Books: Last Book You Read and Rate It

[kihei]

Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Naobokov

Speak, Memory, about Vladimir Nabokov's early years. is memoir taken to the highest possible level. I got the feeling that Nabokov luxuriated in composing this book. That though his past is as complicated as anything movies might dream up, his childhood was a joy for him to remember. Any discussion of Nabokov must start with his way with words. While his facility in English seems especially astounding for a Russian, he points out that English was more familiar to him growing up than his native tongue. He has a massive vocabulary—hardly a page went by when he didn’t use a word that I had to look up. But his use of that vocabulary is never annoying, never pretentious. It’s more like he has acquired this huge facility in English for the express purpose of having precisely the right word on hand on every occasion. This is not intellectual fussiness either. He uses language to bring the past to life. Especially when he talks about his early years in what seems like the Garden of Eden, his descriptions create such vivid portraits of his experience that to this reader they acquire a sensual reality that is palpable. You get to join him in the Garden.

Most of the work is taken up with Nabokov’s early years on various estates in Russia. Nabokov had a fairy-tale childhood, his rich and well-connected father being among the last of the Russian democrats to try to prevent the revolution running roughshod over Russian society. Later in the book, Nabokov seems almost reluctant to broach the exile years in Europe, the very antithesis of his experience in Russia. In Germany, in France and in England, where he received an honour’s degree from Cambridge in Literature, he seems to walk under a permanently gray cloud. However, the memoir ends on a positive note. Nabokov sails for New York and a new life to come. Speak, Memory consists of chapters devoted to his ancestors, his infancy, his mother and father, his nannies and tutors, and so on. He is at his very best when he is talking about his lifelong passion, butterfly collecting. He tells some wonderful stories that carry with them his enchantment about being alone in a forest, butterfly net in hand, looking for a rare species. The writing is exquisite. Of course, if you know intimately just about every word in the English language, as I am sure Nabokov must have done, then description can be no chore because the perfect word, no matter if occasionally obscure, is readily at hand. It is hard not to envy a little a man who can recall his distant past with such evocative warmth and such precision.

As an example of his skill as a writer, I will quote the opening line of the book, among the most memorable opening lines in literature: "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." In thinking about the beautiful memoir that followed that opening line, I couldn’t help but have a morbid thought. In Nabokov’s final few moments of lucid consciousness before that second eternity engulfed him, would his life not seem to him like the briefest, unfathomable flicker of sensation receding forever into an eternity of nothingness. Would such a realization seem like a cosmic joke? What a shame he wouldn’t have had time to describe it.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Naobokov

Speak, Memory, about Vladimir Nabokov's early years. is memoir taken to the highest possible level. I got the feeling that Nabokov luxuriated in composing this book. That though his past is as complicated as anything movies might dream up, his childhood was a joy for him to remember. Any discussion of Nabokov must start with his way with words. While his facility in English seems especially astounding for a Russian, he points out that English was more familiar to him growing up than his native tongue. He has a massive vocabulary—hardly a page went by when he didn’t use a word that I had to look up. But his use of that vocabulary is never annoying, never pretentious. It’s more like he has acquired this huge facility in English for the express purpose of having precisely the right word on hand on every occasion. This is not intellectual fussiness either. He uses language to bring the past to life. Especially when he talks about his early years in what seems like the Garden of Eden, his descriptions create such vivid portraits of his experience that to this reader they acquire a sensual reality that is palpable. You get to join him in the Garden.

Most of the work is taken up with Nabokov’s early years on various estates in Russia. Nabokov had a fairy-tale childhood, his rich and well-connected father being among the last of the Russian democrats to try to prevent the revolution running roughshod over Russian society. Later in the book, Nabokov seems almost reluctant to broach the exile years in Europe, the very antithesis of his experience in Russia. In Germany, in France and in England, where he received an honour’s degree from Cambridge in Literature, he seems to walk under a permanently gray cloud. However, the memoir ends on a positive note. Nabokov sails for New York and a new life to come. Speak, Memory consists of chapters devoted to his ancestors, his infancy, his mother and father, his nannies and tutors, and so on. He is at his very best when he is talking about his lifelong passion, butterfly collecting. He tells some wonderful stories that carry with them his enchantment about being alone in a forest, butterfly net in hand, looking for a rare species. The writing is exquisite. Of course, if you know intimately just about every word in the English language, as I am sure Nabokov must have done, then description can be no chore because the perfect word, no matter if occasionally obscure, is readily at hand. It is hard not to envy a little a man who can recall his distant past with such evocative warmth and such precision.

As an example of his skill as a writer, I will quote the opening line of the book, among the most memorable opening lines in literature: "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." In thinking about the beautiful memoir that followed that opening line, I couldn’t help but have a morbid thought. In Nabokov’s final few moments of lucid consciousness before that second eternity engulfed him, would his life not seem to him like the briefest, unfathomable flicker of sensation receding forever into an eternity of nothingness. Would such a realization seem like a cosmic joke? What a shame he wouldn’t have had time to describe it.

That's the book that holds Colette, isn't it? About his vacation in Biarritz? What a beautiful story that one is.

 

[Thucydides]

Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Naobokov

Speak, Memory, about Vladimir Nabokov's early years. is memoir taken to the highest possible level. I got the feeling that Nabokov luxuriated in composing this book. That though his past is as complicated as anything movies might dream up, his childhood was a joy for him to remember. Any discussion of Nabokov must start with his way with words. While his facility in English seems especially astounding for a Russian, he points out that English was more familiar to him growing up than his native tongue. He has a massive vocabulary—hardly a page went by when he didn’t use a word that I had to look up. But his use of that vocabulary is never annoying, never pretentious. It’s more like he has acquired this huge facility in English for the express purpose of having precisely the right word on hand on every occasion. This is not intellectual fussiness either. He uses language to bring the past to life. Especially when he talks about his early years in what seems like the Garden of Eden, his descriptions create such vivid portraits of his experience that to this reader they acquire a sensual reality that is palpable. You get to join him in the Garden.

Most of the work is taken up with Nabokov’s early years on various estates in Russia. Nabokov had a fairy-tale childhood, his rich and well-connected father being among the last of the Russian democrats to try to prevent the revolution running roughshod over Russian society. Later in the book, Nabokov seems almost reluctant to broach the exile years in Europe, the very antithesis of his experience in Russia. In Germany, in France and in England, where he received an honour’s degree from Cambridge in Literature, he seems to walk under a permanently gray cloud. However, the memoir ends on a positive note. Nabokov sails for New York and a new life to come. Speak, Memory consists of chapters devoted to his ancestors, his infancy, his mother and father, his nannies and tutors, and so on. He is at his very best when he is talking about his lifelong passion, butterfly collecting. He tells some wonderful stories that carry with them his enchantment about being alone in a forest, butterfly net in hand, looking for a rare species. The writing is exquisite. Of course, if you know intimately just about every word in the English language, as I am sure Nabokov must have done, then description can be no chore because the perfect word, no matter if occasionally obscure, is readily at hand. It is hard not to envy a little a man who can recall his distant past with such evocative warmth and such precision.

As an example of his skill as a writer, I will quote the opening line of the book, among the most memorable opening lines in literature: "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." In thinking about the beautiful memoir that followed that opening line, I couldn’t help but have a morbid thought. In Nabokov’s final few moments of lucid consciousness before that second eternity engulfed him, would his life not seem to him like the briefest, unfathomable flicker of sensation receding forever into an eternity of nothingness. Would such a realization seem like a cosmic joke? What a shame he wouldn’t have had time to describe it.

great review . I moved this higher up on my to read list.

what’s a great foreign film you’ve seen recently ?

 

[kihei]

great review . I moved this higher up on my to read list.

what’s a great foreign film you’ve seen recently ?

Recently?

Silent Film: The Passion of Joan of Arc, France, Dreyer
Vintage: The Exterminating Angel, Mexico, Bunuel
Recent: The Day after I Am Gone, Israel, Eldar; The Portuguese Woman, Portugal, Gomes (don't know if I would call these two great, but they are by far the best of the year)

 

[Thucydides]

I recently finished this after picking away at it for a month - it's not a long book, 300 pages, but it can be a bit dense at times. it's a great book to just read a chapter of now and then, whenever your attention is at its fullest. it's not a hard read, it's just a lot to think about. it is rare in the sense that i am thinking about this even though i finished it almost two weeks ago, and i'm sure in a month i'll still be thinking of it.

the denial of death won the pulitzer prize in 1974, and over the course of the book, it is an impassioned answer to the why of human existence, tackling the problem of the vital lie - man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so he has shed new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living.

becker's main thesis is that the most fundamental problem of mankind is his fear of death. Being the only animal that is conscious of his inevitable mortality, his life's project is to deny or repress this fear, and hence his need for some kind of heroism. Every grandiosity, good or evil, is intended to make him transcend death and become immortal. becker then dives into psychoanalysis to prove this point, and he does it in a truly amazing way, showing the reader what it means to be human and at the same time shining a light on major problems, primarily mental illness.

at the end becker, though not concrete, paints a clear picture through facts backed up by science, of a way forward. i found it to be both enlightening and important.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Amerika by Franz Kafka (1927) - What would the tale of the most innocent man in the world read like, if all outside coincidences and logical reasoning pointed to his guilt? Kafka seems to take a crack at the question with the offbeat roaming of German teenager Karl Rossman, a 16 year-old solitary immigrant in New York. The problems have begun before the first page. The reason for his sending to the United States by his parents immediately teases how hapless the little hero is. While he is considered to have been 'seduced' by the house maid, through a sordid and bizarre retelling (and yet outrageously funny), it is apparent that poor Rossman was raped by the tormenting maid, leaving him to exit a closet weeping like a small child. The kicker: the housemaid is impregnated and has the baby. The young father is kicked out as punishment for the scandal, thus beginning his American adventure. Things immediately start going wrong following his arrival at the port with Karl forgetting umbrella and asking a fellow passenger to watch his suitcase while he goes back on the boat. It doesn't take long for him to become lost in the large craft and meeting a whining stoker with whom Rossman feels some sort of kinship and desires to help in his beef with a Romanian superior. A recurring theme throughout the book, Rossman places his bet on the wrong horse, but in one of the story's few hopeful moments, one of the men present at the impromptu, ragtag litigation is Rossman's powerful uncle, a state senator, who takes him under his wing. A promising future is rapidly torpedoed by Rossman politely accepting an invitation to the castle of his uncle's acquaintance despite his uncle's discomfort. The visit is terrible in every single way - an awkward dinner, humorous threats of ferocious slaps by the host's nimble daughter, the evening's culmination being Rossman receiving a letter from his uncle advising that he is immediately kicked out from his home and that he never wants to see him again, lamenting that he's never gotten anything out of worth from his European relatives. Rossman goes on the road, meeting nagging foes Robinson and Delamarche, Irish and French drifters who for lack of a better term, consistently f*** Rossman's shit up and he, with good intentions, usually tries to help them out despite knowing that they're worthless assholes (they sell his suit, eat his food, steal a family picture and during one of the novel's great comic moments, a drunk Robinson causes Rossman to lose his job as a bellboy through a series of disastrous mistakes on all ends, leaving a whooped Robinson and fired Rossman back to the apartment where Delamarche is living with a corpulent, obnoxious but very wealthy woman named Brumelda. Delamarche intends to imprison Rossman as a butler. The episode ends with a neighboring student advising Rossman to accept his fate because 'it is hard to find a job anywhere.')

The novel is constructed around a few chapters that might as well be longish short stories. The novel, due to being incomplete, seems somewhat disjointed yet clearly threaded together, but when one is through with the book and familiar with Kafka's completed works, I think it's a safe bet to assume that the novel, when finished, was intended as more coherent with a more conventional arc than what was published (I think the same is probably true for his other novels). But Amerika is certainly a more direct work than The Trial for example, and certainly more overtly humorous, a consistent source of belly laughs, despite Rossman's trials and trebulations being soaked in a sort of grayish, sinister atmosphere, something Kafka was an expert at creating. Never contradictory, this atmosphere is still resisted by the last chapter, The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, a beautiful and fanciful tale of Rossman finding his place in an enterprise that advertises itself as being a place where everyone can belong (even babies seem able to find employment and there appears to be a guiding office dedicated to any sort of potential professional background, even one called Secretary for Former Students of European Graduate Schools), reuniting Rossman with old friends, a possibly fulfilling future, all under the sound of disguised angels and devils playing a great trumpet. An all-time favorite, a great tragicomedy, and a highly underrated work, even within Kafka's own oeuvre, barely ever mentioned. Kafka's enigmatic world-building is unrivaled, and he is a master of writing transcendant literature that is devoid of grand declarations (who ever even quotes him? Does he have a single famous citation besides The Metamorphosis's opening sentence?) but constructs every page as an unpredictable adventure, yet one that never comes across as forced or tastelessly edgy. Spectacular at both the high-energy puzzles and the heart-wrenching, emotional passages. A genius.

 

[Thucydides]

I follow a few instagram book pages and kept seeing this one popping up on a lot of them, as one of the best "self-help" books ever.

I would have to agree.

I've heard of stoicism before, but that was it. After finishing this book, and "On the shortness of life", stoicism is something I can rally behind.

These books were written almost two thousand years ago, and the deep insights found within them still ring true to everyone today, at various times of their lives. The book is written in a short, almost jot-note like style, which makes one want to read through it quickly, but best to take your time with it and let his insights really sink in.

"The soul becomes dyed by the color of its thoughts."

You can open the book to any page and find something truly profound and enlightening. It is something I will keep beside my bed for the foreseeable future.

 

[kihei]

I recently finished this after picking away at it for a month - it's not a long book, 300 pages, but it can be a bit dense at times. it's a great book to just read a chapter of now and then, whenever your attention is at its fullest. it's not a hard read, it's just a lot to think about. it is rare in the sense that i am thinking about this even though i finished it almost two weeks ago, and i'm sure in a month i'll still be thinking of it.

the denial of death won the pulitzer prize in 1974, and over the course of the book, it is an impassioned answer to the why of human existence, tackling the problem of the vital lie - man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so he has shed new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living.

becker's main thesis is that the most fundamental problem of mankind is his fear of death. Being the only animal that is conscious of his inevitable mortality, his life's project is to deny or repress this fear, and hence his need for some kind of heroism. Every grandiosity, good or evil, is intended to make him transcend death and become immortal. becker then dives into psychoanalysis to prove this point, and he does it in a truly amazing way, showing the reader what it means to be human and at the same time shining a light on major problems, primarily mental illness.

at the end becker, though not concrete, paints a clear picture through facts backed up by science, of a way forward. i found it to be both enlightening and important.

I can see the importance of the thesis, but it doesn't seem the most fundamental problem of mankind, though it may well be second. To me the fundamental problem of mankind is why is there something rather than nothing at all. I think that conundrum influences much of human behaviour, too,.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson (1988) - Such an accessible and inviting read for a novel without any sort of considerable popular culture crossover appeal. Its extremely dry humor is first-rate. It is mostly a series of declarative statements and the odd question that ends up forming either a post-apocalyptic tale or the statements of the most solipsistic character in all literature and I'm not whether there would even be a difference. The format would suggest immense challenge, but I thought it actually caters and sustains the focus of its reader, without ever making use of vocabulary that will break concentration and pause its reading. The game is more in keeping track with the consistency of Kate's statements, which largely center around alternatingly inconsequential and consequential tidbits around art history and Greek mythology. Some of the obscure references had me at sea once in a while, as did the slightly altered details and answers of repeated statements and questions. Certain answers and realizations are only possible through these and the novel's thread languishes before slowly revealing itself in a highly original and creative set-up. Philosphical mindgames are not my go-to, but Wittgenstein's Mistress is one that I enjoyed indulging even if I'm sure some of the references and intertextuality went over my head (for one, I am only vaguely aware of Ludwig Wittgenstein's areas of interests and conclusions) but with a bit of external reading was able to make sense of much of it, at least in its aesthetics and delivery, which look to mirror Wittgenstein's philosophical propositions (I think but could be wrong: the inherent truths of a given statement and/or their logic being flawed the moment they are thought of by the filter of the individual's mind. This is a recurrent theme throughout Kate's writings). While the few revelations of her past are bereft of major (emotional) impact by the sheer weight of Kate's overwhelming, scattering and disjointed information (the inconsequential things one stores!), both are used with skill and care to create a point of view that feels more human and dare I say, realistic, than what is typically offered by more accessible storytelling. For example, the way Kate's thoughts jump around without sense or relation and are yet prompted by the previous one seems to me far more like how I notice my own everyday thought process to operate, at least on a surface level (and the answer as to why it operates that way is never offered. Not even an hypothesis. Only perplexion.) Markson's game may have been harder to play before the easy access to the Internet. A formidable work that shows the possibilities of individualistic talent and dedication. Distinct in the best of ways - I am not familiar with David Markson's other works at all and yet I couldn't imagine anyone not named David Markson having written this novel. That's what artists should aspire to achieve.

 

[Ben Grimm]

"Black Like Me, first published in 1961, is a nonfiction book by white journalist John Howard Griffin recounting his journey in the Deep South of the United States, at a time when African-Americans lived under racial segregation. Griffin was a native of Mansfield, Texas, who had his skin temporarily darkened to pass as a black man. He traveled for six weeks throughout the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia to explore life from the other side of the color line. Sepia Magazine financed the project in exchange for the right to print the account first as a series of articles.
Griffin kept a journal of his experiences; the 188-page diary was the genesis of the book. When he started his project in 1959, race relations in America were particularly strained. The title of the book is taken from the last line of the Langston Hughes poem "Dream Variations".
In 1964, a film version of Black Like Me, starring James Whitmore, was produced.[1] A generation later, Robert Bonazzi published a biographical book about Griffin, these events, and his life: Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the Story of Black Like Me (1997)." Black Like Me - Wikipedia

I first read this book four decades ago, but I re-read it once a decade. Griffin also shaved his head to appear black.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Pimp by Iceberg Slim (1967) - One of the greatest novels I have ever read. Adjectives that can be used to describe it: dazzling, brutal, outrageous, hilarious, stylish, brilliant, intelligent, cunning, salacious. Never have I read a book that mixes slang and intense lyricism with such brilliance. A sample: 'It was ten-thirty. The sky was a fresh, bright bitch. The first April night had gone sucker and gifted her with a shimmering bracelet of diamond stars. The fat moon lurked like an evil yellow eye staring down at the pimps, hustlers and whores hawk-eyeing for a mark, a cop.'

The pulpy narrative is simple. Robert Beck, aka Young Blood, aka Iceberg Slim (the final nickname bequeathed upon him after he stays perfectly calm as a bullet whizzes through his hat while he's having a coke) is an intelligent, sleazy and handsome young man who dreams of pimping superstardom and who holds a disdain for women that is seeded by multiple rise and falls starting the moment he exits the womb. Under the tutelage of numerous hustlers (the most impressive of which comes in the late 30s from Sweet Jones, widely considered the greatest pimp ever by all hoods. In 1938 America, he is driven around by his sex workers in a black Duesenberg and the sole thing he loves is his iced-out pet ocelot). 'Success' comes early for Iceberg Slim but despite it and the flash and dazzle of his material life, the entire novel is always drenched in a filthy atmosphere where despite the description of lavish events, never come across as glamorous. It is impressive in its brutality and the creative ways in which crooks invent ways to manipulate, beat, insult and take advantage of women who are just as hardened as they are. Sex without money is the mortal sin, both for pimps and prostitutes. You're a fool if you don't get some dough before putting out. Still a green pimp, in a weirdly humorous scene, a prostitute comes close to raping Iceberg Slim at a party in a show of force and emasculation of the youth.

Iceberg Slim once said that a conman's greatest asset is the basic dishonesty of his victim. This rings with me in a profound way. Reading the pageturner, on my sweet dog's life, my wife talked to me about something I was not familiar with and I had to catch myself as I was going to respond 'I'm not hip to it,' which is how no one talks at all in 2020. Hard to say I wasn't tricked myself. A lexicon is offered to keep up with the slang. Couldn't keep my hands away from the book in a sort of voyeuristic pleasure. The final scene of Iceberg Slim spending his time with his dying, imperfect mother is gut-wrenching, culminating with the simple and beautiful: 'An emotional debt is hard to square.' You bet. What a book from a man that should not be celebrated (I don't know what could forgive how he spent over two decades of his life) but should be read, both for its psychology and its artistry.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Another passage that got a tremendous belly laugh out of me. Can't deny that I wasn't convinced by it. Iceberg Slim and another inmate discuss who are the stupidest crooks. The decision:

'I was two months from release. I had stopped to rap to an old con forger who knew Sweet. We were shooting the breeze about stick-up men and how they stacked up in the skull department with pimps and con men. We were rapping loud. I knew the night screw was at his desk four tiers down on the ground floor. I said, 'Pops, a stick-up man is gotta be nuts. The stupid bastard maybe passes a grocery store. He sees the owner checking his till. Right away a stupid idea flashes inside his crazy skull: ''That's my scratch.'' The screwy heist man walks in. Maybe the grocer is a magician or an ex-acrobat with a degree in Karate, worse, an ex-marine. The silly sonuvabitch doesn't realize the awful odds. He ain't got enough in his dim skull to think about the trillion human elements. Any one of them can put him in his grave. The suicidal sonuvabitch maybe has his back to the street with a rod in his mitt. Pops, the stick-up man is champ lunatic in the underworld.'

 

[kihei]

Three Day Road, by Joseph Boyden

In my opinion, Three Day Road is among the best Canadian novels ever written. The novel tells the story of Elijah and Xavier, two Cree snipers from Moose Factory, Ontario, near the Quebec border. Virtually raised as brothers, best friends for life, they become effective long-range killers in the trenches of France during World War I. The experience changes them, especially Elijah who becomes addicted to the killing, though he never loses his boyish appeal completely. X finds himself in a quandary because according to his beliefs, Elijah has become a demon, or at least possessed by one, and X wonders what he should do about it. The narrative is told from back home as the one to survive and his beloved aunt travel up a river to a sweat house where his sins may be cleansed. In one of the many flashbacks, there is a wonderful passage of the two young friends trapped in a canoe on the river during a raging forest fire, riveting and beautifully written. The majority of the book deals with their activities during the war. The action is vivid--one really gets a sense of being in the hell that is trench warfare and you really learn how these two snipers go about their trade. The violence is sometimes almost sickening, but it also comes across as very realistic. Three Day Road is nothing short of a masterpiece. Once you meet these two guys, you will never forget them.

 

[Thucydides]

I read this one a couple weeks ago as my grandmother, who I was close to, lay dying in a hospital. To say this book brought comfort is an understatement. One of my favorite books of all time. Seneca has such a staggeringly beautiful vision of and for humanity that I may have teared up a couple of times reading it. I'd recommend this to anyone.

 

[Chili]

Three Day Road, by Joseph Boyden

In my opinion, Three Day Road is among the best Canadian novels ever written. The novel tells the story of Elijah and Xavier, two Cree snipers from Moose Factory, Ontario, near the Quebec border. Virtually raised as brothers, best friends for life, they become effective long-range killers in the trenches of France during World War I. The experience changes them, especially Elijah who becomes addicted to the killing, though he never loses his boyish appeal completely. X finds himself in a quandary because according to his beliefs, Elijah has become a demon, or at least possessed by one, and X wonders what he should do about it. The narrative is told from back home as the one to survive and his beloved aunt travel up a river to a sweat house where his sins may be cleansed. In one of the many flashbacks, there is a wonderful passage of the two young friends trapped in a canoe on the river during a raging forest fire, riveting and beautifully written. The majority of the book deals with their activities during the war. The action is vivid--one really gets a sense of being in the hell that is trench warfare and you really learn how these two snipers go about their trade. The violence is sometimes almost sickening, but it also comes across as very realistic. Three Day Road is nothing short of a masterpiece. Once you meet these two guys, you will never forget them.

Around the centenary anniversary of the end of WWI, I read some books I would recommend...

Last Post- Max Arthur-Around 20 veterans of the war who lived to 100 or more tell their stories (including one man to 113!).

Victory at Vimy -Ted Barris-The story of the ridge that was finally taken by mainly Canadians and where a large monument stands today. Conn Smythe was there and fortunate to live through the battle.

11th Month 11th Day 11th Hour-Joseph Persico- A lot of interesting stories of the end of the war.

Three Times and Out-Nellie McClung-This book was written back then, an as told to story from a soldier who became a prisoner of war. The title gives a hint of his experiences. I read this one at Project Gutenberg.

 

[Thucydides]

This is a short book - 58 pages - but its subject matter is very deep, broken up into six meditations, Descartes preaches from the very beginning that he wants you to take your time. To not search for the one liners in the book, but to read through it slowly, to better understand what he is truly wanting to teach you. At the end of each meditation he urges the reader to step away and think about what he is trying to say.

Descartes sets out to prove to the reader - through physics, and math, that God exists, and that the soul does not die with the body. Much of the writing is very obtuse, and hard to understand, especially when he gets heavy into the physics. To say I understood it all would be a lie.

As hard as the book is to follow in parts, the reader is rewarded with some great advice on living - pursuing knowledge and truth will lead to freedom which leads to overall happiness. Sounds easy enough.

Descartes asks a lot of big questions - What is a human being? A thinking thing that exists. On nearly every page Descartes is begging the reader to think. Think. THINK. Your freedom depends on it.

"If the way I have shown to lead to these things seems very hard, still, it can be found. And of course, what is found so rarely must be hard. For if salvation were at hand, and could be found without great effort, how could nearly everyone neglect it? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare."

 

[Thucydides]

"My inner self was a house divided against itself." - Saint Augustine

Augustine was a sinner, turned good. In this book Augustine lays out his entire life, and while not getting into any of the sordid details, he talks about being a slave to lust, and how he came to find redemption through God. The book was largely hopeful and I came away really liking Augustine as a person. Great writer, too.

I think a lot of people would find some good lessons here in this book and be inspired by his message. He definitely leaves one with a lot to think about.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (1995) - Abandon. I understand its appeal, but it didn't work for me at all. That sort of sheer celebration of averageness in a way that seems to not necessarily shun grandeur but still somewhat arrogantly mock it in a way that in itself comes across as a bit arrogant. There were some funny bits and I might go back to it eventually, but I don't know...David Foster Wallace has this great bit about how empty it is for a reader to read a piece where it feels like the whole agenda is to show how clever the author is...High Fidelity felt a bit like that. Kept thinking that I would be excited to start something else...well might as well if the current book isn't getting it done instead of forcefeeding what might just be a literary romcom. I know lots of people like this book and I might have the wrong read on it, but I couldn't even lift it anymore. I was discouraged.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

We Have Always Lived In The Castle (1962) - 3.5/5

It's intriguing but a bit tiresome despite the short length. The mystery looses itself a bit once you get familiar with the unreliable narrator but the weirdness is just right.

The League of Frightened Men (Nero Wolfe Mystery #2) - 2.5/5

Yeah this is a good storyline but I hate the writing style. It's very sharp-witted noir which works well on film but comes across as very cheesy in a book. I feel like the writing style takes away from the actual story which isn't exactly grounded to begin with.

The Patriotic Murders (Hercule Poirot Mystery #23) - 4/5

Maybe not the most ingenious Agatha Christie book but it's a very fun comfortable read like usual with just the right mix of amusing writing style and seriousness in the actual mystery.

 

[sr edler]

David Foster Wallace has this great bit about how empty it is for a reader to read a piece where it feels like the whole agenda is to show how clever the author is...

Wasn't that big part of his beef with Easton Ellis?

I feel the same with many Christopher Nolan film, by the way. The whole thing too often feels like I'm supposed to clap in awe of his time bending intellect. No thanks.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Wasn't that big part of his beef with Easton Ellis?

I feel the same with many Christopher Nolan film, by the way. The whole thing too often feels like I'm supposed to clap in awe of his time bending intellect. No thanks.

I have no clue. I heard it on Blank on Blank, where they recreate interviews in an animated style. It's neat stuff. Again, I think I may be a bit harsh regarding Hornby's actual intentions with the novel, but the 'Look at me! Let me go on about what an average fella I am and how my taste and intellect reflect exactly that in this witty piece!' was a major turnoff. I wouldn't compare Hornby to Nolan at all (who I also don't like very much although I haven't seen the recent stuff) but I can see where you make that link.

 

[sr edler]

Impressive you read all that stuff, nonetheless. I would never care to read Nick Hornby, though I actually have a copy of High Fidelity at home for some very unknown reason. I know I didn't buy it, so I must have picked it up from someone else many many years ago, most likely in an attempt to artificially fluff my book collection.

 

[sr edler]

A Descent into the Maelström (1841) by Edgar Allan Poe – 3.75/5

This was alright. A bit abrupt on the ending perhaps, after all that dramatic build up. I read it as an allegory on the human psyche, i.e. a descent into

Spoiler

madness

It's not a novel, by the way, but a tale. I don't even know if Poe wrote novels .... I looked it up on Wikipedia now, he wrote (or finished) one apparently.

 

[sr edler]

The Prince (1532) by Niccolò Macchiavelli – 4/5

This one, although not a very long text around only 120 pages, had a bit of a slow or monotonous starting or take-off distance, so I started wondering for a little while there in the beginning what all the fuzz is about. But then it got interesting.

When Mac started talking about how much he hates mercenaries I got a good chuckle out of it myself and thought about the late December 1908 Stanley Cup challenge series between the Montreal Wanderers and the Edmonton Pros where Edmonton benched pretty much all of their regulars (Bill Crowley, Bert Boulton, Harold Deeton, Hugh Ross, Hay Miller) for game 1 (a 3-7 loss) and brought in star ringers like Tommy Phillips, Howard McNamara & Bert Lindsay instead (they also iced Lester Patrick, Didier Pitre & Fred Whitcroft, so 4 HHOFers in total).

For game 2 Phillips & McNamara were out of the line-up, less illustrious but faithful servants Deeton & Miller were back in again and the two scored 5 combined goals between them in a 7-6 win, but the damage was already done and the Wanderers held the Cup winning the double-meeting 13-10.

If Macchiavelli had been around the Canadian hockey scene around that time he would probably have muttered something along the lines of "I told you so, you can't trust ringers, loyalty can't be bought, it'll just end up biting you in the ass in the end .... "

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Naobokov

Speak, Memory, about Vladimir Nabokov's early years. is memoir taken to the highest possible level. I got the feeling that Nabokov luxuriated in composing this book. That though his past is as complicated as anything movies might dream up, his childhood was a joy for him to remember. Any discussion of Nabokov must start with his way with words. While his facility in English seems especially astounding for a Russian, he points out that English was more familiar to him growing up than his native tongue. He has a massive vocabulary—hardly a page went by when he didn’t use a word that I had to look up. But his use of that vocabulary is never annoying, never pretentious. It’s more like he has acquired this huge facility in English for the express purpose of having precisely the right word on hand on every occasion. This is not intellectual fussiness either. He uses language to bring the past to life. Especially when he talks about his early years in what seems like the Garden of Eden, his descriptions create such vivid portraits of his experience that to this reader they acquire a sensual reality that is palpable. You get to join him in the Garden.

Most of the work is taken up with Nabokov’s early years on various estates in Russia. Nabokov had a fairy-tale childhood, his rich and well-connected father being among the last of the Russian democrats to try to prevent the revolution running roughshod over Russian society. Later in the book, Nabokov seems almost reluctant to broach the exile years in Europe, the very antithesis of his experience in Russia. In Germany, in France and in England, where he received an honour’s degree from Cambridge in Literature, he seems to walk under a permanently gray cloud. However, the memoir ends on a positive note. Nabokov sails for New York and a new life to come. Speak, Memory consists of chapters devoted to his ancestors, his infancy, his mother and father, his nannies and tutors, and so on. He is at his very best when he is talking about his lifelong passion, butterfly collecting. He tells some wonderful stories that carry with them his enchantment about being alone in a forest, butterfly net in hand, looking for a rare species. The writing is exquisite. Of course, if you know intimately just about every word in the English language, as I am sure Nabokov must have done, then description can be no chore because the perfect word, no matter if occasionally obscure, is readily at hand. It is hard not to envy a little a man who can recall his distant past with such evocative warmth and such precision.

As an example of his skill as a writer, I will quote the opening line of the book, among the most memorable opening lines in literature: "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." In thinking about the beautiful memoir that followed that opening line, I couldn’t help but have a morbid thought. In Nabokov’s final few moments of lucid consciousness before that second eternity engulfed him, would his life not seem to him like the briefest, unfathomable flicker of sensation receding forever into an eternity of nothingness. Would such a realization seem like a cosmic joke? What a shame he wouldn’t have had time to describe it.

Still a little to go with the book, but Chapter 9 is one of the greatest, loveliest things I have ever read. I don't think the book is perfect (but it, more than any work I've read of his, perfectly symbolizes everything that I love and struggle with in things Nabokov) but his recollection of the day he believed his father was going to be involved in a duel with a slandering journalist obliterates the best that I'd read of him (Colette, Pnin) and is one of the most intense declarations of love that I've witnessed. While his admiration of his father is a constant from the start of the book, the intensity of panic, fear and friendship in this chapter was breathtaking. I wept.