to work. Sometimes this rating system of 5 stars just doesn't seem enough. 2666 reads very well. It's massive but it's not going to take forever. Infinite Jest was massive and did take forever. Even so it was a great, great book and I have since added a Wallace short story collection--Oblivion. I think you would be interested in his take on the various medications--legal and otherwise and the variety of states of the drug and alcohol abusers he has in his halfway house.

I'll have to look into the Argentinian thread--though probably tomorrow--new work hours and I'll be off to bed soon. I've been mostly at this club read 2009 group. It's interesting--a lot of different perspectives. I'm charting everything I've read so far this year there.

posted by lriley at 6:00 pm (EST) on Jan 25, 2009

Bert--I really thought MacLeod'd book was great. He hasn't published all that much though. The thing is when we went to Ottawa last summer--I met another LT'er--John and he bought me the copy you have now. Like I said I thought it was wonderful. I reviewed it and gave it 5 stars and have since bought both his short story collections which is about everything he's published up until now--those collections are excellent as well. As things happen though when I was doing my Le Clezio dispersal another Canadian LT member sent me a signed copy of No great mischief so now I had two and rather than just sell it I thought I'd send the extra one on and you were the lucky sweepstakes winner--you need a housewarming or apartment warming gift anyway.

Anyway Wao was great and I did a review on that a few days ago. Now I'm working on Bolano's 2666, Pelevin's A werewolf problem in central Russia and Ngugi's A grain of wheat.

posted by lriley at 12:01 am (EST) on Jan 25, 2009

Bert--just ordered two recent Roth novels off half.com. A 'signed' Indignation hardcover and Everyman in trade. Both are kind of short but I'm getting back into a Rothian mood. I'll have to wait though and Bolano's 2666 is hopefully coming up soon. Over half way through Oscar Wao. Diaz is an excellent story teller, has great tone and a unique voice. Very funny as well. He reminds me a little of a cuban writer Pedro Juan Gutierrez--Dirty Havana Trilogy.

Anyway I finally after months finished Wallace's Infinite Jest. I think it's shot to the top of my favorite American novel of all time. It's a great book.

posted by lriley at 4:35 pm (EST) on Jan 15, 2009

Okay--we're an economic indicator and things suck right now. Mail volume is way down. That's not a surprise. Like other businesses, even like state and local govt. the Postal Service is between a rock and a hard place--meaning they have to make hard decisions. I wouldn't dispute that. For postal management those decisions tend to target production employees at the expense of non-production ones and at the expense of automation machinery. That is a long standing trend and people do not like to break out of habit. For many years I've noticed a kind of contempt that comes down from above. People tend to look down at others because of status, because of earnings etc. Not something necessarily unique to postal management. It's saturated throughout society--for instance I've many times heard postal craft employees make demeaning comments (sometimes with racial overtones depending on who is around) about workers elsewhere who make much less. The jist of it for them--is we are the deserving ones and they are not when the simple fact is that we have much more in common with them than the movers and shakers of this world. Anyway it should be taken into the consideration that the Elmira postal plant is only a small microcosm of the postal world and that it sits in the middle of a traditionally republican congressional district--although not this time thankfully. Anyway what I think I'm trying to get at in a very around about way is that people should do their utmost to work with each other and give each other breathing space and especially in harder times.

posted by lriley at 4:03 pm (EST) on Jan 6, 2009

Bert--no I didn't. I started new hours on Saturday. Pretty much graveyards. Went to bed almost as soon as I got home. I'll see if I can google it. By the way started on Bolano's poetry collection The romantic dogss. It's really good.

posted by lriley at 2:48 pm (EST) on Jan 6, 2009

Bert--I don't think I'm that down about it. Stuff like this has happened several times before. You try to make these things works for you which is why I'm taking weekdays off instead of weekends--by doing that I give myself a pay raise. Our postmaster is a bit of a micro-manager. To me it masks her insecurity and her lack of operational knowledge. She thinks her mere presence will make things happen. She thinks that to make any request--the thing will have to appear right that moment like magic. She does not respect the process(es) that actually gets a thing done. And that lack of respect comes back at her. It's been a while since I've read Bukowski's book but what made that such a perfect portrait was a description of that very kind of mindset. I'm not really angry about it--it's more like 'Here we go again'.--and it probably means I'm going to get less sleep which I'm already not getting enough of. There's no way I'm leaving until I'm ready to leave barring some kind of unforseen accident.

posted by lriley at 3:13 pm (EST) on Dec 31, 2008

Bert--it sounds interesting. I'll have to look it up. Is it anything like William Vollmann?

I'm still working on Wallace's Infinite Jest. Also an Icelandic crime novel--Silence of the Grave (very good) by Arnaldur Indridason and Elfriede Jelinek's Lust. Once I've finished the Wallace book I'm heading towards 2666. That should take a while as well.

Post Office is going to punish us again--my hours will be changing and probably days off as well--though the days off are my choice. I'll be going in at 1230 am instead of 3 am. I really don't know if it matters much but they want to encourage as many of us as possible to retire early and this is the kind of stuff they think of. It's not that retiring is a bad idea--it's just that their timing is off. Another 6 years or so. I'm a glutton when it comes to punishment.

posted by lriley at 2:31 am (EST) on Dec 30, 2008

Hi berthirsch,

The Global Reading group is quite fun and very casual. Each month we have a themed read. Each of us selects our own book to read. Then we talk with others about the book we each chose and mainly talk about those things that may be of interest to others or may be a common thread in all of our books. I hope you come to join us.!

Take a look at some of the other themes we've done in the past to get an idea of what a themed month is like.

http://www.librarything.com/groups/readi...

We could probably use your input as to what Argentine writers we should try!

Best,

SqueakyChu

posted by SqueakyChu at 9:31 pm (EST) on Dec 29, 2008

Believe it or not I'm still working on Infinite Jest. It seems like it's been about two months. I like it a lot though and I think there's the possibility I will read all his stuff.

The next big project though is Bolano's 2666. I also have his poetry collection--Romantic dogs.

On Eggers--I've not read anything by him yet. What/who would you compare him to?

posted by lriley at 12:09 pm (EST) on Dec 26, 2008

Bert--I know it's kind of late to be wishing you a Happy Hannukah and Holiday season but that's exactly what I'm doing. I've been thinking about sending you a book soon as well. Anyway hoping everything is going well in Sparta. Looking above I liked your review of Junot Diaz and I plan on reading that one very soon myself and also I recently reviewed Munoz Molina's A manuscript of Ashes.

posted by lriley at 6:05 am (EST) on Dec 25, 2008

Bert--it's a great book. Very funny as well. I've read it several times. Passed it around at work a long time ago. The old timers couldn't believe. Most everyone got a big kick out of it. It passed their realism test.

posted by lriley at 12:51 pm (EST) on Dec 1, 2008

I think you might like Wallace a lot Bert but take it from me there is no way it can be rushed through. I've been on it almost a month and I'm not even half way through.

The college trips for me are very interesting even if I'm not there to do much. At Hobart I sat in a chair waiting out her interview--took about 40 minutes. From where I sat I could look out on Seneca Lake. When the other kids being interviewed were all off I talked with the other parents--one woman, one man. Both from New England. The man coached hockey on the side. The woman had been all over the country over the summer doing college trips. According to her this was No. 30 and the last one. It was also the one she liked best and being only a 6 hour journey--the closest to home. I was like 'Holy smokes'. I had the impressions hers, possibly even his were prep school kids.

Anyway Tara enjoyed the interview though the interviewer may have been as nervous as the interviewee. She's kind of leaning towards History and/or English. Her interviewer was a history major--something both of them went on about.

On Obama--he's inheriting this mess. I'm not sure I'm that jazzed about some of his cabinet selections. I'm currently embroiled in somewhat of an argument with the founder of this site over monies going towards the military and monies going towards education--pointing out what are priorities are now and what I think they should be in the future. I take from where I can. And like Nader or a Ron Paul I don't think we need to have military bases all over the planet (it's over 100 different countries). There are maybe two countries--Russia, China that can pose a real actual military threat to us though I don't think either has any current inclination. There are some stateless threats for sure. Anyway maintaining or increasing the military services is fine. I think national service is a good thing and they provide good training to young people. I'd be more inclined to take my cost cutting measures out on the corporations and contractors who feed at the public trough.

posted by lriley at 8:41 am (EST) on Nov 30, 2008

We wish you a great holiday as well Bert. We might be coming your way in late March or early April by the way. Reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest which is very interesting but is huge and is probably going to have me tied up for the rest of the year. I don't think I'm getting to 2666 until 2009. Theres a lot in Infinite Jest about psychiatry and substance abuse--at least a variety of different mental states. A funny book as well--at times it can be a very dark humor.

I took Tara up for an interview at Hobart--William Smith College (Geneva NY) on Monday for a one on one interview. She likes it but it's a Ivy connected school and very expensive--although it has a lot of endowment/scholarship money. It's a possibility depending on---$. I expect she'll put in an application there.

The economy as well is terrible at this time--well I'm pretty sure we would blame basically the same people. Politicians particularly republican ones. The financial markets. Rebuilding infastructure, creating alternative energies would be a great help. Reregulation of banking and finance. Barack has his work cut out for him. They've left him a colossal mess and I wonder if anybody will be able to turn it around anytime soon. It will be his job though and hopefully he can pull a couple rabbits out of the hat.

posted by lriley at 1:57 pm (EST) on Nov 26, 2008

Bert--I'm very hopeful about him. He has a great personality, seems organized and considers thoughtfully before he takes action. He has the potential to be IMO as good a president as this country as this country has ever had but those kinds of expectations have got to be met first and he's going to be left with a huge mess to clean up. As I see it he may fail on some of those things. Even so I'm cautiously optimistic that we will at least make up ground during his first term and hopefully I'll go to my polling place in 2012 and vote for him again.

posted by lriley at 1:24 pm (EST) on Nov 18, 2008

Bert--Stevens' pollster up in Alaska says it all but over--Begich will win--there's an article in the Huffington post. That will make 58 including Lieberman--with Al Franken-Norm Coleman (Minnesota) and Saxby Chambliss-Jim Martin (Georgia) to resolve. I think Franken will win. Unfortunately I think Chambliss has the edge in Georgia--both will be close though. What happens to Lieberman I don't know. Obama seems conciliatory but that doesn't surprise me. He is not the vindictive type. I think it would be smart to take away some of his responsibilities maybe contingent in some respect to his making or not a public apology. Joe is between a rock and a hard place. He will not fit in very well in the GOP caucus--apart from his stand on the Iraq war.

posted by lriley at 2:25 am (EST) on Nov 14, 2008

Bert--I believe something of this has appeared at Daily Kos. 538 has mentioned a lot about it.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pr...

If you scroll down Electoral-vote has senate and congressional polls they posted on November 1--three days before the election Begich is leading Stevens 58-36--Berkowitz is leading Young 53-44. Sometimes polls can be off but considering that Stevens and Begich were more or less deadlocked before Stevens' convictions and that post conviction the polls all started heading Begich's way--two--three days later it was 7--9 points--something just doesn't seem right. Young had been running behind the whole year as well mostly due to not having enough space anymore for all of the skeletons in his closet.

posted by lriley at 1:00 pm (EST) on Nov 10, 2008

Bert--I was concerned about the Palin choice at first if you remember. And she does have a way of attracting crowds. As time went on though with the variety of scandals or potential ones in her home state and the realization that she was about as ill prepared as she could possibly have been I knew McCain was going to be toast. I check out 538 and Real Clear Politics--two internet sites which average about polls by state. These predictions weren't that hard to make and are very much in line with 538's especially. The founder of that site is a baseball stat guy by the way. When McCain decided he was going to win Pennsylvania in the last few days I figured it was all over. I was begging the guy who I had that bet with (a lifelong democrat still in shock from the last two elections) to up the ante--but he wouldn't. If that wasn't reason to believe then nothing would have been. It seemed as if then Pennsylvania went for Obama almost as soon as the polls closed.

There's something really screwy going on with the Alaskan elections if you ask me. With %'s of voters very high everywhere else--Alaska declined by 14% from '04 to '08 and with their most popular of all governors on the republican ticket? Steven's opponent had a big lead on him (9 pts if I remember right) two--three days before the election. I don't buy it.

posted by lriley at 1:20 pm (EST) on Nov 7, 2008

A very good day Bert.

posted by lriley at 9:54 am (EST) on Nov 5, 2008

They pulled a rabbit out of the hat last night. Only so many times anyone will be able to do that. 8 seconds to go in regulation Zherdev tied it. The Rangers are solid defensively and Henrik is a great goalie. They're not all that deep at forward. Guys like Gomez, Naslund, Drury are good players but they're far from elite. Dubinsky and Zherdev are still very young though and have a lot of talent. They had a Russian kid Cherepanov--a first rounder a couple years ago who died of a heart attack a couple weeks ago. He was their best prospect and had a ton of talent--a potential elite player. That was a blow to the organization. As for this years team I'm becoming cautiously optimistic but it is still early.

posted by lriley at 9:12 pm (EST) on Oct 26, 2008

Bert--I really like Le Clezio and especially that book--it is a blatantly anti-corporate book though. These early Le Clezio's were all short printed and are going to become very difficult to find by the way. His first books Le proces verbal was published in France in 1963 and published in Britain and the United States in 1964 as The Interrogation. As it happens I have a copy of that and it's in excellent shape and from what I've seen of the few out there--since he won the Nobel--the value of that book has skyrocketed into the $2-4 K range. Not that I'm thinking of getting rid of it though. In a lot of respects I'm not practical at all. The Giants is the one I like the best but I think there are many that wouldn't care for it. Most of what you could find of his that is still in print is much more accessible in terms of plot. They would be Onitsha, The round and Wandering Star--the last I think you might like a lot.

Echenoz is noirish but is a fun read. He has a very sly understated sense of humor.

posted by lriley at 5:39 pm (EST) on Oct 23, 2008

As well--check out early voting %'s.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

posted by lriley at 1:21 pm (EST) on Oct 15, 2008

Bert--no problem. I'll send it out to you in the next day or two.

There's a Christopher Hitchens article linked in the Pro and Con group here at LT--the thread title--the last cries of a desperate campaign or something to that effect. The link comes at #131 and is really worth reading. Hitchens just lambast McCain for picking Palin and then turns his club on her. Lots and lots of blood and gore. The pro-war Hitchens is all for Obama.

posted by lriley at 1:15 pm (EST) on Oct 15, 2008

Bert--noticing srubinstein's post--I am about 3 quarters through Gellman's Cheney book. It drags a little here and there but fills in a number of obscurities of the last 8 years. On the $250--that bet is with a diehard democrat by the way who believes in the power of the Diebold voting machine--that McCain will like Bush cheat his way into the White House. We have $200 on that and the other $50 on whether Sen. Stevens in Alaska survives. I say he doesn't. It's looking good. Anyway though Palin didn't make any major gaffes at the debate--she really didn't show any knowledge or complexity about anything at all. Totally unprepared for the office she wants--and as dark and sinister as the current VP is you can't really say that about him.

posted by lriley at 8:17 am (EST) on Oct 5, 2008

Bert-thanks for the article on Wouk! I even read the Caine Mutiny come to think of it! Rifkind was right on about Wouk providing a rite of passage for readers like you and me. I'm distracted from reading right now because of an inordinate curiosity about the political campaigns and how they are playing out. And still bogged down in Bellow's anthology Him With His Foot in His Mouth which proves to be perhaps his most revealing collection of stories. But Tuesday I'll probably drop everything when I get my hands on a book titled Angler by a fellow named Gellman. It's about Dick Cheney, my favorite villain. I'm just a sucker for an evildoer I guess. Loved Iago.

suzanne

posted by srubinstein at 10:41 pm (EST) on Oct 4, 2008

Bert--On the Junot Diaz book--John from Ottawa just a few days ago recommended that book to me. He was as enthusiastic about it as you. I've been looking at it on Half.com but it's been a little pricey but considering I got a small windfall I believe coming my way $250 in election day bets maybe I should go for it.

posted by lriley at 5:18 pm (EST) on Oct 3, 2008

Put in the word 'not' between the words are and familiar in the last sentence of paragraph one.

posted by lriley at 3:35 pm (EST) on Sep 24, 2008

Bert--I have several problems with the bailout. First of all I don't trust anything coming out of this White House. Apparently this plan has been in the works for months and now it's dumped on us right before the election. The next administration should be handling this. I know the likes of Paulson and Bernanke are screaming for urgency. They are pretty much asking for complete control of the money. They are even asking for full value for even their most worthless paper. Reform and regulation can come later they say. Congress is supposed to take on faith all their claims and prognoses. For them to rush a $700 billion bailout with hardly a chance to scrutinize the details would be IMO irresponsible. Congress is not popular with the public as it is but it's partly because for much of the public it understands politics through a cult of personality--despite C-span they are familiar with the difficulties surrounding the legislative process. I'd expect better of them.

In any case--just an opinion but our economy is not diverse enough. It has gutted the manufacturing and Industrial base and put all its eggs into service and financial sectors. This was an idea which originally tracks back to the Reagan presidency of top down trickle down deregulated economics. The bailout to me seeks to maintain the same trickle down economy. For me that is the fundamental error. The more diverse economy which includes a strong manufacturing/industrial base is a bottom up economy. I would use a foundation argument. If you're going to build a house it's crucial to have a good foundation. The money they're asking for in the bailout has nothing to do with correcting the problem only in maintaining a failed ideology.

posted by lriley at 3:33 pm (EST) on Sep 24, 2008

Bert--don't know if you have plans for Nov 17 but if you check out Strandbooks website Natasha Wimmer the translator of Roberto Bolano's 2666 will be at the store to sign copies of that book. Online to order one is $22.50. From what I understand it's going to come out in two formats in one volume or in a set of three. I get the impression that if you go through Strand for this it will be the one volume. On the same day a Spanish writer Antonio Munoz Molina will be appearing and signing his newly translated volume Manuscript of Ashes for $18.75. I don't know if you've read him but he's a very good writer.

Watching the Wall St. debacle. I just don't see giving them a $700 billion blank check.

posted by lriley at 7:16 pm (EST) on Sep 23, 2008

Hi, Bert--lucky you. I loved BA and would go back in a jiffy, pollution, heat, humidity and all. I mean, bookstores on EVERY corner! I have to think back twenty years in Europe for similar goodness. Of course, I stuck to the centre of the city--recently I saw a documentary (The dignity of nobodies) showing a rather different face of the country.

Yes, I read The tango singer (very good), the only fiction by Eloy Martinez I read so far; I have Santa Evita in the queue, and I read a collection of his essays, Requiem para un pais perdido. I went on a mini-Argentine binge before my visit, lots of Arlt, and I'm currently wallowing in Macedonio Fernandez, who's shaping up as another favourite. I started his Adriana Buenosayres, then went back to the beginning of complete works, and was surprised at how much I liked his psycho-philosophical essays (in Papeles antiguos).

Well, buen viaje to you--and again and again...

posted by LolaWalser at 1:03 pm (EST) on Sep 19, 2008

Hi Bert, I'm back after a few month. I'm glad you enjoy Buenos Aires. I really love BA and I will be back there for good next month. I've been leaving here in Stamford the las three years, and I kind of miss BA. Thankfully I'm close to my second favorite city: NYC.

posted by fergarcia1966 at 5:54 pm (EST) on Sep 18, 2008

Hi Bert--

Just a note to thank you for the two novels you recommended, by Bolano and Tabucchi. I loved the Tabucchi for its drole dialogue--especially the character, Don Fernando. The Bolano book was deeper and darker with a lot of references to Latin American writers, so it was more difficult reading. But the woman's voice was well done by Tabucchi. I am starting Bellow's Him With His Foot in His Mouth next. Still no conversation on the Bellow chat. Has he become an anachronism?

suzanne

posted by srubinstein at 11:35 am (EST) on Sep 18, 2008

I actually thought the best moment of the US Open happened at the Murray-Del Potro match. It was well publicised that they there was no love lost between them but after 4 punishing hours on court they earnt each other's complete respect - at the net they apologised for being plonkers in the past. Del Potro will definitely win Grand Slams - he's only going to get fitter and more powerful - I wouldn't be surprised if he's not the world no.1 within the next 5 years.

Messi is an excellent player, one of the best players in the world at present. The problem with any Argentinian player is Diego Maradona, everyone is always compared to him, which isn't fair - he's one of the greatest ever, basically winning the 1986 World Cup single-handedly - he also scored the greatest world cup ever against England, beating half their team before scoring. I saw him play live a couple of times - once when he was 17, against Scotland at Hampden: he mesmerised the whole Scotland team, scored a goal in a 3-1 win and got a standing ovation from the home fans.

The star of the last rugby world was Argentian as well - Juan Martin Hernandez - he plays rugby with the same panache as Messi does football.

posted by jargoneer at 9:57 am (EST) on Sep 18, 2008

Bert--I'll look around for that Castellanos Moya article. Two Bolano books dues out in November by the way. '2666' which is supposed to be even longer than 'The Savage Detectives'--some say it was his greatest work and 'Romantic Dogs'.

Of the Schools we've visited I think her mind goes something like No. 1 and 2 are Suny Geneseo and Suny Binghamton both of which have big big reputations for academics. 3. Suny Buffalo--which is very good as well and the most economical 4. Suny Oswego. She did not like St. John Fisher. A Suny Geneseo rep is going to be at her high school Sept. 25th. Suny Buffalo has some e-mail thing for her to look at. At the moment she has marching band which she goes to at least two nights a week and goes to competitions on the weekends--usually only one day--so there's not a lot of time for now. That's going to last until the end of October. She is going to have to start applying in November. That's the scenario as far as I know. Not having gone to college it's all kind of new to me as well.

Anyway hope your move back to NYC works out. Manhattan? Always an exciting place and will probably cut down a lot on traveling back and forth to work. We're not really sure if we're doing a NYC trip this year. At least if we need the time to do secondary visits to shcools etc. it might come out of that. Have to make sure that gets squared away.

By the way I still think Obama is going to win despite the turnaround in the polls. I told you though I was paranoid about the Palin choice. She strikes a nerve for a lot of people notwithstanding that she doesn't seem at all qualified, that her record his being constantly misrepresented and her core beliefs are divisive. I have a problem with a lot of the polls--the national ones the most--for instance when they say likely voters sometimes they mean voters who have voted in at least the last two elections which would disregard the massive amounts of young first time voters who tend to be behind Barack. There is a question also about those who rely only on celluar phones as opposed to the more traditional home phone. Beyond that McCain really offers nothing specific policy wise. Anyway I've been spewing a lot of my nonsense in the Pro and Con group and back to Tara for a moment--one of her AP classes this semester is Government and Politics (GOPO) and she can get really pissed over some issues. Definitely doesn't like some of her republican classmates opinions.

posted by lriley at 12:55 pm (EST) on Sep 11, 2008

Bert--just did a review on the Salvadoran writer Castellanos Moya. It is a great book. I ordered it from one of the bookstores that you recommended for our NYC trip last March--Housing Works.

posted by lriley at 4:08 pm (EST) on Sep 6, 2008

To add to my earlier comments Bert. I don't really think McCain had many good options. He did not like Romney who is another rich guy with too many houses and there was if anything even more bile between them in the primary season which the democrats would have had a field day with. Rice has never been elected anything and would tie him to Bush. Portman was Bush's OMB director and later trade negotiator. Again tied to Bush. Hutchinson looks as old as he is--is not particularly hard nosed and is another southwestern senator. Jindal--another young first term governor who has taken part in exorcisms. He's eloquent but might look right to the republican base. Pawlenty doesn't seem tough enough--and would most likely be shredded by Biden. Ridge--pro choice?--McCain wanted him but his base didn't. Giuliani--I would have loved that. A noun, an adjective and 9-11. Biden had already pegged him. No foreign policy experience either, numerous marriage, ethics and corruption scandals--appearances in drag in tv commercials and on SNL. There were two choices he could make that I thought would be good. Huckabee--sharp, funny, great off the cuff, does not particularly help him in any of the battleground states but gets the religious right on line and he's likeable--almost impossible to hate. McCain though didn't like him either. The other good choice I thought would be Charlie Crist--Florida's governor--also a likeable guy and there's no way that McCain will win in November if he doesn't win Florida. The thing with Palin is she matches some of Huckabee's assets at least she brings in the religious right. She has no experience though and it's hard for me to believe she is anywhere near as ready or has the same kind of wit or ability to ad lib.

posted by lriley at 6:25 pm (EST) on Aug 30, 2008

It's the kind of stuff though Bert--that might move leads me in the direction of paranoid thinking. I don't know if the region I live is quite the same as yours and some places towards the mid-west, south, south-west and west her kind of view will resonate with a lot of people. McCain is at least hear trying to move social/morality based issues back onto the frontburner--playing the christian conservative card. It is ridiculous to me as well Bert--but there are a lot of people who take it very seriously. As well Biden if he debates her--especially on his strengths such as foreign relations--is going to need to be charming without being condescending and/or too dismissive or sarcastic. I think a lot of people will understand she's just a novice and will not like it if Biden tries to wipe the floor with her. Not a typical kind of debate format.

We can look at the problems our nation is facing--and we can make projections what kind of problems they will be in the future if nothing is done to rectify thems--health care, energy, job losses/outsourcing, decline of manufacturing, deregulation and the financial crisis that has caused, bad trade bills--a potential population explosion, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the education mess, the affordability of things that we are going to need to have for us to progress into the future, the breaking down of our influence around the globe and at the end of the day there are still going to be people who ignore all that to vote for someone who believes in creationism, against abortion of any kind (I'm not a fan of how flippant a lot of people are on either side of this issue, gay marraige and whether or not someone will take away their squirrel rifle. McCain is betting on there still being a lot of them and he's betting on the resentment of a lot of Clinton supporters who feel they've been robbed.

posted by lriley at 12:33 pm (EST) on Aug 30, 2008

Hi Bert--

We live in interesting times. I'm walking taller today because of Barack Obama's speech last night. I've been following the convention, so have not given much time to my library, but I've put the two books you recommended at the top of my "to read" list. A friend just sent me an article from the September issue online of Harper's Magazine and lo and behold Vivian Gornick wrote about Bellow and Roth in an article she titled "Radiant Poison: Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and the end of the Jew as metaphor." I need to reread it in order to really get her message (although I doubt she has changed her mind about either of them). I recently salvaged some books from the shelves of the local Salvation Army; among them a paperback version of Harold Robbins Never Love a Stranger, another book from my past. I'll keep you posted when I get to those reads.

suzanne

posted by srubinstein at 8:52 pm (EST) on Aug 29, 2008

Big trip today Bert. Visited Suny Buffalo with my daughter. Probably the largest school we've gone too--the longest trip as well--somewhere between 3 and 4 hours each way. Liked it but I liked Binghamton better and I think Tara does as well.

I've been lax as well about reviewing. There's a few I could do--Assia Djebar, Aharon Appelfeld, Martin Amis. The political thing sticks in my craw as well. It is strange to me how a Clinton supporter could vote for McCain. There seems to be a mean spiritedness to it. I'm very concerned that we are going to waste another 4 years when we really need to be moving on fixing our economy, knocking down debt, fixing energy, health and education. These things can not be put off much longer. I do not like McCain's ballistic nature in foreign affairs either. They would make a virtue about being 'right about the surge' when they were wrong about everything else to do with the occupation of Iraq.

Anyway I just finished Raymond Queneau's 'Eyeseas'--one of my favorite writers and the founder of Oulipo which also included Georges Perec and Italo Calvino. Reading Richard Price's 'Samaritan' which is very good and Margaret Laurence's 'The Stone Angel'. When I finish the Laurence book I'll probably get into the Castellanos Moya book.

posted by lriley at 7:33 pm (EST) on Aug 25, 2008

Hi Bert--

Would have gotten to you sooner, but this has been a banner weekend with Biden joining Obama, the Olympics, and my granddaughter's eleventh birthday. I also wonder why more Bellow fans don't put their two cents in at the Bellow group site. I just reread his introduction to Allan Bloom's book The Closing of the American Mind. It was mostly about him and academia and just a little bit about Bloom (characteristic of Bellow). Just can't get a handle on him. Maybe that is part of what he was aiming for--now he's gone and it is a question for the ages. I've included everything but the kitchen sink in my library and I think back with some fondness to reading roughshod in my teens, Mickey Spillane, Herman Wouk. I remember being totally undone by Margorie Morningstar. Still, I also see that my adult library is predominately "whitebread" and I'm trying to extend myself cross culturally with some French authors as well as some African American authors and some Asian women authors. There are, of course, books that I somehow feel I've read, but can't completely remember and I don't include them (especially Henry James) because I think that would be cheating! I've been told to just keep reading and see how my library grows. Good to know that a solid reader like you is in the 'hood.'

suzanne

posted by srubinstein at 5:59 pm (EST) on Aug 24, 2008

Hi Bert--

Just looked through your library and found A Stone for Danny Fisher mentioned in your profile. I read that book when my older brother brought it home at age 15. That along with The Amboy Dukes. Basically I read anything I could lay my hands on then. Not that I am more discerning now. Glad to have a reply on the Bellow site. My favorite of his is Herzog.

posted by srubinstein at 1:48 pm (EST) on Aug 21, 2008

yes, we do. nice picture of puerto madero, another favorite of mine.

posted by tamara_gm3 at 2:34 pm (EST) on Aug 15, 2008

Bert--kind of like a bottle of vegetables.

Back to the NYC? That will be expensive too I suspect but it will probably cut down on all the going back and forth. At least the Strand will be close by.

posted by lriley at 12:24 pm (EST) on Aug 9, 2008

Bert--well I was unaware of either of them. I watch so few movies anymore. I've read the Human Stain but not Goodbye Columbus. Maybe I'll see if they're available on half.com. Anyway saw your addition to the Middle East literature blog and just put up another review of the Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury. I really like him a lot. He reminds me a bit of Bolano. I really like this Canadian writer--Alistair MacLeod that John recommended as well. Very Scots or Irish Nova Scotian themes.

Quiet on the home front. My brother out in Seattle has successfully finished his cancer treatments--it is in remission. He's been having some arrhythmmia however. Angioplasty possibly in the future. He needs to keep away from the diet soda and beer--at least chuck the diet soda.

Suny Buffalo trip on the 25th.

posted by lriley at 2:39 am (EST) on Aug 7, 2008

I have not read that one Bert. I don't know if any other Roth book has been put onto film. Anyway knowing the way our theatres work around here I expect if I want to see it I'll have to wait for it to come out in DVD.

Kingsley seems like a natural though for a Roth-like character.

By the way signed my daughter up for another visit today. We have Suny Binghamton on the 16th. Suny Buffalo on the 25th.

posted by lriley at 3:41 pm (EST) on Aug 4, 2008

Bert--perusing the NYT entertainment section today I came across an ad for a movie 'The elegy'--Penelope Cruz, Ben Kingsley, Dennis Hopper etc. which is base on Philip Roth's novel (novella) The dying animal.

posted by lriley at 12:57 pm (EST) on Aug 3, 2008

Bert--I like the idea where she'll be kind of living on her own (with a roommate that is) far enough way, but not so far where it's a big deal for her to come home on the weekend or us to visit. The other thing with private schools is she would need some kind of scholarship deal to knock down her debt. There is probably more money out in the private school universe--my take on this being that we are going to somehow split the cost of her education with her but that we'd rather who not graduate with a large debt load. She seems to prefer staying in-state anyway. My wife kind of likes the idea of the community college and then transfering. Tara doesn't and neither do I--I prefer her growing with her freshman class from day one--prefer the added independence and the challenges that come with it from being not so close.

Justin is very smart but he is socially backward. A lot can happen in the next couple years still but it is a concern. He does not relish interaction with others. His best friend has asperger's as well--is much, much better dealing with the social aspects of it but is basically a C average student--also takes some medication and I believe ritalin is at least part of it--or maybe is all of it. I'm not sure if that helps him interact better--but we decided early on to stay away from medications.

posted by lriley at 2:22 am (EST) on Jul 31, 2008

Bert--so far Mae has taken Tara to St. John Fisher--which she didn't like--for one the rooms were too small--then we all went to Suny Oswego. I liked that. It's very affordable, has a wide curiculuum and rates well academically against other colleges and universities. Besides which they have a beautiful hockey arena--maybe better said it looked fabulous peering at it from the hallway outside. It seems as well to be pretty open minded about a lot of things--even including some kinds of pets. The third school was Suny Geneseo which again only my wife and daughter went to--a lot of Suny schools seem excellent. Tara seems to have liked this one the best so far. It has the best retention rate of fresh(wo)men in the entire country. It's somewhat smaller than Oswego--does usually have a fairly decent hockey team as well and is probably about hour and a half away--Oswego is about two and a half. On the 16 it's off to Suny Binghamton which is maybe the best of all Suny schools and is about an hour away. She's interested in English, creative writing, journalism etc. etc.--some interest in psychology, poly/sci as well--and so we're going to try to fit in a Suny Buffalo trip in the same week--which has an excellent journalism school--Wolf Blitzer apparently went there. Also considering Niagara University which is a bit more pricey but probably somewhat in the range.

A few thoughts--rather than send her to a community college and the one in Corning is very good--I'd rather her be an hour, two hours, three hours away and I'd rather her grow with her freshman year. Her average dropped a little this year but it was in the 93-94 range and she had a very difficult AP class which the Suny schools will give her credit for. On her finals she got the highest grade possible for that class. Her Sat scores are pretty high as well. She's been working part time this summer cleaning rooms at a local motel which is her first real job. She's been doing that for about a month. Her driving is a lot better but she still needs to get her license and she's not getting that much practice although I think if she took a test now it would be 50/50.

My son is going to be more of a problem. He'll be a high school junior this year. He has asperger's although he's very high functioning--he'll get 90's without trying but he's capable of much better and he knows it. He shies away from anything that he considers personal and will skip assignments and refuse to participate in things that venture into these areas. He is not motivated towards people things--would rather watch TV or play his gamecube all day and he very much limits what games he will play as well and he has trouble making friends. A photographic memory. Limited interests but when he is interested in something like ornithology he's a regular Mr. Professor. Though not very interested in birds I've had some amazing discussions with him about them. It may be a shame but he is the one that might wind up in the community college at least his first two years and Corning's does have a very good reputation. We're not sure he won't blow things off just because--we think we can maybe keep a better handle on things he does by being nearer but if he can pick up his weak areas in the next year or so maybe we'll change our minds. Anyway have to go--Tara needs a ride.

posted by lriley at 1:16 pm (EST) on Jul 30, 2008

Hi Bert,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. It's the first time I've been on in a while. Sure, I'd be into that, discussing books, life etc. Feel free to write me any time. Glad to meet you.

Julian

posted by Julian_Gallo at 7:01 pm (EST) on Jul 29, 2008

Bert--I don't know if I seem a bit abrupt lately but we've been doing a bit of a crash course the last couple months on different colleges around the state including a few visits----my daughter Tara will be a high school senior this year and we figure we better start figuring what we need to do. It has been taking up a bit of time though it is interesting as well but it has been cutting into other things.

posted by lriley at 6:11 pm (EST) on Jul 25, 2008

Well that was easy. I went through the RCP site.

The Madness and Shame article?--on Jane Mayer's new book. I'm afraid the Bush administration is chock full of operatives such as Mr. Addington. Seton Hall study 55% of Guantanamo prisoners--no hostile acts. Does that surprise me? Not really. It's important to them no doubt to have plenty of bodies whether guilty or not. There's a sordid history of US training of torturers in South America as you're probably aware. I ran into something a couple weeks ago which about one of the Guantanamo detainees--the information they got from him they used as linkage to tie Al Quaeda to Iraq prior to the invasion. We (as in some kind of US authority in the matter) had given this detainee we considered important to the Egyptians because of course 'we don't do torture'--that is except when we do. Anyway this guy told them everything they wanted to hear--so it was off to Iraq. Afterwards when it was clear it was all bs and they confronted him again he said something along the lines of--'I didn't know what they wanted. What did you want me to do? They were killing me.'

We've seen this stupidity for 8 years in any case. Beyond that there are a lot of jackasses with guns, badges and an official seal (to do whatever they feel like) working for the US government. Not all of them--I imagine there are many good people(undoubtedly the majority) but it's not hard to find and put in place those you can manipulate willingly or not to push an agenda. That's a mark of this administration. You ever read anything on the Sibil Edmonds whistleblower case? That's another one of thiers that you don't hear too much about and it's pretty hair raising too.

posted by lriley at 3:51 pm (EST) on Jul 24, 2008

Problem with that Bert is then they are after me all the time to subscribe. We've just gotten caller i.d. so I don't suppose it matters much any more--just don't answer the phone but that's been a primary reason for not reading the times on line in the past. Sometimes too--I can pick up these things at other politically devoted sites. Electoral-vote, Real Clear politics I always check--the founders there from what I've read of them tend to have a conservative ideology but the op-eds comes from all sides--and there's Dailykos, Politico etc.

posted by lriley at 3:20 pm (EST) on Jul 24, 2008

Bert--I only ever get the Sunday times. I always stop at the Op-ed page. Frank Rich is a must--Friedman also and I'm usually interested in Maureen Dowd's smart aleck take on things. The Sunday edition also has of course the Book Review and the Travel Section--and when we plan on our yearly trips to NYC the theatre section becomes very important as well. From the book review this week what really caught my eye was a book by a Jewish American rock guitarist called Heavy Metal Islam about the burgeoning metal and punk music scenes springing up around the Middle East. There is an Israeli Oriental death-doom metal band called Orphaned Land which has according to the article a devoted Arab following. It was very interesting.

posted by lriley at 12:47 pm (EST) on Jul 23, 2008

bert--as far as I'm concerned we need a new--new deal. Population projections have us adding 135 million more people by mid century. We'll have to fix the problems that we've been ignoring for so long and we'll have to create millions of jobs. McCain is obviously not up to it. Frank Rich's op-ed piece today addressed to Mr. McCain--It's the economic stupidity, stupid.

For me there are some good signs and to borrow from Thomas L. Friedman's op-ed article right next to the Rich one--he points out that the high cost of gasoline could be a good thing if our politicians would start addressing alternatives. For me that is only one part of the equation though--and from a positive standpoint there are good signs that at least some automakers are getting it. With Mercedes Benz announcing no more production of fossil fuel driven cars by 2015--with GM throwing its weight and innovation behind an electric/gasoline hybrid the Volt which it plans to put on the market in the next couple years and with Toyota announcing it will start manufacturing the Prius at a plant in Mississippi. There will be a market for alternatives like never before. People will buy them if they make them and that will break Opec's grip on our economy. Put enough of these cars out on the highway and we'll see who is controlling who. It will be great for our enviroment as well. Five years from now things may look a lot better.

posted by lriley at 6:02 pm (EST) on Jul 20, 2008

Well we have sent each other a few though Bert--someone else might consider that cheating. Anyway I've pretty much made of my mind to vote for Barack but all these moves he's been making towards the middle have me gritting my teeth some. His vote on FISA was very annoying. According to CNN the Bush administration is seriously considering talking to the Iranians now--who would have thunk?--and after all the rhetoric of the past few months. McCain has to feel like he's being blindsided.

posted by lriley at 12:29 pm (EST) on Jul 18, 2008

Bert--Marcelo Birmajer--an Argentine. I'll have to keep my eyes open. I remember reading the one by Cozarinsky which I liked quite a bit but have never followed up on. The Roth book by the way has led me to Aharon Appelfeld whom I'm reading right now. The Retreat. Also slowly going through Richard Powers' Gain. Recently finished Alistair MacLeod's No great mischief which was fantastic. It won the Impac award several years ago and in some respects he reminds me of Halldor Laxness. His characters are so connected to their place, language, culture and family they seem to float through time. The history of the MacDonald family--Gaelic speaking Scottish highlanders is always described in the present sense even across the ocean as this particular branch has emigrated over the ocean to Nova Scotia. MacLeod himself is a Canadian. It is very well done--very lyrical. Anyway great to hear from you. I've been figuring you've been very busy with all the conflicts still going on and with all our troops deploying over and over again.

posted by lriley at 2:37 am (EST) on Jul 18, 2008

Bert--back home from Ottawa--have just now put in my review on Roth's Operation Shylock.

posted by lriley at 8:46 pm (EST) on Jul 9, 2008

Hello Bert! A belated note (I'm away from home on irregular Internet) to say thanks for adding me to your "Interesting libraries" list. I've enjoyed your messages on several fora and I see we share an interest in Latin American writing, not to mention Buenos Aires. Any strong recommendations? Chris

posted by chrisharpe at 7:05 am (EST) on Jun 29, 2008

Bert--I've read both books. Bartleby got a 4 and Oracle night a 3. Might not be an altogether fair grade for the Auster book who I consider one of our better writers. There's a lot of clever ruminating on writing and writers by Vila-Matas--he brings somewhat to mind Julian Rios and maybe W. G. Sebald a little also. I have been doing a bit of non-fiction lately. I think you might like the Kinzer book I was telling you about. The part which preceded the Vietnam war with JFK having expected a bloodless coup being shocked at the murder of Diem--is just sad. Three weeks or so later he himself is assassinated and then it's full bore from there. Kinzer's accounts of the regime changes initiated in the last century from the White House are very much cautionary tales. I hope to do a review on it soon.

From there I've gone into Ted Morgan's My battle of Algiers about the French-Algerian colonial war of the 50's and 60's is part history--part memoir.

Auster may be on my shortlist again--Brooklyn Follies. On a maybe even shorter list may be Roth's Operation Shylock which I hope to read over my two week vacation which starts next week. We will be gone for a few days in early July on an Ottawa trip--and also a trip to the SUNY Oswego campus. The Richard's Price and Powers I'd like to get back at again soon and Denis Johnson as well. Waiting impatiently for Bolano's 2666--our South American/Argentine group has been very silent for a long while.

On another note I continue to follow the election closely. Barack is moving back towards the middle--some of that movement makes me grit my teeth a little. It's typical though of how campaigns tend to play out. The FISA battle going on shows the democratic party not holding onto the high ground. Very frustrating to see them compromising on privacy rights. It does look good for a win in November.

posted by lriley at 6:43 pm (EST) on Jun 24, 2008

Bert--no doubt they will need a couple years to work out all the problems related to putting a new model on the market but the idea of driving back and forth from work months at a time without ever having to stop at a gas station has a lot of appeal. If GM can make this car at least somewhat reliable and also affordable they might turn around their financial picture. I think they would sell lots and lots. The idea of busting a hole in our energy problem this way without fossil fuels, ethanol, biomass or what have you would be huge.

Reading Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow--a history of American attempts at regime change. It's interesting. Dos Passos' The Big Money and Beckett's Stories and texts for nothing. Bolano's 2666 should be coming out soon and there's another shorter work by Bolano coming from New Directions in October/November.

posted by lriley at 2:01 am (EST) on Jun 20, 2008

Bert--kind of like this--

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/ge...

posted by lriley at 5:13 pm (EST) on Jun 19, 2008

Well, I'm not so much interested in Everest as I am interested in how people react to disaster. (Personally, I freeze. Heroic action is totally beyond me.) The Everest connection started with a tape of Into Thin Air read by author Jon Krakauer that I found at a used booktore. I was mesmerized. And so when I found other books about the same incident, I picked them up. By any chance, to you have aspirations to climb Everest?

posted by TallyDi at 7:39 pm (EST) on Jun 10, 2008

It will be fun Bert--as long as McCain don't win. I don't even want to think about that. Living in Western NYS and working with older people there's a number of them that buy a lot of the GOP's bs even after all this time. Pre-emptive strike is not off the table with him. Bush 2's model goes. 1. Identify the enemy--Iraq. 2. Refuse to talk to them. 3. Hit them supposedly before they hit you--which in Iraq's case was an absolutely ridiculous assumption.

Here's McCain's version. 1. Identify the enemy-Iran. 2. Refuse to talk to them. All he needs to follow through on 3. is to be elected.

posted by lriley at 1:58 am (EST) on Jun 7, 2008

Apologies to your wife Bert I just did not care for Hilary. I have to say that one of the reasons I like Barack so much is he's hitting some of the points that Nader did especially in 2004--anti-Iraq war, a pro labor stance on trade and pro enviroment, focusing also on getting alternative energies off the ground. To be fair Hilary was moving in these directions as well. John Kerry in '04 never came out for bringing the troops home. I didn't like his maintaining a status quo on trade--at least leaving it more or less where it was. We cannot afford to keep running up deficits. NYS went solidly for him anyway--something I had no doubt was going to happen. There are new playing fields these days--republican talk radio has been eclipsed--many thanks to Howard Dean--by the blogosphere--the democratic party is way ahead of the republicans in this game. Youtube is out there to catch the intolerant--something the republicans still haven't learned--Hagee, Parsley. I also think the electoral map can be played to much greater effect--I never understood Kerry and even Gore to some extent conceding the South, the West (other than the Pacific states), the Southwest to their opponents--again thanks to Dean for a 50 state strategy. It also looks like young people will be out in numbers and make a difference which is great to see--it is their country, their futures that are mostly at stake. My daughter Tara is kind of pissed that she can't vote--she turns 18 in March.

Finished Khoury's Gate of the Sun--it's a 5*.

posted by lriley at 8:59 pm (EST) on Jun 5, 2008

Looking forward to November.

All fired up? Ready to go?

posted by lriley at 2:19 pm (EST) on Jun 4, 2008

Bert--deregulation is particularly egregious in our financial markets. We have taken several steps back domestically in the last several years. Bush takes care of his friends--the rest of us (pardon) can go shit in our hat. Sometimes I think he's just punishing the public because of his unpopularity. Sitting on all those reserve barrels of oil--deliberately ignoring the state of the economy--the katrina disaster--home foreclosures. He has cocooned himself from it all. Sweet oblivion. He's always known better than anyone else and he's going to ride off into the sunset next January thinking the same leaving a lot of devastation behind him and hopefully part of that devastation will be a hurricane that hits his own party this November.

Anyway it's good to hear from you. I'm wondering when you're going to make your next trip to Buenos Aires? We're heading up to Ottawa at the beginning of July. We're figuring on hitting a couple colleges along the way--my daughter Tara is heading into her senior year next year. I'm meeting up with another LT'er in Ottawa. It should be interesting and fun as well. I'm reading the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai at the moment--Selected poetry--about two thirds of the way through. It's very good--I wouldn't say great though a handful of them reach into greatness. Also reading Elias Khoury's Gate of the Sun. Khoury is a Lebanese Christian--whose sympathies are to the left and this novel looks at the conflict between the Palestinians and Israeli's through Palestinian eyes--going all the way back and focusing a lot on the late 1940's. Whereever ones sympathies lie it is beautifully written--a very humane look at the dislocation of peoples. Also Banana Yoshimoto's Kitche--which I really don't care for much but everyone should read at least one chick-lit book a year.

posted by lriley at 1:23 pm (EST) on May 28, 2008

Can't wait for November--Bert. Haven't wished for winter so hard in the last 20 years. We have to win this. I don't want 4 more years in Iraq and 4 more years of deregulation and letting the markets do what they do because a president doesn't have a clue how to run an economy. To me that's what McCain will represent. His whole shtick seems to be all about the 'war on terror'.

posted by lriley at 2:41 am (EST) on May 22, 2008

Bert--as I see it the main problem domestically if McCain wins is it will stall things. The republicans really don't have an agenda beyond continuing their so-called 'war on terror'. No ideas on health care, no ideas on education, energy/transportation, no ideas on how to rebuild the economy, just barely a clue on global warming. This is why I don't see McCain winning--sadly he is so much smarter than George W. but he has tied his election hopes to W.'s legacy. I see those congressional districts they've lost as indicators of where the GOP is heading as a party. Hastert's seat in Illinois. Wicker's seat in Mississippi--which has been theirs forever by huge margins they all of a sudden lose by 8 points. If McCain does win he will have a congress stacked against him. He will be a lame duck from the start.

Now our country doesn't need to be wasting its time like that. According to the Pew Research center our population is going to increase from the 300 million mark in '06 to 400 million sometime around 2035. We have a 30 year window to figure out and implement what we need to do. Throwing away 4 years on McCain would be ridiculous as I'd expect the economy to continue to slide then. We need a visionary and I hope Obama is up to the task. I think he is our best hope at this point. That population increase means we are going to have to create not bleed jobs--create them in the millions. It will call for re-investment in manufacturing, industry and infastructure. It calls for the frequently heard new generation of engineers which means making education affordable. And we are going to have to solve our energy/transportation problems which means 1) becoming independent from the OPEC cartel and 2) working on mass transit solutions. And finally we are going to have to make health care affordable. There are going to be a lot of major interests--banking, multi-nationals etc. who are going to try to block all that.

Which brings us to the war. Beyond the senselessness of Iraq in particular--the loss of men, the injuries--permament and otherwise we cannot economically afford to build another nation when our own is falling apart--our currency devaluing. Instead of 'following Bin Laden to the gates of hell'--as far as we know he's in Pakistan--we made the sidetrip into Iraq. Bush's entire legacy depends on it now and McCain and his pals like Lieberman will not let it go. I think the critique that a McCain presidency will mean 4 more years of Bush will stick precisely because of Iraq more than any other factor. Seeing and hearing McCain make claims about the future as he did the other day that Iraq will be a stable democracy, that Bin Laden would be killed or captured by the end of his first term without going into the details such as how Bin Laden was going to die sitting safe and sound up in the secure tribal areas of northern Pakistan? What McCain is offering is the same old, same old and trying to pass himself off as a maverick independent--tying himself to the Bush legacy I don't see it happening.

posted by lriley at 7:34 am (EST) on May 18, 2008

Bert--tried to youtube the Chris Matthews interview with Kevin James (some republican talk show host) to you but it didn't work. Very hilarious. It is on the front page of Dailykos still but might be moving the next page soon.

posted by lriley at 5:36 pm (EST) on May 16, 2008

Bert--both Arlt and Piglia are highly acclaimed. Another would be Ernesto Sabato who as it happens headed the commission to look into the missing and the crimes of the military junta after their dictatorship. There is a noirish aspect to Arlt's writing. It's built for speed and was considered in his time 'sloppy'. Kind of Dostoyevskyish like 'The Devils' only there's no heroes. Fyodor's worst characters tended to be his do-gooders though. His best characters tended towards evil. The Piglia book is a meditation on good vs. evil throughout the 20th century using the disappearance of the main character's uncle (during the dictatorship years) as the jumping off point. It establishes threads between the Argentine regime and Hitler's reich bringing in literary figures such as Kafka, Gombrowicz and Wittgenstein to make his point.

Reading the Echo makers by Richard Powers. A novel about a man who after nearly dying in a car accident suffers from Capgras syndrome. It's very interesting and you might like it--a lot in it about cognitive psychology. It won the National Book award for fiction in 06. Have also won another book in Early Reviewers Ethan Canin's America America.

Rangers lost--not much to say except 'Wait until next year!'

posted by lriley at 2:26 am (EST) on May 6, 2008

Bert--John from Ottawa suggested Manguel to me--I have two of his books--the dictionary of imaginary places--a kind of encyclopedia actually of fictional places taken from literature which is quite extensive. Also--A history of reading--kind of essays on reading. I actually haven't read either but they are beautifully done. I noted that site you mentioned in the South American/Argentine group. There are a few names that are new to me that I'm going to look up. There are also a few writers mentioned who have not been translated including Rodolfo Walsh. It did mention Piglia's Artificial Respiration which is a great, great book.

As for the Rangers we won last night--stayed up and watch the whole thing--kind of tired now though. I still don't think we have much of a chance--though winning the next game would bring it back to MSG with a chance for us to tie it. Jagr after a subpar regular season is playing awesome now.

posted by lriley at 1:45 pm (EST) on May 2, 2008

Hi Bert, I see that since I have cataloged another 50 or so books, we share 2 now! I bet there are some more in my TBR pile just waiting to be shared with one of yours! I have been reading alot lately, but some of the people in the 50 book or 1001 book challenge freak me out. They read a book or two a day. I don't even think I would enjoy that. I could understand a few stolen hours or a couple days in bed with a cold and a good book, but I don't think my eyes(all 4 of them) could take it. And I think my brain would become boggled with all the different characters and plots. You know...too much of a good thing...HeHe, Mary Beth

posted by mmignano11 at 7:05 pm (EST) on Apr 29, 2008

Bert--check this out:

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/b...

posted by lriley at 3:53 pm (EST) on Apr 26, 2008

Actually Bert it was my first time reading Price but I'm pretty sure not the last.

Rangers as you probably know won. Very happy about that. Rooting for Boston tonight. That would mean we get the winner of Philadelphia/Washingtion + home ice if it's Philly. Otherwise it's Pittsburgh.

posted by lriley at 6:03 pm (EST) on Apr 21, 2008

Bert--did a review of Richard Price's new novel--Lush Life--which is set on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

posted by lriley at 1:18 pm (EST) on Apr 20, 2008

Avery is quite the character. Kind of James Cagney gangster-style. At times he's been a handful even inside his own locker room--In Los Angeles anyway. He needs to be kept on a short leash. The thing with him and Brodeur the other night where he kept face to face with Brodeur trying to block his view while we were on the pwp was something I've never seen before and the NHL moved quickly to make sure it didn't happen again. The Rangers record with him in the lineup is something like 54-21-16--he has a habit of turning games into wars and we tend to win then because everyone winds up playing for their lives. He might not be back next season. He's an unrestricted free agent. It would seem he needs a big stage though so his options are limited. The Rangers don't always have the best goons but over the years they've have a number primo antagonizers--Tie Domi (who really could fight), Esa Tikkanen, Ulf Samuelsson--always someone trying to kill them. Some very good comedy though.

posted by lriley at 12:26 pm (EST) on Apr 19, 2008

Hi Bert, Going through some of my boxes of books, I came across what is probably one of the original paperbacks of "The Pillars of the Earth." I have heard the Chabon you would like to begin mentioned by others who have enjoyed it. Right now, I am reading,"The Translator" "The River King"by Alice Hoffman and "Tumbling After" a touching,raw memoir of a couple who face the trial of the husband's C4-quadriplegia. The author is Susan Parker. I read a couple chapters of each daily, but I concentrate mostly on one, in this case The River King. My magazine reading consists of "Writer", "The Writer","Writer's Digest" "Tin House" and "Poets and Writers." I sort of approach it like school assignments, and in between I'm trying to get a short story or two done and submitted.Oh, and there's the business to run with my husband. All I can say is thank heavens for books, they are my salvation!Mary Beth

posted by mmignano11 at 11:47 am (EST) on Apr 19, 2008

Bert-so far it's been pretty good. The Devils are not a team you can count out. Brodeur is also a goalie who can steal games. The animosity between the two teams has been escalating and there is a chance that tonights game will get ugly. The Devils contend we've been running their goalie and that they are going to be running ours from now on. It's hard to be all that objective about it. I certainly have a partisan interest. The styles of Lundqvist and Brodeur are different. Our goalie hangs back in his crease when the play is in his end which is not what most goalies do. Brodeur tends to come out a lot more and is very aggressive and likes to use his stick to make plays but also to wallop the unsuspecting occasionally--is quite sneaky about it more often than not getting away with it. The Rangers have been driving towards the net a lot more than in the regular season--getting shots closer in and creating screens and scrums. Brodeur's tendency to come out means he often has to fight for territory. Well it's the playoffs!?! It doesn't help New Jersey that their defense corps is a mediocre one and not always that helpful to him. They've not been able to replace Niedermayer, Stevens, Rafalski etc. The more you pressure them the more mistakes they make. Anyway hopefully we win tonight and come out of the series with no real injuries.

At the moment I'm re-reading Marlene Van Niekerk's 'Triomf'-a long one and Emile Zola's 'The joy of life' which happens to be for me the last of the Rougon-MacQuart (20 novels) series. Of course I've read them all out of order but c'est la vie.

posted by lriley at 5:46 pm (EST) on Apr 18, 2008

Hi and thanks for replying. I usually click on the names on my page that are listed in members with books...etc. and that's how I got to your name. I was intrigued by the authors that you had listed as your favorites, many of which are mine also. I would like to add Mark Twain to that list, and suggest that you read his biography on Joan of Arc. It is quite an uncommon book because he manages to add touches of his very unique humor while still conveying the gravity of being Joan during those times, and facing the challenges of raising and leading an army and trying to convince her family that she was not crazy, but had in fact been directed by God and not some crazy whim. I did read this quite some time ago, but oddly I was speaking with my mother on the phone, she lives in Massachusetts, and mentioned that I was reading the book. She was reading the book at the same time! Being a rather uncommon choice, and the fact that she was reading it in French was odder still. I'm not sure you could find it without some effort, but it was definitely worth the read. I will try to get the exact title for you.(in English) I mention it because from some of your correspondence, you seem to be interested in rather unusual books. I'll get back to you on this, but I think my professor at college said that Philip Roth was his mentor. Let me check on that, though. I have been out since 1999, and my brain sometimes plays games on me. Anyway, I believe that once I have catalogued the rest of my books we will have more titles in common. Most of my books are still packed since we have just moved into the house we built approximately 9 months ago. My husband is a contractor, so we were able to do it without some of the usual headaches. Now however, we have the mortgage headache! Most of the books I have catalogued I have picked up on recommendations from LTers, from the discard shelves at my local libraries. Great prices for some great books. Some are donations from patrons, so I have quite a selection. I'm still waiting for "Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett, not usually one of my favorite authors but so many LTers are giving it good reviews. And the sequel is already out. Well, if you aren't already asleep, I'll wish you a goodnight, Mary Beth

posted by mmignano11 at 11:40 pm (EST) on Apr 10, 2008

Bert--for some reason this site just ate my review on Cercas's Speed of light. I'm going to wait and see if it shows up later--otherwise I'm going to have to do it all over again.

posted by lriley at 2:50 pm (EST) on Apr 8, 2008

Bert--did a review of Weigl's book yesterday--maybe we'll get to Cercas today. I have others by Philip Kerr and Edouard Glissant that I'm thinking of doing and halfway through the Rushdie book that Random House sent me through LT that I feel obligated to do (though it may be the best thing of Rushdie's I've ever read) so they're piling up.

As far as Iraq goes it will eventually become the Democrat's war if they don't get us out of it. Vietnam became as much Nixon's war as it was LBJ's. The thing with Iraq that too many of its supporters don't seem to get is there is no real strategy other than maintaining a status quo--so no end game as proposed by the Bush administration--that is why McCain's 100 years remark seems to resonate. Between Vietnam and Iraq there are similarities and dissimilarities. Instead of fighting one ideological invisible enemy we are fighting numerous ones. The main problems if and when we leave are 1. how to stage it and then 2. what comes after--it seems fairly likely a civil war with great potential to sweep across the entire Middle East which will drive the cost of oil out of the region through the roof--which is one of the big reasons we're there in the first place. I agree with McCain only on that much--that it will be ugly. But the truth is there are a number of reasons why we cannot sustain our presence there much longer and the sooner we realize it and act on the realization the better for us in the long run.

posted by lriley at 2:37 am (EST) on Apr 8, 2008

As a matter of fact I hadn't Bert. It is a really good book and though I don't know the rest of the field yet I wish Mr. Cercas luck on it.

I see your Knicks changed GM's? Anyway it seemed long overdue. The Rangers made the playoffs tonight. Happy with that. They still have a shot at home ice advantage in the first round. Looks most likely that we'll be playing the Devils.

Starting the Rushdie book that LT sent me--this morning.

posted by lriley at 2:10 am (EST) on Apr 4, 2008

Hard to say Bert. Going through the teams--Montreal and Pittsburgh look like the best but to me they are beatable. Both are run and gun teams--that make mistakes and hope their goalies bail them out. New Jersey overachieves the last couple years but their defense isn't nearly what it used to be and a lot of their top forwards are aging and are on the small side. I do not like Ottawa's goaltending situation. Carolina could be tough--but their defensive corps is mediocre. Philadelphia has some good young players but goaltending is questionable and so is team defense. Boston needs more depth in all areas--their goaltending should be pretty good though. The Rangers problem is scoring goals. They can go far though if they can get their powerplay going--hasn't really happened all year though. Defense and goaltending are pretty solid. Have some depth at forward and on defense. One other team still has a shot and that's Washington. They would be a real wild card. Ovechkin is a beast.

posted by lriley at 1:04 pm (EST) on Apr 1, 2008

Bert--got back last night from NYC. Most fortunately my Rangers decided to win this time--though they certainly screwed up today. Spent all of our time hoofing it around Midtown Manhattan--went to the MOMA--really like the Pollock's--went to David Mamet's 'November'--a political spoof of current day american politics--the Charles H. P. Smith--a President who as his key aide explains to him about why he has no chance of being re-elected--'has fucked absolutely everything up' is a blowhard not unlike the current resident of the White House today. It's very funny and I liked it very much but that's somewhat attenuated for me anyway by striking a bit too close to home--I feel the need for much distance from the current day administration and it's not always easy for me to laugh off what it's going on--not that I think that is Mamet's intention--Nathan Lane is excellent. Anyway I bought 0 books which isn't really all that unusual--I'm more used to picking them up cheaper than for what I would pay at a bookstore. Other than that it was mostly messing around and more time than usual back at the hotel--my sister and her husband are a little older and don't have quite the same stamina as we do and the weather wasn't all that cooperative either--wouldn't have minded if it were warmer going into Central Park. My brother in law really wanted to see St. Patrick's Cathedral so we went in there--it's interesting and nice I suppose and it made him happy but not really my cup of tea. All in all a little too much walking--but a good trip.

posted by lriley at 5:24 pm (EST) on Mar 30, 2008

Bert--kind of missed your reply--I don't know why. Brain dead lately. We probably won't be getting in until the afternoon sometime on the 26th and might be more towards late afternoon. I don't think it will be too convenient as we'll be sorting things out. Friday is kind of open at least until evening--don't know if that's convenient for you or not but it seems the best since you have your appointment on thursday. If it's not I expect we'll be around again and maybe work out things then. We are staying at the skyline on 50th and 10th. I'll send our cell phone--just in case sometime later today when my wife returns--she's the one that has control of that--I never use it. In the case that it doesn't work out I'm sure we'll be able to keep busy--with my sister and her brother along it will be the blind leading the blind--with me probably as the lead blind man. We do have ideas though. The hockey game, the show, MoMA, a trip to an Irish bar for shepherd's pie and/or McSorley's Ale house--and/or a Steakhouse--we went to a great one last year, Macy's is doing their flower show--and if we really feel adventurous we can head into Brooklyn to the Botannical gardens, maybe the Metropolitan museum, and if it's warm enough--Central Park which is always great for wandering.

posted by lriley at 11:24 am (EST) on Mar 24, 2008

Thanks for your interest in my library, Bert.

Graham

posted by Grammath at 7:11 am (EST) on Mar 23, 2008

Hi Bert,
CC is also one of my favourite characters, and Humboldt's Gift one of my all time favourite books.

Bellow and Anthro is a kind of personal question for me, as I was brought up in a very anthroposophical background: both my parents were practising Anthros within the Camphill movement, and I was educated in a Waldorf school. After an initial early phase of immersing myself in Steiner, I have spent a great deal of my intellectual life trying to break away from it.

Of course all the Anthros claim Bellow as one of their own, largely on the strength of Humboldt's Gift, and of course, why wouldn't they? A Nobel Prize winning author who is also an Anthro: what a public relations coup, right?! But I know how these people think and how they love to simplify matters. hence my posting in the Bellow group.

Anyway. It sure is nice to meet another Bellow fan! Although I own all his works, I have not read them all. I read them very sparingly, almost reluctantly, as I never want to be in the position where there is no new Bellow book to read for the first time!

All the best,
Murr

posted by tomcatMurr at 10:35 pm (EST) on Mar 20, 2008

Bert--Tree of Smoke is a great novel. Is as good as Englander's anyway so I would highly recommend it--to me though 'The Savage Detectives' belongs in the masterpiece category. Certainly a step above. I can see rereading it a few times whereas Johnson's and Englander's books I could also see maybe re-reading. It's a once every 10 years kind of book--keeping in mind that Bolano's 2666 is supposed to be coming out this year and may be its equal from what I've been hearing.

posted by lriley at 2:29 am (EST) on Mar 20, 2008

I'm sorry; I thought your name was "Beth," not Bert!

Libby

posted by reademwritem at 2:20 pm (EST) on Mar 18, 2008

I'm sorry; I thought your name was "Beth," not Bert!

Libby

posted by reademwritem at 2:19 pm (EST) on Mar 18, 2008

Beth,

You had recommended it to me about a month ago when I said (on the Jewish Fiction site) I couldn't finish All the Pretty Horses. Now I just read the passage where the judge buys two puppies, throws them in a river, and shoots them. On the next page about six people are shot to death for no reason (not even for scalps, which seems to be the main reason in the narrative).I mean, I get the point. Now I am just nauseated. I don't think I'm going to finish this one either! I consider myself a fairly well-educated person. I like Murakami and Atwood and Foer. I just don't get this guy! Is his main point that humans are shit, and we are polluting the world? Is he a Deep Ecologist? Enlighten me!

Libby

posted by reademwritem at 2:16 pm (EST) on Mar 18, 2008

Bert--I saw the Buenos Aires article--looks like Hotel prices are going up though. The part I saved from the travel section was the NYC piece on Irish bars. I have my eye on the Richard Price book featured on the front cover of their book section. No Frank Rich article in the opinion section but loved Maureen Dowd's. The other thing I saved was the Real Estate Bus tour story--from Traverse Michigan which I put somewhat to use in the Pro and Con group on the thread about our devaluating dollar.

I started on the Javier Cercas book by the way and like it a lot. It's going to be good.

posted by lriley at 12:53 pm (EST) on Mar 17, 2008

Bert--people are complicated and the way they see themselves is not necessarily how other people will see them. Just finished Roth's My life as a man and that's a central theme of that novel. Spitzer has been in the fast lane--a very ambitious person and used to one success after another--this feeds the ego part of his nature. He's probably never been able to slow down and when he starts on something it will turn into an obsession--and in such a case it seems to me anyway a person's fantasies can take on a life of their own. Juggling public persona with private obsessions--he dropped a ball and all the other balls fell right afterwards.

Anyway coming to NYC on the 26th--leaving on the 29th. We'll be staying at the Skyline hotel on 50th and 10th--a property on which the police once searched for bodies of Westies victims--none found. We will have my sister and brother-in-law in tow--I don't know if they are going to be following us whereever we go. I hate telling people what to do. I'm not sure I like being followed everywhere either--but I can live with it. Anyway if you are free and would like to meet at the Strand one of those days we can arrange that--OTOH if you're not open and/or do not want to get in the middle of all this family stuff I certainly understand that too. We have tickets to the Rangers--Devils game on the 27th and figure on seeing a play one of the other nights--might be Spamalot again (though we loved it that would be more for my sister/brother-in-laws sake)--kind of interested in Mamet's November--though I'm hearing he's turned a little bit conservative--my other thing would be to spend more than the hour we spent last year in the MOMA and maybe even we could go next door to the Folk Art museum you mentioned last year. Anyway it's something to look forward to--as I'm sure you look forward to your Buenos Aires trips. One of these days we might even make it down there though it doesn't look like it will be soon unless somebody turns our economy around. Still rooting for Obama.

posted by lriley at 8:56 am (EST) on Mar 16, 2008

Bert--still running around with a portable cd player--the cd's get ragged with time though. Mae has an MP3 and Tara (my daughter has the ipod). Probably be making the switch within a year or so though--that's if the economy doesn't completely tank--I opened up a thread at the Pro and Con just to vent on that subject--unfortunately so far only progs have commented so it's just preaching to the choir.

posted by lriley at 1:43 pm (EST) on Mar 15, 2008

Bert--I agree with you--I see it mainly as a huge error in judgement. It could do damage in the sense young people for whom his campaign was the first would certainly be disappointed. To me the reason I was leery of him and one reason I voted for McCourt was his very aggressive my way or the highway persona. I was intrigued by his candidacy though. I was at least somewhat glad that he won. Sick and tired of the republican machine that churns out Pataki's and Giuliani's.

My daughter's 17th birthday on the 16th. I really haven't got her anything. I took her over to an electronics store today but she spent 90% of the time shuffling through the CD racks--not coming up with anything. She does have an ipod. Thinking of getting her the illustrated Life of Pi--she's really not being a lot of help. Kids!!?!!

posted by lriley at 5:33 pm (EST) on Mar 14, 2008

Bert--ever hear of Javier Cercas--a spanish writer--his Soldiers of Salamis centers around a fictionalized incident from the end of the Spanish Civil War--and has a couple appearances by Roberto Bolano who gives the young reporter who is trying to track down a former republican soldier--stories and advice. Just got his second novel to be translated--the speed of light--I thought one of the epigraphs from it might apply to Spitzer--'Evil lasts, mistakes do not, the forgivable is long forgiven, the knife cuts have also healed, only the wound that evil inflicts, does not heal; but reopens at night, every night--Ingeborg Bachmann--the nature of the story might also be something for you to look for--from the blurb where one of the comparisons is W. G. Sebald--'A young Spanish writer--the novel's protagonist and perhaps an aprocryphal version of Javier Cercas himself--accpts a post as a writer-in-residence at a midwestern American university, where he meets a mysterious man named Rodney Falk. It will be years before he understands that his burgeoning friendship with this man, a surly, intractable Vietnam veteran, will reshape his life. As the years go by, the writer attains international fame, returns to Spain, and starts a family--and just as quickly his world begins to collapse. Suddenly lost, he becomes obsessed with Rodney's mysterious past and his involvement in the "My Khe (My Lai?) incident in Vietnam. Impossibly, he finds that Rodney's fate and his own are linked, and the story moves back and forth between past and present, the United States and Spain, before spiraling towards its fascinating, surreal conclusion.'

posted by lriley at 5:06 pm (EST) on Mar 13, 2008

Hi Bert, Thanks for the message. Sparta! My wife will get a kick out of that. By the way, she's on LT, too, as stephgold. The photo is deceiving, though. I'm not a car guy at all. That photo was taken by my wife in Barstow, California. We had stopped overnight there during a "long way around" road trip from SF to Las Vegas (my mom and my sister and her family all live in Vegas). We decided to stay in one of the old motels in the funky end of town, which is/was along the route of Route 66. That car, with stuffed bear, was sitting in the motel parking lot, and my wife made me pose in front of it. BTW, a lot of the old, dusty Rte 66 towns have thrift stores and antique stores too where there are lots of good old book finds to me made! Cheers! Jerry

posted by rocketjk at 5:19 pm (EST) on Mar 12, 2008

Bert--The prose in the Absent City is a bit more convoluted than in his other works. It is well regarded but it's not an easy read so please don't let it stop you from reading Artificial Respiration if you get the chance. His Money to Burn--is a noirish type thriller based on a real event and is excellent but very violent.

A lot going on in NYS today as I'm sure you're aware. It's too bad I had some hopes for Spitzer though I did vote in '06 for Malachi McCourt--green party telling myself that if Spitzer did okay I'd vote for him next time. I was intrigued by his going after numerous financial--Wall Street entities. It's got to be tough for his wife and his kids--one can also understand but emphasize less for him. It seems that sometimes you achieve a goal and then there is a vacuum afterwards and he has always struck me as a bit arrogant in one sense but at the same time someone who is so ambitious that he will never be satisfied. It's sad--though not really a fan--it leaves the door wide open for Michael Bloomberg who also seems to have an ambition--to become president some day. I can see him running for governor in 2010 with the idea of using it as a stepping stone--it makes sense to me anyway. If he truly has the ambition, he has the money, political savvy and a great opportunity now to go for it.

posted by lriley at 3:49 pm (EST) on Mar 12, 2008

Bert, Where are you in New Jersey? I lived in Newark until I was 11 and then in Maplewood through high school. My wife is from Caldwell, although we met here in San Francisco. Small world! I still have good friends in Westfield and all the way out in Hackettstown.

posted by rocketjk at 12:50 pm (EST) on Mar 12, 2008

Bert--since you've started lengthening your reviews they are excellent. Very fun reads besides. Really liked the Englander novel. Maybe my favorite work of fiction dealing with the Argentine military dictatorship is Roberto Piglia's Artificial Respiration but that novel is dependent on allegory. Englander's novel keeps it at a personal level throughout. Anyway keep plugging on--as you're very good at it.

posted by lriley at 2:21 am (EST) on Mar 12, 2008

My new Bolano review is up.

posted by lriley at 10:10 am (EST) on Feb 25, 2008

Right now Bert--I kind of look at it this way--two good candidates in one election--who would have ever thunk? My tendency would be towards voting for the one with the best chance--Obama. He will need to keep up about Iraq and once in a while hammer home some of the points he's been making about the economy and our trade agreements. That's what I was waiting for Kerrey to do in '04 but he never really was satisfactory. I have a lot of hopes for Barack at the moment. In any case even if I were to waver and go back to Ralph there is no way that New York's electoral votes are going to go McCain. This is not a battleground state despite the worst efforts of many of those who live around me upstate. If somehow Hilary does get nominated and it doesn't look good for her--Nader is my fallback vote. I'm also very much looking forward to supporting Eric Massa in his second attempt to unseat the republican Kuhl in the House. I'm considering sending some money to both the Obama and Massa candidacies sometime over the summer.

Anyway I just finished Roberto Bolano's 'Nazi literature in the Americas' yesterday--there was a review in the Book Review section of the NYTimes today. I've been speaking to Papalaz yesterday about it who was wondering if Roth's recent book about Charles Lindbergh would be a comparison. I saw more Borges--today the Times reviewer mentioned that kind of connection too.

posted by lriley at 5:53 pm (EST) on Feb 24, 2008

Bert--I've noted his charismatic appeal--I've just been waiting for certain things to be said such as from his speech yesterday: 'For our economy, our safety, and our workers, we have to rebuild America. I'm proposing a National Infastructure Reinvestment Bank that will invest $60 billion over ten years. This investment will multiply into almost half a trillion dollars (skeptical on how that is figured, but the idea is long overdue)of additional infactructure spending and generate nearly two million new jobs--many of them in the construction industry that's been hard hit by this housing crisis. The repairs will be determined not by politics, but by what will maximize our safety and homeland security; what will keep our enviroment clean and our economy strong. And we'll fund this bank by ending this war in Iraq. It's time to stop spending billions of dollars a week trying to put Iraq back together and start spending the money on putting America back together instead.' He fleshed out a number of economic ideas throughout the speech but that is a key paragraph for me. There were two things I was waiting for Kerry to say in '04. I wanted him to talk about our ruinous trade and economic policies and I wanted him to enough is enough on Iraq and he never did that. Barack talks about trade policy in this speech and I can't find anything I disagree with. Beyond that I think he connects anyway he doesn't talk over peoples heads like he's a teacher and we're a bunch of children.

Anyway I'll check out the Englander conversation but here is the blurb from the back cover of Lobo Antunes 'Knowledge of Hell'.---'Like his creator, the narrator of this novel is a psychiatrist who loathes psychiatry, a veteran of the despised 1970s colonial war waged by Portugal against Angola, a survivor of a failed marraige, and a man seeking meaning in an uncaring and venal society. The reader joins Antunes on a journey both real and phantasmagorical as he travels by car from a vacation in the Algarve back to his hated work as a psychiatrist at a Lisbon mental institution.
In the course of one long day and evening, he carries on an imaginary conversation with his daughter Joanna, observes with surreal vision the bleak countryside of his nation, recalls the horrors of his involuntary role in the suppression of Angolan independence, and curses the charlantanism of contemporary psychiatric 'advances' that destroy rather than heal.

As a writer Lobo Antunes falls somewhere in between his two main literary heroes which would be Faulkner and Celine. Very black humor. If you've read Faulkner's The sound and the fury--that is one place to start. Celine's lyricism and biting sarcasm. Selby's 'Last exit to Brooklyn' might be another comparison. Antunes is adept at drawing lost souls.

posted by lriley at 2:29 pm (EST) on Feb 14, 2008

Bert--I've read quite a bit about the dirty war--fiction and non-fiction. The part you mentioned puts it in a real human perspective. Englander did a great job at drawing his characters. The only complaint I have for him is I think it was 7 years between his two works but if something takes time to get right and the results are this then that is okay.

Nazi Literature in the Americas (Bolano) showed up today along with Knowledge of Hell (a new one by Lobo Antunes). Sometime later today I might comment on both of those. I don't have a lot of time right now.

Also yesterday I went from leaning towards Obama to a much stronger feeling of support. I ran into some excerpts of a speech he made in Wisconsin yesterday which made me feel real good.

posted by lriley at 2:23 am (EST) on Feb 14, 2008

On the Englander book--I gave that one 5 stars. It was great. I might be doing the same with this one. The one thing with Omega Minor though is there is a lot packed into every page. It's a huge project--maybe even bigger than The Savage Detectives. He writes almost as well as Bolano. It's almost nitpicking to say that. There's not a lot to choose. In some respects this treatment of World War II reminds me a lot of Alfred Doblin's treatment of the German Weimar Republic post-World War I in his two huge epics 'A people betrayed' and 'Karl and Rosa'. Those are also huge books but they are fantastically realized. Doblin was hated by the Nazi's.

posted by lriley at 2:03 am (EST) on Feb 12, 2008

Bert--I'm halfway through Paul Verhaeghen's Omega Minor--it's a really long one--691 pages which in a different format could easily go over a thousand. Anyway it's very interesting and you might like it. Verhaeghen is a Belgian living in the Atlanta Georgia area now. He is a cognitive psychologist. This book is his first novel I think--focuses on many aspects of World War II--the holocaust--before and during the war as seen through the eyes of a young Berlin-ese jew hiding out from the combined forces of the state. Another young jewish refugee meanwhile escapes to America and becomes part of the group building the bomb at Los Alamos. It goes back and forth between present time focusing on a small group of Neo-nazi's in a present day Berlin. He's managing to juggle all kinds of themes and threads--an extraordinarily good writer.

posted by lriley at 3:05 pm (EST) on Feb 11, 2008

Bert-just put up my review of Cela's Christ versus Arizona--the book in which I meet my untimely end.

posted by lriley at 2:22 pm (EST) on Jan 27, 2008

Bert--You know I never did care very much for this Short character. I wouldn't put it past him to do something like that. If he thinks he's going to break my composure he's got another thing coming.

posted by lriley at 2:19 am (EST) on Jan 25, 2008

Bert--I have had kind of an epiphany today. On page 222 of the Spaniard nobelist's Camilo Jose Cela's--Christ versus Arizona (a novel) I am killed off.

Quoting from the book 'Wyatt Earp was called the Lion of Tomiston, he risked his life in the shootout at the O.K. corral and died years later, the mulatto Jane Kolb knows all the details of that bloodbath, Wyatt Earp worked as a gunfighter in the services of the Dodge City Peace Commission, all of them wore mustaches except Charlie Bassett who looked like a priest, Charlie was fat and white and killed people with great aplomb without ever losing his smile, the Litany of Our Lady is the breastplate that preserves us from sin, I say regina angelorum regina patriarcharum and you say ora pro nobis twice, Professor Licencia Margarita was romantically involved with Luke Short, the one who shot the ranch-hand Larry Riley in the back and then ordered his corpse hanged, the way to make sure hanged men don't kick is to hang them dead, look at Riley up there--what composure!,'

posted by lriley at 12:24 pm (EST) on Jan 24, 2008

Bert-my review for Amulet is up.

posted by lriley at 9:22 am (EST) on Jan 14, 2008

Bert--I read about half of the times article you're refering to and thought of you and your work. It is very sad. The last page of the opinion section in today's times has a short editorial by a Roger Cohen which refers to an aspect of the Argentine dirty war.

On a better note--the entertainment section (page 11) has an article on Martin McDonagh the British/Irish playwright who has kind of changed careers and has produced his first full length movie from his own filmscript. Very black humor--that guy. The beauty queen of Leenane--hilarious. The guy is a self made genius.

posted by lriley at 2:33 pm (EST) on Jan 13, 2008

Bert--there are a number of reasons why Bush etal. did not want a draft. However ugly this campaign has been to the public even that side that has supported the president--seeing its sons (doubt very much that daughters would be drafted) more or less being forced to go to war would have tilted the 04 election against them--and even moreso the 06 election. Considering at the same time the costs involved in the operation as it is--I don't think they could have met the new financial burdens to implement it and I'm not even sure our friends in the Pacific Rim who are lending us the wherewithal to conduct the current adventure would want to increase these loans exponentially especially with our dollar dropping like a stone. On top of which draftees are not as maleable as volunteers (many even tend towards reluctance)--the beauty of the volunteer army is that the politician in power can decide to use it as his own private army and most ordinary volunteers do not tend to question orders--not to mention that at the same time he's gone off and hired thousands upon thousands of gunslingers--Blackwater etal. So despite Rangel's attempts--which I thought were appropriate--to reinstate the draft--that went nowhere for a lot of reasons. These are the lessons that the Neocons learned from Vietnam. They are not concerned with military adventurism. They are concerned with keeping the public largely uninformed and uninvolved. They believe they can lie their way out of anything (Gonzalez), obfuscate the facts (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, numerous press secretaries), go through the motions of diplomacy (Rice) while still showing the world you mean business or carry a big stick (Bolton). If something or other goes haywire--not to worry we'll just give you a job somewhere else like at the world bank (Wolfowitz).

In any event there is one year left for this numbskull and his pals. Not too pleased that Pelosi and company took impeachment off the table. We should at least be getting to the conclusion of those proceedings right now. The questiion arises about Iran and what we will do there? What we have has more than its hands full occupying the much smaller Iraq (both in terms of population and land mass). The only obvious answer for them with Iran is to bomb it--maybe even using nuclear. I wouldn't put it past them though if I were to predict I'd say we're just going to wave our fists at them for the next year--but we'll see.

posted by lriley at 7:23 am (EST) on Jan 13, 2008

Bert--look at these numbers.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/news-desk/20...

posted by lriley at 1:14 pm (EST) on Jan 12, 2008

Bert, It took me a while to get into "The Savage Detectives," and although I think it's a remarkable book, I have the feeling I'm missing a lot, and I'm not really entirely sure what to make of it. Thanks for encouraging me, though.

As for "Exit Ghost," I haven't read it yet. I'm a big Philip Roth fan, but the subject matter is a little too close to home for right now.

Rebecca

posted by rebeccanyc at 8:08 am (EST) on Jan 12, 2008

Bert--looked at redroom but didn't know the majority of writers there. Unfortunately Norman Mailer--one of the few I did know died recently. Bolano's Amulet by the way bears a striking resemblance to Paco Ignacio Taibo's 68 which is also tells the same story about the lady in the university's ladies room.

posted by lriley at 2:39 am (EST) on Jan 12, 2008

Bert--it's only excellent if it works out that way. The facts at this point in time seem objective enough. The thing with Bloomberg is I heard that he's against a withdrawal timetable from Iraq. If that's true that's a non-starter for me. I am not going to vote for someone who is not going to get that particular ball rolling. So Hilary had better pick an earlier date than 2013. I want to hear at least by the end of 2009. If she wants to be commander-in-chief let her command us out of there. Republicans may have no problem with readjusting their original sights to reach that 10 year anniversary but I do.

On Ethan Canin--the name sounds familiar but I'm unfamiliar with what he does. Fiction? I'll check it out.

I have read one of the Bolano articles and it was fabulous. Very good find and I appreciate you sending it to me. The other article I have yet to read is the New Yorker--Alvaro Rousselot's journey. It helped make up mind about the book I'm going to start tomorrow which will be Bolano's Amulet. His Nazi literature in America which was mentioned in the one article I read comes out next month.

posted by lriley at 5:27 pm (EST) on Jan 10, 2008

Bert--looking at the NH primary--approximately 50,000 more people voted democrat than republican. Apparently in Iowa Huckabee the republican winner came in 4th in overall voting though Democrats tightly control the numbers they release. Everything trends towards the democrats this year. Only 12 of 34 senate seats to defend. As far as I know they have no incumbents retiring. Conversely a number of republicans are packing it in--including Warner-VA--Domenici--NM--Hagel--NE--the hapless Craig--ID. I think there are one or two others. Sununu NH is very unpopular and considered easy picks in the hostile to republicans New England states. John Warner likely to be replaced by the former governor Mark Warner in Virginia. If that happens both senators from that state will be democrat--who would have ever thunk? The Bush administration has been a disaster from day one. Iraq is unpopular. The wild spending. All the deregulation. Numerous scandals. Cronyism. The no bid contracts. The go it alone mentality. The rising costs in health, education, energy. The continued bleeding of the manufacturing and industrial sectors of the economy. The border stuff. The thing with the Dems though is their leaders in the House and Senate have been too weak. I would like to see both of them replaced.

posted by lriley at 2:25 am (EST) on Jan 10, 2008

I agree Bert. Too many people though would rather fall back on their own biases instead of attmept to objectively analyze what they're seeing and hearing. I've always felt more interested in issues than personalities.

Having said that I thought Bill Clinton's attack on Barack was unjustified and very ugly. On Hilary--the Sunday times of last ran down some of the issues of the contenders. Besides giving GWB authorization to go to war--she has always been IMO behind the curve on Iraq. The times has her getting us out of Iraq by 2013--or that is by the first year of what she figures to be her second term. That is just unacceptable. Clinton #1 may have done a pretty fair job with our economy but his trade bills etc. were horrible. I would expect the same from her. Push comes to shove the lobbyists for multi-nationals will always be first in line at the table. Both Obama and Edwards leave s lot more room for hope.

posted by lriley at 5:46 pm (EST) on Jan 9, 2008

Bert--I got your Bolano articles today and they both look very interesting--so many many thanks and hopefully in the next day or two I'll have some comment on them.

Alas the Rangers are not doing very well. I love seeing my hockey team in person but if they're out of it by the end of March--MSG might seem more like a morgue. But I expect we'll come anyway. I always find visiting NYC to be very exciting.

Kind of surprised that Hilary won New Hampshire last night. Too bad in the sense that if Obama had won--her campaign would have been on the rocks. It may be that Barack has hedged a little too much--that a lot of people are unsure of where he stands on a number of things--or to say it another way they think they know Hilary better. He's at times an inspiring speaker--and maybe needs to add a bit more detail. I got into the middle of a kind of stupid argument about him today at work--two of my co-workers--both democrats who are sure that an Obama presidency automatically means Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are going to be given cabinet positions. While they expect to vote for whatever democrat nonimee makes it anyway--it seems that some people can't let long held ideas about skin color pigmentation go. I found their assertions to be absurd--one thing that strikes me about Obama is that he's not divisive (something Sharpton at least at times is)--they think I'm naive. Oh well.

posted by lriley at 1:12 pm (EST) on Jan 9, 2008

As for the Strand--hopefully--I'd like too. We still have to arrange everything and I'll let you know.

posted by lriley at 12:22 pm (EST) on Jan 5, 2008

Bert--was pleased he won in Iowa. Of course there is a long way to go. I have to say when Paul said that not only would he would take our troops out of Iraq but would shut down military bases all over the globe he got my attention. Hearing that made me feel a little jealous--because for years I've wondered why are we getting involved here, there and anywhere. My brain I suppose hadn't taken the next obvious step and hearing it formulated like that was like an epiphany for me. Dismantling the CIA--having the military do all its intelligence--making the FBI take the step back to just being a crime fighting outfit--getting rid of the patriot act. He's obviously not going to win but 10% in Iowa and the way he's raised money is eye-opening and our favorite news network is cutting him out of the republican debate they're sponsoring--'not enough room'--more like he's not in lockstep with their stupid foreign policy decisions like the rest--at least some of whom are complete clowns (Giuliani for one)--does not pass the litmus test. It's refreshing to see that voice out of the wilderness and it shows also that the hoi polloi of their party haven't learned a thing in the meantime. They want to ridicule and wipe out dissent within their ranks. It's a mistake.

posted by lriley at 12:20 pm (EST) on Jan 5, 2008

Bert--I hope 2008 will be a good one for all of us. It won't hurt that this is GWB's last year. Time is running out and good riddance in advance. Anyway we're figuring on the last week of March coming to NYC for 3-4 days. I think the Devils are in MSG on the 27th and that's what we're going to aim at.

I should say since I've brought up Paul who has absolutely no chance--that I should wander over to the Dems to the two candidates Obama and Edwards. I could see myself possibly voting for either. Hilary doesn't fit into my plans--her nomination means a third party for me. I like what Edwards says more--I don't think Obama is really far away from him but he seems a little more cautious and maybe it's because he's better positioned to get the nomination--I don't know. Beyond that the idea of breaking the stranglehold of white and male president's is appealing. Unfortunately Hilary is going to (that's if she gets the nomination) head her party right back to the center of things which political wisdom says is how you win--ideals be damned. I'm not convinced she will stop the insanity in the Middle East (Iran, Iraq) or with foreign policy in general for instance this campaign demonizing Venezuela is absolutely stupid. I don't think that her ideas about health care are nearly as good as Edwards. Anyway I guess we're going to find out soon enough but Edwards and Obama are two I might find some enthusiasm for.

posted by lriley at 1:00 pm (EST) on Jan 1, 2008

Thanks for your comment, berthirsch. Funny, being IN South America, my access to books ON South America is limited, especially in English. I can read Spanish, but find most Spanish authors coming at things from too different a mindset for me to enjoy. However, I'm keeping a list for when I have to move back to the states permanently halfway through next year.

posted by skf at 4:12 pm (EST) on Dec 30, 2007

Bert--I came very close to picking up Exit Ghost on Christmas Eve at B & N. Had my daughter up shopping and a 25 percent off sticker. I used it instead to get my son a book thinking that I could pick the Roth book up cheaper on Half.com while also considering that I have a copy of I married a communist to read. I probably mentioned McCarthy's The Crossing-great book. By the way my daughter gave me a calendar of Bushism's--many of which are hilarious while at the same time showing him for the clown he is. I may be sharing some with you from time to time.

I understand just turning off whatever republicans say this time around but some of Paul's views are refreshing to see from that side. There are a number of things I've been disgusted with for a long time Bert--including programs like Nasa (money that could be used on issues like poverty get too little public support while sending it into outer space continues to be popular), the growing power of federal police forces like the FBI, the CIA has been fomenting trouble around the world for decades particularly in Latin America including our favorite country in that region-Argentina. This thing with the Venezuelans is absolutely ridiculous. His raising of these issues took me completely by surprise as nobody ever talks about them. This is not a guy that gets vetted. I don't believe there's any chance at all he's nominated but if he did have a chance he might be the type to get assassinated. I've watched the other republican candidates ganging up and just teeing off on him about Iraq. He sticks to his guns and I do admire that.

posted by lriley at 2:23 am (EST) on Dec 27, 2007

Bert--just got the review done. Struggled with it (the review) a little bit though. I still have Cities of the Plains--the last of the Border trilogy and then will have to decide on which of his works to go on to from there. Anyway a lot to hopefully look forward to in 2008 especially next November when GWB finally will be on his way out. Caught a bit of Ron Paul--on C-span yesterday. I don't think he has any chance of winning the republican nomination and I'm not sure I care for a libertarian designed domestic policy but there were a number of things he talked about that intrigued me. He's not just talking about getting out of Iraq but closing our military bases all around the world--figuring on hundreds of billions of dollars of savings there. Figuring that as the so called 'founding fathers' would have it conducting foreign policy along the lines of non-belligerent trade and diplomacy. He also talked somewhat about maybe dismantling the CIA noting that in the past they've taken a part in a lot of clandestine regime changing which they had no business doing. He also talked about the need to reign in the FBI sharply pointing out their intrusions into the lives of the law abiding and tactics from the past used to undermine dissident American voices naming MLK as one of them. He sees them as a law enforcement agency only. Anyway he seems to be a sharp contrast to all the other GOP candidates.

posted by lriley at 9:20 am (EST) on Dec 24, 2007

Bert--finished the second book of McCarthy's border trilogy--the Crossing-- yesterday. I liked it very much though it did put my limited Spanish reading ability to the test. I seemed to pick up most of it--so wasn't too bad. I'm going to do a review on it. Anyway a belated happy holidays to you and your family.

posted by lriley at 8:26 am (EST) on Dec 24, 2007

I bought "The Savage Detectives" because so many people here on LT recommended it -- when it first came out, it didn't look that interesting to me, but I was swayed by the opinions of people I respected. Then, when I was paying, the lady in the bookstore told me it was a wonderful book too! So I'm looking forward to reading it. Thanks for the additional recommendation.

posted by rebeccanyc at 8:56 am (EST) on Dec 21, 2007

Bert--I'd already been there and defended myself--no offense. I'll have to look into Spring Awakening. Now I'm watching my hockey team get clobbered. Time to get a beer--I've been buying growlers at the local micro brewery.Life will go on I suppose. Jesus' son is great.

posted by lriley at 6:23 pm (EST) on Dec 16, 2007

Bert--look forward to the Wimmer article on Bolano. Started McCarthy's 'The crossing' today. Also put up a review of an early Don Delillo novel--Great Jones Street about an iconoclastic rock and roll star. Probably make plans for our NYC in the next week or two. Probably late March again. Of course the Rangers, and a show--which means input but letting Mae make the final decision. I would also like to see more of the MOMA than we did last year. An hour and maybe 20 minutes didn't cut it. Anyway if you get the chance--big recommendation for Denis Johnson's 'Tree of Smoke'--about Vietnam. I think you'll like it. I think he's going to be coming into a lot of recognition in the next few years.

posted by lriley at 3:44 pm (EST) on Dec 16, 2007

Bert--not a lot of success finding that Wimmer essay. I did find an interesting interview and am wondering if that could be it?

posted by lriley at 2:38 am (EST) on Dec 14, 2007

Bert--You'd be better having extended your trip for a few more days--hoping the storm misses us. Sometimes it swings around these valleys up here but this time it will be coming from a different direction so who knows. Personally I'd rather go to work than be moving it around. Just in case I made a beer run to the local micro-brewery. I'll google on the Wimmer piece when I get home today. His 'Nazi literature in America' is supposed to come out in February. I think there is a synopsis on B & N--probably on Amazon too. Sounds like a good one to me.

Reviewed a Leonardo Sciascia book today--noir--but very literary. I have not been reviewing as much. Maybe I'll begin to do more. The Rangers have been on a roller coaster all season long. Not much other than that happening around here. Anyway welcome back.

posted by lriley at 2:24 am (EST) on Dec 13, 2007

Bert--The Savage Detectives made the NYTimes 10 best books of 2007--also Tree of Smoke--by Denis Johnson--which I recently reviewed (although my review though I don't think does it a lot of justice). I'm going to look at the other fiction works and see if they look appealing. They are--man gone down--Michael Thomas, Out stealing horses--Per Petterson, Then we came to the end--Joshua Ferris. I wonder what happened to Nathan Englander's book though--that was excellent too.

posted by lriley at 12:50 pm (EST) on Dec 9, 2007

Bert--did a review of Roth's The Counterlife today.

posted by lriley at 1:52 pm (EST) on Nov 20, 2007

Bert--I'm about two thirds of the way through The counterlife but not much progress today as I spent much of the day outdoors in the cold and damp with my brother and law (an electrician) hooking up an outside light and installing electric outlets above and below the deck. It's basically the final touches of the siding project we started this summer.

I haven't looked at your Kerouac--Bolano comparison yet but I promise to get back to you tomorrow about it. How soon are you heading off to Buenos Aires? If we come to New York it will most likely be in March again. Looks likely that in April I'll be heading out to see my brother in Seattle. He's been through his first run of chemo. He is very positive and it's hard to be too glum when someone is that optimistic--there is a chance though that I may end up being a bone marrow donor. If that's what it takes though that's what it takes.

posted by lriley at 7:56 pm (EST) on Nov 18, 2007

Not scoring many goals though Bert--if they can get some chemistry together and start firing on all cylinders they could be tough. Lundqvist is just an amazing though yesterday wasn't one of his better nights.

Anyway I should say again about Bolano's Savage Detectives--it's an amazing book.

As for McCarthy I might try to get another of his in before the new year. The question is do I read one of the two remaining border trilogy books or do I buy something else for instance--No country for old men (with the movie coming out--which might be a good one to see--though I don't know whether it would be good to see it before I read it) or go back in get some older book--Child of God for instance? So I'll have to sort this out--make a decision soon.

I'm only some 35 pages into the Counterlife. So far it's excellent and I love the idea behind it--that's if I've got it right--basically Henry decides to have a dangerous heart operation just so he won't to have to deal with the medicine which is keeping him symptom free but leaving him impotent--with several different outcomes examined including death. Roth is just a world class writer. Very subtle--understated, a sly sense of humor--he always manages to get the hook in--his characterization always very identifiable with the mainstream of American life--no gimmicks. The only time I can remember not be wowed by one of his books is 'The professor of Desire' which was the first time I read him many years ago and I'm not sure at this point of time that it wasn't me that was the problem. Even in that one he pointed me in the direction of Witold Gombrowicz which is something to be grateful for.

posted by lriley at 9:30 am (EST) on Nov 16, 2007

Bert--right now I have the 2nd and 3rd books of McCarthy's Border trilogy that I have yet to read. Sutree, Blood Meridian, All the pretty horses and a play 'The gardener's son' is what I've read so far of his work. They've all been good--comparable in some respects to Faulkner--in others to Dos Passos' best work--I just have to figure where I want to go next with him.

The Vargas Llosa book is very good and well worth reading but he has a few others that are better. Ever read anything by the Cuban Alejo Carpentier? I've read him several times and just got his dictator novel 'Reasons of State' in the mail yesterday. I'm looking forward to that too.

posted by lriley at 1:43 pm (EST) on Nov 14, 2007

Big controversy in that Toronto--Ranger game Bert. I watched it on the computer on the CBC channel because it was blacked out upstate and the slot given to the Sabres which happens now and again up here. Anyway our Sean Avery was accused later on of baiting the Leafs Jason Blake about his own cancer which he is in the midst of. Whether true or not no one is saying (Avery is denying--Blake who was in the middle saying he didn't hear anything like it)though a Toronto reporter has got himself deeply involved with a lot of what he thought he heard. In any case Avery apparently has his lawyer involved and is suing the media person for libel. Avery is our resident agitator and is known for stirring the pot during warmups etc. The NHL fined him a small amount of money for his involvement the other day which I think has more to do with getting him to be a bit more peaceful during pre-games. Anyway Avery's coming to New York last year gave the team an edge it hasn't had for a long time. He seems to get along well enough with his teammates but there is no doubt he is hated everywhere else.

On McCarthy--I've been thinking about buying that book lately but haven't acted yet. The Markson book I'm reading now was part of a Strand's regular promotion--book signing event which you can order the books online and it was a very reasonable price--less than the books normally would cost on their own. I was very pleased. As for Savage Detectives--I think it was the best book I've read all of last year. I've read Love in the time of cholera. It is a good book--though I no longer have it--the Vargas Llosa book just out The Bad Girl is somewhat similar in plot line.

posted by lriley at 2:33 am (EST) on Nov 14, 2007

On the Rangers--it's a slow start for sure. Not a lot of chemistry from our top forwards. They have been a bit snakebit though. Posts and crossbars. Missing open nets. What's been good is the defense and goaltending--and discipline has been there for the most part. It's not always exciting but a good defense can take you far and I expect that sooner or later the offense is going to start showing up. Teams get up for the Rangers though--I suspect they get up for the Knicks who begin Friday too--most teams come to New York and it's a highlight for their players that year. The Rangers also have a number of younger players now as they've been focusing on building their farm system the past 3-4 years--so there are growing pains as well. I'm optimistic that they'll get better but you never know for sure. Are they good enough to win a championship--I'd say they have a chance but there's about ten other teams that also may be good enough.

posted by lriley at 5:47 pm (EST) on Oct 31, 2007

Bert--pretty much a novice in some ways with the Cinema. We rarely go out. Some of the movies that have made an impression on me are foreign--Ay, Carmela--(which is set during the Spanish Civil War), Krystof Kieslowski's trilogy 'Red', 'White' and 'Blue'. A shoot 'em up satiric offshoot of some american gangster films--would be the French movie 'Man bites dog'. I like the British director Ken Loach--Hidden Agenda, Land of Freedom--he has another out now about that was a big hit at Cannes about the Irish--Black and Tan war. El Mariachi. Breaker Morant. Black Robe. Full metal jacket--great boot camp scenes--Lee Ermey reminded me of my DI--who did practically everything except I don't really recall him slapping or slugging anyone--which doesn't mean it didn't happen. I laughed hysterically the first time I saw it. Really really liked Syriana. Martin Scorcese. Tarantino. John Sayle's 'Matewan'. Great movie. Southern Comfort. I like the rendition of Flannery O'Connor's 'Wiseblood'. Christopher Walken as an actor. King of New York. Deer Hunter. Another favorite would be 'The pope of Greenwich village'. A couple older flicks. Cool Hand Luke. On the Waterfront.

posted by lriley at 2:44 pm (EST) on Oct 16, 2007

Bert--I have a new Borges review on his Dreamtigers. Also the other Englander short story collection showed up and I may be reading that soon.

posted by lriley at 2:23 am (EST) on Oct 16, 2007

Bert--as you see they went completely off list and chose Doris Lessing. She was on list last year though so not completely out of left field. I have not read her so I can't really comment. The Roth's, Vargas Llosa's, Murakami's, Tabucchi's, Le Clezio's will all have to wait at least one more year.

posted by lriley at 2:15 am (EST) on Oct 12, 2007

Wouldn't get my hopes up too high for Mr. Zimmerman though. It's not the first time his name has been mentioned by the way but the London betting firm has him at 150-1--their longest of longshots.

posted by lriley at 2:21 am (EST) on Oct 10, 2007

Bert--add Paul Auster, William H. Gass and Bob Dylan.

posted by lriley at 6:15 pm (EST) on Oct 9, 2007

a nod your way from up here in new york's trees.
tell me, being a new yorker, did you ever share time, say in a park or walking down a sidewalk, with Ginsberg or Corso or one of the gang?

i always wanted to do that, to just walk along as if a passerby, allen would have been my first choice. gary snyder, of course,
Kenneth patchen if he were up and walking. i'd love to read your tales to tell.

a pleasure to meet you if i haven't already.

posted by Tim_Watkinson at 3:29 pm (EST) on Oct 9, 2007

muchos gracias Bert--I hope I said it right. Nobel to be announced on Thursday by the way. Roth again is a frontrunner. He was 5-1 odds yesterday--Ladbrooke's an English betting institution and 7-2 today. Other frontrunners are Claudio Magris--Italy, Les Murray--Australia and Tomas Transtromer--Sweden.

Haruki Murakami, Antonio Tabucchi, Cormac McCarthy, Don Delillo are also given odds as are two Israeli writers Amos Oz and A. B. Yehoshua. A few Middle Easterners--Adonis, Assia Djebar, Mahmoud Darwish. Some Asians besides Murakami--Ko Un, Bei DaoNumber of other notables--Umberto Eco, Milan Kundera, Mario Vargas Llosa, Joyce Carol Oates, Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Atwood, Thomas Pynchon, Peter Carey, Ian McEwen, Harry Mulisch, Cees Nooteboom, Patick Modiano, John Banville, Julian Barnes, Salman Rushdie, Carlos Fuentes, Yves Bonnefoy, Alice Munro, Herta Muller, David Malouf, Michel Tournier, Adam Zagajewski, E. L. Doctorow, Chinua Achebe, John Updike--a favorite of mine J. M. G. Le Clezio and a number of others I haven't heard of--Gitta Sereny, Willy Kyrklund, Inger Christensen, Eeva Kilpi, F. Sionil Jose, Mary Gordon.

posted by lriley at 2:50 pm (EST) on Oct 9, 2007

Bert--review of Denis Johnson's Jesus' son today. Also Bolano's 'Last evenings on earth'.

posted by lriley at 10:51 am (EST) on Oct 8, 2007

Bert--yesterday I ordered the other Englander book. Bolano's Amulet I'll probably get after the one I read now--although I expect there will be other Bolano books coming out in English in the near future. An extraordinary writer. Anyway good progress made today on the house. Another good day and we might be done. Hooray if that happens.

posted by lriley at 7:14 pm (EST) on Oct 7, 2007

Bert--I have read Humboldt's gift and liked it and am very aware of Delmore Schwartz. I even have a couple of his books and there is a connection between Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison (of the Velvet Underground) quoted in Johnson's epigram to Jesus' son and Schwartz--especially Reed who became somewhat a friend of Schwartz at Syracuse University. In dreams begin responsibilities is in actual fact a very good short story collection. Schwartz was a very finely tuned individual. It's unfortunate how his life turned out but not unusual story for writers and artists. The Johnson book is really good.

Anyway the Rangers opened their season with a come from behind win 5-2.

posted by lriley at 2:24 am (EST) on Oct 5, 2007

I think you'll like Vila-Matas Bert. Bellow I'm a bit lukewarm on but I haven't read a lot of him so my opinion is probabaly not that great regarding him. The other two names sound familiar but I've never read them. Working on three books at the moment. John dos Passos's second USA book--1919. I've read about a third of Bolano's--Last evenings on earth and about half of Bohumil Hrabal's--The little town that stood still. Hrabal is a very interesting writer and if you ever get the chance try--Too loud a solitude--It's kind of short but it is fantastic. I recently finished Denis Johnson's--Jesus' son which is excellent also--the epigram to that book from the Velvet Underground's Heroin--when I'm rushing on my run and I feel just like jesus' son.

posted by lriley at 5:50 pm (EST) on Oct 4, 2007

Bert--sounds good---is there another book you're going to compare it to? Anyway I recently bought his Last evening on earth and expect to be getting to it very very soon.

posted by lriley at 2:47 pm (EST) on Oct 2, 2007

I'm pretty settled in between 180-185 now and I'm between 5'11 and 6' so that isn't bad. 175 is probably where I'd like to go but...I used to play hockey a couple times a week--it probably didn't help though that I'd go chug a few beers afterwards. I haven't skated probably in 3 years though. Inlines are great but parking lots and sidewalk really aren't good surfaces. And you don't want to fall or go skidding--not that it's great on the surface of a hockey rink but mostly you'll wind up with just surface burns you won't lose layers of skin. Parking lots aren't as smooth either--we used to screw around in this one which was part of an outdoor sports complex--they had goals--but no boards--the surface being macadam was uneven and you had to be conscious all the time and in the summer it can be really hot. Corning has an outdoor rink with a roof to it and a very smooth concrete surface--and they used to let anyone use it when they didn't have something going but not no more. So as far as excercise I do much more boring stuff now.

posted by lriley at 6:25 pm (EST) on Sep 26, 2007

Bert--The counterlife will probably be the next Roth novel I get to--probably in a month or two. I've just finished Philip Levine's Ashes and I'm in the middle of an erotic kind of novel by Alina Reyes--Behind closed doors--and I'm about 75 pages into Dos Passos's 1919 which is the second book of his USA trilogy. That one will probably take a while. It's too hard for me to read more than one big book at a time--and with Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Faulkner, Dos Passos (speaking just of American writers)--all of them need a lot of focus. The Del Vecchio book lasted about 10 days and called for the same kind of attention.

Anyway I turned 50 yesterday and will probably update my personal info shortly. We're still working on the house. About 80% done. Mae seems to be flagging and at this point would rather put what's left off until spring. We're not really in agreement on that. Why give up when you're so close to the end? If the weather holds out maybe it'll get done but who knows at this point.

posted by lriley at 11:22 am (EST) on Sep 26, 2007

Bert, thanks for the Bolano recommendations. I haven't had much time for LT (or for reading) lately, but I look forward to buying and reading The Savage Detectives. Rebecca

posted by rebeccanyc at 8:27 am (EST) on Sep 26, 2007

Bert--the 13th valley review is done.

posted by lriley at 10:37 pm (EST) on Sep 23, 2007

Bert--I read the Khe Sahn book you recommended also. Vietnam for me was the news every night when I was a kid and I remember it always in the background at school as well as at home. My day was a WW II and a Korean vet though he didn't fight in Korea--his troopship was offshore (at least according to him) when the final armistice was signed. Khe Sahn was of a particular importance to him of course because they were Marines. His overall take would be of a failure at home and in congress--a betrayal of the military. Curiously his take on Iraq seems a lot different though when it comes to the military--especially the general officers they are like sacred cows.

The Del Vecchio book is going to be a 4 and a half I think. I liked it a lot--I liked particularly how he broke the unit down into squads--names, functions, the characterization of a diverse number of them is excellent. I also liked the philosophical and cultural discussions--though maybe hard to believe at times--it may be just my generation that came afterwards that began distancing itself from civics, ethics, literature and philosophy. It seems anyway that in the 50's and 60's people really did read and not just for entertainment all the time. Anyway I plan on reviewing the book over the weekend.

Other novels I have read would be Tim O'Brien's 'The things they carried' and 'Going after Cacciato' Stephen Wright's 'Meditations in Green' and Larry Heinemann's 'Paco's story' and 'Close quarters' and Kenn Miller's 'Tiger the Lurp dog' (the Miller being on a par with the Del Vecchio book IMO)--all good books. I have ordered James Webb's 'Fields of Fire' and another called 'The Barking deer' by an author who I can't remember his name right now--which is why I've said that book has perked my interest.

posted by lriley at 12:27 pm (EST) on Sep 21, 2007

Bert--I kind of stole one of your recommendations in a talk forum--The 13th valley by John Del Vecchio which I thought was excellent. You've kind of got me off into a Vietnam phase.

posted by lriley at 3:19 pm (EST) on Sep 20, 2007

Thanks so much for the info about "The Savage Detectives" -- I will look for it.

posted by rebeccanyc at 8:33 am (EST) on Sep 18, 2007

Actually, Bolano's 'Savage Detectives' was what I first went looking for after reading a great review in Publishers Weekly; however, it wasn't out yet, but 'Amulet' and at least one other was, so I chose 'Amulet.' But thanks for the tip. It's good to know someone in the LT world will not let me miss the good stuff:-) Best, Lois

posted by avaland at 7:45 pm (EST) on Sep 13, 2007

Bert--I just did a review on a novella by a Lebanese writer Etel Adnan which you might find interesting.

posted by lriley at 9:13 am (EST) on Sep 10, 2007

I was beginning to worry towards the end Bert whether he was going to blow it with a hokey ending but he pulled it off without a hitch. Anyway I'm debating on whether to give it the highest rating or not. I think I probably will. From what I've read about the disappearances it is right on the money and I knew when Pato was grabbed that neither Lillian or Kaddish would ever see him again but Englander does a fine job of keeping his novel from just descending into pathos. Great characterization all the way around. Completely believable--kept an underlying humor and did not turn it into a tearjerker like most other writers tackling would no doubt have. I was very impressed.

Anyway it's good to hear that your wife Lisa is making the most of her new country. Mae just had a birthday though and I got her camera--to replace the one she broke in Macy's on are last NYC trip in March. I'm not going to buy her anything else for the time being after she's had me slaving all summer on the house. I just came in from being on the roof--yanking down some of the old fascia--it must be about 110' up there. 10 minutes up and my t-shirt was soaked through. You can't wear shorts up there unless you want to barbecue yourself. Anyway we're coming along a lot better with it. Still planning on March--though it might be the first week April. We have to decide what game we want to see.

posted by lriley at 1:13 pm (EST) on Sep 6, 2007

Bert--I don't know if you're back yet. I'm almost finished with Englander's Argentina book and I really like it a lot. I think I'm going to be buying all of his stuff.

posted by lriley at 12:27 pm (EST) on Sep 5, 2007

Well have a good trip Bert. We'll keep plugging away here. The Englander thing does sound intriguing though. Mail ordered it from the Strand.

posted by lriley at 12:07 pm (EST) on Aug 18, 2007

Bert--noticed a book by Nathan Englander--I'm sure you've heard of him--The Ministry of special cases--which is a novel at least somewhat about the Argentine dirty war. Have just ordered it and wondered if you've heard of the book?

posted by lriley at 1:44 pm (EST) on Aug 16, 2007

Bert--I have read Bartleby and Co.--It is very good. I don't think I did a review of it though. A lot of literary allusions in it. He's very clever.

posted by lriley at 8:15 am (EST) on Aug 13, 2007

Bert--it's a great book. As you probably know the Postal Service in the past anyway has always employed many veterans--particularly disabled ones--so I've gotten to know a few traumatized ones over the course of my employment. Comparing the suffering and the psychological problems of at least a couple of them to the Les Farley character drawn by Roth is not a big reach. There are two VA clinics that are close by--one in Bath NY and the other in Sayre PA. Most of the veterans here go to the one in Bath. The two people I've thought most about as far as their treatment were on all kinds of medication--constantly it seems being tweaked and I've in the past wondered whether pharmaceutical companies use these centers as kind of conduits to test new drugs out on vets using them as kind of human guinea pigs--there seemed to be a game going on with one of the above and maybe a couple others to get their disability payments increased by adding more medications. That one has been retired for the last few years and I hear things about him now and again and none of it is good. Painful because he was a very sharp and funny guy up until the last couple years.

Anyway there are a lot of other themes in the book--on race and public hypocrisy over morals. It's really well set up--a very fine piece of work.

posted by lriley at 12:14 pm (EST) on Aug 9, 2007

Bert--ordered two of the books from your Vietnam books comment in the War fiction thread that would be the 13th valley and the Khe Sahn non-fiction book. Getting towards the end of 'The human stain' and like it a lot. It wasn't a real quick start but has been going very nicely after say the first third of the book.

posted by lriley at 4:56 pm (EST) on Aug 7, 2007

The thing is Bert when we were off for two weeks--we'd go at it every day but at the end of it wehadidn't get very far. We'd make progress say on one day--she'd think about it later and the next day we'd wind up tearing it all down and doing it all over. Personally I just want to do it and get it done but my tendency is to put it all aside when we're not working on it.

Anyway The Savage Detectives is a great great book all the way through. I'm guessing we'll both think it the best book we'll read this year.

posted by lriley at 5:12 pm (EST) on Aug 3, 2007

Bert--last year was terrible for us. Had to rebuild the garage because as we found out we had no headers on one side and the concrete floor had shifted and cracked which knocked the electronic door out of whack. Then we had a problem with our 2nd bathroom and that all got replaced and enlarged. This year we decided we could do the siding ourselves but we have had contractors in once on it already when we got stalemated on the corner posts. In some respects we're in over our heads but we have been making progress lately. Mae and I don't always work well together. The arguments can get heated and we've probably entertained the neighbors now and again. I'd like to be a lot further ahead. She wants to make sure everything is as perfect as possible.

Anyways trips are always fun. If nothing else planning for them gives you something to look forward to.

posted by lriley at 1:20 am (EST) on Aug 3, 2007

Bert--no it's not a discussion thing--it's more of a formal acknowledgement kind of thing I guess. There's a connection thing on everyone's page now. Where you click on names of people you have as friends and info pops about it--there's also an interesting libraries things where people can keep track of things such as someone's recent additions. It's all in the top corner of a person's page--aboe books you share. LT continuing to work in user friendly innovations. I've started Roth's Human Stain but am not making great progress yet. I'm in the 90's. Also working on Gert Ledig's Payback which is a WWII novel about an allied bombing mission on an unnamed German city. Almost a look at everything from the top down and from both sides militarily with the German population cowering in the middle. Ledig describes things at various levels. Very mordant and sometimes dark dark humor. Ledig lost some fingers and part of his jaw on the Russian front-was finally sent home and participated albeit I'm sure haplessly in one of these raids or maybe two. I think the title infers a lot--the Germans did bring it on themselves--beyond the Holocaust and everything else--they were the first carpet bombers in Spain and later on France and Britain.

Anyway been looking up info on an Italian (?) or a Hungarian (?) writer named Giogio Pressburger. Seems interesting.

One reason I'm not getting too far reading these days is this damned house of ours. We finally turned a corner. Today we've been putting furring strips up around the windows. This siding business takes a lot of time, energy and thought.

You must be on your way to Buenos Aires pretty soon?

posted by lriley at 3:21 pm (EST) on Aug 2, 2007

Bert--The counterlife showed up today and it looks excellent--from reading the blurb. Thank you very much. We're busy reading Jean Claude Izzo's 'Solea' the last of his Marseilles trilogy--French mediterranean noir and David Mitchell's 'Black Swan Green'--an excellent British writer--also getting close to the end of Mark Z. Danielewski's 'Only revolutions' which is kind of a road novel in verse half narrated by two forever 16 year olds--Sam and Hailey who set out on the road together in the 1860's--the novel finishing in the future. Alongside the verse at least until 2006 are lists of historical persons and benchmarks in history. It's interesting and like his House of Leaves--the format of the book is very unusual.

posted by lriley at 3:27 pm (EST) on Jul 19, 2007

Bert--I know you'll be going on a Buenos Aires trip soon and thought the Mutis novellas would possibly be a good thing to take with you and as for The Counterlife that will give me two Roth's to read at as The Human Stain showed up a short time ago. Any opinion on The Seven madmen? I should have asked you before. I'm a bit of a slacker at times I guess.

posted by lriley at 5:22 pm (EST) on Jul 17, 2007

Bert--our e-mail is lriley1@stny.rr.com--which is as I see on my page--if you want to check that's a one after the y in riley. I'll put you in our address book so you don't get blocked. Roth's Human Stain came today by the way.

posted by lriley at 12:39 pm (EST) on Jul 6, 2007

I was surprised really Bert. The best option would have been one of them and re-signing Nylander short term--2 years. He'll be 35 in September so I think his days of being effective are limited--there are also problems with cap issues for older players. Nylander wanted much more than that and from the perspective of here right now I'd rather have the younger Drury and Gomez. Can't blame Nylander though. Gomez is a guy who is very good as a setup man. Good defensively. Very fast and shifty and can move the puck from one end of the rink to the other. Not a great finisher. He's only 27 so there are no age issues with him. Drury I thought was a possibility because he's from Conneticut and grew up going to the Garden and was a Ranger fan as a kid. He's older. Not quite the puck mover as Gomez but a clutch player. Both have won cups. Thing with Nylander is he and Jagr had some almost unreal chemistry--Jagr by the way has made noises several times about returning to Europe in a couple seasons (another reason not to give Nylander more than 2 more years). He (Nylander) can drive you nuts by the way. Patient with the puck to the extreme and he will turn down glorious scoring chances to make a pretty play to someone else--which doesn't always work. The big thing with us right not is getting Lundqvist, Avery and Shanahan re-signed. Lundqvist especially though Avery is not only a good player but one nasty nasty hombre--a premier agitator--lots and lots of character. Lundqvist though has been as amazing a goalie as anyone else in the last couple years. Things are really looking up--but always best to keep your fingers crossed.

posted by lriley at 9:44 pm (EST) on Jul 5, 2007

Just wanted to say thanks for your message and that I will certainly look out for your other recommendations of The Peron Novel and The 7 Madmen.
Enjoy your trip to BA,
Z

posted by zojo at 8:36 am (EST) on Jul 5, 2007

Bert--Complete Review has a short article on a Adolfo Bioy Casares biography of Borges. Seems to have been recently published in Spanish--2006 but not yet available in English if I'm reading it right. We're still messing about with the house and not making a lot of progress--though some today--Mae's brother came up--and he knows what he's doing but it was raining hard all day and that slowed us down a lot. Both of us got soaked through pretty thoroughly before we finally quit. In the meantime slowly going through Pamuk's My name is red--I am just over half done. Started Mark Z. Danielewski's Only Revolutions.

posted by lriley at 8:10 pm (EST) on Jul 4, 2007

Looked at the article for conversational reading. Artemio Cruz is the best thing I've read of Fuentes. Going further down the page they interview Chris Andrews--Bolano's translator who plugs Raymond Queneau.

posted by lriley at 8:15 am (EST) on Jul 2, 2007

Celine is interesting to me. The only son of a petit bourgeois family. His mother a small shopowner specializing in lace. His father an insurance clerk. Some of the biases of his class--including the anti-semitism seemed to stay with him all his life. He struggled with his class in other ways. He dwells on the past--sentimentalizes it in some ways--but very profane at times, lyrical at others--a lot of black humor. The thing about his doctor is interesting too. He more or less began and did a lot of the studying and work--passing exams on his own--not going to any university until his future father in law--the one who's daughter he would divorce--kind of adopted him a few years into it. That father in law stuck by him somewhat even afterwards. He's opinionated and resentful--sometimes paranoiac about injustices whether personal or societal. He can be violently funny. There can also be a kind of sadness in it.

Anyway the Rangers are having quite a day of it--signing Scott Gomez off their arch rivals the Devils and Chris Drury from Buffalo. Lots and lots of money. We're off now for the next two weeks but not going anywhere--which is very unusual. We're re-siding the house. I'm capable enough to be able to do grunt work--hammering, unscrewing, screwing, climbing ladders and tearing things apart but when it comes to real figuring and mechanical aptitude I'm pretty much an imbecile. It's a good thing Mae's family is strong in that particular area.

posted by lriley at 8:33 pm (EST) on Jul 1, 2007

Miller wrote Tropic of Cancer using Celine's Journey to the end of the night as a kind of model. He said something along the lines that after reading that he felt freed--able to write. No more suicide attempts. I would say Heller also used the same work by Celine--the first 100 pages anyway to write Catch 22. Those first 100 pages are all about the absurdity of war from the POV of those in the thick of it and from the POV of those on the sideline. Journey is also interesting for its portraits of colonial Africa, NYC and Henry Ford's Detroit in the 1920's. And then it's back to France to the slums of Paris. Celine for some time was quite the traveller. He got himself a fairly high position in the League of Nations--he was a highly regarded epidemologist--before he dumped his wife and child, quit that position and started practicing I believe in the Drancy slum. That would be around 1930 which is when he started writing. The first world war haunted him. A bullet had severed a nerve in his shoulder--there was some kind of traumatic head injury and he suffered from chronic insomnia--often talking about noises in his head--reminded him most often of the Paris subway. He was quite the womanizer too. Onto his anti-semitism--Andre Gide thought he was fooling around with the public's collective heads. I don't think so. It's funny though that he kept up a correspondence with the Jewish art historian Elie Faure almost up to the German invasion of his country. A complicated human being who shut the doors on at least one corner of his brain.

posted by lriley at 8:09 am (EST) on Jul 1, 2007

I've never read anything by either Lewis or Wharton. Steinbeck can be hit and miss for me though I tend to like his general drift. One of my favorite american writers is Flannery O'Connor. Wiseblood is a great book. Hemingway IMO is a bit overrated. I've read a lot of his. I'm a bit dodgy in spots in American Literature. I like some of the more profane like Henry Miller or Charles Bukowski. Joseph Heller's Catch 22 better than Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces--another great book. John Hawkes also an excellent writer (The lime twig) though not all that well known. Philip Levine might be my favorite american poet. Others I like would be Madison Smartt Bell, Norman Mailer, William Kennedy, Hubert Selby Jr., Gilbert Sorrentino, David Mamet--and then the Roth's, Delillo's, Auster's, McCarthy's. Should put a plug in for Mark Z. Danielewski's 'House of Leaves'--may be a stretch in some respects but may also be as ambitious American work in the second half of the 20th century as anything else I've read.

posted by lriley at 1:25 pm (EST) on Jun 30, 2007

Bert--picked up that Murakami title that day at the Strand. Liked it a lot. He has great tone. I can see why he's so popular. Today I finally finished the Roa Bastos book 'Son of man' and also William McIlvanney's (a Scot) Laidlaw--which is an odd kind of police novel. Odd in that the police detective named Laidlaw is quite a non-conformist non-linear kind of thinker. It was very good. Jargoneer here clued me into McIlvanney several months ago. Now I'll have to think what's next. It may be Pamuk's 'My name is Red'. Currently no unread Philip Roth books around. I've been looking about in his catalogue--The human stain might be a good one or Operation Shylock or I married a communist or the one about the Lindbergh's. Any suggestions on that? De Lillo has a 'Falling man' out now too. Looking at a Polish writer named Stasiuk. Ondaatje has a new book out. Jean Echenoz--very good writer has a new one out and there's still a couple Bolano books I'm waiting patiently for the price to come down on and David Mitchell's 'Black Swan Green'. Mitchell is a fantastic writer--an Englishman who has spent quite a lot of time in Japan and many of his novels center around Asian--particularly Japanese characters. Yesterday I ordered the last book of the Jean Claude Izzo's Marseille Trilogy--which is called Solea.

I know it's summer--and very very hot to boot but the hockey business never really ends. The amateur draft on friday-saturday. More or less a very mediocre one with only a relatively few top notch prospects. The Rangers had no business getting one of them picking at 17 (they should have been all gone by 7 or 8) but as luck would have it they did--so in Rangerland we feel very fortunate at the moment. July 1st begins the free agent season.

posted by lriley at 2:11 pm (EST) on Jun 26, 2007

I got started Bert and then interrupted that day and haven't got back to it. Sorry about that--I think I forgot about it until the novel he translated popped up yesterday. It's around here somewhere. Probably won't get to it this weekend though if I do find it as today and tomorrow is the NHL draft a particular point of yearly focus for rabid hockey fans. Often lots of trades go down on draft day. I did see though that he had a number of books over at half.com--maybe as many as 50.

posted by lriley at 12:00 pm (EST) on Jun 22, 2007

Was checking out this Internationl noir site and saw a book by a Bolivian Juan de Recacoechea--American Visa. Seems that it was translated by Ilan Stavans. At the Complete Review they have a new review on Mario Vargas Llosa--A writer's reality--most of it seems to have been taken from lectures VL has given on his own work but apparently he does use 1 of his 8 chapters on the works of Jorge Luis Borges.

posted by lriley at 1:31 am (EST) on Jun 22, 2007

I saw that we share an interest in poetry. I thought you might get a kick out of my book Anarchy Bell. It's unlike any poetry book you've ever read, I can guarantee it. It's viewable at Suburban Fiction.com

posted by virgingloves at 11:58 pm (EST) on Jun 21, 2007

That's not bad Bert. Of course I'm not a fisherman. My wife's family are though it's mostly been fresh water--lakes and streams that they do although again her uncle used to live in Connecticut and would go out on the ocean. Anyway how big were they? I was at the DMV today with my daughter who took the test and got her learner's permit. $75. That's a lot steeper I think than what I paid. She's excited though and she's scheduled for courses this summer which is another reason why we're staying put this year. I expect we'll be heading back to NYC late February or March to see the Rangers and a play or two. I think that's going to be kind of regular. Just finished 'The Bear' passage from Go Down Moses which means I'll probably finish tomorrow. I like it and I can see the Cormac McCarthy comparisons--also Claude Simon.

posted by lriley at 5:22 pm (EST) on Jun 21, 2007

If you haven't got to the Savage Detectives that would be a good one Bert. Argentine wise Sabato or Giardinelli would be good ones. It doesn't look like we're going anywhere this summer which will be the first time since before we were married. That was almost 17 years ago. We're going to reside the house. Should be intersting. Good luck on your fishing.

posted by lriley at 1:28 am (EST) on Jun 21, 2007

All in all it makes me glad I live here Bert. The Faulkner book is Go down, Moses. It's pretty good. It's been years since I've read anything of his. Finished a short work by Auster yesterday--The red notebook. Hope to have a review on it in the next couple days. Now I've headed back to South America--to Paraguay with Augusto Roa Bastos's 'Son of Man'. He's known for 'I the Supreme' a dictator novel set in the early part of the 19th century. 'Son of man' is set in the 1930's--so far that is very good too. I'll have to revive our Argentine-South America group pretty soon and maybe with a report on this.

posted by lriley at 11:23 am (EST) on Jun 20, 2007

Bert--I don't know if you've ever been over there. I haven't. It's easy to understand a different perspective if you're under siege all the time. One thing I find disappointing with our govt. for many many years is that as much as they've meddled in this region or that they continue to prop up dictators when it serves their interests--much of this is because of the money and power involved but the emirs and monarchs stand squarely in the way of all progress. I recently read a book by John Dinges--The Condor years--chronicling the intelligence alliance between Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil in the 70's and 80's--later on Brazil dropped out but Peru and another country joined--all run by military right wing dictatorships at the time and always with the tacit support of the US--though Carter seemed at least for the most part showed interest in human rights. They coordinated chasing to earth not only the guerilla organizations but also peaceful and democratically inclined opponents. They chased them down even outside their region and it was the assassination of one Orlando Letelier in Washington DC that finally got some people here concerned enough to question whether this was a good thing. The CIA, State dept. and FBI especially when Kissinger was running the show had even been providing a lot of technical support to the Condor organization. Eventually it was from crimes that Operation Condor committed that Pinochet was indicted. I just have an idea that throughout the Middle East some of our so-called allies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait etc. are doing pretty much the same things today. At least in those South American countries there had been a history of democratic elections though--not much of that exists in the Middle East--Lebanon and Israel off the top of my head are the only ones that seem to elect govt.'s. I don't think anything positive is going to happen in that region for a long time.

posted by lriley at 6:38 am (EST) on Jun 17, 2007

Bert--Faulkner's As I lay dying is a great book. Very funny. The other one of his that I liked a lot is The sound and the fury. Going into Gert Ledig next. The Stalin front. It's a NYRB. 'Ledig's deliberately intense, uncompromising style conjured up the ghost of anarchy at a time when the [German] economic miracle was already on its way. Leding evoked the fears of general dissolution that threatened the collapse of all order, with humans running wild and descending into lawlessness and irreversible ruin. His novels...were excluded from cultural memory because they threatened to break through the cordon sanitaire cast around the death zones.'--W. G. Sebald

posted by lriley at 5:21 pm (EST) on Jun 15, 2007

Soprano's last show tonight. I'm betting like most I think that Tony gets whacked.

posted by lriley at 9:35 am (EST) on Jun 10, 2007

Bert--I think you'd like Buida. I've heard of Englander. I think he has something new out even.

Delillo--I've read a few times. Libra but not End Zone. Mao II, Cosmopolis, The body artist and a play Love-lies-bleeding. Underworld and Great Jones Street lying around the house. I do like White Noise quite a bit. Have to get back to Roth on something soon too. I don't know what. I don't think I have anything of his around the house unread.

posted by lriley at 6:35 am (EST) on Jun 10, 2007

Bert--The Zero train by Yuri Buida is really good. I just did a review of it.

posted by lriley at 12:09 pm (EST) on Jun 9, 2007

Bert--thought I'd say hello. Viciously humid here and I have a summer cold. Anyway I've been reading Delillo's White Noise and Yuri Buida's The Zero train.
The Zero train is almost like a fable. Set in the Stalin years--an orphan is plunked down in the middle of the wilderness with a few other people--their mission in life is to make sure all goes well along a railroad track. Once every day year at the same exact time year after year after year a train with 2 locomotives in front--100 sealed boxcars--two locomotives in back passes their small station. They are the ninth siding of station. The penalty for screwing up is death. It's a bit of a satire.

posted by lriley at 1:14 am (EST) on Jun 9, 2007

Bert--There are several translated books by Bioy Casares--at least going by a search I conducted here. I can always find something for you by him if you'd like. He also has a 'Borges' which may be a biography and may or may not have been translated. I'll have to see if I can find out more about it. One writer he reminds me of would be Celine's pal Marcel Ayme. He made a career out of creating ordinary characters in ordinary settings dealing with unusual situations and/or fantastical occurences. I'm thinking of a couple Czech writers too--Hrabal a little, Karel Capek or maybe even another Frenchman Boris Vian.

posted by lriley at 1:14 am (EST) on May 30, 2007

Bert--It's been a while. Starting a book by Bioy Casares this morning Asleep in the sun. Also working on The Condor years by John Dinges which is about the intelligence network of several South American countries set up by the Pinochet dictatorship that tortured and assassinated its way around the globe. That one's going a little slowly. A lot of footnotes.

posted by lriley at 1:32 am (EST) on May 29, 2007

Bert--I wasn't aware of that. I'll have to look it up at the website. I did see a copy on Addall for $45 pertaining to a college course. All the others like you said were $200 and above. What's going to happen to those prices if and when Murakami okays a publisher to reprint it again--we might see them come down. Heading to Ithaca today. We've gotten to the end of the Ithaca library sale which has been running the past 3 weekends. I've been practicing fiscal restraint as the prices were very high at the beginning $4.50 for a harcover (not hard to spend a couple hundred at the beginning) and today everything (hardcover, trade) is ten cents. I expect they've been picked through pretty good but there are always some gems around at the end and at this point you can't beat the price.

posted by lriley at 6:30 am (EST) on May 20, 2007

Bert--the Ilan Stavans article or story showed up today. Thank you. I'll try to get to it over the weekend and/or the next few days. As for the Rangers--from playoff failure I always immediately take a crash course in that years upcoming amateur draft--which is towards the end of June--so I've been trying to figure out potential draft picks and player movement--so in a sense I never really take a break though the summer tends to be my time to hibernate. The Bartleby and Co. book by Vila-Matas you might like. It's kind of a novel made out of footnotes. A lot of literary figures making appearances. Kafka, Borges, Pynchon, B. Traven, Julien Gracq, Blanchot, Gombrowicz, Melville, Rimbaud, Salinger, Miguel Torga, Pessoa, Celan, Beckett, Tabucchi even shows up--he jumps around from the 19th century pretty much up to today. Lot of obscurer writers too or at least ones I never heard of and I have a tendency to find some obscure ones.

posted by lriley at 1:23 pm (EST) on May 18, 2007

Many thanks for that Bert. Savage Detectives is great. I haven't read Amulet but it was a step above Distant Star and By Night in Chile and they were very good in their own right. At the moment I'm reading Pubis Angelical by Manuel Puig one of the most famous Latin American writers but one I've only read once before. Also Bartleby & Co. by a Spaniard Enrique Vila-Matas. That one is constructed of numerous references and asides to other literary works--most notably of writers with only a few or even one work. He works a lot of names into his text though--even more prolific writers.

posted by lriley at 1:08 pm (EST) on May 15, 2007

Carlotto spent time in prison for a crime he didn't commit--or to put it another way he was later completely exonerated and freed--and met Mafioso inside--his novels are based on some of the stories he heard there. Sciascia grew up in Sicily--became a Communist I believe although he may have switched to socialism later. He was a member of the Italian parliament--also if I'm not mistaken. Maybe I'll look him up on Wikipedia. He never uses the word Mafia at least in the ones I've read--as his stories unfold though you get a very good idea of who and what he's talking about and how it as an organization works. He is a very elegant writer--Carlotto is more straightforward and the action in his novels is more graphic--more noirish.

posted by lriley at 9:22 pm (EST) on May 12, 2007

Carlotto spent time in prison for a crime he didn't commit--or to put it another way he was later completely exonerated and freed--and met Mafioso inside--his novels are based on some of the stories he heard there. Sciascia grew up in Sicily--became a Communist I believe although he may have switched to socialism later. He was a member of the Italian parliament--also if I'm not mistaken. Maybe I'll look him up on Wikipedia. He never uses the word Mafia at least in the ones I've read--as his stories unfold though you get a very good idea of who and what he's talking about and how it as an organization works. He is a very elegant writer--Carlotto is more straightforward and the action in his novels is more graphic--more noirish.

posted by lriley at 9:21 pm (EST) on May 12, 2007

He doesn't tend to like fiction. In any case Massimo Carlotto and Leonardo Sciascia would both fit better IMO on novelistic things Mafioso in Italy. Have you ever tried those two?

posted by lriley at 2:57 pm (EST) on May 11, 2007

Bert--Paddywhacked goes back to the 1840's or so and the first chapters are about the New York gang wars between Irish immigrants and the natives who preceded them--somewhat depicted by Scorcese in Gangs of New York. It moves all over the US after that. It's interesting. I've read the Westies book by English also. In Paddywhacked he boils the Westies story down into a couple chapters. I have a friend at work--an Italian who is interested in anything gangster related. Movies, books etc. He's clear about not being a Sicilian though. Though fascinated by all things Mafia he considers the Sicilians to be almost a bastard race. The Sopranos by his account are Napolitans--not Sicilians. They come from Avelino. What do I know? The part on the Boston Winter Hill gang actually was the most fascinating to me.

posted by lriley at 12:10 pm (EST) on May 11, 2007

I have another by Tosches but it's not the Sonny Liston book. Actually I like boxing or at least when you have two going at each other. Some matches are real snorers.

Anyway Bert if you find the time you should look up Propaganda Due on Wikipedia. Also take note that from that topic you can click on to "strategy of tension" their so called modus operandi described as--'a way to control and manipulate public opinion using, fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provacateurs as well as false flag terrorist actions (including bombings)'--sounds very much like the leadup to Iraq wouldn't you say? Dario Fo's excellent play Accidental death of an Anarchist describes the events after a bank bombing in Milan where an anarchist scapegoat was arrested and murdered to cover up just such an escapade by a violent right wing group and its benefactors to spread panic among the electorate. Fo's play--is very serious though presented in his usual very comical Marx brothers kind of way. He's a particular favorite of mine and his Nobel prize won in the late 90's had a lot of people grinding their teeth.

posted by lriley at 10:08 pm (EST) on May 10, 2007

Bert--did a couple reviews today--including Cozarinky's book.

posted by lriley at 10:03 am (EST) on May 10, 2007

Well that's very kind of you Bert. I'll be looking forward to it. Weather is very nice today though maybe a touch too warm. I've been reading The lizard's tail by another Argentine--Luiza Valenzuela--it's main character is loosely based on a man named Lopez Rega--a very sinister figure in the Isabel Peron government--the founder of the Triple A--a very violent right wing group known to have committed a number of assassinations. I believe also a member of Propaganda due--a Masonic like sect first started in Italy by a Mussolini henchman named Licio Gelli. Among its membership in Italy were any number of industrialists, top military brass, politicians including Berlusconi, high ranking intelligence and police officials, banking and media tycoons and Cardinals and bishops in the Vatican. There was a huge scandal in the 80's. Another name--Michele Sindona who was murdered in an American prison. There was another man who hung himself underneath a bridge in London around that time. I'm a little weak on some of the details although I do have a book mainly about Sindona around here somewhere--Power on Earth by Nick Tosches. Anyway apart from Italians there were a few Argentine members of the group 'saving the Southern Cone for christianity (or their version of it) and democracy by anti-christian/democratic means--and they were some of the main players Admirals and Generals who were responsible for what's come to be known as the dirty war. They include Videla, Massera, Suarez Mason and Lopez Rega.

posted by lriley at 6:38 pm (EST) on May 9, 2007

Thanks Bert. The review is nowhere near as good as the book is. It's a fun read too. Really enjoyed it.

posted by lriley at 6:23 pm (EST) on May 7, 2007

Thanks Bert. The review is nowhere near as good as the book is. It's a fun read too. Really enjoyed it.

posted by lriley at 6:23 pm (EST) on May 7, 2007

There are silver linings by the way. The team did (as last year) make very good progress overall. The other thing is I don't have to stay up late anymore and I can get all the anxiety back under control.

posted by lriley at 12:25 pm (EST) on May 7, 2007

Some things just aren't meant to be Bert. Wait until next season. Actually for me next season just began. Did a review on The Savage Detectives by the way today. Good to hear you've started on Arlt.

posted by lriley at 12:23 pm (EST) on May 7, 2007

A bad loss for sure Bert. I only watched the first two periods and didn't get to see the team blow up so I am maybe not as depressed as some others. The virtues of getting up at 2 am to go to work. Anyway I'm doing my best to remain as calm as possible.

Started The Bride from Odessa by Cozarinsky. I'm not sure if you recommended him to me or if I just stole his name and title from spying on your library but anyway so far it is very very good--so many thanks. I'm also up to page 500 of The Savage Detectives and hope to finish tomorrow.

posted by lriley at 5:58 pm (EST) on May 5, 2007

Bert-I always thought for us to win it would be going 7. Maybe we have them where we want them. All in all the better team on the ice won tonight. Back to MSG and hopefully we'll get a better effort and go back to Buffalo for a 7th game.

posted by lriley at 2:35 am (EST) on May 5, 2007

Bert--it was a big win for sure. The officiating at least as regards us was pretty horrible. We pulled it out anyway. I like using the word 'we' when talking about my hockey team. A lot of emotional investment over the years.

Arlt takes you all over Buenos Aires too. You can follow a lot of the action with a street map. I think I like Pereira declares the best of the Tabucchi books I've read.

I'm about half way through The Savage Detectives. It's very very good. A lot of literary names being worked in throughout. A Spanish writer I like a lot Juan Marse makes an appearance on page 204. This is a book I can see myself reading again but I'm not so sure I could describe it very well--at least as of now.

posted by lriley at 8:23 pm (EST) on Apr 29, 2007

Bert--I don't know--my thinking cap is running a bit on empty lately. These Rangers can be very distracting and the subsequent energy involved in watching and hoping can be very draining when you're working the kind of hours I do. I took a rain check on last nights game and feel a little bit better now even though they did lose despite according to what I'm reading outplaying Buffalo. I must mention I have always felt a bit of antipathy towards that city. It's just one more place to pass through if you're going to Toronto. Anyway Suttree is very very good--at least to me. Talent wise him and Roth might be on a par. The Bolano book so far is really good but I've still got about 400 pages to go.

posted by lriley at 2:34 am (EST) on Apr 28, 2007

Bert--I was looking at the Roberto Bolano profile on wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Bol...

Anyway it seems he was a big fan of my Nicanor Parra. Also a big fan of Jorge Luis Borges. I noted a couple writers who were friends of his Enrique Vila-Matas who I've heard of and thought of buying something of his and Rodrigo Fresan. The other novel of his mentioned 2666 is supposed to come out sometime in the near future and it looks like a big one--maybe 1100 pages.

posted by lriley at 3:58 pm (EST) on Apr 27, 2007

Bert--did my Suttree review. It's not very long though.

posted by lriley at 2:44 pm (EST) on Apr 25, 2007

Yes I have lots and lots myself Bert. I finished Suttree by McCarthy and started on Bolano's The Savage Detective by they way. 40 pages in and so far it's fantastic.

posted by lriley at 2:35 am (EST) on Apr 25, 2007

I was only there once--several years ago. I have a brother who lives out in the Seattle area. It's the best book store I've ever been in--actually until Half.com which is a bookstore inside your house of everything under the sun.

I know you've mentioned Cozarinsky to me before--I just went on the previous mentioned site and ordered the Bride from Odessa. The Moldavian Pimp came up at $50.79 there but its imprint is Harvill (British) like its translator Nick Caistor and it was published in 2006. It may take a year or two but usually those books make their way over here either as used imports or an American publisher picks the rights up on them. Harvill is a pretty classy publisher and I have to think that someone here has taken note of it.

posted by lriley at 4:49 pm (EST) on Apr 23, 2007

Hi Bert,

Thanks for your comment on Pearls of Wisdom. It seems we only have two books in common, but they are good ones.

Cheers from Oz,

Alana.

ps. my father was also born in NYC. He was a relative of Leo Gorcey, which was also my birth name (do you know of him? Involved in theatre I believe). Sadly I never new my father nor have I been to his city of birth, but would love to someday.

posted by camelspit at 10:25 pm (EST) on Apr 22, 2007

Bert--there's no denying it's a great store but there is a but--if you ever go to Portland Ore. you have to go to Powells. Powells is the Strand x 3. It is absolutely huge. Takes up a whole city block. Love the way they lay it out their shelves too. Lots of space to move in. Sometimes several versions of the same book sitting next to each other from used, brand new, trade, 1st ed. etc. at a variety of prices. I think it's 2 stories but it might be 3. It was absolutely awesome.

posted by lriley at 4:31 pm (EST) on Apr 22, 2007

Bert--4 bucks isn't much. I might go with that.

posted by lriley at 2:32 am (EST) on Apr 21, 2007

Bert--hardcover copies of it are on half.com at 0.75 + 3.25 for shipping. I don't know what it is at bookmooch but could it be less than that? Anyway that might be the best way to go. By the way I've about 50-60 pages left on the Aleph and other stories and I like it quite a bit. It's funny but the more I read of Borges's fiction the more a chord seems to be struck. Maybe it's old age or something. I have not got to your Monk Eastman story yet--probably this weekend when I'm done with The Aleph. I'm about half way through McCarthy's Suttree also which is also very good--the main character being a man living in a houseboat along a river in the very early 1950's in Knoxville Tenn.

posted by lriley at 2:22 pm (EST) on Apr 20, 2007

Yes I saw--basically I think I felt a little blindsided with the computer problem and it took a bit of focus away. The other posters are right though that there are other writers that certainly belong on the list too. I have only read Bioy Casares once--there are a couple works of fiction of his though the were co-written with Borges if I'm not mistaken. They were apparently great friends. The Ocampo sisters I was also vague about. Whatever--everyone will always have some holes--and that's good. Manuel Puig was also very important and one of the more popular writers to ever come out of Argentina but I've only read him once and that was long, long ago. There is also a Roberto Juarroz--a very important poet. Other names I missed on going back into the first half of the 20th century are Macedonio Fernandez who I'm not sure there is an English translation on or not and Eduardo Mallea. Wish there were more women for me to cite than Luisa Valenzuela too but you go with what you got. One good writer from Montevideo which is almost Argentina--would be Christina Peri Rossi.

posted by lriley at 3:52 pm (EST) on Apr 18, 2007

Bert--I'm sorry--a couple days ago I posted it. I was having problems though and had to do it in two sections as the post kept bouncing back up the window box--very annoying. I'm not sure I'm all that happy with how it came out but c'est la vie.

posted by lriley at 2:28 am (EST) on Apr 18, 2007

Bert--the Monk Eastman story came yesterday. Many many thanks. As luck would have it my B & N order which includes Savage Detectives did also. I won't get to that until Suttree is done which might not be until the weekend or next week. I will start Borges's Aleph stories today though. Anyway back to work and once again thank you very much.

posted by lriley at 2:16 am (EST) on Apr 17, 2007

Bert--started my Argentine essay. It's going to be two parts I guess--not intentionally but for some reason the box I was writing in was bouncing me back up the screen and I got tired of wrestling with it. Anyway I'm 90 pages into a 470 pager with Suttree. Echoes of Faulkner and somewhat of Dos Passos. I like it but it's going to be a while.

posted by lriley at 9:43 am (EST) on Apr 16, 2007

Well thanks for sending me it Bert. I have an idea there is another Borges collection I'm going to be getting. Sorry about your Knicks--from what I understand though they're a young team and Knick fans have a lot to look forward to in the future. Anyway the Rangers went ahead 2 zip today. It got kind of nasty at the end but that's not anything unusual in the playoffs. We'll be getting around to Lourie I think pretty soon--just started Suttree by Cormac McCarthy today and that's going to take a while I'm sure--it's supposed to be one of his best ones though.

posted by lriley at 6:26 pm (EST) on Apr 14, 2007

Bert--Lourie is a translator also of Vladimir Voinovich for one and in Polish of Andrzej Szczypiorski and Tadeusz Konwicki. Been looking around because his name seemed so familiar.

posted by lriley at 12:56 pm (EST) on Apr 13, 2007

Well I was looking in our B & N the other day and they didn't have it. I thought enough is enough. So I ordered it online from them. It's a lot longer than the other books of his we've seen so far. Anyway maybe we'll get to the Aleph stories of Borges next week. And the Rangers did win but they made us sweat over it. Oh well--it's a lot better than losing. I don't know if it's realistic to expect them to go all the way but they've already made progress over last years playoffs. I'd really like to see them get a round or two in anyway.

posted by lriley at 9:45 pm (EST) on Apr 12, 2007

Bert--I think that Eastman was aka Monk? I went looking through my Borges collections of stories which are Labyrinths, Ficciones, The book of sand, and The Aleph and no luck on that particular story--so I guess I haven't read it. Eastman has been mentioned in this one I'm reading--and in regard to the bootlegger William Dwyer who was the original owner if I'm not mistaken of the New York Rangers and also to a gangster named Owney Madden.

On another subject I finally broke down and ordere The Savage Detectives from Barnes and Noble--I had to figure what else to get to kick it over the $25 mark to get the free shipping and decided on Emile Zola's The fortune of the Rougons which was the first book of 20 in the Rougon-Macqaurt series about second empire France. I think I've read 16 or 17 of them but not the first of all.

posted by lriley at 8:32 am (EST) on Apr 11, 2007

As long as she enjoys herself that's the first thing--I am wondering about that though. She's involved in several clubs though too so she's involved. My son is a little different. His grades are very good but he's not much of a socializer. He has Asperger's and that can be a pill. Anyway one book I'm working on right now--is a true crime history Paddywhacked--which is a history of the Irish--or Irish American gangster going back into 1840's and up until the present. There is the Scorcese movie which seems to cover much of the same ground as the author does in his section of 1850's NYC. Some interesting stuff. The origin of the word sucker comes from the gaelic--sach ur (with a tense mark over the a and the u) meaning 'fresh, well fed fellow' or 'fat cat'.

posted by lriley at 12:06 pm (EST) on Apr 10, 2007

Bert--didn't know that. The British novelist Martin Amis I believe has fictionalized Stalin also. Anyway it's an early day for us--back and forth to the airport. It will be interesting to see how this works out. She hit 16 on March 16 and we've got her materials for a learner's permit--not trying to pressure her too much on it though with all the other stuff going on. Time for everything. She's a big reader too but it's mostly young adult stuff. She did read the Da Vinci code a few months back. She's interested in Spanish, English writing courses, art and music--is always trying out some new instrument. Tends to like more popular rock music of the day--Evanescence, Green Day, AFI, Coldplay all of which are very popular. Not necessarily my cup to tea but to each their own.

Anyway did my Russian thing on the Books combined group.

posted by lriley at 6:36 pm (EST) on Apr 9, 2007

Bert--no I haven't read the Lourie. Non fiction that might pertain would be Solzenhitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, Kapuscinski's Imperium and Richard Pipe's History of the Russian revolution. Anyway from the times today--front page of their entertainment section we have a story on the Sopranos. My daughter Tara is off to Disneyland or Disneyworld whichever one it is in Florida tomorrow with her high school marching band. She's excited and also a little anxious I think because she's never been on a trip on her own without us.

posted by lriley at 7:30 pm (EST) on Apr 8, 2007

I've read McCarthy only 3 times and realize I have some catching up to do. I have several of his books though it's just I have to work him into my rotation again. Suttree is probably the next of his I'll take on. I'll have to do another Roth soon too. Currently finishing up the Aksyonov book which is really good. Very much in the Tolstoyan vein and set in Stalin's time. I'm also in the middle of a noir styled french novel by a lady Fred (Fredrique?) Vargas which is about a serial killing middle ages buff set on loosing the bubonic plague. Some interesting historical detail but it's mainly an entertainment. It's pretty good too.

As for the Time's I've cut off my sunday subscription because I can get quite a bit cheaper at the local grocery store. I'll look up the article though at one of my sites--a lot of them hit on all the daily news stories.

posted by lriley at 3:06 pm (EST) on Apr 7, 2007

Problem is I am absolutely whipped right now. Been going through this insomnia thing for about two weeks--not all to blame on the Rangers. Anyway I do have next week off so I should okay after tomorrow. John in Ottawa by the way clued me in on a new group here--Books combined. I might--before the end of next week try to do a medley of Argentine literature--I think I'm going to try Russia first though centering it around a theme of fiction about the Stalin years.

posted by lriley at 12:56 pm (EST) on Apr 6, 2007

Complete review--a great site. I use it to reference a lot of things. I'll check out the list more thoroughly today when I get home from work. I saw Bolano coming in at 3 and 4. The savage detectives scoring really high. Anyway the Rangers made the playoffs and going to hit my hockey sites right now.

posted by lriley at 2:10 am (EST) on Apr 6, 2007

Bert--have tried to get to your 100 best spanish novels of the past 25 years--I'm just getting circumvented along the way and directed elsewhere when I click on it.

posted by lriley at 2:00 pm (EST) on Apr 5, 2007

The best work of Celine's is his first Journey to the end of the night. As he went on though he began to experiment more and more--using the three dots more and more. I don't know this for sure but I've always thought Journey was the model for Joseph Heller's Catch 22. Celine really worked hard at getting down a language that speaks directly to a reader while at the same time relating a narrative. With the dots it becomes almost a rhythmic spoken kind of language--very lyrical and poetic in one sense but also very ribald, hallucinatory and sometimes obscene and slangish--he often used argot--a kind of French lingo of the lower and criminal classes. He pushes the emotional buttons of his readers all the time. There are those who will not like him. His three last books--Castle to Castle, North (maybe his second best novel), Rigodoon relate on his World War II experiences although they have to be taken with a grain of salt--he does not follow the action of the armies at all. It's a sometimes fascinating look at the who's who of the refugees of Vichy France--with a number of very unflattering portraits of political figures scheming to win the German's favor and at the same time planning their escapes or defenses for the inevitable day of the Allied victory. Death on the Installment plan is also a great book and maybe my favorite title of all time--as is Guignol's band and it's sequel London bridge. I'm a big fan. Very close in style and in quality but way to the left of the political spectrum is the Belgian Louis Paul Boon. Keep in mind Georges Perec also. Life: A user's manual-- a fantastically concieved work. As is Raymond Queneau's Children of Clay and Robert Pinget's The Inquisitory.

posted by lriley at 10:12 pm (EST) on Apr 1, 2007

Not a bad idea at all with the alternative fuels Bert.

To go back to Perez Reverte for a moment--the other book I liked of his was 'The Queen of the South'--that one seems to have some rather mixed reviews from others though. Most of his work is very good though. The Club Dumas though is the best one to start with. I started with the Seville Communion which was good but not good enough to bring me back to him very quickly. It was a good three years I'm thinking before I read him again.

posted by lriley at 12:46 pm (EST) on Apr 1, 2007

Bert--not exactly sure on what happened with Argentina but Peron was a little power mad and fascistic in his own right. The Peron mythology is evident even in the minds of the argentine admirals and generals who came to power in the mid-70's and gave Argentina its dirty war--a fairly horrific event. Our own meddling in the politics previous to that in the Southern cone of South America--particularly Chile but also Argentina helped Pinochet to gain power. Kissinger while Carter was still President met with the Argentine generals to tell them that Carter (who was riding them hard on human rights abuses) was going to be a one term president and that the Republican that would replace him would give them carte blanche to do whatever they pleased--the funny thing is--they took that to mean among other things that they could take back the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands with our approval. Possibly the only blackly comic turn to this book I've read on the dirty war by John Simpson and Jana Bennett (two BBC reporters which is in my catalog but I can't think of the title right now) is the conversation between one of these generals and President Reagan when that general announces they've invaded--and Reagan is like What?!!!! knowing full well that his buddy Thatcher is not going to take that laying down.

posted by lriley at 6:45 pm (EST) on Mar 29, 2007

On Roosevelt's willingness to enter the war over the Jewish question--the answer is obvious--he wasn't. As it was there were ships not allowed to disembark Jewish refugees prior to our becoming involved--those ships circumnavigated a large section of the globe and got no reception anywhere. Some other factors--FDR did nothing to encourage the war against fascism in Spain--he did what most politicians do when they're not sure there is a political advantage to be gained--and that is nothing. He was also willing until the Pearl Harbor attack to watch from the sidelines as Western Europe came more and more under nazi domination. From the refusal by Britain (for one) to pay off war debt to us from World War I came the policy of pay as you go as for our selling off old warships and war material and food to them. They were just about bankrupt by the time we finally did enter--thanks to the Japanese. FWIW Roosevelt's domestic policies for the most part were a huge benefit to the country despite what hard line conservatives see as thinly veiled socialism (for instance--social security). As to his foreign policy there were a lot of mitigating factors. It's hard to understand however disallowing asylum to people who were in the desperate straits as almost all of those fleeing the Nazi regime for political or religious/cultural reasons--should be kept in mind however that United States although a powerful country at that time did not quite fit into an elite world power kind of a status--we were kind of a sleeping giant on the horizon--like China is today and keeping in mind that this idea about being a world power and or a world kind of policeman that so many in this country see us as today leaves IMO a bit to be desired. Then again there are no tyrants like Stalin, Hitler, Mao etc with so much control over vast amounts of territory and numbers of people.

posted by lriley at 2:35 pm (EST) on Mar 29, 2007

There is a Marc Estrin here with a c instead of a k.

posted by lriley at 12:39 pm (EST) on Mar 29, 2007

On Mark Estrin--no I haven't heard of him.

posted by lriley at 12:36 pm (EST) on Mar 29, 2007

Actually Bert--we're a bit stingy when it comes to our tv bill. I'd always hear about the show but never watched one until fairly recently. We've been buying the VHS versions of the seasons--because I can get them fairly cheap at the site I buy most of my books--say anywhere from $10-20 with shipping. We've made our way through season 3 with season 4 probably beginning this weekend. My favorites actually are Uncle Junior and Livia who unfortunately really did die but c'est la vie. Anyway though it's interesting that Tony stopped by to see your apartment. A funny show and for the most part very plausible. Kind of a soap opera gangster comedy. I like it quite a lot.

posted by lriley at 2:29 am (EST) on Mar 28, 2007

Ever watch the Sopranos? Find them to be kind of a hoot.

posted by lriley at 1:00 pm (EST) on Mar 27, 2007

Thanks Bert but the New Yorker article is online.

Another article on Yahoo about the famous Vargas Llosa--Garcia Marquez flap--with apparently Mario punching Gabriel in the eye.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070322/ap_e...

Bolano seems to have made himself a few enemies in a rather abbreviated literary career. I like him though as a writer--from the two times I've read him and do plan on reading him again--just holding out because I believe eventually I'll get his books at a better price than what I'm seeing. One can still read (and enjoy) the other writers he didn't care for in any case.

posted by lriley at 12:59 pm (EST) on Mar 27, 2007

hey l.-
did you ever see the long review of Bolano in the recent New Yorker?

It was quite good.

posted by berthirsch at 7:39 am (EST) on Mar 27, 2007

I used to be a real sports junky but not really anymore. When I was a kid I was baseball, baseball, baseball nuts and then football when it got colder--baseball was pretty much the favorite though until about 14 or 15. Then I added hockey and basketball. I used to like the Yankees and the Knicks but I don't really follow them at all anymore. Favorite yankees used to be Stottlemyre and Murcer. I remember Horace Clarke and Roy White--later on Guidry, Munson, Chambliss and Jackson and the Knicks Bradely and Frazier and Debusschere and Reed and Monroe amongst others--I never really followed college sports very much other than Div 2 hockey and that's because we have a local team--which was a very good one for a long time. That team made this area into kind of a hockey place. They do not heat their rink though and as I've gotten older I appreciated that fact less and less. Sitting for 3 hours or so in what amounted to a barn maybe 5 degrees warmer than what it was outside eventually wore down my resistance. It used to be quite a good time--some of us would arrive at the game an hour or so ahead of time--find a seat in the bleachers before they started selling tickets and watch the game for free--that seemed to go on for years. The next day we'd go back up for the open skate and after that back up in the bleachers looking for bottles or cans of beer--which we quite often found.

posted by lriley at 1:56 pm (EST) on Mar 26, 2007

I used to be a real sports junky but not really anymore. When I was a kid I was baseball, baseball, baseball nuts and then football when it got colder--baseball was pretty much the favorite though until about 14 or 15. Then I added hockey and basketball. I used to like the Yankees and the Knicks but I don't really follow them at all anymore. Favorite yankees used to be Stottlemyre and Murcer. I remember Horace Clarke and Roy White--later on Guidry, Munson, Chambliss and Jackson and the Knicks Bradely and Frazier and Debusschere and Reed and Monroe amongst others--I never really followed college sports very much other than Div 2 hockey and that's because we have a local team--which was a very good one for a long time. That team made this area into kind of a hockey place. They do not heat their rink though and as I've gotten older I appreciated that fact less and less. Sitting for 3 hours or so in what amounted to a barn maybe 5 degrees warmer than what it was outside eventually wore down my resistance. It used to be quite a good time--some of us would arrive at the game an hour or so ahead of time--find a seat in the bleachers before they started selling tickets and watch the game for free--that seemed to go on for years. The next day we'd go back up for the open skate and after that back up in the bleachers looking for bottles or cans of beer--which we quite often found.

posted by lriley at 1:56 pm (EST) on Mar 26, 2007

Yeah Bert I saw that and I've kept that section. By the way in between watching the Ranger game and reading this long novel I'm on--Generations of Winter by Vassily Aksyonov I finally got around to The Aleph and liked it a lot--one of the other stories mentioned at the end Emma Zunz--I've read also--in a bi-lingual edition of Latin American writers which I think was put out by Penguin several years ago. Anyway I ordered another short story collection by Borges with The Aleph being the title story.

The Rangers by the way are doing real well right now due mostly to defense and especially goaltending.

posted by lriley at 4:21 pm (EST) on Mar 25, 2007

I try to jump around a bit. I'll give a listen to most things. Sublime who've I've mentioned in my bio did a lot of ska/reggae mixed in punk somewhat also you'll find a bit of jazz and hip hop. The also did a number of covers--Bob Marley was a favorite for them, but also Bad Religion and the Grateful Dead were amongst other bands. Doin' time one of their best and best known songs was a reworking of the old standard Summertime. I do like a bit of agression at times--I just don't care for albums that sound the same the whole way through.

posted by lriley at 1:01 pm (EST) on Mar 22, 2007

Hey, bert, good to hear from you again, and though I'm not a real serious book collector, I do have a Grove Press first edition of Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn, which is a rather highly prized item for me. Good luck!

posted by LouisBranning at 7:48 pm (EST) on Mar 21, 2007

On Lethem--I've read Motherless Brooklyn which I liked--with its tourette's syndrome of a narrator--and is a bit of a thriller. Tried him again an earlier book--Amnesia moon--recently and didn't care for that so much. He seems to be trying to find himself as a writer in that one. Some writers are hit and miss and some take a couple or a few books to hit their stride.

I've been playing your doors Cd's in my car although my daughter didn't want to hear them so off they went--a lot of good songs though--My eyes have seen you, Moonlight drive, Peace frog, Spanish Caravan, Five to one, Roadhouse blues, Texas radio. That was a very pleasant surprise.

posted by lriley at 5:34 pm (EST) on Mar 21, 2007

Literature is like an ocean. There is almost no end to it in any direction.

posted by lriley at 2:22 am (EST) on Mar 21, 2007

Thinking about Argentina--have you ever heard of the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz? He'd published some work before World War II most notably 'Ferdydurke' but also a serialized novel under another name called 'Possessed: The secret of Myslotch'. The first book is the one he's most known for although I like second one better and another one of his books 'Cosmos' as well. Anyway for the Argentine connection. In late August 1939--just before the German invasion of Poland he set sail along with some chess afficionados for Buenos Aires. The war started while they were out at sea. When he landed in Argentina the Polish embassy was in an uproar and he was more or less stranded for the duration of the war in a country where he didn't know the language and had no visible means of support. He eventually (after a few years) landed a job as a bank teller and continued to write his novels sometimes on the sly at work. He lived several years after the war in Argentina but eventually moved back to Europe though not to Poland. There is one particular novel of his which is about Argentina and that one is translated as 'Trans-Atlantyk' with a K at the end.

posted by lriley at 4:31 pm (EST) on Mar 20, 2007

Thinking about Argentina--have you ever heard of the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz? He'd published some work before World War II most notably 'Ferdydurke' but also a serialized novel under another name called 'Possessed: The secret of Myslotch'. The first book is the one he's most known for although I like second one better and another one of his books 'Cosmos' as well. Anyway for the Argentine connection. In late August 1939--just before the German invasion of Poland he set sail along with some chess afficionados for Buenos Aires. The war started while they were out at sea. When he landed in Argentina the Polish embassy was in an uproar and he was more or less stranded for the duration of the war in a country where he didn't know the language and had no visible means of support. He eventually (after a few years) landed a job as a bank teller and continued to write his novels sometimes on the sly at work. He lived several years after the war in Argentina but eventually moved back to Europe though not to Poland. There is one particular novel of his which is about Argentina and that one is translated as 'Trans-Atlantyk' with a K at the end.

posted by lriley at 4:31 pm (EST) on Mar 20, 2007

Bert--recieved your package today. Thank you very much. The newspaper articles about the murders and the death of the perpetrator--I always looked on that area as a fairly safe one--but you never know wherever you are. Back in the 80's when I was in the service and going to that record store on W. 3rd st.--a lady--a fashion designer I believe was murdered one night a couple doors away from there and it was all over the papers. Anyway frustration is in us all--and there are triggers that can set us off--not excusing what this man did but everyone is capable of more than they think. We need to channel ourselves constantly.

I'm still working on Ulysses but am making good progress now. I also started reading the Corso book today and am close to half way through. He has very good tone. I can see myself buying something else of his. Out of the Sixties the bands I like most are the Velvets, The Doors, CCR, The band. I have a friend who is a little whacky who makes me CD's whenever I want. His main thing is rap and hip hop but he listens to practically everything including modern country music (which I loathe) but for some reason he doesn't like the Doors. I gave him a request a couple months ago for an obscure Polish punk band Brygada Kryzys from around the time of Solidarity and he came back with two different CD's that he burned. As it works out I'd actually been looking at Doors CD's on half.com and considering instead of bothering him about it (I do have the Doors first album already and the case to LA Woman but no idea where the actual CD is) buying something so the CD's you've sent are very welcome and much appreciated.

posted by lriley at 1:46 pm (EST) on Mar 19, 2007

I saw another post today to the discussion on trio of books by Pat Barker known as the Regeneration trilogy. They are set during the first world war and revolve somewhat around three British war poets--Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves. It also revolves somewhat around a William Rivers and the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh where he deals with patients suffering from shell shock and related mental injuries. I don't know if you've heard of these novels but they are very good and seem maybe somewhat in the line of your own work.

posted by lriley at 6:32 pm (EST) on Mar 16, 2007

Bert--I will have to get Amulet I think very soon just to get to all those predictions. Sounds like a fun book. The two that I've read so far are Distant star and By night in Chile. The book Bolano appears in by Javier Cercas is Soldiers of Salamis. A weird title to these ears--immediately bringing to mind cold cuts which it has nothing to do with. You might find some reviews by googling it--I'm sure you'll find some with the Perec book I've been mentioning to you. It's a real one of a kind. I've been busy today putting some books on half.com for sale including a few signed ones--Hegi, Antrim, Rick Moody, Richard Russo. Not that the books aren't good--it's just that it's time to clear some space and see if I can make something off of them. Haven't been making a lot of progress with what I've been reading.

posted by lriley at 4:23 pm (EST) on Mar 16, 2007

Bert--just got back a couple hours ago. I had a great time too--Mae was very happy actually with this Paragon Sports--she hates the (discolored) Rangers hat I've been wearing around and so we got a new one and another one at the game--but I wouldn't throw away the old one. As far as the game--it looked good for a period--we've been losing too many players and we lost a d-man in the game which messed up the pairings. Ottawa is a good team--they don't shoot themselves in the foot--something we tend to do--It was the same two teams last year and I don't think next year I'm going to pick another game against them. The restaraunt you recommended also turned out great. The next day we went up to Moma but didn't have time for the Folk Art museum--we only really had an hour actually for Moma. Mae took some pictures in there and we're wondering how they'll turn out as she had an accident with her camera. Lots of Picasso's. Lots of Pollocks. I liked it a lot. The reason we only had an hour as we were shopping for my daughters birthday and later went to a matinee and saw Company which was a witty type of musical. It was very good. I liked how all the actors were also multi-instrumentalists. Except for the two leads that is. Not quite as funny as Spamalot though we didn't spend nearly as much to see it. Later on we went to Frankie and Johnnies steakhouse on W.45th which was maybe the best steakhouse I've ever been to. So all in all a pretty good trip--would have been great though if the Rangers had won.

Anyway as far as one of the french writers. Georges Perec--Life: A user's manual. That is a book that I think you should definitely look for. Another of his--though not fiction would be Ellis Island--which was written in conjunction with a movie and is about the immigrant experience coming to America. Georges interviewing people (mainly of Jewish extraction) who came from either Eastern Europe or Italy around the turn of the century. Raymond Queneau also great. Louis Ferdinand Celine--very interesting--the absurdity of Joseph Heller's Catch 22 is to me anyway lifted somewhat from the opening 100 or so pages of LFC's Journey to the end of the night. I've found Celine references in all kinds of books--off the top of my head--J. M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello. Bellow's Ravenstein. Kenzaburo Oe's A quiet life--references from other writers Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg + William S. Burroughs visited after the war. Henry Miller was a huge fan and credited Journey for being the book that inspired him to go for being a writer. Bukowski. Kurt Vonnegut. Philip Roth. Antonio Lobo Antunes. William Vollmann have all wrote testimonials and/or book introductions. An important writer. A kind of alter-ego to him who writes in much the same way but from a decidedly left outlook would be the Belgian Louis Paul Boon. Boon has only 3 books translated into English though. Chapel Road. Summer in Termuren. Minuet. Fabulous writer though.

posted by lriley at 2:55 pm (EST) on Mar 15, 2007

Finnegan's Wake might be up there too Bert. Toughest book to read I've ever read. I've been going through Ulysses slowly. There are points here and there where he loses me--even so it is a great book.

We'll be in about 8:30-9 tonight. We've decided to drive instead of take the bus.

posted by lriley at 8:21 am (EST) on Mar 12, 2007

Will come Monday and leave Thursday instead of Sunday through Wednesday. Same hotel.

posted by lriley at 3:47 pm (EST) on Mar 10, 2007

Bert--Sorry to take so long to reply. Don't really think you need our home phone number--at least for now--this works just as well anyway. We do have a trac-fone. I think that's how it's spelled. I know cell phones are an essential in NYC area but the one we have I hardly ever use. My daughter has one to call home with when she's getting out late and needs a ride and my wife has the other. I'm not even sure what the number is. I think we're bringing it with us though and I'll ask Mae today for the number and post it to you before we leave.

posted by lriley at 2:09 am (EST) on Mar 9, 2007

Bert--that would be fine--hopefully everything works out on tuesday. I'm a little paranoid now as my sinuses have been bugging me a little today--temperatures in the morning lately have been almost unbelievably frigid. My wife's name is Mae--she reads some but nothing like me and so it would be nice probably to keep the lit talk a little at least on the light side. Not going to be on the computer though until we get back. No lap top. I'm a little bit of an ignoramus when it comes to technical stuff anyway--Mae is the one that fixes all the serious computer problems.

posted by lriley at 6:10 pm (EST) on Mar 7, 2007

The Roth book--may be my favorite of his so far. I really like Sabbath's theatre. A bit Celinian. I considered actually throwing in 'Pereira declares'--Tabucchi-- but it wouldn't fit in the damn box without making it bulge--it's a great book too but the Malaparte is important--believe me. Horrifying in some ways however. I've bogged down on chapter 7 today with Joyce myself--tired from staying up later than usual--concentration not all that sharp. Lot of internal monologue--a lot of play with language. It's serious too though--a lot of social comment also. Stephen Dedalus (Joyce as young man) and Leopold Bloom.

As far as getting together I'm pretty open to ideas but if it's just too inconvenient we can chalk it up to bad scheduling--a time will come hopefully. You can always call over to the hotel I mentioned if you find some free time. We'll probably be out and about now and again--shopping--maybe the Museum of modern art but I don't think we're going to be walking around all day like we did last time--winding up with shin splints from pounding all that pavement.

posted by lriley at 5:43 pm (EST) on Mar 6, 2007

I should mention Kaputt--Malaparte was a newspaperman originially. Helped bring Mussolini to power. Somewhere along the line there was a big falling out and Curzio did a couple stretches in the Regina Coeli (sp?) prison. Malaparte maintained a friendship however with Benito's son in law Galeazzo Ciano--a kind of sinister figure in his own right--who Mussolini had murdered during the second world war. Malaparte did war journalism for the Corriere dela Sera on the eastern front sending home dispatches which are collected in another book--The Volga rises in Europe. Curzio was also in touch with many of the jet set of Europe before the invention of the jet anyway--royalty, famous writers, musicians, painters. During the war he began working on Kaputt which was a fictionalized rendering of what he witnessed. The war between the Finns and the Russians. The German occupation of Eastern Europe and the Russian invasion. It is not an easy book to read but is maybe the first open eyed book to reveal what German policy was in these occupied territories. Malaparte hid the manuscript in three different locations fearing that he'd be arrested if he were caught. Anyway if you click on some of my correspondence here with John you will see us going back and forth on him quite a lot in the last month or two.

Have to go to work in a couple minutes--so we can talk about the rest later on today maybe--I do have a dental appointment in the afternnoon though.

posted by lriley at 2:32 am (EST) on Mar 6, 2007

Another by the way--reviewed the Tango singer today.

posted by lriley at 2:35 pm (EST) on Mar 5, 2007

Well off the trip topic a bit--I've begun to re-read Joyce's Ulysses. It's been many many years. Do not expect I'll be finished by the time we come and I'll have to make a decision whether to take it with me or finish when I get home. It's kind of bulky. Have you ever read that one Bert? If you haven't that is an essential.

posted by lriley at 1:44 pm (EST) on Mar 5, 2007

Yes I did see that in the Times yesterday Bert. Usually I get that paper just on Sundays--and I almost always throw the business section away. Good that you caught that.

posted by lriley at 8:49 am (EST) on Mar 5, 2007

Anyway keep in mind--everything I sent I have more than one copy of--so I am freeing up some space.

posted by lriley at 5:38 pm (EST) on Mar 2, 2007

It ranks up there with my favorite works--probably in the top 20 anyway. I think it might be more apparent when it shows up at your address and sorry but I'd rather leave it at that for now. There are a couple other things I put in the package besides so I haven't blown the whole surprise.

Apart from that Arlt to me is just a fascinating personality. Basically a self-educated street kid who tried a lot of things--lots of jobs--a would be inventor--became a newspaperman--then a well known editorialist--writing books and plays and dropping dead at 42.

posted by lriley at 5:36 pm (EST) on Mar 2, 2007

Bert--that Arlt book on my page is already coming your way--so don't buy it anytime soon. He is definitely different than a Borges--more of a thriller in style--the text does change pace at times--sometimes slower--sometimes faster. From the Tango singer today read about Migdal--the jewish gangsters who would bring prospective brides over from Eastern Europe and prostitute them. I was a bit hazy on exactly what that was all about but the reference about all that first came to me through Arlt. Like in the Eloy Martinez novel here--Buenos Aires itself seems like a real character and Arlt as a newspaperman was very conscious of the city and its history. In fact his characters are always meeting at the corner of this and that street--going to this park or that. The main character is Remo Erdosain but the one to really watch for is the man called 'The Astrologer'--one of my favorite of all characters in any book. As for the cover picture Hipolita aka The lame whore--would be the red head. As for the others it's a bit of guess work and we might even go past the seven. A description of Ergueta one of his main characters goes:

'With his hat down to his ears and his hands touching thumbs across his vast expanse of belly, he sat nodding with a puffed-up, sour expression on his yellow face.
His glassy, protruding, toad eyes, his great hook nose, his flaccid cheeks, and pendulous lower lip all combined to make him look like a cretin.
His great hulking body inhabited a cinnamon-brown suit, and from time to time he would bend over and rest his teeth on the pommel of his cane.
That disgusting habit and his churlish, bored expression made him resemble a white slaver.'

Ergueta is no doubt the one front left but it's a little dicey on most of them.

posted by lriley at 12:54 pm (EST) on Mar 2, 2007

So far as I said Bert I like it a lot. Very good tone. I'm only 50 some pages in though. El Rufian Melancholico of course is from Arlt--a character and/or gangster aka Haffner. The stuff about Borges--Never have read the Aleph. Need to look into that I'm thinking.

posted by lriley at 2:24 am (EST) on Mar 1, 2007

Bert--the Tango singer showed up yesterday--looked so interesting I started reading it this morning. So far I like it very very much.

posted by lriley at 1:03 pm (EST) on Feb 28, 2007

Exactly--very well said.

posted by lriley at 2:57 pm (EST) on Feb 25, 2007

Bert-looked at your thread and I kind of intrigued by your third comment. I think I'm going to look it up anyway.

posted by lriley at 1:08 pm (EST) on Feb 16, 2007

Good to hear from you Bert. For March--we haven't done much arranging yet--there seems to be plenty of places to stay--so we're not worried about that. Have to find someone to get the kids back and forth to school. My wife decided she wanted to see The Vertical Hour but not sure that is going to work out either as apparently it ends on the 11th in the afternoon--which would be the earliest day we would come. I know you mention Jersey Boys but this one is up to her. On Sabato--The Tunnel is his shortest and most famous work but I liked The Angel of darkness and On heroes and tombs a lot better. The tunnel is much more melodramatic than those other two--almost gothic existentialism--if you like it that's great but if you don't--don't necessarily give up on him.

posted by lriley at 2:26 am (EST) on Feb 9, 2007

Bert--it seems like it's been a while. I was looking at your groups and saw literatura Argentina and joined--though I think the South American group you set up takes in all that territory--+. Things are cold here but we've dodged all the snow. The Rangers have been bad.

posted by lriley at 12:40 pm (EST) on Feb 8, 2007

Well Bert that is very kind of you--but as I say it might be a while. Certainly not this year. We're still planning on coming to NYC in March. We do have two weeks in July and we'll probably go somewhere but I expect that will be in the United States as the passport situation will be some kind of flux--at least we're supposing. The kids are getting older--one will be 16 in March--the other 15 at the end of May and it may be we do are overseas or out of country (other than Canada) traveling when they are college age or older--but that's a we'll see. My wife actually I think wants to go to Florida (she has an uncle there) this year--and usually it seems I have the most input so I don't know if it would be cricket to oppose that when I'm not sure even what I want to do.

Anyway I think I liked 'The Joke' the best and have just written a review which might not be that great but c'est la vie.

posted by lriley at 4:53 pm (EST) on Jan 24, 2007

Bert--I was thinking about checking in on you for the last couple days. Interesting that you brought up Kundera as I finished 'The Joke' last week and I really should do a review on it. Things are quiet here. Winter has set in a little bit--not a lot of snow however--which is good. One of these days we may go to Argentina but not this year. A) We've spent too much money the past year and B) are passport situation is in flux as both the kids expire sometime in April and will have to be renewed at the earliest by the end of May. I'm reading Manuel Vazquez Montalban's (Spanish-Catalonian) 'The man of my life'--a thriller once again starring his private eye Pepe Carvalho--this one has worked in Catalonian autonomony with Global economics and geopolitics--along with the usual Catalonian repice or two or three. It is very good which is the usual with him. Also William Boyd's new book 'Restless' which I picked up signed off of E-bay--and that is good also and somewhat about a World War II British spy ring. Anyway--it's just about time to go to work so I'll have to say adios.

posted by lriley at 2:32 am (EST) on Jan 24, 2007

Bert, I hope to get to the MAGUS soon. i recently read THE COLLECTOR and didn't like it, but did love THE FRENCH LIEUTENANTS WOMAN.
SIG

posted by SigmundFraud at 6:06 pm (EST) on Jan 4, 2007

Bert,
Super to hear from you. I had spotted the Auster review in The Guardian. I've heard some not very complimentary reviews of "Travels in a Scriptorium" because Auster is so self-referential in it. It seems a lot of characters from his early books appear or are mentioned. I always think that the post-modernist element of his writing is part of the fun. It always reminds me of Borges and Nabakov; it's as though the author is playing a game as well as telling a story and if you don't pay attention you will miss out. I remember one short story of Nabakov's about the Vane Sisters where the last paragraph holds a secret ghostly message from the dead sisters. Have you read any Nabakov? He is brilliant!
I will definitely give "American Pastoral" a go soon because "The Human Stain" renewed my taste for Roth. I've just finished Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" which is a very un-blokey book. I much prefer her gutsy poetry. I've just started some memoirs written by Peruvian writer and one time Presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa (a coincidence that lriley mentions him in yesterday's post to you; what a small world!) . They have been translated into English and entitled "A Fish in Water". I think it's going to give me a bit more to get my teeth into than the Plath!
Anyway have a great New Year's Eve and a prosperous New Year.
Yours Kevin.

posted by dylanwolf at 2:18 pm (EST) on Dec 31, 2006

feliz y sano ano nuevo to you too Bert. If I have to protect my butt so should you. Anyway have a good trip and if you're really going to eat a lot make sure you do some waling about before and after. The Rangers finally won one tonight. Shanahan dropped the gloves with Brashear the goon and did pretty well. A nasty one. I didn't get to see it as the local provider and MSG have some kind of deal where the Sabres are on upstate at least some of the time--seems quite a lot of the time--which is not going to make me like the Sabres any better. Right now I'm reading The Spanish cockpit by Franz Borkenau which was written during the Civil War there in the mid 30's and is a street level analysis of all the different political persuasions on the left side of that conflict. It's very good by the way.

posted by lriley at 10:38 pm (EST) on Dec 30, 2006

Bert--it's been a couple weeks. Anyway I saw the mention you made of the Borges biography and that looks pretty interesting. Today I put in a review of Vargas Llosa's 'The way to paradise'--a novel half of which is based on the life of the French impressiont Paul Gauguin and the other half on his maternal grandmother Flora Tristan--and which I think is really very excellent.

Anyway with the New Year coming along best wishes to you and your family in all its American and Argentinian adventures.

posted by lriley at 3:45 pm (EST) on Dec 30, 2006

Bert,
Thank you very much for your comment. My favourite Auster book is also "The Book of Illusions". It seems to me to be generally universally underrated. I hadn't heard about Auster's memoirs so I'll be sure to hunt that one down. I'll send you a fuller reply soon as I'm quite busy at the moment with preparations for Christmas. Seasons greetings to you and yours from across the pond.
Cheers, Kevin.

posted by dylanwolf at 12:41 pm (EST) on Dec 22, 2006

Good luck with the Russian Debutante's Handbook -- I did enjoy the beginning but was disappointed with the end (as it seems I am with many contemporary novels!).

As for Pynchon, I read V a very long time ago at about age 16 or 17 and of course I liked it then because it was strange and different and I was a teenager. I don't remember much of the story, but I do remember the circumstances of my reading it. If I didn't have so many other books I want to read, I might be tempted to go back and reread it. I also read The Crying of Lot 49 at about the same time, and I bought Vineland but haven't read it.

posted by rebeccanyc at 1:45 pm (EST) on Dec 18, 2006

If from time to time I seem grumpy I apologize in advance but that will probably be one of the reasons. Most of my compatriots are doing the same or similar. It's really not bad since my kids have to be picked up at school anyway--the bus won't take them all the way up the hill we live on and it's dangerous the rest of the way--my daughter will be eligible for his learners permit though in March so who knows but I expect that these will pretty much be the kind of hours I'll have until I retire 8 or 9 years from now hopefully.

posted by lriley at 2:37 am (EST) on Dec 16, 2006

Bert--very lucky it looks to win last night. Up here it was a late game and I didn't watch any of it. I'm up at two in the morning to go to work at three--so if the Rangers are on--on a work night I'll watch a period and go to bed. I wouldn't be able to survive to April or May if I did otherwise. In any case MSG has got some kind of deal with those goofy Sabres and sometimes they let them use their channel upstate and that apparently is what happened last night. Anyway we got shelled but Henrik stood on his head in goal and we got some breaks and a poor goaltending performance at the other end--so lucky but more than happy to take it.
And still looking forward to March when we come down to see them.

posted by lriley at 4:55 pm (EST) on Dec 15, 2006

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of your review of American Pastoral. As you know, I loved the book and I'm so glad if something I said helped you enjoy it more.

posted by rebeccanyc at 3:10 pm (EST) on Dec 14, 2006

Good to hear from you Bert. Planning another trip? Anyway on the question of Auster, McCarthy or Eloy Martinez they are all good writers. Might want to look at something else by Tabucchi too. Anyway of the above I have read Oracle Night and I liked it.

posted by lriley at 12:07 pm (EST) on Dec 13, 2006

Would that be Leopoldo? There is some interesting stuff there--a couple of the writers aren't from Latin America though--they are Spanish--Benito Perez Galdos may be the greatest Spanish writer after Cervantes. The other writer they have who is Spanish is Ana Maria Matute. If you've never read Galdos LALRP's translation of 'Nazarin' is one very fine book. Galdos's main character is a Spanish priest of doubtful origins (some people think he's actually a Moor) who decides to hit the road and follow in the footsteps of Christ (with 2 prostitues for followers)--and what follows is both comedy and tragedy and is very much Cervantes-like.

posted by lriley at 6:17 pm (EST) on Dec 11, 2006

Bert---ran into a couple titles you may be interested in. By the way they came from a catalog from the Latin american literary review press--which I've had for a while but haven't looked at for quite some time. Anyway you can google them or search under www.lalrp.org:

Among their titles are the 'The silver candelabra: A century of Jewish Argentine literature' compiled by Rita Gardiol ISBN 0935480889
also an Argentine writer Alicia Steimberg has a novel 'Musicians and Watchmakers'.
Another novel set in Mexico and written by Sabina Berman 'Bubbeh'.

posted by lriley at 12:39 pm (EST) on Dec 10, 2006

Thanks for the encouragement Bert :) I'm still soldiering on with it. I think part of the trouble is that I read before going to sleep and I'm probably not as alert as I need to be to cope with it - makes me resent the very long chapters. I am enjoying his writing though.

posted by deargreenplace at 4:02 am (EST) on Dec 8, 2006

One day at a time Bert. I always take something to work for breaks etc. I find time. I make time. I steal time--and actually I don't read as much as I used to. The other thing is--when the Rangers are done--sports pretty much goes on the backburner (I'll watch boxing or lacrosse or soccer a bit--not always for whole matches though) until the Rangers begin again--and they're pretty mediocre so far this season. In any case my usual day has me getting home around noon and not picking the kids up at school until after 3. My wife usually doesn't get home until a little before six and on workdays I'm off to bed an hour or so later.

posted by lriley at 1:02 pm (EST) on Dec 6, 2006

Do you mean the one from the Levine site? That would be Modern American Poetry.

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets.h...

Anyway this Seidel guy looks very very interesting. Do you know much about him? Anyway finished the Gutierrez book last night and am close to finishing Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown which is also quite good and have been leafing through a book of poetry by a German Hans Magnus Enzensberger which is also very interesting--which is kind of nasty and sarcastic and often politically motivated--definitely to the left.

posted by lriley at 9:15 am (EST) on Dec 4, 2006

Bert--ever hear of Pedro Juan Gutierrez? A cuban. Very funny guy. Can't get his work published in his own country but pretty much everywhere else. I'm finishing up 'The insatiable Spiderman' which is really good. I also really liked 'The dirty Havana trilogy'. His seems to be what you might call auto-biographical fiction. I find his work very beautiful in its own way--at the same time very raunchy, very sophisticated. There is an irrepressible spirit to his work. One comparison might be Bukowski but I think I like PJ a little bit better and I like Bukowski a lot.

posted by lriley at 8:20 pm (EST) on Dec 3, 2006

Well, hello! Thanks for the comment about East of Eden! I love hearing from readers who also love that book! Thanks, and happy reading.

posted by coloradoreader at 7:06 pm (EST) on Nov 29, 2006

Bert--if you are interested I did a review on 'The White Hotel'.

posted by lriley at 2:02 pm (EST) on Nov 28, 2006

I should say something about Governor's Island. A few years ago we went down to Battery Park and there were all these huge skyscrapers in the way. It was a good time there. I didn't always have a lot of money so there were times I'd find someone to sit with along the seawall to drink beers and watch all the ships going into and out of the harbor. That was in the early 80's and things were a bit different then. Time Square sure has changed for one. No more strip bars. At least not like it was. They were just starting to build up the South Street seaport. I remember going into a bar in that area through a big hole in the wall. As far as I know they plan on developing Governor's Island and someday I'd like to go back there. Anyway NYC seems to be if anything an even better place today.

posted by lriley at 6:31 pm (EST) on Nov 27, 2006

Oh--I'm an upstater all right but whether you know it or not there are tons of Giants fans here and lots of Rangers fans too. Always have been. And as for hockey fans I think there's more Ranger fans in the Elmira/Corning area than Sabres by quite a distance--the Rangers have been broadcasting on television here at least since the early 70's--that's a lot longer than the Sabres have--who now depend on MSG network to broadcast maybe 15-20 games a year. In any case as cities go NYC as Toronto does has a real vibe--is in a sense an international (World) city--and with so many cultural destinations and so much to do--I mean if you're used to it all the time you probably take it more for granted. Walking around in it is IMO truly going on an adventure.

posted by lriley at 6:20 pm (EST) on Nov 27, 2006

Bert--I played football a lot when I was a kid--mostly neighborhood stuff. My favorite team then was the Packers. I don't really follow it anymore and have an aversion for Buffalo in any case. NYC has always been for me 'America's city' even if I haven't been back there much since I got out of the service. I was stationed on Governor's Island for a couple years by the way. My next favorite city would be Toronto.

posted by lriley at 5:49 pm (EST) on Nov 27, 2006

Thank you, Bert! I'm enjoying 100 Years so far; it is absolutely beautifully written.

posted by ibtuten at 3:46 am (EST) on Nov 27, 2006

Strange Bert but just looked up D. M. Thomas the author of 'The white hotel' mentioned in my post below on Wikipedia and the article there said the book was controversial for borrowing passages from the Kuznetsov book. That scene is very graphic I suppose and sticks with you for a long time.

posted by lriley at 3:02 pm (EST) on Nov 26, 2006

Bert--in the middle of October--you mentioned a book 'The White Hotel' which I researched a little and then when I went to the Library sale in Ithaca I found a kind of battered copy of it. I am almost done with it now and looking back at what you actually said about not having read it yet--I think you might find it very interesting. It's the story of a woman suffering from a variety of sexual hallucinations many of them very violent. She's in correspondence and having sessions with Sigmund Freud. Although a novel I think it's taken from something that really happened. In any case the book takes you through her therapy and later on into her career in the opera and much later as a victim of the holocaust--as that catches up with her and her stepson in Kiev in Babi Yar--which jogged my memory a bit--with an autobiographical novel I read some time ago Babi Yar by Alexander Kuznetsov which was heavily censored by the Soviets. Anyway The White Hotel is very chilling in those particular pages about the executions that took place but to me this is the strength that fiction sometimes will have over an historical account--it can move you more and by doing so move you closer to the real truth at least in the sense that it can connect you in tragic terms to an event such as this--at least that's an opinion of mine.

posted by lriley at 11:21 am (EST) on Nov 26, 2006

Well--hope you have a good thanksgiving too Bert. Mostly I look forward to the day off. We're going over my older sisters house. She has a need to be in control of these kinds of situations. It'll be fine but we'll be home early as I'll be off to work early friday morning.

posted by lriley at 12:46 pm (EST) on Nov 22, 2006

Sorry, I saw your most recent post about American Pastoral in the thread before i saw your comment on my page -- so busy with Thanksgiving preparations I can't keep track of what I said where!

posted by rebeccanyc at 11:05 am (EST) on Nov 22, 2006

Yes--very good. Lobby zombies? Pleasant prison dreams. I've never read Corso but that was very interesting.

posted by lriley at 12:31 pm (EST) on Nov 21, 2006

Bert--Levine has his own website and can also be looked up at wikipedia. If you want to check out another of his poems here go up to the groups I've joined and hit poetry fool. Then scroll down to the 'Post your favorite poem' message. I have several entries in there--Nicanor Parra--the Chilean poet at 45. Zbigniew Herbert--one poem by him and part of another at 51. Three poems by the British poet James Fenton at 58 and Philip Levine's 'They feed they lion' at 62 after which lor something and I discuss that poem in the next few posts.

posted by lriley at 2:21 am (EST) on Nov 21, 2006

Bert--having just done a review of Philip Levine's 'Not this pig' I was wondering if you ever heard of him? He's an excellent american poet--and there are jewish themes although he also could very rightly be called a poet of the working class.

posted by lriley at 5:26 pm (EST) on Nov 20, 2006

Hola Bert--it's in my books reviewed but if you're not done with the book it might be better to read it when you've finished. Anyway it is a very good book.

As for the election--it turned out well for the most part. The dems have a comfortable lead in the House---one always has to be wary of too large a swing one way or the other--really would be nice if we had more viable political parties. I was disappointed that Eric Massa who was running for congress came up short in our district. Kuhl ran some flyers which were pretty outrageous in the last week or so saying things like Eric was going to go after peoples social security--this from a guy who supported the presidents' social security plan. It was pretty close though but this has been a red district for a long time although when Houghton was the rep here he was very moderate for the most part and hardly a rubber stamp for anybody--didn't like his support of free trade bills though. Kuhl has been pretty much in line with the president on everything even went to Baghdad and made a nuiscance out of himself--google him with General Batiste--came back and said everything was going great there--it was just like walking down one of our own streets.

posted by lriley at 2:37 am (EST) on Nov 10, 2006

It's been a while Bert. What have you been up to? Did a review on the American Pastoral novel by Roth we've both been reading. Anyway big day tomorrow.

posted by lriley at 6:37 pm (EST) on Nov 6, 2006

The Times looked at Kuhl-Massa a couple three weeks ago also. His predecessor Houghton was more moderate in some ways--voted against giving authority to Bush to invade Iraq in 2003. He is corporate though--his family own Corning Glass and as a congressman he'd vote with that in mind. Strong on agricultural issues which a lot of local farmers like--not a religious zealot though. I hate for people to be religiously dogmatic. IMO it goes against the grain of what it is to be american--tolerant, pragmatic and always skeptical. Part of Kuhl's problem is he would like to be seen the same way as Houghton however he's been in such lockstep with the White House on practically everything--Iraq, Medicare bill, even started supporting the administrations idea of partially privatizing social security. It's kind of a joke that now he's trying to scare people with the idea that Massa is out to derail social security. It's also sad that a lot of seniors probably believe him--will rail against socialism but are afraid that this little bit of socialism (what mostly safety net programs are) which they depend on to keep their heads above water will be taken away from them. Anyway Massa has the potential IMO to represent us fairly well so hopefully I'll never have to think about running. We will see anyway. The Green party is running Malachi McCourt for Governor--I'm intrigued by Spitzer but I want to see what he does before I vote for him. He will win whether I vote for McCourt or not--so it's McCourt. I don't like the Clinton's much. Again Hilary is going to win--but I'm voting for Mr. Hawkins from Syracuse--again the Green party. Massa for congress. As far as Hevesi--he should know better and act better--as far as scandals go it seems small potatoes right now but it's not a good indicator though I lean in his direction.

posted by lriley at 1:40 pm (EST) on Oct 28, 2006

I'm pretty sure I'm going to get back to Hornby again Bert--so I'll keep that one in mind. Maybe I'll look it up today even when I get home from work.

posted by lriley at 2:26 am (EST) on Oct 28, 2006

He's fleshed out Swede and Jerry very well. I don't think I'm going to give it a 5 when I'm done with it but I can't see it going under a 4. Roth as a writer has a particular gift for understatement and a wonderful ear--the dialogue between the various characters is as per usual extraordinary. Speaking of understatement there's something altogether ironic and subversive going on here underneath the novel's surface.

As for Hevesi--I've only glanced at it and have seen his name bandied about. I haven't been paying a lot of attention. Corruption? Fill me in if you can. I have been very interested in the congressional race in our district between the incumbent republican Kuhl and his democratic challenger Massa. The democratic party has been disappointing to me for a long time--however the republicans are even worse. I will say for Houghton--Kuhl's predecessor that he was somewhat independent of his party and for the most part affable and he would answer your letters or e-mails at least half the time. Anyway I have sent a small amount of money to Massa and plan on voting for him--I'm cautiously optimistic that he'll win but it will probably be close. Two of his main issues I support wholeheartedly--1)getting us out of Iraq (his idea is more or less the Murtha plan--mine would probably be more drastic--whatever the case the current situation is increasingly disastrous)--and 2) balancing the budget (which is probably going to be painful--spending cuts/increased taxes) both in terms domestic and foreign via trade agreements which to me should be done with other countries more or less on a Quid Pro Quo basis. I would like a National Health Care plan which should be designed from what has worked best in other countries--you might want this idea from England and that from Sweden. Anyway energy independence is big. I'd like to see us start up a mass transit system. I'd like to see us re-invest in manufacturing and industrial concerns. If we can borrow money from the future to sink it into a war in another country--we can borrow hypothetical money also to invest into our infastructure and I would move to protect those fledgling manufacturing concerns from being picked off by foreign investors and protect the jobs created from being outsourced. One great benefit there also you would be creating taxpayers to pay off the loans or whatever from that borrowed money. Basically we have to get off the war mentality and make sure people have hope for the future and the future of their children--which is not to say we should forget about Bin Laden but he seems to have disappeared for the time being. It would be nice to bring him to justice. They need to concentrate on that instead of Iraq. Anyway a President should be a trendsetter in some ways setting worthwhile goals for the public at large not just so a few of friends will get rich. If these goals are truly worthwhile I would think that the public at large would be supportive in the whole.

posted by lriley at 5:48 pm (EST) on Oct 27, 2006

It is very good so far Bert. Both brothers are interesting--we'll be waiting of course for the entrance of Swede's daughter Merry if she really isn't dead which I suspect she's not.

posted by lriley at 2:20 am (EST) on Oct 27, 2006

Bert--actually like you have started American Pastoral though I'm only about 100 pages in and am also reading something else so it maybe 7 to 10 days before I'm done.

posted by lriley at 3:43 pm (EST) on Oct 26, 2006

Hi, Bert. You asked about my book group's reaction to Leviathan. It was quite divided, actually. Most people were unsure of the point of the whole thing, and didn't really care enough to try to figure it out. It was suggested for our group by a member who is a fan of Paul Auster and loved and it when she first read it. She found serious flaws in it with this second reading, although she could certainly see why she had liked it so much. It's very self-referential, and a bit precious. But the writing is excellent, and it certainly made me want to read more Auster (this was my first).

Hope this helps!

posted by cabegley at 10:24 pm (EST) on Oct 24, 2006

Bert--no we don't usually get as much as Buffalo or Rochester who get nailed with all the lake effect snow. Haven't really seen any yet and that is okay by me. The older I get the less I care for it. A bit of antipathy for those two cities--so as far as I'm concerned they can have it all. It has been very cold here the last couple of days.

posted by lriley at 2:23 am (EST) on Oct 24, 2006

Bert--seemed to have missed a couple of your posts. Anyway all I can tell you so far about our trip in March is that we have tickets for the game against Ottawa on the 13th. We have to be home by the 15th as my daughter's 16th birthday is on the 16th so we will probably work out 3 nights in NYC sometime between the 11th and the 15th and my wife will want to go to a show. The other thing is you really never know what the weather is going to be like or whether someone is going to get the flu or something. So we're planning on it enough to say 90% we'll be there and 10% not. Probability is good and if it happens I wouldn't mind meeting at the Strand at all. Maybe we could have lunch afterwards.

Anyway the other post I seemed to have missed is the one on Shanahan and to be honest he's been really really good. He looks like he's got a lot left and has been the Rangers best player so far.

posted by lriley at 9:17 am (EST) on Oct 23, 2006

One of these days I'm going to get to 'American Pastoral' myself. Have you ever read anything by Delillo?

posted by lriley at 10:01 pm (EST) on Oct 22, 2006

As a kid I read lots of baseball books. A couple friends of mine use to go down to the local library. One would stand in the alley behind the building and the other would drop baseball books out of the window to him. Ownership at least then used to mean more to them than to me I suppose. Anyway I was wondering Bert since you've asked about Antonio Tabucchi before whether you've ever read 'Pereira declares'?

posted by lriley at 9:58 pm (EST) on Oct 22, 2006

Well--sorry about your Mets Bert. My dad is a big Mets fan. As a kid he was a fan of the New York Giants and used to go to the Polo Grounds now and again--when they wound up going to San Francisco it created a vacuum in his life. Along came the Mets and as anyone who saw their first couple seasons will tell you that was a whacky and adventurous team. I think that was 1962--either that or 1960. As a kid I was a big Yankee fan. Gradually I grew away from the game and haven't really followed it much since the early 80's. In any case Elmira used to have AA ball. We used to go over to Dunn Field all the time. They were the Orioles farm team. Dave McNally, Jim Palmer, Don Buford, Paul Blair etc. etc. came through there amongst others. I saw Thurman Munson over there once with visiting Oneonta (?). He wasn't around long as he was on a meteoric rise through their system.

posted by lriley at 2:35 am (EST) on Oct 21, 2006

Hola berthirsch
I have become a fan of Stavans after reading his book " Borrowed Words" about growing up Jewish in Mexico and then being a mexican in the U.S. and his love affair with language, I also highly recommend his book dictionary days.

posted by Eramirez156 at 11:52 pm (EST) on Oct 18, 2006

We discuss Leviathan on Tuesday--I'll let you know how it goes.

posted by cabegley at 6:45 pm (EST) on Oct 18, 2006

They play tonight. So far they are 3-3. Shaky defensively. I don't know if you know but they signed Brendan Shanahan in the off season. He's pretty old--38 but he's looked really good so far. 7 goals in 6 games. My wife and I have tickets to a game in March and hopefully we'll be in NYC then--weather permitting and health permitting.

posted by lriley at 6:11 pm (EST) on Oct 18, 2006

Funny when my wife and I went to NYC in April we went to The Strand too. I found it a little bit disorganized. I have a hard time though sometimes focusing in such places. The fiction aisle was cramped and the top shelves unreachable without a ladder. Anyway to the three Doblin books I mentioned just so you don't get discombobulated. Berlin Alexanderplatz is a separate work that stands on its own. The other two are a combined work with the first part--A people betrayed--and the second--Karl and Rosa. With those 2 it would be best to read them in that order.

posted by lriley at 1:45 pm (EST) on Oct 17, 2006

Thanks for checking out my catalogue, Bert. I think we'll have a bit more in common once I get further through my shelves. I see you have a few of the same mountaineering books I do, as well as some antipodean exploration, and of course a fair number in my area of obsession at the moment. [The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas]! I'm envious...

posted by bluetongue at 5:38 am (EST) on Oct 17, 2006

Thanks for the show of interest. As you say you've a new-ish interest in South America, who are you reading? I'm a fan of Julio Cortazar and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but they're the South American touchstones, I think. Can you suggest anybody else? I'm thinking fiction, here, short stories and novels.

Furthermore, for your interest in things Jewish, I offer Nicholas Mosley--Hopeful Monsters, in case you've not read it.

posted by jamy at 10:42 pm (EST) on Oct 16, 2006

Here are some of the blurbs written on the back covers of my copies of Doblin.

A political and aesthetic achievement without parallel in German literature--Bertolt Brecht

I am greatly indebted to Alfred Doblin... He will unsettle you; he will trouble your dreams; you will have difficulty swallowing him; you will find him unsavory; he is indigestible, gristly. He changes his readers. The self-complacent are hereby cautioned against Doblin--Gunter Grass

His is one of the great names among the German novelists... It seems to me that Doblin perceives the visible world as something incomplete and that he feels compelled to improve upon it with his writing--Franz Kafka

A people betrayed and Karl and Rosa follow the rise and fall of the German Weimar republic after the German collspse in the first world war. They are very tragic in scope and very compelling to read. Lots of pages though but they move very quickly. There is more of an hallucinatory quality to A people betrayed than K & R. I'm of the opinion that the revolutionaries Liebknecht and especially Luxemburg would not have turned out to be the kind of meglomaniacs that Lenin and Stalin turned out to be. That however was never to be seen. If they had got their republic off the ground--there may very never have been a fuhrer named Hitler. As for Berlin Alexanderplatz it is the book he's most famous for. I prefer the first two but they are all excellent.

Joseph Roth I've read 3 or 4 times and he has a much larger body of work. He was an Austrian Jew, a World War 1 veteran I believe and somewhat embittered--famous as a newspaper journalist and comparable to Doblin in style and somewhat in content. The Radetzky March is a very good book.

posted by lriley at 2:21 pm (EST) on Oct 14, 2006

Bert--Wasn't sure what the White Hotel was--D. M. Thomas? It's been a while since I've read anything by Kennedy. I think I liked Billy Phelan's greatest game the best. I saw Ironweed before I read it. My impression later on was they did a good job on the movie. I like both Auster and Roth also. Also the Austrian Roth--Joseph Roth. Have you ever heard of the German Alfred Doblin--a Jew who converted to Catholicism. His best books span the period between the first and second World Wars. Berlin Alexanderplatz. A people betrayed. Karl and Rosa. The last two are a set. The Karl and Rosa are the revolutionaries Liebknect and Luxemburg. They are long but they are excellent. Believe that they were on the Nazi list of books to be burned. I know Doblin was a target of theirs and had to leave Germany.

posted by lriley at 2:35 am (EST) on Oct 14, 2006

Are you talking about the Guardian's 'Best novel in the past 25 years', Bert?
Anyway I was looking that over and it's an interesting list. J. M. Coetzee is a great writer--I'd prefer 'Waiting for the barbarians' over 'Disgrace' though. Kelman's 'A disaffection' and 'How late it was, how late', Peter Carey's 'True history of the Kelly gang', Sebastian Faulks' 'Birdsong', Sebastian Barry's 'A long long way', and Ian McEwan's 'The comfort of strangers' are others that I liked a lot. Should mention Pat Barker's 'Regeneration trilogy' also.

Of the panel--Barry, William Boyd, Carey (like Coetzee a 2 time Booker prize winner), Jonathan Coe, Brian Friel (an Irish playwrights whose 'Faith Healer' was playing in NYC recently), McEwan and Rushdie among others I keep track of.

As for the list itself--like the NY Times it's opinion. A lot of things fall between the cracks. I'm not of the opinion that 'Beloved' is a great novel. Roth is a great writer but having 6 of the top 25 is really pushing it. There were others (Delillo and Cormac McCarthy) that had two or three. Really liked 'A confederacy of dunces'. If I were to add books to the NYT list one would be Danielewski's 'House of Leaves', other possiblities--William Kennedy's 'Ironweed', Tristan Egolf's 'Lord of the Barnyard', 'All souls' rising'-Madison Smartt Bell, and something maybe by a Paul Auster or a Kurt Vonnegut.

Of the Guardian list I don't know if I missed him but no Michael Ondaatje? Britian has a number of good writers--didn't see David Mitchell, Coe was on the panel but no books listed--he's very good. Louis de Bernieres, Paul West (maybe they don't think of him as British anymore as he's been living in Ithaca NY for some time), William Boyd, MacLaverty--who've I brought up before, and where is William Trevor? (thinking it over that's just about the biggest omission so far) and no Thomas Keneally or Janet Frame.

posted by lriley at 9:22 am (EST) on Oct 9, 2006

Bert on my page the line below books cataloged is books reviewed. I've currently 87. Just click on see reviews.

posted by lriley at 12:43 pm (EST) on Oct 8, 2006

I have read the ghostwriter Bert. The others are The professor of desire (which I didn't like a lot at the time anyway), Portnoy's complaint (which is very good), Sabbath's theater (excellent) and Zuckerman unbound. Roth has quite a catalog behind him and that is always helpful for Nobel consideration. As a writer I like him and am figuring to read at least several more of his books. Going to review by the way a book by Edna Mazya an Israeli writer titled Love Burns.

posted by lriley at 8:12 pm (EST) on Oct 6, 2006

Bert--I got your Polysyllabic Spree today in the mail. Thank you. I hope you don't mind if I send something back your way in the near future. Anyway I figure I'll probably get to it sometime in the next 7-10 days.

posted by lriley at 1:49 pm (EST) on Oct 6, 2006

I like Roth too but have only read maybe 5 of his books Bert so I have a lot to still go. The next of his I'll probably read is American Pastoral and that will maybe be sometime before the end of the year. It's a big one. So far my favorite of his is Sabbath's theatre and that would be followed by Portnoy. I have read two of the Zuckerman books and the Professor of Desire. That's off the top of my head.
Anyway Roth like Vargas Llosa has been a candidate several times before. I also liked seeing Le Clezio listed in the article. That's the first time I've seen his name mentioned.

posted by lriley at 2:38 am (EST) on Oct 6, 2006

i don't know if you're interested Bert but if you are you can google the following site----UHRP-(for a story titled) Nobel prize season kicks off Monday with Medicine Prize. It lists 11 potential for the literature prize--which doesn't mean someone else might not win it. 2 americans--Philip Roth (very good), Joyce Carol Oates, the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa (who we've discussed on the South American group; he's almost always an also-ran), the Syrian poet Adonis (another perennial also-ran), the Israeli novelist Amos Oz, the Czech novelist Milan Kundera, the Pole Ryszard Kapuscinski, the Turk Orhan Pamuk (very much in the news the last few years for defying his govt. who we're considering throwing him in prison for speaking out and about the Armenian massacre at the beginning of the 20th century),
J-M. G. Le Clezio a French novelist (I have a ton of his work and am very glad to hear it--he is pretty much unknown here), Assia Djebar and Algerian-French novelist and Doris Lessing a British novelist and essayist with ties to Africa. They're announcing either on the 5th or the 12th.

posted by lriley at 2:34 am (EST) on Oct 3, 2006

Cal was made into a movie and the movie pretty much does the book justice. Even so it represents a certain slant which IMO is more historically justified than not but having said that--having a slant kind of flaws the book. I think writers in both the countries of Ireland (more the region of Northern Ireland) and Israel have this problem to deal with if their works reference the oftentimes unhappy political situations. Less so for at least the Irish now as thankfully they aren't killing each other very much anymore. Cal turns into kind of a tearjerker because of that flaw--it was one of MacLaverty's earlier works but to me in a sense though I liked it a lot it loses a bit of objectivity along the way. His best novel is 'Grace Notes' which is about a young girl who becomes a composer and uses her gift in her own unique way to bridge that religious divide at least for a few people. Other than that like a lot of Irish writers MacLaverty is really at his best writing short stories. That is really his strength. It's a particular strength of William Trevor who is an Irish protestant from the south who is consistently good at whatever he does.

posted by lriley at 4:27 pm (EST) on Oct 1, 2006

I have never read Mr. Hornby Bert. I have holes too you know. None of us our perfect. Younger writers today from Britain I really like are David Mitchell, Jonathan Coe and also the playwright Martin McDonagh. Shouldn't forget the Scot James Kelman though he's not that young anymore. As for the discards when someone starts building a 1500+ library they can tend towards getting snobby and snotty about how they add to it which isn't to say I don't have a few discards or won't always have some but when the chance comes along to replace something I really like with a non-discard that's what I tend to do. But that's one of the possible symptoms of the bibliomaniac disease.

posted by lriley at 5:58 pm (EST) on Sep 29, 2006

Speaking of libraries the one in my hometown has always been a pretty good one and in the past I've spent hours and hours moving up and down the aisles. They're having a library sale at the local mall right now. I try to keep away from discards though. The twice yearly library sale up in Ithaca is huge--they keep a large building for it year round and everything is thoroughly alphabetized and categorized. I believe either October or early November they'll have their next sale which I think is the smaller one. Ithaca of course is a college town--Cornell U. and there is usually a lot of very literary stuff to find--at least if you get there the first day--a lot of poetry. A lot of obscure stuff.

posted by lriley at 10:13 pm (EST) on Sep 27, 2006

The one thing with half.com is you pretty much have to set up an account and have a US mailing address so if you're planning on permanently moving to Buenos Aires Bert that is going to scotch that. They're run more or less by E-bay but it is not an auction site. The seller sets his price and the shipping costs are set by the site and then it is up to the buyer to decide on the basis of price, book condition, hardcover-softcover and keeping in mind what the sellers positive feedback % is. Often you will find stuff to be cheaper than the shipping. Usually when something is just out though it tends to cost more. The shipping rate went up a few months ago and as a seller that's great--as a buyer it's not so hot. One thing it can give you even if you never bought or sold anything there is an idea of just what a writer has done and in the case of out of print stuff I've found it to be very accessible.

posted by lriley at 9:35 pm (EST) on Sep 26, 2006

As a matter of fact I did Bert. It's been out for a little while and I've been waiting for the price to come down at the site half.com where I buy and sell books. Anyway Tabucchi is a consistently good writer and I expect that sooner or later I'm going to get it. I'm still waiting for Roberto Bolano's 'Last evening on earth' to come down in price there also. He is a Chilean writer who died a few years ago at a relatively young age (49-50). There are some similarities in style and content between he and Tabucchi and he's well worth checking out too. Bolano also shows up as a character in an interesting work by a Spanish writer named Javier Cercas in the book 'Soldiers of Salamis'--as he's coincidental to the Spanish writer's search to track down a Spanish Civil War veteran who in the last days of the war had spared the life of a prominent fascist who went on to sire a prominent Spanish novelist. I don't know if you've heard of a site called Complete Review but it does a lot of literary reviews and you can google it and most likely find lots of reviews on Tabucchi, Bolano and many other writers there.

posted by lriley at 9:52 pm (EST) on Sep 25, 2006

Well modesty or not--most people are capable of doing the same if they want. That is up to whoever though. They have to set their own priorities. I've been doing this kind of stuff for quite a while so it comes natural to me. It may help but I don't think it makes you necessarily a better person or not. Anyway looking around this site you find all sorts and a lot of interesting people and libraries.

posted by lriley at 1:24 pm (EST) on Sep 21, 2006

Bert--this Muse Asylum book looks pretty interesting. Anyway I don't know if I really know a lot about South American or even Italian literature--I've just read a bunch of things and have taken them one way or another and others might read a bunch of other things. More or less I'm an enthusiast. I always read even things I don't care for right to the end. I think of it as discipline but it would be equally valid for someone to say that it's a waste of time because one should also read because one enjoys it. Anyway I keep track of what I read and one of the reasons I like this site is not only can I keep track more easily but I can write a review which will help me remember better what something is about. Trying to write a review of something you've read sometimes several years ago is not always easy--but anyway time is up again. Have to go. Ciao.

posted by lriley at 2:37 am (EST) on Sep 20, 2006

Bert--not sure who Marichal is. I can tell you a bit about Pavese if he's Cesare Pavese that is. An Italian of course. A good writer circa the 40's and 50's. Obsessed over his relationships with women becoming very depressed whenever one ended. His last was an american B-movie actress--not sure of her name--could check Wikipedia--who was spending the summer in Italy and looked upon their liason as just a summer fling. Cesare didn't think so and killed himself soon after it ended.
I have read one of his novels--'The Beach' which was okay. I've also read his diaries 'The burning brand'. He's very much the communist in that he's suspicious of anyone who isn't who are not only suspect but potentially fascists. This way of thinking is not unusual for party members of his era. They seemed to be his main obsessions--failed relationships and political preferences. If I remember correctly he was a good friend of Italo Calvino although I may be confusing Calvino with someone else. Pavese also did a number of translations particularly of American writers (Faulkner, Steinbeck, Melville, Hemingway and also the Irishman Joyce) into Italian. I prefer other Italian novelists of his era actually to him particularly Ignazio Silone (one of the founding members of the Italian communist party which he later repudiated), Curzio Malaparte (who was a very ardent fascist for a time), Calvino himself, Tommaso Landolfi, Primo Levi, Carlo Emilio Gadda and Paolo Volponi. Some of these I haven't read a lot of. Volponi once for instance though that was excellent 'Last act in Urbino'. Other contemporary Italian writers of his would be Carlo Levi, Alberto Moravia, Elsa Morante and Elio Vittorini.
To go from there to these days I know you're aware of Tabucchi who is excellent. I like Umberto Eco a lot also. Check out Leonardo Sciascia, Massimo Carlotto and Andrea Camilleri if you like police thrillers though in Sciascia's case they are more about the grip the mafia has on his native Sicily. And then there's the Nobel playwright Dario Fo--who has a Marx brothers kind of humor mixed in with his political activism. particularly good are 'Accidental death of an Anarchist' and 'Mistero Buffo'.

posted by lriley at 1:19 pm (EST) on Sep 19, 2006

Glad to hear you had a great trip Bert. Can't say much right now as I have to be off to work in a few minutes. I'll try to get back to you a little later on.

posted by lriley at 2:33 am (EST) on Sep 19, 2006

Bert,

Decided to join your group. I got a private invitation to join an Asian group but felt that since you asked me first the right thing would be to join yours first not that it matters all that much. I really do not know a lot about Asian fiction. I'm much more comfortable talking about Latin American. Anyways I read your profile and found it interesting and it's always nice to have a more concrete idea. Anyway I've never been much of a group joiner--a friend of mine always quotes Groucho Marx's remark which I find hilarious that goes something like this: 'I wouldn't belong to any organization that would have me as a member'.

posted by lriley at 2:57 pm (EST) on Sep 9, 2006

Someday we will have to go--flying out of New York is probably a lot cheaper than flying out from around here. Anyway good luck and have fun on your trip next week.

posted by lriley at 10:58 am (EST) on Sep 2, 2006

Yes Bert--have you ever run into a book by Bruce Chatwin called 'In Patagonia' an English writer--it's a kind of semi-serious travel book that takes you all over Argentina and into if I remember rightly one community where everyone speaks Welsh. The Argentines also are definitely meat eaters and barbecuer's extraordinaire from what I've heard which is also very North American. Ice cream is another specialty. In any case I'll finish off with another book by a favorite writer of mine Manuel Vazquez Montalban who is actually a Spaniard from Barcelona who wrote a bunch of thrillers starring the gourmet loving ex-con and ex-communist private eye Pepe Carvalho one of which 'The Buenos Aires Quinter' is set in Buenos Aires naturally and revolves around him being hired to find one of the 'disappeared' of Argentina's dirty war in the late 70's and early 80's. These are intelligent and very witty and often violent works with a few recipes thrown in besides and Argentine cuisine takes center stage for at least a few pages towards the end. Keep in mind though that Pepe is a free spirit when it comes to the written word as is often the case he's not above burning an 'important' book or two on cold nights in his fire place.

posted by lriley at 4:36 pm (EST) on Sep 1, 2006

Yes Bert--have you ever run into a book by Bruce Chatwin called 'In Patagonia' an English writer--it's a kind of semi-serious travel book that takes you all over Argentina and into if I remember rightly one community where everyone speaks Welsh. The Argentines also are definitely meat eaters and barbecuer's extraordinaire from what I've heard which is also very North American. Ice cream is another specialty. In any case I'll finish off with another book by a favorite writer of mine Manuel Vazquez Montalban who is actually a Spaniard from Barcelona who wrote a bunch of thrillers starring the gourmet loving ex-con and ex-communist private eye Pepe Carvalho one of which 'The Buenos Aires Quinter' is set in Buenos Aires naturally and revolves around him being hired to find one of the 'disappeared' of Argentina's dirty war in the late 70's and early 80's. These are intelligent and very witty and often violent works with a few recipes thrown in besides and Argentine cuisine takes center stage for at least a few pages towards the end. Keep in mind though that Pepe is a free spirit when it comes to the written word as is often the case he's not above burning an 'important' book or two on cold nights in his fire place.

posted by lriley at 4:35 pm (EST) on Sep 1, 2006

Sorry to have been a little abrupt Bert. I do have one possible recommendation as far as jewish themes and Argentina--that is a book called Mestizo by a Ricardo Feierstein I believe. I do have it in my library. It reminded me a bit of the one W.G. Sebald book I read--and I don't remember that right off--it didn't really blow me away but a lot of people like him. Feierstein's family if I remember rightly came from Poland. The book is about them anyway. His branch of his family moved to Argentina right before the holocaust. It's interesting and as a sidenote I've seen him on C-Span's book-tv and he actually speaks English fairly well. He was giving a speech and question and answer on some kind of a language thing. Argentina actually seems to me-haven't been there-to be something like the United States--a kind of melting pot. To me if he had my druthers--I would aim at the following places to travel to--the Mediterranean countries, Ireland--where I guess I have the most roots and Argentina.

posted by lriley at 2:39 am (EST) on Aug 30, 2006

I don't know how deep or grounded I am Bert. I don't think it would be appropriate for me to say that anyway. I try to keep things in perspective but it's not like I don't have anger issues either. Reading for me is something I enjoy a lot but I've always thought of it as a coping strategy too--it calms me--it takes me away from my own little world and puts me into someone else's and when I come back more often than not it's with a new outlook on my own percieved problems. Anyway there is nothing wrong with sports and I tend sometimes to over intellectualize even ice hockey. I post pretty much every day by the way on a Hockey website Hockey's future mostly on the Ranger's message board. Going to work is another thing--a lot of diverse personalities--it's not a place where I can really talk about books with anyone but that doesn't mean the people I work with are stupid either--they have their own interests and things that are important to them. Anyway got to go--My wife just got home and it's her birthday.

posted by lriley at 5:46 pm (EST) on Aug 29, 2006

I'll bring it up to her for sure Bert. I pretty much leave it up to her in the end though. My preference at the time would have been Martin McDonagh's 'Lieutenant of Inishmore' or Brian Friel's 'Faith healer'. I think both of those were just a couple days from opening at the time. Big fan of McDonagh's plays--all of which are listed in my library. My wife is a little on the starstruck side. First she wanted to see Julia Roberts in her play. In the past it's been Matthew Broderick or Antonio Banderas--that kind of thing. I'm more interested in whether I know something about the play or the playwright--even so she's going to make that decision. Anyway Spamalot was fun and it was a great crowd and a great atmosphere--same with the Ranger game. I'm sorry but I can't say too much about tennis--never played. I used to be a big sports junky but it's pretty much hockey now although I can watch boxing, lacrosse, soccer. Summer for me is the time for taking a break from it all.

posted by lriley at 2:20 pm (EST) on Aug 26, 2006

Do not get to see them in person very often. My wife and I went to the last regular season game against Ottawa and they got shellacked 5-1. It was fun though and we're figuring on catching one or two games (probably one) this season and probably March or April again. My wife likes going to shows and as it happened we went to Spamalot the night after and that was a lot of fun too. As for all those players mentioned I started following them during 71-72 so I missed the Bathgate's, Howell's and Nevin's but remember the Gag line and Park, Giacomin, Tkachuk, Stemkowski and Nielson very well.

posted by lriley at 11:29 am (EST) on Aug 26, 2006

Thanks!
I'm going on vacation for a week and probably would not have an accesss to
the computer.

posted by MarusiaK at 4:00 pm (EST) on Aug 6, 2006