Member: papalaz

Papalaz--did not know that about Rios and Paz. Seem a bit like an odd couple but then again there's alway the Beckett-Joyce connection.

Anyway:

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

The team of Luther Blissett now write as Wu Ming. They seem to write very long (600-800 pages) alternate renderings of history historical novels at least that is what Q and Manituana seem to be. They have another novel '54' which are friend Tartalom has reviewed and maybe it was him I had that conversation with. All these books look intriguing and I think I can get them cheaply enough so don't be surprised that I'll add one or two in the next couple weeks. Manituana seems to revolve around the Iroquois tribes--pre-american revolutionary war.

posted by lriley at 8:16 am (EST) on Nov 9, 2009

Papalaz--Well I thought we had had a conversation. Anyway I've looked it up in the past but it's been some time ago and it might have been too expensive or hard to find here because I never did get it. If I acted on everything I looked up anyway there wouldn't be any living space left in the house. The idea of a collaborative fiction is out there--it seems kind of Oulipian in a way and as I mentioned Harry Matthews and Jean Echenoz have taken part in something like this before. It's an intriguing idea.

My translation idea centers around one Rodolfo Walsh an Argentine who has never been translated into English. He wrote some crime novels which were supposedly quite good. I like the idea of messing about with writers more or less forgotten. He was one of the disappeared in the Argentine dirty war and quite a thorn in the eyes of the military dictatorship. That's something however I might not get going on until I retire--which is somewhere around 4 years from now--maybe though sooner.

As far as creative writing I'm not sure I feel up to that task. My powers of imagination tend to come and go and when they go my head becomes just a big blank.

posted by lriley at 2:21 pm (EST) on Nov 8, 2009

Papalaz--I'd heard of the collaboritive group Luther Blisset but not the subsequent Wu Ming. I think I recall us talking about LB sometime soon after I first came on LT. I've actually thought of something kind of like this--finding several people interested in translating something. For instance everyone takes a chapter--works on them and then sends them around to be critiqued by the rest of the group--eventually coming to some kind of consensus on them one by one. Anyway I think it's a good idea--BTW there's a book that Jean Echenoz and Harry Matthews collaborated on along with a few others--I can't think of the title off the top of my head. Anyway don't you have the original Blisset novel? What do you think of it?

posted by lriley at 2:18 pm (EST) on Nov 7, 2009

As a matter of fact I was ordering some of her work last night after I saw the complete review--pre-announcement. Somebody fairly likely leaked it--again. They can't keep secrets anymore. This Engdahl seems like a bit of a dick in a way--the remarks about their bias towards selecting Europeans. Anyway she sounds intriguing--some people say she's Jelinek part 2 but having read Jelinek 3 times I'm hoping she's better than that.

posted by lriley at 1:27 pm (EST) on Oct 8, 2009

Papalaz--looks like it will be Herta Muller day tomorrow:

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

posted by lriley at 5:16 pm (EST) on Oct 7, 2009

On Izzo--that's the best of the three part series. You're right that he's not as good as Manchette though. Vernon God Little was good I guess but a bit wearing at times. Maybe not the best booker winner.

Anyway those long ones might keep you going the entire winter.

I finished the Kazantzakis book. It was interesting enough. He seems to have been a religious/mystical gadfly--always looking for a way--or someone to show him a way. I think sometimes that people aren't as unique as they may think--maybe that we're not unique at all and that there really is no answers to the why's of this life.

posted by lriley at 11:06 pm (EST) on Sep 27, 2009

Papalaz--I've read two of her short story collections--'Family ties' and 'The hour of the star'. It's been a while. I remember liking them. Very introspective works in a way. She had a large reputation in Latin America. Brazil is kind of different than the rest of Central or South America--being the one country whose main lanugauge is Portugese not Spanish. Anyway--she's worth checking out IMO though in another sense those books haven't particularly stuck in my head.

posted by lriley at 12:54 pm (EST) on Sep 6, 2009

I kind of like Europe Central Papalaz--mostly told from the Russian end than the German though. Akhmatova and Shostakovich so far are central to the story. They're being followed around by a long time and very hard bitten NKVD man who does much of the narration.

I also liked the Houellebecq but if you don't care for it that's about as good as he's done and there's no point of returning--at least for now. FWIW I've heard he's a bit of an asshole.

On Lobo Antunes I think I sent you An explanation of the birds--it's one of his best. Others of his best would be Fado Alexandrino, The Inquisitor's Manual and Act of the Damned. This year his The fat man and infinity came out--some of his newspaper work, essays and very short fiction. It's really good as well. Truthfully I like Saramago but I like Lobo Antunes better. He takes more chances and has more the comedic streak. Utterly modern.

On Kazantzakis--it's more a memoir somewhat in the vein of Lampedusa. Reminds me as well of a very obscure Spanish Mallorcan writer Llorenc Villalonga.

Anyway I'll pass greetings along to Tara. She's had her first Pollution: Natural and Unnatural class this morning and is about 15 minutes away from her first British Literature II class--roughly 17th, 18th and 19th century British writers--a particular weakness of mine. At least my wife though is a big fan of Jane Austen.

posted by lriley at 1:01 pm (EST) on Aug 31, 2009

Just to add on the Sublime CD--lyrically they can be a bit raunchy--sometimes anti-authoritarian. One of the things I like about them is they cover a lot of musical influences. You have an older rock thing, you have the punk thing, the ska thing, the reggae thing, jazz and even hip hop coming out in places.

posted by lriley at 1:25 pm (EST) on Aug 20, 2009

No problem Papalaz--Infinite Jest once you start it will keep you busy for a while. It must have taken me close to three months to read it and I was hardly ever bored. I do remember it starting out a little bit slow though--maybe it was more me trying to get into the rhythm.

The Izzo was kind of a last minute thing. I was just trying to pack it so everything wouldn't be bouncing around--lucky for you've I'd run out of the styrofoam peanuts and thought what I'm doing?--either get another box or shove another book in and I had the British and American edition of the same book and thought that would be a good one to put in. I was thinking about Malalparte's Kaputt though--the problem was though I had two copies I'd preferred keeping the paperback and the hardcover (w/o jacket) would have jacked the postage up way too much. The Izzo book is an excellent crime novel--Malaparte's Kaputt--is a masterpiece though. Someday I'll have to get you one.

posted by lriley at 1:19 pm (EST) on Aug 20, 2009

Papalaz--I know the Post Office can open media mail if they suspect a book is not in the package. Media mail is only domestic though. Maybe suspicious for some reason. Maybe it got knocked around a lot--and had to be repackaged. That happens too. Anyway there was a CD inside too--Sublime--not sure you'll like them but they are a favorite of mine.

One helluva mess is Izzo's best book. It's a crime novel set in Marseille. That's the English title. In the United States it's titled Total Chaos. The 100 brothers is a signed copy.

posted by lriley at 9:55 am (EST) on Aug 20, 2009

Papalaz--I have not read Nikolaides but am aware of the Archipelago imprint and the fine and finely made books they produce. I have a few--Elias Khoury's 'Gate of the Sun' and 'Yalo'--both of them great books. BTW 'Gate of the sun' is on the shortlist of books I might send you around Christmas. Halldor Laxness's first novel 'The great weaver from Kashmir' which I reviewed this year is also an Archipelago as is Witold Gombrowicz's 'Bacacay'. They're filling in a lot of missing gaps of great writers never altogether translated and/or of more obscure ones that are worth taking a look at.

Anyway happy hunting and snooping through their catalog. By coincidence this is the second conversation I've had about Archipelago on LT today. Kidzdoc who is an even more ferocious devourer of international literature than myself brought that publisher up as well.

posted by lriley at 12:03 pm (EST) on Aug 18, 2009

Papalaz--pretty sure it's the same book. Houellebecq's a bit of a reactionary. I liked the book a lot though. He's a very talented reactionary. Celine is an obvious comparison. His work since Elementary Particles has gone downhill a little though. Another very good French writer if you ever run into him--Jean Echenoz.

posted by lriley at 5:28 pm (EST) on Aug 14, 2009

I've been writing shorter ones lately. If the rest of Himes thrillers are like that I can see myself going through the whole batch in the next year or two.

Still working on Cultural amnesia which is very--almost always--interesting. Started re-reading J. M. Coetzee's 'Foe'--I found a cheap but signed copy. Also Martin Zusak's 'The book thief'--something that my college bound daughter has read numerous times. It's labeled 'young adult' but it's actually quite good and the label is IMO a misnomer. It's a birds eye like view of a small town in pre-WWII third reich Germany. Interesting slants on things from the ordinary perspectives of the town in question. In some respects it owes a nod to Grass's Tin drum but it so far can stand on its own. Anyway I had to get started on it because she wants to take it with her and we're now under two weeks before she leaves. We'll get to Kazantzakis' soon but it might be in September.

posted by lriley at 12:58 pm (EST) on Aug 14, 2009

Papalaz--reviewed A rage in Harlem which I really loved.

posted by lriley at 3:01 pm (EST) on Aug 13, 2009

It's good discipline.

posted by lriley at 7:52 pm (EST) on Aug 11, 2009

Papalaz--do you want it to remain a surprise or do you want me to tell you? The one thing I'll tell you for now is you are getting Infinite Jest.

posted by lriley at 3:14 pm (EST) on Aug 11, 2009

Papalaz--there's a bit in this one. I was trying to fill up the box.

posted by lriley at 11:53 am (EST) on Aug 11, 2009

Papalaz--should be going out today.

posted by lriley at 9:36 am (EST) on Aug 11, 2009

Papalaz--was reading more of Cultural Amnesia--came across a reference to the Chambers biographical dictionary. I did a search here and apparently you have one. What do you think of it?

posted by lriley at 3:11 pm (EST) on Aug 8, 2009

Papalaz--got it. I'll have to send you a CD as well but that's probably going to be next time.

posted by lriley at 11:58 am (EST) on Aug 8, 2009

One way or another Papalaz I think we're going to have to wait a few years. Our daughter going into college this year--our son next year. It's expensive but I think if something untoward happened we could get them through it anyway but it would complicate things too much. Best to plod on for a little longer. Personally I think we could live off the land if we had to or at least turn it to better use--grow lots of tomatoes--head for the local supermarket every time they have a pasta sale. Make more bread with our breadmaking machine.

The education business for them is serious though. The odds would be too stacked against them living around here without it. My son has Asperger's as well. Kind of like having superior math skills + a photograpic memory--the downside being backward social skills with a tendency to look inward.

Anyway the move I'm thinking of is one I've really never wanted to make but I think it's necessary. I expect it's going to surprise a lot of people there as well. Maybe even some who might think they've cornered me. Again though it's hard to tell what their motivation is and I'm not going to ask for justifications. I prefer being more pro-active.

On Gass's book--I struggled with it but finished it. An academic trying to hold onto his tenure--he's finished his book--an apologetic history of Nazi Germany and he's not sure where to go with it--looking back at his life including a weird sometimes abused childhood--a post graduate period in pre WWII Germany--the prevalent fascist tendencies in the university's there at the time which he seems to inculcate into his own outlook on life--back to the present in-fighting at his own college with his colleagues and his blown apart marraige at home--along with all the sleazy hitting up he does of college undergraduates which threatens to destroy his career never mind the damage it's done to his own at home life--for relaxation he's started digging tunnels in his basement and hiding the dirt in his wife's collection of antique dresser drawers and he murders her cat. There is certainly some comedy there and Gass's prose is interesting and adept--I just don't know if the story held up for me all that well. Sometimes if things don't grab me the fatigue sets in and it's going downhill from there.

Wallace's book can be strange at times too and it's a lot longer. I liked it a lot better though. His grasp of pharmacology and its uses is stunning. And if nothing else if you don't like it (and I'm pretty sure you will) it will make a great door stopper.

posted by lriley at 2:45 pm (EST) on Aug 4, 2009

I agree--there's nothing really unique about it. Instead of thinking 5-7 years before retiring--it may be a bit closer to the 5 years--wasting too much life on other people's bs. At least for me there is some light--or more light at the end of the tunnel.

Anyway I'm getting organized towards sending something back your way--particularly Infinite Jest. If you already have it though I'll find something else--but it's an absolute have to have as far as I'm concerned. I'll warn you though for a work of fiction it's over 1000 pages with about 150-200 pages of footnotes in the back end.

As I've said I'm on the Clive James book Cultural Amnesia--which is also a monster. Not all that far into it but so far it's fascinating.

posted by lriley at 1:57 pm (EST) on Aug 3, 2009

There is also Elias Khoury's Gate of the Sun.

Arlt was known as a 'sloppy' writer. In some respects The seven madmen borrows from Dostoyevsky's 'The devils' but it's much more modern in style--Arlt always played on the grotesque-- and there are no heroes involved. The city of Buenos Aires is a character as well--drawn in almost an expressionist mode throughout. It and it's sequel 'The Flamethrowers' revolve around one Remo Erdosain--a luckless bill collector who gets fired from his job for embezzling. In order to avoid prosecution he has the get the money back and that's pretty much how it all starts out.

From the introduction to the Seven Madmen:--'Arlt was a newspaperman with a style that was often rough, blunt, and defiantly agrammatical. His unpolished mode of expression and the swarm of low-life characters with whom he populated his novels gave his fiction a naturalistic tone. many of his contemporaries saw no more in the Seven Madmen than a harsh, rough-hewn 'proletarian' novel, full of scabrous scenes, crude words, sleazy characters, and unforgivable grammar.

Some--'thoughtful readers found Arlt singularly imaginative, willing to violate the tenets of realism in favor of bold invention--nurtur(ing) a predilection for creating forms in which fantasy and real-life experience played a hallucinating counterpoint. His fusion of the fancifully distorted and the realistically faithful set Arlt's work apart from that of the social realists of his time. But many who were unsure how to evaluate Arlt's blend of the real and the unreal and his roung, deviant mode of expression simply concluded 'that Arlt didn't know how to write'.

There is an article about Arlt and anarchism by an academic by the name of Close. It's pretty long but can be googled easily enough but I could find you the link if you want. Arlt strikes me as a very restless soul. He was thrown out of school at a very young age--his father was a very autocratic German immigrant and he grew up off the streets--teaching himself to read at libraries. He became a very famous newspaperman but he had a hand in a lot of different things--a number of plays--inventions--he had two or three patents, chemistry--the Erdosain character is a failed chemist as well. He dropped dead from a heart attack at 42. The execution of an Argentine Anarchist Di Giovanni (shortly after the Sacco and Vanzetti executions) which Arlt as newspaperman witnessed was a major impetus for him in writing The Seven Madmen.

posted by lriley at 4:30 pm (EST) on Jul 25, 2009

Papalaz--I'd been thinking about it anyway. It's been a few months. The things revolving through my head have been Infinite Jest--I'd think you'd really like that--something else by Sorrentino maybe, the Antrim signed book came up the other day--still haven't checked on it though. A little trip to South America might do you some good as well--one of these days I should send you something by Bolano--(I have two copies of 2666) or Nicanor Parra or even Ricardo Piglia's Artificial Respiration or Arlt's Seven Madmen which has been my avatar for quite a while.

posted by lriley at 4:59 pm (EST) on Jul 24, 2009

Papalaz--I'll be on the lookout for it. I'll have to figure out something to send back as well.

posted by lriley at 2:47 pm (EST) on Jul 24, 2009

Anyway McElroy is a no--so it's 40 of 61. I saw Chris Sorrentino--never read any of his work--do you have an opinion on him?

I don't know if I still have 100 Brothers. I might have sold it. It was a signed copy too. If I still have it I could pull it and send it your way next time.

posted by lriley at 11:35 pm (EST) on Jul 22, 2009

Mostly confined to English speakers though. I've read 27 of the books not including the first book of Auster's New York trilogy. 40--maybe 41 of the authors--McElroy I'd have to check. McCarthy's Remainder I've had on order.

There are some favorites--The atrocity exhibition, 2666, House of Leaves, The mysterious flame of Queen Loana (Eco's best book), The lime twig, The counterlife, Infinite Jest.

Of what I've read there are a couple I didn't like--The hundred brothers and Pale Fire (generally I really like Nabokov).

posted by lriley at 1:19 pm (EST) on Jul 22, 2009

Well she's already signed up for it. She has a short window before classes start where she can change if she chooses. A lot of stuff she would have chosen was already gone to upper classmen and to the earlier orientation day freshmen. So I'm expecting she'll probably stick with it. Not having gone to college I think we just figured out a little bit late that the sooner you can apply for a class the better. So it is a lesson learned. Anyway she's not at least as yet a literature nut like myself--she likes to read but it's simpler fare--more classifiable with her age group.

Anyway I ordered a Rage in Harlem. That seems to be the first--which is why with Chandler I ordered The big sleep first--sometimes it's best to go in order and sometimes it doesn't matter.

posted by lriley at 4:07 pm (EST) on Jul 20, 2009

Papalaz--On Himes I read Pinktoes--which truthfully I didn't care much for. To be honest I think I got the wrong book of his because I was more interested in the darker crime related stuff. I'll have to make sure the next time--any recommendations?

Anyway just picked up a Matt Beynon Rees--The collaborator of Bethlehem--a crime novel set in the occupied territories of Palestine. Rees apparently has fiction and non-fiction work set in that region.

Currently am working my way through some short stories by David Foster Wallace--Oblivion. A much shorter work than Infinite Jest. A great writer but there's no way you can read him fast. Very compact and at times very dark.

Vacation is just about over for us here. We've been off two weeks. Going back to work on Thursday morning and I'm not really looking forward to it. Another 5-7 years though--it is getting closer. We spent a couple days going back and forth to Binghamton--about an hour away--my daughter Tara is enrolled for her first year of college and they were going through orientation. I think she will like it--it is a really good university and there's quite a lot that the area offers. Average incoming student last year was a 94%. One of the courses she'll be taking is Brit Lit 2 which seems to cover the period from post-Shakespeare up through Oscar Wilde--not really my area of expertise. 20th century especially Post WWII I'd feel a lot more comfortable with.

posted by lriley at 1:43 pm (EST) on Jul 20, 2009

Papalaz--finished The big sleep and liked it quite a lot. I think I'll be getting more Chandler pretty soon.

As well I'm into the final section of No Logo and think it gets better as it goes along. Yeah it's still got a bit of a dated feel but it has me thinking in new ways about things and anyway I like the optimistic tone and the constructive engagement of many of the people and events she cites.

posted by lriley at 8:19 am (EST) on Jul 15, 2009

Papalaz--just reviewed the Psalm Killer--a violent crime novel set in Northern Ireland during the troubles which I liked a lot.

posted by lriley at 12:33 pm (EST) on Jul 4, 2009

It's really for the hard core have to find everything by this guy reader though. A first time reader of Celine coming to Normance would likely think ?!??!huh?! I'm too much the Celine fan to be all that critical.

I'd rank Celine's fiction: 1. Journey 2. North 3. Installment plan 4. Castle 5. Guignol's band 6. Rigodoon 7. London Bridge 8. Normance 9. Professor Y 10. Fable 11. the fragments of Cannon Fodder. The other things his play The church is okay I suppose--too long for what it is and some anti-semetic stuff is there which was definitely not needed at all. The Church was written before Journey but published many years after. The other is balletic plays--best that can be said for it is great title--Ballets without music, without dancers, without anything.

posted by lriley at 4:03 pm (EST) on Jul 2, 2009

Papalaz--I have ordered 'The big sleep'--also reviewed Celine's 'Normance'.

posted by lriley at 8:40 am (EST) on Jun 30, 2009

Papalaz-busy day yesterday. High School graduation. Anyway I'll look into the Chandler's.

posted by lriley at 6:10 am (EST) on Jun 28, 2009

Papalaz--I agree Nologo is very much relevant--only that things have extended from the point in time of her book. The interesting thing about so called North American multinationals--I imagine it to be similar everywhere else--is they're American when it benefits them and globalists when it doesn't. They try to eat up everything smaller than them in the meantime. Wal-Mart is famous for waving the flag, paying low wages, cheating their workers and destroying other businesses whether it's retail competitors--especially locally owned or manufacturers who won't kowtow to them. The dog eat dog mentality is what drives the American business model. Capitalism in this country is equivalent in some respects to the fundamentalism of some of the more religious based countries of the Middle East that we seem always to be in conflict with. Economic warfare--Religious warfare--choose your poison. Truthfully though I think we can never hope to get more than a tiny minority here to think it we're not any better than those of other places and Iran right now is a good example. We've had politicians hollering about them for the last 3 decades and yet they tend to forget that the people there have many of the same basic desires and wishes as most people here do.

Anyway I rate North after Journey as my favorite Celine novel. By the way--Dalkey is putting out another Boon novel in a few months.

posted by lriley at 6:22 pm (EST) on Jun 26, 2009

Never read it but that Egyptian (by the Finnish writer) used to be on my father's bookshelf.

On Celine's WWII books--Castle to Castle is excellent. I thought North was fabulous--nothing like German generals retired and otherwise for roses and lipstick (great with the grotesque humor in that one IMO) but Rigodoon is very rushed. I especially liked his cat Bebert. The portraits he draws of French Vichy figures trying to backstab each other (in some respects it reminds me of the more ambitious at work) and low level Nazi goons are very cleverly done.

Raymond Chandler I've never read but ought to give a go--any recommendations?

On Naomi Klein--the one problem I have with No logo--is it's a bit dated. I agree with her though that behind the multinationals and brands are economy is based mostly--95% on bullshit--has been that way for a long time. That's why I almost never go to stores other than to buy food and books. By the way we've decided to buy a Prius--the 2010's specs are for more than 50 miles to the gallon. Not really big car buyers--the one it's replacing will be 13 years old. My previous car was 14. I see value though in not enriching those associated with oil any more than is absolutely necessary. Anyone that and our daughter's education are going to be the two biggest expenditures in the near future.

Along with that I'm reading two other books--Nadine Gordimer's--The Pickup which is very good and Christopher Petit's The Psalm killer--not very far into that one--it's very noirish--set in Northern Ireland during the troubles so far centering around a killer associated with the UDA--excellent tone--has the potential to be one of the best books I read this year.

posted by lriley at 1:37 pm (EST) on Jun 26, 2009

Papalaz--just finished Celine's Normance today--the last of his novels to be translated on Dalkey Archive. It's the sequel to and very much like his Fairy tale for another time--the two novels he published before his WWII trilogy--Castle to Castle, North and Rigodoon. Not as good at the trilogy--they're still very interesting and unique.

Also a little ways into Naomi Klein's No Logo. I think you've said you've read that. I like where she's going with her work. Interesting perspectives on multi-nationals and the advertising world enabling each others propaganda.

posted by lriley at 5:16 pm (EST) on Jun 25, 2009

Reviewed McNamee's 12:23 today. I liked it a lot--like everything else of his.

Also started a review copy of James Hider's (Spiders of Allah). He's a London Times reporter who has been covering all things for them from the Middle East. I'm not that far and the book actually isn't even out for another month or two--but it's very interesting. He's a self-described atheist trying to trying to make sense out all the religious nuts on all sides.

On leaving an illegal Jewish settlement in Gaza: 'I left them to their brittle constructions and cold nights under the stars: my phone was ringing and I didn't want a whole pack of them noticing there was a foreign journalist in the midst, a species that ranked in their eyes only slightly above Palestinians. It was my office telling me a Palestinian suicide bomber had blown up his car full of explosives next to an Israeli bus on the coastal road to Haifa. A dozen passengers were incinerated. The bomber may have well believed he was off to heaven to meet his maker. In fact, he was a lump of burned flesh fused to the steering column of his car. I got in the armoured jeep and drove off. I'd seen all I needed to see in order to get an idea of the fundamentalists: God and land and fuck the rest of you. It would prove a good grounding for my time in Iraq'.

posted by lriley at 1:08 pm (EST) on Jun 9, 2009

I've added a few more and worked out how to search the Australian National Library Collection for Australian authors. I think it is your page that is slow rather than Library Thing specifically. Mabe it needs some qartchiving. Have been neglecting the children to do this, so better go back to them and might add a few more books later tonight. K

posted by KeiraJay at 2:52 am (EST) on Jun 9, 2009

Anyway more on McNamee--an interview anyway:

http://dogmatika.com/dm/features_more.ph...

posted by lriley at 2:51 pm (EST) on Jun 5, 2009

Papalaz--just looked at your covers and they're all spines. So I'm not sure.

Just started the Kite runner today. We'll see if it lives up to its hype.

Have you ever read Eoin McNamee--a Northern Irish writer? Very noirish. 2 of his novels look somewhat deeply into the world of British intelligence--Resurrection Man and The Ultras--during the troubles. They could almost be called treatments looking at horrific actual events--in Resurrection Man--the group known as the 'Shankill Butchers' and its abetment by British governmental agencies and The Ultras--looks into the disappearance of the real life Robert Nairac--a Northern Irish raised British spy who'd taken part in Loyalist paramilitary operations and also infiltrated the IRA and when last seen was being walked out of a Republican bar by IRA members many many years ago. I've started on his '12:23. Paris. 31st August 1991.'--the subject of which is the death of Princess Diana in Paris--and it's much in the same vein. As of now a gathering of malefactors from the fringes of Britains torturers and spy world--their aim to make a assassination look like an accident. The idea of Diana in a lifelong relationship with an Arab is just too much for certain quarters back home. Anyway McNamee's prose in some respects remind me of Ballard:

'Bennett had sent a car for him. The driver was waiting in arrivals with a cardboard sign. Harper followed him out to the car, an Escort estate, missing a hubcap. The driver was a tall man with a grey, ill-looking face wearing a Burton suit with a cigarette burn on the cuff. He seemed to be an authority in the field of ashen looks. He listed the constitutional ills of the country, oil wells in Saudi drying up, interest rates, immigration. He kept coming back to immigration. He used words like swamped. He talked about alien cooking smells.

They were driving through the flat land between Heathrow and the city, almost an estuary landscape, a dank, reclaimed feel to it. There was something impressive about the scale and density of the housing, each tract of housing identical to the next, the featureless meridians that had been reached, the eerie suburbs rushing past. The motorway climbed on to a flyover between tower blocks. Building that were no more than ten years old surrounded by burnt-out cars, old mattresses, domestic items discarded in stairwells. Something here that the architects and planners hadn't seen on the plans, the forlorn devices of decay in the weave of the plan itself, in the paper like a watermark. The impression is of extending the boundaries of emptiness, creating new classifications of void.

As they drove into the West End Harper thought that it seemed much later. The streets seemed meagre, sparsely populated. Pedestrians crossed the street with their heads down. He kept catching sight of people in alleyways and narrow streets as they passed, tense strained faces as thought they had become mired in some illicit trade. The driver talked about services on the brink of collapse, stark narratives of social catastrophe.'

posted by lriley at 1:12 pm (EST) on Jun 5, 2009

Papalaz--I had a lot of difficulty describing that one as well. Even so I think it's a great book.

I did a review today of Santiago Roncagliolo's Red April--a very interesting thriller that I think you'd might like. Right below that is one by Lobo Antunes.

posted by lriley at 11:17 am (EST) on Jun 3, 2009

Papalaz--Kind of struck me as a left wing Celine. An unique style--very funny--and I like how he manipulates his three major threads--Ondine's story, Reynard the fox and present time with his friends--letting his friends critique his work. Almost against the odds it all fits well together. One of my all time favorite books. I think I might include it in my top ten so I'm pleased you liked it. He has two other translated books--Summer in Termuren is a sequel to Chapel Road--though IMO not quite as good--but still well worth reading. A shorter novel Minuet is excellent though--but Chapel Road IMO so far is his best.

posted by lriley at 5:22 pm (EST) on May 30, 2009

Papalaz--just reviewed Galeano's 2nd Memory of Fire book--Faces and Masks--also Le Clezio's short story collection The round and other cold hard facts.

posted by lriley at 2:20 pm (EST) on May 7, 2009

Papalaz--maybe the closest comparable for Celine's explosive writing skill is Boon--at least that I've read. Boon is more politically grounded--and it's towards the left. Apparently he was also quite a collector of female pornographic art. What I like as well is how Chapel Road seques between fable and contemporary life--between the past and present and it can be very funny too.

posted by lriley at 12:58 pm (EST) on May 1, 2009

Papalaz--Maybe I'll cook up a list on my next days off. Ordered Open Veins about a week ago on Half.com but the seller came back that he/she didn't have the book any longer. It may be he/she just wants to raise the price. In lieu of that I have started the second volume of Galeano's Memory of Fire--Faces and Masks though I'm not that far into it yet--maybe 45-50 pages. A lot of interesting stuff for sure.

posted by lriley at 2:23 pm (EST) on Apr 30, 2009

Papalaz--from your Finnish friend--I'll go only with the English entries.

I'm thinking 1. may be Tristram Shandy and 5. is definitely Joyce's Ulysses.

From yours 1. may be Derek Raymond--maybe one I haven't read. 3. I believe is Portrait of the Artist and 4. Ulysses both by Joyce. 5. Crash-Ballard 6. A void-Perec. 8. I'm not sure but I think it may be Celine's Journey to the end of the night--maybe the Marks translation. 12. Too loud a solitude-Hrabal.

posted by lriley at 5:58 pm (EST) on Apr 29, 2009

Papalaz-haven't read anything by McWhorter but I have seen him on C-span's Book TV several times talking up his books, being on panels etc. An interesting guy though very nerdy. He is a black man--I'd say in his 30's--I think originally from Philadelphia. He has an unusual way of expressing himself--so exact in how he uses language that at first you might think he's not really an American. As to uses of language I tend towards informality--spoken and even written language is always in a state of transitioning--nothing wrong with that. As any number of excellent fiction writers have proven--grammatical correctedness is not always what it's cracked up to be.

We've been busy. I know you've sent me this other thing from a guy from Finland. I'll try to get to it in the next couple days. We've been kind of doing a last minute going over of my daughter's college options and finally she's more or less made her choice for Suny Binghamton--which is an excellent school. 92% retention rate of first to second year students. 70% graduate in 4 years--many of those who don't are double majoring. It's rated at the top end (or top 5 year in and year out) by publications that rate schools (US News and World report, Kiplingers etc.)At least as of a few years ago it was one of only I think 3 universities in the United States with an active professor-student translation center--although having done several years at Spanish I'm not sure she's interested in that end. One of my favorite books Raymond Queneau's Children of Clay was translated by a student there. Lots of opportunities for internships. And it's only about an hour away with very accessible bus services.

Apart from that we're in the middle of the Stanley cup playoffs which is very distracting for me. I don't want you to think I'm ignoring that post--it's just that I am a fanatic when it comes to my New York Rangers--a real fanatic--I've been following them since 1971-72. Things do not look all that hot for them right now. If they get eliminated which may happen shortly there will certainly be a lull. I don't watch games after they're done so I'll have extra time for sure then.

posted by lriley at 4:58 pm (EST) on Apr 26, 2009

A few random thoughts:

Not sure I agree with her or in the sense that the rest of the world generally acts with more deliberation or maturity--though some certainly do. Like most other countries in a historical sense the United States has the habit of spinning its past always into some glorious. I think for most people here or anywhere that is good enough for their lives--they're not interested in delving any deeper. Here we've been dreaming the dream of world power empire pretty much since World War II--before that war it was more just the dominant power of the two American continents. Britain itself had some of the same ideas pre-20th century. There are moments when we do question ourselves. The Vietnam war for instance is generally not seen as something that we should have done. W. recent Iraq adventure will not be seen in a positive light either. There's also the Watergate scandal.

I'd note that Americans in general don't understand that there's a shadow unelected bureaucracy working hand in hand with whatever elected entity which weilds at least as much power as the elected one. They certainly don't understand how sinister it is--that it's been waging economic warfare in the name of capitalism all around the globe but particularly within our own hemisphere for at least a century. A lot more scrutiny on the Chavez handshake than on the subject matter of the author of his gift. We have a benign sense of ourselves. Some still wallow in complacency and don't want to understand there might be a real political motivation behind the attacks of 9-11.

Our kind of society though is different in significant ways from others. There are other melting pot societies--Canada, Argentina, Australia--but we're in more of a state of transition now than any of them. Polite society here is best represented by the white europeanized judeo-christian segment. For them it's not just the 9-11 shock but that their grip over the political direction of the country is slipping. Like I've said they will be outnumbered in the relatively near future. The aging part of that segment tends either to ignore that fact or get hysterical about it. There is a sense of denial from that older segment which does believe itself to be very cultured. Obama certainly represent something a lot different than what they're used to and many many of them resent that. The younger part of that segment is much more adaptable though.

This country has managed to renew itself many times because of the continuing diversifacation of its population. We may be at a kind of crossroads. For it to continue to evolve we might need to dump some of our more cherished but useless ideas about ourselves such as we are god's chosen people or that capitalism is the only economic engine available for a democratic nation--(funny enough that Jesus Christ--christianity's representative of God in earthly clothes hardly strikes me as much of a capitalist).

posted by lriley at 2:06 pm (EST) on Apr 24, 2009

Obama is a politician--keeping that in mind on Cuba the state of Florida is a large part of the political equation here. As well keeping your main opposition party constantly simmering instead of boiling over--hysterics plays a part as well. For me it's way too careful but I understand it. The problems that the GOP otherwise known as the Republican party have created for themselves at least at the present time seems almost insurmountable for the relative future keeping in mind that events can take on a warp speed of their own these days. Logistically the GOP has painted itself into a corner. They are the party of older judeo-christian europeanized white americans.
They don't connect well with younger voters who came out in droves this time around, or with Hispanics, not well enough with Asians. Not at all with African Americans or Gays. These minority populations (the different races anyway) altogether will within the next 20-25 years outnumber white american altogether. They are also becoming more and more organized. These are fact that the political entity ignores at its peril--and that's exactly how they've marginalized themselves pretty much in the deep south--by ignoring them. The Republicans criticize these days a lot but they don't very often offer any solutions. They lack ideas. Whether the agenda or how much of the agenda of the Obama administration works is another thing--but offering no alternatives of your own does nothing to help. What they seem most interested is in maintaining the wealth gap--supporting the super rich and the defense and arms industry. I ask you how relevant is the Nasa program to a high speed railway transportation system? I see the Nasa program as a relic of the cold war--pumping money into the defense industry--and making heroes of really a bunch of elitists. The transportation system would be useful if you get the right civic minded people to run it. We're fed these dreams of invincibility for so long that too many people just cannot let go of them.

Anyway American foreign policy absolutely sucks and has sucked for a long time.

posted by lriley at 2:15 pm (EST) on Apr 22, 2009

in post below after lines the pocket of them insert--and their friends. I'm afraid I was ranting again and didn't do a very good job of editing.

posted by lriley at 1:34 pm (EST) on Apr 20, 2009

Papalaz--Obama seems as if he's intent on reviewing US-Cuba relations re-opening some dialogue with the Castro government and allowing for some back and form commuting between that isaland and our country. Also as well at the same meeting with Chavez there was a cordial exchange between Obama and Daniel Ortega.

Meanwhile though in the United States--the former Republican speaker of the house Newt Gingrich along with Republican Senators--the retiring after the present term Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and John Ensign the leader of the minority party in the Senate are up in arms about it. According to Gingrich--Obama is showing how weak he is and he compared him to Carter. These people are only concerned of course with the politcal gamesmanship and the arrogance of military and economic power that has fueled our most asinine foreign policy in the region. I expect Kissinger to rear his ugly head soon as well. It's really remarkable that we could fight another asinine conflict in Southeast Asia in the 60's and 70's and then afterwards build a relationship which the morons mentioned above would approve of (mostly because it lines the pockets of them [many of whom were eligible for but did their level best to avoid fighting in that conflict] through the exploitation of Southeast Asian labor) with Vietnam and still after all these years not even to attempt to rebuild a relationship with a country sitting right off our Florida shore. Amazing. What Obama's administration is doing--even if it's just babysteps right now should have been done long before. As for trying to mend relationships throughout Latin America this falls right in line with things I've been hoping for and pleases me very much. The jackass Bush 2 administration tried to organize a coup in Venezuela. The fear is that Venezuela and other countries in the region by not accepting our economic policies might show the rest of the world and right under our noses that there is another way than that and the might not include the World Bank and the IMF and Friedman's theories--that may even work better given the chance. That is just too much to bear for so many stuck up assholes here. I think I'm going to be looking up that Galeano book by the way.

posted by lriley at 1:30 pm (EST) on Apr 20, 2009

Well from recent articles about him Papalaz--he was sick so it's not really a shock. He seemed very lucid though. Death can be better than a long bout of suffering--at least it seems that way to me. My grandmother lived until 107--up until about her very late 90's she was still mentally sharp and could more or less get around on her own. Those last several years were not worth it--for her or for anyone. By the time she did die practically every bodily function had collapsed on her. It seemed that about half her body weight was down around her ankles. It left me with the impression that you can live too long. What we have is a gift--and it's very good at times and life should be enjoyed as much as possible but the gift is a limited one.

posted by lriley at 4:17 pm (EST) on Apr 19, 2009

In post below insert 'of military' between network and bases.

posted by lriley at 1:35 pm (EST) on Apr 17, 2009

Just--the last temptation. Partly due to the furor it raised here in the United States when the movie came out. Generally I liked the book--the ending was a bit hokey.

Anyway get the protestant religious right linked up with the Catholic cardinals here and it becomes big news--they make a lot of noise. Right now the big complaint is done through 'tea parties'. That's not necessarily a religious thing though. They don't like Obama's agenda of printing money and 'high taxes' for the wealthy and vis-a-vis capital gains. Not that I'm great on taxes being a taxpayer myself but I have very little sympathy in any case because--1) we got ourselves in this hole and dragged a lot of other people with us--not that others elsewhere didn't sometimes play a part as well and 2) specifically to the U. S.--so many millions here will piss and moan about their taxes but ask them to make cuts into the defense budget?---not that. No fucking way. It's like asking us to castrate ourselves--so you want an efficient high speed rail system? or National Health Care? affordable or maybe even completely subsidized university or college education?--other countries have this but we're more interested in planting flags on the moon and/or occupying adversarial foreign countries and/or having this network bases all over the globe.

I know I'm taking advantage of your innocent Kazantakis' question--but all this was on my mind already today and needs to be vented.

posted by lriley at 1:33 pm (EST) on Apr 17, 2009

To add to today's other post I've reviewed some poetry by Nicanor Parra in which I include in the summary his offtake on Shakespeare's Hamlet--titled W. C. PrOblEM--starting with--To P or not to P.

posted by lriley at 4:11 pm (EST) on Apr 16, 2009

A very good review Papalaz. I'll have to keep Sorrentino in mind the next time we do an exchange. Maybe we should do one every 3 or 4 months. Say a September? and then a Christmas one-I believe your birthday is around the same time. Someday I'll have to send you something by Le Clezio as well--although his older stuff which tends to be more experimental is really expensive these days--though a couple are out in trade now that he won the big prize.

You do need to get to the Boon though. I think that is fantastic. Almost one which I would defend with my life.

posted by lriley at 3:20 pm (EST) on Apr 16, 2009

Papalaz--When it comes to Jane Austen--I'd have to start at the beginning. I've never read any of her work. OTOH my wife is a big fan. Has read them all and has several of the movie treatments of her work. I could buy it and drop it on her.

Anyway still slowly going through Gass's Tunnel. Those are 652 very densely packed pages. I can see why it took you a month. A couple books in the mail today--back to Argentina--so many people have raved about Cesar Aira that I finally broke down and got his 'Ghosts'. Also a crime novel by a German author Andrea Maria Schenkel--The murder farm--which looks very very interesting.

posted by lriley at 4:17 pm (EST) on Apr 8, 2009

A nice review Papalaz. Anyway glad you like the Sorrentino.

posted by lriley at 5:10 pm (EST) on Apr 4, 2009

Papalaz--most of the short story writers including Barthelme I've heard of but have never read. As I've said before I have holes--you just need to look for them. Post World War II american literature going all the way into the 70's I have some weaknesses. I'm not very well versed in classic British literature or even a lot of classics for that matter. I'm completely self started right from the beginning meaning most of what I have read has been from one impulse or another. Maybe I'll have to check Barthelme out. Anyway I expect to start Gass's The Tunnel tomorrow and that's a long one I expect to be on for at least a week.

posted by lriley at 4:58 pm (EST) on Apr 1, 2009

That's a great find papalaz. I'm going to take that straight over to the Oulipo group here.

posted by lriley at 2:09 pm (EST) on Mar 27, 2009

Good that you do like surprises. It will give you reason to rush right over when it comes in.

posted by lriley at 2:00 pm (EST) on Mar 24, 2009

Papalaz-there is a surprise inside the package I'm sending. Anyway much applause to the Grecian public servants in their Postal Service. Hopefully their management people aren't as fucked up and interfering as ours. Looking at the news reports lately--the US Postal service announces one day they're going to bounce 3000 people and the next day that they're going to layoff 150,000 people--and only two weeks ago they were going to hire temporary mail carriers at over $20 (?!) an hour. The usual kind of mixed signals we get whenever a 'crisis' comes to town. And then there's more noise about another no benefit early retirement if anybody wants to think of that as some kind of an offer. Bush, of course, like with everything else wanted to privatize us. Minimun wage airport security--Kelman's 'You have to be careful in the land of the free'. That is what all his type of cronies at the top of the Postal management would like as well. Even with the new democratic Obama administration--they still have their hopes and if the harder economic times can be used as a justification and they can find a path to maneuver it I expect they will try and that will not only hugely fuck up domestic mail service but also international package service. But--hey if there's a big cash cow to slaughter.

posted by lriley at 8:23 am (EST) on Mar 24, 2009

Papalaz--Chapel road went out to you this morning and as it happens Not not while the giro--showed up in my mailbox this afternoon. I'm not sure when I'll get to it--as it also happens the Gass novel you recommended recently is also a new arrival and may be my next major project.

posted by lriley at 2:11 pm (EST) on Mar 23, 2009

I actually took the time many years ago to read both of Rand's major novels. I wasn't really that big of a reader back then but I'd run occasionally into someone who would say how good they were. On finishing them but not having a lot to compare it to--that probably should have been enough back then for me to stop reading anything altogether--but I persevered anyway and got into other things which really were revelations. The thing is I still run into people who think those works are the greatest things they've ever read--and it's not just that they are about as mean spirited as anything I've ever read (maybe the Turner diaries would be worse or Mein Kampf--I haven't read either) but the plots are howlingly bad and the characterizations are of totally good or totally bad people. Apparently she was a fan of Victor Hugo--and having once plodded through an abridged version of Les Miserables all I can say is Victor will never get a second chance. It may be the worst book by a Frenchman that I've ever read.

I like Noam. Not usually an easy read though. He's fearless. He shows up on C-span every now and again. Very long and technically precise answers to everything. Well go anywhere and doesn't try to dodge anything. With Iraq going full blast he's answering questions from Cadets at West Point. A very polite but somewhat hostile audience. Among other things he explained to them some of the merits of anarchism.

posted by lriley at 6:22 pm (EST) on Mar 20, 2009

papalaz--I have not read No Logo but I think I'm going to. I've been taking some notes (which I often do reading non-fiction) as I go along on The Shock Doctrine. The three major ideas of the Milton Friedman school of Chicago economics is 1. Privitization (and selling off of government assets to for profit corporations) 2. Deregulation.
3. Cuts to social spending. Generally the idea is to make already rich people richer even if (it always will) it widens the gap between rich and poor. Friedman believed that catastrophe's whether natural or man made provided opportunities in which people with the right mindset if they were in power could impose his economic ideas under the guise of emergency measures. Well he was a friend of Thatcher and a friend of Pinochet and admired by Bush. What does that tell you?

From pages 155 and 156 speaking of the lingering after effects of these policies in conjunction with the dictatorships in Argentina and Chile that enable them:

'Claudia Acuna, an Argentine journalist and educator, told me how difficult it had been in the seventies and eighties to fully grasp that violence was not the goal of the junta but only the means. "Their human rights violations were so outrageous, os incredible, that stopping them became the priority. But while we were able to destroy the secret torture centers, what we couldn't destroy was the economic program that the military started and continues to this day."
In the end, as Rodolfo Walsh predicted, many more lives would be stolen by "planned misery" than by bullets. In a way, what happened in the Southern Cone of Latin America in the seventies is that it was treated as a murder scene when it was, in fact, the site of an extraordinarily violent armed robbery. "It was as if that blood, the blood of the disappeared, covered up the cost of the economic program," Acuna told me.
The debate about whether "human rights" can ever truly be separated from politics and economics is not unique to Latin America; these are questions that surface whenever states use torture as a weapon of policy. Despite the mystique that surrounds it, and the understandable impulse to treat it as aberrant behavior beyond politics, torture is not particularly complicated or mysterious. A tool of the crudest kind or coercion, it crops up with great predictability whenever a local despot or a foreign occupier lacks the consent needed to rule: Marcos in the Philippines, the shah in Iran, Saddam in Iraq, the French in Algeria, the Israelis in the occupied territories, the U. S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. The list could stretch on and on. The widespread abuse of prisoners is virtually foolproof indication that politicians are trying to impose a system--whether political, religious or economic--that is rejected by large numbers of the people they are ruling. Just as ecologists define ecosystems by the presence of certain "indicator species" of plants and birds, torture is an indicator species of a regime that is engaged in a deeply anti-democratic project, even if that regime happens to have come to power through elections.

I can't argue with any of that. The thing is we may finally become the victim of the Frankenstein monster we've created here in the U. S. of A and have been exporting all over the globe. It may be poetic justice but to be honest I've never been a fan of money making money or getting rich chasing debts and credits all over the universe. I'm a produce your own goods person--a put your people to work person and do your best to give them living wages, health care and pensions. I'm not interested in already fabulously wealthy people who really don't need any more wealth making more. So I'm not a libertarian, an Ayn Rand obectivist (I have read and detest her novels) or a Friedmanite. There isn't really a lot of difference between them in my mind.

posted by lriley at 7:11 pm (EST) on Mar 19, 2009

Papalaz--Chapel road did show up today. Figuring on sending it along Monday or tuesday.

posted by lriley at 12:25 pm (EST) on Mar 19, 2009

papalaz--I'll have my eye on the mailbox for it. The Chapel Road by Boon has yet to show and I'm thinking of an alternative plan if it doesn't soon. Someday you will get it though. Anyway Kelman is probably a longshot for the prize.

Reading a book by a Canadian lady Naomi Klein--The Shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism--an almost 600 page critique of American foreign and economic policy of the past 30 some years revolving around the theories of Milton Friedman and CIA torturers beginning with MK Ultra in the early 50's and how their ideas enable each other. Fascinating that we continue to produce these clowns. Friedman and friends advising Pinochet on how to run his economy into the ground. To many people here--even many on LT Friedman is a hero.

posted by lriley at 4:39 pm (EST) on Mar 18, 2009

papalaz--they should have waited another couple weeks. Then I would have been on vacation. Even with that we're already planning return college visits throughout April as my daughter has still not made up her mind and the deadline for all that is May 1. On a personal note the booksignings would be the most interesting to me though I'm not a great one for standing in line. Anyway hopefully they generate a lot of interest and hopefully more books and signed books become available. I noted Anne Garreta who as far as I know has had none of her work translated into English--I've been looking on and off for the past couple years.

posted by lriley at 2:44 pm (EST) on Mar 13, 2009

Well not popping up Papalaz on those links but does take you to Godine's page. Hit fiction and scroll down to the bottom--hit page 2 and towards the bottom will be the two Perec works.

posted by lriley at 11:14 pm (EST) on Mar 11, 2009

Exploring the Godine catalog--besides the ne Le Clezio--there will be a couple new Perec books including a revised edition of Life: A user's manual.

http://www.godine.com/isbn.asp?=15769236...

http://www.godine.com/isbn.asp?=15769237...

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

We had the appliance repairman over right in the middle of the Celine news. I'll have to look up The Tunnel. Last two books I ordered were by a Sardinian Emilio Lussu--and is a WWI novel and Naomi Klein's The shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism which I've been waiting for a while (at least a year) to get a copy at a reasonable price. The Djebar has actually slowed down a little bit--the second half is not so much the history lesson that the first half is. I really liked the alternative history and social justice critique in novelistic form of the first half--this second part is pretty much all contemporary so far.

posted by lriley at 4:13 pm (EST) on Mar 11, 2009

I haven't read Gass in quite a while. I remember liking Omensetter's luck quite a bit and On being blue.

posted by lriley at 2:36 pm (EST) on Mar 11, 2009

Great news on the Celine book. There's a new Le Clezio coming out in June as well.

posted by lriley at 1:45 pm (EST) on Mar 11, 2009

Should comment on the Ballard article as well. Advanced prostate cancer pretty much means he's not going to be around much longer. I like that he takes it in stride though. Anyway someone will publish his book here I'm sure.

posted by lriley at 1:43 pm (EST) on Mar 11, 2009

Sounds great--though I hope you're not going to a big expense.

Anyway meant to mention it but there was a big article in Sunday's New York Times on the British filmmaker Steve McQueen and his movie 'Hunger' which you first brought up last October. Sounds very good though it's not the thing that makes it into theaters around here--probably have to wait for the DVD. Anyway I don't know what was going on in my head back then but I'm sure that you know it's about the Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands--all that happened in my first year in the service in 1981. I remember following that very closely and I have read the book that McQueen in the NYT article cites by the South African journalist David Beresford.

posted by lriley at 1:30 pm (EST) on Mar 11, 2009

Papalaz--going over the list there is some spillover but quite a number (15 unless A player is the same story as Le jouer)I haven't read. So that would be a good book for me. Sorry it took me so long to get back on it. I did a lengthy review of Halldor Laxness's The Great Weaver from Kashmir today. I'm a huge fan of his.

Also reading Assia Djebar's Fantasia--it's a novel but is based on the French colonization of Algeria. It's quite good. In some respects this work reminds me of Malaparte and in another way of Eduardo Galeano's trilogy of South American books as it's not just a novel about past it alternates also with chapters on life in Algeria at present--as well it's also works as a social and social critique on colonization and on gender politics.

After describing one historical tragedy she has this to say about one of the perpetrators of it:

'I venture to express my gratitude--however incongruous. Not to the first fumigator Cavaignac, who was forced by Republican opposition to settle matters quietly; and not to Saint-Arnaud, the only real fanatic; but to Pelissier. After the spectacular, brutal killing carried out in all naivete, he is overcome with remorse and describes the slaughter he has organized. I venture to thank him for having faced the corpses, for having indulged a whim to immortalize them in a description of their rigid carcasses, their paralyzed embraces, their final paroxysms. For having looked on the enemy otherwise than as a horde of zealots or a host of ubiquitous shadows.
Pelissier, the barbarian, the military leader subsequently discredited, is for me the foremost chronicler of the first Algerian War! For he approaches the victims when they have barely ceased their final twitches--not of hatred--but of a frenzied death-wish...Pelissier, butcher-and-recorder, brandishes the torch of death which illuminates these martyrs.'

Anyway it's very eye opening.

posted by lriley at 4:23 pm (EST) on Mar 10, 2009

Papalaz--No, I don't though I'm not sure there isn't some spillover from that in some of his other short story collections. The collections I have are Greyhound for Breakfast, Busted Scotch, Good times and The burn. Anything new of course would be welcome. I think he's a great writer and I'm not sure why lesser writers works seem to eclipse him other than that readers everywhere need to get their collective thumbs out of their asses. I think he grates on a lot of sensibilities. Oh well.

posted by lriley at 1:39 pm (EST) on Mar 7, 2009

Off the list I've only read War and Peace and Ulysses. I figure on reading Midnight's Children some day--maybe this year and maybe also Madame Bovary. The rest I'm not really interested in.

I'm not in a hurry to check out mind you--I don't like the idea of nursing homes, losing ones mental apparatus or suffering needlessly through protracted painful illness or disease for which there is not much hope. A bit ridiculous. I don't really have however the method--no guns here or cyanide. Just knives, aspirin and alcohol.

Anyway it may be a couple weeks before I get the Boon out to you but it is a great book. Reminds me of Celine a lot but one that is defintitely left wing.

posted by lriley at 2:08 pm (EST) on Mar 6, 2009

Papalaz--I knew her but not really well. She always was nice. The past few years Alzheimer's had come on and she was pretty much disconnected mentally. She'd been in a nursing home for a while. I think it's a relief for my brother in law who was always keeping tabs on her. We all have our time and we'll all have our particular way of going. I expect some pain to be involved. Not having your wits about you is not appealing. Personally I don't think suicide is necessarily a bad thing but that is definitely a minority opinion.

Anyway I'm thinking of something I might send back. Boon's Chapel Road which I think you would enjoy immensely.

posted by lriley at 3:51 pm (EST) on Mar 5, 2009

Papalaz--House mother normal and the signed dedication card for the Lavender Way showed up today. That was pretty fast. We're all looking at the Greek postage stamps. Going to save the whole package. I'll have to figure out something to send back. Get back to you on that. Things are pretty hectic today and maybe even tomorrow. In the sporting world the NHL trade deadline. In the family world--an aunt of my oldest sister's husband died and we'll be off to a wake later on today and then I'll have to go to bed as I have to be up early to go to work. Funeral is tomorrow.

posted by lriley at 1:25 pm (EST) on Mar 4, 2009

Cultural mediums will tend to find ways around obstacles in their path. FWIW the majority of people in the role of onlookers can best be described as casual observers on the lookout for a day or a night's entertainment and are not looking to examine their long held beliefs (if they ever had any) on the morality or the ethical questions of getting around those obstacles.

Anyway speaking of a not so casual observer--John from Ottawa sent me this link:

http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/...

posted by lriley at 7:54 am (EST) on Mar 3, 2009

That is fair enough. It was interesting reading--the comments in the Lavender way on copyrite. The publishing world has an easier job maintaining control over product than say the music world. Younger people tend to be a lot more informal about the things that they like--once a CD hits the stores--it's being copied for ipods or the music is being downloaded from a variety of legal and so-called illegal sources. Older people tend to be more dismayed by such things--but to me this is just the way things are going and people who refuse to adjust to the times just get left behind.

posted by lriley at 4:23 pm (EST) on Mar 2, 2009

It's hard to say what Wallace would think about it. You would think his wife would know him as well as anyone. The half finished books I mentioned--the Flann O'Brien is kind of a mess IMO. It seems hardly started. The Perec unfinished novel is more passable and I liked it anyway. I don't know--I think I have strange views about ownership sometimes--I kind of think sometimes this world might be better off if we just got rid of the idea that this is mine and that is yours. It's not very practical--an informal collective ownership of everything and nothing.

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

Sounds as if his wife wants it published Papalaz. From what I've read of Wallace--he had issues (sometimes major issues) his whole life with depression. Sometimes stuff like that takes overs and there's is no way the person can go forward on anything. A brilliant guy. I'd put Infinite Jest on the tip top of the heap of 20th century American fiction. Anyway I don't know where to come down on it--though it's obvious that he hadn't submitted it to anyone and that even his wife didn't know about its existence until afterwards.

It brings to mind other unfinished though published novels by Flann O'Brien and Georges Perec--the novels that Kafka and Nabokov did not want to publish. Celine's Rigodoon as well was not really a finished product.

posted by lriley at 1:17 pm (EST) on Mar 2, 2009

That's it Papalaz. A good theme by the way. America and its insatiable quest for oil. I did not see the movie though. America putting any individuals pursuit of wealth above all other social considerations. Not much has changed unfortunately.

A very good review of the Vitoux book--not so much literary critiique but there are a number of books like that--Philippe Bonnefis' Celine: A recall of the birds or Merlin Thomas's Louis Ferdinand Celine. A fascinating writer despite the sometimes nasty persona--lots of people have written books about him or he's played a part in their works--novelists, biographers, academics.

I was thinking when you brought up Damon Runyon of another hole of mine and that would be Raymond Chandler.

Anyway I'll be looking out for the book.

posted by lriley at 5:11 pm (EST) on Feb 27, 2009

Papalaz--on Upton Sinclair. Only once. It was his most famous novel 'The Jungle' about turn of the 20th century Chicago meat packing plants. I liked it but it in no way did that particular work remind me of ARG. Closest French comparable might be Emile Zola--something like Germinal. It put a lot of people off eating meat at the time and as a matter of fact some high schools have it as part of the to be read list for certain courses. My daughter had to read it last year. Sinclair was a committed socialist and he made a variety of runs for political office. I don't believe he was ever elected to anything but it doesn't mean for the most part he was wrong and also doesn't mean he didn't get under a lot of people's skins. Maybe a little bit of a Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn of his day. I tend to like people like that. They made a movie last year on one of his works and it had to do with American oil fields way back when--and had the word blood in the title and got publicity and was pushed by the studio--though I didn't see it. Just can't think of the name. It's not the same as the book title.

As for Damon Runyon I've never read him. I have a lot of holes too. Was he more in the noir vein? Sorry--I haven't read your link yet. Kathy Acker I've read once--Pussy, king of the Pirates. I struggled mightily through it. Just could not work up a lot of interest. I know she's revered by a lot of people but that didn't connect for me which doesn't mean she'll never get a second chance. I've given quite a number of writers a second chance after a horrible first experience. Time to check out your Vitous review.

posted by lriley at 2:19 pm (EST) on Feb 27, 2009

papalaz--of course you can send it. I'll have to thing of something to send back in the meantime. It may be the one I'm telling you about now-I might be trying to upgrade on it in some way when it actually comes out. We'll think of something anyway.

posted by lriley at 1:21 pm (EST) on Feb 23, 2009

Papalaz--as a matter of fact I don't though I have read it.

Reading a first novel by Philipp (with 3 p's) Meyer--titles American Rust. It was offered on Early Reviewers here at LT. As well he's an LT member. It's really good. Reminiscent of Steinbeck's better plotlines only written in a Faulkner or Cormac McCarthy like prose. Beyond that a very honest appraisal of the desperation of many many people getting lost between the cracks in the American landscape--it's been going on for a long while and I don't think a lot of people from outside get how fucked up this country can be to its own on the inside.

posted by lriley at 12:02 am (EST) on Feb 23, 2009

Hey--I reviewed your book.

posted by lriley at 3:54 pm (EST) on Feb 17, 2009

Papalaz--before we get to the rest--the game just ended. An embarrassing effort. This is part of the reason we scrubbed our NYC trip--this would probably have been the one game we would have gone to. I've been a bit less than enthusiatic about them from the top on down. Hockey is like a war in a lot of ways--you cannot succeed or survive by giving a half effort. If you've not prepared yourself to be at least a bit of an asshole if not a major one as circumstances will have it--you might as well not even go out there. Our guys are too small and the core from which you expect the most does not always show up--like today. Anyway it's a bit of a rant but I'm a little bit pissed though grateful that we had the good sense not to make the trip.

On Rushdie--some of his work is excellent and some of it kind of pedestrian. Probably is a bit overrated at times--having the fatwa on his head was great for publicity and book sales. Almost ditto for Banville--though it's short enough where one way or the other it won't take up a lot of time. Looking forward to the Carter. Not too far into Nesbo yet--Redbreast supposedly reaches back into Norway's past--those who collaborated with the Nazi's and brings their legacy back to the present in the actions of modern day Nazi's.

On Helen Dewitt--it sounds like you're bringing in the heavy hitters.

posted by lriley at 3:16 pm (EST) on Feb 15, 2009

Great acting as well--and also it makes you (me anyway) want to visit the place despite the younger hitman's abhorrence. The beauty queen of Leenane, The cripple of Inishmaan etc. are hilarious--though very black. I think they would work well on film too.

Anyway I'm about 20 pages from the end of the Lavender way. Sometime late afternoon or early evening. The Rangers are on in about an hour.

Have never read Angela Carter--but got a book of short stories--Fireworks--in the mail yesterday. Also picked up Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children--John Banville's The sea. I started as well a Norwegian crime novel by one Jo Nesbo---Redbreast which looks pretty interesting.

I've seen reference in TLW to Eduardo Galeano--I've only read the first part of his trilogy but it was very very good--reminding me of Chomsky's historian pal--can't think of his name right now.

posted by lriley at 11:21 am (EST) on Feb 15, 2009

About the review I don't know. It sounds like he might have been on a treadmill or a ski machine while he was reading it.

As for Crash the movie. No. Other than hockey games I don't watch that much TV. Usually with books--I read them first before I watch the movie if there is one. I did make an exception recently--In Bruges which is very good--but I love all of Martin McDonagh's plays. One thing is Mae tends towards romantic comedies--a movie genre that doesn't very often appeal to me. As you probably remember we were watching the Soprano's a lot a year or so ago--that was more like a comedy to me. Right now as well all of the main video stores around here have and/or in the proscess of going out of business. To see Crash I'll have to buy it or become a member of netflix.

Anyway I'm into July now--have less than 100 pages of the Lavender way. Hoping to finish by Sunday.

posted by lriley at 7:23 pm (EST) on Feb 13, 2009

Papalaz--reviewed Ballard's Crash.

posted by lriley at 3:22 pm (EST) on Feb 13, 2009

According to a poll. 39% of Americans believe in the theory of evolution and 25% don't. How the other 36% responded is a guess I guess. That deserves a big WTF?!! More guessing. It's to be assumed that the great majority of the 25% believe that God created everything in 6 days--was happy with what he (assuming God's a he) saw and then took Sunday off. Adam and Eve came next--and might as well say it carbon dating is a load of bullshit. We might as well just go back to having the sun revolve around us instead of the other way around. By the way it can be proven that the earth is flat. I mean if it wasn't you'd be always falling down.

posted by lriley at 7:10 am (EST) on Feb 13, 2009

Assorted problems come up when you try to rectify longstanding injustices. I hate to say it--it is basically the history of Ireland but there's a point at which rectifying the past is the worst solution of all. Keeping in mind Proudhon's statement--that 'All property is theft'. For us in America--it was how the west was won, how Texas was taken from Mexico (which had been taken from the Mayans by the Spaniards and the Mayans as well had a history of annexation)--how Hawaii was annexed. History is mostly about greed, ambition, injustice and bloodshed and the more powerful nations become the more egregiously they sin in these regards. Some sort of appeasement or Mea Culpa would be nice at times but usually it's not worth much and generally it doesn't happen. I'm aware of the fact that where the home I call my own stands FWIW used to be the territory of the Iroquois indians--who as it happens were notorious themselves for grabbing the lands of other indian tribes--killing and enslaving them etc. etc. That these same Iroquois were as sophisticated even moreso in some ways--in agriculture and building structures--as the european based settlers who eventually replaced them.

In respect to Cuba we had promised that island it's freedom for its help in dislodging the Spanish--Spanish-American war circa the beginning of the 20th century and sometimes it's like one person or group makes a promise that they're unable to keep later on because another person or group has replaced them. Life and history are full of such absurdities and tragedies. Speaking of absurdities--we fought another asinine Vietnam war which destroyed many thousands of lives at both ends and yet now we have a more or less cordial relationship with that country and yet our dispute with Cuba--many times less destructive in scope has gone on and on and on. It really all comes down to being a political calculation--win Florida--win the election.

posted by lriley at 11:10 am (EST) on Feb 12, 2009

Thought I'd remark on the Castro brothers. I'm not a big fan really but our foreign policy towards Cuba has been wrongheaded for a long time. The problem really began when hundreds of thousands of anti-Castro cubans settling in Florida became citizens of this country. Not that I think it's right to deny someone the right to become a citizen but they literally can swing elections with the Florida electoral votes. American politicians and foreign policy has pandered to them since. In much the same way the Israeli-Palestine problem has been exacerbated by the Jewish vote. This is not really anything new to you I suppose and to be fair I have Irish heritage and that as well has played a large part in the past in some elections. We're a more polyglot society than almost any other nation maybe with the exception of Argentina--and a lot of people even after they become citizens still identify themselves as exiles with one foot in the new country and the other in the old. What are you going to do? It's bizarre but it's the way it is. With all your doubts about Obama he at least in the primaries and the campaign critiqued past policy towards Cuba and hopefully we will begin to build a cordial relationship because frankly our policy is stupid--and might as well say towards Venezuela and Bolivia as well. Well Thatcher and many conservative politicians pandered to the bigot Paisley and his Unionists for a long time as well. The page has turned there and hopefully a page will turn here as well.

posted by lriley at 10:14 pm (EST) on Feb 11, 2009

Papalaz--funny on Updike. Mention of his passing was made at this group I'm in--Club Read 2009--and there were very few that had either read or even actually liked anything of his. I read Rabbit, run many years ago and didn't really care for it--though back then I was much more of a snot. The only other thing I've had of his was Hugging the Shore which included a bunch of his literary reviews--which were fairly wide ranging and very perceptive--in cases where I knew the book anyway.

I think we're probably not all that far apart politically speaking and there is just no way anyone who spends any time musing about it seriously is ever or should ever be completely in agreement with anyone on everything. I hope that sentence is not too confusing. As for the so-called good guys--the democratic party has betrayed their constituencies numerous times in the recent past--basically the Clinton years were seasons after seasons of betrayals. Much the same could be said of Mr. Blair in England I'm sure. What I consider my fine nose detected new aromas in 2006. A more people oriented approach and one that wouldn't apologize to the holier than thou types of the right wing minded christian conservatives. Just to mention the dems gained 6 senate seats in that year including Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown especially who are both particularly committed progressive minded people. Webb, Jon Tester and Claire McCaskill weren't bad either. It's new but it feels significantly different though I'm skeptical about some of his cabinet choices.

Anyway I'm not sure I helped you all that much but will look in again later.

posted by lriley at 2:56 pm (EST) on Feb 11, 2009

Papalaz--I'm going to have to think about your link a bit. Some of the terminology as well. Anyway give me a day or so.

Anyway back to Obama for a few moments. Part of what's interesting for me now is the reaction. Faced with economic crisis that reaction has no real response and/or does not even seem interested in offering a solution--it's more 'let's sit tight and let it correct itself'. As for the stimulus package and Obama himself--the right is more or less demonizing it. They raise the spectre of FDR and socialism. It is the kind of usual attack meant to derail things like a national health care program. Anyway I'm determined to be less cynical as I get older. It means much to me and is not the same as expecting never to be disappointed or feel betrayed. Americans generally have never been able to accept that socialistic concepts can go hand in hand with capitalistic ones in our society which in fact has been the case for quite some time but I have also the sense that they are waking up more on this though many here still suffer from the illusion that we're some kind of purist capitalist society. It's not reality but it's encouraged by many movers and shakers in both the politcal and the business worlds. How much control these interests have if any over Obama or events to take place remains to be seen but it may be that this is not the usual kind of politician beholden to their wishes. As well I have the sense that the public at large is more engaged than I can rembember maybe going back to the sixties and they expect much from him and in large part that he will put the long term interests of the population at large over the ambitions of the rich and powerful.

Anyway I hope to finish your book this week and of course I'll review it.

posted by lriley at 5:45 pm (EST) on Feb 10, 2009

Just finished four half full glasses. 05-08-2005. A lot of you entries are very beautifully written. I tend to like best your landscape and Crete oriented descriptions and your political and philosophical musings. It seems at time you talk in a fictionalized auto-biographical way about growing up. My take is your father or family were on the left side of things--though with some prejudices. Mine were on the right with a lot of prejudices. I have never had any intention of cutting the cord with them but have rejected outright a lot of what is most important to them which was easy in some respects and not in others. One thing--in their minds without religion there is no hope for mankind--yet I consider myself an atheist and still think that people are capable of so very much more than they may think. Anyway as in that 5-8 entry I have had bouts with sciatica myself but the problems lessened in the last 10 or so years after I started excerising the lower back and abdominal muscles. Being 51 I'm kind of creaky now too though.

Anyway something I'm kind of interested in your opinion of Obama. It still being early and all. I did vote for him--I've always voted third party before--and I'm cautiously optimistic about him but an astute outsider's take (I don't know if outsider is a good word here as so much of what happens here seems to rebound somehow everywhere else) on it is always welcome. The last 8 years were just a nightmare of overarching ambition and incompetence at its worst. I think the public finally started coming to its senses 6 months after they elected him the second time. The Katrina thing was him and his friends doing to us what they'd been doing to everyone else all along.

posted by lriley at 1:38 pm (EST) on Feb 10, 2009

Papalaz--I was thinking last night and wound up looking at this:

http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php...

When Bolano switched from poetry to prose--he started entering literary contests.

posted by lriley at 10:50 pm (EST) on Feb 5, 2009

The sun is out but I'd say it's about 20 degrees fahrenheit. We've had a bit of snow but not for a week or so. The piles along the driveway are about two and a half feet high. Compared to winters about 30 years ago in these parts--it's nothing. Maybe towards the end of March or beginning of April Spring will break.

I'll have to set your new book aside. I'm still working on your other. I'm about 10 days into April--somewhere around 350 pages. You've been looking in the mirror and wondering who exactly is looking back at you. By the way I wonder sometimes myself. I'm also closing in on finishing Bolano's 2666 and I'm about half way through Ballard's Crash. So I have irons in the fire.

A few comments on 2666. It's almost like Bolano has written 5 distinctive novels and/or novellas with mostly different characters in all of them but which leads everyone out into the desert border area of Northern Mexico where hundreds of women have been murdered--sometimes mutilated by a serial killer and/or a system that protects the exploitation of labor by the maquiladora's, a super wealthy diletantish overclass, narco and human trafficers, corrupt judges, police and politicians. Not sure how it's going to conclude but it's been terrific up until now.

On Vitoux's biography of Celine--I have several biographical works on Celine and his is the best. Patrick McCarthy's is very good as well but doesn't have half the detail. Philippe Bonnefis' Celine: The recall of the birds is much shorter and focuses mostly on style and linguistic and narrative techniques was really interesting as well.

posted by lriley at 1:50 pm (EST) on Feb 4, 2009

Papalaz-looking at the review again--it's just me--I was having a disconnect. Long day yesterday. Anyway it was on the line--I have never written them down or should that be--and it's almost as if I was skipping over that be though I kept on going back and trying to make sense of it and just could not register that simple two letter word.

On Auster again--I've liked the books of his I've read but he's never reached that extra level for me. I've only read the first of his New York trilogy though--City of Glass along with The book of illusions, Oracle Night, Augie Wren's Christmas story and The red notebook so I'm hardly a big expert. Actually also some translations of his of the French poet Mallarme a long time ago A tomb for Anatole--best forgotten in a way.

Roth as secular jew impresses me more. Sabbath's Theatre is a particularly good read. Mickey Sabbath is almost right out of Celine. I like his take on the Israeli-Palestine thing as well when it comes up in his work--caracturizing both sides more or less being run by their worst militants. Unreasonable people trying to pass their rigid dogma off as not only logical but moderate.

posted by lriley at 12:22 pm (EST) on Jan 27, 2009

Papalaz--failed to mention that an Adrian McKinty book showed up today--Dead I well may be.

posted by lriley at 2:29 pm (EST) on Jan 26, 2009

On Auster--your review needs just a little bit of cleaning up. I have Moon Palace but I've never read it. I like Auster--he's more of an Europeanized American writer. Not too many of them around--Harry Mathews, John Hawkes would be two I'd put in that category. He's clever and a very good writer but he doesn't seem to me anyway to be someone who will ever do anything really great. Very consistently good though. Kind of like Ian McEwen. You could compare him skillwise to Philip Roth--but the difference there is that Roth is always trying to reach something (even when he doesn't succeed) beyond himself.

posted by lriley at 2:16 pm (EST) on Jan 26, 2009

I think I tend to do okay as a short synopses reviewer but as a longer one--forget it. This one friend I have here--John (from Ottawa Canada)has written some great long ones.

Anyway a bit of a thaw here today. The ice is beginning to rattle in the downspouts.

posted by lriley at 2:08 pm (EST) on Jan 23, 2009

Papalaz--reviewed Johnson's Unfortunates.

posted by lriley at 10:04 am (EST) on Jan 23, 2009

Ran into this epigraphical gem leading into Pelevin's second story in his Werewolf problem in Central Russia collection:

'Here we see that solipsism, strictly thought through, coincides with pure realism'.--Ludwig Wittgenstein

posted by lriley at 3:47 pm (EST) on Jan 22, 2009

Sometimes the books you get aren't in the greatest shape though. The one site I buy off of--for instance--sometimes people neglect to tell you it's an ex-lib or whatever--or that it doesn't have a jacket--their idea of like new might be with all the corners bumped. Mostly though it's pretty good. For hardcovers I have my own stash of different sized archival jacket protectors--so I do take that very seriously.

Anyway back to Celine--he needed space. Sometimes I need space. A relationship like that you have to try to give back as much as you get though. But almost all his friendships soured over time. There were a few--he hung in with his second wife, the novelist Marcel Ayme who was much more sensitive than some of the others. A lot I would factor back to the wounds and injuries he suffered in WWI--the head trauma, the severed shoulder nerve. He found it very difficult to sleep and as a doctor at least in his final years he would give himself morphine shots every day.

Some of what I've read of Joyce is interesting as well. The eye problems going back to his father's syphyllis which had an effect on practically all his family. Living in Paris--not in the better part--entertaining the whole neighborhood with battles with his wife--his occasional philandering. His kids problems.

A lot of these people certainly weren't perfect and it's wrong to expect to be superhuman. It just doesn't tend to work out that way. And on Beckett he could be quite a nitpicker when it came to staging his plays.

posted by lriley at 2:54 pm (EST) on Jan 22, 2009

Well I'm glad they made it. Working through your book--you mention (I imagine from reading Coe's biography) that B. S. Johnson could be a real jerk. Celine is somewhat or even moreso. A great great writer--probably my favorite but not necessarily a warm and fuzzy type. I've heard the same of Claude Simon by the way.

Anyway I'm somewhere around halfway through Jan 2005 so I'm a long way from finishing. I'm just over the 100 page mark in 2666 another huge work so I can say the same for that. I've as well cracked open Victor Pelevin's A werewolf problem in Central Asia. I've read him a couple three times before--not always happily but so far so good with this--the first story somewhat reminiscent of Bulgakov.

Saw Hillary give a speech today at the State dept. I have never been a big fan of the Clinton's. Even so I'm hopeful that the new administration including her will be a breath of fresh air from the last regime. It's almost as if we've been pinned under a gigantic boulder forever. The number of lies and the corruption more manageable--the insanity and lack of pragmatic thought process which started the Iraq debacle something maybe we can start to put behind us. Already talking about closing Gitmo by years' end--discussions on winding down troop levels in Iraq. The wind never really got in the sails for that until right after GWB's re-election in '05 but when it did it took on a life of its own. Katrina helped in the sense that the mass of the american public finally saw firsthand that that administrations way of doing things really was fucked up.

posted by lriley at 12:02 pm (EST) on Jan 22, 2009

At least a third of the people where I work are women. Over time quite a number of them have become very adept at scatological creativity. I have kind of a rule--if someone doesn't like the way I talk--then they should just not talk to me. I can live with that. Anyway I'm not always that easy as when the opportunity arise I have music blasting at volume out of the headphones. There's a sub-cultural thing always going on. Shared experiences and what not--people who want to rise up the ladder tend to underestimate it. It's almost as if nothing is ever forgotten--especially the negatives. Healthy skepticism--sometimes very cruel and/or humorous. For the most part we do tend to help get each other through the nights and the mornings.

Johnson's book is very good--very somber though.

2666 is coming up fast--maybe in the next day or two.

Checked out McKinty. He has his own blog as well. I scrolled through some of that too. I'll have to check out the first in the series.

posted by lriley at 3:16 pm (EST) on Jan 19, 2009

12-14-2004 was one of the stories from your e-book. I read it again. It's very well done. You've been messing around with Robbe-Grillet and Perec as well. You've mentioned Umberto Eco a couple times and I had the impression you didn't care for him. His most recent novel 'The mysterious flame of Queen Loana' I thought was terrific. I liked how he recreated his childhood (pre WWII and WWII fascist Italy) and and all the graphics that went along with it.

On Johnson--I've read about 6 chapters. I've just been picking them out randomly as Johnson (and Coe) suggest--not going by the order they came in.

On the swearing--it is just natural. My father was a prison guard (two hitches in the USMC including during WWII). I've worked in factory enviroments--and even in the service (just as an enlisted). It comes with the enviroment. There's a mentality that comes with that--sometimes maybe not very articulate but it depends on the person.

Anyway have fun with your olives. I'll go see what this McKinty has to say.

posted by lriley at 2:31 pm (EST) on Jan 19, 2009

Papalaz--Any luck with the mail yet? I know it hasn't been returned so I'm assuming things are good.

I read Jonathan Coe's introduction to B. S. Johnson's The Unfortunates last night--so I'm going to get into it somewhat today.

I've been going at your book about 15-20 pages a day. The entry for 12-4-04 (on swearing)caught my eye. You're really talking about me. I probably average a couple hundred f-words a day. I'm familiar with the abso-fucking-lutely but more inclined to the fan-fucking-tastic. By the way there's a documentary film titled 'Fuck' which I found to be hilarious--the varieties of usages--the pro f peoples and the anti ones. The Billy Connolly's etal vs. the Pat Boone's and company.

posted by lriley at 3:37 pm (EST) on Jan 18, 2009

Papalaz--One of the reasons it took me so long to read it was I didn't take it to work for me because it is a bit unwieldy as a trade paperback. So I was always reading one or two books along with it. If I were going to a desert island with only 10 books it would probably make the cut.

posted by lriley at 1:33 pm (EST) on Jan 14, 2009

Papalaz--planning on getting your package underway tomorrow.

posted by lriley at 2:42 pm (EST) on Jan 8, 2009

papalaz--will see what I can find of Wilson's Killers.

posted by lriley at 5:28 pm (EST) on Jan 3, 2009

On Colin Wilson--I've only ever read 'The Outsider' and that was a long long time ago--mid 80's I'm thinking.

Speaking of noir (or crime fiction) writers--recently finished Arnaldur Indridason's 'Silence of the Grave' which was pretty good. Currently waiting for 'Redbreast' by a Norwegian writer Jo Nesbo--also a thriller which links present time neo-nazi characters with events going back into WWII on the Eastern Front. Anyway synopsis for that sounded very interesting. As well waiting for a book by an Icelandic writer (like Indridason) Yrsa Sigurdardottir--title eluding me right now--I just started my new schedule today and I'm a little whipped. More the straight graveyard hours. Tuesdays-Wednesdays--new days off.

posted by lriley at 1:46 pm (EST) on Jan 3, 2009

My copies of House of Leaves are not hardcover either. There are not that many hardcovers.

Anyway glad that people are finding your e-book. There may be hpe for it yet--and I think talking to HD could be very beneficial and is a very good idea.

I'll try to get the Vitoux and the Lobo Antunes in the mail by the end of next week.

By the way a book by one A. Louise Staman showed up yesterday. It's title--With the stroke of a pen--kind of true crime look at the murder of Robert Denoel--founder of the Denoel publishing house that first published Journey to the end of the night. There was some controversy and legal shenanigans when that publishing house was taken away from Denoel's widow and sold through a front company to Gaston Gallimard. Denoel had been accused of collaboration with the Nazi's. He was alleging that Gallimard had even more so. A murky look at French publishing during the occupation. Apparently Staman had access to recently released government documents pertaining to this affair and builds her book around it.

posted by lriley at 12:40 pm (EST) on Jan 1, 2009

In that case what do you think of the design and format of that book?

I have other doubles by the way. Have you ever read any of Witkiewicz's plays? I have two Madman and the Nuns. You might really like him. He was quite a character. Also 2 copies of Frederic Vitoux's Celine biography which is a really excellent book. And then there's an excellent Lobo Antunes book--An explanation of the birds. A good one to compare to his Nobel competitor and portugese compatriot Jose Saramago. And then one of my favorite poetry collections Zbigniew Herbert's Report from the besieged city. Pick two if you like.

posted by lriley at 11:32 am (EST) on Jan 1, 2009

Papalaz--tried to get to this earlier today but the message blew up. I had to do a bit of maintenance and then was off to the dentist.

Anyway I think you need a better editior than me. What HD describes seems pretty much par for the course in at least the English speaking part of the publishing world with maybe the exception of Canada, Ireland, Australia. I don't think however being set up in Germany probably helps her cause a lot. Publishers like other businesses worry first and foremost about the bottom line. Authors willing to find the time to promote and go through the various paces to do with that process are increasingly important. She seems to be very multi-lingual and might try to hook up with a German publisher using that source language. It's rare but not totally unprecedented.

There's never been much fair about what gets published and what doesn't. More or less formulaic millionaire writers have been mass producing their pap for the last century and a half and building huge readerships. The best writers tend to be marginalized as far as selling ability. She is a very talented writer though and I wish her the best and would love to see more of her work. It sounds like she has financial problems. It sounds like she's got a lot of material kicking around. It sounds like it has been a source of some anguish.

posted by lriley at 2:20 am (EST) on Dec 30, 2008

The Last Samurai is excellent. I think you will like Danielewski's book as well. It took him a long time to write it. His second novel--a novel in verse--wasn't quite as popular--and not in my mind that successful but anyone who can write one great work has done something. House of Leaves is one of the most ambitious works I've read.

posted by lriley at 6:18 pm (EST) on Dec 26, 2008

Papalaz--just to let you know your book arrived yesterday--the 24th--and I'm looking forward to reading it soon.

posted by lriley at 6:00 am (EST) on Dec 25, 2008

papalaz--we have been doing a bit of running around the last couple days. I'll have to keep an eye out for Hartley movies though the name seems unfamiliar and I'm not a big film watcher. Ever seen the film documentary--Fuck?--you have the pro-fuck people and the anti-fuck people and the history and wide variety of usage of the word. Billy Connolly vs. Pat Boone. Amazing and hilarious.

Some of Le Clezio I think you would like--maybe it all--but his earlier works were more experimental with a nod to the nouveau romantics like Robbe-Grillet and Butor. His later works tend to be more traditionally plotted but he is a very evocative writer of the natural world--his later works also take us all over the world. The Prospector likewise has been re-issued and should not be very hard to find and is a book I've read twice and could see myself reading at least once or twice more.

On the crime novel list--it seem biased more towards english speaking writers. Manchette would figure pretty much at the top of my list. Many of those listed I haven't read though. Some of them are very popular writers--a class I tend to avoid. Of those named the one I like best was 26. Vazquez Montalban. Raymond would probably come afterwards. I've read Camilleri once and liked it as well. Per Wahloo. I have a weakness with the Scandinavian writers who at least in these times seem to excel at this kind of writing. A lot of catching up to do. I recently read a book by a Swedish writer (Theorin?) which I reviewed and liked a lot. Mankell is on my list to be read next year as well. There is a book by a German writer Gunter Ohnemus--I think it's called the Russian passenger which I liked very much. Also Thierry Jonquet's Mygale aka Tarantula (or something like that). The Irish writer Eoin McNamee has both a distinct voice and noirish sense to his work. Resurrection Man, The blue Tango and The Ultras. The Ultras has only been published in Britain--is based on the disappearance of one Robert Nairac a British operative who had infiltrated into the IRA--he also took an active part in some operations of loyalist paramilitaries including the infamous Miami Showband massacre. He was walked out of a bar one night or early morning and has never been seen again.

posted by lriley at 9:26 am (EST) on Dec 21, 2008

Papalaz--Just put up a review of Le Clezio's first novel.

posted by lriley at 2:15 pm (EST) on Dec 12, 2008

I was thinking about it later and was wondering about the greek alphabet--whether or not to use their lettering. Hopefully not as I think that would complicate things. I would have voted for 'People who don't know their dead'. That one doesn't seem very strange to me though.

Anyway a ton of snow today--must have been around a foot. Heavy stuff. Called in and told them I'd be late. I live on a fairly steep and twisty hill. Thought that the plow might come around but no luck. As early as that is in the morning it's a sometimes yes and a sometimes no. Eventually I went--first gear all the way. Around the first curve a car planted in the ditch. The ditches up there are at least 3 feet deep. I took my time and didn't really have any problems. Even so next time it snows like that I'm waiting for the plow.

posted by lriley at 1:16 pm (EST) on Dec 12, 2008

Papalaz--I think I'd fall short of calling it fun though. Make no mistake when these two kids of mine have at least 4 years per of college or University and that should be in about 5-5 and a half years I am going to go and not look back. It's been plenty of time wasted and I spend more than the average amount of time exhausted--more from lack of sleep than everything else. I very much sympathize with the Celinian type narrator. I like to think I can motivate myself to do the things that I like.

Anyway I really liked DeWitt's book and I think it will be right up your alley.

And your writing is very good to excellent. You should keep with it. You have to be good and you probably will have to have some luck too--but you need to have the one to get the other.

posted by lriley at 3:04 pm (EST) on Dec 10, 2008

Papalaz--I have always been a bit of a moron when it comes to technology--maybe a better definition would be an idiot savant as I am dogged about finding the things that interest me. When it comes to objects including the PC my wife fixes everything if something goes wrong. She has the patience to think those things through. Even when re-siding the house last summer--she was the one who found out everything. My part was to do most everything that was potentially dangerous and/or hazardous. Perhaps it's because I was brought up in an household (my father has a militaristic streak--he did two hitches in the Marine Corps--WW II--got out--re-enlisted for Korean War--and back in civilian life became a prison guard) where for instance the television screen horizontal went on the blink our remedy always started with a good wallop or two or three--which is a way of saying I don't know Mitchell's book might be good but I'm skeptical--like maybe it runs contradictory to my learned experience.

posted by lriley at 4:01 pm (EST) on Dec 5, 2008

Papalaz--checked out your e-book. Only read a couple poems though. Looked interesting and I'm going to print if off. I liked the poem about the whiskey bottles and all the found objects on the shore. It's very good. I've been spending the morning going through my library--it being time to do a little cleaning house. Deciding which I don't feel the need to keep and which of those I can possibly sell for something. I've got quite a lot of work to still do on it.

Location and poverty--hopefully not too impoverished. I imagine it's tough getting the more unique stuff you like where you are. I imagine as well shipping costs can be prohibitve.

Bert Hirsch sent me an interesting link on my page here today. In some respects Bukowski is an american version of Kelman. As it happens he worked many years at the Post Office. When I first read his novel I wound up passing it around at work. The old timers then got a real kick out of it.

posted by lriley at 12:49 pm (EST) on Dec 1, 2008

Papalaz--Angela's ashes has been around here for a while but I've never read it. I've read his brother Malachi's 'A monk's swimming' though. It wasn't the worst thing I've ever read. I've seen a lengthy 2-3 hour interview of Frank McCourt before and he has an interesting gift of gab.

It sounds as if christmas can't get to you soon enough. I always have tons of unread books lying around. I'm thinking your location must have something to do with it but you can always get out Ulysses again and do a re-read.

posted by lriley at 12:51 pm (EST) on Nov 30, 2008

Actually it's an excellent review Papalaz. I consider him superior to Doyle though and have to admit I've never read Irving Welch(sh?). To me Kelman's stories being plotless misses the point about what he's out to accomplish and that's not only in terms of rendering language exactly as it's spoken but rendering life as it's being lived by a mostly ordinary person (character). It's a very realistic fictionalizing of contemporary life taken at a street/gut level. And Kelman's affections are not for those who are making it. He goes from the middle on down.

posted by lriley at 8:16 am (EST) on Nov 30, 2008

Papalaz--'possibly the greatest British avant-garde novel?' Atrocity Exibition works for me as dream and/or cinema. Post WW II British literature (like its French and American but also many South American writers) is not content with the past. It breaks a lot of new ground. B. S. Johnson would be another example or early Alan Sillitoe. In some respects--it seems unique to your class system. The working classes and lower finally having their say. Their voices are less formalized. I can't speak very well to what the reaction was to all that but the beat movement in the United States was very hard at the time for a lot of people to swallow--but eventually they were able to keep it down. It seems 10-20 years after a major war brings about new literary ideas and forms and sometimes reactions. The French after WWI in particular. After WWII--the rise of their existentialists and the reaction of the Robbe-Grillet's, Sarraute's, Simon's etc. Latin American had its own movements--not involved in the major wars maybe but the problems associated with various dictatorships. This is where I think someone like Bolano may be seen to fit in the future. Like Robbe-Grillet to the existentialists he is the reaction to the reaction. Even so Bolano is a greater writer. If I were to think of just one writer out there who I could concievably regard some day as greater than Celine he would be the one. I'll get back to you on that after I read his 2666. In any case to go back to AE--he is in complete control of his imagery. It is very spare and stark. In some respects the pictures going off in my head reminded me of Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. An oddly familiar but at the same time alien and threatening urban landscape.

posted by lriley at 8:51 am (EST) on Nov 16, 2008

Papalaz--never heard of the McCarthy book but I had been checking on O'Neill's now and again since it was reviewed in the NYTimes a few months ago. Both sound like they might be very very good--although I think my next actual purchase will be Ballard's Crash. I've had Zadie's White Teeth for some time but have never got around to reading it. Any opinion on her? As for her review--she does perk interest but I'm not sure I agree with where she's going. For me at least the novel isn't really on one path or another--or maybe it's just that I'm not. I can like the experimental and innovative like Joyce or the Nouveau Romantists and I like noir driven plot thrillers as well as more history based like Zola or Doblin.

posted by lriley at 1:37 pm (EST) on Nov 15, 2008

Infinite Jest is very deep in its own peculiar way. Very funny at times. A snippet:

'Orin now always gets the shower so hot it's to where he can just barely stand it. The condo's whole bathroom is done in this kind of minty yellow tile he didn't choose, maybe chosen by the free safety who lived here before the Cardinals sent New Orleans the free safety, two reserve guards and cash for Orin Incandenza, punter.

And no matter how many times he has the Terminex people out, there are still the enormous roaches that come out of the bathroom drains. Sewer roaches, according to Terminex. Blattaria implacibus or something. Really huge roaches. Armored-vehicle-type bugs. Totally black, with Kevlar-type cases, the works. And fearless, raised in the Hobbesian sewers down there. Boston's and New Orlean's little brown roaches were bad enough, but you could at least come in and turn on the light and they'd run for their lives. These Southwest sewer roaches you turn on the light and they just look up at you from the tile like: 'You got a problem?' Orin stomped on one of them, only once, that had come hellishly up out of the drain in the shower when he was in there, showering, going out naked and putting shoes on ond coming in and trying to conventionally squash it, and the result was explosive. There's still material from that one time in the tile-grouting. It seems umremovable. Roach-innards. Sickening. Throwing the shoes away was preferable to looking at the sole to clean it. Now he keeps big glass tumblers in the bathroom and when he turns on the light and sees a roach he puts a glass down over it, trapping it. After a couple days the glass is all steamed up and the roach has asphyxiated messlessly and Orin discards both the roach and the tumbler in separate sealed Ziplocs in the dumpster complex by the golf course up the street.

The yellow tile floor of the bathroom is sometimes a little obstacle course of glasses with huge roaches dying inside, stoically, just sitting there, the glasses gradually steaming up with roach-dioxide. The whole thing makes Orin sick. Now he figures the hotter the shower's water, the less chance any small armored vehicle is going to feel like coming out of the drain while he's there.

Sometimes they're in the bowl of the toilet first thing in the A.M.. dog-paddling, trying to get to the side and climb up. He's also not crazy about spiders, though more like unconsciously; he's never come anyplace close to the conscious horror Himself had somehow developed about the Southwest's black widows and their chaotic webs--the widows are all over the place, both here and Tucson, spottable on all but the coldest nights, their dusty webs without any kind of pattern, clotting just about any right-angled place that's dim or out of the way. Terminex's toxins are more effective on the widows. Orin has them out monthly; he's on like a subscription plan over at Terminex.

Orin's special conscious horror, besides heights and the early morning, is roaches. There'd been parts of Boston ner the Bay he'd refused to go to, as a child. Roaches give hime the howling fantods. The parishes around N.O. had been haveing a spate or outbreak of a certain Latin-origin breed of sinister tropical flying roaches, that were small and timid but could fucking fly, and that kept being found swarming on New Orleans infants, at night, in their cribs, especially infants in like tenements or squalor, and that reportedly fed on the mucs in the babies' eyes, some special sort of optical-mucus--the stuff of fucking nightmares, mobile flying roaches that wanted to get at your eyes, as an infant--and were reportedly blinding them; parents'd come in in the ghastly A.M.-tenement light and find their infants blind, like a dozen blinded infants that last summer; and it was during this spate or nightmarish outbreak, plus July flooding that sent over a dozen nightmarish dead bodies from a hilltop graveyard sliding all gray-blue down the inclin Orin and two teammates had their townhouse on, in suburban Chalmette, shedding limbs and innards all the way down the hillside's mud and one even one morning coming to rest against the post of their roadside mailbox, when Orin came out for the morning paper, that Orin had had his agent put out the trade feelers. And so to the glass canyons and merciless light of metro Phoenix, in a kind of desiccated circle, near the Tuscon of his own father's desiccated youth.'

Of the Serpent tails list I have read many of the authors and a number of the works. A big fan of Manchette as well you know. Also of Manuel Vazquez Montalban who has several here. Kenzaburo Oe is one of the better recent Nobel picks. And I like Jelinek as well. Theirry Jonquet represented here with Tarantula which goes by another title in the U. S.--Mygale. I have reviewed that. I also liked Mehdi Charef's Tea in the Harem, Houellebecq's Whatever, Goytisolo's Juan the landless, Vallejo's Our lady of the assassins and then of course there is Derek Raymond.

Also at Serpents tail--Referencing cockroaches again Daniel Evan Weiss wrote a novel from a cockroach's POV. It was okay. Stasiuk, Chavarria Daeninckx are okay as well. On Juan Rulfo--Pedro Paramo is very famous but I didn't care for it much. I did like his short story collection 'The burning plain' though. Authors here I didn't care for--Ken Bruen, Dianela Eltit.

posted by lriley at 1:32 pm (EST) on Nov 13, 2008

Papalaz--I think you would like David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. At least for me it sometimes brings Joyce to mind. And it's a huge work--over a 1000 pages and it's one of those that there is no way you can read it fast. I'm going to be on it into December.

posted by lriley at 2:34 am (EST) on Nov 12, 2008

Papalaz--reviewed Dewitt's last samurai today.

posted by lriley at 12:39 pm (EST) on Nov 6, 2008

Papalaz--thanks for the Rousseau confirmation. Not even thinking about moving those Le Clezio's by the way. Let other people find their own--in the sense that I went to some trouble to find some of them back when nobody cared. Hopefully though someone out there starts printing them in trade editions.

posted by lriley at 7:22 am (EST) on Nov 2, 2008

Papalaz--They have some very interesting works by both Bacon and Rothko at the MOMA in NYC. To me the most stunning things there are the Pollock's. Many Picasso's and Van Gogh's as well. I bring up Vincent mainly because his portrait of the mailman is there. I like some of the Eastern European artists and I'm not sure of the artist--I think he was back in Van Gogh's time--and I think his name is Rousseau--does a lot of jungle scenes--eyes of animals in the dark--they're humorous as well--at least IMO. I like them a lot.

I noticed the new B. S. Johnson's you listed. Over here they are very rare and cost a lot. My Le Clezio's have all of a sudden done that. The early ones even if they're ex-lib's are worth something now--there are about 6 different novels that were short printed in hardcover--never any paperback editions--in the 60's and 70's. The Kelman book 'A disaffection' is a great one as well. I have that Coover book you've mentioned but have never read it. I don't know if I'll get around to it real soon but maybe I should push it up the foodchain.

posted by lriley at 1:46 pm (EST) on Nov 1, 2008

That book put him on my favorites list Papalaz. I'll have to get Crash. Reading Dewitt's Last Samurai right now and that is excellent as well. Also Lustig's Night and Hope which is good but not quite as good as either Atrocity or Samurai. How is London?

posted by lriley at 12:17 pm (EST) on Nov 1, 2008

Papalaz--just reviewed the Atrocity Exhibiition.

posted by lriley at 1:40 pm (EST) on Oct 29, 2008

Papalaz--Almost blew off the Ithaca library sale. Waited to the last day. 10 cents for everything. I wound up buying 31 books. Amongst them are Hrabal's Dancing lessons for the advanced in age (hardcover, not an ex-lib and in great condition), Magnus Mills--the scheme for full employment--also in hardcover and not ex-lib. (something our country should think about by the way), Leonardo Sciascia's Equal danger in hardcover, not ex-lib--nice shape for 35 years old. In paperbacks and trades I came up with DuCornet's Fountains of Neptune and Entering fire, Henry Green's Doting, Lustig's Night and Hope (the cover is a little stained), Russell Hoban's Ridley Walker--a little bit battered and Alexander Trocchi's Outsiders.

posted by lriley at 12:16 pm (EST) on Oct 27, 2008

Papalaz--A very good day. That back-ordered Johnson book the Unfortunates arrived finally and exactly as the photos on the Sept 13th link.

posted by lriley at 4:12 pm (EST) on Oct 23, 2008

Papalaz--finally Dewitt's the 'Last Samurai' shows. Started the Jade palace as well.

posted by lriley at 5:13 pm (EST) on Oct 21, 2008

Yes--I have seen Wind that shakes the Barley--actually bought it but sent it to my brother out in the state of Washington--who was going through cancer treatment at the time--it's now in remission. I've always been interested in Irish history but not nearly as much as either of my brothers both of whom think there is maybe some castle that really belongs to us in the old country. I watched it with my wife--who had a hard time getting it. There is a murder at the beginning--the British soldiers coming up the road--yelling and screaming--I really like Ken Loach as a director but deciphering the two different dialects whilst trying to provide a context for what's happening for the someone completely ignorant to the history took something away from it for me. I had to do a lot of social and cultural referencing throughout. One understands of course that the Black and Tans were victims themselves--mostly embittered WWI survivors with few prospects at home--playthings of thier own politicians. Loach does a good job of explaining the political split of the Irish as well leading into their Civil War. His Land and glory about the Spanish Civil War is very close in spirit and style.

4 chapters(stories) into Ballard's Atrocity exhibition. I really like this a lot. Very unique. I don't know what copy you have of this but in my copy there are notes he makes in the margins (some 20 years after its being published) explaining his thought process. Elements of Robbe-Grillet--especially Marienbad in this. It makes me think of Arno Schmidt and Guy Debord as well. Reminds me of Le Clezio's 'The Giants' as well .Ballard mentions B. Traven as one influence.

posted by lriley at 2:55 pm (EST) on Oct 20, 2008

Papalaz--so this is a different Steve McQueen? A director not an actor?

Anyway I always liked the Sand pebbles. Actually McQueen as well and the recently deceased Paul Newman who used to hang around our area near the Watkins Glen speedway. Not that I care much for auto racing though. Each was a race car nut and each did a movie based on a Faulkner work. Both were interested somewhat in politics as well.

Anyway speaking of Hunger--from the Hamsun standpoint--an excellent work. From the McQueen (the director?) perspective it sounds interesting as well--on the Irish Famine. Brings to mind Liam O'Flaherty's 'Famine' which is a great work.

posted by lriley at 12:04 pm (EST) on Oct 19, 2008

Steve McQueen--the Great escape?--He's been dead for a while.

Anyway I don't mind the voting. I'm a believer though that societies/economies should be built from the bottom up. The bottom is always where your foundation will be found. This has been Obama's shtick. I expect he is going to be elected--the question will be then--how true he will be to what he's been articulating. McCain is pretty much committed to the same top (trickle) down economic theories that have become completely discredited here. Many people who might otherwise have supported him in the past are finding out that if they're havenots now they will probably be worse off later if they support him. Whatever works in other parts of the world he like his party are too arrogant to take a look--they will not budge on their preconcieved ideas about how an economy should work--or even on how another nation might conduct itself. Our major problems here are economic--costs of education and health care are too high, infastructure has been collapsing for quite a while, there's been no real initiative to have a coherent energy policy--we've been involved in a very senseless war in Iraq. We've had stagnant or negative job growth for quite a whil--yet our population which reached 300 million in 2006 is projected to reach 400 million by 2035. So if we're going to have political leaders we're going to need ones with vision who can look down the road. However or not Obama remains true to his vision--McCain just does not qualify. He's been busy trying to attract the end timers support. Enough said for him. Anyway at 51 years now any talk of my own future is ?--sometime in 20-30 years?--maybe even sooner I'll be heading over the precipice. I worry about my kids though. It's really their world coming--at least for a while.

posted by lriley at 5:57 pm (EST) on Oct 18, 2008

Papalaz--one of the reasons for picking up the Jade Cabinet other than the other one of hers you mentioned was I found a signed one relatively cheap. Phosphor in dreamland showed up today by the way along with In the eye of the sun-Mexican Fiestas--which is photography bu one Geoff Winningham (?) whoever that is but has an essay by Mr. Le Clezio which is about the only thing in book form in English by him I didn't have.

The W. movie looked interesting but I read a review and in typical Stone fashion he makes up some scene between W. and his father H. W. about Iraq which seems to be more fantasy than anything else. For me that is a bit of a turn off. Richard Dreyfuss looks like a passable Cheney though. Two and a half more weeks until the election--add another couple months and a half and they'll be finally gone. We're voting for Obama by the way. No third parties this time. Nader may be closer to where I am but Barack is a better candidate (has closed the gap enough for me) than either Gore or Kerry and seems a better person as well--or maybe the frustrations of the past 8 years has just pushed me too far. Anyway you vote for someone and they win--they're going to disappoint you sooner or later.

posted by lriley at 12:30 pm (EST) on Oct 18, 2008

Papalaz--One of the two Ducornet I ordered showed up today--The jade cabinet. The one I'm still waiting on is Phosphor. I had to re-order the DeWitt book. It never showed. The seller refunded though so everything is cool--I'll just have to wait a little longer. No word yet on Johnson's Unfortunates.

posted by lriley at 1:51 pm (EST) on Oct 16, 2008

Papalaz--I'm not sure what you mean by source this? find book title?

posted by lriley at 4:50 pm (EST) on Oct 9, 2008

I don't know if anybody has to. There are a lot of great Nobel writers and there's a lot of Nobel writers that aren't so hot. It's all subjective and there is no way you can please everyone. I like Roth a lot but some things aren't meant to be and maybe his winning the Nobel is one of them. Vargas Llosa as well. I'm of the opinion he's superior to Garcia Marquez. I'm also aware that that's a minority opinion. In any case--Joyce didn't win, Celine didn't win (though his occasional racism and WWII era adventurings didn't help)--I wonder why Sartre and not Gombrowicz? I also wonder why no Canadians as of yet--really like Ondaatje but maybe he's not destined either.

posted by lriley at 4:30 pm (EST) on Oct 9, 2008

Very very pleased with the Le Clezio pick. I've got all his translated works.

Saw a couple interesting ones at Dalkey. The French mafia one. Looking at Ducornet at half.com. Think I'll get on it soon. The Phosphor one + they have a couple signed which aren't too expensive.

posted by lriley at 1:13 pm (EST) on Oct 9, 2008

Papalaz--Atrocity exhibition showed up today and looks intriguing. I had no idea it would come in a magazine sized format. Might be getting at it fairly soon.

posted by lriley at 12:59 pm (EST) on Oct 8, 2008

Papalaz--will do a little research on them--see what I can find.

posted by lriley at 9:37 am (EST) on Oct 6, 2008

Lustig I'm unfamiliar with. Gaddis is dead. DuCornet I've never read. 4 days to go. I guess we'll know soon.

Any Lustig recommendations? Picked up two today. The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao--Junot Diaz and Angels--Denis Johnson. B. S. Johnson's The Unfortunates has been backordered. Helen DeWitt's The last samurai has yet to show.

posted by lriley at 7:42 pm (EST) on Oct 5, 2008

It's to be awarded October 9th. I've been a bit preoccupied with the political thing here.

Anyway Ladbrokes gives the best odds to Italy's Claudio Magris. I've read one of his books. It was okay. After him comes the Syrian poet Adonis--I've read one of his books. It was okay. I'd be underwhelmed with either of those two. After them come the following Amos Oz, Oates*, Roth, Delillo, Murakami, Les Murray, Yves Bonnefoy*, Inger Christensen *(?), Le Clezio, Ondaatje, Pynchon, Arnost Lustig *(?), Kadare, Vargas Llosa, Transtromer, Yehoshua, Djebar, Nooteboom, Gitta Sereny *(?), Ko Un *(?), Atwood, Munro*, Tabucchi, Bei Dao *(?), Carlos Fuentes, Kundera, Peter Carey, Eco, Achebe, Cormac McCarthy, Mulisch, Herta Muller*, McEwen, James Ngugi *(?), Mahasweta Devi *(?), Byatt *(she shows up), Malouf, Ernesto Cardenal (a Nicaraguan libertarian theologist Roman Catholic priest), F. Sionel Jose *(?), Marge Piercy*, Maya Angelou*, Rushdie, Willy Kyrklund *(?), Adam Zagajewski, Beryl Bandbridge*, Doctorow*, Eeva Kilpi *(?), Banville, Jonathan Little*, Julian Barnes, Mary Gordon*, Tournier, Patrick Modiano, Auster, Rosalind Belben *(?), Vassilis Aleksakis *(?), William H. Gass and Bob Dylan*. Those I haven't ever read get a star.

posted by lriley at 4:21 pm (EST) on Oct 4, 2008

I was thinking of Berger actually. Kelvin Walker I've read. It didn't knock me out though. What about Julian Rios? That would be a long shot but would be a good one.

posted by lriley at 3:53 pm (EST) on Oct 4, 2008

Mathews falls in Coover's category to me. An unknown in his own country. Gray would be interesting--multi-dimensional--doing his own art work. The only thing I really liked of his though was Poor things. Brian Moore is out. He died several years ago. Technically a writer has 5 posthumous years of eligibility to snag the prize. Moore died in '99. Somehow I don't see the Nobel committee choosing a deceased anyway. It screws up the interviews, speeches, the dinner, all the hoopla. Of the fairly recent dead Roberto Bolano goes to the top for me. Fabulous talent. A lot of writers I can't remark on very well because I don't know them or know them very well. I've read Tournier twice. I was not crazy about 'The Ogre'--his Goncourt winning book. He does have a very good reputation. My list of course slants towards a lot of writers I like--although there are some I don't care for that I throw into the pot on reputation.

posted by lriley at 5:13 pm (EST) on Oct 3, 2008

Papalaz-On the Brits I was fleshing out the entire scene as I see it. In some cases I look at body of work and how I think they're percieved. I haven't read Byatt so I'm not going to comment on her work. Kelman would be a long shot really. He just may be my favorite living British writer. Mitchell I like a lot too. I considered Michael Frayn. I think it's going to be a while before another British writer wins it as Pinter and Lessing are very recent--and honestly I don't think either is a great pick. By the way I recently decided to cut to the chase with Ballard and ordered his Atrocity Exhibition.

Problem with Coover's winning it--is not quanity or quality. It's just he's virtually unknown in his own country. Sorrentino suffered from that a bit as well. I'd rate an american's chances this way 1. Roth 2. McCarthy 3. Delillo.

Le Clezio is an unknown here but he has a huge body of work--some relation to the nouveau roman and at times has shown a real experimental side to his writing--for instance The Giants which is my favorite work of his. He is also a world writer in the respect that he has set his novels all over the globe.

Ondaatje has also had an experimental side especially his first couple works--mosaics of poetry and prose, newspaper clippings and photographs. I prefer him to Atwood.

Goytisolo would also be an interesting choice. As for Eco--I actually like him but he is hit and miss. I would say Baudolino is a disappointment. Loved 'The mysterious flame of Queen Loana' though. The format is wonderful.

Of my 1-5--I'd suspect that Vargas Llosa would have the best shot. Parra is probably my favorite poet ever and mainly it's because of humor and attitude. Khoury's Gate of the Sun is IMO a masterpiece. Lobo Antunes churns out dense parodies comparable to a Faulkner or a Simon only saturated in very sarcastic tones. Faulkner, Dos Passos, Celine are writers he's often compared too.

The blurbs from Antunes latest--What can I do when everything's on fire?

'This is an extraordinary novel by one of the living writers who will matter most. Lobo Antunes chooses to manifest his debts to Freud (L-A has been a practicing psychiatrist), Joyce, and Faulkner on the surface, but in the depths, he is a great original. This is a very dark and searing vision of reality at its fiercest, and will leave its mark on sensitive readers everywhere.'--Harold Bloom

'The greatest living Portugese writer...He has been compared to Celine...but he owes as much to Proust in the complexity of his style. One could also invoke Malcolm Lowry or Cormac McCarthy for the visionary power, the buried violence.--Vogue (Paris)

'A mad amalgam of Dos Passos and Celine.'--NY Times Book Review

'Considered by many [to be] the greatest novlist of the Iberian peninsula...one of the finest international novelists of the moment.'--La Vanguardia (Madrid)

'The heir to Conrad and Faulkner.'--George Steiner

posted by lriley at 5:01 pm (EST) on Oct 2, 2008

There are a few American writers I think worthy of consideration for the Nobel--I've never read Oates by the way--I will have to get around to that but Roth would be one, Cormac McCarthy another. Someone like Paul Auster--sho is European would be a possibility. Generally speak are more language creative writers like a Coover don't seem to get enough respect. There is Thomas Pynchon and Don Delillo as well. I really like Denis Johnson as well. Nathan Englander is a hope for the future.

To bring up our neighbor to the north Canada--they've never had a nobel literature laureate. I really like Michael Ondaatje--Alistair MacLeod as well but he doesn't have the body of work. Margaret Atwood would also seem a worthy writer.

To me what I like best is when I like the writer--not so much where he comes from.

French writers--J. M. G. Le Clezio, Jean Echenoz.
British--(though I think after Lessing last year it's unlikely this year)--James Kelman, I like David Mitchell--potential for the future there. J. G. Ballard is a possibility. Ian McEwen--very good chance some day. Michael Frayn or Julien Barnes--maybe Jeanette Winterson. A. S. Byatt.
Irish--William Trevor. Paul Muldoon. Perhaps John Banville.
Spanish-Juan Goytisolo. Javier Marias. Long shot--Juan Marse.
Italian--Antonio Tabucchi--Umberto Eco.
Russian--Vassily Aksyonov.
Czech--Milan Kundera.
Portugese--Antonio Lobo Antunes.
From Holland--Harry Mulisch, Cees Nooteboom.
Peru--Mario Vargas Llosa.
Argentina--Ernesto Sabato--long shots--Ricardo Piglia, Luisa Valenzuela. Tomas Eloy Martinez.
Chile--Nicanor Parra.
Israel--long shots Amos Oz. A. B. Yehoshua. Aharon Appelfeld.
Nigeria--Chinua Achebe.
Algeria--Assia Djebar
Lebanon--Elias Khoury
Australia--Thomas Keneally, David Malouf, Les Murray, Peter Carey.
India--very long shot Salman Rushdie. Potentials Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai.

My top five of the above:

1. Nicanor Parra
2. Antonio Lobo Antunes
3. J. M. G. Le Clezio
4. Elias Khoury
5. Mario Vargas Llosa

posted by lriley at 1:09 pm (EST) on Oct 2, 2008

Although I'm very very rusty right now. Anyway there is a movie of Saramago's Blindness out now--which is the first of his books I read. One of the better Nobel choices in the past 20 or so years. Even so I like his portugese compatriot Antonio Lobo Antunes better. You should check him out if you get the chance.

posted by lriley at 4:30 pm (EST) on Sep 30, 2008

Papalaz--just finished O'Flynn's What was lost and liked it very much. I'll try to review it in the next day or two. Saw a short clip of her talking about the book on youtube and tried to put it on here but it just took me to the site not the link. It was about 3 and a half minutes and was part of the Costa book award ceremony--her explaining her work. Anyway she has the working life down very well and reminds me a little bit of B. S. Johnson--at least as it moves along. Have to say take elements of her Kurt and Lisa and mix them with Bukowski's Chinaski and you might have a fair description of me.

posted by lriley at 8:08 pm (EST) on Sep 28, 2008

Ignatius Reilly from 'A confederacy of dunces?' I wouldn't look at him as a villian really. More a natural disaster in the making. Looking through that list there's not too many that I've actually read. It does make me think of making up my own list though. Some historical fiction like Paul West's The very rich hours of Count von Stauffenberg or Anatoli Rybakov's 'Children of the Arbat' and 'Fear' on life under Stalin's dictatorship come to mind. Nabokov's 'Bend Sinister'. Malaparte's 'Kaputt'. The policeman in Celine's 'Guignol's Band'. The 'Astrologer' in Roberto Arlt's 'The seven madmen'. Back to historical fiction--Mario Vargas Llosa's 'Feast of the goat' chronicling the assassination of the Domincan Republic dictator Trujillo. Reality can be more frightening than make believe I suppose.

posted by lriley at 4:09 pm (EST) on Sep 26, 2008

Papalaz--quite the tennis lesson. I'm only an occasional viewer though. I've never played but it always looked like something I would be good at--at least when I was younger. I was very one tracked in pursuing things--in hockey and in football. Hockey also has the thing where you have in mind where your other 4 teammates and 5 opponents are--it's a mind-vision and instinct-reaction thing. It's not so much that I didn't realize what was going on--it's just was not all that creative to make the good play. That was not a great strength of mine--though a certain paranoia was always there when pressure was coming from more than two directions at once.

posted by lriley at 4:00 pm (EST) on Sep 20, 2008

Interesting papalaz--doesn't seem to have too many of my books though--only 11. I ordered her book a few days ago so maybe I'll send her message after I read it.

posted by lriley at 1:52 pm (EST) on Sep 17, 2008

Very nice find on McCarthy--papalaz.

posted by lriley at 1:09 pm (EST) on Sep 16, 2008

Papalaz--ordered Johnson's Unfortunates today through the publisher. It was the best way but once again thanks for your very kind offer.

posted by lriley at 12:21 pm (EST) on Sep 15, 2008

Papalaz--that article on Dewitt you recently sent me started off about David Foster Wallace. I've never read him and apparently he just committed suicide.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080914/ap_o...

posted by lriley at 8:09 am (EST) on Sep 14, 2008

Your first edition is worth some money Papalaz--not that that matters. I use the Addall site sometimes which covers booksellers around the globe. There's really not a lot of them out there. If I like a book I hang on to it. Let the whole collection scatter to the winds when I'm gone--though keeping in mind if things are going down the drain you do what you gotta do. My best options seems to be to buy it from New Directions. Interestingly at least for me after the collapse of the Sex Pistols--it's former singer/songwriter John (Rotten) Lydon formed a new band Public Image Ltd. of which its first release was called Metal Box which (though I never acquired or ever even laid eyes on) came as a set of 45's in a metal container and I think he got the idea from Johnson's book. The best option for me is to buy it through the publisher. I have occasionally in the past bought books from New Directions but it's been a while but they always send me updated catalogs so it shouldn't be any problem--it's that I try to be as thrifty as possible.

Anyway if I remember correctly Suttree is set in Knoxville Tennessee--a very rough and tumble place in the period that McCarthy writes about. It catches that depression era vibe very well--and McCarthy has excellent vibratory touch. Of his latest two--both of which I've read this year I liked No Country for Old men better than the Road--both have become movies. I haven't seen either of them though.

posted by lriley at 4:08 pm (EST) on Sep 13, 2008

Papalaz--I actually liked Suttree quite a lot. Faulkneresque.

Thank you very much for offering on the Johnson but I can always go through the publisher. A link to them and the Johnson book here: http://www.ndpublishing.com/books/johnso...

Click on the pictures to get an even better look. No doubt the major multi-national book sellers don't like the format of loose chapters in a box. I think it would be tres cool. I'm a sucker for the unique.

posted by lriley at 12:33 pm (EST) on Sep 13, 2008

Papalaz--still having problems finding the B. S. Johnson. As I say I've been rereading Albert Angelo which is excellent. In the meantime I have ordered the Helen DeWitt book--at least part of the subject of your recent link and Catherine O'Flynn's What was lost.

posted by lriley at 2:22 am (EST) on Sep 13, 2008

Papalaz--definitely going to get the Dewitt book. Started rereading Albert Angelo today.

posted by lriley at 12:57 pm (EST) on Sep 11, 2008

A very very long piece but it sounds fascinating Papalaz. I think I'm going to look up DeWitt's book and maybe take a look at her website as well. Sounds like a good birthday present to myself. As well would be B. S. Johnson's 'The unfortunates' which is supposed to be out but MIA on the Barnes and Noble website as well at Half.com --it is listed for $16.94 but when I click on it--it says no longer available. Among other things I'm considering Martin McDonagh's 'In Bruges' in book or as Dvd. 'The howling miller' is not available until next month. Roberto Bolano's '2666' and 'Romantic dogs' both coming out in November. Halldor Laxness's 'The great weaver from Kashmir' is also an October. Keeping in mind also another one of your recommendations Catherine O'Flynn's 'What was lost'. Apart from that there are a couple of Elias Khoury books out there still. Hrabal as well and Manuel Rivas and a biographical work on Louis Paul Boon.

posted by lriley at 12:47 pm (EST) on Sep 10, 2008

Papalaz--did a review of Horacio Castellanos Moya's 'Senselessness'--gave it 5*. Great book IMO.

posted by lriley at 4:13 pm (EST) on Sep 6, 2008

I had read a review of the O'Flynn book and the reviewer liked it a lot as well. I think I'll put that on my list too.

posted by lriley at 5:09 pm (EST) on Aug 24, 2008

Papalaz--fter 2666 by Bolano which is not available quite yet--November unless you get a reviewers copy--the Unfortunates is next on my list. I can get a copy now for about $20 with shipping but I would like to get it a little cheaper but I don't know if I'm going to hold out much longer. My birthday is coming up. I've got a bit long list made up--how many of them I actually get is another thing. I have not been buying a lot lately.

Our summer has been wetter and cooler than usual. Today it's in the 90's and a bit humid as well--that's fahrenheit which means pretty hot and very sticky. We've been running around a lot this summer. Hitting colleges and universities when we get a chance as our daughter will be going into her final year of high school. Tomorrow we're going to Suny Buffalo about a 3-4 hour trip to and another 3-4 hours back.

posted by lriley at 5:07 pm (EST) on Aug 24, 2008

Papalaz--don't know whether it's subtitled or not but there's apparently a new film out--another Jiri Menzel working of a Hrabal book--I served the King of England. I noted it while perusing today's NY Times entertainment section. I don't expect it is going to work its way into my neck of the woods but it is playing in NYC.

Also in the Times Book Review--one Charles Taylor very positively reviews B. S. Johnson's 'Unfortunates'. The concluding paragraph:

'The difficulty,' Johnson writes in the book's final chapter, 'is to understand without generalization, to see each piece of recieived truth , or generalization, as true only if it is true for me, solipsism agian, I come back to it again, and for no other reason.' I don't know the reasons that, four years after 'The Unfortunates' was published, Johnson killed himself at age 40. But reading those words at the end of this extraordinary book you recognize a writer whose belief in truth as the raison d'etre of the novel, and whose fastidious determination to achieve it, made him worry that he had fallen back on the 'fiction' he abjured. Yet it's hard to imagine a less solipsistic novel than 'The Unfortunates'. This book with no belif in God, no hope of heaven, makes you feel the stuff of life as sacred, and our inability to hold on to it as damnation enough for anyone to be made to bear.'

posted by lriley at 12:35 pm (EST) on Aug 24, 2008

Papalaz--I have read three to see the king--struggled with it though. Sometimes I don't know--it's me I think--and sometimes I'm just beat. Paasalinna has another book out in English--1996 publishing date--The year of the hare--American title--I think there's a different English title but it has 'hare' in it as well.

Anyway to go back to Kourouma--Allah is not obliged is a great book--recommend that. I'm reading his Monnew now and I'm not going to say it's bad but knowing what I know I'd pass on it. Kevin Phillips is an apostate conservative or put it another way most of the elected conservatives we have now are the apostates. He's a throwback who no longer fits in. his book is a critique on domestic and global economics. He has an interesting writing style but books of this nature IMO aren't a whole lot of fun to read. We've been deregulating our financial markets for years. I agree with most of it more or less. There is a thought process here that money makes money and that by investing in debt--the more the debt the better--you can make huge profits as well. The onus is on the buyer and it's basically a con job that has ruined a lot of ordinary people--at least in terms of their financial state.

MacLeod I would unreservedly recommend. The lost salt gift of blood short story collection of 7 stories does not even have one weak story. They are all A+. Beautifully concieved and realized from the beginning of the first to the end of the last.

posted by lriley at 12:45 pm (EST) on Aug 9, 2008

Papalaz--Arto is a male name. He sounds interesting as does Schildt. I've been compiling a list of to get books and there's probably at least 10 out there right now but I think I'm going to put Paasolinna on it as well. It sounds a little bit like Too loud a solitude--another gem as we both know. Maybe I'll reread that one soon as well.

I've been reading 3 books--one is not a novel--it's a book on the state of our financial markets--Kevin Phillips--Bad money. I really really liked Ahmadou Khourouma's 'Allah is not obliged' but his earlier book 'Monnew' which I'm wading through now is not nearly as good. OTOH the Canadian Alistair MacLeod who won the Impac for 'No great mischief' which is a fine novel--his short story collection 'The lost salt gift of blood' is excellent. He is two for two and just went on my favorite authors list. His works tend to be set in his native Nova Scotia locales--his characters working class Scots and Irish immigrants but he renders their lives very beautifully. He hasn't produced much--two short story collections and a novel and he's 70 years old or so but what he has done is really good.

posted by lriley at 5:33 pm (EST) on Aug 8, 2008

Papalaz--it's been a while since I've read O'Brien. The ones I liked best were The Poor mouth, At-swim-two birds, and The third policeman. There was an unfinished novel that involved a rich Texan with agricultural ambitions (replacing the potato with Sego? Sago?) for Ireland that might have been his best if he had finished it and I remember liking at least one of his plays which was if I recall about an occult like entity who exasperatedly gives up his ambitions to control a small town after chairing a town hall style meeting with its very argumentative residents.

Joyce was one comparison--for me there's echoes of Kafka and Borges--maybe even Bulgakov. Mad scientists, the supernatural, and always the mundane--he mixed them all together and came up with his own stew.

posted by lriley at 1:42 pm (EST) on Aug 1, 2008

Papalaz--On the chances of a visit?--probably not. Not to get me wrong I would like to someday--but there are two things factoring strongly against going anywhere in the near future (at least by commercial jetliner) 1) overall cost and 2) instability of the airline industry. Throw in we get 26 vacation days a year and we'd have to coordinate those days off--my wife's 26 days are more flexible than mine and at least until now it would have to be done by coordinating our kids days off as well. I think we've just about got to the point where that's not going to be that much of a factor--however our plans are going to scale down I think for the next 4-5 years just because they will be going to college soon. So your beautiful island is probaby at least 7-8 years into the future--that is unless I win the lottery. You can never tell but I don't play very much. If I were to win a large amount that's where my ambitions would lie--quitting my job and traveling. Making more money when you already know you have enough seems to me to be in bad taste. Otherwise those 7-8 years will be about the time we are planning to retire if our economy hasn't tanked even more than it has now which means we might hold on them longer--if we can. It's unfortunate--at least for me yours is the most interesting library I've run into since becoming a member here. It may happen but as well sometimes are just not meant to be.

Anyway the B. S. Johnson book has me quite excited for when it comes out. Today in the mail came a very large formatted book of one of the newer Oulipo member--a Canadian poet--Victor Coleman--From the dark wood.

posted by lriley at 1:18 pm (EST) on Jul 29, 2008

Papalaz--a fairly large article about Crete in yesterday's NYT's travel section. A photo of Palaikastro at night and seems to be more about the mountainous regions and archaeological sites. Any it was very interesting. As for now I'm re-reading Perec's 'A void' and one of Arno Schmidt's novellas 'Cosmas'. And apparently New Direction is putting out B.S. Johnson's 'The unfortunates' in May. That's definitely going on my short list. A lot of his stuff when you can find it here is just too damned pricey.

posted by lriley at 1:16 pm (EST) on Jul 28, 2008

Good to hear from you Papalaz. Of the list I've read 2-4-7 and 9. The Hamsun book twice actually. I've read some Pessoa--selected poetry. Also one book by Moravia but I had a hard time slogging through that and I've read Frisch at least a couple times. I liked his 'I'm not Stiller' quite a lot. Tieck, Fosse and Bracewell I wasn't familiar with.

At the moment I'm finishing Richard Power's 'Gain' which juxtaposes a present day cancer victim against the long history of the corporation that poisoned her. Also re-reading Perec's 'A void' and Per Pettersson's Impac winning 'Out stealing horses'. Speaking of Impac winners I recently reviewed 'No great mischif' by a Canadian writer Alistair MacLeod that I liked quite a lot.

Here are a few names that I wonder if you've ever heard--among the list of Oulipo friendlies which included Sorrentino--there is an English writer Richard Beard, a German poet Unica Zurn, a Polish writer Stefan Themerson and an American writer and poet Keith Waldrop.

As well listed as an influence or as an 'anticipatory plagiarist' is the English poet George Herbert. Do you have an opinion on him?

posted by lriley at 12:39 pm (EST) on Jul 23, 2008

Your Manchete reviews really grabbed me!

posted by slickdpdx at 11:22 pm (EST) on Jul 8, 2008

Papalaz--just put up a review of Beckett's Stories and texts for nothing.

posted by lriley at 6:37 pm (EST) on Jun 23, 2008

Papalaz--if you're interested--I have done a review of Kourouma's Allah is not obliged. It reminds me quite a bit of Journey to the end of night. Hilarious and tragic at the same time.

posted by lriley at 9:06 am (EST) on Jun 5, 2008

Papalaz--It's been a while--so I thought I might check up on you. Did the Cavafy poems and liked a lot of them. Also did a review on Rings of Saturn--though it was more impressions. Currently reading Elias Khoury's (Lebanese)--Gate of the sun--which I think is great and Ahmadou Kourouma's (Ivory Coast?) Allah is not obliged which is raunchy and hilarious.

posted by lriley at 12:36 pm (EST) on May 31, 2008

Have only read Updike once Papalaz. I suppose if you don't like it you can always pan it. Serve them right for sending you a crap book in that case. As for the Sebald I don't think I'll have a problem at least getting most of my money back for it if I didn't like it but it seems to me he (or I) deserve another chance.

posted by lriley at 4:34 pm (EST) on May 3, 2008

Papalaz--thanks for the headsup. I'm only wondering if I don't want to read what they decide to send me? Anyway currently working my way through Cavafy's poems which I like very much and in the meantime Rings of Saturn showed up yesterday--so hopefully I'll get to that soon as well.

posted by lriley at 1:34 pm (EST) on May 2, 2008

Papalaz--well if there's an afterworld (I have serious doubts) father and son will have to sort it out there.

The one book of Graves I've read is his World War I memoir which was pretty good.

Still working on my re-read of Van Niekerk's Triomf. It is kind of lengthy--528 pages and I've been slower in the last couple months with longer works. I think it's brilliant though. Reminds me a bit of a more modernistic Flannery O'Connor.

posted by lriley at 12:20 pm (EST) on Apr 27, 2008

Papalaz--betrayals come with the territory of father-son relationships. Dmitri can specualte about his father and his wishes and how he might--given time have changed his mind better than I. Nabokov's legacy at least over here seems to be fading. He had some great books and some not so great. Anyway maybe this book will bring him back some spotlight.

On the subject of Sebald I ordered the Rings of Saturn.

posted by lriley at 6:28 am (EST) on Apr 27, 2008

I read a Sebald some time ago and I don't know if I was quite ready for it as I didn't particulary care for it. I have been looking at buying something of his lately but waiting for the prices to come down. There are writers who your first time through you don't really care for but then afterward you think what was wrong with me then?--For me Borges would be such an example also Philip Roth, Henry Green. I've been thinking for some time anyway that I need to give him another chance.

posted by lriley at 2:54 pm (EST) on Apr 24, 2008

Papalaz--Corning Library sale today. I picked up 9 books for just over $11.00--including a 1st american edition of McEwan's 'The Cement Gardern' though it does have black mark on the bottom of the binding. We also took care of our Cavafy problem his 'Complete poems' the book is in nice shape though pages are faintly yellowed. J. G. Ballard's 'The kindness of women'. Denis Johnson's 'Already dead'. Jeanette Winterson's 'The powerbook'--I read her for the first time recently and kind of liked it. Richard Power's 'The Echo maker'--won the National Book award a couple years ago. I have never read anything by him though. Paul Auster's 'The Brooklyn follies' which is a trade paperback. None of these by the way have sat on the shelf of a local library. They are free of markings--except for the McEwan. Also picked up a noir novel by an Algerian who writes under the pseudonym Yasmina Khadra. It's title is 'Double Blank' and looks really interesting.

posted by lriley at 1:28 pm (EST) on Apr 24, 2008

Papalaz--been browsing around but haven't quite figured out where the Kelman interview is. Did find a number of interesting things though--Mark E. Smith (of the British band--The Fall) reading H. P. Lovecraft. A few other things. I'll mess about over there tomorrow a bit--see what else I can find--I'm off to bed here though pretty soon--got to be up early in the morning.

I did a review of Richard Price's--Lush Life the other day--which I liked a lot. It's a police procedural done step by step--very gritty but at the same time very imagistic. Re-reading Marlene Van Niekerk's Triomf--set in de Klerk's South Africa. She's a wonderful writer with a very fine though very nasty comedic sense. It revolves around the Benades family--poor white trash--Mol, her brother Treppie, husband Pop and son Lambert--as for Lambert question is whether his father is Treppie or Pop. All of them have sex with her though. Even so there is a certain charm to them all--albeit a kind of evil charm to Treppie and Lambert can be quite the brute.

posted by lriley at 6:00 pm (EST) on Apr 21, 2008

I don't know if you've noticed this Papalaz:

http://internationalnoir.blogspot.com

Got Raymond on the front page.

posted by lriley at 4:38 pm (EST) on Apr 11, 2008

To me Roth is akin in some respects to Ian McEwen though McEwen takes greater pains to try to wow his readers. The one Roth book that I like the most is Sabbath's Theater. Mickey Sabbath is a Celinian type of character--kind of a Courtial des Perrieres from Death on the Installment Plan or maybe even a character who would fit well into Guignol's band. It may seem a reach--but maybe not so much when Roth had this to say about Celine--"To tell you the truth, Celine is my Proust! Now there is a very great writer. Celine is a great liberator. I feel called by his voice."

posted by lriley at 1:32 pm (EST) on Apr 9, 2008

Papalaz--today a Lobo Antunes review--Knowledge of Hell. Later on or tomorrow I plan on doing Queneau's Elementary morality.

posted by lriley at 1:16 pm (EST) on Apr 5, 2008

Papalaz--don't know if it's all that great but have put up a Tristram Shandy review.

posted by lriley at 2:05 am (EST) on Apr 1, 2008

Papalaz--closing in on the end of Tristram Shandy--maybe finishing tomorrow. Just added a Robbe-Grillet review.

posted by lriley at 5:41 pm (EST) on Mar 22, 2008

Papalaz--I have a short review of the Raymond book. You might also be glad to know that I've made quite a bit of progress on the Shandy book in the last couple of days. I'm finishing up Volume 6--cutting down on the note reading a bit. I have to say I do like it--there are some very modernistic touches--a lot of tongue in cheek comedic flourishes. A very sly use of language and good psychological insights--especially when considering the time it sprung from.

posted by lriley at 12:59 pm (EST) on Mar 17, 2008

Papalaz--a lot of notes in my copy--and a lot of them are wordy explanations. A lot of interruptions as well--most of that is my fault as for the last few weeks I keep being sidetracked by a lot of other stuff--most of which is fairly useless. Then of course there have been other books I've been reading as well--Atonement, No country for old men, Cocaine Nights, Crust and Roth's My life as a man. Sterne's language at times reminds me of Joyce--although Sterne came first--there are a lot of what I would call archaisms--along with unusual language patterns--these drag a bit for me. Keeping in mind that having read both Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel and Cervantes' Don Quixote--they both took me a very long time as well. Much longer than normal anyway. Boccaccio was another one--but a little easier as most of his stories were not all that long. Speaking of Joyce's Ulysses that took me a couple--three weeks anyway. Some things I just plod along I suppose.

I liked Cocaine Nights but I guessed the deja vu ending about 100 pages before the finish. Raymond's Crust reminds me kind of a like a cross between Celine's Guignol's band with a little clockwork orange worked in. The tone of the book is excellent.

posted by lriley at 8:26 am (EST) on Mar 16, 2008

Papalaz--The crust on its uppers was excellent. Well certainly review that one soon. I've also finished Ballard's Cocaine nights and have passed the halfway mark on Tristam Shandy--that one I've been taking a lot of time with. Lots of notes and archaisms.

posted by lriley at 1:46 pm (EST) on Mar 15, 2008

Have you ever seen this one Papalaz?

http://internationalnoir.blogspot/

Anyway slowly going through Tristam Shandy--reminds me in some respects of some sections of Ulysses. Also started Ballard's Cocaine nights and Cormac McCarthy No country for old men. And Raymond Queneau's newly translated Elementary Morality showed up today and it looks as if I'm the first on LT to own it--at least in translation.

posted by lriley at 1:05 pm (EST) on Mar 4, 2008

I admit I didn't finish it, but Making of Americans (G. Stein) is worth reading for as long as you feel like. Its like a Philip Glass composition. (I'm sure there's a more pertinent comparison but I don't know enough about music.) Theme sentence, slight variation sentences and repetitions, it slowly moves forward, then returns. Two steps forward, one and a half back, and forward again. Quite unique and not totally pointless.

posted by slickdpdx at 11:09 pm (EST) on Mar 3, 2008

Papalaz--Ever hear of a Mancunian writer named David Bowker? I'm slowly going through Shandy--but am also working on 'I love my Smith and Wesson'--a kind of noirish comedy revolving around a hitman name of Steve Ellis but more often known as Rawhead.

From Publishers weekly--For readers who like their mobsters with a side order of smart satire writing and who doesn't?

Kirkus review (on a different title)--Alternatively quirky and grisly. Bowker's first crackles with energy and surprising warmth.

Literary review (on a different title)--Grotesque, original, and murderously funny, it conforms to no other existing crime template. We are sailing unchartered waters and there are sharks all around...Bowker tells his tale with wit, invention, and a raw energy that boils off the page.

posted by lriley at 6:26 pm (EST) on Feb 29, 2008

Maybe the two of his I liked the best up until now--Cement Garden and The comfort of strangers. The construction and language use in Atonement does remind me a lot of Trevor--maybe a little less of Boyd's Ice Cream War but those two writers spring to mind. It's really good. Having not read Roth's plot against America yet--I'm not sure how it would compare to Bolano's work. Lindbergh had sympathy with at least some of the fascist ideology of his time. In that regard I can imagine. This to me compares somewhat more to Borges or even the one book I've read by Vila-Matas. Bolano takes on a kind of the clipped dry tones of an academedician that you might expect of someone writing up short biographies for a reference work. The imaginative part comes from him dreaming up these people and then fixing them into a reality that is not at all far-fetched. In this respect for the most part they come off as grotesque and/or repugnant but still very visibly human. There's no doubt in my mind that Bolano who was committed to the deposed Allende govt. has a political intent but the p in the political is a small one. The last and longest of his biographies is for a Carlos Ramirez Hoffman aka Emilio Stevens (which is a rehashing of a Bolano novella--Distant Star) a serial killer who preys on women and at the same time is part of Pinochet's air force--one of those who have the job of disappearing people--though as it turns out he is a bit of a free lancer. As a pilot and a poet he writes his poems in the sky (which reminds of one of the Ballard short stories from Vermillion sands) which among other things makes references some of the women he's murdered. He also considers himself an artist and at a party he gives for friends and acquaintance he draws his guests one by one into his bedroom to look at photos of some of the women he's butchered.

posted by lriley at 12:26 pm (EST) on Feb 23, 2008

Naomi Klein?--She has a newer book out on what she calls disaster capitalism--which more or less comes down to a look at the unfettered wealth of corporations and the return of an era of robber barons. I've been waiting for the price to drop on that one. I haven't read either of her books so I can't comment on her writing skills.

Bolano draws up fake portraits of right wing literary types. Histories, works, associations, bibliographies. Some our very short and I might send you a couple.

One reason for reading Atonement is I might wind up seeing the movie. I'd been waiting for the price of that one to go down but found a somewhat worse for wear trade copy at the library sale for $2. I like it actually. I've read him several times--sometimes it hasn't been all great. Black Dogs for instance meandered too much for my taste. There was another that had a tunnel going under the Berlin Wall which was so-so. Amsterdam I thought was so-so. Atonement reminds me somewhat of some of William Trevor's best work--thinking Fools of fortune or Lucy Gault. It also reminds me a bit of William Boyd's Ice Cream War or Sebastian Faulk's Birdsong. Anyway another book I picked up at this sale with a recent film out is Cormac McCarthy's No country for Old men--which I expect I'll get to in the next two or three weeks.

posted by lriley at 5:01 pm (EST) on Feb 22, 2008

Papalaz--currently finishing up on Bolano's Nazi literature in the America. Also about half way through McEwen's Atonement. Both are pretty good by the way but thinking that when Bolano is done--tomorrow maybe I'll start on Sterne.

posted by lriley at 1:43 pm (EST) on Feb 22, 2008

Some of what I do might be called work--but there are lulls. Times nearly everyday when things are just dead. This has a lot to do with policy decisions way up the food chain. And it's been this way for several years. The Postal Service runs things much the same as the present administration in the White House runs its business. It can be aggravating getting up five days of the week at two in the morning. We get five weeks of paid vacation a year--which is probably as good or better than 90% of the country--anyway 90% of those who can find work. Some people think this place is civilized. IMO they're not too good at comparisons. Ever wonder why there are so many maniacs running around here? Anyway I can easily relate to Celine's insomnia ridden alter-ego's.

posted by lriley at 12:56 pm (EST) on Feb 20, 2008

Papalaz--Like your Vian story very much.

posted by lriley at 12:18 pm (EST) on Feb 20, 2008

Papalaz--there's quite a bunch of French writers who I like a lot. I'd include Zola, Manchette, Le Clezio, Claude Simon, Echenoz, Houellebecq, Barbusse, Perec, Pinget, Rimbaud, Giono, Camus, Lydie Salvayre, Jean Claude Izzo--another noir writer, Robbe-Grilet. Beckett is also a French writer but an Irish one.

As for books--I hardly ever buy anything near the publishers price. There's a site in the United States called Half.com that I buy and sell from. Oftentimes you can find books that you're interested in for less than a dollar--though there is a standard shipping price which boosts that up to about $5. The other thing is there are library sales--one going on right now--not all the books are marked either--about half will be donated and not go through the process of being stamped and loaned out. Some will be pretty much brand new. Nearby Ithaca NY has the very high faluting Cornell U.--has Ithaca College--both very expensive--there are always a wide variety of books and authors at their sales. I envy the gorgeous climate and scenery of the island you live on but I don't imagine it's as easy or as affordable for you to come by books as it is for me. I guess it's a tradeoff and I would probably choose what you have rather than what I have--but you have to go with what you can get.

posted by lriley at 12:13 pm (EST) on Feb 20, 2008

Robbe-Grillet? No--but I knew he was in his 80's. Born in the same year as my father I think. 1923? Some of his work I like quite a lot. The Erasers. In the Labyrinth. Marienbad I'm a little more so-so about. Celine and Queneau will forever be my favorite French writers. I don't think there are too many of the nouveau-romanticists still around. Michel Butor I think, maybe Claude Ollier. Le Clezio was lumped in with them--but they all had their own distinct methodology as does Le Clezio.

I'm one of those people that one thing sometimes leads to another--so sometimes things you start off on get set aside because you run off on some other tangent. Today I'm looking at a Czech writer Patrik Ourednik (or Ourdenik)--whose name popped on the Dalkey Archive--center for the book site--in relation to Paul Verhaeghen's Omega Minor--which I reviewed and gave 5* today. There's almost no way I can read everything I buy. I believe I have Cocaine nights--I might get started on that soon, or on Raymond. or on Sterne. It will probably be either Ballard or Raymond though.

posted by lriley at 3:41 pm (EST) on Feb 19, 2008

Papalaz--still working on figuring out what Ballard to look for. OTOH Derek Raymond's The crust on its uppers showed up today.

posted by lriley at 1:05 pm (EST) on Feb 19, 2008

Ran into a recent Ballard title--Kingdom Come--that sounded very interesting but it's not very available in the United States--apparently hasn't a US publisher yet.

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

Papalaz--it's very good. I think I have Cocaine nights around here somewhere. Maybe need to put it on the short list--maybe have to look up more of his stuff.

posted by lriley at 8:07 am (EST) on Feb 17, 2008

Not all the Nobels are good choices--some of the best writers have never got a sniff at it. It's okay. The choices sometimes come right out of left field but it keeps it interesting and keeps readers like us on our toes. Who is this? From where? and then Why? Part of the fun for me anyway. I don't where I would start with a list. I could probably think of 50 or more who are living.

posted by lriley at 5:27 pm (EST) on Feb 13, 2008

Papalaz--Haven't heard anything about the state of Ballard's health. Does he have some illness? In the review it said it might be his last book. Not that I want to burst your bubble but ss for the Nobel I think Ballard's chances are slim. The nature of politics that surround the prize tells me that Pinter winning a couple years ago and Lessing last year--though some might argue she's not British tells me that British writers as a whole are not going to get that prize again in the next several years--it may even be a few years before any english speaking writer gets it. There are numerous writers all over the globe who I'd like to see win it--for the most part they don't. His 'Crash' is probably a book I'll have to look at before too long. I have to get to Sterne as well. This Omega Minor is a great book--will probably be a 5 but it takes a long time--691 densely packed pages. Very remarkable.

posted by lriley at 2:28 pm (EST) on Feb 13, 2008

Papalaz--I'd gotten the crust on its uppers in the meantime though. I'll wait on Dora for now.

posted by lriley at 3:00 pm (EST) on Feb 6, 2008

Papalaz--if I remember--I was Dora Suarez--was one I was interested in. Looked around a little. They have the two Manchette's, several by Vazquez Montalban--I've read them all. The one by Thierry Jonquet--Tarantula I think goes by the title 'Mygale' in the states. That was interesting. Other books I noted were Fernando Vallejo's 'Our lady of the assassins' which is very hard to find at an affordable price and which I don't have. Nicolas Royle's Antwerp looks interesting likewise--though I believe I've read him once and didn't particularly care for that book. Finished up Saramago's All the Names over the weekend. The Verhaeghen book I mentioned is really excellent but I'm going to be on for quite a while. I can see it lasting a couple weeks.

posted by lriley at 1:18 pm (EST) on Feb 5, 2008

I like it Papalaz. I have only read Bowles once--the Sheltering Sky--but I think I might look this one up. Some of his pals (Vargas Llosa and Rodrigo Rey Rosa) are excellent writers.

posted by lriley at 5:32 pm (EST) on Feb 3, 2008

Papalaz--I don't know if you've ever read Camilo Jose Cela--I just put up a review of his Christ versus Arizona--the book in which I meet my untimely end.

posted by lriley at 2:21 pm (EST) on Jan 27, 2008

first time for everyone and everything Papalaz. Most important of all I'm keeping my composure.

posted by lriley at 3:19 pm (EST) on Jan 24, 2008

Papalaz--I was murdered and then hung in the book I've been reading today--from the Camilo Jose Cela's (Spanish nobel literature laureate) Christ versus Arizona we have this:

'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 service 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 partiarcharum 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 12:32 pm (EST) on Jan 24, 2008

Papalaz--I see you have added a couple reviews and very fine ones also on Manchette. Some nasty stuff. Boiled down pot boilers.

posted by lriley at 3:51 pm (EST) on Jan 21, 2008

Papalaz--apparently of the 367 people here who own a copy of Beckett's Murphy--I'm the first to review it. That's a little amazing--considering it was his first published novel. I'm working on Camilo Jose Cela's 'Christ versus Arizona'--which is much in the vein of other works of his. It is one 261 page paragraph--of exactly one sentence--a collage of recurring images that tightly fit together, and at least in the past tend to build little by little in intensity. This one somewhat centers around Tombstone Arizona--and the Hispanic community there towards the end of the 19th century and the event of the shootout at the OK corral.

posted by lriley at 3:46 pm (EST) on Jan 21, 2008

In the meantime my New York Rangers vs. New Jersey Devils tickets for March 27 at MSG in NYC just showed up a minute ago.

Ever hear of Paul Verhaeghen? and his Omega Minor?

Back to Nabokov--don't really know the facts surrounding Vladimir's death--that could make a lot of difference for me. Last requests though are pretty cut and dried at least when left to immediate family. I tend to agree with you.

As for Sterne I'm pretty good at looking aup the notes and it's not really a problem. I definitely look if I'm unsure about what is being got at.

posted by lriley at 1:16 pm (EST) on Jan 18, 2008

Papalaz--As his son I would think burning it would be the right thing to do. As a friend--maybe not. Automatically Kafka comes to mind. While I'm not the biggest Kafka booster out there--I'm glad his friend didn't listen to his request to destroy his manuscripts. I wonder also why Nabokov leaves it to his son to do this. If his ghost is out there somewhere it has only itself to blame if Dmitri decides to publish it instead and it may be lucky for us too. I tend to like Nabokov--but there are certain of his works I didn't like at all including one of the more popular--Pale Fire. Bend Sinister is probably my favorite.

As it happens Tristam Shandy arrived in the mail today. A penguin trade size paperback. 543 pages and over 100 pages more of notes. We'll get to it within the next couple-three weeks hopefully. Currently finishing Julian Barnes' Talking it over which I kind of like. Many many years ago I started reading his Flaubert's parrot and for some reason stopped and can't tell you now why. If I remember I thought it was good--but just stopped reading it and never picked it up again and no longer have it. This may be the only occasion that I remember not finishing something I started.
Also getting towards the end of Beckett's Murphy--which was the first book of his I ever read--again many many years ago.

posted by lriley at 12:22 pm (EST) on Jan 18, 2008

Papalaz--have ordered Tristam Shandy--it should be here in one-two weeks. I see you've been busy reading and reviewing Beckett's. I am fortunate to have one of his books signed--Fizzles--(at least the signature looks authentic from others I've seen). Maybe I'll re-read Murphy again. Have put up another review on Bolano for a shorter work (184 pages)--Amulet.

posted by lriley at 9:27 am (EST) on Jan 14, 2008

Papalaz--I'll have to order Tristam Shandy. Currently finishing up Bolano's Amulet. Just started Grete Weill's Last trolley from Beethoven straat. Both are less than 200 pages. Bolano is as usual excellent.

posted by lriley at 12:37 pm (EST) on Jan 12, 2008

But I've never read Tristam Shandy--Papalaz. To me Rabelais does come to mind. The old american folk tales. He really seemed to be dipping into a lot of different sources.

On the comic--A confederacy of dunces is a great comic novel. I see a lot of the comic in Celine, Schmidt, Boon etc.--very dark comedy but...one of the funniest books for me believe it or not was Emile Zola's 'The Earth'--this family of farmers hating and killing each other over the inheritance. One of them named Hyacinthe goes by the nickname of 'Jesus Christ' because of his resemblance to christ is the best of the lot though a boozing, whoring total non-conformist. Antonio Lobo Antunes is just hilarious--but dark humor again. Bukowski's Post Office comes to mind--McCabe's Butcher Boy as sad as it is, ditto for James Kelman's How late it was. Then there's Queneau's 'We always treat women too well'--where he borrows some of Joyce's Ulysses characters--one ones that give Bloom a hard time in the pub--and puts them in the GPO during the Irish easter rising. Marlene Van Niekerk's Triomf is great. Tristan Egolf's Lord of the Barnyard. Heller's Catch 22. Halldor Laxness who was just a brilliant writer. Flannery O'Connor's Wiseblood. Faulkner's As I lay dying.

posted by lriley at 5:03 pm (EST) on Jan 11, 2008

Papalaz--Review on Blue Pastoral is up.

posted by lriley at 1:08 pm (EST) on Jan 11, 2008

Papalaz--have not read 'The sky changes'. On Sorrentino I've read Imaginative qualities, Splendide Hotel, Mulligan Stew, Aberration of starlight, Red the fiend and Steelwork.

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

Papalaz-I read Mulligan Stew some years ago--I have to say I like this better. My favorite Sorrentino is Imaginative qualities.

posted by lriley at 3:51 pm (EST) on Jan 7, 2008

Papalaz--decided to read 3 to kill again and I have to say I think it's fantastic. Also about half way through Sorrentino's Blue Pastoral. I had a hard time getting started with that one but I like it more and more as I go along. Probably do a review of it when I'm finished--that might not show up until friday or saturday.

posted by lriley at 12:55 pm (EST) on Jan 7, 2008

Papalaz--I really love Manchette. They are both excellent. If I had to choose it would be 'Three to Kill' but it's close.

Started another Denis Johnson book today--The stars at noon. Finished Joshua Ferris's 'Then we came to the end' which was one of the NYTimes notable books of 2007. It's good--but I think they could have found something better. It's going to be a 3 or 3 1/2. Did a review yesterday of Elfriede Jelinek's 'The Piano teacher'--she reminds me a bit of her fellow Austrian Thomas Bernhard. I also picked up Arno Schmidt's 'Collected stories' which I see is in your library too.

posted by lriley at 1:55 pm (EST) on Jan 2, 2008

You're very good at what you turn your hand too Papalaz--judging by this and the work in progress you were working on formerly. Anyway thank you for letting me read your poem. I liked it a lot. Christmas for us is usually a bit understated. It's nice to have the extra day off. Gave my wife an MP3 player which is what she wanted most, a few books, this and that. We've added a flat screen monitor to our computer setup--she gave me a digital camera with a zoom lens--actually we're going to exchange cameras--she's going to take the zoom as she's more the picture person--a couple New York Ranger ballcaps, the books and dvd I mentioned before, a wallhanging sign from my daughter 'How can I miss you if you won't go away' and also a 2008 calendar of Bush misquotations and verbal foulups--and a bottle of Tanqueray vodka. Not too bad all in all.

posted by lriley at 1:16 pm (EST) on Dec 25, 2007

Read that article about Kharms a couple weeks ago Papalaz. Might see what I can find on him. I did a review on Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing today. I liked that one very much.

posted by lriley at 3:02 pm (EST) on Dec 24, 2007

Papalaz--4 books coming out in 2008 I'm looking forward to.

Elementary Morality--Raymond Queneau--in February.
Nazi literature in America--Roberto Bolano--also in February.

Today I find 2 books by the Portugese Antonio Lobo Antunes--one coming out as a Dalkey Archive in March--Knowledge of Hell and the other a W. W. Norton in August--What can I do when everything's on fire?

posted by lriley at 3:39 pm (EST) on Dec 22, 2007

Merry Christmas--Happy Holidays or whichever you would prefer Papalaz. I hope to do a book review today on Leonard Gardner's Fat City which I think you might like. Reminds me a lot of the Carver short stories recently read--or even somewhat of Agnes Owens for that matter. It's relatively short--183 pages and apparently Gardner's only book--published 1969. It tells the story of two boxing bums--one starting out and the other trying to make a comeback. Humor, pathos but also starkly realistic. It's set in Southern California and one of its anti-heroes Billy Tully (the one trying to make the comeback) is battling his depression with alcohol and making ends meet between matches by working as a migrant worker picking fruit and vegetables. Anyway starting on a Trevor tonight, finishing up on a Mutis novella and half way through Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing (2nd of his Border Trilogy books).

posted by lriley at 2:39 am (EST) on Dec 21, 2007

I have strange tastes in movies Papalaz. Favorite war movie--which I kind of consider a comedy--Full metal jacket. The atmosphere and drill instructor of the boot camp scenes reminded me of my own. I couldn't stop laughing the first time I saw it. Matewan. Syriana. The pope of Greenwich village. Reservoir Dogs. Southern Comfort (set in the Louisian bayou where a small squad of weekend warrior National guardsman somewhat inadvertently set off a mini civil war with the locals). Germinal. There are a few others. My head is a little fuzzy now. Reading wise I'm working on the Oulipo connected Lynn Crawford's Simple Separate People and Don De Lillo's Great Jones Street and with a Lebanese Hanan al-Shaykh's Zahra's story which has their civil war somewhat in the background and is so-so or nothing extraordinary--at least for me.

posted by lriley at 2:24 am (EST) on Dec 14, 2007

Not a bad weather pattern--considering. We're in these valleys. Sometimes we get missed--sometimes not.

On books for christmas I usually buy a bunch--no one has a clue what to get me.
Among other things--Roberto Bolano's Amulet. Camilo Jose Cela's Christ versus Arizona. The Joshua Ferris book mentioned a couple comments ago--which is supposed to be signed by the author. Two books that I would surely get but won't be available until February Elementary Morality-Raymond Queneau and Nazi literature in America by the above mentioned Bolano. Also a dvd of Ken Loach's The wind that shakes the barley--all about the Black and Tan war.

One of these days I'll have to get back to something by Beckett as well. Possibly rereading Murphy--which was one of my favorite works of his and was the book chosen for C in Julian Rios's Loves that bind.

posted by lriley at 1:43 pm (EST) on Dec 13, 2007

Seasons greetings to you and all in Crete also Papalaz. Today's weather is a bit nasty around here though. It took me twice as long as usual to get home today. Roads are treacherous at the moment. Sunday we may have a blizzard.

posted by lriley at 12:21 pm (EST) on Dec 13, 2007

Papalaz--I don't know if you've ever read anything by the Italian noir writer Leonardo Sciascia but I put up a review today on him.

posted by lriley at 5:29 pm (EST) on Dec 12, 2007

Papalaz--NYTimes--10 best books of 2007. 5 fiction mentioned. They include--The Savage Detectives--Roberto Bolano, Tree of Smoke--Denis Johnson.

The other three are--Man gone down--Michael Thomas, Out stealing horses--Per Petterson, Then we came to the end--Joshua Ferris.

posted by lriley at 12:42 pm (EST) on Dec 9, 2007

Your Molloy review made me smile. I've always found a lot of comedy in Beckett--in constant search of an understated and/or ironic view of life--but he can pitch the tone higher and higher and still retain a bare bones approach and control of his language. An amazing writer.

posted by lriley at 5:11 pm (EST) on Dec 7, 2007

Papalaz--I've gone about Roth in the same haphazard way that I've gone about a lot of writers--not in any particular order. I read a blurb and it sounded interesting in the sense anyway that this culture of ours has a history of going off on witch hunts. I can't really comment so much on other countries but people here IMO will from time to time have their emotions tweaked for them on this and that. Somehow this seemed to be veering off on that kind of a tangent. Like most writers though he does have some that are much better than others.

By the way--my review of Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson is not all that great but the book is truly excellent. Maybe I could use a bit more motivation at the moment. There are several threads that come together at times and at other times unravel. It centers around a CIA operative and his recruitment by his uncle in the Phillipines and later on it takes us through the first few years of the Vietnam war. Johnson is a very subtle writer--depending on the book--somewhat experimental--a little more in the thematic sense than in the linguistic. In some respects he reminds me of Paul West--in some respects of the J. G. Ballard sci-fi book I recently read.

The Salon readers guide references him this way--Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers covers the same drugged-out apolcalyptic terrein that Johnson's fiction does. Herman Melville's Pierre is as flat-out weird as Fiskadoro while Rimbaud's vertiginous A season in hell echoes the precise ravings that reverberate through the heads of Johnson's antiheroes. Graham Greene's The end of the affair shares Johnson's obsession with redemption and an absent god, and Leonard Gardner's Fat City--a work that Johnson has paid homage to--echoes his sad empathy with life's losers.

Maybe I should look up this Fat City. Anyway the above Salon guide only reaches the year 2000.

posted by lriley at 5:04 pm (EST) on Dec 7, 2007

Papalaz--have been reading Johnson's 'Tree of Smoke'--which we talked about before and it's very very good. Mostly about Vietnam as you probably know. In some ways it makes me think a bit of Paul West--he's juggling several different threads throughout but doing a good job of it.

posted by lriley at 5:13 pm (EST) on Nov 27, 2007

Papalaz--not to worry--I expect that sooner or later everything I want book wise will show up at the door. Up until now there are two exceptions to the rule--the Queneau book I mentioned and Celine's doctoral dissertation on Semmelweiss which is paired with one of his pamphlets Mea Culpa. Those two are pretty rare though.

On my brother there is a bit of distance between the West Coast and here and in some respects none of us (3 sisters and 1 other brother) keep close tabs on each other except for maybe my two younger sisters. Keeping in mind also that not a lot of unexpected disease and death has come our way in a long while.

Anyway it wouldn't be a problem if you have a person acting as a conduit here for care packages. In country rates at the Post Office here are very cheap.

Looked up Tierney some more and there are a couple sites displaying more of his work. I like it a lot. Apparently he's in Massachusetts which is not that far away and we used to go on vacation every two or three years to Cape Cod--which is also in Massachusetts. Not sure we'll be heading that way this year though. Currently finishing Philip Roth's 'The Counterlife'--I like it a lot. Very cleverly written work.

posted by lriley at 5:25 pm (EST) on Nov 19, 2007

Papalaz--no I'm not a facebook. The McLean--Bunker Man was not all that hot--maybe bucket of tongues is better. It revolves around a high school janitor in a small coastal town in Scotland who becomes increasingly sex obsessed which kicks him into a neurotic/paranoiac and finally a psycotic. It's very uneven in some respects--though in others McLean reminds me of Patrick McCabe--though the McCabe bookes I've read--at least the early ones McCabe maintained control over his material. McLean has a problem with that in this one and his janitor goes from being a two dimensional character to a single dimensional while the other characters for the most part become more and more peripheral--it is a noisy one.

What I started on today is David Markson's 'The last novel' which was one from the Strand book signing and was published this year. 50 some pages in and I like this one a lot. Very enjoyable. Calling it a novel--might be a stretch though--a lot of snippets and aphorisms from the world of literature and art.

I'll give you page 8 and 9--the whole book (190 pages) is written in the same kind of format.

'The courtesan Lais, who once asserted that she knew nothing at all about the alleged wisdom of poets and philosophers--except that they knocked at her door as frequently as anyone else.

No philosopher has ever influenced the attitudes of even the street he lived on.
Said Voltaire.

I do not see why exposition and description are a necessary part of a novel.
Said Ivy Compton-Burnett.

I am quite content to go down to posterity as a scissors and paste man.
Said Joyce.

Rilke was raised as a girl--in girl's clothing--until he started school at the age of seven.

The Rilke who would later devotedly collect lace.
And maintain apartments habitually overflowing with flowers.

Garcia Lorca's ten or eleven months in New York City--during which he apparently did not learn two dozen words of English.

I am not an orphan on the earth, so long as this man lives on it.
Said Gorky re Tolstoy.

What sort of christian life is this, I should like to know? He hasn't a drop of love for his children, for me, or for anyone but himself.
Reads a contrasting view from Sofia Tolstoy's diary.

People speak of naturalism in opposition to modern painting. Where and when has anyone ever seen a natural work of art?
Asked Picasso.

How miraculous it was, noted Diogenes, that whenever one felt that sort of urge, one could readily masturbate.
But conversely how disheartening that one could not simply rub one's stomach when hungry.

The very not apocryphal tale that David Hume, always grossly overweight, once went down on one knee to propose marraige--and could not get back up.

Dante walked with a stoop.
Said Boccaccio.

Coleridge fell off horses.

Albert Camus had already purchased a train ticket, between the Vaucluse and Paris, when he made a last minute decision to accept a ride with Michel Gallimard--which would end in the crash that killed them both.

How many times before his own death twenty-eight years later would Rene Char recall that Camus and Gallimard had invited him to drive north with them also--but that he had decided their car would be too crowded?

posted by lriley at 4:14 pm (EST) on Nov 13, 2007

Papalaz--no it's a different one. It's a novel titled 'Bunker man'.

posted by lriley at 7:30 am (EST) on Nov 10, 2007

Papalaz--The Owens was a short one and is already done. We're not ready to leave Scotland yet though. I'm going to begin Duncan McLean tomorrow--which will be a first. I'm putting off my reviews until tomorrow. Sorry but my brain is a little bit foggy today.

posted by lriley at 4:38 pm (EST) on Nov 8, 2007

Papalaz--as a matter of fact I've already read it and liked it a lot. There are some similarities between him and Denis Johnson in his Jesus' son IMO. Though Johnson's characters in that one are a bit more of the derelict. Carver's stories overall a little more in the realistic vein. Probably do a review of it either today or tomorrow. I did two reviews yesterday though both were a bit rushed especially the second. I'll be finishing Vargas Llosa's 'The Bad Girl' today also and have started another Agnes Owens--a short novel titled 'For the love of Willie'. I don't think I reviewed the other book of hers I read but it did make a very good impression.

posted by lriley at 2:46 pm (EST) on Nov 7, 2007

Papalaz--Carver's 'What we talk about when we talk about love' showed up today. Looks pretty good and I think I'll be getting to it fairly soon.

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

If it's that short it might be in with other of his pieces under another title. I'll have to investigate.

posted by lriley at 12:47 pm (EST) on Oct 30, 2007

It was imagination Papalaz. If it's that short it might be in with other pieces of his under another title. I'll have to do some investigating.

posted by lriley at 12:45 pm (EST) on Oct 30, 2007

Papalaz--The Beckett title drew an absolute blank with me--I looked it up on Addall though and all that came up was Calder and Boyars--it never had an US imprint. Is it a play, novella, novel? A Boon interview circa 1971:

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/context/200...

posted by lriley at 4:28 pm (EST) on Oct 29, 2007

Panos Karnezis? I've had that book sitting around for a while. I haven't read much of Beckett in the last few years. Once in a while I reread one of his plays. For a work of his that seems a little underrated--I always liked 'The lost ones'. I've never reread Murphy--that might be a good one to get to one of these days. Boon is as close to Celine as any writer I've run into. It's not just in the way he writes but in the way he views the world around him. Very dark--more explicitly with a political and social angle. The way he merges in this work the three different threads together--1)his story about a late 19th century girl Ondine--which 2)he allows his friends to peruse and comment on in present time--allowing another alter-ego Johan Janssens at the same time 3) to rewrite the lives of an old Belgian fable set around the character of Reynard the Fox--and it is really amazing in how he seamlessly fits it all together using it as vehicle to comment on the state of Belgium in the mid 20th century.

posted by lriley at 2:30 pm (EST) on Oct 29, 2007

I believe it's the same Carver article. It showed up in yesterdays NYTimes in the Week in Review section. A lot about this Gordon Lish in it.

Still on Boon's Chapel Road. Second time around with it and it is amazing.

http://www.centerforbookculture.org/cont...

A very good article on him there. According to the wikipedia article on him he committed suicide. His wife went to get her hair done because of some social function that night and told him to be ready by the time she got back. His reply was something like 'Of course, I will. Just remember though I have a bad character.'

Anyway Ballard book is done and I will review it soon hopefully. I also have another Englander book to do.

posted by lriley at 12:33 pm (EST) on Oct 29, 2007

Thinking of getting the Atrocity Exhibition and reading that next of his Papalaz. It might be a little while before I get back to him though. Johnson's Tree of Smoke of which we spoke a few weeks ago showed up along with Vargas Llosa's The bad girl. TOS is a big one. I got a gift certificate for my birthday and used it on those. Been re-reading Boon's Chapel road--remarkable writer. Very dark humor--reminds me very much of Celine--though definitely a left wing one. Also going through a book of poetry by an Australian Les Murray--it's okay but a bit of a slog. Tomorrow we'll be on the move for a large part of the day. My daughter's last marching band competition this year--not really my cup of tea but now and again sacrifices have to be made.

posted by lriley at 2:34 pm (EST) on Oct 27, 2007

Changed it just a little bit more Papalaz. More or less re-editing the re-editing post first review. Getting towards the end of Vermillion sands--in some ways Ballard's work here reminds me of Alvaro Mutis's Maqroll novellas. Language usage and vast landscapes. Distance.

posted by lriley at 4:39 pm (EST) on Oct 26, 2007

Papalaz--anyway I hope I didn't ruin the Quin review. Anyway another on Lynn Crawford's Solow--today.

posted by lriley at 1:42 pm (EST) on Oct 25, 2007

Papalaz--but I just did and I think I like it better.

posted by lriley at 12:39 pm (EST) on Oct 24, 2007

Papalaz-the answer is yes--I kind of edited it out from what I originally started. I don't know if there was a special reason for that decision but after I took it out the review seemed to go much better--although I am thinking of re-editing and replacing the language 'some won't like it but' just because it tends to drive people away. As for a relationship between S. and Leonard and/or Ruth there is definitely something there--more than likely with Leonard but possibly both.

I'm actually re-reading something now Louis Paul Boon's 'Chapel Road'. Also have started Ballard's short story collection 'Vermillion sands'. It's interesting. I really liked the first story.

posted by lriley at 12:24 pm (EST) on Oct 24, 2007

Papalaz--reviewed Ann Quin's Three today.

posted by lriley at 12:58 pm (EST) on Oct 23, 2007

Several years ago we went to Bar Harbor Maine during the summer for a couple weeks--and one day went on kind of field trip. We wound up in Stoneham Maine--coming down this huge hill you have all the ocean in front of you. It's a small village that seemed almost to be built on top of a cliff. Anyway there was a bookstore there and I went in--very dark inside. I wasn't finding very much of interest but finally came across an old Chatto and Windus copy of Emile Zola's 'His excellency Eugene Rougon'. In the dark it looked like they wanted $15 for it and having read several of his Rougon Macquart books by that time I was quite happy finding it but when I got to the counter it turned out owner--a middleaged lady rang it up as $75--so I questioned her on it and sure enough that's what it was--anyway I didn't have a lot on me and she had a book on book values but it wasn't listed. Anyway she asked if I intended to resell it and said no--I was a Zola fan and she sold it to me for $15 making me promise if I ever did sell it and made a big profit on it that I'd remember her. Anyway they've been reissuing Zola's works and there is a paperback version of it now. That particular book though up until last year was just about the only version around and used to run on Addall which is an antiquarian booksellers database for anywhere between $600 and $900--now since the paperback it's much more reasonable--running somewhere around $175 to $5-600. As for my copy I still have it and intend on keeping it.

posted by lriley at 11:06 am (EST) on Oct 19, 2007

I'm not a trekkie or a Star Wars fan but we'll get to Ballard pretty soon--Papalaz. I expect he'll be pretty good. Reading 'They're cows, we're pigs--a kind of satiric novel revolving around pirates and Tortuga in the 17th century. An attractive title.

posted by lriley at 2:08 am (EST) on Oct 19, 2007

It may be just that Gallagher thinks they were edited too much. I don't know--I've never published anything so I can only speculate but if I were to put myself in Carver's shoes at the time--if I respected Lish enough I'd probably agree to make changes or cut something out if it made sense and if it seemed an improvement to me. I know a lot of writers wouldn't want anything messed with. It could be that Gallagher thinks the longer versions were edited too much and/or the newer versions turn them into something somewhat different--might also draw more sales. Funny in a sense--I have the updated corrected text version of Joyce's Ulysses which supposedly fleshed things out a little bit from previous texts. All in all though it doesn't really change the sense of the book. That may be something to wonder about with Carver. Anyway I'll check out your suggestions about him.

The Ballard seems to be sci-fi which is not a genre I read a lot of but the Wikipedia site mentioned it as one of his better collections.

As for Crawford--it seems at least she has written for some publications sponsored by Oulipo. Wikipedia again says she's a member but on a Oulipo site updated membership around 2006 there wasn't any confirmation of that. The book I just got does have a blurb by Matthews--yes, the only Oulipian american until now--or still the only one. He calls her first book a stunner, says it reveals a formidable new talent that is both invigorating and somewhat unnerving. Another writer--Jim Harrison--compares her to an early John Hawkes.

posted by lriley at 4:07 pm (EST) on Oct 18, 2007

Had to shut down--computer acting up a little. I can read Spanish a bit--not French--at least not yet. Maybe when I retire I'll take it up. It might be an interesting thing to do. Borges for me at least has been an acquired taste. In the beginning I didn't really think all that much of him and now I wonder why. On Carver--do you have any favorites by him?

posted by lriley at 1:36 pm (EST) on Oct 18, 2007

Speaking of the New York Times there are very few papers in the United States with any clue or who make any attempt at all to cover literature or the other arts--and IMO they do a good job--though there is not a lot to compare them against. The problem with me going on-line with them is the avalanche of phone calls and e-mails that will come afterwards soliciting subscription--I used to subscribe to their Sunday paper with the book review and travel section and arts section etc. but I prefer actually going out and buying it. My info though is kicking around in their database so I'm going to avoid going onto their site. Anyway give me the gist of it but be forewarned that I have not read much of Carver's work and am not sure who Lish is. I'm aware of Tess Gallagher--his second wife and have read a collection of her short stories. I probably should have read more of Carver and my take on him--which might not be a good one--is of a somewhat proletarian nature (which is good)to his work--cleverly done of ordinary workaday people. In Britain maybe Owens, Sillotoe, Kelman-like. Here maybe this Denis Johnson--maybe not, Larry Brown, Bukowski if you really want to go down and out or Selby.

Ballard's Vermillion Sands has shown up along with Lynn Crawford's Solow. Interesting looking text. Not sure if she's an official member of Oulipo or not but if she is she's the second American.

posted by lriley at 1:03 pm (EST) on Oct 18, 2007

Papalaz--have another review of a Borges book--dreamtigers. Now that we're done with the house for the most part I can probably spend more time reviewing things. I feel a little out of practice though and I've also been messing around with biographical data on authors here since LT has opened up new vistas in that realm. I'm not sure I did the Reyes books as well as I would have liked and I might add more to it. I have also finished Quin's book. Liked that as well. Might get to that one tomorrow.

posted by lriley at 4:07 pm (EST) on Oct 15, 2007

Papalaz--finally did a review on the Reyes book Behind Closed Doors.

posted by lriley at 9:36 am (EST) on Oct 15, 2007

papalaz--I've been messing about looking for info on some of the members of Oulipo and ran into a Lynn Crawford--have you ever heard of her? She lives in the Detroit Michigan area and has three or four novels out--one is 'Blow'--another is 'Solow'--the synopses I read sound very intriguing but I don't see anyone here with either of those two--there is however another novel three people have. Another writer came up--Anne F. Garreta--apparently she's won the Prix Medicis in 2002 and a novel--'The Breakdown' has been translated--but seems difficult to find in the most usual places on the internet.

posted by lriley at 5:59 pm (EST) on Oct 13, 2007

I see you have a few of her books--Papalaz. Though I've heard of her I've never read anything of hers. Her name hadn't popped out in the pre-selection hype but there are often surprises and some of them turn out to be good surprises. If I had my druthers of the names that had popped up it would have Roth or the barely known Le Clezio. On Quin we're moving along and I like it very much.

The site here is offering a new feature where you can plug in a lot of biographical information. I might be checking that out soon. Also spotted a thread you started about noir and thought that Celine is much as anybody could fit into that.

posted by lriley at 12:05 pm (EST) on Oct 11, 2007

On Ballard--I ordered Vermilion sands which I believe is a story collection. Currently on Ann Quin's three--very good so far and Sinclair Lewis's Main Street. I have never read Lewis and so far it's okay but dragging a bit.

posted by lriley at 1:32 pm (EST) on Oct 10, 2007

Papalaz--I fleshed out the Johnson 'Jesus' son' review a bit. Also did another review of Roberto Bolano's 'Last evenings on earth'. A great writer.

posted by lriley at 10:49 am (EST) on Oct 8, 2007

Papalaz--the 'Jesus' son' review I did this morning is tentative. I have things to add to it. I just wanted to start something. We're still busy on the house and I hope to get back to it soon--and also to do the Reyes book. The house project will be petering out sometime soon--the hockey season beginning is a hell of a distraction besides. Too many things going on--I'm still on Dos passos's '1919'--making progress in the Hrabal book and also reading another Bolano 'Last evening on earth'. Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew I suppose. In the end everything will get done but my reviewing has been suffering.

On using my reviews on the Flue--you have my go ahead--although some might not be all that great--even those though you're welcome to use--it's not like I'm trying to hold to any standard of excellence--might as well show off all your warts.

posted by lriley at 12:23 pm (EST) on Oct 4, 2007

Papalaz--and as it happens another agnes owens--for the love of Willie showed today. I had to think of things to get for my birthday which as it happens was last week. I hit the big 5---0. So there's been a rather larger than usual influx of reading material for the time period in question. One of these days I'm going to have to get Raymond Queneau's 'A hard winter' no matter what the cost. There are very few of them around--it will probably cost somewhere in the neighbor of $100 anyway with or without the dustjacket--I'm hoping with. The Denis Johnson book 'Jesus' son' is very very good. Quite a bit better than the short novel of his I read about 3 weeks ago. Lots of deranged drug addicts stumbling through their lives offset by an almost innocent humor and confusion--kind of like a Hrabal book--with the Hrabal characters tending towards drunkenness--the Johnson characters tending towards drug addiction. I'll have to send you a couple excerpts. Speaking of Hrabal and his beer swilling characters at the moment I as a matter of fact am finishing off a locally microbrewed concoction which isn't too bad and comes in a bottle containing 1 pint + 6 fluid ounces which is a nice size too while I wait for my wife to come back from the hardware store with a fixture that attaches to the siding and connects to the outside light. We're still fooling around with this although she wants to quit with only 3 sides done and finish off the last side next spring. Well we're about where we need to be then. I'm planning on starting on Hrabal again tonight. That will be the little town where time stood still.

I did have problems hitting on that site. Didn't come up.

posted by lriley at 1:21 pm (EST) on Oct 1, 2007

Papalaz--finished the Reyes book yesterday--may do a review tomorrow if I have the time--otherwise maybe sometime during the week. An Ann Quin book came in. Also I should keep you on my Denis Johnson adventures. A couple of weeks ago I read a short novel of his 'The name of the world'--it was pretty good but not all that special. I opened up his very short story collection 'Jesus' son' though and it looks really promising. The epigraph is from the Velvet underground song 'Heroin'--When I'm rushing on my run and I feel like Jesus' son--that one got my attention. The first story 'Car crash while hitchhiking' is exceptional.

posted by lriley at 10:53 pm (EST) on Sep 29, 2007

papalaz-3 and a half stars are a little low on the ratings maybe. I've read Moore twice and liked both of them. Black Robe is set somewhere around the middle of the 18th century in the area of upper New York state and lower Ontario--maybe Quebec. French missionaries come to convert the native Indian population. It's a historical novel and was made into a pretty good film besides by a French filmmaker--all subtitled. The bits about the Iroquois indians seem to be right on--they were quite clever people--a North American of the Incas and Mayans. Very violent--and cannibalistic. The lonely passion of Judith Hearne is the other I've read and I like that as well. There are a number of good to great Irish writers--Bernard MacLaverty--who lives in Scotland now and is a close friend of Kelman's and Alasdair Gray I believe--his 'Walking the dog' is one of my favorite short story collections. 'Grace Notes' is a very good novel. Eoin McNamee--really liked Resurrection Man but he has two others I think are excellent--'The blue tango' and 'The Ultras'. There is very strong noirish feel to his books and Resurrection man and the Ultras both deal with Northern Irelands troubles--taking a look into things like British government Psyops and the infiltration and coercion of protestant paramilitary outfits during that time. Very dark--language and content is kind of a cross between Smiley era LeCarre and noir type of writers like Manchette or Leonardo Sciascia. Ricardo Piglia might be another comparison. Patrick McCabe also--though after The butcher boy and The dead school he's not quite as good. Other worthy Irish writers--Liam O'Flaherty, Michael Longley, Seamus Deane--Reading in the dark, Sebastian Barry, Tom Phelan, Conor McPherson, John McGahern, Aidan Higgins, John Banville--then of course the heavy hitters that everyone knows--Joyce, Beckett, Flann O'Brien, Heaney.

posted by lriley at 5:02 pm (EST) on Sep 22, 2007

too serious all the time though is not good--it's most important to mix things up--to try new writers. Experimentation whether with experimental writers or not is part of the fun. It's also a cheap way to travel--I do like reading a lot of non US (american) writers. I've been reading Guy Debord--it's interesting but tough sledding if you're going through an insomnia phase like I've been this week. Reading the same bits two or three times--trying to focus because it calls for a lot of focus and still I'm not sure I'm getting a good read of it. I've been doing some Vietnam war books lately also--one (the 13th valley) by John M. Del Vecchio was very good. The other thing I'm on is a novella by Alvaro Mutis--Abdul Bashur--dreamer of ships. I've been going back and forth between his and Arno Schmidt's novellas off and on the last couple months. I plan on the Reyes book by the weekend and maybe Dos Passos' 1919.

posted by lriley at 3:18 pm (EST) on Sep 20, 2007

Papalaz--On Joyce Carol Oates--I know she's well thought of even here in the United States but it's another one of my holes--I've never read anything of hers--though I have seen a number of good reviews over the years. I have her 'The Falls'--and my wife has read it and she liked it but with reservations. I should get to her one of these days though.

posted by lriley at 12:16 pm (EST) on Sep 20, 2007

Papalaz--A lot of Trevor's work seems to comment on the religious divide in Ireland--at least while he was growing up. Religion seems to fit in anyway as a factor in the lives of most of his characters--even if they're only trying to get away from it. Lots of empathy in his writing--a sober and almost birds eye like view of Irish growing pains in the 20th century. It's funny that someone brought up the Nobel prize for this year in one of the groups here and I mentioned him. You never know but that definitely is a longshot. Even so--he's got a body of very serious work that could easily compare IMO to one of the more frequent considered candidates Milan Kundera.

posted by lriley at 2:19 am (EST) on Sep 20, 2007

Papalaz--I have a number of Trevor's works including 'The Boarding House'--though I haven't read that one. I think it won the Whitbread prize. Anyway I think Trevor is a fine writer--maybe even a Nobel worthy one. I can't think of anything of his I've read that I haven't liked. Have to maybe move the Boarding House up the list but next week I think I'm going to start the Alina Reyes book.

posted by lriley at 1:11 pm (EST) on Sep 19, 2007

Papalaz--the three David Markson books showed up today from his book reading at the Strand in NYC. All of them are trade sized--I'm not sure if the new one is a first edition or not. Might not be a hardcover 1st ed. on that one. They're all signed though--which is nice. $28 isn't bad--my birthday is coming up in a couple weeks. Anyway titles are: The last novel--Going down--Epitaph for a tramp/Epitaph for a deadbeat (that one looks pretty interesting--noirish). Anyway I'm going to have to start paying more attention to the Strand's activities.

posted by lriley at 4:17 pm (EST) on Sep 15, 2007

Papalaz--finished my review of Etel Adnan's 'Sitt Marie Rose'. I liked it a lot and excerpted rather freely from it in my review.

posted by lriley at 9:12 am (EST) on Sep 10, 2007

papalaz--have not seen the film. Haven't heard of Nye either. I'll have to see if I can look them up. Haven't got to the Reyes book yet. Will try to get to that soon--within the month. I started a long novel on the Vietnam conflict by a former grunt named Delvecchio. Also a short novel by a Lebanese lady Etel Adnan--Sitt Marie Rose--who has quite an extraordinary writing style. I might excerpt a bit of it for you tomorrow or Monday depending on how are home project goes. Right now we're in the first stages of a lightning storm and I may be getting off soon. The novel revolves around the Lebanese civil war and takes a hard critical view of both sides of the conflict.

posted by lriley at 9:19 pm (EST) on Sep 8, 2007

Papalaz--did a review of Nathan Englander's 'The ministry of special cases'. I gave it 5*. Great book. I think this young writer has a lot of potential.

Started reading another of Arno Schmidt's novellas. Lake scenery with Pocahontas--which is the one that Julian Rios draws on in Loves that bind. Had to smile over this line on the first page--The Lord, without whose willing it no sparrow falls from the roof and no 10 million are gassed in concentration camps: would have to be one curious fellow---that's if he existed!' Ever and always an iconoclast. One of the reasons I like his work so much.

posted by lriley at 6:02 pm (EST) on Sep 6, 2007

Papalaz--cover story of the Sunday NYTimes book review is--as it happens--Tree of Smoke--Denis Johnson. Haven't read very much of it yet though as we've just come in from working on our house. We're working on our third side now--which may be the easiest side of all. We've got the tougher parts done--practically speaking.

Anyway on Johnson's book mentioned above--the review is written by one Jim Lewis (?) another novelist and an obvious fan. The review titled 'The Revelator'--begins as such: 'Good morning and plaease listen to me: Denis Johnson is a true American artist, and Tree of Smoke is a tremendous book, a strange entertainment, very long but fast, a great whirly ride that starts out sad and gets sadder and sadder, loops unpredictably out and around, and then lurches down so suddenly at the very end that it will make your stomach flop. It comes with armor and accoutrements of a Major Novel: big historical theme (Vietnam), semi-mythical cultural institution (military intelligence), long time span (1963-1970, with a coda set in 1983) and unreasonable length (614 pages), all of which would be off-putting if this were not, a major novel, and if Johnson's last big book hadn't been the small collection of eccentric and addictive stories called 'Jesus' Son (1992).

Anyway Papalaz after our conversation yesterday I ordered a Johnson book 'Fiskadoro'--so I should be getting at him sometime in the near future. To be honest though I'm looking forward to it--the major novel deserving of all its hype so far this year is the Bolano book 'The Savage Detectives' and I don't expect anything I read this year is going to knock it off the pedestal of best novel I've read this year. Hopefully though something will supplant it--maybe this--but we will see.

posted by lriley at 5:21 pm (EST) on Sep 2, 2007

Papalaz--a bit inebriated. On Denis Johnson--I've heard about him and have heard good things about him but have never read anything by him. It is one of my holes I suppose. He's in the Salon.com Reader's guide to Contemporary authors and they recommend especially Angels (1983), Fiskadoro (1985), The resuscitation of a hanged man (1991) and Jesus' son (a short story collection 1992).

It says 'Johnson's longest and most ambitious novel, Already Dead: A California Gothic, takes Johnsonian demons that had hitherto been merely phantasamagorical and makes them real. With its wild mix of genres and narrative techniques--not to mention an actual demon-Already Dead is both consummately weird and genuinely moving. But it is utimately too agnostic, too lacking in a single authorial perspective to be completely successful.
Johnson has written two perfect booksd, but perfection isn't what he's about. His voice is so strong it sometimes obscures his characters. His plots can dissolve into space. He's too intense, too risk taking, to make the rabbit jump out of the hat every time. It doesn't matter. He's touched by fire.'

Sounds like someone I should really check out.

Salon goes on to compare him to Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers (my one attempt with Stone was okay but hardly spectacular). Salon also has other comparisons which are all over the place--Herman Melville's Pierre, Rimbaud's--Season in Hell and Graham Greene's 'The end of the affair'. Also mentions a Leonard Gardner and his book 'Fat city'.

posted by lriley at 8:48 pm (EST) on Sep 1, 2007

Tell me what it is Papalaz. I don't subscribe and don't want to send them info but I always buy their Sunday paper with their book review so I've probably have read it--that is the book review anyway. Might not be until later I get back to you--my brother and a couple of my nephews are in from Seattle area and we're going to be going right over to my sisters house.

posted by lriley at 12:49 pm (EST) on Sep 1, 2007

On the T-shirts--I basically go with plain or hockey related. Way back when I was first hired by the Postal Service I used to wear the Russian Red Army CSKA--hockey jersey to work which was the cause of a lot of unfavorable comment. I also have a Homeland Security--fighting terrorism since 1492 t-shirt which pictures a band of armed apaches. I think items of a political nature would be more interesting for me now anyway--going the Nader, Chomsky route. The idea of atagonizing the more reactionary around me is childish but as one of my best friends tells me 'you have to make your own fun.'

posted by lriley at 2:54 pm (EST) on Aug 31, 2007

Papalaz--actually Markson is at the store on Sept. 5 which is in the very near near future. No way I'm going to be able to get there. I did do the pre-order on all three of his signed books being offered though. We'll be going to NYC in March I expect--hopefully the Strand which does authors events will have somebody interesting at the time. I haven't checked out your other--I'll get to it now.

posted by lriley at 2:40 pm (EST) on Aug 31, 2007

Papalaz--have never read anything by Mosley--have heard of him though and also of Oswald. Anything of his you particularly like? Mention made of Hopeful monsters. Anyway have been meaning to ask you about a David Markson. I was on the Strand-NYC bookstore--Website and apparently he's making an appearance there in the near future and you can pre-order some of his works which he'll sign at his appearance.

posted by lriley at 12:11 pm (EST) on Aug 31, 2007

Papalaz--I like McCarthy quite a lot--at least what I've read of him. The bulk of his work is still out there for me to get to. His writing can be very dense--somewhat like a Faulkner. A lot of internal musing. But very dark, myth like in an American way but focused on the past. Joyce like in some respects. I almost always get the times on Sunday. They have a book review section that beats anything any other paper in the US is doing or has done by a wide, wide margin. I consider it to be vital reference material and have often purchased books because of reviews found there. They cover a wide gamut of literature--also non fiction, politics, biographies, sports, childrens--the bulk from the US and Britain/Ireland but there is almost always something or two or three of translated works.

The Saramago article today was in the Magazine section--not the Book Review section. Several pages--I've only read part of it--(we've been working)--a large colored photo of him seated in a black leather armchair with an impressive size library behind him. 'The Portugese novelist and Nobel prize-winner Jose Saramago is a stubborn atheist, an unreconstructed communist, an ornery political polemicist--and the creator of some of the world's most magical, imaginative, sweetly lyrical fiction.'

posted by lriley at 8:59 pm (EST) on Aug 26, 2007

Agnes is very very good Papalaz. You can see the bit of Kelman on the social issues--although more understated. I think she would compare well to Flannery O'Connor. She has great control over her material all the time. Very easy to read--easy on the eye. I can see myself going right out and getting another of hers as soon as this one is done. The Reyes book looks very good as well but it may be a couple or three weeks before I get to it. We'll see though.

Anyway I should say about Zola--though I like the Rougon MacQuart series very much there are a couple that I don't care for at all. Generally speaking though they are great historical novels. The best of them is 'The Earth'--which is the funniest in a very black way. Hyacinthe in that novel aka as Jesus Christ because of his resemblance to the man on the cross may be my favorite of all Zola characters and he is anything but christ-like. The Debacle is a great great war novel. Loved Germinal--even bought the Gerard Depardieu movie of that. L'assommoir is also excellent as is 'The ladies paradise'.

posted by lriley at 5:56 pm (EST) on Aug 22, 2007

Papalaz--reading Agnes Owen's 'Bad Attitudes' and liking it a lot. Also Zola's 'Fortune of the Rougons'--I think it's the 18 or 19th of the 20 book series I've read--pretty much all out of order. Fortune of the Rougons being the first of them all--and the Reyes--Behind closed doors--showed up today.

posted by lriley at 12:55 pm (EST) on Aug 22, 2007

I've missed on the whole 19th century British literature thing--Papalaz. As for the French it's a little bit of a different story. I started on the preface of Figes's Nelly's version and we're back to the Bronte's again. How necessary is it (if at all) to have read Wuthering Heights? I put it down and started something by a James Purdy instead (which isn't bad--kind of seems like a cross between John Gardner's 'Grendel' and Boris Vian's (I spit on your graves). On the question of Nana I'm of the opinion that while good there are several others of Zola's Rougon MacQuart series that are better--(The Earth, Germinal, The Debacle, L'Assommoir and The ladies paradise amongst others). Nana is not much of a love story to me anyway. She's too much the cynic and too egotistical for it to be much of a real love story.

posted by lriley at 12:05 pm (EST) on Aug 18, 2007

It is a bit of a tearjerker I suppose. I liked the local color however accurate it was. I liked the bits about the musical instruments too. Maybe it's lacking a bit in the gray areas of characterization--the Black hats vs. the White Hats which as my dad would instruct us as kids about separating the good guys from the bad ones in old cowboy films. He does make Cephalonia seem like a place you would like to visit. He had a trilogy of books he set in South America. I've only read one of those. It's good but Corelli's mandolin is much better--so if you've only tried De Bernieres the one time and not liked it--I would say you probably wouldn't like those either.

posted by lriley at 1:33 pm (EST) on Aug 17, 2007

Papalaz--here is the list I promised you a week or so ago.

It might not be that great:

1. London Bridge--Louis Ferdinand Celine--Might as well start if off by one by my favorite novelist--and it's the one which revolves around Ferdinands love for Victoria.
2. The Margin--Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues--The protagonist of this one is on a sales trip to Barcelona during the Franco years. He intends to spend time in the Red light district. Upon arrival at his hotel a letter is waiting for him which he opens enough to read his wife has killed herself. The next 3 days he wanders around in a daze picking up the same prostitue each night. At the end of which....
3. Ulysses--James Joyce
4. The horseman on the Roof--Jean Giono--A kind of swashbuckler in more of 19th century sense. It's Giono's best book of which a film was made.
5. Lolita--Vladimir Nabokov--what can you say about Humbert Humbert? He is obsessed.
6. Corelli's mandolin--Louis de Bernieres--generally I think most people like this one. I did. A very interesting war novel as well and kind of set in your neck of the woods.
7. Birdsong--Sebastian Faulks--another excellent war novel/love story.
8. Victoria--Knut Hamsun. Most of Hamsun's work is excellent and this is probably my second favorite of his after Women at the pump.
9. Too loud a solitude--Bohumil Hrabal.
10. Innocence--Penelope Fitzgerald--she was a bit hit and miss with me. This is the first book of hers that I read and my favorite besides.
11. The history of the siege of Lisbon--Jose Saramago--I hadn't read the love story of his that you liked so much but this one is pretty good too.
12. Dr. Zhivago--Boris Pasternak
13. Mygale--Thierry Jonquet--maybe a bit of a weird one. Plastic surgeon kidnaps his daughters' rapist and slowly goes about transforming him into a woman. Very dark in ways--and a strong noirish element. Short and at times violent.
14. A very long engagement--Sebastian Japrisot--Japrisot is another French noir type writer--and a very good one. This one revolves around the hunt for an executed (WW I) French poilu and a woman who refuses to give up hope he is still alive.
15. Money to burn--Ricardo Piglia--again we're into noir and the love is between two male pathological criminals and based on a true story that ends in a blazing shootout.
16. Damage--Josephine Hart. The Jeremy Irons--Juliette Binoche film as I remember right does pretty good by this one. Always liked Binoche.
17. The English Patient--Michael Ondaatje. An excellent writer. The film of this one though takes way too much liberty with the text--though the scenery is beautiful.
18. The charterhouse of Parma--Stendhal.

posted by lriley at 2:13 pm (EST) on Aug 16, 2007

The other thing is the wife was off last week--this weeks she's back working. We have different hours. She has normal ones and I'm going in at 3 in the morning. She comes home and an hour or so later I'm off to bed. We get together on weekends. I don't do very much when she's not around because I don't want her to come back and say 'it's no good. We're going to have to take it apart and do it all over'. So progress has been slow--though fairly soon I expect we're going to start another part in which I can go it alone for awhile.

posted by lriley at 3:58 pm (EST) on Aug 15, 2007

I'm a master at stealing time. I'm always off to work with something. Breaks, lunch (not paid for half hour), trips to the can--lull times. We're always getting our work stolen by larger facilities--ones that worry about keeping up appearances. My job in the plant I can be several places at once and I always keep it caught up. Even on our project--I keep something close by except when others are involved like last weekend. A lot of it one will have to wait for the other and it's mostly me right now that does the waiting because I tend to be the one up high. By the way I started rereading How late it was, how late and am some 50 pages into it. I ordered the Reyes book you recommended too. It looked pretty interesting. Cortozar's Hopscotch only a bit sleazier(?).

posted by lriley at 3:51 pm (EST) on Aug 15, 2007

Papalaz--Erotic novels are like other novels in the sense that some work better than others. Personal taste is what it really factors around. On Reyes--I remember liking 'The Butcher' more than 'Lucie's long voyage' (the other half) but it was so long I couldn't tell you why. The Butcher in the story was the focus of the lady protagonist dreams and/or ambitions. I no longer have the book. I'll look into your other recommendation though--see how available it is.

Anyway I just now remembered that I was making a list for you last Monday(?) or the Monday before(?) and I've completely lost track of it. Many apologies. We're still whacking away at this house and may be at that for some time. Members of my wife's do-it-yourself family were up on both Saturday and Sunday. We've been in over our heads since the beginning but at least now we've got to the point where we don't tear down (a morale buster and the cause of a lot of heated argument) what we put up. Anyway I'll look around today and see if I can find it.

posted by lriley at 12:50 pm (EST) on Aug 15, 2007

Two young women writers I would hope to see a lot more of in the future are the South African Marlene Van Niekerk who only has one work translated 'Triomf' which I reviewed and which I found absolutely hilarious. The other review of it here I liked even better. That reviewer called it one of the most repulsive and disturbing things he'd ever read--and then went on to recommend it anyway. The other is a German writer Juli Zeh. Her only book so far in English is Eagles and Angels--which is somewhat noirish with a very nasty edge, somewhat contemporary history, somewhat gothic--roving between the worlds of high finance, world political organizations, fascistic politics and organized crime.

posted by lriley at 2:31 pm (EST) on Aug 14, 2007

Long time ago Papalaz--there were two novellas under the title 'The Butcher'. A comparison to her maybe Fleur Jaeggy. Reyes tended towards the erotic in that one. I think I like Jaeggy a little more but you never know if I read it again I might change my mind. Now Lilian Faschinger's 'Magdalena the sinner' is also erotic but quite funny too. I'd really recommend that one.

posted by lriley at 2:07 pm (EST) on Aug 14, 2007

Ordered a 'Bad attitudes' by Owens today Papalaz--so I'm going to check her out.

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

Well Too loud would probably make my list too. I've just recommended it in a talk forum here for a young teacher who is going to be teaching a literature class to high school students. I have started on another Hrabal book today which has two novellas--The little town where time stood still and Cutting it short which is actually the first of the two. And a Figes book showed up the other day--Nelly's version. The Saramago you've mentioned I've never read. I've heard things about the Bronte sisters that reflected well on them but I've never got around to them. My wife though not a big reader is a fan of Jane Austen. Give me a couple days to compile a list. Maybe I'll have something by Monday.

posted by lriley at 12:53 pm (EST) on Aug 10, 2007

Papalaz--I've never read any of the Bronte sisters. Of the list in fact I've only read The English patient, Dr. Zhivago and War and Peace which are all excellent by the way though War and Peace is a real bear to wrestle with. I wonder what happened to Lolita or even many of the books in Rios's Loves that bind. Knut Hamsun's Victoria. Probably shouldn't confuse love with just sex--ala Bukowski, Henry Miller or Houellebecq but I would be tempted. If you're interested maybe I could come up with an alternative top ten but it may take me a few days.

posted by lriley at 12:29 pm (EST) on Aug 10, 2007

Papalaz--I've only heard of two or three of them. Of course McEwen--previous winner. He can be an interesting writer at times. Getting stopped and detained coming off the ferry from British Columbia to Port Angeles or Seattle and being asked whether a novelist means he writes fiction or non-fiction. A couple sound more interesting than others. The one about the Union Carbide--Bhopal disaster--the other by the New Zealander.

posted by lriley at 12:49 pm (EST) on Aug 8, 2007

I'm thinking of adding a few more names to the list Papalaz. Juli Zeh for one. I'm in an expansive mood. Of your list not on my favorites I've read quite a bit of Sorrentino, Coover, Robbe-Grillet and O'Brien. They are writers that I tend to like certain works of theirs very much and some others not at all. The first Sorrentino book I read was Imaginative qualities. Figes is someone I've read once and liked a lot. Rios is a tempting one. I might add him. Loves that bind is terrific. Actually Valery Larbaud is the only one I haven't read.

posted by lriley at 5:28 pm (EST) on Aug 3, 2007

yep. that works - love it

posted by tartalom at 5:42 am (EST) on Aug 3, 2007

Hello,
We are the only ones sharing Jacques Roubaud in our favourite authours... Have you forgotten Perec in your favourites? You seem to have a marked oulipian side. Is it reflected in your own book(s)?
Best wishes
François

posted by Pepys at 5:28 am (EST) on Aug 3, 2007

Morning Paps - the link don't work....

posted by tartalom at 3:42 am (EST) on Aug 3, 2007

how come you are adding spine images rather than cover images - have you got some composite image in mind - and where in your virtual dominions can I sneak a peek?

posted by tartalom at 4:54 pm (EST) on Aug 2, 2007

I do prefer his first book House of Leaves--papalaz. I went over to amazon to check how much they show of it online. Not all that much. It's layout is unique and beautifully done. One of the blurbs for HOL is from the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle.--'A rollicking Pynchonesque oddity, a Nabokovian linguistic obsession, and a Borgesian unreality. House of Leaves jumps and skips and plays with genre-wrecking abandon, postmodern panache, and an obsessively imaginative scope that absolutely shames most books on the market today.'

There are drawings, photographs, all kinds of literay allusions and quotations throughout from a great variety of sources. An array of typography and textual manipulation throughout--colors, size of typeface, page layout--elements of an existentialist thriller--also of the horror genre--and it does take a while to read.

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

papalaz--I don't know whether you've read anything by Mark Z. Danielewski but I just reviewed his Only revolutions.

posted by lriley at 3:35 pm (EST) on Jul 25, 2007

papalaz--probably based on his life and maybe borrows from his work. The two books I checked which have an extensive list of his published material--including quite a lot not translated and other things like letters and minor or unfinished work doesn't mention anything like it. They are Frederic Vitoux's Celine: A biography--translated by Jesse Browner which is really fabulous--maybe the best literary biography I've ever read--and Patrick McCarthy's Celine: A biography. Same titles for both. Another really excellent one is Celine: The recall of the birds by Philippe Bonnefis. What's particularly excellent about this is it how connects the dots from Celine's early to later works finding numerous themes throughout making his work seem like just one long extension of Journey. All paths lead back to Journey. It also mimics in a way some of Celine's dreamlike prose.

posted by lriley at 1:00 pm (EST) on Jul 18, 2007

Kind of strange Papalaz--because Nord is the second of Celine's trilogy of works very loosely based on his WW II experiences. In english they are Castle to Castle, North and Rigadoon. I looked through my biographical works on Celine and as far as I can tell the only plays he ever wrote were L'Eglise--The Church and Ballets sans musique, sans personne, sans rien--Ballets without music, without dancers, without anything.

Anyway his novel 'North' is my second favorite of his novels and is set on a Prussian estate towards the end of the war with the Russians always somewhere out on the horizon about to make their appearance. Very very comical. Celine, his wife, the actor Le Vigan and the cat Bebert are dumped on some aristocratic Prussian landowners who are less than estatic about hosting these French war refugees and do everything they can to make their feelings known.

posted by lriley at 2:55 pm (EST) on Jul 17, 2007

Papalaz--have read both books by Coover and Fuentes. I actually like Cormac McCarthy--Blood Meridian--and Michael Ondaatje's cut and paste rendering of the Billy the Kid legend. Terry Southern's--Texas Summer--not that I would really call it a western. I have never sat down to read Dickens (we all have holes--that might be one of my more gaping ones) but it sounds like he and Dostoyevsky had some things in common.

posted by lriley at 8:13 am (EST) on Jul 9, 2007

Not a big fan of sci-fi either Papalaz or serial westerns. The black hats vs. the White hats kind of color blindness. So many people love Stephen King but it's horrible that his characterizations are so wooden. Dostoyevsky though had some of the same problems. All his very memorable and most likeable characters are his villians. Without them his novels would have fallen flat.

posted by lriley at 5:36 pm (EST) on Jul 8, 2007

Papalaz--it's taking down the old aluminum siding and putting up new siding. Problem came along because we had to rebuild the attached garage last year from scratch. The floor wasn't properly laid when the house went up--and was collapsing and knocking the rest of the garage out of kilter. Very expensive to have it fixed--materials, contractors, etc. Anyway when that was all done--the only thing left from the old garage was the roof which had been somewhat damaged and the new garage--the lower half cinder block, the upper plywood sheeting with weatherproof paper--still needed to be sided or painted and Mae is not one that likes one color for one and another for the rest. Uniformity--I suppose. So the entire house and garage is being done by us since we've decided to cut the contractors out of the equation and save ourselves and aggravation over their timetables. It's kind of boring and we usually go somewhere for the summer but c'est la vie.

As for Pamuk. He is an interesting writer--Nobel worthy in a sense more than some others. I like him but this being my third time with him I can offer the opinion that there are others--contemporary and not so contemporary that I like better. I think in a sense you're a little bit more on the experimental side than I am--though I certainly have my favorites in those areas--there aren't enough people who are always trying to challenge themselves with their reading material. I look at literature as an ocean accessible to almost anyone willing to swim in it. I say this because I've seen people look at what I have with some astonishment--it flips some people out and not always in a comfortable way--at least for them--but I don't try to go out of my way either to prove I'm especially cerebral. I can be quite profane actually and I like to laugh a lot.

I do have Zadie's White teeth--which made quite a stir a few years ago but have not gotten around to it. I've still to get around to Gerald's party also. Izzo's Solea came in yesterday. Mediterranean (Marseilles) noir. Philip Roth's Human stain came in also. Ordered David Mitchell's Black swan green. Have to get back to Hrabal soon.

posted by lriley at 8:25 pm (EST) on Jul 7, 2007

Papalaz,

Been awhile. Thought I pop in. Working on Pamuk's My name is red--somewhat of a Turkish murder mystery novel set 300 or so years ago around and about the art world of the time--and Mark Z. Danielewski's Only revolutions. Both are interesting books but are going slowly--mostly because we're re-siding the house so we're more out than in and trying to figure out what we're doing as we're going along.

posted by lriley at 7:47 am (EST) on Jul 7, 2007

Papalaz--we must have some settings here that are blocking it. My wife does that stuff--she takes the time to figure these things out and I just leave her be on it because she can get a little snappy over it. All things technical give me a headache--I just cannot interest myself in them--computers, car problems, lawnmowers, swingsets. I'm okay with a hammer and a screwdriver, climbing ladders, grunt work.

anyway this is how it appears when I click on it:

co-winners:(box around it)

In any case I'm about 2/3 of the way through Derek Raymond's How the dead live. Figure that will be done tomorrow. I'm also reading Arno Schmidt's Novellas--the first three of ten. Really really liked Leviathan.

posted by lriley at 11:46 am (EST) on Jun 14, 2007

Now I get it Papalaz. Interesting. I do a lot of cross referencing out of notebooks. I'm not all that computer savvy. But the notebooks have been going for a while. Unofficially I'm at 2179 titles that I've read. I break things down alphabetically by author. By country of origin for writers. British writers include Scottish and Welsh--I do give the Northern Irish to the Irish. Another way I break things down is by year of publication (going by publication in the source language) of titles I've read. And I always make a list by year of what I read that year. Lists of literary prizes to boot. I have a number of reference books besides. My opinion is you don't find authors--especially from other countries unless you're willing to work at it. Strange as it may sound--the Jim Morrison biography No one here gets out alive had a lot to do with my getting the reading bug. I was amazed at how wide open his reading taste was for a high schooler. I had just got out of the service and I start checking out some of his favorites and ran into Celine. After that I was hooked. I thought if this guy can be reading all this at 14-15--why can't I at 27-28?

posted by lriley at 3:19 pm (EST) on Jun 9, 2007

Don't know much about De Sade. Celine is the one I've read biographies and biographies about. There are a quite a number of them. I remember reading one about Joyce by Stan Gebler Davies. I thought that was pretty good but that was a long time ago. There was another about Hamsun by a Robert Ferguson. There are some I just read bits and pieces of. Last several years though I've been avoiding them. I did get one about B. S. Johnson by Jonathon Coe but I don't know when I'm going to get around to that. If I remember you didn't think much of that one--though I do like a couple of Coe's novels. The Celine's are interesting. Especially the Patrick McCarthy and Frederic Vitoux ones. Vitoux's is wonderful. He's got that whole period of France in the first 50 or so years of the 20th down pat. Writes with a lot of humor besides. Very good eye for detail and setting personal events in perspective to historical ones.

posted by lriley at 1:07 pm (EST) on Jun 9, 2007

Papalaz--not exactly sure about this timeline thing--what exactly is it?

posted by lriley at 12:43 pm (EST) on Jun 9, 2007

Papalaz--just did a review of a book by a Russian author named Yuri Buida--that I think you might find interesting.

posted by lriley at 12:08 pm (EST) on Jun 9, 2007

It's an interesting list Papalaz. I've 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20. I have 14 and 21 which I haven't read. I've made a habit in the past when running into excerpts in different languages to try to figure them out. Post-modern fiction have numerous writers who play all kinds of language games. Big fan of Oulipo. I think I did better than I thought I would but I think a lot of people could have put the list of writers together--at least most of them--just by taking a look at the greek alphabet. Thinking beyond Rios's 'Loves that bind' which we went through a few months ago--there's a puzzle supposedly to be solved in Milorad Pavic's Landscape painted with Tea. Puzzles being made in Perec's Life: A user's manual. There's a similarity to Perec's 100 room apartment house corresponding to one chapter each in the novel and Robert Pinget's The Inquisitory--another fantastic novel. Have you ever read either of those?

posted by lriley at 11:13 am (EST) on May 31, 2007

Papalaz--on the subject of the Greek guessing game--I've been not getting too far with the titles--would be happy if you could send me the list of what you got.

posted by lriley at 1:18 am (EST) on May 31, 2007

The Sepulveda book was 'The name of a bullfighter'. Kind of a thriller. I didn't think it was all that terrific to be honest but over the past few years it seems his rep has been growing and growing. Maybe I just got the one that didn't appeal to me that much. It happened with Perez-Reverte. First book of his that I read The Seville Communion--I was ehhhhhhhh. A few years later I went back--first with The Queen of the South and then The Club Dumas--his two best books IMO and I was hooked. Like a lot of writers though he has some that are quite a bit better than others.

posted by lriley at 1:03 pm (EST) on May 29, 2007

Papalaz--have read Sepulveda exactly one time. Well I've taken care of the writers then. By the way I've read something of all of them but Woolf and Schnitzler. On the road was just a guess--there was no study involved. I would guess again on Lawrence that it was Lady Chatterly's lover. Looking at the titles and trying to correspond then with the Greek alphabet I'm more or less flummoxed. They are mostly just guesses and I'm relying on the more well known works. On Kafka between the Castle and The trial--it could be either. I relate the Saramago title to the Eco title to get All the names. I would think Steinbeck's is The Grapes of Wrath and Golding's is Lord of the flies. At least in the United States those are their most famous works--though with Steinbeck there are a few others.

posted by lriley at 11:15 am (EST) on May 29, 2007

Larry - you are doing so well!!! Spot on with the Kerouac and the Grass - 2 points! It is indeed Luis Sepulveda (he's the one I hadn't heard of) who apparently is a Chilean writer. You are really close with the DH Lawrence - you obviously got the reference to love - try the other one of his that mentions it.

Looking forward to tracking your continuing struggle.

Don't you think it's an interesting selection of writers for a Greek newspaper to be giving away?

Papalaz

posted by papalaz at 10:30 am (EST) on May 29, 2007

I've been looking at online Greek-English dictionaries Papalaz--and I'm afraid the books for the most part are going to be guesses. One would think the Kerouac is On the Road. I believe the Gunter Grass even with the longish Greek title is the Tin Drum. The author to 13 eludes me-it's a Louis-Luis something--Sepulveda(?). The Lawrence book may be Women in love. I might get the Allende. Not that I've read much of hers but it's a short title.

posted by lriley at 3:59 pm (EST) on May 28, 2007

5. Virginia Woolf 12. I'm guessing Jorge Luis Borges. The Thomas Mann book is Death in Venice. I think the Saramago book is All the Names. And the Hesse book I think is Demian.

posted by lriley at 12:06 pm (EST) on May 28, 2007

Actually it is Papalaz. 4 writers--2 with a Louis in them--20 books to go. The NT thing had me thinking DH Lawrence--but I don't think that's right. A couple of them I kind of pieced together phonetically--Saramago for one. Sometimes it's something very obvious that you don't get.

posted by lriley at 11:40 am (EST) on May 28, 2007

Just realized there's 22--not 14. To go on 1. Eco 2. Kundera 3. Allende 4. Hesse 5.? 6. Hemingway 7. Garcia Marquez 8. Kerouac 9. Steinbeck 10. Kafka 11. McEwen 12. ? 13. Louis ? 14. Nadine Gordimer 15. Joseph Conrad 16.? 17. William Golding--I think. 18. Jose Saramago 19. William Faulkner 20. Gunter Grass 21. Thomas Mann 22. Arthur Schnitzler

posted by lriley at 7:48 am (EST) on May 28, 2007

Papalaz--I liked Scoop much better than Decline and Fall--which is the other of his I've read. I'm not sure I'm going to read him out but I think I feel a bit more open to something else of his now. I noticed he has some World War II stuff and I might look into that. Anyway I'll keep plugging away at the contest. Kafka should be one I get easy enough. The Eco I think you've already said was 'The Name of the Rose'--I like Eco. I use his name on one of my hockey sites kind of merging it with some Beckett poetry and coming up with Eco's bones. Kundera--Garcia Marquez I would expect would be from their more famous works--The unbearable lightness of being--100 years of solitude.

posted by lriley at 7:19 am (EST) on May 28, 2007

Papalaz--I'm working on it. Titles I think are going to be harder. Right now I'd say 1. Umberto Eco 2. Milan Kundera 3. Isabel Allende 4. Hermann Hesse 5. don't have this one yet 6. Ernest Hemingway 7. I'm guessing Gabriel Garcia Marquez 8. Jack Kerouac 9. John Steinbeck--kind of a guess 10. Franz Kafka 11. Ian McEwen 12-14. working on them. I cheated a little. Took a look at the greek alphabet but I had 1. 2. 3. 7. 9. and was considering 10 for Kafka before I did the dirty deed. I had a buddy here once that was fluent in quite a few languages including Greek but he isn't in the are anymore and I have no idea where he is now.

Finished Scoop by the way and I'm about 70 pages into Pynchon's Vineland which reminds me somewhat of Tristan Egolf's Lord of the Barnyard in texture and tone. I've been reading a little non-fiction lately. One book by a ordinary soldier who was in a Stryker brigade in Iraq. I've been furious about this adventure of ours pretty much before it began. Colin Powell's infamous UN speech had me thinking automatically Graham Greene's Our man in Havana. I'm done with that. I'm working on another book by a John Dinges which is about Pinochet and his Operation Condor. I will get to Coover's Gerald's Party sometime soon if I can. I did have some difficulty with the Brooke-Rose Amalgamemnon. I kept on losing the thread. I think I liked Figes and Ann Quin a little more. Actually Quin's was very intriguing.

posted by lriley at 7:41 pm (EST) on May 27, 2007

And I can always upgrade later.

posted by lriley at 11:02 am (EST) on May 21, 2007

Papalaz--I went to the Ithaca NY library sale today and picked up one of your recommendations--Waugh's Scoop. Looks pretty interesting. The book is a little bit worse for wear but holding together.

posted by lriley at 3:16 pm (EST) on May 20, 2007

All kinds of literary comparisons throughout. Looking ahead and towards the end they have something on B. Traven--don't know if you've ever heard of him--he wrote the Death Ship, The treasure of the Sierra Madre and what is known as his jungle novels. A German anarchist who walked away from his own execution when the German revolution fell apart after World War I. Extremely paranoid he lived the rest of his life as if expecting to be assassinated at any time under a host of assumed names. His novels can be very compelling though.

posted by lriley at 2:24 am (EST) on May 16, 2007

Papalaz--at present working on three books including Amalgamemnon which I'm not very far into. Another by Enrique Vila-Matas a Catalonian might be of some interest to you. Reminds me a bit of Julian Rios. I'll type out the blurb for you. 'In his wonderfully idiosyncratic novel Bartleby % Co., Enrique Vila-Matas tackles the theme of silence in literature: the writers and non-writers who, like the scrivener Bartleby of the Melville story, in response to any question or demand, say "I would prefer not to." Addressing such "artists of refusal" as Robert Walser, Robert Musil, Arthur Rimbaud, Marcel Duchamp, Herman Melville, and J. D. Salinger, Bartleby & Co. could be described as a sort of meditation, or an homage to the Writers of the No: a walking tour on a particularly rocky path through world literature. Written as a series of footnotes (a non-work itself), Bartleby embarks on answering such questions as why do we write, why do we exist? The answer lies in the novel itself: told from the point of view of a hermetic hunchback who has no luck with women, and is himself unable to write, Bartleby is utterly engaging, a work of profound and philosophical beauty.' In any case there's a lot more anecdotes about a number of other writers than the names mentioned above.

Anyways have also brought Pynchon's Vineland and Coover's Gerald's Party upstairs which is a way of officially putting them in the rotation--so I expect I will be getting to them sometime in the relatively near future.

posted by lriley at 1:20 pm (EST) on May 15, 2007

Papalaz--the one Brooke-Rose book (Amalgamemenon) has shown and maybe we'll get to that in the coming week. I did a review on Bolano's The Savage Detectives. It's a great book.

posted by lriley at 12:13 pm (EST) on May 11, 2007

Papalaz--Many thanks. I will keep those titles in mind. I don't know--maybe it's just me. It's just as I've gotten older things seem to have got funnier. Personally I still think I can be pretty cantankerous and ornery when I need to be--mostly that's reserved for work--I just don't take it to heart like I used to. You've got to be a nightmare to somebody once in a while or people will walk all over you.

posted by lriley at 6:04 pm (EST) on May 5, 2007

Papalaz--had already moved on Brooke-Rose--Amalgamemnon and Textermination. Found good prices on both. Anyway more on the other subjects later. I've got to run.

posted by lriley at 12:07 pm (EST) on May 4, 2007

I really liked Junky a lot when I first read it and read it a couple more times. It's been a long time since I've read any of his work though. I'll have to look up Brooke-Rose. I'm pretty sure you've mentioned her before. Gerald's party I'll have to work into my schedule. I have a few things to do but I'll have to move it up the list and maybe I can get to it by the end of May. There's something I have of Pynchon's too--I think it might be V. It's in my library. There's always 3-4-500 books around the house that I haven't got to. Anyway I'll try to get back to Coover soon.

posted by lriley at 3:01 pm (EST) on May 3, 2007

Pynchon I'm afraid to say is not a writer I know very well. I've only read The crying of Lot 49. I do have a bunch of holes. I'm always a little leery of 6-7-8-900 page books and with him I chose the shortest. Coover I've read several times. Liked pricksongs and descants the best and actually picked up a signed version off of ebay later on. I have a couple long ones The Public Burning and Gerald's Party (or something like that) which I've never gotten to. I should mention Louis Paul Boon again--maybe as much like Celine as any writer I've read. Bukowski's Post Office written in the sixties is hilarious to me and it's probably because between then and now not really anything has changed with my employer. Very much the them vs. us mentality at work there.

posted by lriley at 1:28 pm (EST) on May 3, 2007

Well that is a lot of different writers to comment on Papalaz and I think I've read them all. Celine is the writer that really got me started. I could add Kelman's How late it was, how late--which is very blackly humorous. Patrick McCabe's The butcher boy--ditto. Sometimes you find a writer just hilarious now and again. Graham Greene--Our man in Havana or Zola--The earth. I slways saw Queneau as a funny writer and Perec also when he wanted to be. I like Lydie Salvayre a frenchwoman. Jean Echenoz too--and Houellebecq has the odd Celinian moment. Witold Gombrowicz. Julian Rios. Manuel Rivas--a Gallegan like Rios--In the Wilderness. Benito Perez Galdos's Nazarin. Dario Fo--Accidental death of an anarchist--is very Marx brothers. And how can we forget Bohumil Hrabal--your recommendation of Too loud a solitude. Antonio Lobo Antunes is some kind of cross between Claude Simon and Celine. Hamsun--The women at the pump. And also very much Halldor Laxness. Arno Schmidt--again a great recommendation on your part. Faulkner--The sound and the fury--As I lay dying. Flannery O'Connor. My favorite Sorrentino would be Imaginative qualities. Tristan Egolf's one good book--Lord of the Barnyard--very Rabelaisian--does go on a little bit too long though. Got to know when to stop.

Anyway I have a Van Niekerk review here for Triomf. I've read Mills once--Three to see the king--and wasn't all that knocked out by it. I agree with you on Donleavy--funny in the beginning of the ginger man--but got old real quick. I've read all of O'Brien--novels, all of Kafka, lots and lots of Beckett--for an off the beaten track one of his--The lost ones. All of Joyce.

This Bolano is really really good. Like it a lot. I can see myself reading it again. Philip Roth--I like a lot of his work. The main character in Sabbath's Theatre would fit right into Guignol's band or Death on the Installment plan with no problem. That's maybe the funniest book of his that I've read. American Pastoral was excellent though too. I haven't read the one you're on now though.

posted by lriley at 12:49 pm (EST) on May 3, 2007

It's good to hear from you Papalaz--it's been a while. I read the article on humor and tragedy--very interesting. Anyway--to comment on some of those mentioned--I've only read Evylyn Waugh once--I think it may have been his first novel--and the humor kind of slid by me in that. I don't know--maybe I should give him another go. Rabelais--works via gross exaggeration and Cervantes--Don Quixote is a great book. Actually some of Boccaccio's stories can be quite humorous. They recommend Toole's A confederacy of Dunces. I would too. Catch 22 to me is somewhat comparable to the first hundred pages of Celine's Journey--though I will say I admire how Heller went about shredding the well meaningness of the first half of his sentences with the almost barbed reality of the second half. Anyway one of the best and funniest novels that I've read in the last few years is by a South African lady Marlene Van Niekerk and is called Triomf. And actually I don't know whether you've run into them or not but the HBO series 'The Sopranos' about a New Jersey crime family can be quite hilarious and at the same time shockingly violent. Part soap opera, part comedy with a lot of tragicomedy mixed in.

Anyway the other site I put in my favorites for now because I want to explore it more. Noted one Jennifer Ouellette on its contributors page who has done an article fractal patterns in the paintings of Jackson Pollock. I don't know what you think about Pollock but I think his stuff is amazing. When we went to NYC we went to the MOMA which has a number of them.

I've been a bit distracted lateey with the playoffs and I'm a bit burned out. I'm reading Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives. There is a lot of buzz about this book in the literary world (at least in the US) right now and it is very deserved IMO. It's quite extraordinary and his style is unique to himself. I think you'd might like it.

posted by lriley at 12:55 pm (EST) on May 2, 2007

Papalaz--just reviewed Henry Green's Blindness.

posted by lriley at 2:52 pm (EST) on Apr 5, 2007

Papalaz--started on Henry Green's Blindness today. About 40 some pages in. So far it's very very good.

posted by lriley at 12:50 pm (EST) on Mar 31, 2007

I had to redo it a little afterwards Papalaz because some of the language I used (particularly the word philander) seemed to reflect a more judgemental outlook than I intended. Anyway it was good to return to it after probably closing in on 20 years.

posted by lriley at 11:32 am (EST) on Mar 25, 2007

Papalaz--finished Ulysses and did a review--though not much of a synopses on the action--more of a testimonial than anything.

posted by lriley at 4:27 pm (EST) on Mar 23, 2007

It's been slow but I've taken my time. The trip cut into a bit. I took it with me but I only had time to read 10-15 pages on those days. I'm most of the way through the next to the last chapter. I don't know if I'm going to review it though--at least not in detail--that would take too long. It is an amazing work. Also have started Pinktoes by Himes and am working on a book of poetry by Gregory Corso. Not that I don't appreciate the thing with Henry Green but with the hockey season winding down and going back to work I don't have time for it now. I have that other book of his 'Blindness' which I'll be trying to get to sometime in the near future. I'm also thinking about getting something else by Ann Quin. And then we have the Hrabal books coming sometime or another. I have to get also to a rather long book by Vassily Aksyonov that someone from this site sent me too. And a little bit more investigating into the works of Borges and Arno Schmidt. Time like always will sort it all out.

posted by lriley at 12:35 pm (EST) on Mar 21, 2007

Papalaz--looking at a site called international noir fiction.

http://internationalnoir.blogspot.com/

latest review there mentioned three publishing houses including Serpent's tail and so I sifted through their catalogs. ST is a British publisher I'm sure you know--I have several books myself with their imprint. They also carry both the Manchette titles I've mentioned in the past. Anyway thought I'd mention it.

posted by lriley at 2:28 am (EST) on Mar 21, 2007

papalaz--back from NYC--picked up a few books--one an Apollinaire--have ordered two Hrabal books in the meantime--Closely watched trains again--not the film script and The little town where time stood still. Anyway still working on Ulysses--I'm afraid I didn't get very far with it while I was away--still have a couple hundred or so pages to go on that.

posted by lriley at 5:54 pm (EST) on Mar 17, 2007

Just did a review on the Raymond book--He died with his eyes open.

posted by lriley at 2:34 pm (EST) on Mar 5, 2007

On Pinget--the Inquisitory I've read 3 times. That's my favorite of his. Baga and Mahu or both very good though. Some of his later works though I find to be tedious.

Speaking of Joyce--Queneau's We always treat women too well takes some of Joyce's Ulysses characters and plunks down in the Dublin GPO for the 1916 Irish easter uprising. Very comic. One of my favorites of his.

posted by lriley at 10:31 am (EST) on Mar 5, 2007

I'm really liking the Raymond book but have to say I think Manchette is the best noir writer I have ever read. There are a few differences between the two--at least taking what I've read so far--and keeping in mind that this I think was Raymond's first published work that I've yet to finish. Manchette is definitely from the hard left--where Raymond seems to be more politically neutral. Manchette's work depends much on an almost constantly propulsive atmosphere of menace that his main character is always reacting too--and has very little control over. We'd talked about with Figes, Quin and B. S. Johnson about the randomness that's apparent in the everyday action of their work on their characters. That is very strongly felt at least to me in Manchette--and it probably has something to do with his connection to the Situationist movement. The plot of Raymond's book--so far at least centers around an investigation where his character has some control over the action after the fact of the murder. In 'The prone gunman' by Manchette the plot centers around a hitman determined to call it a career and those who have directed him in the past fearing that because they'll no longer have control over him. Confusion (of the main character) and sometimes what seems to be random coincidence also play a great part in both of the Manchette books I've read. They are really violent besides. Both writers are strongly cinematic in writing style which is to me what a noir writer has to be to be effective.

As for North it's my second favorite after Journey. Very dark and funny. The hoarding of food--the old general with his lipstick and the adolescent Polish girls he plays with. I named a cat Bebert--who died a couple years ago. We were good friends.

posted by lriley at 1:06 pm (EST) on Mar 1, 2007

Was looking through some of the hardboiled conversations. Saw your mention of Chester Himes--and wondered about him. I'm going to start one of the Derek Raymond books today and will be on Ulysses again within the month. The Manchette books I was telling you about might be hard to find where you are--they're published by City Lights a small publisher in San Francisco run by the old beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

posted by lriley at 5:46 pm (EST) on Feb 26, 2007

The two Derek Raymond books are in. They look very very interesting. I will be getting to one of them hopefully within the week.

posted by lriley at 1:42 pm (EST) on Feb 21, 2007

On my shelves it's mainly alphabetical by author. In the bedroom I have a 3 shelfer-about 40 books to the shelf of those unread I plan to read sometime soon. In the upstairs living room I have 2 seven shelf bookcases--again about 30-40 to the shelf and one three shelf which I keep poetry, plays and some non-fiction including biographies. Those books are my favorite ones. The rest are shelved downstairs or in boxes--but most of those boxed I'm trying to sell. I keep some of my signed ones separate. I'm thinking though of selling some of them.

posted by lriley at 9:24 pm (EST) on Feb 18, 2007

Two other modern french writers--Michel Houellebecq--erotic fiction--kind of Celinian. Jean Echenoz is the other--a little lighter in style--more playful reminds me somewhat of Queneau. Speaking of whom have you ever read Queneau's 'We always treat women too well'? Raymond takes Joycean characters from Ulysses--the Sirens chapter and the ones abusing Leopold in the pub and plunks them down in the GPO during the 1916 easter rising. It's one of my favorites of his.

posted by lriley at 9:17 pm (EST) on Feb 18, 2007

Larry the main tags are used to locate the books thus: 010101 = first bookcase, top shelf, leftmost book. It gets odd after 04 because the other books are in a glass fronted case (GC01) and a bookcase with a violin carving (V01 etc). Where you discver a DB it is doublebanked.

Not finished yet but getting there. I'm fascinated by the way people file their books and I refuse to do alphabetic or by author or by publisher. Every so often I completely re-arrange.

And yes there are a few gems in terms of signed books and some good modern firsts - I used, when rich, to be a small time collector in a small way.

posted by papalaz at 11:49 am (EST) on Feb 18, 2007

Taking a closer look at your tagging--it's like you have everything coded. I noted Fantomas which I've never read--but have come across (hearing wise) now and then--also you have 3 signed and numbered B. S. Johnson's--a biography of Wilfrid Owen and one Maurice Leitch who I've thought about buying something of--that's about 3-5 minutes worth of scanning your library via your tag numbers. A lot of interesting stuff--there are probably at least 60-70 books that I've noted previously that you have that I have read but don't have or don't have now--and then there's quite a number we share--always something new and interesting. One of my problems is I don't have enough free time--work can really get in the way. In a sense I need that though not just for the money (which I do) but also the interaction with all my playmates--maybe I just don't need so much of it. Anyway getting a bit off the track. I've got about 3-4-500 books sitting around at any given time to get to. I expect things might be the same in Crete. One day we'll be dead and then that will all be scattered to the winds. The ones we've read--the ones we haven't.

posted by lriley at 8:33 pm (EST) on Feb 17, 2007

Kind of like they're sitting on the bookshelf. I don't know what I prefer. I really like seeing the pictures too--at least some of them. Sometimes I take different covers than the ones I owned if I really like them--for instance Garcia Marquez's Leaf Storm--which isn't all that different from the 'Cosmos' cover for Gombrowicz. Anyway got to go back to the Ranger game. The second period just started and they're pretty much doing what those two covers I mentioned about are depicting. By the way I'm reading Rios's Monstruary.

posted by lriley at 2:06 pm (EST) on Feb 17, 2007

On the subject of wealth--we're doing all right--not rich but there are a lot of people much worse off. If I had a lot of money though I'd be traveling more--trying things I always wanted to try--being super-rich and trying to be exponentially richer and richer has never been an ambition. I hate listening to people yakking all the time about their investments.

posted by lriley at 12:48 pm (EST) on Feb 16, 2007

You never know Papalaz-onet might be sitting in the local library or I might run into it at a library sale--the Ithaca one comes around twice a year--a big sale and a little one but it sometimes has quite a amazing selection to choose from--anyway I have the other two books coming which if they're anything near Manchette should be well worth it.

posted by lriley at 12:43 pm (EST) on Feb 16, 2007

Colin Wilson is a blast from the past. I have a copy of the Outsider. I've never read any of his fiction though. On the Dora Suarez--it looks to be in the $50 and above range. I'll have to keep my eye peeled to see if I can find it cheaper. I don't tend to spend that kind of money on a book--not that some aren't worth it. I think I spent $70-80 for a signed Beckett but that's about as high as I've gone--the one translated Queneau novel I haven't read 'A hard winter' goes around $80-90 or more and I've successfully fought back the urge for quite a while on that.

I always liked Get Smart by the way--Don Adams--Agent 99--the Sopranos to me are interesting and there's not much in the way that I like in terms of American TV scripting these days. There is a lot of subtle juxtaposing between different segments of society going on besides. Very dark but quite often laugh out loud funny. No holds barred as far as language either--my wife always wants the kids out of the way.

posted by lriley at 1:36 pm (EST) on Feb 15, 2007

Decided on How the dead live and He died with his eyes open. I was Dora Suarez sounds fantastic but it looks to be fairly pricey. I don't know if you're interested--really don't watch a lot of TV but we've been going through all these VHS tapes of the different seasons of The Sopranos--very violent at times--kind of soap opera-ish at times but also quite hilarious. I especially like the older characters Uncle Junior (Corrado Soprano) and Tony Soprano's mother Livia--she really takes first prize for being mean, nasty and manipulative.

posted by lriley at 4:38 pm (EST) on Feb 14, 2007

I'll have to get something by Raymond/Cook. Some of his stuff looks very interesting--like a lot of the artwork and covers too.

posted by lriley at 4:12 pm (EST) on Feb 14, 2007

Papalaz--I don't know if you've heard of the French noir writer Manchette--but this is an interesting article:

http://www.grasslimb.com/sallis/GlobeCol...

posted by lriley at 1:21 pm (EST) on Feb 14, 2007

Papalaz--registered with mellaflusia--it seems they'll be sending me a password--seems a little unusual on that.

posted by lriley at 12:24 pm (EST) on Feb 9, 2007

Papalaz--I'll do what I can--but I think I'll need a couple days to get my thoughts together on that-working the next two days and Sunday I'm off to a birthday party--so if you don't see anything by then it'll have to be monday-there's really more than a few--right off the top of my head I would be thinking Celine, Queneau, Malaparte, Boon, Schmidt has made quite an impression, Doblin, Laxness, Zola, Le Clezio, Cela, Delibes, Herbert and that's just some of the European ones. Joyce too and Beckett. Perec. Perez Galdos. Maybe Witkiewicz (a very mad (as in almost insane) Pole) or Gombrowicz. Quite a number of one or two hit wonders too. Out of South America Roberto Arlt--see avatar on my page--Ricardo Piglia, Parra and Vargas Llosa. Enrique Medina--very hard to find. Crime writer the frenchman Jean-patrick Manchette--can't forget him. Manuel Vazquez Montalban. And Lobo Antunes. James Kelman. Something about Eoin McNamee--always seems to strike a nerve.

posted by lriley at 3:55 pm (EST) on Feb 8, 2007

The thing with the dog is very funny. I like that. I'll have to look up Logue. The problem with too many poets or even writers is they want to be everything to everyone and wind up just being bland. American poetry is very overrated IMO. I have a pile of that stuff too. I really think you might like Parra for one though. He is brutally funny almost all the time. A very sarcastic old man (he's in his 90's now) and still going strong. A true iconclast. Nothing is sacred. Actually I see Herbert that way too--although with Parra it's humor--with Herbert it's almost an eerie lucidity--his command of language is stunning to me. Not a show off though. He also has done a lot of essays on art and on ancient literature especially Greek.

posted by lriley at 3:52 pm (EST) on Feb 7, 2007

FW was just too much--left me very annoyed. I'm not sure if I'd read it again if someone put a gun to my head--at the very least I'd argue. Joyce and all the Joyce's were a very interesting bunch though. All determined to have it their own way. I have a week off in March around St. Paddy's day--we're going to New York for a few days of it--maybe I'll reread it then.

posted by lriley at 2:05 pm (EST) on Feb 7, 2007

papalaz--I have Heaney's Beowulf and it is great. It's been a while since I've read anything by Joyce. Loved 'Ulysses' but only read it once a long time ago--I got completely lost in 'Finnegan's Wake' later and had to buy a plot summary to get any idea of what was going on--the few guesses I'd made here and there turned out to be completely off base. John E. Woods--Schmidt's translator also translated a lot of Alfred Doblin. Really liked 'A people betrayed' and 'Karl and Rosa'. Back to Joyce I really should re-read Ulysses.

posted by lriley at 12:32 pm (EST) on Feb 7, 2007

Papalaz--Castle to Castle is the first of the trilogy. It is very very good but the second book North is a masterpiece--at least I would rate it after Journey as his next best book. And the translator Ralph Manheim is just excellent. The last book Rigodoon is not up to the usual standards--it is rushed and Celine himself mentions several times in the final 30-40 pages that he is hurrying it because he realizes he has little time left--in fact he died the day he announced to his wife that he had finished it. As far as the Leicester location goes--it's something I missed but I'm not all that familiar with England either. That's something of an excuse for me but not a very good one though for Di Bernardi. For some books I do get an atlas out to track the characters around if I think it will be useful.

posted by lriley at 12:33 pm (EST) on Feb 6, 2007

Papalaz--I think you're talking about the differences sometimes between English english and American english--Di Bernardi I'm pretty sure is an american--oftentimes the way language as used by the translator gives their nationality away. Celine as a writer is a very very noisy one--there are always fireworks of some sort or crashing and banging and the translator has got to be on his toes to differentiate all sorts of aural stimuli. Some do better than others--when they don't it's kind of like a referee at a sporting event intruding his own personality into the game that it effects the result. Anyway what's Kitchen confidential about?

posted by lriley at 2:48 pm (EST) on Feb 5, 2007

papalaz--London bridge is the second part of Guignol's band--which is shorter more hallucinatory in some respects and also better translated by Bernard Frechtman (Genet's translator) and Jack T. Nile--at least IMO. The one thing though in defense of the translator is that Celine was notorious for messing with the geographies of cities including his own Paris--moving blocks and monuments around--including the fortifications. Not sure he knew London all that well anyway--I know he was there around 1915 recuperating from his combat wounds--World War I. I also believe he went to London to meet up with his orignal translator of Journey and Death on the Installment plan--John Marks--who he hit it off really well with. That would be around the mid 30's. There is a lot of biographical material on him and there are three that are really great--one by Frederic Vitoux--another by Patrick McCarthy--a shorter one though which seems to really get inside Celine's brain is by Philippe Bonnefis and is called 'Celine: The recall of the birds'.

posted by lriley at 12:49 pm (EST) on Feb 5, 2007

Well Papalaz it is Ellen or Elaine from Manhattan Transfer and actually I like it quite a lot. The first time I read Dos I wasn't all that impressed. Recently I read the 42nd parallel (from the USA trilogy) and liked the fragmentary method of cumulative story lines. Manhattan Transfer is in the same vein and must have been quite unusual when it first made its appearance. Reminds me in style of Hubert Selby's Last exit to Brooklyn. Anyway Manhattan has always fascinated me being the home of my hockey team and having lived on Governors Island for almost 3 years which is a small island off the tip of it.

I looked at your site and am thinking about it. I do blog here though quite a lot and also at a hockey forum (with a bunch of mostly Manhattan and Brooklynites) in the Rangers forum at Hockeysfuture under the alias of Eco's bones.

posted by lriley at 8:48 pm (EST) on Jan 28, 2007

Papalaz--Believe I have come up with E from the Rios book 'Loves that bind'--as it happens I'm reading John Dos Passos's 'Manhattan Transfer' and the second section starts out with what seems to be the characters we're looking for and I'm pretty sure it's going to be Elaine (or Ellie) for that one.

posted by lriley at 2:23 pm (EST) on Jan 28, 2007

No, sadly it's a matter of cash flow. Right now it's all about finding the absolute nicest books and fighting real hard for them. The number of swedish readers compared to english ones is non-comperative. We are totally around 9 mil. Best selling poetry is a book sold in 500-1000 copies.

posted by davodja at 10:27 am (EST) on Jan 14, 2007

Actually i'm on it, mulligan stew. At least reading it. Do you think it's a good idea co-reading Ulysses? Still, in the end i don't want to only publish Sorrentino, just start the wave, you know? But yes, mulligan must come!

posted by davodja at 9:04 am (EST) on Jan 14, 2007

Yes! We're a small publishing house but I'm gonna try to get some funds going, all of his books really needs to come out. Then again, neither one of Barth, Coover, Elkin, Federman or Sukenick have made it over here yet.

posted by davodja at 6:47 am (EST) on Jan 14, 2007

How about this: we just published Sorrentinos Sky Changes in Swedish.

posted by davodja at 10:41 pm (EST) on Jan 13, 2007

Papalaz--yes it does read better and make more sense that way.

posted by lriley at 1:21 pm (EST) on Jan 13, 2007

Papalaz--I have done a review on Schmidt's 'Scenes in the life of a faun' if you're interested.

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

You know what it is papalaz--it's there are just some people that strike a nerve. Believe it or not Schmidt for me has a recognizably familiar thought process. There are a few others Celine, this Boon I keep badgering you with, Bukowski a little bit, Nicanor Parra who's a Chilean poet, Zbigniew Herbert. They all have a sense of the absurd--are iconoclastic--have a tendency to speak in exasperated tones and are aware of how easily extreme whackiness can pose as normality.

posted by lriley at 5:07 pm (EST) on Jan 3, 2007

Papalaz--I am about half way through Arno Schmidt's 'Scenes from the life of a Faun' and this is really superb. I've already ordered another of his--collected novellas--as I already think he's going to be on my have to have everything list.
In some ways he reminds of the Belgian Boon.

posted by lriley at 10:41 am (EST) on Jan 2, 2007

Papalaz--finished Ann Quin's 'Passages'--gave it a 4 and a half and have done a review on it.

posted by lriley at 9:05 pm (EST) on Dec 24, 2006

The Rios book review is in. Not sure it's one of my better jobs but c'est la vie.

posted by lriley at 3:33 pm (EST) on Dec 17, 2006

Papalaz--just ordered nobodaddy's children and came back here and saw your comment on Arno Schmidt. Apparently that's a Dalkey Archive by the way and it has 3 short novels of his. He sounds like someone I'll like. Anyway you might be right on Mishima and it may be a short story from his 'Death in midsummer' collection. I have not read a lot of Mishima. It just seems like I read the damn thing though--you get a feeling of deja vu. I think I still have that book but it might be one of those I'm trying to sell. I've read Hubert Selby's 'Last exit' and I don't think it is that. There is a transvestite but not an actor or actress I don't think and these turn out to be all real women. They made a movie of it too. It doesn't seem to quite fit but maybe I'll take another look at that one too. It's funny because I've been googling clues but have gotten nowhere with anything on that one. It took me a while actually to get the Schmidt. The Kafka I felt really silly about.

posted by lriley at 4:49 pm (EST) on Dec 15, 2006

Papalaz--Began 'Loves that bind' again'. I am up through D. A is Albertine--from Remembrance of things past (I've only read a little of the entire work so I can't be more specific than that). B is Bonadea from Musil's Man without qualities--have not read this Musil book but Rios leaves obvious clues to the work and the character. C is Celia from Beckett's Murphy though she's not mentioned by name. We have the kites--and Murphy's job in a sanatorium and his playing chess with the inmates and his suicide/blowing up or burning the place down--I forget exactly what he did. I read it many many many years ago and am a little bit weak on some of the details and there are obvious clues to D being Daisly from the Great Gatsby.

As it happens as I begin this book the other Rios book I just ordered 'Monstruary' shows up as has also Ann Quin's 'Passages' which looks quite a lot like a B. S. Johnson book at least as far as format. I will probably get to her book in the next week or two. I'm usually reading a long work and at the same time reading shorter works in conjunction with it. The new Rios book will probably be at least a couple months down the road. I tend to have democratic ideas about how I fit in writers and their works. I don't like the idea plowing through someones entire ouevre of work one right after the other.

posted by lriley at 12:27 pm (EST) on Dec 13, 2006

Went back and read that part papalaz--looked at from the piece that came after it the next day I can see the possibility of your using it to strike out from there possibly in a new direction. In any case people come at things from their own unique perspectives. Technical writing kills me (my wife is the one that when we buy something with instructions or manuals or when it comes time to read up on health care plans does all that--I do it only when I have a personal stake--like a greivance at work) and that's what I thought I was starting to read and to be honest going back to read it I found it the most difficult to get a grasp on. FWIW occasionally in the past I have attempted to write things as well--my problems seem to me to be part discipline and part direction and part ordinary life just getting in the way and part running out of time which I can juggle--so I look with real interest at what you're doing and appreciate your asking me to look at it. Anyway I'll continue to keep an eye on it and maybe send you some more feedback from time to time.

posted by lriley at 2:44 pm (EST) on Dec 11, 2006

Have read your entire work in progress up through the 9th--although omitting the 8th which didn't seem to pertain to the story. I think it's very good so far though sometimes some references made in brit-style slang gets kind of lost in translation to these ears. When that happens my tendency is to plow right through and keep on going--sometimes with time what those references are become more apparent. I like your pacing--I don't tend to like things that are overpaced and giving your investigator Charlie time to mull and to brood over things in between other scenes is a nice touch and it's good that he has bodily functions too. Initially the chapters seemed teasing in some respects--Charlie comes on the scene and things start to flesh out--chapters become longer. We're still working out who exactly it brings to mind. Initially I thought of John Hawkes's 'The Lime Twig' but that is more of a gangster noir and its plot moves along almost like an hallucination--yours is a bit more in the concrete. That one is also set in London though--revolving around a horse race and a kidnapping and the subsequent very brutal murder of the kidnappee.

posted by lriley at 11:29 am (EST) on Dec 11, 2006

Yes Nadja. Quentin actually is a male in 'The sound and the fury' and hopelessly in love with his own sister--things are a little screwy with that one. I think it fits with so much of Rios's story though--the Mississippian background; the retarded brother Benjy (also in love with the same sister as is the cynical older brother)that I don't know what else it could be. Anyway other writers Virginia Woolf-O, Djuna Barnes-R (I think), Christopher Isherwood-S, Robert Musil-B, D. H. Lawrence-U, Herman Hesse-H, Lowry-Y, Celine-V (London Bridge), Georges Bataille I have for X (The blue of noon). I think W is Von Sacher-Masoch. Kawabata is a guess for I. Beckett I have for C(Murphy). Letters I don't know EGJKPT.

Anyway I'll get to your site hopefully tomorrow. Been busy with the hockey game today. Big win for my team.

posted by lriley at 6:47 pm (EST) on Dec 9, 2006

Oh and I should have said I ordered Monstruary.

posted by lriley at 4:25 pm (EST) on Dec 7, 2006

I might add that the Q is the Faulkner for Quentin from the Sound and the Fury which is a great and somewhat nasty read.

posted by lriley at 4:23 pm (EST) on Dec 7, 2006

You're right on the M. for Ulysses and wrong on the N for Zola--at least that's who I think you meant. Think instead of an Andre Breton heroine for N. Some of these I didn't get a few years ago. I hate to say it but since I have the Times review dated in June 1998 I probably got the book some time around then. Back in those dark ages our household did not have a PC--we were a determinedly anti-tech mentality--so I did not ferret out some of the more obscure ones here--(that's why I consider myself something of a barbarian when it comes to computers and the uses thereof). I recognized probably about 15 of them and had 3 or 4 probably fairly good educated guesses after that. I really wonder how I would do now. Anyway it's a fun literary game. Something that a Perec might have thought up.

posted by lriley at 4:20 pm (EST) on Dec 7, 2006

Well I probably should reread that one too. Actually I think you've help me make up my mind on getting something else by him. Some of the literary heroines are given away by its blurbs. For instance A is for Proust's Albertine. D is for Fitzgerald's Daisy. L is for Nabokov's Lolita. Z is for Queneau's Zazie. Other writers I noted included Beckett, Joyce, Faulkner, Breton, Celine, Bataille and Lowry. As it works out I also have the NYTimes full page book review on it which pretty much raves about it.

posted by lriley at 12:46 pm (EST) on Dec 7, 2006

The only thing I've read of Rios's is 'Loves that bind' which I liked quite a lot--more or less trying to figure out which chapter (A-Z) corresponded with which female protagonist of which famous novel. Quite a number of them I thought I recognized--but also I remember wondering at least a couple of times if I were wrong on this one or that one. Very much an Oulipo kind of book. I should probably buy some more of his books.

Anyway from looking at your site it seems to be a kind of work in progress. I read your last piece and thought it was pretty interesting but think I might need to go back further to get a better idea. Anyway we'll get back to you on it.

posted by lriley at 3:54 pm (EST) on Dec 6, 2006

Most of Hamsun is very good. I have read William Boyd a couple times and liked 'An ice cream war' very much. The other was 'Brazzaville Beach' which was also very good. I have 2 or 3 others of his works lying around and will get to them some day. As for the blog I'll be sure to look it up--is that from a Julian Rios title?

posted by lriley at 12:55 pm (EST) on Dec 6, 2006

Papalaz--since the one book by Ann Quin (Berg) never showed I've just ordered another titled 'Passages'. Anyway just got done threatening the original seller (with the potential of negative feedback) as I'm not too appreciative of now having sent him (or her) 4 complaints without so much as a single reply. Anyway it's been a while and I hope things are going well for you and yours in Crete--time to gear up for Christmas I suppose--that's pretty much what we're doing here.

posted by lriley at 8:48 pm (EST) on Dec 3, 2006

Papalaz--I've been going to the Dalkey Archive site now and again for quite a while. Their reviews are very good and they have a lot of interviews--although they can be long. I also have a lot of Dalkey Archive books but I've bought them one at a time. As with anything else some books you like better than others and sometimes you're disappointed in your expectations. New Directions is another publisher (NYC) which has published a lot of excellent books that no one else would have. They are another favorite. Sun & Moon also put out a lot of very interesting stuff but they I believe went out of business although Green Integer which was a spin-off of theirs is I think still a going concern. Sun & Moon put out Raymond Queneau's 'Children of Clay' (which IMO is Queneau's best book of all) which was translated by Madeleine Velguth right down the road from me (50 miles or so) on the campus of SUNY Binghamton--which has a translation department. Anyway back to Dalkey Archive I first heard of Boon wandering around Wikipedia and checked out the review of 'Chapel Road' there which kind of got me excited.

posted by lriley at 12:43 pm (EST) on Nov 22, 2006

Papalaz--I have finished and reviewed both Henry Green's 'Concluding' and Hrabal's 'The death of Mr. Baltisberger'. Both were very good.

posted by lriley at 2:22 pm (EST) on Nov 20, 2006

Looked up your two websites. On the Scottish one I thought how could they not include 'How late it was, how late'? Anyway they seem to have adopted certain writers as Bernard MacLaverty (who I like quite a bit) is Northern Irish--and how the heck did Joseph Conrad and George Orwell make it? Anyway I was somewhat familiar with a few of them having read A. L. Kennedy, Ian Rankin, Jeff Torrington, Muriel Spark, Michel Faber exactly once each. And then there is Gray 3 times (Poor things, The fall of Kelvin Walker and A history maker--it's the last one I really didn't care for). I've read 7 of Kelman's books and though I think he is fine at the short story I've preferred his novels. Haven't mentioned 'You have to be careful in the land of the free' which seems to capture pretty well this paranoiac rife nation of mine post 9-11.

As for the second site--Stewart Home(s) seems to be someone I should look up. By the way since she's mentioned in the article--the Ann Quin book I've ordered has never shown. About once or twice a year it seems I get stiffed by this book site I buy and sell from. Sometimes patience is needed--the fact of its not having shown puts you in a temporary state of paralysis on acting on it once again. One other writer mentioned Kathy Acker--don't know but I really didn't care for 'Pussy, King of the Pirates' and have never had an inclination to go back to her again. Like 'A history maker' in a sense--writers creating alternative new worlds out of their own imaginations often leaves me a little cold. I see Johnson, Trocchi, Kelman and even Figes and their characters very much grounded to this world in what they write although those same created characters often have unusual takes on how they see their worlds.

posted by lriley at 11:23 am (EST) on Nov 13, 2006

Cain's book was another one of those I picked up at the Library sale in Ithaca. It's quite a good sale as there is always some very literary work to be found. I don't know if you've ever read Paul West--another British writer I like but he's been living in the Ithaca area for quite some time. Anyway I have a lot of books by Kelman and like especially 'A disaffection' and 'How late it was, how late'. Not a big fan of Alasdair Grey so much. I've read him a few times and 'Poor thing(s)' is what I like best. Irvine Welsh I haven't ever read--but everybody has some holes. But going back to Trocchi for a moment--( and I reviewed 'Cain's book' FWIW) the reason I thought of bringing Trocchi to your attention is his prose style and the alienation behind it seem in some ways comparable to that of B. S. Johnson. Anyway haven't got to either of the Henry Green books yet and it may be a couple weeks or a month before I do. I've started on Dos Passos's '42nd parallel' for reasons to do with a non-fiction book I've read recently which intrigued me into looking at his work--but rest assured we will get to get back to Green in the near future.

posted by lriley at 2:56 pm (EST) on Nov 12, 2006

Papalaz--Just finished a book by Alexander Trocchi--'Cain's book' and thought it was interesting and wonder if you know anything about him?

posted by lriley at 4:08 pm (EST) on Nov 11, 2006

Papalaz--speaking of something sparse and short and hard-boiled and noir have you ever heard of Jean-Patrick Manchette. There is some info on him (not a lot) that can be googled. Two novels so far translated into english: The prone gunman and Three to kill. Both are terrific books--very violent though. Another good French noir writer is Jean Claude Izzo but his books are a little lengthier. And then there is Thierry Jonquet and a book called 'Mygale'. Anyway since I'm on the noir subject--'Money to burn' by the Argentinian Ricard Piglia. Also the Spainiard Manuel Vazquez Montalban and his Pepe Carvalho series. Paco Ignacio Taibo--born in Spain but brought up in Mexico his family having fled Franco's dictatorship. Also a couple Italians Leonardo Sciascia and Massimo Carlotto.

posted by lriley at 2:27 am (EST) on Nov 3, 2006

I have a very old copy of Pan--a hardcover from 1921. Another old Hamsun I have is 'Mothwise' which was reissued a few years ago as 'Dreamers'. There is an interesting biography of him by Robert Ferguson. Hamsun was unique to his time and was much loved by most of the best European writers. 'Hunger' is a good book--so is 'Wayfarers' and the two wanderer novellas 'Under the autumn star' and 'On muted strings'. There is also 'Mysteries'. Unfortunately Hamsun much more than even Celine had his name kind of smeared through his association with nazi ideology. He was very old at the time though and not mentally as sharp. Ferguson's book describes his one audience with Hitler and FWIW it is hilarious as I remember Knut had some specific issue in mind and Adolph was just intent on the propaganda value of the meeting. Knut didn't give up very easily. Anyway he is my favorite Scandinavian writer after Laxness and Lacness for me is easily among my top ten. Both were among the deserving to win the Nobel. Can't say that about easily half of them.

posted by lriley at 3:57 pm (EST) on Oct 31, 2006

Have only read Jorge Amado once--I have 3 or 4 books by him. The book I read 'The violent land' was okay but wasn't great. Hamsun I've read many times. My favorite would be 'The women at the pump' which is to me his most comic and best also at fleshing out a number of characters--not one of his strong points. 'Victoria' was also very good though I read that a long time ago. As far as Scandinavians go nobody IMO beats Halldor Laxness. And amazing writer in his best works--again it's an opinion but he has 3 real masterpieces 1) Independent people 2) Iceland's bell and 3) World Light and Salka Valka is not all that far behind those three. These are all epics but even all his minor characters are very believable, they are intricately plotted, socially aware, politically astute and often times laugh out loud funny. All his characters even the best have bad or uncouth traits--the worst always have something beautiful or redeeming about them.

posted by lriley at 1:37 pm (EST) on Oct 31, 2006

What you got married already? That was fast. Anyway congrats on that. No I haven't seen any pictures but I've been busying myself with a lot of things lately so maybe I missed them. I know it's whacky but between the political situation here (revving up for the midterms) and the start of hockey season I'm easily distracted. As for that nothing ever really changes.

posted by lriley at 6:47 am (EST) on Oct 29, 2006

papalaz--finished the Figes book and have just reviewed it--just in case you're interested. I liked it.

posted by lriley at 7:20 pm (EST) on Oct 28, 2006

Well having never read anything by Victor Hugo I've been reading 'les miserables'.
FWIW seeing 121 people here rate it at 5* kind of makes me wonder as it is not all that credible and had a really hokey ending. Things were different in the 19th century and some slack should perhaps be given for it however I certainly thought Zola to be an effective writer at least most of the time. I prefer Anatole France too.

Anyhow don't know if you're interested in all that but I might get going on the Figes book today and if not probably in the next week or two. I'm considering 4 or 5 different things right now so I'll let you know how it works out.

posted by lriley at 9:05 am (EST) on Oct 23, 2006

Papalaz--went to the Ithaca library sale today and picked up 'The death of Mr. Baltisberger by Hrabal and 'Ghosts' by Eva Figes. One of the Green books has also come 'Blindness'. The unfortunate part of the Figes and Hrabal books are they are actually ex-lib. (something I tend to avoid) although the Figes books is still in very nice shape although an end page is torn out. What libraries will sometimes do to books is almost criminal. Anyway for a quarter a book I can hardly complain.

posted by lriley at 4:22 pm (EST) on Oct 22, 2006

Went with Blindness and Concluding papalaz. Caught seems to be a little more rare.

posted by lriley at 1:09 pm (EST) on Oct 15, 2006

papalaz--I'll look up those titles on the site I buy and sell from. Not promising anything in the near future however as I've got a lot on my agenda at present including the Johnson books and the Quin book when they get here. If I can pick one of the Green titles up for a reasonable price I will but if not I keep a running list of books and authors to be looking for and if nothing else I'll add those books to that list.

posted by lriley at 4:41 pm (EST) on Oct 14, 2006

On Henry Green I've only read 'Pack my bag' some years ago which reads like a memoir of English public school life I believe set in the period between the two world wars. Apart from certain prep schools mostly in New England there is almost nothing with which to compare that kind of life or lifestyle here. In any case I didn't particularly care for that so that's been that for Green. Of course, I can always give him another shot sometime. I did order an Ann Quin book--one of those you recommended--Berg. The synopsis I read on it sounded very good. It is going to have to be something superb though to top 'Christie Malry' or even 'Too loud a solitude'. They were really excellent.

posted by lriley at 1:00 pm (EST) on Oct 14, 2006

I know you mentioned Eva Figes before papalaz. I'll scout out the other two. See if I can find some background information too.

posted by lriley at 4:13 pm (EST) on Oct 13, 2006

papalaz--I may have come originally to Johnson through Coe--don't actually remember now what brought me to try Albert Angelo in the first place but I think it was Coe. Anyway not that that matters a lot and Coe isn't anything like Johnson in terms of style or content. Anyway another LT member sent me a book (by another author Hornby) of reviews one of which is Fiery elephant and has Johnson saying 'Life does not tell stories. Life is chaotic, fluid, random; it leaves myriads of ends untied, untidily. Writers can extract a story from life only by stict, close selection, and this must mean falsification. Telling stories really is telling lies'. Which brings me back to this Belgian Louis Paul Boon whom seems to live and breathe just this kind of literary idea of himself. He's really unusual and extraordinary.

posted by lriley at 3:51 pm (EST) on Oct 12, 2006

papalaz--just ordered two books related to B. S. Johnson--the one is 'you always remember the first time' which also has some input from a Giles Gordon and a Michael Bakewell. The other is a biography 'Like a fiery elephant' which I see you have. Acutally I like Jonathan Coe quite a bit. As for Hrabal--I got a copy of 'Closely watched trains' however it seems to be a film script and I'm not sure if that is exactly the format I wanted. In any case I probably should go back and look at some of your other recommendations as I liked those two a lot.

posted by lriley at 2:43 pm (EST) on Oct 12, 2006

Well it was an excellent but also a fun read papalaz. I've been trying to review books as I read them figuring that it might be a good way to reference back to them later which will be helpful for me because sometimes I re-read and Bohumil's book will no doubt be read again. By the way I finished 'Christie Malry's own double entry' today and probably get around to reviewing that tomorrow. Right now I'm debating whether to grade it 4 and a half or a 5. I think it'll probably be a five as I really like the way Johnson ends it as author talking it over with character.

posted by lriley at 2:10 pm (EST) on Sep 21, 2006

Well first off Congratulations. Knock back an extra bottle of whatever for me. On the Hrabal book I liked it very much and have already written a review (although it might not be one of my better efforts--as I wrote it right afterwards and there seems to be a bit of a forced quality about it--sometimes you need a bit of distance from something). In any case it was great and I've got Closely Watched Trains in my sights for something to look for in the near future. Johnson first came to my attention through reading something from another British writer Jonathan Coe who later on published a biography on him. I really liked Coe's 'Winshaw Legacy' and 'The Rotters Club' and see paralells between his 70's and 80's Britain and our 90's and 00's United States. I don't know if you know much about Coe. He is a literary writer but not really an experimentalist.

posted by lriley at 7:28 am (EST) on Sep 10, 2006

Been a while papalaz. Just ordered Christie Malry's own double entry. It's time to get back to Mr. Johnson.

posted by lriley at 3:02 pm (EST) on Sep 9, 2006

Wonder if you have ever read anything by J. M. G. Le Clezio? I've just written a review on his books the Giants (probably his most unique book translated into English)--one that you may or may not find interesting.

posted by lriley at 10:29 am (EST) on Aug 21, 2006

Ordered too loud a solituded last night papalaz.

posted by lriley at 2:23 am (EST) on Aug 19, 2006

address is lriley1@stny.rr.com.

posted by lriley at 12:32 pm (EST) on Aug 18, 2006

It's okay with me papalaz though I apologize if I'm getting into stuff that's none of my business--don't feel obligated to answer something you don't want to--it's not going to bother me. Anyway I have been scrutinizing your library and noticed a lot of B. S. Johnson. He is not someone all that well known here and not very available. I've read Albert Angelo and liked it a lot--then read House Mother Normal and didn't like that so much. Bohumil Hrabal is another that I've only read once--I served the king of England a kind of absurdist Schweikian type of novel. I've thought of reading him again. Jose Saramago who I like but not as much as Antonio Lobo Antunes (another Portugese) who is kind of like Simon with a nasty very exasperated type of humor. Lobo is also a big Celine fan. Eva Figes I've never heard of. Lastly a suggestion if you like Celine a lot would be the Belgian writer Louis Paul Boon--particularly 'Chapel Road'.

posted by lriley at 1:08 pm (EST) on Aug 17, 2006

Froth of the daydream sounds like it might be also Foam of the daze. I've been over at half.com. It's a bit expensive for now considering I've been very patiently waiting for Roberto Bolano's Last evening on earth to come down in price for months. Eventually it will. Thrift is always a consideration. There is however I spit on your graves--a great title (I always liked death on the installment plan) if nothing else which I've decided to buy. Speaking of Jarry or playwrights with a surreal touch maybe you've heard of Witkacy aka Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz. Very excellent. Not really a surrealist but I also like Dario Fo though he tends towards a political angle most of the time.

Anyway papalaz how do you come to live on Crete? I've always wanted to travel to the mediterranean region (I believe Crete is a little bit east of that) of the world but it doesn't look like it is going to happen anytime soon.

posted by lriley at 4:59 pm (EST) on Aug 16, 2006

North is a great book. It's the best of his WW II trilogy. Very big on Celine. I've read most of this stuff more than once--Journey several times. Jarry--I've read Pere Ubu. Vian something like Black Cat Blues (?) some time ago although I probably going to get something else of his soon. The french writers I like best are Queneau and Celine. I've read most of Zola's Rougon MacQuart series. Like Claude Simon though he can be hard to follow at times. Perec. Le Clezio. More to the present would be Manchette, Jean Echenoz, Michel Houellebecq--Elementary Particles is very Celinian--other translated books by him since then not quite as good. Jean Claude Izzo has the 2nd of his Marseille trilogy out now and looking forward to that.

posted by lriley at 2:40 am (EST) on Aug 16, 2006

Have to agree papalaz. Always hunting for something new and suggestions are always welcome. Anyway I saw Children of Clay by Queneau which I did a review on a short time ago and is a book I absolutely love.

posted by lriley at 3:01 pm (EST) on Aug 15, 2006

"...only books I want to read again," you said. And you have "Miss MacIntosh, My Darling"! This is a book I cherish, but, 'til now, had not found another of its readers.
(I see 9 own it. . . maybe we all know what a brilliant book it is.) Esta1923

posted by Esta1923 at 11:12 am (EST) on Aug 2, 2006

Thanks very much for the invite to the hard-boiled/noir group! Shall we assault them with the brilliance of Raymond?

Btw, a friend has recommended Cathi Unsworth's THE NOT KNOWING as being Raymond-ish. Have you read it, and if so is it worthwhile?

posted by bibliotheque at 5:23 pm (EST) on Jul 30, 2006

Nice to see someone who appreciates Derek Raymond! May I recommend Louise Welsh's THE CUTTING ROOM to you? I think it owes quite a debt to Raymond - not least in Welsh's description of her main character, which vividly recalls the famous description of Raymond as "a skull on a stick" ;)

posted by bibliotheque at 7:22 pm (EST) on Mar 10, 2006