Bookishness

[grinninfoole]

When I was younger, from when I learned to read into my mid twenties, I read a lot.  Science Fiction and fantasy mostly, but I read a fair bit of history, some science fact, and other fiction, too.  I noticed last week that I don't read much prose anymore.  I read a lot of the stuff that comes into the store, of course, and unlike omnia_mutantur I consider comics to be real reading, but I just don't consume books the way I once did.  In part, as I have aged, I have become pickier, and I just don't enjoy what I used to enjoy.  (I notice this trend in movies, too.  I probably would have liked XMen 3 more when I was 20 than I do now at 36, though I don't think I would have loved it.) 

Also, I have more going on in my life, and I spend more time with people I love, especiallymillari .  And, I find that I am increasingly more interested in my own stories than in other peoples'.

That said, though, I do want to be someone who keeps reading, who keeps engaging with someone else's ideas and perspectives, so I'm making a point of reading at least ten prose books this year.  So far, I can only think of one such book that I have read, The Translator, which I discussed in a post last week.  So...

1) The Translator, by John Crowley.[Unknown site tag]

I'm working on/about to start:

2) Historical Understanding, a collection of essays by Louis Mink.  He's a tremendous thinker, though I still have read little by him, and I don't think many people know who he is.

3) Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake, though it seems that I should actually have gotten out Titus Groan, since the jacket blurb says that Gormenghast is a sequel.  (Albeit the main character is only 7 years old when book two starts, so what the hell happens in book 1?)

4) Mother Night, by Kurt Vonnegut.  Actually, Millari will be reading this to me.  I look forward to it.

Eventually, I shall start 5) The Dark Tower by Stephen King.  I enjoyed the first six, so I look forward to the finale.

I welcome suggestions, too.


On the graphic front, I just got around to reading Craig Thompson's haunting reminiscence about teenage alienation and romance, Blankets.  It's really good, though full of unresolved pain (the character's, if not the author's.)

Comments

[omnia-mutantur.livejournal.com]

they count, darling, just on a different list.
(am i really that much of a snot?)

Making a list

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

Yes, you are totally a snot. In fact, everyone secretly calls you Miss Snottypants behind your back. Yes, EVERYONE. Even the cats.

Checking it twice

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

So, in case your friendly sarcasmometer is on the fritz, no you aren't snotty, at all. If you notice, I'm breaking also making that distinction, though for my larger list of books I have read this year, the graphic novels do count. I should make a list of all of them, though some were such quick reads that they don't feel like 'real' books to me, either.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

With regard to 3), Titus Groan should be read first.

Recommendations? Alan Furst's stuff is all worth reading, and if you haven't picked up any of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books (starting with Kushiel's Dart (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312872380/sr=1-7/qid=1153278972/ref=sr_1_7/104-8430047-9535121?ie=UTF8&s=books), I recommend them, though you should be aware they are very erotically tinged.

Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour Trilogy is very, very good.

People remember Richard Adams for Watership Down (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380002930/sr=1-1/qid=1153279248/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-8430047-9535121?ie=UTF8&s=books), but I thought Shardik (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1585671827/sr=1-1/qid=1153279173/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-8430047-9535121?ie=UTF8&s=books) was much better. (It happens to be Adams' favorite among his works, too. Michael Moorcock's criticisms of Shardik in his essay Epic Pooh (http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.html?id=953) make me wonder if he ever actually read Shardik, and I think they can be ignored.)

I first read Any Old Iron (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394574842/sr=1-2/qid=1153278704/ref=sr_1_2/104-8430047-9535121?ie=UTF8&s=books) in 1990, when I was an exchange student in Germany. It's my favorite novel, and I think it is an unjustifiably obscure masterpiece.

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

Wow. I just started reading Moorcock's essay, and I don't know if I can finish. He's so full of shit in his criticism of Tolkein it's coming out his ears. Such is the difference between Moorcock's hardscrabble life and struggle with alcoholism, and Tolkein's embrace of comfortable middle-class life after surviving the battle of the Somme. Moorcock writes like Tolkien has never seen anything to burst his little bubble, and that LOTR does do that, and he comes off as an ass--though he's not alone in that.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

I also think Moorcock is very unfair to Chesterton, who, far from being a member of a "disenchanted and thoroughly discredited section of the repressed English middle-class too afraid, even as it falls, to make any sort of direct complaint ("They kicked us out of Rhodesia, you know"), least of all to the Higher Authority," was actually very critical of a lot of things about the society he lives in. (Chesterton was an anti-imperialist, and in one of his Father Brown stories he compared the Indian Police to the Tsarist Okhrana...although Chesterton certainly did have his faults.)

Which reminds me of another two books I'd recommend, both by Chesterton.

The Man Who Was Thursday (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0891905774?v=glance), which is a spy thriller as well as an examination of the nature of good and evil.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/048626551X?v=glance), in which an eccentric british King accidentally sparks a revolt against the homogenizing tendencies of the modern world. (This is one of Chesterton's works that is very, very anti-imperialist.)

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

I like Chesterton. I have read the Man Who Was Thursday and some of his Father Brown stories, and they're fun. I'll keep an eye out for Napoleon!