Hoorah for Maria!
And not just because she's Maria.
Whenever I am feeling like crap or have lost the will to blog she rides to my rescue with a meme.
This one's a book meme, and as I am addicted to books way beyond all reason (my house is merely a vast book repository with a bed squeezed in there somewhere), I will inevitably expand it exponentially and take this post to previously unheralded levels of tedium and pretentiousness.
I may swear from time to time, too.
Just so you know.
Right!
Are you all sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin … (Ten credibility points for anyone spotting where that comes from and it's not a book).
1) Books That Changed Your Life.
I've read a lot of great books but as for books that have actually opened my eyes to something and turned my whole life around? Those are a rarer species.
I mean The Bible and The Qur'an are great books and I still read them both but I was brought up on one and the other hardly came as a surprise. As I don't believe in any God or Gods or in any deluded concept of "afterlife" (as if this life weren't draggy enough) they don't really have much influence on me except for their merits as historical and literary texts. They rank alongside the Mahabarata, the Epic of Gilgamesh (great chunks of which have been copied straight into the Old Testament much as a really bad student would steal stuff for homework assignments) and the Gnostic Gospels; fascinating, poetic, beautiful and occasionally unintentionally hilarious but hardly life-changing.
As an outspoken Marxist I would have to cite Book 1 of Karl Marx's "Capital" as a life-changer; in fact a life-definer.
I'll allow criticism of it only from those who have read and absorbed it and are therefore entitled to an opinion.
Any book that takes "The Wealth Of Nations" (I have that, too, but I keep it in the bathroom, where it belongs), shoves the splintered gatepost of righteousness straight up Adam Smith's pimply arse and makes him spin around gets my vote.
People who criticise Marx or The Qur'an or "The Six Bunny-Wunnies And Their Layover In Anderson, Indiana" or indeed any other book without having read it can frankly go fuck themselves.
I've said this so many times but it is crucially important and it bears repeating here: "Read the source material and make up your own mind. It's what your brain is for. Don't simply believe what somebody else tells you about it." … (least of all, me).
Another biggie in the life-changing stakes was Dostoyevsky's "Crime And Punishment", the book that first started the rabid biblio-fetish which long ago engulfed my life and spat out the sad pedant you see before you.
On my last day of school I cleared out my locker and wandered off into the great wide world thinking "So … That was school. Other than some maths and physics and how to screw girls it's taught me fuck all about life so if I'm going to live it I'd better head to the bookshop and start reading."
On my way home I bought cheery old Fyodor's Bumper Book of Guilt and Responsibility and immediately identified with Raskolnikov's plight.
Quite apart from my own personal issues at the time it taught me that books need not be the joyless exercises in lit crit we had been taught; indeed they could be enormously enjoyable and that the best of them could guide and enrich my life.
These days, every year come October I hit my Dickens and The Major Russians hard. Right through the dark winter months the glorious triumvirate of Dickens, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky sustains me as much as food and drink. Rather pretentiously I love to sit in my big wingback chair, reading them by candle-light.
They are not mere stories; they are life and they are truth and they contain far more of both than can be found in the Old Testament and can and should be read at least once a year by everybody on this benighted planet.
Borders now sells ALL of them at two pounds a pop (yes, £2) so you've no excuses. You can work your way up to the fine, tooled leather and Venetian handmade paper editions when you become an addict like me.
On a lighter note I discovered Bob Dylan's "Tarantula" when I was thirteen and carried the damned thing around in my back pocket for years. Appalling tosh as it was, it taught me to enjoy poetry and to enjoy reading aloud (something I'm particularly fond of and good at) and it helped me to the remarkable and life-changing discovery that being mysterious to the point of bafflement can get girls naked (thanks, Bob).
2) Books That You Have Read More Than Once.
Most of my books I read over and over. Which is why I don't tend to read disposable "airport" books or "bestsellers" (non-books - life's too short).
This is where we come to the difference between a "book" and a "non-book".
A "non-book" is something from the bestseller lists, churned out for a particular market; a page-turner written to a formula, be it a thriller, a romance, a celebrity or TV tie-in; whatever. No bad thing in themselves, as they keep the publishing industry afloat, yet soul-destroying to read. I try to give them a chance on occasion, but no matter how well crafted the storyline might be they are inevitably written by people with no conception of how to write beautiful prose. I'll happily watch the movie but I usually throw the books down in disgust after a few pages with a cry of "Yes, it's a good story, but learn to write, you ignorant fucker!"
The modern novel doesn't have to be a lazy piece of hackwork but most are and it seems to me that the kind of people who buy bestsellers aren't that interested in reading, just in passing the time.
The last "bestseller" I found readable was Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy"; it was an enchanting story but more importantly it was beautifully written. Sadly it was published fifteen years ago. Come on, people. Write me something worth reading!
The very best modern novels are - like Dickens or Tolstoy - true works of art that can be read and enjoyed time after time. You are not merely turning the page to "see what happens next" (for fuck's sake, leave that to Grisham); you are lost in a whole new world.
A "book" is pure joy; something that enhances your life every time you read it. Just because you know Jesus makes the ultimate sacrifice and allows himself to be crucified doesn't stop you reading The Gospels (Awww! You spoiled it now!); similarly, knowing the ending of Bleak House (which you certainly won't get from the BBC adaptation - or more accurately, the TV soap loosely based on a few of the characters from Bleak House) takes away not one iota of the pleasure of reading Dickens' prose; that marvellous first section (where most people tend to give up because they have no soul) brilliantly written in such a deliberately dense and obfuscatory manner to conjure and echo the miasmic London fog and the eternally turgid case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce. There's a sentence in there that's almost a page long; the most breathtakingly masterful use of the semicolon I have ever found. I love reading that aloud. I can picture old Boz setting aside his quill after writing it, then jiggling his legs up and down under the table and giggling with unalloyed glee at his own incomparable cleverness.
More real "books":
J.D. Salinger, "The Catcher In The Rye";
Jose Saramago, "The Year Of The Death Of Ricardo Reis";
Mario Vargas Llosa, "The War Of The End Of The World";
Yukio Mishima, "Spring Snow";
Herman Melville, "Moby Dick";
John Steinbeck: "The Grapes Of Wrath";
George Orwell, "Animal Farm";
Harper Lee, "To Kill A Mockingbird";
all books that everybody should have read and should treasure and each one worth far more than a hundred years worth of throwaway trash Grishams or Cooksons.
As for books that I read every single year: most of these will be (with the exception of the Greek and Roman classics - I always have one of those on the go) non-fiction - Goldsmith, Pepys, Mommsen, Gibbon, Hodgkin, Russell, Descartes, Churchill, plus a bunch of quantum physics stuff that's mostly numbers (each to their own); but as most people seem to read fiction, let's start with my annual re-reading fiction list: Homer (Iliad and Odyssey), Dante's "Divine Comedy", Shakespeare's tragedies, Milton's Paradise Lost, Gœthe's Faust, the big Russians, Dickens, the list in the paragraph above and lots more.
Remember that I spend probably seven hours a day reading on the train and in bed, so I don't expect you to keep up that kind of rate yourselves, but if you're going to read, for Pete's sake read something worthwhile.
Every couple of years I'll also try to fit in Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books (the first two, anyway) and some Tolkein, just to recapture a little of the wonder of my youth.
Pretentious twat that I am I do confess to a liking for one particular genre of non-book: classic American pulp fiction. Long time blogpals may remember my old Edward Hopper post and my quoting that marvellous Raymond Chandler line so evocative of Hopper interiors: "A wedge of sunlight slipped over the edge of the desk and fell noiselessly to the carpet."
Chandler is wonderful with "American English" and the master of its use in the modern pulp is surely James Ellroy (if you've seen the movie L.A. Confidential you'll know who I mean); his Pete Bondurant novels especially; his use of dialogue in "The Cold Six Thousand" is as near as pulp fiction gets to true literary art.
3) One Book You Would Want On A Desert Island.
Hmm … I suppose one of Ray Mears' survivalist handbooks would be practical, but possibly not a literary orgasm to be enjoyed time and again.
I used to think my original Mrs. Beeton's Household Management would be an excellent choice for a desert island castaway. For starters (under "Colonial Cuisine") she has no qualms about giving instructions as to the best way to slaughter terrapins (be sure to break their legs before boiling them alive to prevent them clambering up in a heap and allowing some to escape - See? You've learned something new today) and how many parakeets per person to put in your pie (three), but she also goes on to explain the duties of butlers, housemaids and kitchen staff. I think that life on my desert island would be made immeasurably richer for knowing the most appropriate form of neatly folded origami linen napkin to use when serving broiled lizards. If I am to be driven mad with the torment of loneliness I want to be sure to use the correct cutlery. A very English insanity.
However, I am a creature of habit and for decades have always carried precisely the same books with me on holidays abroad (don't ask me why; I have no idea).
These are: William Burroughs' "The Place Of Dead Roads", Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities", Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe", Cervantes' "Don Quixote" and Swift's "Travels Into Several Remote Nations Of The World, In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First A Surgeon, And Then A Captain Of Several Ships", better known in these unenlightened times as "Gulliver's Travels". I try to add one classic novel by an author from the country I'm visiting, to help understand the culture a little better, and a Langenscheidt dictionary for any local words that I come unstuck on (the Langenscheidts are those lovely little yellow rubber dictionaries that are virtually indestructible - the Germans do compound nouns, blitzkrieg, genocide, denial and yellow rubber books so well - mine are full of hastily scribbled notes jotted down during conversations in marketplaces and bars).
4) Two Books That Made You Laugh.
Ah, Douglas Adams, bless him.
The first two Arthur Dent books ("The Hitch-Hikers' Guide To The Galaxy" and "The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe") are without doubt the funniest and silliest things ever written in any language.
And for light, throwaway "non-book" funnies to read on the train, I confess to having the complete Pratchett hidden away in the third bedroom; not so much books as "episodes" in a very silly comedy series. I think the current running total is thirty-seven or thirty-eight of the little buggers; I'll have to count 'em when I remember.
5) One Book That Made You Cry.
Shit, I cry at just about any book or old movie. Kleenex should give me a medal for years of sterling service … okay, so not just for crying.
Right. Guaranteed Dive tearjerkers: Poor old Sidney Carton doing a Jesus in "A Tale Of Two Cities" always leaves me blubbing like a baby. Henchard's grave in "The Mayor Of Casterbridge", ditto. Rose of Sharon's heartbreaking final paragraph in "The Grapes Of Wrath", tritto.
I don't cry at melodrama; for instance Little Nell's fate leaves me shrugging with indifference, but generally at sacrifice and suffering (I'm an Atheist but I cried at the reading of John-19 in church on Good Friday - I still go to the big days for a sermon and a sing-along). Non-fiction, too: Solzhenitsyn's multi-volume "The Gulag Archipelago" leaves me totally wrecked, as do the First World War poets and Primo Levi's accounts of the Holocaust.
6) One Book You Wish You'd Written.
I wish I'd written the Harry Potter books; not for any literary reason (though I've not read them so I cannot comment on that) but the idea of having a pile of cash bigger than the world to disburse in whatever contrary fashion I please is not unappealing.
From a literary standpoint it could be any of those above, but I'll choose a different one and go for Saramago's "Histório Do Circo De Lisboa", because it is so unutterably lovely (in the English translation by the incomparable Giovanni Ponteiro - "The History Of The Siege Of Lisbon" - as well as in the original Portuguese).
7) One Book You Wish Had Never Been Written.
Not so much never written as left alone and not fucked with: The New Testament.
Several generations after Jesus' death, the Christian church was still a loose collection of bickering Jewish sects, persecuted by Roman and Jew alike, yet in possession of a large body of eyewitness accounts and commentaries of the life and teachings of Jesus himself.
It was in the last years of Emperor Constantine's life that he decided to cover all his bases with regard to an afterlife and convert to Christianity and what's more, to make it the official Roman State Religion.
To the disparate Christian sect leaders this was too great a prize to refuse, even though it came at a price. And that price was deciding which of the many conflicting accounts - the Gospels - written by Jesus' disciples and friends would constitute the official canon.
Most of the Gospels; notably those accounts of Peter, Mary, Thomas, Philip and Judas himself were rejected, for a variety of reasons, the most important of which was what Constantine thought would "sell". If he were to introduce this religion all across the known world he wanted it to be consistent and acceptable to Roman citizens.
The rejected texts were not - unlike Marcion's "unofficial" canon - rejected as heresy, they were simply no longer taught and disappeared into obscurity, only to come to light again in Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945.
In accordance with my mantra of "read the source material and make up your own mind" I feel that all Christians should have a look at these rejected works, keeping in mind that what we now know as the New Testament was a drastically abridged version of the witness statements of Jesus' friends and followers specifically designed to "sell" to the Roman citizenry.
It's not heresy; it's merely akin to looking at the "extras" on a "special edition" DVD, but it puts a lot of things into much needed perspective.
Oh, and I really wish that good old Mervyn Peake had stopped after the first two Gormenghast books, so perfect in themselves with their glorious use of English and the heartrending tragedy of Steerpike, and not gone mad in his dotage and written the complete abomination of arse-gravy that is Titus Alone.
8) Books That You Are Currently Reading.
Right:
On my bedside table (that's "nightstand" for the Colonials):
The Bible (currently reading Daniel);
Virgil's Æneid;
Marcus Aurelius' Meditations;
Maya Angelou: "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings"(as Robyn pointed out to me that it's her birthday this week);
Downstairs, on the coffee table by the reading chair:
The Canterbury Tales;
Volume eight of Pepys' Diaries;
Albert Hourani's "Arabic Thought In The Liberal Age, 1798 - 1939";
Volume eight (1965-1966) of Fantagraphics' glorious twenty-four volume hardback series "The Complete Peanuts".
Beside the computer:
Japanese For College Students: Vol 1.
Basic Kanji: Vol 2.
The Oxford Dictionary Of Quotations;
Kenkyusha Japanese Dictionary;
The Oxford Book Of Japanese Grammar;
In my bookbag for train journeys:
Yukio Mishima's "Patriotism" in both Japanese and English;
Langenscheidt Japanese Dictionary;
Douglas Adams' "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency".
9) One Book That You Have Been Meaning To Read.
I love to read books in their original language, for the same reason that subtitled movies are infinitely superior to dubbed.
The classics merely highlight the crappiness of my schoolboy Latin and the virtual non-existence of my Greek; Camõens' "Os Lusiades" and some of Saramago's books I can manage in Portuguese, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" is not much of a problem in my strangled Franglais; Dante I struggle pathetically with in mediæval Italian, although I love reading it aloud; "Beowulf" and "Sir Gawain" I adore in Anglo Saxon (again to read aloud, stalking around the room, gesticulating wildly; the alliteration gives me a stiffy); Chaucer in Middle English, of course; and Mishima uses such archaic Japanese that he is a real pain in the ass to read, but I hope to improve enough to appreciate him without Mayuko's help.
In English I suppose the fact that I have yet to get round to reading The Great Gatsby would appall any Americans, but I'll get there eventually.
Finally - and closer to home - in blogs we increasingly find criminally unpublished writers of far greater ability than most of the authors staining the "bestseller" lists.
We have some even here in our little community whose works I would proudly display on my shelves if only publishers weren't so blindly obsessed with celebrity "autobiographies" and TV tie-ins and would actually publish them.
At the very heart of Blogville, Maria writes so perfectly that she regularly has this forty-nine year old man in floods of tears, or indeed laughing fit to bust.
But she does not write fiction; she writes of her life and she writes so well that it often overwhelms me. Blogville's closest thing to Pepys; a perfect diarist.
As well as being a fellow guitar player and an all round cool guy, Utsav is a poet of quite breathtaking delicacy and beauty and his pieces invariably leave me awed (and extremely jealous of such talent).
And the same goes for painter, political polemicist and poet, Katherine.
We do, however, have a pair of first class fiction writers among us; Robyn and Lynn.
Lynn writes (as well as a novel and her journalism) gripping and occasionally erotic short stories with all too real heroines.
I first encountered her when she appeared in my comments box with an acute observation. Following her profile link I came across what seemed to be a terrifying suicide note from a woman on the edge.
It turned out I had stumbled upon the first chapter of her novel, "Under A Train" which she had posted without any indication that it was a work of fiction. Her writing had shaken me pretty badly (how do you reply to someone about to kill themselves?) and - after laughing at my unfounded concern and altering the blog to make it clear that this was an example of her creative writing - her wonderful stories have ensnared me ever since. Whether it's the feel of paint on canvas or of silk on skin there is a palpable sexual tension to her writing, and her dialogue - especially the underlying suspicion between lovers - is so real (and at times so funny) that it hurts.
In complete contrast, the deceptively gentle slow-burn of Robyn's writing reminds me of the feeling I got on first reading Richard Russo's "Mohawk" and that tranche of new American writers who, at the end of the last century unleashed "dirty realism" on a helpless world.
In the beautifully written prose of her novella "Mrs. Branch", events of shattering, life-changing enormity tear the small town heroine's life apart yet Robyn writes in exquisite, almost painful detail of the everyday things we need to survive the unstoppable tsunami of devastation about to overwhelm us; of quiet heroine Maryann emerging from denial into a world gone mad, clinging stoically to physical and emotional minutiæ so sharply observed that they catch the edge of your heart and unravel it.
The publishing industry needs a shake-up; it needs to ease up on greedily churning out formulaic crap for short-term profit and to concentrate at least some of its effort on nurturing good new writing. The music industry's collapse gets blamed on "home piracy", yet the real reason is that for the past thirty years they have ceased to invest in talent and instead marketed "product" to an increasingly disillusioned public who inevitably said "enough is enough" and stopped buying.
There is good writing out there; it just isn't getting published.
Thank goodness for the internet.
Just reading through that pretentious pile of twaddle I realise how the books I mention above only just start to scratch the surface of "what you should all go out and read right now", so I may well do a series of posts on one book or one author, to give any "non-book" readers a taster of what they're missing.
You have been warned.
Oh, and Happy Birthday Mikey! Yaaaaay!!!!!
29 comments:
i'll come back later and re-read (4.28inthedamndarkmorning here) no idea about your intro origin...must be an english thing...so i have no credibility, sugar) xoxox
(i'm one of those who rereads favorite books, but no schedule, all serendipity)
Phew, that was exhausting, Dive. I am inclined to print this post and work my way through everything on the "to read" list, those I haven't already read, which is most of it. I don't have seven hours a day to devote to reading, and there are so many other things I like doing in my spare time. I'm more likely to finish no more than two books a year. Better than not reading at all, I suppose.
And, you are too generous with your compliments on my own homeless work. I just might copy that part and paste it into my next query letter.
Sorry, guys.
That's what you get when you have the flu and can't sleep and sit up at three in the morning, rambling.
Hee hee, Robyn; you are more than welcome to use that, but it's probably not a good idea to tell them who wrote it.
Holy crapola, Batman....I mean Dive. Are you some kind of Renaissance Man with the flu?
Okay...here I admit that I was an English major, loved Willa Cather, Henry James, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau and others but I hardly ever re-read books entirely. Why? Because I'm such a damn slow reader. It takes me twice as long as other people to get through a book. I don't know if it's the ADHD thing or what, but I do know I really worked my butt off in college just to keep up. If I finish a novel in a month now, I feel I have done something. I've done better with reading articles. And you will notice my own writing isn't usually lengthy.
If I were on an island, I would want a dictionary to remind me how to speak and what to say. Word loss is painful, even when you are not on an island.
That being said, you continue to be my idol....and thanks for the poetic plug : )
Ahhh, Katherine, you are so sweet!
Word loss is indeed painful and I find I suffer from it increasingly, which is why blog posts are so nice; I can sit back for a few seconds and think of the word rather than just stuttering and mumbling like I do in real life.
Slow reading is good. That's why I like to read aloud; it slows me down to a pace where I can take in nuances of meaning. The reason I get through so many books is that I don't watch TV or have a family to look after and I have so many hours a day to read in.
Lucky me!
Cheers Mate!
I couldn't resist a good quote to get you going......... "Ahhh! Woooh! What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my... well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a... tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what's this roaring sound, whooshing past what I'm suddenly gonna call my head? Wind! Is that a good name? It'll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I'm dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There's an awful lot of that now isn't it? And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me? Hello Ground!"
I am currently listening to all the radio series, it still holds the same wonder ever since I first discovered it when I was about age 10.
That's o.k. if you are a Sperm whale I suppose.
I want an electric monk.
I have that book (Dirk Gently) at a friends house and have been reading and re-reading it for about 10 years every time I stay over for a night.
Well, holy shit. I was doing FINE until I got to the part where you talked about the final paragraph of The Grapes of Wrath and then suddenly all I could hear in my head were those last utterings about always being present, if only in spirit, whenever injustice was perpetrated on the downtrodden...
And I just lost it. Got all choked up. Of course this led to thoughts of Holden Caulfield, just expelled from Pencey Prep and full of jaded snarkiness and love and pain and the whole damn thing. More choking.
I stopped myself before I got to To Kill A Mockingbird or Animal Farm.
Do you have a fever? Because I read your post twice and copied a few books down that I hadn't read yet and thought I probably should. It was like you were on a literary mission and I wanted to grab your coattails.
Thank you for the sweet words. I think you ARE a bit feverish, your tenderness was showing a bit.
Okay..I have some books to order now. But...I can't re-read the bible unless you can point out some really great passages for me to memorize and taunt my sisters with??
Get well soon, my brilliant friend.
Cheers Mate!
I couldn't resist a good quote to get you going......... "Ahhh! Woooh! What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my... well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a... tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what's this roaring sound, whooshing past what I'm suddenly gonna call my head? Wind! Is that a good name? It'll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I'm dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There's an awful lot of that now isn't it? And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me? Hello Ground!"
I am currently listening to all the radio series, it still holds the same wonder ever since I first discovered it when I was about age 10.
Sorry for posting again, I'm spring cleaning the Mac room and must have re-sent by accident!
At least I can see the desktops now!
The Mac Classic II now has a space to be displayed on the desk with all the others.
Oh my...may have to demote myself to low-brow. You've shattered my middle-brow illusions.
Anyhoo...read this: It's Not You, It's Your Books at NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/books/review/Donadio-t.html?em&ex=1207195200&en=0951148bf3a78ff0&ei=5087%0A)
Glad you're feeling well enough to blog.
Mike? You're really cleaning the Mac Room? I'm not sure if that's brave or totally insane! You've seen what happens to people like Doug Mc.Lure when they journey into such places. It must be rife with previously unknown species.
Shit, there could be Morloks in there.
Or, of course, tribes of women in fur bikinis, in which case can I come and help?
And hoorah for Douglas Adams. Thanks for the quote.
Phil, I'll bring you a copy of that and "The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul" on Saturday so you can finish them at last.
Maria: you read my post TWICE? Sheesh, that must merit some kind of award.
You could have a second career in online medicine; diagnosing people's health by their writing, because you were spot on with me.
That post was written at around three in the morning, wrapped in layers of clothes and duvets, shivering and sweating in a teeth-chattering fever and unable to sleep for the second night running. The same fever I caught off you through reading your blog on my Mac with no anti-virus software.
As for The Bible; I have often considered going through it book by book and providing a Dive-style commentary on each one, but that way madness lies.
If you want a laugh, though, scan forward through Life Of Brian to the bit where he falls off the balcony on to the stage where the prophets are preaching, listen to the mad, ranty one, then open Ezekiel and read it out loud in the same style.
Even better when there are several of you and you've been drinking.
Actually, a Dive Guide to drinking games you can play with The Bible might be a workable idea. Hee hee.
Lulu: Middlebrow you are most certainly not. You've sustained a year of brilliant blogging using only the extremely restrictive form of the haiku; that's not only highbrow it is totally insane.
I'll try the NYT again when I get home; right now they are "experiencing a server error".
Hey ho.
Wow that's a post and a bit, isn't it. I soon made up my mind i'd have to comment bit by bit, i'm a little mentally exhausted by yesterday but hey this is right up my street; i adore books. Like you, i had such a collection. Sadly one divorce and a bully man later, most were sold off in house sales. I only have a fraction of it left but am slowly adding again.
Firstly, Listen with Mother! Listen with Mother!
Ok that's out of the way. Crime & Punishment: i'm 3/4 way through and have put it aside for a while. I do love it and have put in my tiny book review sidebar that it's bascially a murder. It is. By this i mean that if that's all you want it to be, don't be put off by the name Dostoyevsky. People could read it for the murder alone and it's great. Like you say, though, there is so much more and many life themes, morals and dilemmas run through it. It is one of my favourite books too.
Re-reading books: I've lost count of how many times i've read D. H. Lawrence's Sons & Lovers, i've even read it in French - hmm does that beat your candlelit readings for pretentiousness? - but anyway it's not enough times. Each reading, i find something new. The themes of love, insecurity, value, integrity, infidelity, revenge oh they're all there and the imagery: oh the imagery. So that's one of my all-times. Others are Jane Eyre, Albert Camus' L'Etranger, George Orwell oh the list is endless. I'm adoring this post Dive and learning loads. I'm linking it to a book review - a lengthy one - i have on my bloglist. Back soon!
Well, that's the best 20 minute's worth of reading I've had all day (mind you I've only read the mail so far). I've decided that I'm moving into your place and I'm not leaving until I've finished all of your books except for the Japanese ones; you can keep those.
I've read many of the books you listed - my mother was a reader and introduced me to the library at a very young age and she had leather bound versions of the great Russians and I was reading Tolstoy and others before I was 14. During my teenage years I changed to all the Robert Ludlums I could find but I managed to read all the classics of modern literature too. I didn't study classical history however so I had to leave the Platos and Aristotles until later (I still haven't read them). The writer whom I found most life-changing at the time was Ayn Rand. "To Kill a Mockingbird" terrified me. I was very much into Albert Camus, especially "L'Etranger", Jean-Paul Sartre and his mistress who wrote a couple of fabulous books. "Sophie's Choice" was another book that, like "The Great Gatsby" was an interesting read. I cried a lot for the character Sophie. I cried for Jane Eyre too, and Kate in "Wuthering Heights". "Little Women" was a must read, along with the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen. I could go on and on but since I'm pouring all of this out on your blog Dive, I'll try to show some restraint and not burden you with my yet to read list, it overwhelms even me.
I adore your tribute to Maria, Lynn and Robyn although I have yet to read Robyn's novella and I'm still waiting for the next chapter of Lynn's novel to appear on the net. Since I don't have 7 hours a day to read either and I tend to spend quite a bit of time reading my new-found friends' blogs, I'm getting a bit behind. At least I don't have to read and analyse any political material or cabinet submissions any more!
Thanks for amusing me so well dear friend.
Good heavens! I forgot to mention R.F. Delderfield. I read all of his books in my early teens but the one I loved most was "God is an Englishman". You have read it haven't you Dive? If not you, then I bet your mother has.
(And you should read Freud's "Social and Political Thought" ... it will help to put you to sleep at 3 in the morning).
Ooh! Lynn just reminded me of DH Lawrence. Now there was a tortured soul if ever there was one. I liked his novels but I loved his poetry. I'm going now - M.B just came home and is threatening to cook dinner (that should be interesting!)
Politics: Snore. Religion: Deep snore.
By the way, Grisham is not trash. Being a slightly legally trained bod, i think it's well researched. Yes it's a mere page-turner, not a 'work' but these yarns have their place and are soooo therapeutic if you have worries of any sort and need to escape. Er... maybe not legal worries. lol.
One such 'trendy' or too much publicised books, which i usually steer clear of, is A Thousand Splendid Suns. Really recommend it. I picked it up reluctantly after my well-meaning mum sent it to me after seeing it on 'Richard and Judy's Book Club'. Groan. But hey, no. Big surprise! An amazing and true account of life in Afghanistan. Very moving, keep those tissues by side Dive. I just posted this on the previous post. Doh.
Lynn: WOOHOO! Ten credibility points are winging their way toward you. Well spotted.
I didn't think you were old enough to remember those pre-TV days, but probably your mother told you about them.
I remember sitting on mum's lap at one o'clock every weekday by the big old wooden wireless set, listening out for those plummy tones: "Are you all sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin …"
Sigh …
Hoorah for the BBC Home Service.
One thing that's surprised me about the comments to this post is that girls like to read Camus. Why I find that weird I don't know, but I do.
Good old Richard and Judy may well be appallingly trashy but I must admit to approving of their attempts to get the nation reading. As you point out, not all of the books on their lists are "non-books"; there are some quite admirable choices in there.
And old Grisham may well do his research but he writes so poorly I can't even finish a page, let alone turn it. I'll stick to watching the movies.
As for Dostoyevsky; I'd noticed him popping up in your sidebar. The idea that some people could just read it as a straight murder tale never occurred to me; for me it has always said much more about guilt and responsibility than the entire history of the Catholic Church.
I gave Phil a copy and maybe when he puts Douglas Adams down he'll get around to reading it and let us know his opinion.
Mme: Thank you for your wonderfully kind comments. Both you and Lynn have given me even more books to add to my reading list, something that's always guaranteed to put a smile on my face.
We'll have to drop a few heavy hints in Robyn's direction to get "Mrs. Branch" put back online
(I'm lucky enough to have my own copy, hee hee).
And also let's both yell at Lynn: "HEY, LYNN! POST UP SOME MORE OF "UNDER A TRAIN!", YOU HAVE FANS WAITING!"
That ought to do it.
Ray Mears is great to watch on tv. Not sure about a book, i quite like his delivery of the information.
Have you got a copy of Debretts book of Etiquette and Modern Manners? I used to have and it's one of the books i lost and regret. It was great to check on place settings, glassware, the fine etiquette at house parties, general manners and the correct address for all walks of life. LOL !!! What a scream, it really was interesting. Look at the pair of us, British stuffed shirts or what?
Ooops yes i will. No i really will. It's been a ridiculously long gap without another chapter. Sorry. Oh and fans? I have fans! Yay me! lol
Um...yes my mother told me about it Dive, er yes that was it. How kind you are.
Okay, slowly working my way through: 7 hours a day to read. Sigh....how gorgeously yummy.
Pratchett i always feel i should try, though i loathe the idea of goblins and other worlds and silly names. I just have a hunch i'd be converted. I should.
Whoever said they wanted to move into your home, can i come too? You make it sound all cosy and bookish. I mean: the 'reading chair'. Who on earth has one of those. Equipped with candle. Sigh again.
Oh how i wish i'd written Potter too. Dammit. All that dosh and quite a stash of it going on books in my own library oh the injustice of it, the injustice ... no i've not read them either, well bits to my son when he was younger but he soon grabbed it from my hand and raced through the lot of them without me. It's that successful. I'm glad also that the book has made lots of little boys read. Mine always did but a lot of boys are slower to discover the joys than girls so on that basis, a grudging "well done J. K. sodding Rowling".
" again to read aloud, stalking around the room, gesticulating wildly; the alliteration gives me a stiffy); "
he he! how eccentric and marvellous. I want to see it and hear it. lol. Strange you should read aloud as i always do after writing an article and before submitting it and often in fiction, i can get a better feel of it. I adored writing Last Moments in what i thought was a Tennessee accent and reading that aloud in what i thought was a Tennessee. Capital fun. I kind of want to add 'Jeeves' at the end of that sentence...
OOooooh wow Dive, i didn't expect to see such an accolade there for me! I honestly didn't and am flattered beyond belief, especially knowing your exacting tastes. Oh my. I too will copy and paste it immediately to send to the whole world. he he. Thank you. I'm positively beaming and my face is starting to ache.
Would you mind sending 'Finally....' onwards to some publishers for us Dive? lol.
What a great post today's was and i don't say it because i was included, i didn't get to that til last. More please Dive.
That was awesome and inspiring. I haven't the strength or the brains to comment further. Well, except to say that....(Deep breath), I know I'll be labeled 'the Christian in the room' if I go on and of course I"M fine with that, but I also don't want to be annoying.
Having said THAT, I'm studying Daniel right now in a fairly in-depth way and the eschatology in that book and strewn throughout the Bible is really spot on with what is now our History and soon to be our future! Very interesting and amazing stuff indeed.
Which leads me wonder what makes you continue to read the Bible if you don't believe in God or in Jesus as our Savior? Can you see the Bible's prophesies unfolding in the various time periods leading to the final days before Christ's return or does it not read that way to you?
I hope you hear in my voice as you read your comments aloud in your room gesticulating and so forth ( Bahha. I laugh because I do that too, but mostly to do the voices in different accents) that I am not hostile in my questions-just curious. I love to get opinions from well educated people on all sorts of matters relating to religion.
So, I just wonder what makes you believe what made it into the Bible was not the complete package when it says it is? I guess that's where the faith part comes in. I know I can't possibly understand the ways of my all knowing maker but I'm trying to get a better grip on other peoples beliefs or lack thereof.
I'm curious if it offends you or if it all seems made up or if you just think there's too much other stuff like The Koran or the excluded gospels or whatever else, to strictly believe one thing.
As far as the rest of your list goes. I have read a lot more of those classics than I realized but I can't really remember them or anything I've learned very long ago due to my high glucose lifestyle I s'pose. I did just listen to The Grapes of Wrath and I was wrapped entirely all the way through! Of course I like a good gloom, doom, and hard times story. It makes me appreciate my life all the more.
Dude, I must have caught your runny fingers virus. Can't stop typing tonight and it's not nearly as readable as yours was! :D
Just had to add another name - I referred to her as Jean Paul Sartre's mistress - Simone de Beauvoir. In my opinion she was a better writer than he - her book "She Came To Stay" was fascinating as it was partly autobiographical - Sartre would bring other women home. There was one in particular who stayed for a while, prompting Beauvoir to write the book. Sartre was a real cad.
Betty Friedman is another author I've read; Germaine Greer too and a multitude of other "women's lib" authors. Tried to get to the bottom of what all the fuss was about when I thought I was a quite successful superwoman. Of course, that was when I was younger and had the energy!
You see Dive, this post is so good (and apologies to Maria who started it and I ended up replying on your blog instead of hers - sorry Maria!) that we'll keep popping back from time to time to add more authors as soon as we think of them. I must say I've had more than my share of senior moments trying to remember all the books and authors I've read.
I love Sartre too Mme, but not his lifestyle - what a nerve! lol - the Age of Reason trilogy i read when 18 and covered it a bit more at uni and really must read again. The de Beauvoir one is on my list.
p.s. i wonder why Dive is surprised that girlies like Camus? Do explain yourself dear Dive! lol. I read it at 18 too and again at uni (studied french spanish and law so that was one of the books) - l'etranger - but have read others since. An amazing writer. I feel i'm right there with him in each experience, which isn't always good but it's compelling.
Wow!
Hang on; I'll have to start replying to all of this in another post …
I knew I'd be back. Jilly just mentioned Somerset Maugham on her post today (it's Monday morning here). If you haven't read "The Razor's Edge" or Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" you've missed out dear Dive. I adored Maugham's writing and have most of his books.
I also read political books and biographies - mostly Australian politicians - usually those of prime ministers who have just left office. Seems that the writers of these things release them just before the election that sees them being dumped. Probably wouldn't surprise you that I have a copy of the communist manifesto too!
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