Collecting Tome Ideas for 2011

Never too early to think aloud. It's nearly summer, people are generally full of good vibes and looking forward to fun and adventure, so why not begin looking forward to the fun and adventure of 2011s four tome reads.

A tome needs to be 700-750 pages minimum. That's just my arbitrary designation. We can bicker about that informal definition later as certain, maybe barely missing 700 pages choices come up, as necessary.

I'd mentioned yesterday Almanac of the Dead in another thread, because I've never read it and want to - it has, after all, been hailed the Native American War and Peace but it's already met with indifference - twice - from respected sources.

I know there's been Darconville's Cat discussions, but I've already read it, as has slick, and he and I were hoping to convice the crew to read Laura Warholic: The Sexual Intellectual instead. We could actually, as I ponder out loud, do both concurrently and make it an Alexander Theroux-fest. Those who'd want the Darc Cat, could read it, while those who want Laura, read Laura.

Note that Alexander Theroux, whatever we read of his, is in for 2011, leaving three titles to fill.

Here's some more possibilities, and after these, I'd like to see your recommendations. I'd encourage Yays and nays or seconds and thirds and so on, regarding whatever titles get listed, in order to more easily gauge a consensus.

The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann
Buddenbrooks - Mann
Doctor Faustus - Mann
Joseph and His Brothers - Mann
The Man Without Qualities - RobertMusil
Middlemarch - George Eliot
The Count of Monte Cristo - A. Dumas
Don Quixote - Cervantes
The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass
Kristin Lavransdatter - Sigrid Undset
The Underground City - H.L. Humes
In the First Circle (the new uncensored one) - Solzhenitsyn
The Yawning Heights - Zinoviev
The Far Pavillions by M.M. Kaye
Giles Goat Boy - Barth
The Sot Weed Factor - Barth
Letters - Barth
Darkmans - Nicola Barker
Gravity's Rainbow - Pynchon
Mason and Dixon - Pynchon
Sacred Games - Vikram Chandra
The Kindly Ones - Littel
The Royal Family - William T. Vollmann
Fathers and Crows - William T. Vollmann
Imperial - William T. Vollmann
The Life of Samuel Johnson - Boswell
Jean Christophe - Romain Rolland
Tristram Shandy - Sterne
Gargantua and Pantagruel - Rabelais
The Decameron - Boccaccio
Underworld - Delillo
Women and Men - Joseph McElroy
Life: A User's Manual - Georges Perec
U.S.A. Trilogy - dos Passos
The Making of Americans - Gertrude Stein
Moby Dick - Melville
Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Hunger's Brides - Paul Anderson
The Raj Quartet - Paul Scot
The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell
2666 - Roberto Bolano
Bleak House - Dickens
Our Mutual Friend - Dickens
Dombey & Son - Dickens
Vanity Fair - Thackeray
Dr. Thorne - Trollope
Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon - Rebecca West
The Mandarins - Simone De Beauvoir
Terra Nostra - Carlos Fuentes
The Cairo Trilogy - Mahfouz
The Quincunx - Charles Palliser
Tom Jones - Fielding
Lost Illusions - Balzac
Wives and Daughters - Gaskell
The Red and the Black - Stendhal
A Modern Comedy - John Galsworthy
Juliette - Marquis de Sade
The Betrohed - Alessandro Manzoni
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Collected Fictions - Borges
Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson
Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
The Goldbug Variations - Richard Powers
Hopscotch - Julio Cortazar
The Illuminatus! Trilogy - Shea & Wilson
The Executioner's Song - Mailer
The Claudine Novels - Colette
East of Eden - Steinbeck
The Tunnel - William H. Gass
JR - Gaddis
The Recognitions - Gaddis
The Golden Notebook - Lessing
Clarissa - Richardson
The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning
Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight (15 novels) - Henry Williamson
The Cornish Trilogy - R. Davies
The Deptford Trilogy - R. Davies
The Salterton Trilogy - R. Davies
Miss Macintosh, My Darling - Marguerite Young

Yea or nay, other ideas?

I would go for The Man without Qualities or The Mandarins. What about Miss MacIntosh, My Darling. I am currently dipping in and out of The Betrothed. If we read that, I think we will need a few good texts to provide us with some historical background. As for tomes - I wouldn't call the majority of these books tomes. I would highly recommend something by Julien Gracq (either Chateau d'Argol or A Dark Stranger (not massive tomes but intellectually fascinating novels). Should we decide to do Wives and Daughters, I volunteer to lead. I usually reread this novel at least once a year. I also know The Claudine novels well. But can't we read some works not usually on the radar - Gracq, JMG Le Clezio (who despite having won the Nobel is off the American radar)? I would also put forth The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe.

No Mailer, no The Quincunx - a horribly overrated book. And Galsworthy??? Middlebrow soap opera. No Leslie Marmon Silko either. Definitely not an A-list writer.

What about Dream of the Red Chamber?

I own, in my actual Library..too many of these Titles..

I will wait until other Salonistas..weigh in..

>4 jdthloue: I have read too many of these titles. I want something I haven't read.

quite a list! my votes wouldbe:

Gargantua and Pantagruel - Rabelais
Underworld - Delillo
The Illuminatus! Trilogy - Shea & Wilson

the first two because I've been wanting to read them forever, and the third because ha ha, amazing. I'm guessing some of these are meant to be smaller reads? Some (The Tin Drum, Ficciones, The Red and the Black, at least) don't reach close to 750 pp.

Other ideas . . . . is Fowles' The Magus too dated? I sure love it and am feeling like it's time for another read. Natsume's I am a Cat?

D'Arconville's Cat is not readily available new. Laura Waura or whatever is available although only in hardcover. It is my intent to buy and read it someday.

Robert

But wait wait wait, these are recommendations for tomes, right? 700 pages minimum.

Dream of the Red Chamber is hideously hideeously hideeeeeously boring. I shall die if we read it. I agree with Urania, not the Quincunx, which is ridiculous. I mean if we're going to read a 19th century novel, let's read a real one. 700+ pages of pastiche will make me vomit.

I'm all for Theroux, whom I have never read. I would love to have a crack at Richardson, as well. What about one 19th century tome, one 18th century tome, one American pomo (Theroux) and one work in translation?

(it is a bloody good list actually.)

Okay, thinking on the run. There were too many books this year: 4 biggies and then like another 10 (at least) shorter intellectually challenging titles.

So we're looking for 4 tomes (we've already got one: Alexander Theroux)

And then we're also looking for 4 non-tome books that are still, as Urania, says, intellectually fascinating. I've had my eye on Chateau d'Argol by Gracq forever, as I lurk in the Abyss regularly, so the Chateau is IN

Darconville's Cat and/or Laura Warholic are in in 2011 for tomes.

Chateau d'Argol is in in 2011 for non-tome-intellectually-intense read.

So, we need three (3) more tomes (650-pages and up, challenging, but not necessarily experimental or postmodern per se),

And we need three (3) more non-tomes that are linguistically rich and rewarding with ideas and ambiance.

We'll probably end up doing more that 4 tomes and 4 non-tomes, but by only scheduling 4 of each now, that leaves room for spontaneity, like we had earlier in the year with Pierre and more recently with Notes from Underground.

More titles for consideration I've eyed from afar...

Three Trapped Tigers by Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Natural Novel by Georgi Cospodina
The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Skvorecky
Paradiso by Jose Lezama Lima
Europeana by Patrick Ourednikk
The Inquisitory by Pinget
Alphabetical Africa - Walter Abish
Tlooth - Harry Mathews
A Void - Perec

Is Dr Thorne a tome? I didn't realise it was so long. I'm planning to read it soonish anyway, so could wait until group read.

Would also join in Gormenghast Trilogy, Bleak House, Dombey and Son or Anna Karenina.

I might join in a Thomas Mann or the Chronicles of Ancient Sunlight.

Have read a few on The List already and would happily join in a conversation thereon. But don't listen to me; I'm not good at group reads anyway!

The Divine Comedy altogether is pretty tomish and bears reading.

Robert

I volunteer to lead Chateau d'Argol. I am in the midst of a severe obsession with Gracq. I'm still putting forward a strong vote for The Man without Qualities.

I second The Man Without Qualities, Chateau d'Argol, Juliette.

Not the "Sade" please, we are passed that level, I hope.

I would say, anybody who hasn't read "The Magic Mountain" choose that one and no other.

For the other options, Chateau d' Argol is on my TBR list - so why not ?

> 10 Henri ! Please...

> 1 Nice list

Gravity Rainbow would be a TTTTT (typical tome to tacle together)

>17 Macumbeira: yeah, it almost feels like we've read it together already, in a beautiful fever dream.

In no particular order:

In the First Circle
The Sot-Weed Factor
Dombey & Son - tome
Tristram Shandy
The Alexandria Quartet - tome
The Cairo Trilogy - tome
The Decameron
Underworld - tome
Mason and Dixon - tome
Anna Karenina

Any of the above will work fine for me.

My votes: 1. The Magic Mountain - always intended to read someday, have not yet.
2. Gravity's Rainbow. Regarding Theroux, I'd prefer D'A's Cat.

19: If you guys read Alex. Quartet and Cairo Trilogy I will sit it out as I have read them. (And in case of Cairo T. I have also seen all the movies! They are terrific!)

11: Dr. Thorne is not a tome. It's a regular 19th century novel. It's readable and you could knock it off in one weekend.

Quite a list Rique. For me 1 & 2, before I even looked at the list, were The Magic Mountain and Middlemarch. I hadn't thought of Steinbeck, who would be really nice.

A book that came in today's mail surprised me with its thickness. At 690 pages perhaps The Sunlight Dialogues by John Gardner is only a borderline tome, but I think it merits consideration. I first read this novel back in the early seventies. I have long meant to reread it and could get around to it even sooner if we read it together.

Robert

> 10 Henri ! Please...

No worries, Mac. If you want more suggestions, all you need do is ask.

Okay, this is where we're at:

Alexander Theroux is in, which one (or why not both simultaneously?) we'll play by ear.

So we've got One Tome, three more to decide upon.

Chateau d'Argol is in.

One non-tome decided upon, three more to go.

Upon your most excellent advisement, the following are OUT for consideration: Almanac of the Dead and The Quincunx

tomcat said: What about one 19th century tome, one 18th century tome, one American pomo (Theroux) and one work in translation?

I like that way of mixing it up a lot. Though perhaps we could add one 20th century tome too, because I'm jonesing (as it sounds like several are here too) for either The Magic Mountain or The Man Without Qualities, and I'm leaning toward the latter.

Ideas please (who cares if we're redundant! the pleasure is in the journey of listing, and not so much in deciding anyway) for 19th century Tomes, 18th century Tomes, and a work in Translation.

I think it would be cool if le salon finally read a tome written by a lovely and illustrious lady author too, don't you?

And let's not even bother mentioning The Tale of Genji please, bow-ring!

Keep the non-tome suggestions coming too.

No one's mentioned The Thousand and One Nights or Humphry Clinker...bow-ring also?

I like the idea of us heading in a more gothic, decadent direction than where we've journeyed in the past.

Facundo sounds interesting to me.

I like the idea of New Grub Street for a non-tome read.

Mr. Durick, I like The Sunlight Dialogues suggestion. Never read it.

Enough blathering. Good night.

Nobody mentioned Fanny Burney. The length is there alright. CECELIA or EVALINA. Or:
CAMILLA, or
THE WANDERER, or Female Difficulties.

F.B. had a horrific operation to deal with breast Ca.
She was a friend of the Great Lexicographer.
http://www.explore-kew-gardens.net/engMarch/images/movieimg/george3.jpg

Uhhhhm, it's no secret how much a fan I am of Riddley Walker. If all that imaginary English gets you down, perhaps Pilgermann, one of Hoban's I haven't read? Or a lesser-read Calvino? The Baron in the Trees? Vasily Aksyonov's The Burn?

I am in for Calvino.

Another vote for Calvino as a shorter read. I happen to have Invisible Cities sitting around unread, it's 165 pages.

I would definitely be up for a Magic Mountain read under the leadership of Captain Mac. Mann is a huge gap in my education.

If so don't doubt : Mann it should be.

I'm not sure where things stand here, but D'Arconville's Cat has been on THE LIST...for dog years..never read *sob*

Regarding #22...I haven't read The Sunlight Dialogues since the damned thing was first published..although i hate to revisit my "youth" I'd be willing to re-read this.

Thomas Mann?? The only one i read was Buddenbrooks...forgive me, I was a teenager.

Chateau d'Argol is a mystery to me..but I'm a Game Gal

.....besides, I am shitty at Group Reads...but have never done one the Salonista Way!!

;-}

Exciting update:

Tomes that are in:

1. Darconville's Cat and/or Laura Warholic
2. The Magic Mountain - only if Mac promises next year to leave his Flemish ways behind him, and come to California.
3. ?????
4. ?????

Shouldn't the third one be The Man Without Qualities?

Non-tomes that are in:

1. Chateau d'Argol
2. Italo Calvino is in. Let's now argue which one. I've already read If on a winter's night a traveler... and would rather read another of his, but I'm cool with it if that's the consensus. Invisible Cities sounds great.
3. ?????
4. ?????

Enreeque, will you be my guide ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmbhfI8f_Ek

Yasmine; I am coming to Californiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs7k0qaGj5s

Here I live :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9vtkr93_Ec&feature=related

So few plants or trees! Beautiful buildings and lovely access to the river, though.

Robert

Is there a more turgid book than The Man Without Qualities? Is there are more boring writer than Georges Perec? Not that I plan to read en masse with you people; it's not my style. I just feel like being annoying.

#34 Mac - not sure how this fits in the thread, but man, I need find a way to Belgium someday, and not just for the beer and chocolate.

I see we have one Neal Stephenson on the list. I would add 4 other books by him:

Cryptonomicon
Quicksilver
The Confusion
The System of the World

A little ditty from Mac's nay-ber-hood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faMV_drSouA

Yes, I will guide thee, Mac.

Hi goddess. Thanks for the recomendations.

Nice logo!

ohhhh merci Enreeque for the "grand Jaques"

Bravo Jacques! (Oh I am suddenly desperate for Europe!!)

Two more possibilities for tomes by 20th century female authors:

History: A Novel by Elsa Morante
Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates

In the non-tome, non-female category, a Canadian friend of mine raves about The Origin of Species by Nino Ricci.

Should I vote for Tlooth because I split a molar in half a few hours ago? (extraction tomorrow, topical application of 80 proof painkiller in the meantime)

I shall have a hussy fit if the Salon reads anything by Joyce Carol Oates.

The three most dispiriting words in the English Language: Joyce Carol Oates.
Gore Vidal

Ouch for your tooth! hope you can bear the pain until tomorrow!

44, Oh, 'murr, I couldn't agree more re: JCO. The Morante looks outstanding, though.

Oh my, steven03tx, I only hope the painkiller is doing its job!

#43 steven03tx - I happen to have History: A Novel on my tbr for next year, where it should stay whether we include it here or not. (I was going to read it this year, but then came Infinite Jest, and now Proust, and later The Brothers K..)

Vote History: A Novel by Elsa Morante. Vote now!!! Vote twice!!! Vote thrice!!!

And for none tomes, let me suggest once again to all stubborn LTers: The Silent Duchess (Italy) by Dacia Maraini and something by Per Olov Enquist (Sweden): The Book of Blanche and Marie is short but should generate a lot of discussion. Lewi's Journey is also quite good. Let's heard it for the Swedes.

As for tomes - I take this post to cast 1000 votes for Miss MacIntosh, My Darling . . . and none of my chads are hanging.

Stay tuned for more posts and votes.

And if we read The Far Pavilions, my estimate of this group will drop . . . into an abyss.

And if we read anything by Joyce Carol Oates, I will scratch (and draw blood) of everyone in the Salon with the exception of Murrushka whose heart and taste is in the right place.

If we do a Mann, I like to do one of his longer books. I'm thinking Joseph and His Brothers, which is a REAL tome--1,492 pages in my copy. I suspect a lot of us have read The Magic Mountain, although I wouldn't mind reading it again if that's the group choice.

I agree aruba. REAL tomes are at least 1,000 pages, not some sissified 700 or 750 pages like Magic Mountain.

44, 45, 48> Why ya'll be haten on JCO - didn't she win an award!? and she's practically as prolific as James Patterson!

What about The Discovery of Heaven and The Making of Americans? Let's punish ourselves with some Stein, no?

The Discovery of Heaven is a trivial entertainment that poops out rather than ends.

Robert

I agree with Robert. Mulisch's The Assault is much better, but unfortunately not a tome.

The Discovery of Heaven is OUT.

34> I missed that, Mac! Beautiful. Here I live : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_ZD-CqOUeo Beautiful too, no?

What do you think, Mac, about The Sorrow of Belgium and Omega Minor as potential tome reads?

48> You got something against the Himalayas? I've never read it, but it's big and thick, an epic romance, lauded by lots. What's wrong with it? How 'bout Gone With The Wind, instead? That Elsa Morante looks fantastic. Another one I'd never heard of. Elsa might be it.

Further research reveals the following suggestions:

Daniel Deronda
Berlin Alexanderplatz
Raintree County
The Sleepwalkers
The Good Soldier Svejk
Sacred Games
The Maias
House of Leaves
The Romance of Three Kingdoms
A Suitable Boy
The Public Burning

Two, off hand, that aren't tomes per se by page count, but whose density of content make them read like tomes:

Foucault's Pendulum
Wittgenstein's Mistress

House of Leaves requires the reader to decide how he or she is going to interleave two narrative strains, and it has some odd type placement on pages. As far as its literary content, it is not rich. It receives more attention than a middling novel usually gets because of its peculiarities of layout. I suppose a few are charmed by the magic in it.

I enjoyed Foucault's Pendulum but I don't remember it as tomish.

Robert

The Morante is brilliant. I wrote about it here.

http://thelectern.blogspot.com/search?q=Morante

(such a disgusting pimp, but I can't resist! it must be the endless rain.)

I read Joseph and his brothers. Not only is it a tome, but Mann forces us to a Biblical slow pace of reading. You will not only spend your summer in the holy land but fall and winter as well. : )

Shame on me, but I have not read "the sorrow of Belgium" by Claus. It is a major work by this top writer but I failed to overcome my natural antipathy for the guy.

Omega Minor is indeed quiet something if you do not expect this post - modernestic chaos. I started the book super excited, convinced myself that it was a major discovery, but got only half - way and then wandered of to other writers who appealed more to me.

I am not really a tome guy...

Fun Enreeque ! Show me your tatoos !

I think I can settle the matter of tomes right now. We should definitely read The Countess of Montgomery's Urania (2 vols) weighing in for a grand total of 1461 pages. Who dares refuse Urania?

>59 urania1: ha! sold.

59> I bet those aren't hard to obtain at all. I'm possibly in if they're obtainable at not monumental costs.

In all seriousness, no facetiousness, anybody familiar with Susan Howatch? Does she have any street cred among literary academia? I know her early historical romances don't, but what about her later, post-conversion, Church of England novels like Absolute Truths, consistently in the 750-plus page range? And even if she's not salon "worthy," is she worth reading? Anybody familiar at all w/her work?

Susan Howatch - a joke. Do not consider.

>61 absurdeist: What's money? I have the definitive edition. I will check to see if some low-brow press like Oxford Classics has introduced it in paperback form.

>sounds good, U.

Is it possible we overlooked the obvious staring us in the face?--no one has mentioned War and Peace. Wouldn't W&P make a nice follow up to November's Brothers Karamazov? Or W&Ps little cousin, Life and Fate? I'm sure I'm forgetting other Russian tomes.

TomCat and I, I suppose among others, have read Life and Fate. The questions it brings up may be too big for a rational on line discussion, the kinds of questions that have to be addressed by a uniform voice, say in a book, then by another, contrary uniform voice rather than in snippets.

I hope he comments on the suggestion.

Robert

What about Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene - all in verse but weighing in at 1248 pages - a mighty tome filled with allegory, historical allusions, back-handed allusions to Queen Elizabeth I's court, a female knight, enough villains to populate 100 books, one dwarf, a mule, and a little white lamb. Do I have to be obvious here? England? Early Modern (once known as Renaissance) Period? Let's move out the rut guys.

It has long been my intent someday to read The Fairie Queene. There is a fat Penguin paperback of it that I have been reluctant to buy. If there were a heavily annotated version, I'd go for that, or I would go for a book of notes, essays, and other reflections on the work to go with the Penguin version. Sadly, it is not in a Norton Critical Edition.

Robert

Urania thinking outside the box. The Fairie Queene. Hmmm. Intriguing....

And The Anatomy of Melancholy. Why has this mighty tome not been mentioned? Do I detect prejudice here? Bigotry directed at literature of THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD? Urania is not most pleased.

> Sir Freeque

Do you have a tiny, tiny fear..that this thread has gone...way outside? overboard? drowning in Good Intentions?

Whatcha gonna do? when the "do" don't work?

I , uh, like most of the suggestions..but, there are so many. How do you expect this group of Brainiacs to agree..on anything?

*throw stones, now*
;-}

vis a vis #69 (above)..i finally bought a copy of The Anatomy of Melancholy..this year..and would love to read it. I've been melancholy my entire life.

+1 spenser. my unborn daughter oona agrees

And have we dropped Elsa Morante? And . . . for a non-tome let me once again put in a word for something by Per Olov Enquist.

No we have not dropped Elsa Morante. She remains high on the list.

>67 Mr.Durick: There is a five volume set of The Faerie Queene, eds. Carol V. Kaske, Erik Gray, and Dorothy Stephens

ISBN: 978-0872209411

I have not seen this book, but I will check for review. The Longman's edition of The Faerie Queene is considered quite good. In my experience, Longman's editions come with nice contextual notes, etc.

>70 jdthloue: Jude, there will be no stone throwin' here, no siree. I see why you are perplexed. There seems to be no way out, ne'st-ce pas? Eventually, however, our fearless leader and dictator extraordinaire, Enrique Frequee, will make a decision and declare our reading list, which we will all meekly abide--and love (except, maybe, Urania1). As it is written, it is so.

ETA-Keeping my fingers crossed for the Morante...and the Faerie Queen (in the Longman's edition, yes).

theaelizabet is a very wise and noble compatriot in this enterprise. For that thea, I promote you, oh valiant and committed one to the State, the Salonista State high ranking of Secretary of State for the enforcement of decided upon reads. Please report back to me covertly, your findings, on where the compatriot sandinistas salonistas stand on this issue. Those who noncomply, send me a private post that I may "encourage" them and that they may be "reeducated" and thus learn the glorious immersion through every ounce of their free will being, that will stand them up proud, in long lines of obedience, knowing and believing that I know what is in their best interests to read, tome-wise, because I know, what they cannot possibly know, is in the best interest of the State Salonista. Thealizabet, I appoint you Head Secretary of Reading Enforcement for State Salonista. A comfy condo awaits you in Havana.

Perhaps, because of my infinite wisdom in organized these tomic matters, we will implement a Tome Madness Tournament, much like the NCAA March Madness tournament, where Tome will face Tome in single elimination matches, and the tome who loses (gets the fewest votes in their match) is out of the tournament, and there will be no loser tournament for the loser tomes.

We will commence with a 64 Tomes Bracket: divided into 4 sections: East v. West. Woman author v. Male Author. North v. South. Translated v. English. Yes, this is how it must be done. I will be back shortly and complete bracket one: East v. West. and the competitions will soon commence....

Rules: first tome to get five votes (no, I mean) five points, wins and can then advance to the second round and so on. But, like in tennis, a tome must beat the opponent tome by two points, like in tennis. No 5-4s; it would, in the least, have to be 6-4, or 7-5, 8-6, on and on, ad infinitum, as long as it takes for a clear winner to be declared. Yes, I'm glad we started this process in June, since we until November to complete it. Oh the wisdom and the glory of my eminence. Thank you all, for your support.

I'll have the brackets up hopefully by tonight; definitely by tomorrow. We need at least 64 tomes for this to work. Exciting! no? The NCAA has their March Madness, but we, le Salon has its June, July & August Insanity Tome Matches.

All right, I'm off to begin preparing the brackets for the tomes. But first I need 64. Can a few of you go through this thread and present a preliminary listing of 64 for your benevolent dictateur?

oh golly, I need a drink and a lie down.

>65 Mr.Durick: Robert, I think Life and Fate would make an excellent salon group tome read. I'm not sure what you mean in the rest of your post. It does have big themes, but that's great for discussion, no?

Or am I missing something in your post?

Regarding Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy I strongly discourage this option. This book is unreadable, as is Spenser, imo.

Here's the source of the five volume set of The Faerie Queen:

http://www.hackettpublishing.com/detail.php?_d=Ix%2BK94iJb%2BnRE%2BH%2FFasoM1pFe...

In paper the fifty dollar price tag is not outrageous for a text book but high for casual reading. It is probably cheaper elsewhere, but sorting through the books at Barny Noble's web site was daunting.

Robert

78 TomCat, I mean that it is about how various personalities accommodate themselves to totalitarianism, how people take advantage viciously of circumstances in their favor, how despicable the respectable may be when truly know, et cetera. Questions about those things when not taken on at, say, book length tend to get high minded but undeliberated answers which in the end trivialize things.

We could see if that is not the case here.

Robert

I see what you mean, now. I still think it's worth considering as a read. it is a great book.

Diktateur, I think until you appoint a Secretary of State for the Counting of Tomes you may have to list the 64 yourself.

I thought War and Peace was being considered beneath the Salon's notice (or at least already read by everyone here), or else I would have suggested it.

I have been MIA, but is a Tome-off upon us? I see my current read, which you all should read, The Discovery of Heaven, is out. No, no, no. It may be entertainment, but it is not trivial. Some people don't appreciate the lesser things in life. I may need to pull a clarelesque rebellion. Indeed, as "el" is a character in both clarel and the discovery, it almost seems necessary.

But I'm in favor of whatever Urania suggests, starting with The Dream of the Red Chamber (unabridged versions, please).

My son and I are now doing a read through of the Old Testament at night - perhaps we should take on some scripture - Avesta anyone? Perhaps the Qur'an?

And, of course, I trust there will be Melville...

On a careful read of the above, am I right that a consensus has been reached on Joseph and His Brothers, The Faerie Queene and The Dream of the Red Chamber, and that there is really only one open space left? Or were there already ideas about that one?

I do believe that is the correct reading of the above.

I've been at The Anatomy of Melancholy for a month now and I wish there was a bunch of well-read people discussing it so that I could eavesdrop. (hint hint) It is very much worthy of a group read.

There already is a "group read" of sorts of The Dream of the Red Chamber over at the Ancient China forum. It's just reached the end of vol. 1 (out of 5) of the Penguin translation, so it's not too late to catch up.

78> Spenser is highly readable -- especially since TFQ is easily divisible into the separate books/adventures.

Nobody's mentioned Malory's Morte Darthur -- the earliest of early Modern English and definitely a tome (though personally I would recommend skimming/skipping the endless Tristan section).

And then there's Don Quixote....

I think we have talked about having one or two non fiction reads before? Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a tome by any measure.

Controversial, opiniated, sure to provoke discussion.

Okay, never mind the brackets. I think I might've been in the manic phase of my bipolarism when I suggested such a daunting, time consuming task.

Zeno, I mentioned Black Lamb in my first post, glad you mentioned it again. And of course, you're right, just in two months, the brave, courageous, Lisa C. will be leading us into Herodotus' The Histories, so of course non-fiction is up for grabs.

I very much like the idea of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.

Preliminary decision (based on consensus as perceived by le 'Frique) has been made for three tomes and one non-fiction tome and two non-tomes.

Here they are:

1. Either Alexander Theroux's Darconville's Cat or Laura Warholic: The Sexual Intellectual -- by an American male.

2. Either Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, Doctor Faustus, Joseph and His Brothers or The Magic Mountain. We may need a bracket tournament for Mann and put his books head to head in a tournament of tomes championship. --by a German male.

3. Elsa Morante's History: A Novel. Very excited about this one, new and unknown to me, especially after reading tomcatMurrstoy's fine treatment of it in The Lectern. -- Italian female

4. ?????

Non-Fiction Tomes:

1. Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon -- American female

2. ???? how 'bout another historical work like Herodotus or something philosophical?

Non-Tomes:

1. Julien Gracq's Chateau d'Argol --French male

2. Italo Calvino's...???? let us war and rage and debate over which Calvino title to choose....

3. ????

4. ????

For a non-tome, In another thread Mac described Jack London as a man he admired, so I thought The Sea Wolf might make an interesting group read.

I'm all for the George Eliot. Need to read some of hers and Deronda looks good and may be a tbr even for those who have read Eliot.

>89 geneg: Why not ? Enough pseudo philosphy and romanticism to keep us going there. : )

I believe Herodotus is already on the reading schedule.

Robert

The fourth tome should be The Faerie Queene no matter what that damned cat says. And although I do not cast stones, I do cast aspersions. Meet me at the Underground Bar and Grill, M. I'll be the one in the black cloche hat.

As for nonfiction, what about one of the following:

Jurgen Habermas The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity
John McGowan American Liberalism: An Interpretation for Our Time
James Madison The Federalist Papers
Paul Ricoeur Lectures on Ideology and Utopia
Frederic Jameson Archaeologies of the Future
Slavoj Zizek Welcome to the Desert of the Real - And Murrushka, I don't want to hear any backchat about this one. Sheathe your claws and go play with your proctologist.
Wendy Doniger The Bedtrick

Clearly none of the aforementioned nonfiction titles appealed, so . . . there's always
Alien Sex or The Technology of Orgasm

And . . . for short reads, there's always the pithy Empire of Signs, which darling Murrushka should love.

P.S. Welcome to the Desert of the Real falls in this category as well.

Good grief, urania1, let's us sleep and wake up (and get to work).... Tell us more about Welcome to the Desert of the Real and I won't make fun of you for the actual touchstone....wait, no, I take that last comment back. The Matrix and Philosophy looks fun.

Urania, if you'd like sometime I'll tell you nasty dirty gossip about Frederic Jameson and why I can't take him seriously ....

I'm a bit of an apostle for Charles Lamb if anyone wants to play around with Essays of Elia some time. He is the funniest man to have ever written in the English language.

We could also do the Muqaddimah or the Travels of Ibn Battuta for non-fiction. The Muqaddimah would be a fitting follow up to Herodatus. How about City of God for another Herodatus follow up?

Faerie Queene! Faerie Queene! Faerie Queene!

I am in for Battuta !

I know we already have a Chapel of the Abyss staple in Chateau d'Argol, but The Blind Owl sounds fascinating too....

Battuta would be more interesting to me than Herodotus and I might actually get involved in that read.

As for Calvino yes let's do him! I'm reading if on a winter's night a traveller and it is amazing. Also on the heels of IJ and a Borges collection, I feel kind of punch drunk on this type of writing. So baroque!

Giles and the SOt Weed are on my TBR list, so anytime...

>88 absurdeist: well, I was gonna do it. This is why I don't get my work done, enabler.

>97 A_musing: tell, tell! I met him back in February--he told us all about the Lehman Brothers collapse, which is so fucking English studenty, to get a critical theorist to talk about banks instead of, like, an economist. Anyway, I would love a retroactive chuckle.

Anyway, >93 urania1:, I would be super in for Habermas OR Jameson OR Ricoeur OR Zizek, but maybe Habermas the most. I feel like he gets lonely.

And finally, my updated tome pixxx:

-Faerie Queene
-Middlemarch
-Underworld
-Gargantua and Pantagruel

alternates:

-Anna Karenina
-Joseph and His Brothers
-Giles Goat-Boy
-THEE AVESTA! Nice call A_m.

Gore Vidal gives old Barth a rough time in an essay or two. quasi- Smollettian style. 18th Century Picaresque in Sotweed Factor. For me, I am merely bored by Barth.

>104 Porius: Gore Vidal is clever and all, but I lap the picaresque pastiche in Sot-Weed right up. One of the few books that I found literally laugh-out-loud funny. And the swiving!

105^ Who could forget the swiving?

Tim Mackintosh-Smith is a charming enough writer and may be a good editor, but for Ibn Battuta I can vouch for The Adventures of Ibn Battuta. From both Travels With a Tangerine and The Adventures of Ibn Battuta I got the impression that only a specialist would want to read the original travelogue. The book on offer is clearly an abridgment at 400 pages, but still I would expect the need for a deft hand, and Dunn's Adventures are proven.

Robert

Herodotus is this year! August/September. See the "Pre" Histories thread:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/92882

>97 A_musing: A_musing,

Do PM me about Jameson. I've heard a bit of nasty gossip about him myself. The world of academia is small. I want to hear your gossip.

P.S. The touchstone for Welcome to the Desert of the Real has been fixed above and here. In a series of five essays, Zizek analyses 911. While that may seem like old hat to some, I think Zizek's analysis of the event is interesting (no spoilers here) as well as pertinent to American culture almost nine years later.

A_musingI would really like to read the Lamb. So I could go for The Essays of Elia.

I am always ready to read Habermas.

I think I sense a ground swell for The Faerie Queene.

What will be the tome in 2012 ?

Mac,

Do you mean the tome or THE tome?

"Le" Tome du "Salon" 2012 ?

But is that LE Tome or le tome. So much depends . . .

: )

I've got it! I've got it! I've got IT!!! The nonfiction tome pour 2011:

Either PrairyEryth (A Deep Map) or Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color

PrairyEryth happens to be on my wishlist, but I never thought to connect it to Le Salon. I also wasn't aware it was 600 pages.

I've arrived late again, but I think I like urania's suggestion for Lectures on Ideology and Utopia.

So did we all stop and go home? Are we waiting for the tome to fall from the sky and hit us on the head like so much flying irony. Where's the debate? Where's the spark? Where are the flying aspersions as we approach that most interesting time - the final tome decisions. It has been so quiet on this thread one might almost believe that all had retired to their tombs tomes for the duration. Do we really plan to leave the remainder of the decisions in the hands of our beloved dictator (long may he live)?

Vote The Faerie Queene!!! A far, far better thing than South Carolina's Democratic primary winner for US senate.

16th century epic poetry!?

I don't know U.#1. That sounds like a tough sell.

I'm leaning toward the original Don Quixote, followed up with a non-tome reading of Kathy Acker's version of Don Quixote.

Btw, Rikki Ducornet and John Cowper Powys are IN as non-tomers, but we don't know yet which ones they'll be.

The Faerie Queene?, that just sounds so... politically incorrect, U.! Won't people be offended?

Rikki Ducornet would be my pick - for a variety of reasons. 1.) excellent writer who also happens to be a woman. We're a bit short on women. 2.) Powys - I've only read one book by Powys Wolf Solent. By the end, I wanted to strangle all the characters as well as everyone I knew. Wolf Solent? Think of the worst of D.H. Lawrence multiplied by 20. Ducornet? I really enjoyed The Jade Cabinet and Gazelle. I started The Stain at some point but was side-tracked.

P.S. Look at the number of people who have said they would like to read The Faerie Queene. Politically incorrect??? In a covert fashion against the politics of Elizabeth's court.

Oh, I read Don Quixote just last year. It's too soon for reruns.

If we're not going to read The Faerie Queene, how about the Shahnameh? Tenth century epic poetry anyone? But I'd prefer The Faerie Queene, since I've read Ferdowsi in several translations, but never (NEVER!) read the Faerie Queene.

I'm also still pushing The City of God for a nonnishfiction nonish tome read.

What about Faust ?

Mac you are brilliant.

: )

You have a brillant rating system ! I am sure Faust is a Moby Dick

I had hoped to read Faust this year, but would gladly put it off or do it again with Le Salon.

Oh, and Faerie Queen, Faerie Queen, Faerie Queen.

Thumbs up to Mann (Magic Mountain plz) and Faust. Hearkening way back to Mr.Durick in #12, I think I'll be getting to The Divine Comedy sometime next year. (Would like it to be this year, but it's not looking likely.)

ditto what she said

I've tried Faust before (I assume we're talking Mann, not Goethe or Marlowe here), but I'd be willing to give it another shot. And definitely The Faerie Queene.

Mann : Magic Mountain or
Goethe : Faust

From what I've seen come up in the conversation above, I am most interested in reading or rereading -

Magic Mountain; Don Quixote; Middlemarch or other Eliot; History a novel; Chateau d'Argol; Travels of Ibn Battutah; Gargantua and Pantagruel; A Suitable Boy; Warholic or other Theroux; Jade Cabinet; Essays of Elia; any Calvino; any Barth

What about Dickens' Our Mutual Friend or a less-often read volume by Dumas, Balzac or Flaubert?

I just finished Wolf Solent. If you can enjoy Proust you can certainly appreciate it - and you can read it in its original language! I liked it and can see it leading to a lot of discussion about wordsmithing, characters and action - just look how worked up Urania is! Lots of material in the book for the armchair psychoanalyst. Lots of local color, culture and history. What seem to be good renditions of local vernaculars. A lot of attention paid to "life-illusions" and I forget the other term that is now archaic - - but totally valid. I've also been thinking, not in a bad way, how I might change the storyline had I written it. I thumbnailed quite a few things here and there. Also, while stylistically very different, it is clearly a huge influence on D'Arconville's Cat.

I am all for OMF. What great characters. Silas Wegg. Mr. Boffin. Rogue Riderhood. Bradley Headstone, one of the spookiest characters in all of Dickens. Lizzie Hexam, Mr. Podsnap, and on and on. One of my favorite chapters from any novel: THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE.
And John Cowper Powys, known in some quarters as the Dorset Proust. I think old Powys would have been delighted by Uranias comments. Shows what a close reader she is..

Flaubert : the temptation of Saint Anthony or if you want a link with Herodotus : Salammbo.
Flaubert was heavily influenced by Herodotus descriptions of the Persian armies

Would love to read Our Mutual Friend also. A favorite prof recommended it to me a few years ago, and I have been meaning to get around to it since.

Tome Update, part IX:

The following have been decided:

1. A. Theroux (we must still argue out either the Darc Cat or the Sexual Intellectual).

2. Mann's, The Magic Mountain, though be forewarned, you may need a 'rest cure' yourself, by the time Hans Castorp's stay high on that mountain overlooking the valley, if not all of Europe, is done.

3. Elsa Morante's,History: A Novel. Sounds outstanding. Read tomcat's piece in The Lectern. Until this thread, I'd never heard of Morante! Thank you, dchaikin, for suggesting her. I just grabbed it secondhand, in fact. Barely meets the minimum tome criteria at 742 pgs in my ed, but it's thick and weighty, inch-and-a-half spine. I believe it will fit in fine.

4. Is it just me, or are the academics (and self-described, "lapsed" academics) among us (long may they live!), attempting, in their professorial and higher institutional niches of expertise, to strong arm The Faerie Queene through my barricades of unbelief? Isn't The Faerie Queen to 2011, what Clarel was to 2010 (or was it 2009)? Will anyone besides a Ph.D. (or Martin or Murr or a very brave soul like rainpebble) actually enjoy Edmund Spenser? A tome is one thing; a tome poem another.

However, I've decided, only because I'm in an arbitrary, magnanimous mood at the moment, to acquiesce and allow in The Faerie Queene for the fourth and final tomer of '10.

Non-fiction tomes in:

1. Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.

2. There's absolutely no consensus reached for a second NF tome. Though I just had a brilliant idea: It's gotta be William T. Vollmann, either Rising Up and Rising Down or Imperial, right?

Fiction non-tomes:

1. Julien Gracq's, Chateau d'Argol

2. Rikki Ducornet. We'll need to further argue out which one.

3. John Cowper Powys. The richest of Por-Men among us, the one, the only, Por-Man, will declare to us all, in his good and perfect time, since right now he has twenty-five (25!!!) books cataloged by Powys, the book of his wise choosing for us to read and enjoy (no matter what a certain U.#1 has described the experience of reading Powys as).

4. Italo Calvino. Again, we must argue out, and present our best case for which particular one.

>138 absurdeist:

If I can induce sophomores to read ahead in The Faerie Queene, and I am talking about southern sophomores here - who wear baseball hats and go hunting on the weekends, then I think nay I assert that The Faerie Queene is an epic tome pour le peuple. If anything, I detect a certain bigotry about early modern English literature here. Hard to believe but the evidence is up piling.

Mac,

The Faerie Queene anticipates all the major themes in Faust; moreover, it is a veritable encyclopedia of 16th century Elizabethan culture. As for Powys, I cast aspersions at him. I have pissed on and passed on my copy of Wolf Solent.

Is there a graphic novel version of the Faerie Queene ?

"I have pissed on and passed on my copy of Wolf Solent".

I like it when you speak dirty ! LOL

It seems that FQ is the scenario for Lucas' star wars and a major inspiration for Tolqueene.

Wolf Solent - out hero????:

Perhaps I have never known reality as other human beings know it,’ he thought. ‘My life has been industrious, monotonous, patient. I’ve carried my load like a camel. And I’ve been able to do this because it hasn’t been my real life at all! My “mythology” has been my real life.’

Where in literature can one encounter the vanity of the self-effacing man, who also manifests overblown ego on a truly epic scale? Is this truly a man whom one would like to invite to dinner? Can anyone honestly believe he/she would relish hanging out with this lugubriously egotistical fellow for more than a few minutes without wishing to shoot him, oneself, or the person who introduced one to him As for poor Gerda, she would have been better off as Sue Bridehead. I'd leap from a window before I would spend any time with Wolf. One of my biggest regrets in life is that I finished the book.

As for "the Dorset Proust," pshaw and hrumph.

Mac,

I was not aware that Star Wars was an encyclopedia of Elizabethan culture. I defer to your superior knowledge on this subject.

LOL, don't overdo it, I might get interested.

Urania check out :

Trash culture: popular culture and the great tradition by Richard Keller Simon

May the force be with you faerie Leila

Mac,

Golly, gee, zounds. If Richard Keller Simon says Star Wars is The Faerie Queene, who am I, a mere lapsed academic from an obscure school, to argue? Jeepers, what was I thinking? As for a graphic version of The Faerie Queene, why not? It's been done for The Wasteland. I have been working on a Monty Pythonesque screenplay of book one of FQ. Imagine what the Monty Python crew could have done with the opening scene, RC on his horse, followed by Una on her little white ass, with a little lamb and dwarf bringing up the rear. And the salvage men? Those Bowers of Bliss? The difficulties that ensue every time RC lays down his "sword"? Too titillating for words. But wait, I think the titillating, if not the tits, belongs to Duessa, that little whore of Babylon. My husband's ex puts me on par with the whore of Babylon and Satan's housecat. And all I ever wanted to be was a shameless little hussy.

Urania,

( standing up straight, brushing the dandruff from my shoulders"

"I promise here and now that "Fierce Queen" will be my Tome 2011!"

The search of the lost Tome is over. ( at least for me )

But, but, but what about Mallory?
And, and, and Mann?
But I do like fairy tales. So I am okay with The Faerie Queene.
Please no more of the dreaded Melville quite yet.
belva

Just one of the reviews of The Faerie Queene.

"Perhaps the weirdest, wildest, and wooliest book ever written."

Ha, one sentence!~! Good one!~!

>149 rainpebble:

Thank you Belva. Take a bow. Take two bows. Nay, take three. (wild applause resounding in background, foreground, and surround sound)

I'm in late on this, but I'd go for The Anatomy of Melancholy, but then I'm a lapsed early-modernist myself. I spent far too much of my life on The Faerie Queene to re-read it now. Perhaps as a taste, the group would consider Spenser's non-tome, The Shepheardes Calendar, instead.

As for Calvino, is If on a Winter's Night a Traveler too well-known for this group?

Just to be clear: I am not an academic, nor a lapsed academic, nor, like urania1 (how many uranias are there?), a faux-lapsed academic. Now, maybe I'm an academic-wannabe, but who isn't?

Yeah! Faerie Queene!

I'm still fond of Faust in the non-tome category, and was quite surprised by the popularity of Ibn Butatah for the non-fiction set and suggest he be reconsidered. It's a fairly light travelogue, but one from another time and place, full of opinion and bias, which makes it interesting.

Faerie Queene please!

YeaH! -- may we all go adventuring with the Red Crosse Knight, Guyon, Scudamore, and my favorite transvestite, Britomart!


Britomart Redeems Fair Amoret by William Etty

154> Janea! It warms my heart to hear that you too have a favorite tranny! If someone had bothered to point out to me that there's a transvestite in The Faerie Queene, the decision to include it as a tomer in '11 would have been, well, academic!

Janea, you've made my Father's Day! Woohoo! as the naughtiehottie used to say.

Here's a pic of my favorite tranny



Why didn't you let me know this sooner, U. Numero Uno?!

Sigh. Pecs and guns to die for.

Faerie Queen! Yay! Oh, and all the rest sound good, too.

Where is this list at anyway? I was going to suggest The Heart is A Lonely Hunter.

I think that everybody should read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and that those of us who have read it should reread it. Sooner rather than later. It is, however, not a tome.

Meanwhile, my five volume set of The Faerie Queene has arrived along with a guide, The Faerie Queene, and I am looking forward to taking all of it on.

Robert

Ooooh, a reasonably priced five volume set, too. They look good.

At the time I ordered it, the cheapest source I found was the UK Book Depository, cheaper still than the American Book Depository despite that the set is published in Indianapolis.

Robert

#158 - I meant as shorter read :p ... amazon tells me it's 368 pages.

What do you mean where's the list?!

The list as last revised and updated is in post #138.

But I like the idea of starting the list completely over from scratch, now that you mention Carson McCullers since I'm rather weary of soooooo serious lit-ra-chuh

So, yes, it's decided then isn't it? Let's start over from scratch. Woohoo! I'm not happy with The Fairie Queene selection. I bought a copy, and flipping through it, I'm about as likely to read that high falutin' crap as I am to read The Book of Mormon. (No offense, Joseph).

Where's the classic science fiction on the list?!
Where's the horror?!
Where's the post-apocalyptic tomes?!

Maybe this group needs to become, Le Salon Genre du Peasants pour le Peasants instead of what it is now, no?, so that I can participate in reads I'm actually presently interested in?

Yes, let us turn our backs, brothers and sisters in this salon, on holy literature, and embrace popular genre works of fiction instead.

Well, the Bible is the most popular of all... I'm in the middle of the Mosaic books...

Pay close attention to what you read there, A_musing. Much of it might surprise you. Let me know, for instance what you think of the Jubilee system of property distribution. I find the entire Bible to be a strong socialist, humanist manifesto from God to Man. The Old Testament will stretch your modern sensibilities, but you can't deny, that it bends rather swiftly toward Justice. The New Testament is all about balancing the needs of the community with the needs of the individual. And, son of a gun, it, too, bends rather swiftly toward Justice.

'Rique, one of the things that brought me here was the fact that this group was about lit-ra-chuh both old and new. If I want science fiction, horror, or post-apocalyptic tomes, I can go elsewhere. So if you are joking, then I'll ask, "Is 'e 'aven a laff?", otherwise, I will be most disappointed and will have to weigh my options.

Hold your horses EF, there's plenty of room for all sorts of things serious and silly. I'll let you decide which is which. It doesn't always have to operate so formally. We can, with little or no difficulty, amuse all the voters here. The Lovecraftians & the Longfellows. The Bebobaloobas & the Beddoes'. The Dostoevsky's and the Dingleberry McNichols'. What's the problem. Ornithological voters will seek those of analogous plumage. I would like to read Arthur Machen if there were a half a dozen elements who've heard of the name. Hell it could be a free-for-all, ie. no 'tome' in partikkalurr, just a lot of good talk concerning all & nothing. Well you get the picture. We shouldn't get the cart too far out there in front of the horse. Eh?

>162 absurdeist: enrique, one of the things I admire most about you is your commitment to permanent revolution.

#162 EF - %-( That's supposed to be a confused face. Please, tell this under-educated little-brained one what I'm missing about McCullers.

I wasn't dissin' Carson specifically, though looking back it does read that way, I was just throwing ALL serious literature under the greyhound. It's a temporary mental malady I'm sure. At least that's what my psychiatrist (who I'd like to thank for helping me here in the salon) says.

No offense to Carson meant; only offense meant to her insomuch as she has contributed a certain small % to the volume of serious literature extant. I'm just in the mood for skewering the sacred cow of Holy Literature in general.

Why? Because I'm rediscovering this summer just how much more fun fiction that doesn't fit into the dreaded and dreary definition of "literary" indeed is. The Stand --FREAKING AWESOME; The Sheep Look Up -- A MIND BLOWER; The Descent --FUNTASTICO!; The Books of Blood -- GORGEOUSLY GROTESQUE; I may be going through a mid-year crisis, but I'm having a blast with books I haven't had since I was kid. I'm so burnt on serious depressing shit that exacts untold exertion from my already fried and frazzled neural transmitters, that's all I'm saying.

'the dreaded and dreary definition of "literary"' :)

Rique - I was going to post some kind of response to your post, but my words don't do justice to your electric little rant. So, I'll have to just let it sit. And, hey, if you want The Stand on the list, it's OK by me.

Dikateur, if you still want to demokratize this selektion process, when you're ready for it, did you know about http://pollcode.com/ ? It gives you a code you can embed in a post so we can all vote.

♥

It's quite ok to have a summer trashy reading jag. It's far too hot to focus on serious stuff (look at me with my trashy, HELLO_MAGAZINE bio of Nureyev). But I'm with Gene on this one: The Salon for me is all about reading serious literary tomes in good company. Stephen King is fun, etc etc etc etc but not a serious literary tome. (Murr ducks to avoid flung herring from all sides)

While I also admire your commitment to permanent revolution, Oh Great and Sweaty Leader, let's focus our energies on revolting against the right thing. Or on being revolting generally (delicately picking my nose and wiping it on the cover of The Same River Twice).

ARGH!!!! Aren't I getting that next?? MURR!

"That's disgustus," as my four year old used to say when he was three, but disgustus, I think, in a good way.

By the time the book gets to you in Australia, Muse, Murr's mucus will have probably crusted up enough on the cover that a quick flick of the finger, and it's gone, like it was never there.

Indeed, I have been drying it with the hairdryer, and it's nearly dry.

As I mentioned earlier, I spent many years of my life on The Faerie Queene and don't yet feel the need to re-read it. Best of luck to those who do. My question to E-Free is whether Dhalgren is enough of a tome to qualify.

Well, if we must, we can go always through the Foundation series in as a tome, right?

And this group clearly isn't limited to lit'chur. we read Les Mis, right?

And geneg, much of the Bible is indeed a great and often unexpected read. I'm reading it to my 9 year old. So I'm looking at it through his eyes as well.

Moses, of course, believes there are many gods, but the God of his fathers is just the best of them, and that having many wives is a fine thing, and a little something on the side with a servant doesn't count as adultery, as long as she's your servant.

#173-174-175 Well, I get it after our little Muse! Ewwww!

A little Fluffy fiction never hurt no one, no how! ;-) I love The Stand!

I would like to make a recommendation for those so inclined to the fluffy fiction, and it blows The Stand away in terms of general quality, cohesiveness and immediacy. My main criticism of The Stand is that first, it is a trilogy under one cover, second, the writing itself is pretty pedestrian. What Stephen King has is an exceptional imagination and the desire, if not the talent, to put it on the page.

Anyway, my recommendation as probably the all around best non-literary novel I've ever read is by the two people I read when I need a fix for my page turning fingers (although it may fall more into the mystery/horror adventure category, and is certainly not fluffy), Douglas Preston (brother of Richard) and Lincoln Child. The novel is The Cabinet of Curiosities. I'm not sure one can do better for a spine-tingling, fast paced exiting read. If you've never met Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, then you have a real treat in store.

I would absolutely love it if someone here would read and comment on it. It's a real killer. These guys are NOT of the same ilk as James Patterson, etc. And unlike Stephen King, they not only have incredible imaginations, they can write, too.

There's no reason people can't read and discuss whatever they like in the Salon. But if we are craving more organization for potential Salon reads of less highbrow lit - why not just open another room in the salon for less high-falutin' reads. The Saloon perhaps? I think it will be a bit harder to get a critical mass (consensus is certainly not required) for particular popular fiction reads as you don't have as many people likely to have been "meaning to get around to that one."

I reject high-/low-culture distinctions unequivocally and will read whatever you got.

Just by the way, The Stand is junk. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is eminently readable.

Robert

High-low distinctions are somewhat situational and shockingly middle-brow, I suppose, but they work well enough as you move toward the poles. As you approach the center you get an area, no doubt substantial, where they get pretty squishy.

We could always distinguish between the dreary and the fluffy, but it is more problematic as there are dreary time-wasters and fluffy gems.

But how do we incorporate genre fiction into our model? And, like, "old shit"? Does the former have different goals and require a different scale of value? w wouldn't evaluate, like, the Iliad in the same way as we would Tolstoy; should we not then extend the same separation principle to Stephen King? And does the latter skew the calculus? What then of, like, Dracula?

The Stand is not junk. Period.

I think your opinion is junk.

The Broom of the System is not junk either.

Nor is House of Leaves junk.

Again, just so we're clear: Your opinion is junk.

Mr. Freeque

To my taste, the job of the prose is to bury you in the story. When the story draws the reader up short, forcing the reader to stop and think, or pay closer attention, that's fine. When the prose draws the reader up short with a misplaced phrase, or through bloat, or is inherently flawed, not so much. The one Stephen King book I've read, the original version of The Stand, drew me up for all the negative reasons and none of the good ones. Once I had seen how that was constructed, and the amount of bloat involved, I had a feeling his other thousand pagers would be the same, so I haven't read another. Did he ever learn to control himself, and to write?

And for that, Mr. Durick, just out of spite, we will not be reading The Faerie Queene, no matter what ridiculous overpriced five edition set of it you acquired. Not here we won't.

And if there's any rebel reads afoot, I'll shut those threads down with tanks and infantry and nuclear warheads (just call me North Korea!) so fast it'll take hours just to load said thread there'll be so many pics of weaponry on it.

'Aw, Rique, you got some splainin to do.

Why must we suffer, and never get to know the Faerie Queene Tranny (is that redundant, anyways?), because Mr. Durrick's gotten under your skin.

I am looking forward to the Faerie.

184: I understand your points. My answer is that, to the extent I can get enough other people to agree a book is closer to one pole than the other, that is good enough for our purposes. I might be able to persuade enough folks that Dracula should lean toward the high end of the pole for various reasons, although I'd concede it wouldn't be all that high. The problem is, as you get further from the poles the less likey not only that you'll get agreement but also less likely people are going to want to have gotten around to reading the work in question.
P.S. I would re-read Dracula!

I've not read the Stand, only seen the mini-series. I like Clive Barker better than Steven K, but he does not rise much farther. There is something coarse about the writing of both of them even if some passages stand out and they have great imaginations and storytelling abilities. I read The Shining long ago and was not particularly impressed. I do like his short stories I've read. (Could the collection have been called Salem's Lot?) All that said, all I really want to say is - there's room for many reads and many readers in the Salon.

If Robert or Mr. Durick or WHOEVER THE HELL HE IS recants (publicly) his defamation of The Stand, then The Faerie Queene will be reinstated.

No recanting, no tranny.

>189 slickdpdx: I'm picking up what you're putting down. Sort of a canonicity-from-the-ground-up argument. Anyway, I'm reading The Faerie Queene, sectarian schisms or splinters or chasms be damned.

>181 MeditationesMartini:
I reject high-/low-culture distinctions unequivocally

Now this is just silly, Martin dear, for someone with your kind of library and literary sense as manifested in your reviews, this is just daft.

Of course it's ok to read and enjoy junk with relish, just as much as one enjoys reading the highest art, but to deny that there is a difference between them, this is just childish, democratic-in-the-lowest-common-denominator sense, ideologically-motivated, 'anti-elitist' bullshit. It's the kind of thinking that ultimately leads to the crass stupidities of Sarah Palin.

If North Korea wants to make a case for The Stand being high art, then go ahead, I am interested to hear his argument, but please don't let's go down the road of believing that there are no distinctions of quality in art, that all art is the same value, of confusing equal validity of taste with equal quality.

No clue if I can get through The Faerie Queene, but I've got this Norton Critical Edition from who knows where, and so I'm looking forward to giving it a try.

>192 QuentinTom: looking at it again, I realize how infelicitously phrased that was. I mean to say, "I unequivocally reject the idea that high-/low-culture distinctions have a direct linear relationship with overall quality". For sure there are distinctions of quality in art--but without confusing equal validity of taste with equal quality, I still think some things that are considered high art are low quality (while still being high art, so this isn't the The Stand-reassignment argument) and vice versa. And I mean, thinking of examples is always hard, but I am on record as (e.g.) considering James' The Ambassadors to be basically the literary equivalent of that kid who always got nosebleeds in gym class (I know we disagree on this) and Welsh's Trainspotting as the most honestly rendered picture of modern depressive working-class poverty I know, and I think those are quality as well as taste judgments that perhaps (the quality ones, not the taste ones) fly in the face of whatever consensus exists.

Martini's! Umm. How do you take yours, Meditationes?

"If you ask about its ground and its soil, then it is of musk and
saffron.

And if you ask about its roof, then it is the Throne of the Most Merciful.

And if you ask about its rocks, then they are pearls and jewels.

And if you ask about its buildings, then they are made of bricks of gold and
silver.

And if you ask about its trees, then it does not contain a single tree
except that its trunk is made of gold and silver.

And if you ask about its fruits, then they are softer than butter and
sweeter than honey.

And if you ask about its leaves, then they are softer than the softest cloth

And if you ask about its rivers, then there are rivers of milk who's taste
does not change, and rivers of wine that is delicious to those who drink it,
and rivers of honey that is pure, and rivers of water that is fresh.

And if you ask about their food, then it is fruits from whatever they will
choose, and the meat of whatever birds they desire.

And if you ask about their drink, then it is Tasneem, ginger, and Kaafoor.

And if you ask about their drinking cups, then they are crystal-clear and
made of gold and silver.

And if you ask about its shade, then a fast rider would ride in the shade of
one of its trees for a hundred years and not escape it.

And if you ask about its vastness, then the lowest of its people would have
within his kingdom and walls and palaces and gardens the distance that would
be travelled in a thousand years.

And if you ask about its tents and encampments, then one tent is like a
concealed pearl that is sixty miles long.

And if you ask about its towers, then they are rooms above rooms in
buildings that have rivers running underneath them.

And if you ask about how far it reaches into the sky, then look at the
shining star that is visible, as well as those that are far in the heavens
that the eyesight cannot possibly reach.

And if you ask about the clothing of its inhabitants, then they are of silk
and gold.

And if you ask about its beds, then its blankets are of the finest silk laid
out in the highest of its levels.

And if you ask about the faces of its inhabitants and their beauty, then
they are like the image of the Moon.

And if you ask about their age, then they are young ones of 33 years in the
image of Adam, the father of humanity.

And if you ask about what they will be hearing, then it is the singing of
their wives from among the Hoor al-'Ayn, and better than that are the voices
of the Angels and the Prophets, and better than that is the Speech of the
Lord of the Worlds.

And if you ask about their servants, then they are young boys of everlasting
youth who resemble scattered pearls.

And if you ask about their brides and wives, then they are young and
full-breasted and have had the liquid of youth flow through their limbs; the
Sun runs along the beauty of her face if she shows it, light shines from
between her teeth if she smiles; if you meet her love, then say whatever you
want regarding the joining of two lights; he sees his face in the roundness
of her cheek as if he is looking into a polished mirror, and he sees the
brightness from behind her muscles and bones; if she were to be unleashed
upon the World, she would fill what is between the Heavens and the Earth
with a beautiful wind, and the mouths of the creation would glorifiy, praise
and exclaim greatness, and everything between the East and the West would
be adorned for her, and every eye would be shut from everthing but her, and
the light of the Sun would be outshone just as the light of the Sun
outshines the light of the stars, and everyone on the face of the Earth
would believe in the Ever-Living, the One who Sustains and Protects all the
exists.

And the covering on her head is better than the World and all that is in it,
and she does not increase with age except in beauty; free from an umbilical
cord, childbirth and menses, and pure of mucous, saliva, urine and other
filthy things; her youth never fades, her clothing is never worn out, no
garment can be created that matches her beauty, and no one who is with her
can ever become bored; her attention is restricted to her husband, so she
desires none but him, just as his attention is restricted to her so she is
the sole object of his desire, and he is with her in utmost safety and
security, as none has touched her before of either humans or Jinn.

And if you ask about the Day of Increase (in reward) and the visit of the
all-Mighty, all-Wise, and the sight of His Face - free from any resemblance
or likeness to anything - as you see the Sun in the middle of the day and
the full Moon on a cloudless night, then listen on the day that the caller
will call: 'O People of Paradise! Your Lord - Blessed and Exalted - requests
you to visit Him, so come to visit Him!' So they will say: 'We hear and
obey!'

Until, when they finally reach the wide valley where they will all meet -
and none of them will turn down the request of the caller - the Lord -
Blessed and Exalted - will order His Chair to be brought there. Then,
pulpits of light will emerge, as well as pulpits of pearls, gemstone, gold,
and silver. The lowest of them in rank will sit on sheets of musk, and will
not see what those who are on the chairs above them are given. When they are
comfortable where they are sitting and are secure in their places, and the
caller calls: 'O People of Paradise! You have an appointment with Allaah in
which He wishes to reward you!' So they will say: 'And what is that reward?
Has He not already made our faces bright, made our scales heavy, entered us
into Paradise, and pushed us away from the Fire?'

And when they are like that, all of a sudden a light shines that encompasses
all of Paradise. So, they raise their heads, and, behold: the Compeller -
Exalted is He, and Holy are His Names - has come to them from above them and
majestified them and said: 'O People of Paradise! Peace be upon you!' So,
this greeting will not be responded to with anything better than: 'O Allaah!
You are Peace, and from You is Peace! Blessed are You, O possessor of
Majesty and Honor!' So the Lord - Blessed and Exalted - will laugh to them
and say: 'O People of Paradise! Where are those who used to obey Me without
having ever seen Me? This is the Day of Increase!'

So, they will all give the same response: 'We are pleased, so be pleased
with us!' So, He will say: 'O People of Paradise! If I were not pleased with
you, I would not have made you inhabitants of My Paradise! So, ask of Me!'
So, they will all give the same response: 'Show us your Face so that we may
look at it!' So, the Lord - Mighty and Majestic - will remove his covering
and will majestify them and will cover them with His Light, which, if Allaah
- the Exalted - had not Willed not to burn them, would have burned them.

And there will not remain a single person in this gathering except that his
Lord - the Exalted - will speak to him and say: 'Do you remember the day
that you did this and that?' and He will remind him of some of his bad deeds
in the Worldy life, so he will say: 'O Lord! Will you not forgive me?' So,
He will say: 'Of course! You have not reached this position of yours (in
Paradise) except by my forgiveness. '"

I mean, uh ... stirred.

LOL

good answer in 194.

So hey, my friend is an early-SF obsessive with very weird but exquisite tastes, and he has become obsessed with this guy David R. Bunch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_R._Bunch), and is self-publishing a bunch (sorry) of his stories that have had their copyright lapse. He has recruited me to take pictures of some stories that were only trackable down in the UBC archives, and I am currently copyediting the completed manuscript and it is SO GREAT. Like Gormenghast crossed with Yevgeny Zamyatin crossed with a ratty science-fiction magazine, and in the sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing way he twists the rules of normal written syntax, he's even a stylistic precursor of sorts to David Foster Wallace. The collection is going to be called Coping With Eternity and should defo be available in 2011--would there be any interest in something like this as a short group read?

(I should note that while he's asking for some notional sum to cover costs, this is not a moneymaking venture for my friend and in short I did not join this group just to win your trust and then start spamming.)

More on David R. Bunch:

http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2004/02/unjustly-neglected-david-r-bunch.html

"I'm not in this business primarily to describe or explain or entertain. I'm here to make the reader think, even if I have to bash his teeth out, break his legs, grind him up, beat him down, and totally chastise him for the terrible and tinsel and almost wholly bad world we allow.... The first level reader, who wants to see events jerk their tawdry ways through some used and USED old plot -- I love him with a hate bigger than all the world's pity, but he's not for me. The reader I want is the one who wants the anguish, who will go up there and get on that big black cross. And that reader will have, with me, the saving grace of knowing that some awful payment is due...as all space must look askance at us, all galaxies send star frowns down, a cosmic leer envelop this small ball that has such great Great GREAT pretenders."

I like the idea a lot. Read the blog post (great blog!) and am intrigued, and your involvement in it makes it an easy go. I'm in.

Listen, I've a slew of old Analog: Science Fact & Fiction from the early '70s to mid '90s. I wonder if Bunch might be in there somewhere? Would your friend know if he was ever published in Analog?

I will ask.

WHAT!!!!! I am absent for a few weeks due to accidents most foul. I am sandwiched in a four-car pile-up, attacked by a furious fig tree (yes attacked), and run over by a herd of goats. I return to the Salon and find that much discussion and dissing has gone on behind my back. Unbeloved dictator, your flip dismissal of that noble tome The Faerie Queene shocks me greatly. WORKERS OF THE WORD UNITE! FREEDOM TO READ THE FAERIE QUEENE WHENEVER AND WHEREVER WE WANT!.

. . . so there.

Urania -- four car pile-ups, attacking fig trees and a herd of goats?????? What HAVE you been indulging in?

Let's all escape to the realm of The Faerie Queene !

Stephen King needs a serious editor. I have had Duma Key sitting on my shelf for the past two years, and I WILL read it, but only because it is set in Sarasota -- and when I have lots of extra time. He's a brilliant short story writer -- but he do go on and on and on in his tomes.

I've already recanted re. my Faerie Queene outburst on another thread, Urania. DON'T YOU GO CAPS AND BOLD ON ME

I blame beloved Mr. Durick for getting my goats (has he ever gotten yours?), and causing me, in the heat of the moment, to speak wantonly about Edmund Spenser and his masterfeces masterpiece.

The Faerie Queene is back in. Though maybe it would be better as a Rebel Read so I could attack it with my tanks and troops?

Read "The Woman in the Room" from 1978s Night Shift, Janea, a story about a man who kills his mother who's dying of cancer, probably King's most literary, realistic short story ever. He did the real horror of cancer and its decimation of a relationship about as well as he does his "out there," fantasy horror stories.

>203 janeajones: Jane,

Pain pills and ice packs. I think this may be my year of living dangerously.

>204 absurdeist: Heinous Dictator and Besmircher of faerie queens,

When the occasion calls for CAPS AND BOLD, I respond appropriately. Regarding, Mr. Durick, I am quite sure that he would never be so ill bred as to get my goats. In any case, our sylvan goatherds keep their goat songs (and other things) to themselves.

My wife, a big Stephen King fan just finished Duma Key a couple of weeks ago. She said it was pretty good. All I remember is the sound of her wrist cracking as she sprained it while lifting the book.

205> Mary -- I've been doing pain pills and ice packs (well, bags of frozen peas) all summer, but not, unfortunately, because I have been living dangerously (I only wish).

204> I'm not sure I want to read about a son killing his dying mother -- I'm a mother with a son though I'm sure he'd never resort to such extremities.

206> damn, the darn thing IS heavy.